That would depend very much on what the terms of the relationship were, and to what extent asymmetry of the kind Eliezer was talking about was really present. One has to be careful about this, because if A allows her partner B to look for other girls to fulfill some desires of his that she won’t, it’s not clear that this creates an obligation for B to mirror that offer. Saying that there is “significant asymmetry” is language that sort of suggests that obligation is there.
I don’t think obligation is a very good way of framing the issue. Indeed, by far the most satisfying relationship I’ve been in was one where we both took the view “being in a relationship doesn’t obligate us to shit.”
The issue is not whether one person is imposing rules that they don’t want to follow themself, but whether one person has significantly more consideration for the other’s desires and is willing to go to greater efforts to accommodate them.
I didn’t downvote, but maybe it would be helpful to taboo “obligation”: recently I’ve had a feeling that in discussions like this (not just on LW) both parties are thinking something kind-of sort-of reasonable but each thinks the other isn’t because they are using that word with slightly different meanings and each is misunderstanding what exactly the other means by it.
It might not be the same sort of asymmetry Eliezer was talking about, but do you really think it’s not a significant sort of asymmetry?
That would depend very much on what the terms of the relationship were, and to what extent asymmetry of the kind Eliezer was talking about was really present. One has to be careful about this, because if A allows her partner B to look for other girls to fulfill some desires of his that she won’t, it’s not clear that this creates an obligation for B to mirror that offer. Saying that there is “significant asymmetry” is language that sort of suggests that obligation is there.
I don’t think obligation is a very good way of framing the issue. Indeed, by far the most satisfying relationship I’ve been in was one where we both took the view “being in a relationship doesn’t obligate us to shit.”
The issue is not whether one person is imposing rules that they don’t want to follow themself, but whether one person has significantly more consideration for the other’s desires and is willing to go to greater efforts to accommodate them.
I’d appreciate it if the people downvoting this would offer an explanation.
I didn’t downvote, but maybe it would be helpful to taboo “obligation”: recently I’ve had a feeling that in discussions like this (not just on LW) both parties are thinking something kind-of sort-of reasonable but each thinks the other isn’t because they are using that word with slightly different meanings and each is misunderstanding what exactly the other means by it.