Monogamy Isn’t Natural
Today the Universal Bullshit Translator is going to debunk “monogamy isn’t natural” as an excuse for cheating.
I’ve tilted at this mindfuck windmill before here (Monogamy Is Not the Problem) and here (Is Monogamy Abuse?).
The topic is on my mind, however, because yesterday I had a lively shouting match with columnist Dan Savage as a guest on his podcast Savage Lovecast. Which I think we both perversely enjoyed. I have to respect a man who lets me say “Orwellian dipshittery” to his face. He referenced the time I took him to task on this blog for snarking about “Tolyamory.” The condition where the chump looks the other way and “tolerates” the cheating. (What I found Orwellian is the idea that you can consent to deception.)
Anywho, it was a friendly spar. The episode comes out November 12.
Dan, who created the acronym DTMFA — dump the motherfucker already — rejects the idea that he’s a cheater apologist. However, he gives a permission slip for the dead bedroom, when cheating is the “least worst option.” Divorce, apparently, being impossible. (To which I countered, people on this blog have divorced with special needs kids, while blind, while undergoing chemo, and in their second trimester pregnant with twins. If there’s a will there’s a way….)
Dan distinguishes between the occasional cheater (hand job in a massage parlor) and the piece-of-shit serial cheater. I agree infidelity is on a spectrum, however, I call this argument “How many cheaters can dance on the head of a pin?” What matters is what you will tolerate. YOU get to decide if you feel safe and respected in your relationship. (And of course, if you don’t have the information to make an informed decision, fuck that cheater very much.)
But the one argument, among many, that I wish I could’ve expounded on further was the idea that monogamy isn’t natural. That it’s inflicted as a cultural norm, particularly on straight men, and that Jane Austen has a lot to answer for, expecting men to be Mr. Darcy.
(To which I’d argue, the fantasy of Jane Austen isn’t monogamous marriage, it’s the notion that men love women for their minds and uppity character.)
Dan Savage does this thing, I think more sincerely than Esther Perel (of whom he is a fan), where he acknowledges the pain of betrayal. And yet, he provides a ready rationalization to those who inflict that pain. For Perel it’s the bunk of Mating in Captivity. (Someone held the FW captive. Versus, they chose their “cage” with free will and were quite happy to have their partner live in the same cage.)
For Dan, it’s the idea that monogamy isn’t natural.
The cage is monogamy. The straight jacket that’s imposed by society. So if you don’t get it “perfect”, can you really blame them?
What is chump grief then?
I’m sorry, Honey, the Tooth Fairy isn’t real. I know you were expecting a dollar under your pillow, but it’s time to grow up and stop believing in supernatural dental collectors.
Okay, we lied to you. But you’re rather dim to have not worked this out for yourself. There is no city of teeth. Fairies do not trade in currency. I’m sorry you have a bloody stump. Here’s an Advil.
Monogamy isn’t 12-step
I believe that monogamy isn’t ideal for many people. In which case, they should order their lives accordingly. But chumps aren’t fools for believing in commitments made to them. Or believing in commitment at all. People who love with their whole hearts and respect their partners are not unicorns. They exist. Millions of them, if my blog numbers are anything to go by.
Speaking for myself, a middle-aged woman who’s as horny as the next person, I don’t find monogamy difficult. Even in my youth, saddled with FWs. (I found THEM difficult, but that’s another story.) It’s not I like a need a chip, because it’s been 8 days since I wanted to fuck strange. But I am willing to concede that others are not similarly wired.
What I want the non-monogamous to concede, however, is that enforced one-way monogamy through deception is VERY advantageous to FWs.
Benefits of monogamy to FWs
The total investment of your chump. A partner appliance to do all your adulting work. Raise children, provide a paycheck, be your emotional labor support beast, write the thank you notes, remember your mother’s birthday, provide more margin in your life for extracurriculars, project an air of intact family normalcy.
Dan argued that infidelity is so common, shouldn’t we change our relationship model?
I argue what’s common are abusive power dynamics. One set of rules for me, another for thee. Lots of abusive arrangements are common. Monarchy, slavery, sister wives… doesn’t mean we should aspire to them.
You can chuck monogamy and still have fuckwits. All it takes to be a cheater is to unilaterally break the terms of an agreed upon set of rules. What too many people crave is lopsidedness. Entitlement. More for me, less for you. The problem isn’t monogamy, it’s greed.
Monogamy as I envision it, is a lot like a functioning democracy. There is no King or Queen. There’s just mutual respect and a shared commitment to the common good.
It might be unnatural, but I prefer it.
They really want a consequence free life. Monogamy is natural as I would posit that to not engage in it would require emotional detachment on a level that would make most people sociopathic.
Actually, I don’t agree that monogamy is The Only Gold Standard. And. Must. Be. For. Everyone. I do think that if you have made a commitment to monogamy, you must honor that. Otherwise, stay single / or ethical whatever. BUT DO NOT LIE. That is the crux, deception and its consequences.
I yawn every time I see someone still defending polyamory. That community has a serious abuse and misogyny problem that folks repeatedly refuse to acknowledge, and their refusal makes their argument so inherently dishonest that it’s not even worth engaging at this point.
I spent a few years in cities that were poly hotspots and can say from personal experience I have yet to see a poly relationship that wasn’t abusive. I learned to stop taking people seriously when they claimed to be the magical unicorns who were making it work, because inevitably they were getting divorced 6 months later amid claims of horrific abuse and cheating.
Also, female colleagues one by one started to refuse to associate with anyone who identified as poly because we all learned from experience that it was only a matter of time before they started sexually harassing us. I’ve also lost count how many poly men I knew have since been credibly accused of serial rape and battering. No surprise that predators would thrive in a community where poor boundaries and no accountability are the rule.
I won’t even touch on Savage’s claims that sometimes it’s okay to lie and betray someone. Says it all about his character or lack thereof.
This all sounds very on point from what I have seen/experienced as well.
FW had a friend (whom I liked until she became a schmoopie fan) who had had an open marriage. Her husband still cheated, by breaking the agreed upon rules (inform her about other people, etc.). She ended up divorcing him and last I heard is in a poly relationship with two people and is very happy. Monogamy doesn’t cause cheating. Cheaters cause cheating.
#nailedit
I love this! “Monogamy doesn’t cause cheating. Cheaters cause cheating.”
This hits home. The few minutes after being told now ex narc was “in love” with his coworker “soulmate” he started word salading about the wonderful Dan Savage and allof his monogamish BS, how he could love two people at the same time and “we” (but really only ME) just needed to renegotiate our 30 year marriage vows and how monogamy isn’t natural and being “polyamory” was what everyone was doing. Blindsided by all of this info, the cheating done without my knowledge or consent, making unilateral decisions about my life, I still said no, NOPE, not for me. I was told that my ideas about monogamy were outdated and I was standing on a moral high ground. I told him he had free will to do what he wanted but so did I and filed for divorce.Of course he dragged it out for almost 4 years, and I’m 100% no contact so I’m not sure what he’s doing but I believe the grass really wasn’t greener. The short lived soulmate (she was a well known husband poacher) told him about Savage and Perel.
