Lover to Kept Woman/Man to Whore/Man ho ?

In this day of liberalised love and subjective morality, I wonder where one draws the line between right and wrong. I am not talking about absolute wrongs like murder, theft and destroying public property, but when is sleeping with a person right and when is it wrong?

A section of my generation thinks that love and sex can be kept separate. I am talking about girls' ideas about love and sex here, because traditionally men have never seemed to have a problem with keeping wives and mistresses a plenty ( when they had the money) or visiting whores (when they didn't). There are far more historical figures of men with many lovers/wives/concubines/harems than women with similar number of lovers/gigolos/husbands/ etc. (All of the male gods in Hinduism - except Ram. Even if you argue that our epics are not real, but embellished stories, there are kings and nawabs with all number of wives and concubines - Ashoka to Akbhar to Shahjehan(3 wives inspite of his TajMahal sized love for one), world-wide there was Solomon, Henry VIII, Charles II( too many mistresses to count) to Mark Antony(not a king when he took all those extra wives and mistresses)  and an ex-chief minister of TN who will remain nameless, and these are just people we know of, because these men's lives were famous. But there are not half as many women who led lives where they had harems of pretty young men to service their needs. But, today the case is that women are far more liberal about expressing their need for sex and getting it too. So now, there is even more confusion about the morality of modern day liaisons.

(Note: The word lover here does not indicate one who is in love. Dictionary meaning of lover : a. A paramour. b. A sexual partner. Not using the desi meaning of the word 'lover')

Anyway, coming back to the point, most people I know and interact with on a daily basis think it is okay for any two consenting adults to indulge in hanky-panky. The story I want to relate is probably many a youngster's story. ASX(Girl) met AMK(boy) during a graduate program in Bangalore. Now, AMK has RK - girlfriend- in living and working in Mumbai. Over the course of their study ASX and AMK became lovers. Now, ASX knew about RK, the girl waiting back in Mumbai for her boyfriend to come back to her, which he did. Now, where does that leave ASX? Moving on with her life, but while he was her lover, what was she to him? Lover? Or Mistress? Do not get me wrong. I know stories where it was the girl who was supposed to be in a committed relationship, but slept with another guy on the side. So the in-between fling boy - was he just a gigolo who came free of charge?

When two free consenting adults come together for sex, people think there is nothing wrong with it. But, it is for the sad souls out there who think - " aah its just sex - so what is he/she is committed elsewhere ?" that this goes out to.

Do not be a mistress or a gigolo! Nothing good ever comes of that.

If it is just sex you are looking for there are other non committed people you can find. If you want a relationship, then that person looking to cheat on his/her boyfriend or girlfriend with you is not the one you want to be in a relationship with, because he/she will go back to their partners once they get bored or whatever it is they were looking to fulfill that their partners were not fulfilling, they will decide to go without it, as they had been, before you came along. If they think you are their "true love" they would have broken off with their partners to be your partner the moment they knew that you are way more suited to them, than their boyfriend/girlfriend.

It is whole different can of worms when both people indulging in an affair are committed elsewhere. Even worse when they are married people. Where is the morality? What is right and what is wrong? From lover to mistress/kept man to what next ? Whore/Man-ho?