The Harder Question for 09 February 2010
The Harder Question: You meet someone to whom you’re highly attracted. You all really hit it off and begin to date exclusively.
After several months, you express to your significant other that you’d like to take your relationship to a sexual level.
If your significant other is a woman, she tells you that she battled breast cancer and won but lost both breasts to a double mastectomy. If your significant other is a man, he tells you that he fought prostate cancer and won but he’s unable to sustain an erection and none of the alternative treatments have been successful.
How does this new information affect the way you feel about your significant other?
(this question was submitted by@Quintessence_T; thanks!)
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It wouldn't be a major deal breaker. Although other treatments hadn't worked, he hadn't had my treatment. I may be just what the doctor ordered. Even the double mastectomy wouldn't bother me much. Intimacy extends beyond the breasts and genitalia.
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LikeDislikeOy. I feel that its something he should have been straight up about at the very beginning of the relationship. Its a lie of omission. I'm not sure we could continue the relationship.
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LikeDislikeI guess that's just it right there: “someone with whom you're not sure you're going to make it to the altar.”
I would feel as if I wasn't told because there was no confidence in our relationship to begin with, which would lead me to believe I was wasting time with this person.
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LikeDislikeI can dig that, but we're talking about a woman's body image. In our highly sexualized society, this could be a hard subject to broach with someone with whom you're not sure you're going to make it to the altar.
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LikeDislikeI can see that, but the fact that we've been kicking it exclusively for the better part of a year and haven't talked about either sex or breast cancer is just kinda odd to me.
I'd seriously be thinking I could be wasting my time. Maybe I'm tainted. I've had people reveal things to me later in a relationship that completely re-colored our short history together. Things that I could have dealt with up front no problem, but taken on the back-end, I felt mislead.
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LikeDislikeI'm of the mindset that if two people are willing to sit down and reason together, they can work through anything. Even if neither party gets everything they want, both should walk away with a compromise with which each can live; even if that compromise is to part ways. Thanks for your input.
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LikeDislikeI'm a woman and I must have a serious conversation with him about our sexual needs. Everything must be discussed: willingness to let the other be intimate with someone else; the use of toys; any medications; personal beliefs; etc.
Hopefully, we would be willing to talk about it; get mad about it; cry and even laugh about it. If there is no way to come to mutual agreement, then we should both be willing to walk away.
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LikeDislikeSome people keep their personal business very personal until they feel they have a reason to disclose. Maybe you didn't know because it's hard to talk about something so personal.
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LikeDislikeAfter several months: I'm just now trying to move things to a sexual level? I didn't notice her chest was flatter than mine? We've yet to discuss the fact that she battled breast cancer? WTF have we been doing all this time?
Anyways, unless her chest looks like two ragged bullet wounds, I wouldn't care much about a double mastectomy.
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LikeDislikeI'm only slightly shallow. No ability to have an erection could be a deal breaker. But double mastectomy doesn't bother me a bit.
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