It’s crazy how they want out and they want freedom so badly but they won’t just go! Mine talked about how living with me was hell and how much he hated me but then whined “Can’t I just stay here until the lease is up to save money?!”
Like what?!
Mine had a 6 year affair, then moved out, dated around, then found a new serious gf. And he still is dragging out the divorce. It’s not that he wants me. He doesn’t want to be with me. He wants to control me. It’s mind-boggling. At this point we are still married, (but separated) and he’s fully moved on with the 2nd woman, and had a long term affair with the first one. How many new relationships does he need to embark on before he can just let me off the hook?
My “wait, what?” moment in couples counseling was when she said “and then in June I cheated and decided to end the relationship.”
Couples counseling was in September, for the record.
Even in the world where she wasn’t lying(she was-there were multiple affair partners over at least 1.5 years and possibly more)-apparently it was completely OK to still have me paying all of the bills and feed and buy her gifts all of that time. Apparently living with us is SO AWFUL they almost never want to leave!
I totally get it. My ex had the audacity to tell me I should move (out of MY sole and separate house) for a while so he could stay there. He said, “Why don’t you live with a friend and we could trade off?” So he could bring HER to MY house? Uh, NO. He was/is so delusional. At one point he also wanted me to build an ADU in the backyard so he could live there, too. Nope to that idea. He was so creative lol and couldn’t believe how RIGID I was. Delusional. His double life is not my problem anymore. He can live in his van or whatever also toxic relative will put up with him and enjoy his 6th decade of life without the only stability he ever had. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
“It’s crazy how they want out and they want freedom so badly but they won’t just go!”
Yup, my ex said that she had wanted out just soooooo badly “since 2017”.
She abandoned the marriage in 2022.
It’s now 2024 and we’re going on 2 years 6 months and she dragged the “emergency oh so important ” divorce out for the entire time.
I’ve told her previously that if she didn’t want me and didn’t love me just let me go.
I told her that at the beginning of her affair with her cousin.
She gave me the “scolded child ” pout look.
Narcissists are like children, but meaner. It baffles me how they use us and then resent us for it.
Mine needed the garage for his motorcycle. Cheating or not, my cheater was creepy and self absorbed. He cared nothing for me unless I was of use. Kept me long enough to care for his kids, his parents, and to keep working until his parents died( he was my second cheater of 30 years). The minute I was happily retired, he made his affairs known. He had a horrible character. I’m glad he cheated so I could FINALLY see, behind that mask. It was sad but so much better to be free. But why did I have to file????
FOUR YEARS? But I thought he wanted to be free?
Yes…. But they also want control.
Dragging out the court and divorce proceedings is the control situation of their horniest wet dreams.
Killing it as always, CL. Thank you for being willing to openly debate these topics, as even though our culture pretty much swallows the whole “takes two to tango” narrative, all some chumps need to hear is one person validating their humanity in order to LACGAL. Hearing your voice in the wilderness really does matter, so much.
For me, it comes down to consent. I personally don’t believe monogamy is “unnatural.” But let’s just say for the sake of argument that it is. FWs still actively entered into it, nobody twisted their arm, and now they’re actively hiding their cheating from the chump instead of breaking up with them. Meanwhile, chumps are being exposed to a third (or fourth, fifth, etc.) person in their marriage bed without their consent, exposed to STDs (ask me how I know), and having valuable time and resources funneled away from the household and family they’ve been led to believe they’re building with their FW.
Full stop: there is very little out there that will schnooker away from people as much of their agency and capital (financial, emotional, mental) as secret affairs. It never ceases to amaze me how self-described progressives will defend affairs as a Good Thing when they represent some of the most invasive and all-encompassing flouting of consent that exists on this fair planet.
ONE. HUNDRED PER CENT.
and deafening applause for Chump Lady, on fire for this one.
What I always say: monogamy is not thing, lying is the thing.
I’ve only seen shallow faux-progressives make the above case though the lack of equity is never limited to just that one thing. If you really pick apart their other political and social views not to mention dredging up their personal histories, they’ll invariably betray a mess of further contradictions that, all told, are far from “progressive” and, if anything, veer more towards lefty-flavored authoritarian totalitarianism. In any event, I’ve never once encountered anyone who was fuzzy on the issue of sexual consent who wasn’t also secretly a bit racist, classist, sexist, didn’t partly display “rape myth acceptance” and wasn’t supportive of distinctly undemocratic policies if the latter are at least sloppily packaged as “humanitarian” or “science based.”
You’re absolutely right about all of this! Though it brings me no pleasure to say it.
Funny how you scratch the surface . . .
I’m a surface-scratcher. It’s not on purpose because I actually hate social discord but I think that, subconsciously, some part of me always wants to know if someone is a good witch or a bad witch. My grandmother was the same. She’d walk into a cluster of covert fascists and would suddenly be overtaken with a mysterious desire to have a critical discussion about, say, the Munich beer hall putsch.
When I was pregnant, I worked for a guy who, several years later, was all over the headlines as a serial rapist of minors. The whole time I worked there, I couldn’t stop talking about Woody Allan.
Paisan!
Lol, you too, huh?
Yep!
Lol, I wish lizard brain intuition would just send memos like “Hello, your boss is a perv” instead of making me work backwards from my own weird impulses to figure it out.
This right here!
This right here!
Consent is king. If I don’t have Enthusiastic Consent of all parties involved; I don’t proceed.
FW don’t care about consent. It has nothing to do with monogamy or consensual non-monogamy. It has everything to do with their general lack of character and ‘me me me’ philosophy. They are lacking a moral compass of their own.
Sneaking around give you the jingles, getting over on an innocent person charges your batteries 🔋. I think the Chump gets brain controlled…I’m serious and wants to believe the lied. I did. One false move and I’d be single as a corn 🌽 cob. Scared to death of lawyers and taking action. Better to hide and pretend and dance.
One sided abuse..
Yes, exactly, consent. I made a lot of mistakes but I was struggling with serious health issues so I cut myself some slack on the stupid choices that blow my mind now. But I was forcefed the polyamory sexual orientation bullshit. I couldn’t fulfill my “duties” as a wife well enough either because of my health. Ugh. So he had a girlfriend and I tolerated it and was even nice to her. Right after the divorce, he dumped her.
She was just a cover girlfriend to hide his actual activities from me. She seemed like a nice person who knew how to be polite and respectful. She had a sad story which made me empathetic to her, because that’s how I am. He actually chose well. She had no family around so of course I didn’t want her to spend Christmas alone! Ugh.
She turned out to not be that nice though. She bought all the lies about me and thought she’d won. LOL Joke was on her I guess, once I was gone, he didn’t need a cover girlfriend anymore.
I feel like I missed making my point. LOL There was no consent because I didn’t know about any of the really screwed up things going on that I would not have consented to being a part of or being exposed to.
You will never ever know the full truth even in an open relationship. Never, the excitement is in the deception and creative adventures. Why stop?
His argument is plainly childish. He wants to be able to sleep around without consequences, end of story. The rest is justification to support his ego.
