Married Scott & Emma "doing it" during mindlink... is it adultery? What's your thoughts?

[sabongero]

A couple of years ago, I was just browsing through the graphic novels section at a Barnes and Nobles. I haven't read an X-Men comic book since Storm defeated Scott for leadership of the X-Men in issue #201. Yeah, that was a long time ago.

At the time, after a long hiatus of not reading comic books, I was surprised that the White Queen was one of the good guys. Then Scott and an alive Jean Grey in the trade paperback were husband and wife, but Emma and Scott were doing The Nasteeee. And Emma was on her Phoenix dress, which made me laugh. Then Jean catches them by minlinking with them.

Now here's the thing, Emma and Scott have been doing this but in their mind together only. Now is this considered cheating on your wife? The sex happened in their mind, but not physically. It was in the mind, but both conscious and shared thoughts. I never even thought of such a concept until I came across this X-Men TPB.

Can someone explain to me why this is cheating or why this is not cheating? Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.

[cwatz]

In the exact definition of cheating or adultery as we know it, it was not. But given the extraordinary circumstances, it requires a deeper look and can be answered with a relatively simple question.

How would you feel if your significant other was off being aroused and enjoying the company of another person instead of you? Its the exact same principle, same intimacy, just without bodily fluids. Its dishonest and immoral, and every bit as offensive as if they had gone all the way because the intent is there. So if this were a real thing, the definition of cheating or adultery would likely be shifted to include this scenario.

[PwrdOn]

Well if you think about the psychic affair was actually worse, since it's a far more intimate connection than a purely physical tryst would be. It's not as if each of the two was just secretly fantasizing about having sex with the other.

[Mutant God]

Well it was Emma taking advantage out of Scott's weaken mind

[Alan2099]

It's not like this is the first wife Scott has cheated on.

[Valeficent]

wasn't this like 15 years ago?

[cwatz]

Well it was Emma taking advantage out of Scott's weaken mind

Taking advantage of vulnerable people isn't exactly a rarity in the world. "Victims" may or may not regret those actions, but they are still accountable as long as it is of their own free will. That holds true for Scotty too. Its a situation that may make you sympathetic to his situation, but doesn't absolve of guilt.

[t hedge coke]

We don't actually see how far Emma and Scott go, at least in the original storyline, but Scott and Jean both emphasize that, at least for him, it is just "thinking about it." Emma, more than likely, understands what she's doing to a stronger degree, but Scott's always been spectacularly bad at anything other than beating up badguys. A kind of willed social naivete and hanging onto his teenage years.

In the end, they both screwed up, and they both abused trust, acted hypocritically, but not maliciously.

[cwatz]

We don't actually see how far Emma and Scott go, at least in the original storyline, but Scott and Jean both emphasize that, at least for him, it is just "thinking about it." Emma, more than likely, understands what she's doing to a stronger degree, but Scott's always been spectacularly bad at anything other than beating up badguys. A kind of willed social naivete and hanging onto his teenage years.

In the end, they both screwed up, and they both abused trust, acted hypocritically, but not maliciously.

Well Jean was really still really pissed at what was going on. "But they were thinking it!!" makes it pretty clear she doesn't approve. The interesting part was that she put no blame on Scott at all. She knew he was all fucked up after Apocalypse and put all the blame on Emma for trying to take advantage of him.
A common theme of the breakup itself. Jean wanted to "fix" Scott and bring boyscout back. Scott couldn't go back to that place. Stalemate, broken marriage, trying to hold on to something that appeared doomed.

[Mari]

The definition of the word adultery is sexual relations outside of marriage. I think Emma and Scott had sexual relations, though in the psychic not physical world, so adultery is there even if not physical.

If Scott's wife was not a telepath I guess it would never had been discovered unless one of them reveals it another way. I wonder if the story would end differently if Jean somehow lost her telepathy during that time?

[Slicknickshady]

Jean has kissed Logan while she has dated Scott.

So they both were not the best of partners.

[PwrdOn]

In hindsight, this story just wasn't good enough to warrant the notability it's accumulated over the years. On one hand, they had Cyclops do something bold and unexpected, which was good, but on the other hand, they hedged their bets with the questionable "just thoughts so not really cheating" bit and then later on with the "psychic push" which was a cop-out that wasn't wholly necessary. This seems to happen quite often with Scott, what with the whole abandoning Maddie incident justified by her being turned into a spiteful clone demon queen, and more recently with the murder of Xavier supposedly being not really his fault.

I'm not quite sure what all of this actually accomplishes though, on impression he still seems like a scumbag and while I suppose he remains innocent if you stick to the most literal reading of the canonical story, such an interpretation also robs him of the edginess that these stories were no doubt meant to impart.

