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Codes of Honour?

paranoidwriter waves hello

01:23 / 24.07.05

Without going into too much detail: I have recently had a near-sexual-brush with somebody with whom I probably shouldn't have. The person in question has in the past been "involved" with a close friend, and because of this I fully intend to put the kibosh on the situation now and not later, when things could get really ugly. Shame though; it was damn tempting...

Anyway, all this got me thinking about "Codes of Honour" among friends (etc) and I wanted to ask you all what you thought about all this. So what do you think about all this?

07:29 / 24.07.05

I have never ever been able to find, think or feel any sexual feelings towards any of my best friends' girlfriends ever. Only him though, all others are fair game. ha ha.

14:28 / 24.07.05

Hm, the abstract makes this a bit broad....

Sexual politics don't come into play within my friend group - as far as having to set rules for with whom you can & can't fool around. We just don't really dip into the friend pool - we have our group, and those of us who are single look outward for mates. Those of us who are coupled may bring others in as possible hook-ups for our single friends. I suspect sexual codes of honor are more of an issue for high school and college age people who tend more often to consider their friends potential sexual partners. I could be wrong and generalizing too much on my own experience... but I think once you've all gotten a little older, been-then-done-that with the messy interfriend sexual escapades, and are less insular about your friend group (something I think comes naturally with maturing and becoming more confident about your own identity), you're more able to separate 'people I hang with' from 'people I might hook up with' and look outward for sex.

One code of honor that does come up often with my friends and me is the spreading/containment of relationship woes. For just one example, my boyfriend and I are close friends with another couple. A lot of what's said in girls-only guys-only conversations bleeds cycles right through the foursome because we share with our partners as well. But there are certain things I might confide to my friend that she won't tell her boyfriend, therefore not putting him in the position of having to keep it from my boyfriend, and so on. It all flows pretty easily, because we all have vested interest in not crossing the lines - we enjoy each other, and none of us wants things to get awkward between us.

paranoidwriter waves hello

15:34 / 24.07.05

ibis, you're right: I have been a too general in my summary and aims, etc. Sorry. As there are parallels between all forms of relationship, I guess I was interested in all aspects of unwritten laws/codes of honour between people, and hoped one thread would be big enough for a general chat about it. That typed, it's a very broad subject, I know, which was why I put it in Conversation, hoping that people would therefore have a wider remit and maybe feel more confident to comment. I think now that my plan was flawed.

We know, for example, there's a code of silence which has been seen employed amongst schoolchildren, the armed forces, and the police (etc) to not "grass on your own"; an unwritten rule which is hardly ever "enforced" by those in senior positions and (thankfully) is at times challenged from within by those who truly are honourable. For unlike the vow of silence for Catholic Priests presiding over Confession, or the Hippocratic Oath (etc) which protects Doctor / Patient confidentiality, such "unwritten" codes of honour rely on social pressure and self-sanction, rather than enforcement by an official outside body.

I know different groups of people whose "codes of honour" in respect of sexual relationships differs wildly: some say "anyone is fair game", others say that even a friend's ex from six years will always be "Untouchable".

However, rules like these are made and broken all the time, even if they have been openly discussed previously by all participants. It's like that old adage "Never say never..." After all, forbidden fruit can often taste the ripest (etc). Indeed, I've watched people in many different situations make and then break their code of honour; and it was almost as though they were setting themselves up for a fall.

Hope all that makes sense!

16:03 / 24.07.05

Its always seemed to me that if sleeping with a friends ex is going to hurt your friend (and in the majority of cases it will), then you can't do it. It seems obvious to me that if you consider somebody a friend then you won't intentionally hurt them.

This said, I know rules are made to be broken, and there is always the possiblity of some twisted context that is going to shed a different light on long held ideals. Maybe anything done for love really is beyond good and evil.

Its never really come up with me, but I like to think that that is because I've never let it (as opposed to the possibility that my friends exs have never faniced me).

I used to have a tightly-knit college friendship group of about 12 people, plus my various aquaintances. Nowadays, despite being very close to them, I could never have a party or something, simply because I can barely invite any two of them over at the same time. There's been so much of this almost incestuous sleeping with friends or their ex's that everybody but me is bitter and twisted about at least two of the others.

At first I was surprised at the excuses people make for themselves when they do this sort of thing to each other, but over time I've realised that there is very little actual sticking to morals. All secrets circulate the group, if any one person knows them. People bitch, snipe and gossip. And I think this is the norm. Perhaps I just have an unusually immoral group of companions?

It certainly seems those of us trying not to live in bad faith are in the minority.

All Acting Regiment

16:44 / 24.07.05

My example is sexless, though no less catastrophic. It didn't happen to me, but a friend.

He was sitting in a station cafe, he had one of those packets of biscuits you get from station cafes, and a broadsheet paper. There was this other guy sat there across the table.

My mate suddenly realised that this guy was brazenly eating biscuits out of his packet. This guy was, in the middle of a fucking rail station, stealing my mate's fucking biscuits without a word of apology.

But the stiff upper lip prevailed. A man can't make a fuss over biccies. Instead, my pal calmly reached over and took one, saying nothing. Then the bastard retaliated! And on they went, one by one, until all the biccies were finished.

After a while, my mate got up to leave, and picked up his paper- revealing his own uneaten packet of biscuits that had been hidden underneath it.

paranoidwriter waves hello

16:52 / 24.07.05

Class. Cheers Legba Rex, you've put the smile back on my face. Much obliged.

Tom Tit's Tot: A Girl!

07:12 / 25.07.05

Douglas Adams does a gravebound 360o, I think.

All Acting Regiment

12:09 / 25.07.05

Another thing. You know when railway announcers are describing a problem that's caused a delay? Well once I was in a halted train. We'd been standing still in the middle of some fields for a while when the tinny voice of the driver told us our inertia was due to "A cattle problem" (at Chiswick).

Then he must have accidentally had his hand on the intercom because his voice changed from RP to cockney and there was a good five minutes of muffled, half-decipherable "Fucking cows tossers...fucking timetable...".

After that his posh voice returned and informed us that "The cattle problem is more serious than expected". Then the final caveat: "Virgin Railways are sorry to inform you that the cattle have in fact blocked the railway."

I mean, cattle. It's just silly. But no-one laughed. Because you can't laugh at a railway announcer, can you? It's not done, at least, seemingly, not in Britain.