It baffles me how much people fight tooth and nail to offer excuses for cheaters. It just seems like a no brainer to me to just accept that monogamy isn’t the problem, entitlement is. If monogamy doesn’t work for you then don’t enter a monogamous relationship. That’s literally it. It’s not that deep.
Cheating = abuse.
The more people accept that, the more unacceptable it is to humm and haw over “well, he cheated because the bedroom was dead. He has a good reason!” It’s the same as saying, “well, he HAD to rob that lady at gunpoint and steal her cash. He was hungry and broke.”
I’m of the mind that it’s still difficult for people to accept cheating = abuse because they are, or they know and love, a cheater. It’s so widespread and common, the kneejerk reaction is to look for excuses to soften the reality of the fucked-upness of it. The pain and suffering cheating inflicts feels a little less bad when they can rationalize it somehow, I guess.
“If monogamy doesn’t work for you then don’t enter a monogamous relationship”
It really and truly is just that simple.
And say you get married, and 10 years in, you discover that monogamy isn’t for you. You don’t have to cheat. You can leave ethically.
Obviously, if my FW had come to me after 10 years of marriage and said that he wanted a divorce because he realized that he wasn’t made for monogamy, it would have been upsetting. Ending a marriage for any reason is going to be hard. But that would be an ethical thing to do.
Besides, most cheaters AREN’T saying “I am just not wired to be monogamous”. If all cheaters went on to live a polyamorous lifestyle, where all the partners were aware of each other, that would be one thing.
That is not what they do. They very frequently move on with the AP in yet another supposedly monogamous relationship. And then cheat again.
Mine didn’t end up with the AP. We then separated and he got on dating sites and did a LOT of dating. Casual. Then he found someone that he got serious with very fast. They are exclusive. But how long before he cheats on her too?
I don’t actually wish that for her. She isn’t an AP. Seems nice. And there is NO way he’s told her even remotely the truth of what went down in our relationship. So I feel bad if that does happen to her. And maybe it won’t.
But my point is that he left a marriage of over 2 decades, and in less than a year, was once again in a serious, monogamous relationship. He’s not worried about whether he is cut out for monogamy.
There must be a few with strained arm muscles from all that reaching.
Some go to great and preposterous lengths not to be seen as the terrible person they are.
I have a friend who “used” to be a cheater. 40 years later he blames his awf first wife. I bought that until I had two cheaters myself. Now I use Tracy’s words to describe his entitlement which his current wife ascribes too. So many are cheaters and or love a cheater. So the deck is stacked except for Tracy and her voice. I am so grateful 🙏
In my experience a monogamous mind (mine) is one that inherently grasps the concept that a long term relationship will have highs and lows. As the individuals grow and change the relationship matures to more common ground.
The non monogamous mind leads with dichotomous thinking. An always and never rigid mindset. That makes it much easier to justify and rationalize non monogamous behaviors because they live in the moment. The unsustainable highs are the goal and if they don’t feel enough of that high with their monogamous partner, they pursue it with someone else. To the non monogamous (immature) mindset it’s perfectly logical.
Yeah, my ex decided that polyamory was his sexual orientation so I was basically a bigot if I had a problem with it. His liberal, feminist female friends had great fun smearing me for being such a bigot that I would try to control someone’s sexual orientation. Weird how they were feminists except when it came to me and my body. I guess I don’t count as a woman or human being. What a monster I am! Somehow his sexual orientation also meant that I was supposed to go to sex clubs and be screwed by randoms in front of him. When I wouldn’t do that, what else was he to do?! How dare I not support his sexual orientation! I’m exactly the same as people torturing gays in reeducation camps!
His current sexual orientation is pedophile. I suppose make of all that what you will.
I think you mean, “some of the other women he was fucking”.
Oh, I’m sure they were. But they’d also been very loud about being feminists and liberals who cared so much about human rights and women’s rights for all the years I’d known them. I guess that all goes out the window when it doesn’t benefit them personally or when consequences appear though. Or like I said, they decided I don’t qualify for the woman or human club for some reason.
I’m of the mind that feminism is supposed to be about legal equality. Like how I want female teachers who rape students to be put under the jail because they’re pedos, along with the pedo male teachers who do it. Zero difference. Zero empathy for the vagina. This new “feminism” that caters to male sexual fantasy makes me sick. It’s not empowering to help a man abuse his wife but there are unfortunately all kinds of women out there who think it is and think that makes them feminists. It’s gross. They’ve co-opted the term and made it something disgusting that abuses women.
My ex pulled this with me too, and I’ve known a few other guys who claimed this as well. The latter were all eventually credibly accused of serial rape and battery.
It’s scary how abusers have figured out how to co-opt “woke”/therapy jargon to better bludgeon their victims.
Yeah, it really is scary. It’s also incredibly depressing how many women will go along with it and abuse another woman in the name of wokeness. “Oh, how hard it must have been for him to love both penis and vagina and be stuck with that bitter old cow! If his wife was a decent woman, she would have happily fed penis into his mouth for him! What a bigot that she didn’t want to do that!”
What I went through was so disgusting. I have lost faith in huge chunks of humanity. There are a lot of truly evil people out there.
Sex positive liberal feminism…what a sorry contradiction in terms.
Because feminists shouldn’t care about sex? Or traditional roles for women are the best?
People who want to cheat or excuse cheating will wrap that up in whatever ‘morality’ they think will shut up the Chump. If they’re traditional and conservative, it will be about how the Chump didn’t do their duty as a wife, or wasn’t a good enough leader as a husband, and needs to forgive, forgive, forgive. If they’re “liberal” it will be nonsense about freedom and sexual identity (but don’t you dare expect the same thing for yourself or ask awkward questions about consent).
Because “sex positive feminism” is about prioritizing the male orgasm at the risk of women’s safety, pleasure, comfort, and autonomy.
It’s not really sex positive, it’s about unfettered male access to women at any cost.
Why should feminists care about my personal sex life? Why would they have a stake in me saying no to sex with strangers? Like, this discussion is about me not wanting to have sex with strangers and people who call themselves feminists having a problem with that and labeling me a bigot for it during the most painful time of my life when all I could think about was eating a bullet.
So no, “feminists” shouldn’t care about that. They should stay out of my pussy. It’s not theirs. I’m a person too. My body my choice should also apply to me.
No. Because feminists should care about sex. They should care enough not to endorse practices like “erotic strangulation” under the guise of “no kink shaming.” Because feminists ought to care about women.
Yes, exactly. The pictures I saw of women so badly beaten and even cut and burnt in the name of sex positivity was horrifying. Just seeing the pictures was traumatic and they want to act like that’s “sex positive” and “empowering.” It’s horrifying! Some kinks should be shamed because they are abuse. These are human beings, not sex dolls, it shouldn’t be anything goes as long as it gets a man off. That’s literally the total opposite of feminism and I don’t know how so many in the movement got so incredibly lost.
Cosigned.
I think a whole lot of this false debate comes down to how people view sex. For the FW and “monagamish” cohort, sex is a commodity to be acquired and compared and curated. For many of us, it’s just one (important) facet of an intimate relationship.
