Biologists distinguish sexual monogamy from social monogamy. As DNA testing has grown cheaper in recent years, we’ve learned that most species formerly classified as “monogamous” (primarily birds) are socially monogamous, but not sexually so. In other words, they form pairs that cooperatively care for that season’s brood of young, but the male may well not be the biological father. Applied to humans, we argue that a more flexible approach to sexual fidelity can increase marital stability and thus lead to greater social and family stability.
The problem I have with this is that there are plenty of things humans do that aren't natural, but are all for the better. Such as not raping or pillaging, or other activities that primates excel at. Also, it's sort of hard to argue for any activity based on the fact that birds do it. Birds are cold. reptilian, beastly things with beautiful plumage. My other quibble is with the term "family stability" which seems to imply "married with children". I suppose I should mention here that my wife and I take a, um, "flexible approach to sexual fidelity", so I'm not really one to talk, but it's hard for me to think that people with children shouldn't be monogamous. Well, or be really good at keeping things from the kids, who likely wouldn't get non-monogamy.
This passage I find a bit irritating, for reasons I can't explain:
Another problem is that most people in the West marry because they’re “in love,” which is a temporary, blissfully delusional state we should enjoy, but not expect to last forever. As the German poet, Goethe put it, “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing. A confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.”Okay, well, I'll try to explain. It annoys me when people make the distinction between the initial thrill of falling in love and the day-to-day work of a romantic relationship and suggest the two are diametrically opposed. While that initial rush certainly fades, I find that it comes back in waves that are, let's be honest, much more manageable than the initial swooning and dizziness. Birthdays, weekends, anniversaries, other people's weddings: quite often I am blissfully and delusionally in love. The rest of the time, we're best friends who love each other deeply and like to screw. But I don't get where people get this idea that "love" disappears once you start doing laundry together.
13 comments:
Different, but not diametrically opposed. My point was that "being in love" is different from "loving" a person. Hope you read the book and let us know what you think.
CPR
sexatdawn.com
Absolutely I will. Thanks for the clarification.
I..... want to play. I really do.
But part of me thinks this is pointless. I suspect we are all much too close to nowishness to see the currently successful strategy for our species, and it is almost certainly in flux anyway. Not only is it pretty clear that our chief survival trait is adaptability, and that we do it without much provocation, often adapting just to see if changing something would be better even if the way we were already doing it was working just fine, but there is SO MUCH OTHER STUFF GOING ON that isolating one single and very likely insignificant aspect of our complex relationship to each other and the world is ...
... well. It's trying my patience, is what it is.
Just on that one referee FAQ page, the thing about how we *could* work the night shift but we should know it will give us night-shift cancer. So..... uh... that's a pretty bold comparison. I don't have a copy of this book, but I have some serious reservations about jumping on the train of worrying about getting monogamy cancer.
So.... I don't have the book, and likely won't find a copy of it here. I don't really see much in the hype to make me want to read the book. Maybe the problem is that I see this as a non-conversation to start with.... 'cause I already think emotional attachment and genital contact are separate issues. Call me old fashioned. And, I agree, love and in love aren't the same (I actually subscribe to that eros / philia / agape thing.)
Yeah, I think human nature is amazingly malleable. That's where I'm not so concerned if people alter their nature through engineering, which is actually something I find fascinating anyway. Some things probably aren't smart- tanning beds, for example. But it seems to me that the majority of people do better in monogamous relationships simply because they're more psychologically comforting to them. A lot of people do see love and sex as being the same thing, or at least think that they're the same thing to their partner, and so non-monogamy would be traumatic for them. I'm not pro-trauma. If people are happy, more power to them. And if they're somehow deceiving themselves, it's hard for me to know if that self-deception is any worse than the old lady who thinks her cat genuinely admires her.
What I will admit I can't understand are people whose spouse has too much to drink at a party and winds up bumping uglies with a friend and so they get divorced over it- sex seems too inconsequential and unserious for such drastic measures, and, frankly, I can't imagine my wife having an orgasm that somehow causes her to lose feelings for me, outside of a sci-fi novel or the Playboy Advisor.
