"a new friend helps you break out of an old routine"
"excitement and intrigue follow you wherever you go!"
"the best mirror is a good friend"
i am particularly fond of the second fortune, curious about the first, and rolled my eyes at the third. now that the gods of hot and sour soup have cast my fate upon me, i can rest easy. so, about this monogamy thing...
...this has been a long time coming. why, you might be asking yourselves, would i want to devote any time at all to discussing monogamy? well my dears, it is a complex and tricky thing. it is both personal and professional. because i live in western society, the practice of monogamy is something that has been indoctrinated in me since birth. yet, as i've grown older, i've found myself questioning not only it's place in my life, but also it's validity as the leading type of human pairing. i will briefly discuss the latter and then get to the good stuff - juicy personal details.
there are 3 different types of monogamy currently recognized by biologists: social, sexual, and genetic monogamy. social monogamy refers to a pairing off of two people that includes cohabitation, a sharing of resources (food, money, transportation, etc.), and in some cases a sexual relationship (though social monogamy certainly does not infer a sexual relationship). sexual monogamy refers to two people who are in an exclusive sexual relationship with one another, without any inference to cohabitation. most western relationships are a combination of social and sexual monogamy. the third type is genetic monogamy, and refers to people who only produce offspring with one another, but may cohabitate or have sexual relationships with others. see also: staying together for the kids. i'm no biologist and have only a decent knowledge of cultural and bioanthropology, but what i do know is this: social monogamy (and for the purpose of this piece we'll assume social monogamy includes a sexual relationship) is the most common form of pairing in humans, but it is relatively rare among other mammals. only 7% of all mammals engage in social monogamy. of that 7%, the majority do not engage in sexual monogamy and frequently participate in extra-pair copulations. taking this data into consideration and removing any inkling of speciesism from our systems, how does lifelong social monogamy as dictated by our culture(s) not seem a little unnatural? maybe if lions didn't have to worry about starving they'd pay more attention to who was banging who. infidelity is a first world problem.
don't get it twisted, i don't have anything against monogamy. some of my most rewarding relationships have been not only monogamous, but long-term. i say some, not all. i've learned just as much from non-monogamous relationships as well and have enjoyed them just the same. what's been getting me down lately is the implied notion of ownership that goes along with social monogamy. the idea of people as property has never sat well with me. quite honestly i have come to reject the idea that social monogamy (reminder: i am including sexual relations into this definition) should be the default. rather, it should just be an option. think of everything we go through in life. love, birth, death, loss, transformation, migration, transition, stagnation, mania - these things affect our ability and/or desire for sex and cohabitation. in the interest of practicing humanism we should move away from the idea that 1 + 1 = enough, because it's not. not for everyone, and not all of the time. exploring types of relationships and pairings aside from social monogamy not only makes us capable of fully endorsing equal rights for both men and women, it is additionally a plausible tool for population control. if more people were open to the idea of any ilk of non-monogamy, clearly the need for more thorough sex education and disease prevention would be present. along with this would come a higher priority placed on proper contraceptive use, so as not to procreate with anything that makes googly eyes at you. personally, i am a huge fan of less people having kids. at this point i was going to talk about how monogamy is also one of the many tools of sexual repression shackled onto the ankle of humankind by religion, but i'm exhausted tonight so i'm going to save that for an entry all on its own someday. nothing gets me more hot and bothered than talking about why i hate religion. oh baby.
so where does that leave me, then? i'm going to be honest with you. i want my cake and goddamnit, i want to eat it too. i think about all of the things i have read about the relationship between emma goldman and alexander berkman. they were friends, lovers, and comrades for several decades. they were not always all three of those things at the same time. they had affairs with other people at times and while it may have stung, their commitment to personal equality and autonomy was above all else. to me, that idea is exponentially more romantic than the dead horse that is love at first sight followed by attached at the hip followed by 'til death do us part. i don't suppose i'm ruling out the idea of marriage for myself. sometimes it seems nice, but it's not really the idea of marriage itself that i like. it's that idea of a lifelong companion. i don't need a useless institution as an excuse to wear a pretty dress and have a party. feel free to buy me a kitchenaid mixer and coordinating linens whenever you want, guys (seriously. i mean it about the mixer. any day now...). i'm fed up with not exploring what could pan out with someone extraordinary because of bad timing or guilt or subscribing to someone else's ethics to keep them from going off the deep end. i have never in my life had trouble exclusively committing myself to someone who i believed was worth the investment. however, if i commit myself to someone who does not make every hair on my body stand up, i am being terribly unfair to them and completely cheating myself. and really, why should i not want them to feel the same way? i'm not conceited enough to think that i'm the best anyone's ever had. i'm not naive enough to think that someone i'm with might meet someone one day who would blow me out of the water. and you know what? i think that's great. i had this very conversation with someone not long ago. it went something like this - i said:
"you know, if you came to me now and said 'i just wanted you to know i met someone x amount of days or weeks ago and i thought i might really connect with them so we went out and it was great' i would be SO PISSED at your dishonesty and lack of respect."
"yeah, of course."
"but if you were to come to me now and say 'i met someone recently and it's nothing against you, but i think there might be something there and i think i owe it to myself to explore that option,' i would totally be in support of it."
"...what?"
"yes. don't you see? you're a good person and i want you to be happy and if that happiness comes from someone else, then good for you. but you know what? i also want to be happy, and i would appreciate being respected enough to be afforded the same clemency. ESPECIALLY considering i don't even have to ask for that right from you or anyone - it's already mine."
i could go on, but i think i would be rambling at this point. my ability to articulate is waning. i could talk more specifically about what i want, but it would sound like a personal ad. i'm not that desperate.
i want to make him understand because i want him in my life, but i'm not going to lead a horse to water and syphon that shit down his throat to pretend he's drinking.
1 comment:
descendents... duh
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