What really counts as "cheating?"

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are you scared of being cheated on? You're not alone.

There are apps and social media groups dedicated to outing a cheater. But is our paranoia about cheating actually hurting our relationships? And on top of that, definitions of "cheating" vary widely. How do you decide for yourself what really counts as cheating? And what's really fueling our fear of being cheated on?

Brittany is joined by Kathryn Jezer-Morton, writer of the Brooding column from The Cut, and Shannon Keating, freelance culture journalist, to answer these questions and get to the bottom of why fear of infidelity haunts our culture and our dating lives.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from TED Talks Daily, a podcast from TED.
0:03.7	Learn about yourself and the world you live in through daily talks, answering questions like,
0:08.7	why do I care about what others think?
0:10.7	And do aliens exist?
0:12.3	Find Ted Talks Daily, wherever you listen.
0:17.9	Hello, hello.
0:19.4	I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR,
0:23.1	a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
0:35.6	This week, we're connecting the dots between the T app, Sarah Shulman, and Red Flags.
0:41.5	I know, I know.
0:43.0	How are all of these things connected?
0:46.2	Well, we're going to find out with Catherine Jaser Morton, writer of the brooding column from The Cut, and Shannon Keating, freelance culture journalist.
0:54.1	Catherine, Shannon, welcome to its bit a minute. Hi Keating, freelance culture journalist.
0:56.0	Catherine, Shannon, welcome to its bit a minute.
0:56.6	Hi.
0:57.7	Hi, Renee. Thanks.
0:59.0	I'm excited to have you both.
1:05.2	Okay, so I know you both saw the quick rise and fall of the T app from a few weeks ago.
1:09.2	For those who missed it, what was the app's original purpose?
1:15.9	Basically, alerting people to instances where their partners may be cheating out in the world.
1:21.4	Yeah, I would say it's kind of a more formalized version of different online groups that we've seen.
1:24.1	You know, like, are we dating the same guy, Facebook groups?
	...

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