Monogamy is overrated … or is it?
October 28th, 2009 by Mustang Sally, Mayor of Bang Town in Hard News, Lustworthy
No one stays faithful any more and everyone is upset about it, especially if you read the press. (Myself excluded, thank you very much.)
So when I saw this article on CNN’s website about monogamy, I realized that I don’t believe in monogamy either.
It’s not natural. And now I have written back up.
French author Jacques Attali in recent years wrote, “Monogamy, which is really no more than a useful social convention, will not survive. It has rarely been honored in practice; soon, it will vanish even as an ideal.”
Americans get so mad and upset when a “star” cheats. But we’re the same sappy public that urges our friends and neighbors to stay with their lying ass husband, for the sake of the kids or whatever reason people give. (Sally says leave or stay, just don’t whine about it and become a victim.)
No.
If he can’t be monogamous, then why should you be? If you really want to be with him or her then why not do this:
Polyamory — the practice of having romantic relationships with multiple people at the same time with the full knowledge and consent of all involved — has been getting a lot of attention.
“We found the expectation that one person should be our everything seemed unrealistic given our day and age. … It’s oddly pressuring to set up that scenario,” said Mark, who lives in Springfield, Missouri, and is in a polyamorous relationship. (He asked that his last name not be used for privacy reasons.)
Mark, 42, has been married for five years. He and his wife tried different things to spice up their marriage, including swinging, or having casual sex with other people, he said. But they found the experience unfulfilling and decided what they really wanted was to be able to fall in love with others while staying together.
Mark dates another woman, and his wife, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is dating another man. The four of them frequently get together to have dinner or watch movies.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
[...] Monogamy is overrated … or is it? | Bang Town [...]
October 28th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I’m a great believer in the possibilities of polyamory, but after years of thinking about it, I’ve decided that monogamy will probably always be the most common choice.
Consider this: although I know of no available hard numbers, there certainly seem to be more vees than fully interlinked triads, more trads than quads, and more quads than quints. The clear trend: the more complex the setup, the less often it “occurs in nature.”
Extrapolate this trend backward, and the simplest arrangement is a couple (which has only 1 person-to-person relationship, compared to a vee’s 2, a full triad’s 3, a quad’s 6, and a quint’s 10). So for this reason alone, I think that some form of monogamy will remain the most common relationship style forever, even in a completely poly-aware and poly-accepting future.
Alan
Keep up with Polyamory in the News!
http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com