Compersion

August 31, 2022

1 hour ago, eyemblacksheep said:

quite a lot of history in cuckold. Cuckoos don't raise their own young. They sneakily lay their eggs in other birds nests. The birds will then incubate the eggs think it's their own, then when hatched, feed and teach the bird (flight etc) until they realise it's not their own - and even by then they're invested so might just stick with it

so cuckold as a term has hundreds of years of history - but it's wildly evolved. So, to be a cuckold, your wife has to cheat, get pregnant and you raise the child as your own - and either not knowing, or not acknowledging, that the child is not yours - even if half the village actually already knows/suspects

So it's current/common usage doesn't really match it's origin

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however

compersion has relatively little to do with cuckold. It can exist in any ENM situation where the participant is happy their partner is getting some. My wife has this a lot. (Not to say they don't sometimes get jealous - but - more so happy I'm doing fun things and always coming back to them)

I think it's not a massively common used term - and seems to have only been coined in the 1970s (which does make it older than 'BDSM' yet no one says that is a new-fangled made up word) but perhaps used a little more as ENM is talked about more.

That's pretty neat actually. Co-incidentally enough Etymology is a bit of an interest of mine so thanks for that.

I wasn't saying it had anything to do with cucking though.