Cheating, Menage, and Kissing

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Viridian

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I mentioned this elsewhere, and I'm looking for more opinions. How would you feel if your SO kissed someone else... but you were very attracted to both of them? Still angry?

Hero and Current Boyfriend are in an exclusive relationship. But Hero is still very quite attracted to Ex-Boyfriend.

Current Boyfriend and Ex-Boyfriend hate each other. But they get stuck together (alone) for a couple weeks, things happen, and they become friends. They end up kissing. Not like a little kiss, but half-naked grinding and touching. At this point, I'm not sure how to handle this. When told, Hero's reaction is more or less "well I guess I should be angry, but can we please have a threesome?" Which seems like an unrealistic response. Like something you'd hear in a porno, not a romance novel.

And I know cheating is a big deal for readers, and I'd like to avoid it. But I'd also like to keep that kiss scene. What say you? Would you throw my book at the wall? How would you react: "let's have sex" or "get the fuck out"?
 

Latina Bunny

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I guess it would depend on some factors.

Is this a (erotic or otherwise) romance, or a (non-romantic) erotica? Also, is this a menage, or polyamourous story? Or, is this a two-person romance? (And it sounds like m/m story, too?)

I'm a bit conservative in my m/m, f/f, and m/f (and lgbt ya) romance readings, so I don't usually like cheating in my romances. However, I have read a m/m or two that had a brief kissing "cheating" moment that the characters regret and had to grovel in the end. (They were YA stories, so they were horny teens, lol.) M/m romances tend to be a little bit more flexible than m/f in some aspects, but there are still some conventions that some romance readers may expect...

For me, it depends. If this is just a fling (and all parties move on), then I would think it could be ok, but some other readers may not like it. There has to be a point to this scene. Is this scene developing the relationship between Hero and Current Boyfriend? Is this scene supposed to portray the general sexual attitudes or personalities of the characters?

Is this story supposed to end up as a menage/polygamous story in the end? It seems like you are, if the title of your thread is anything to go by?

It would also depend on the execution of the scene, like anything else in writing. It would also depend on the characters and the state of their current relationship, and their feelings regarding said relationship. Are they at the beginning of their relatiomship or are they committed, etc? I would also believe that at what point in the book this happens can also be a factor.

For me, this is pretty close to cheating, and I would probably put the book down. But, take my advise with a grain of salt, for I am a more "conservative" type of romance reader, even with m/m romances.
 
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beckethm

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I know cheating is a hot-button issue in romance, but speaking only for myself, a kissing scene such as you describe wouldn't be an automatic book-closer. It's not unheard of for two people to kept in forced proximity for an extended period of time to develop an attraction. If it doesn't go beyond kissing, that wouldn't bother me. I would, though, hope to see Current Boyfriend recommit to Hero afterward.

As for Hero's reaction, I think there is a range of plausible responses between "fuck you" and "let's have a threesome" you could play with. One might expect to see feelings of anger and betrayal, jealousy (that Current Boyfriend kissed someone else, or that Ex-Boyfriend wants Current Boyfriend but doesn't want Hero anymore), confusion, and even fear. It would seem unrealistic to me if Hero's only reaction is "let's have a threesome," but if that thought popped up along with a bunch of other emotions, it might not be totally off-putting.
 

Viridian

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(To clarify: it's erotic romance, not erotica. And the end goal will be the three of them committing to a three-way exclusive relationship. Which makes it trickier, I think, than menage erotica.)
 
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