So what in fact does the term commitment imply then?

D., "commitment" is defined differently by each and every couple. In terms of loving, physical, person/person relationships, there is no one strict definition for "commitment." It means something to you; it more than likely means something entirely different to me. Neither one is wrong.

Q: So what in fact does the term commitment imply then?

A: loony bin.

It's basic evolutionary psychology. Men--gay or straight--re programmed to fuck everything in sight to maximize their semination. Women are programmed to try to keep the nest and hold onto the alpha male partner, and cheat on him if there's another alpha male whose genes smell better.

But of course because we are PEOPLE these are gross generalizations. I do agree that most men submit to monogamy not because they don't wnat to cheat but because they love their spouse too much to hurt or lose them. What I really disliked about this VIEW was a bunch of straight people sitting around conjecturing about what "those gays" do. Can you even imagine a tv panel of white people talking about what some black person told them and then guessing about what "those blacks" do?

I am a gay woman. If my wife cheated on me there would be HELL to pay and, depending on the fling, it might end the marriage. I don't think that's so far off from a straight woman's stance. But we have an agreed upon commitment of monogamy. It works for us.

@D It generally has some sort of meaning:

I was in a relationship once where kissing someone else was considered okay, but buying them dinner was not. You may think that that is weird, (okay, and I did too,) but it actually makes a certain amount of sense: Kissing has, (or at least can have,) a short term meaning, you can kiss someone once and then not speak to them again, and in any case, it is generally fun for both people involved. Buying dinner is generally something you do because you have feelings for the person, you don't (usually) buy someone dinner and then ignore them after that, and in any case, the point of dinner is to eat and be social, picking up the check bit isn't the fun part.

However, like way too many "open" relationships, the rules actually favored one person over another. I'm a pretty nerdy guy, so the odds that I'm going to randomly make out with some stranger are pretty low, (nobody invites me to those sorts of parties in the first place,) but she couldn't afford to buy anyone dinner anyways, so it that rule wasn't stopping her from doing anything.