I was pursuing the reward of a long-term monogamous relationship and all the uniquely deep intimacies it can produce. My XW was only dimly aware such things were possible or desirable, and was busy pursuing titillation and collecting physical pleasure. While I worked on getting to the other thing to no avail.
Maybe it’s not natural to FWs, but I find it perfectly natural and desirable to seek a deep connection that I only have experienced via monogamy.
Hitting it out of the park again, as usual, Tracy. Thank you.
It’s the secrets, lies, deception theft of reality, the one sided goal of you the loser, I keep the harem. Should we all agree that the world is one huge commune with free love all over and the babies go to a giant daycare up river since no one knows the dad?
Tracy, you, no WE can’t give up our voice of equality and truth telling.. we must shout in the storm. My STI was not consensual, the theft of huge swaths of time and money were not an agreement. Thank you for speaking for us, going to the ropes for us,making sense out of entitlement and arrogance, deception and greed, lies and telling the truth. I don’t feel so alone.
My ex was (and probably still is) a huge Dan Savage fan. I’m not sure when Dan started moving more in the direction of “monogamy is not natural” in relation to when my ex had her affairs, but I can’t help but wonder how much his views gave her the impression that she was free to explore her bliss, regardless of how it affected me.
One thing Dan should do better is talk about communication and conflict resolution in a relationship. Right now I get the sense that he doesn’t do that as much and it ends up being, “Monogamy isn’t natural, oh well, what are you going to do.”
No one forced anyone else to marry or be in a relationship with anyone.
Obviously these people are using people for their own benefits, but why even bother to partner up if you have no intention of doing right by the other person?
It’s arseholes wanting to have their cake, eat it and have the whole damned bakery that’s the issue.
Entitlement is the issue rather than monogamy.
Dan is making excuses for those who don’t want to be adults with adult morals and responsibilities.
Cut it out, Dan- we know who and what those people are.
Well speaking as someone who has done both monogamy and non monogamy/ polyamory, I’m in agreement that the issue is as always about honesty and respect. If you truly love your partner(s), lying and deceit are a non starter.
Also for people with integrity, polyamory is a fuck ton of work. The advice columnist Miss Manners once said “The purpose of monogamy is to give us a rest.” She was referring to the work of dating but it also applies to polyamory. In fact, the polyamorous couples I know tend to become de facto monogamous when they have kids become there’s just not enough time in the day to juggle the work of parenting with all the communication and time to cultivate other relationships. Maybe it’s not natural to be monogamous but I certainly think it’s less work. And what does natural mean anyway? Dying in childbirth, chopping off limbs rather than treating tetanus and freezing without central heating. No thanks.
My daughter’s nonbinary teen friend was talking about polyamory so, being a good friend, my daughter decided to read up on it as much as she could. After reading all the endless rules and communication guidelines involved with ethical nonmonogamy, my daughter declared that one partner was enough for her since there isn’t enough time in the day.
My husband sometimes jokes about what the husbands with four wives can possibly be thinking. Like, who has time? (He’s an atheist and our marriage is secular, but I am Muslim, so the question of polygamy has a very theoretical, hypothetical, tangential relationship to our actual lives.)
Interesting what you say about how much work it is. I read a long story about a group of polyamorous people, just trying to understand how their world worked. And one of them was talking about how she and one of her partners had stayed up all night just talking about their relationship, which was apparently very rewarding. I can only imagine that multiplying such stuff would take up 200% of someone’s available time! It’s a lot to manage with one person if you’re trying hard.
Totally true. I get cracked up every time I see that brand Nature’s Promise. Nature promises most creatures getting ripped apart by a predator, or a nice slow starvation when prey runs out. Which really doesn’t make “natural” corn flakes taste better.
Try all new Caveman Crunch cereal a balanced patt of this naturally bludgeoned breakfast!
There’s a bowl of hand pressed grain and Bambi looking like he got the Tanya Harding treatment laying on a plate…
Shush, that’s how my sons eat– about half a cow a day each, the bloodier the better. They actually have to because of an earlier allergy-related growth deficiency (long story). Fortunately we live most of the year in a country where an organic, grass-fed t-bone the size of your head costs about $1.85, otherwise it would cost up to $500 a day to keep them in caveman fodder. This mega-carnivore thing is bit alien to me so I make sure they eat an equivalent amount of fresh vegetables to balance it out.
Lol, love it.
Thanks much.
I admit to loving a good steak myself.
My ex tried to force me to be a vegetarian once.
Told everyone we knew to make sure I didn’t eat any meat.
So they told her later that I was unstoppable, that I was snatching squirrels off trees and eating them like corn on the cob.
She did knock off that garbage but it took about 8 months.
Lol, this has become a pretty complicated issue in my house.
Just because I’m a lazy ass, I ended up eating more meat in the last six years because I already had to prepare it for the kids as part of their medically-prescribed diet to correct something called “allergy induced malabsorption” and a diagnosed metabolic disorder. And, oh no, it’s really grown on me. I go nuts for organic pork chops with mustard or a great steak with a rim of fat. Not very lady-like or health-conscious, right?
Oddly enough, my last BP reading is about that of an active eight year old boy and I’m borderline underweight though the doctor gives me a pass for good nutritional labs and generally appearing healthy. So now I’m getting the feeling red meat– contrary to health lore for many decades– wasn’t the actual cause of increased cardiac issues, obesity and and descending lifespan in the US. More likely it’s overprocessed-everything, the chemical shitstorm we’re swimming in, synthetic hormones, etc.
I recently found an organic source for tomahawk steak and it’s now roasting in the oven. I feel so guilty about the potential carbon impact of meat consumption though there are arguments that commercial CAFOs have a vastly disproportionate impact on environment compared to traditional livestock rearing. God help me but I’m kind of engaging in “moral relativism” over meat. My formerly tiny sons are both over six feet and I really feel better since eating more animal protein. :/
In my area if it says organic it has a cost markup that is absolutely nuts.
$30.00 per pound is a discount price for organic sirloin in the northeast. The kids groan whenever we go back to the states because they know it means ground beef or chicken.
Lower prices across the way in PA, here in NY it’s higher than that usually.
That’s hilarious! It’s also natural for some animals to kill and eat their offspring. Sadly (my wife is a social worker) we do treat a lot of our children, as a species, worse than animals do. Natural isn’t really a useful concept here.
I’m all in favor of giving people opportunities to live their best lives in an ethical way, be that marriage to any gender, singlehood or other configurations. But I don’t compromise on ethics.
“Son, you know what happens in nature, right? If you don’t do well on this test you lose knee privileges. I will eat your knees as bon bons.”
Agreed, using what happens in nature as an example for what we should do does two things, it reduces our capacity for reason to nothing and negates the fact that alone on life on Earth we made civilization.
Least we can do is not decide to go full Mandrill on everything and eat misbehaving kids.
(Why a mandrill? Well I remember a nature video of a mandrill eating a baby mandrill just because.)
Monogamy is a choice, just like so many things in life. A choice that has a lot of benefits to it, imo.
