I wasn't attempting to argue but to open a dialogue, as open discussion is how a dev can get insight on how users are interpreting their work. I love the game, it instantly jumped into my top 5 on this site the first playthrough. My only concerns were the Netorase tag not being properly applied imo, and how Ari comes off negatively to the player. I think I know what the Dev was trying to do with her though. Ari's young, got in over her head and made mistakes. I think we are supposed to be torn with feeling sorry for her and also the MC while acknowledging that she's her own worst enemy. Not 100% sure though about that though. Even so I like her as a character with her flaws and all.
Fair, I usually avoid this kind of discussion unless I feel strongly about it, but after reading you it seems you are actually attempting a legitimate discussion. That is something I very much am fond of even if it doesn't mean meeting eye to eye, so I'll give my own input.
Issue here is how strict we are being with definitions. This falls into a lot of semantics depending on what PoV you wanna argue. In example, MC did say she could do such things, he did not initially limit her, it was Ariana who was unsure of accepting. MCs words were explicitly that he wants to see her with other men. That is clearly a sexual reference, not just flirting or a kiss. Then when it seemed things would get out of hand is when MC trying to lay ground rules comes into play.
I am not saying Ariana wasn't disingenuous in her approach to say the least, but is it truly that there's no netorase elements even if MC pretty clearly implied that he DID want her to have sex with others? So here comes the dilemma, do you think netorare and netorase are genres that CAN not coexist? I'd say the can as that is a big part of the netorare and netorase medium, seeing how far the topic goes from NTRS to full blown NTR, I personally don't feel the people who defined the genres are inherently wrong in their own definition when they play with both, which is the case most of the times.
And as you yourself mentioned, it's not like if Ariana did it with full maliciousness, she did think it was part of MCs fetish. This was never a story solely about Ariana simply fulfilling her own needs, I think the fact there's not a pure cheating route speaks for itself, we only have: vanilla, NTR/NTRS and pure/corruption NTR, no route is based off her simply cheating with 0 reason. Not gonna pretend Ari's reasons are the best ofc, but it's not simply from 0 to 100.