[AJpyro]

In hindsight, this story just wasn't good enough to warrant the notability it's accumulated over the years. On one hand, they had Cyclops do something bold and unexpected, which was good, but on the other hand, they hedged their bets with the questionable "just thoughts so not really cheating" bit and then later on with the "psychic push" which was a cop-out that wasn't wholly necessary. This seems to happen quite often with Scott, what with the whole abandoning Maddie incident justified by her being turned into a spiteful clone demon queen, and more recently with the murder of Xavier supposedly being not really his fault.

I'm not quite sure what all of this actually accomplishes though, on impression he still seems like a scumbag and while I suppose he remains innocent if you stick to the most literal reading of the canonical story, such an interpretation also robs him of the edginess that these stories were no doubt meant to impart.

Isn't he one of the most long running cases of being screwed by the editorial?

[RandomDave]

In this particular case, Scott started trying to get help from Emma due to his "knowing" that Jean hooked up with Logan(what do you think he was looking at up in the woods while Jean was with Logan?).

/rant
This all goes back to Grant Morrison needing to find a way to split them up, and choosing to go OOC to cheat. Given his situation it is hard to apply OOC to Scott since he was about as far nuts as he ever was (which is pretty far out there), but Jean wouldn't walk away from a PSTD suffering husband, much less try to hook up with a guy right after her husband offered her what she said she was looking for. Then having Scott hooking up with Emma was Morrison's joke on old time fans. He gave Emma a secondary mutation that lined her up with Jack Winters, and that would make even a crazy Scott run for the hills.
rant/

As far as the original question, Chris Claremont didn't think so, and made it a point to express that in X-Men Forever.

[elgrey]

I think it's a really difficult one to judge because of what being 'unfaithful' is, which at some point feels as if it should contain an element of betrayal, and because Scott at that time was in such a bad emotional and mental place, with PTSD from being bonded with Apocalypse, and a long history of repressing all his emotions, being poor at reading romantic situations, and not being very good at communicating with people that he loves.

With anyone else, one could have said they walked through the door looking for a way to explore their new inner darkness, but Scott really is astonishingly clueless and it actually read to me as if he had made the - for him - truly gargantuan effort to go and hold a conversation about his feelings to try to save his marriage. So, he didn't seem to have any intention of being unfaithful even at the time when he technically probably was being unfaithful. He genuinely didn't seem to know that was what was happening until Jean pointed it out to him, up until then he seemed to think it was odd therapy that didn't feel quite right to him and that was making him feel guilty and he was enjoying for the wrong reasons without the light going on in his head that told him he was cheating on Jean with Emma.



And, of course the person he should have been having that conversation with was Jean, but I could also see him thinking that everyone else was too close to the situation, and Emma, because of what he saw as her indifference to them, might be an objective voice. He is also about the only guy on the planet where it makes sense that he could have an affair and not actually know he was having one.



Having said that, I think that Jean's sense of betrayal and hurt would have been just as great with him having telepathic romance with Emma, even if he still thought what they were doing was therapy, because as a telepath herself, and one who'd had a mental link with Scott for all that time, she would probably feel that a meeting of minds was just as intimate a matter as a meeting of bodies. I think she blamed Emma because Emma had set out to betray her by breaking up her marriage whereas Scott really had thought he was trying to save it, and was even less emotionally equipped than usual at the time to make sensible decisions.



I like Emma but she did exploit a person who was very damaged and in a very vulnerable place just to get at Jean. And she got punished for it, because she fell in love with Scott, but Jean got punished for it, too, and she really didn't deserve it. I think even her trying to have an affair with Logan could arguably have been the action of a woman trying to jolt her husband back into her bed or at least get him to see her as a sexual being and not someone that needed to be protected from whatever it was he was afraid he had brought back with him from Apocalypse.

I actually think it was very good writing all round because it was the kind of messy situation that probably would happen with the kind of lives that superheroes live, and where all three people ended up being victims of it, and made thoroughly miserable by it, at least until Jean changed the situation from beyond the grave and pushed Scott and Emma into a relationship.

Scott ended up getting perhaps less blame for the telepathic therapy-affair situation than he merited, just because he was so damaged at the time and has such poor communication skills and relationship skills habitually that everyone in the x-verse seemed to cut him a lot of slack, and more blame than he deserved for moving on from Jean to Emma so quickly, given that, by that point, the relationship, which had originally been Emma's choice, became Jean's choice, although Emma was just trying to cause trouble whereas Jean was trying to save the world. It still wasn't Scott's choice; it wasn't even Emma's choice by that point; it was entirely Jean's. And it was a selfless action, to give her husband over to the safekeeping of the woman who had tried to steal him from her, but it was also a high-handed one, and it did, of course, seriously undermine Scott's relationship with Henry and with Rachel, and it didn't do a lot for his friendship with Logan. So, it's something I would personally like to come out one day.