Cheating is not (only) about sex. It is about entitlement and dupers delight. My ex works to have every aspect of his life in his favor at the expense of others – he wants everything uneven towards him. That is not caused by “societies expectation of unnatural monogamy”. That’s just ridiculous to even claim. 🙄
I believed monogamy was unnatural when I got married. At least, to death do us part. My field of study showed serial monogamy was more the norm around the world. But that means ending one relationship before beginning another.
So when I said vows I believed were unnatural, I really really meant them and thought they would be challenging to keep, but worth it. That belief cost me a lot of abuse. Monogamy was not difficult for me at all.
“The fantasy of Jane Austen isn’t monogamous marriage, it’s the notion that men love women for their minds and uppity character.” Exact.
Pride and Prejudice hit a lot different after I had fallen in love from when I was forced to read it in school.
In the comments to a CL blog post from a couple years ago, one reader reported that her cheater had used the “bonobo excuse” for cheating. I’m sure everyone’s heard how bonobos are the “kinder, gentler, more intelligent, feminist” chimp cousins who engage in elaborate orgies instead of lethal raids with outside ape troops. Bonobos also don’t rape, don’t batter, don’t engage in cannibalism and don’t kill infants like “regular chimps” regularly do. What cheater apologists like Perel seem to hijack from this is that people who cheat are simply being “bonobo-like” with all the groovy, peacenik-y, egalitarian implications that this carries, which is absolute and utter garbage on so many levels.
On reading this, the first thing I thought of was my favorite evolutionary scientist and primatologist Richard Wrangham, former Gombe research assistant of Jane Goodall and author of books like Demonic Males, Apes and the Evolution of Human Violence and Catching Fire. Unlike some pop-sciency types (Perel, gag, and Franz de Waal), Wrangham makes a strong case that we could not have descended directly from bonobos. His argument suggests the bonobo excuse is especially lame, even from an evolutionary standpoint since, aside from solid carbon dating, basic violent human history illustrates that we’re far more chimp-like than bonobo-ish. Besides, as it turns out regular chimps are just as randy as bonobos and almost as sexually indiscriminate but infidelity apologists don’t find that comparison quite as pozzy as aligning polyamory with bonobos.
Wrangham is also humorously sarcastic about how the “evolutionary excuse” for various forms of aggression and abuse is tired bullshit. Lots of things come “naturally” but that doesn’t necessarily make them good. We evolved from a common ancestor with regular chimps so, along with rationalizing infidelity, should we also justify cannibalism, rape, battering and infanticide too?
So, also after seeing this reader’s comment about the “bonobo excuse,” I did some searching around to see if Wrangham had ever specifically written about infidelity. Turns out he has. Not only that, he verges on arguing that the formation of human language may have been, in part, motivated in service to “mate guarding” strategies. In other words, humans likely parted ways with our chimp-like ancestors by evolving as monogamous or at least evolving to expect, demand and enforce monogamy from partners whether or not individuals intend to limit themselves in the same way.
https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=9YInrVSoa9cC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=Richard+Wrangham+infidelity&source=bl&ots=q-tnqvFW6Q&sig=ACfU3U23Oo2cyKM-naKs70vRPrmrGG4iig&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiklu63wP_pAhX9mXIEHT1RBk4Q6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Richard%20Wrangham%20infidelity&f=false
Richard Wrangham has speculated that human beings practice mate-guarding in absentia. Men keep an eye on their wives by proxy. If the husband is away hunting all day in the forest, he can ask his mother, or his neighbor, whether his wife got up to anything during the day. In the African Pygmies Wrangham studied, gossip was rife and a husband’s best chance of deterring his wife’s affairs was to let her know he kept abreast of the gossip. Wrangham goes on to observe that this is impossible without language. So he speculates that the sexual division of labour, the institution of child-rearing marriages and the invention of language– three of the most fundamental human characteristics that we share with no other ape– all depended on each other.
The author of the book goes on to say that the “male opportunist streak” (tendency of men to mate-guard women while not necessarily adhering to monogamy themselves) was
“far more easily satisfied by adultery rather than polygamy.” It implies that the aim of deception is to enforce monogamy for only one partner while also handily avoiding the responsibility of materially supporting further partners.
There’s nothing less “bonobo-ish” than deceptive tactics much less enforcing double standards though the latter are precisely what define chimp social organization which is based on pimps up/hos down patriarchy and precisely what define chimp aggression which often depends on stealth and deception in lethal raiding, abduction of females from neighboring troops, rape, “coup d’etats” to take down standing alphas, etc.
All the same, I can see the societal benefits of aspiring to be more bonobo-like in some respects like gender equality and ending war. If some want to try out the polyamory part too, fine, but, as actually ethical polyamorists argue themselves, the key thing about bonobos is that none of this is concealed or unfairly applied.
By the way, since Savage decided to loftily opine on evolution, what better excuse to interview a premier evolutionary scientist on the issue? I’d love to hear Wrangham on the podcast. As fancy as his certs are, Wrangham has a history of agreeing to be interviewed by all sorts of publications over the years, once participated in a rather arty documentary on psychopaths and even appeared on a quirky sexology program. Aside from his spot-on political overview, he’s pretty wry and funny and always reminded me of an off-duty Monty Python alum.
The ‘bonobo excuse’ is really more of a rebuttal to the ‘chimp excuse’ than a claim that we ought to naturally be like bonobos. Chimpanzees – who we are related to about equally as bonobos – are more violent and have rape, infanticide, and control by a strong male in a way that bonobos don’t. Cue a whole industry of evo-bio dudes arguing that such behavior is something we humans inherited and shouldn’t fight. Okay, if that’s true, then why not be like our other close cousins?
Bonobos also are matriarchal but I don’t see any evo-bio chuds pushing that one.
Oh and I agree that the bonobo excuse was probably reactionary. After about ten years in Gombe, Goodall– with great sadness– began publishing evidence of how routinely murderous and sadistic chimps could be and all of a sudden it didn’t seem so charming to think of chimps as our closest ape cousins. I imagine that, probably partly in an effort to prevent chimp conservation efforts from falling apart in response to the new findings, partly to stop the yahoos from rationalizing aggression as “natural” and and partly because it made us feel better about ourselves, there was a lot of excitement about the groovier bonobos and claims that we better resemble them.
But I think that, in order to reason that we’re equally or more related to bonobos, it would require completely rewriting human history and reverting to a kind of Rousseau “Noble Savage” view that all our species’ uglier traits aren’t hard wired capacities but instead socialized into us. In other words, society is corrupting us and, left to our own natural devices, we’d all be good monkeys!
Except Rousseau’s Utopian view turned out to be a total disaster in application (Reign of Terror in France for example). Another of Wrangham’s basic points is that aspiring to and socially engineering ourselves towards something better would have to at least start with a realistic view of what we come from and basic human nature.
Like the idea that humanity was once a matriarchy, I know that’s became a popular claim but there appears to be quite a bit of solid evidence we’re not related equally to bonobos. Aside from making that point, Wrangham spends a lot of time in Demonic Males qualifying that just because that’s what we hail from doesn’t justify the evo-bio bro argument that it’s okay to just go with it, particularly since humans, like chimps, have a tendency to not only suicidally kill each other off (particularly male-on-male violence) but also suicidally destroy every habitat we occupy. Consequently, Wrangham’s big takeaway is that humans had better use our unique free will and adopt bonobo-ish gender equality– which, in his estimation, is the lynchpin issue that changes everything else– or we’re all gonna die.
