Is Watching Cams Cheating? - Dr. David Ley

David Ley Dec 18, 2019

A 2019 study done by Stripchat found that many users were concerned that watching cams might count as cheating on a partner. Others have reported that their partners do consider it cheating, even though the only interaction is online. Not surprisingly, when Dr. Ley did his first stream with Stripchat, the question came up.

The answer is complicated. Infidelity means different things to different people. Dr. Ley’s advice? Have honest conversations with your partner. — Stripchat Sexuality Resource Center

If you’re married, one of the things we found was that in [the Stripchat] survey people who are married and using Stripchat were more likely to report worries over infidelity — worries that using Stripchat and going on the webcam platforms was a form of cheating. That’s one of the questions that we got asked.

I’ll ask you, is masturbating or is watching cams cheating on my partner?

My answer back to people who ask me that is, if you’ve never talked to your partner about it, they probably will figure and believe that it is cheating. But there’s an easy — I say easy — there’s a way for you to turn it from being infidelity to not being infidelity. And that is by talking to your partner, by talking to your spouse, by talking to your girlfriend, your wife, your husband, your boyfriend.

Is masturbation itself infidelity or cheating? Most people don’t think so, but if your partner is religious or if you’re religious, if you were taught that masturbation is unhealthy or that pornography is unhealthy. If your partner has low self-esteem, and if your partner is from the United States, they’re more likely to think that you watching pornography or using webcams is a form of cheating. Europeans have less significant attitudes about watching pornography or using webcams being infidelity.

Now, if you fall in love with the person you’re watching on webcam, does that turn into infidelity? Perhaps — especially if you’ve never talked to your partner about it. However, if you have said to your partner, “Hey, going on webcams, watching folks be sexual, I enjoy it. It turns me on. It’s fun to interact with these people. It’s fun to talk about sexuality in this kind of way. It’s fun to see people be sexual and kind of develop a relationship, but it’s safe because they live on the other side of the planet.” If you can integrate that, accommodate it and negotiate it within your relationship, then it stops being cheating. It stops being infidelity when you can find a way to talk and make a deal with your partner about it. And if you share it with them, couples who watch pornography and sexual media together are healthier.

So here’s a great way to potentially negotiate and accommodate use of webcams within your relationship. Invite your partner to join you while you watch. Sometimes watch somebody that they’re interested in, sometimes watch somebody that you’re interested in. Find a way to share this behavior. And when we do that together, when we integrate that kind of behavior into our relationship and we make it part of our couples sexuality, again, it stops being unhealthy. It stops being a form of infidelity because now it increases the couple’s connection around sexuality. It increases the degree to which they are talking about sexuality, exploring sexuality together in healthy kind of positive ways.