Interestingly, my combat vet dad decided a long time before Wrangham published his research on violence that greater gender equality could cause a proportionate decrease in war.
I don’t think anyone arguing that evolution made cheating okay, would want to be killed by a rival for mate poaching, because, hey, urges…
Frankly even if we were more closely related to bonobos, the latter are not without coalitionary aggression and enforcement. How would some of these “cheating is natural cuz bonbos” dudes who, say, emotionally mistreated their partner or passed on an STD– like to face their partner’s mom and mom’s rampaging pals as they whack him about the head, chomp at his limbs till he bleeds (but not quite dies) and chase him out of town until he grovels back and demonstrates submission to granny law? Because that’s what happens when bonobo males occasionally get out of hand– also why they generally don’t.
“Sure would be nice if we weren’t evolved!” And other things you don’t watch reasonable people saying.
If the Dan Savages of the world don’t want monogamy, they can simply opt out.The problem for them, however, is that they still want a partnership, and finding a partner who agrees to let them fuck around is not easy. So instead of making the effort to find such a person, they get together with a monogamous person, lying to them by promising that they will be monogamous, or at the very least, not admitting they won’t. So they start off the relationship with a huge lie, because they are too lazy/impatient to look for somebody who wants what they want. Another important factor (and admit the truth about this for once, Dan Savage) is that they love having secrets and illicit sex. It’s a large part of the thrill. Agreed upon polyamory just won’t do it for them, because then they’re not putting one over on their partner and can’t have secrets.They have to find other ways of doing that, like breaking the rules of the agreement, which of course they do.
So, like CL, I don’t believe it’s even about monogamy. It’s not having the upper hand which they can’t take. Equality is their nemesis, not monogamy. I think that Dan Savage types, while protesting that monogamy in unnatural or impossible, secretly hope monogamy never goes out of style as the dominant relationship paradigm. Where would they get their kicks if there was no such thing as cheating? It’s bluster and noise meant to cover up the true nature of their problem, which is not actually that they are feeling stifled by the constraints of monogamy.
DS is a misogynist who thinks it’s funny to take swipes at fat people and transgender people. He proudly and repeatedly points to his own hypocrisy (about anonymous sex, about having a different standard for his husband’s looks than his own) with a ‘yep, so what?’ attitude. Fuck that guy.
I always found him misogynistic. Here is the dumb thing about whether its “natural”. Very little is “natural”! What does natural mean?? Walking around naked and pooping on the grass? We make choices to live by certain rules- religions. bras, dyed hair- diets! NATURAL?? I just can’t even. Monogamy works for many. A choice. As natural as not wanting it, but cheating is deception, which is gaslighting which is ABUSE. He’s sort of dumb. Tracy is a a genius.
That said I will listen to your podcast with him and also- I love that you are getting lots of attention bad or good because it’s all good because you are winning this. You are common sense/righteousness in a mad world!
I find it very easy to be faithful to one person, it really is not that hard.
Clothes don’t magically come off in the presence of others, meat sticks don’t mysteriously spear into strange new holes, GPS doesn’t lead me to the wrong love cave, no tripping and magically inserting into strangers, and I don’t cuddle with people who are not mine to cuddle with.
I cannot honestly comprehend the rationale of the cheater, it doesn’t make sense to me.
In monogamy you have no chance to get STD’s, but in serial cheating you have no idea what when where or who you got the “foaming penis rabies” from.
And the cheater blames YOU for it.
Because somehow the one being cheated on must have somehow been infected, it can’t possibly be the shiny new penis or side hole the cheater has been screwing around with.
Why, that’s impossible!
In my personal experience with my ex, she would make excuses like saying that it wasn’t sex.
She could be folded in half and getting deep drilled to the testicles but it wasn’t sex, just being friends.
On the other hand, if a woman spoke to me she would flip out and insist that I was cheating on her with them.
Cheaters seem to, in my unscientific opinion, universally suffer from psychological projection.
But I have a sampling of just my ex to work with on that.
If caught and pressed on it, rather than admit to the cheating she would heatedly hiss at me that “I was raped, okay?!”
Waiting for her to say that about her cousin.
Yes, she would seriously say that her lying, sneaking out to go knob shopping, and wearing lingerie for another man, writing love poems, and saying she really loved the other man was “rape” if pressed on it.
Again, I truly don’t understand or comprehend the rationale of it.
If you hate someone so much that you’ll risk getting diseases or be pregnant by someone else, then just leave.
To do anything else is abusive.
When I find myself arguing against all the usual rationales to cheat, I always end up feeling like a dumbass for being pranked into a stupid debate because, if you bring everything back to the issue of consent, it’s all so bloody elemental and obvious. I know Oliver Wendel Holmes was a eugenicist asshole but he had a point when he argued that someone’s right to swing their fist ends where another person’s nose begins.
Yeah, consent being top of the list.
I myself never consented to receiving the lovely memento and gift of chlamydia or gonorrhea, still don’t know which she hit me with and the doc wouldn’t tell me.
In a supposedly monogamous relationship the sexual health of both parties is important to know.
And here I was being shut out from not only her health but my own.
When one party or the other steps out of bounds, that information becomes crucial.
But there’s this blasé attitude towards STD’s of “it’s an infection, it can be treated”.
And that’s not a sentiment that I share!
Untreated STDs can wreak havoc. Personally I think it should be criminalized like reckless HIV transmission in some places.
Well done. Your second paragraph is golden!
In my experience, people who repeatedly accuse their partner of cheating are cheating. Mine was convinced that I was cheating with the mail carrier, the guy who maintained our furnace, and the husband of a friend of mine who once called our house to say that his wife was running about ten minutes late and would pick me up soon.
First, I was 100% committed to monogamy, and second, why would I want to blow up my family like that? But neither of those were true of my ex.
I was never allowed to have friends, she always insisted something was going on.
But every time she cheated the guy was always “just a friend” and it wasn’t sex it was “just being friends”.
And the last guy was her cousin so it became “we’re just cousins”.
Second paragraph was an outgrowth of hearing her saying “it was an accident” or “it was a mistake”.
I still can’t parse that either.
Like how do you mistakenly take your clothes off and get knobs dipped in every orifice “by accident” or “mistake”?
Like, what would the mechanics of this be?
Mine was living many states away and said “if” he cheated, it would be my fault.
And how does that work long-distance? Who unzips your pants? Kinda obvious…
Site I work at, we caught a middle orc boss (team lead) dipping the truncheon into the slippery goblin hole of his assistant.
In the break room, in full view of the camera, with his back to the door and her laying on her back on the break room table.
With her ankles on his shoulders and his hands on his hips.
The site to a person all insisted that it was somehow our fault.
As if we held a gun to his head, unzipped and flopped the truncheon out and then commanded him “you must hump this woman!”
Completely bizarre.
You transvected him out of his pants with the POWER OF YOUR MINDS.
Levitated him alien abduction style clean out of his clothes in the break room in a display of psionics never demonstrated since!
On one hand I laugh over it, but on the other hand it serves as one of the more ridiculous things I have seen on site.
We mere mortals bow down before you! So, uh, would it possible to aim your prodigious mental powers to redirect a few hurricanes to drought-ridden zones or do you only depants regional supervisors? 😀
Apparently these mighty mental powers only happened to him.
Strange!
Damn, I was hoping you could mentally move my car and spare me a ticket the next time I forget it’s street sweeper day.
I know.
It’d be useful when it snows too!
There’s so much here to unpack!
It’s not about whether monogamy is ‘natural’ or not. That is all perception / individual belief.
However! If you’ve entered a relationship / marriage with someone; you’ve supposedly Both made agreements and understandings about how that relationship works.
Communication is the key. Most folks get in a relationship and stop communicating about the things that are important to them.
FW don’t wake up one day deciding they are poly. They lie over and over again to someone who thinks they are mostly on the same page. They can’t even handle being honest to One person. They are absolutely never going to be honest with multiple people.
FW are gonna FW. Blame monogamy. Blame a dead bedroom. Blame anyone but their own awful behavior.
“Monogamy as I envision it, is a lot like a functioning democracy. There is no King or Queen. There’s just mutual respect and a shared commitment to the common good.”
This is the respectful way, the healthy way, to participate in a relationship. Especially when both people agreed to the monogamy and commitment in that way. That’s where the difference lies to me. If you agree to an open relationship, polyamory, or whatever it is you agree to, then fine, but if you agree to monogamy, forsaking ALL others, then you keep that agreement and don’t step outside the relationship through lies and deception.
Cheaters make all kinds of rotten and BS excuses and rationalizations as to why they couldn’t keep up their end of the bargain. Makes me sick.
Loving all the comments today.😊
Notthisshitagain.jpg
I do appreciate the notion that infidelity, like many things, occurs on a spectrum and there are “degrees of bad.” I reached unpleasantly toward “shades of grey” but that name might just be a little too apropos for the Fuckwitian culture.
It doesn’t change that betrayal and abuse has occurred is the thing. I see this a lot with addicts. The “at least it isn’t crack/heroin” argument. There is that sort of false dichotomy of “if it’s not the worst than it should be OK.”
I have had clients in my day that have tried to litigate that very point-that since they weren’t the stereotypical Nancy Reagan-type junkie that what they did was acceptable as they were in some small way functioning through everything-even though they alienated their natural supports, it had jeopardized their careers, and all of the other critical indicators of “interfering with regular function.”
Just because it’s “less bad” doesn’t mean it isn’t bad, kids.
People need to learn to sit with their discomfort-particularly when other people are very directly coming to harm as a direct result of their actions.
As far as “monogamy isn’t natural”…let’s see..neither are computers(so by extension, smart phones). Or the internet. Or telecommunications. Or glasses. Or cars. Or airplanes. How about mass production? Most medications, really. In fact, a surprising amount of things “aren’t natural” and we benefit from them anyway.
Nuclear reactors, it transpires, have occurred in nature, as does poison and murdering people for impinging on their territory.
I mean, while we are picking and choosing what is and is natural that benefits us, wherein monogamy isn’t natural it similarly follows that it is completely natural to club a cheater to death(and probably eat them afterwards with all of the Discovery Channel I’ve watched in my day-hey, I don’t make the rules!)
Does picking and choosing make you complex or an asshole? #coffeethoughts
Social contracts are also not natural. Neither are promises. Yet these are the things that govern all relationships, romantic to no.
My personal fuckwit wasn’t trapped in a bad situation or forced into a marriage or relationship. She chose to be there. If she was in a prison it was of her own making. She made a set of choices that included deciding that the promises and commitments that she made simply were not for her anymore (if they ever were-her track record of cutting bait was something I should have paid better attention to, but alas) when she perceived lack of benefit(and I will wink and wave as I ride past “mountain of existential debt to be repaid” when I make those statements.) . When I contested the change she went ahead with it anyway and still reaped the benefits of me being the spousal appliance. I mean…I…guess people get screwed over in nature?
Stay Mighty!
I was far more mousey then, but of course, I wish that when my ex presented that trash years ago, I had just stood up and said, “Fine, GO. Do your thing! You’ll be hearing from my divorce attorney.” He was a part-time preacher from a family of preachers, and I assumed lifetime monogamy. Nope, after he retired, he wanted to “explore.” I didn’t. He changed the game on me.
Instead, I wallowed in religious guilt and more, but after he took off the last time, I had enough presence of mind not to run after him. I gradually worked through the ruins of my life and finally decided NO RECONCILATION EVER. Then, I knew enough to hire a heavy-hitter attorney who outclassed and outflanked his unethical pit bull.
So glad that chapter is over.
Slightly off topic I guess, but my bedroom was as dead as dead can be for years after our second child was born. She would occasionally (like 3-4 times a *year*) put up with sex, but she made it clear that she wasn’t into it. If I tried to initiate physical contact she would recoil, and if I didn’t, we would literally go months at a time without any contact whatsoever. She claimed she was “touched out” and depressed, and I believed her, though of course now looking back it seems much more likely she was cheating then too, though she’s never admitted to such. After all, childbirth affects women’s sex drives in all sorts of strange ways.
I suffered enormously during this time. My self esteem was at rock bottom. I tried to talk to her about how awful it made me feel. I encouraged her to talk to a therapist. I fought with her. I very, very seriously considered divorce, but I was so messed up and depressed that I didn’t think I could handle it. But never once did the thought of getting sexual fulfillment by cheating occur. Eventually I realized that there was nothing I could do about the situation if I wasn’t ready to leave, so I resolved to wait it out. I told her it was too painful to beg for sex from someone who clearly had no interest in it, so I would wait for her to tell me she was ready to bring that back into our relationship.
Fast forward to a year ago when she began the affair that led to Dday and the only one I am sure about. Part of her justification was that she had a healthy sex drive and *I* never seemed interested in sex! I guess I was supposed to just know, or else just keep trying to initiate things until she finally stopped rebuffing me. Then of course the excitement of her new relationship sent her libido into overdrive, so we started having more sex than at any time since before I first child had been born. But of course she didn’t stop the affair then, and I’m not sure that she ever did.
Point being, dead bedrooms do happen, but it doesn’t lead inevitably to cheating. Cheaters will find a justification, even if it is a blatant lie.
Same here. I went through the agony of a dead bedroom for six years while my ex was having his affair. I was dying inside from the sexual deprivation (as well as the confusion and despair, as I had no idea that there was a simple explanation, namely cheating). But like you, I never, never thought of having an affair myself, though there were plenty of men around who would have been happy to start something romantic with me, as I quickly found when I separated from FW.
How awful for you! The other day I was talking to a woman whose husband would not have sex with her for twenty years. Yeah, she actually stayed, which floored me. Then he suddenly started losing weight, dressing better, and you guessed it, it turned out he was cheating. When caught, he used the same lie, that she was the one who wasn’t interested in sex, because after years of rejection she had stopped trying to initiate.
These are very messed up people who tend to parentify their partners, then they lose interest in them sexually. It’s not about their sex drive, they just don’t see their partners as sexual beings.
They are unfit for a relationship. I don’t know if it’s any comfort, but at least the chump knows that they’re going to do the same thing to the schmoopie if that relationship becomes long term.
I had the opposite problem- a FW who was a sex pest, completely obsessed with sex, who would probably fuck a knothole in a tree if there was no other outlet available.
But these two extremes are really two sides of the same coin. They are people for whom sex is only dirty and transgressive, not ever a genuine expression of love and emotional intimacy. In truth, they don’t really like sex just for itself. What they enjoy about it is the feeling of being naughty and the power imbalance of keeping secrets.
For millennia, humans have been nomadic and many do not have permanent homes. Often it was “natural” to take over new lands and homes by force. If someone showed up at Dan’s digs and moved in, whether or not they booted him out, I’m sure he’d insist that what’s contractual (his ownership or lease) prevails over what’s “natural.”
Dan argued that infidelity is so common, shouldn’t we change our relationship model?
Actually, Dan has it backwards. The change, or evolution, was to establish monogamy as the relationship model and cultural norm. For the most part, those who don’t aspire and commit to it aren’t obligated to participate.
I doubt anyone in the RIC would tolerate a business partner secretly siphoning assets to an unknown silent partner. They’d dissolve the partnership. And quite possibly seek damages.
HAHAHAHA– best euphemism for sidefuck ever– “unknown silent partner.”
Civilizations that value monogamy tend to be more socially and economically stable.
I get it. During the separation and divorce, many of my long-term friends drifted away, and I was battling to support myself and our two college kids on basically three minimum-wage jobs for several years. Both kids were working two jobs each and found scholarships, thankfully. My ex paid support that covered our rent for a while, but that ended some months before the divorce was final. I wasn’t eligible for alimony per state guidelines.
I did recover and had friends that offered to take us in, but the whole thing was catastrophic.
I think CL has fairly well established that cheating in almost cases reported here is part of a wider course of conduct designed to dominate and control a partner and is therefore abuse. The question as to whether monogamy is natural is therefore somewhat of a red herring although of course a cheater will claim it is a social construct designed to entrap them and dan’s argument is used as yet another form of gaslighting and blame shifting (whilst then refusing to sign the divorce papers, sabotaging the target’s every effort to end the relationship and driving past the house 10 times to make sure the target isn’t practising “non monogamy” even though they’ve been separated for 5 years.)
I look forward to listening to the podcast but frankly people like this have either never been fucked over by a narc, or they are one.
ETA
And watch these slippery “we don’t have to follow the rules” sovereign citizen suckers, particularly those who may have something to lose in the family court with an equitable division of property (but she didn’t work for 5 years waaaaaahhhhhhhhh – yeah fuckwit she was at home with your kids scrubbing the loos, that’s a contribution). Mine’s favourite argument to reduce the asset pool was yes I am “technically” the owner of that asset/trust/company etc “but that’s just on paper”. Yes ownership of assets or money is another annoying “social construct” we need to selectively get rid of based on when it benefits the fuckwit.
I always count on your comments for the gourmet mix of deep insight and comic relief.
Thank you HOAC. They are kinda easy to make fun of whilst also not being very funny at all.
I “haha-wail/groan” a lot.
CL right, DS wrong. Go figure.
Its amazing that in the animal kingdom you can find so many instances of monogamy and life long partnerships, yet somehow FW enablers manage to convince us that this isnt natural order of humans, might as well round us up into a zoo and allow guilt free fornication devoid of any morals whatsoever
First of all: I am a queer woman that prefers women, partially because of severe sexual abuse by men (I’m bi and monogamous and find dating as bi monogamous woman extremely hard to navigate, but had to “nope” out of men 100% due to “sparkly” abuse). 2nd: straight male and queer chumps of any gender exist.
Having gotten that out of the way: I mean, this is… ugh. Dan Savage and you should be able to acknowledge that over 50% of gay male relationships are officially open. (I can provide links and sources if desired. I’m new to the site and am scared that I can’t just add links as that will flag my comment as spam.) Women do not have that desire to the same extent at all. There is a reason why grindr is so different than tinder that was originally supposed to be a het grindr! WOMEN.
There is a reason that Ashley Madison had 31 million straight male members and about 5 million straight women, although the majority of these straight women accounts were fake (did the documentary mention that?!) There were 70,500 bot accounts made to fake female interest targeting real straight men’s accounts.
In a survey with several thousand particpants with the question: “would you like to have sex with two or more different people in the span of a month?” Results: a shockingly low 30% of gay men said yes. 25% of straight men said yes. 5% of straight women said yes and 4% of lesbian women said yes.
This isn’t random! There is a pattern here. It should be possible to have these conversations as adults and acknowledge that (overall/average) men’s and women’s desires here are very very different.
I just tried to edit a single letter in my post (a typo that turned “sexual abuse by men” into “sexual abuse my men”) and now it says “awaiting for approval: Spam”. HELP, please!
“Monogamy isn’t natural.”
That statement is a slithery, sneaky way of saying that NOT being monogamous isn’t really bad. After all, who can fight urges that are part of our very being?
So, my response is: if violating monogamy isn’t unethical because lots of people cheat, then what about stealing?
Millions of people, every day, steal. Should we then conclude that being honest is not “natural,” and therefore we shouldn’t prosecute thieves? Are people who put locks on their doors — which, as near as I can tell, is everybody, including thieves — simply trying to force others to conform to a behavior that just isn’t possible for them?
What is “natural?” Appeal to Nature is a classic logical fallacy. Monogamy is not any less natural than wearing shoes or using money. In that sense laws, ethics, morality, and table manners are all suprememely unnatural. In a state of nature exploitation is the norm and might makes right. Emotions seem to be very natural, though. The extent to which an organism experiences emotions appears to be a function of its intelligence. Humans have the most complex brains, so we have the most complex emotions. The negative emotional response to being taken advantage of is fairly universal. Jealousy is common in a multitude of contexts, not just sexual relationships. In turns out that managing jealousy and fairness in non-monogamous relationships is more complex than in monogamy. Ethical non-monogamous relationships tend to have many rules about who you can fuck. Monogamy only has one.
Mr. Savage’s suggestion that because infidelity is common, it is “natural” and therefore good is simply illogical. But to say that because monogamy is “unnatural” we need to impose some other (artificial) “relationship model” is a nonsequitor. Whatever “relationship model” society comes up with to impose on individuals is by definition “unnatural.”
For those of us lucky enough to live in the USA, or other free countries where marriage equality exists and only the most exploitative relationships are banned, ie. polygamy, child-marriage, we are free to negotiate whatever arraingements we think suit us.
By the looks of it, Mr. Savage is a happy, well-adjusted person who is satisfied with his relationship(s). It’s just not clear to me what problem he is trying to solve.
I like Dan Savage too. Sex can be important! Weird! Fun! Artistic! Consensual non-monogamy, fine! IMO it is the LIES and deception that damage people; any unilateral decision without consent. Usurping their agency in their own lives. Keeping them ignorant (even though there may be important consequences).