And, yeah, currently she's having them with her friend as well. Actually, the posting has been slower partly because the laptop's not here half the week. But the point is it's pretty hard for me to conceptualize how her having orgasms when she's not here has any significant bearing on our relationship when she is here. Jealousy hasn't been an issue, and maybe it's because her friend's a girl. But I think it's really because our relationship is really strong. We worship the ground that each other walks on.
(And, for the record, we've talked about where this can be discussed and with whom, so I'm not divulging family secrets here. However, as you can imagine, it's not something one can discuss with the majority of people we know.)
Sure, I almost got into that, too, but figured I was already prattling on enough.... 'that' being people choosing monogamy for reasons of maintaining their primary relationship. The flip side of sex being a relatively low value item (in relation to how much one might treasure a long-term partner) is that one can also choose sexual monogamy in order to honor the partner's emotional boundaries.
It would surprise me to find many people who find workable ways to get emotional support from one person, sex somewhere else, physical support another place (food / clothing / shelter stuff), and, should you be the kind of animal who has offspring, which of your partners raises your kids? Sure, divorces, custody arrangements, etc are pretty commonplace these days, but it is also pretty clear that they aren't exactly the springboard to success for the next generation.
also..... I don't think those people are getting divorced over a drunken misjudgment. I think it's more just a technicality that lets them out, because somehow it is not OK to admit that you chose a life partner poorly, with perhaps a totally useless set of criteria. Divorcing someone for not being who you wanted them to be isn't really a thing...
That could be residue from the laws. New York was the last to get rid of the law wherein you had to prove adultery or abuse to get divorced, just last week, but they used to be pretty common. I think people feel like they have to come up with grandiose reasons to divorce, when quite often it's just what you said- the person is not who they thought they were.
I'm sort of old-fashioned about the kids- I think people with them should be monogamous just because I can't see how you'd explain it to children without harming their sense of the world. Also, while I'm quite okay with sexual non-monogamy, I do wonder how people maintain multiple romantic relationships, which seems really taxing to me.
Okay "harming their sense of the world" sounds too dramatic. I just don't think a kid would understand really. That's all. Plenty of adults don't.
Is it wrong for your child's sense of the world to include the idea that adults who can't get along should leave each other alone?
(My parents' divorce was a HUGE relief for me, and I was very cross with them for waiting as long as they did. Staying together 'for the children' essentially destroyed my adolescent life and severely warped my notions of how married life worked. Ironically, they weren't staying together for me, they stayed together until my older brother graduated and moved out, and then split up. So much for being the precious baby of the family... )
Oh, I don't mean staying together for the children. I think that's probably something that depends on the situation. I was sort of indifferent when my parents divorced really.
I mean as far as the non-monogamy stuff. It's easy for Claire to sleep over with her girlfriend a few times a week because I'm fine with it and the cat couldn't care less. I don't really know how I'd explain it to a kid if we had one though. Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way.
Enh, are there not lots of cultures where the norm is for one or both parents to get some outside the marriage? Surely the children are aware of this at least peripherally if not directly.
Yeah, and I could just be a product of North America and its fucked up ideas about childrearing on this one. Children are enmeshed in their parents' lives to an unhealthy degree here I think.
What you're talking about is certainly accepted in France. Actually, the term "French marriage" is still used for a situation with Him, Her, and their lovers on the side. And I think they just don't worry about explaining it to the kids.
But, they're sort of different in all aspects of childrearing in France. The parents still have lives of their own, instead of being totally obsessed with their kids for 20 years or so. French parents almost seem indifferent compared to Americans. One thing that used to amuse me was watching French parents walking briskly down the street, arguing about politics or whatever, with the little child running behind trying to keep up with them. They do not have "helicopter parents" there.
I've often thought American parents are a little too obsessive about their kids. I realize there are benefits to this, but there are *definitely* disadvantages. One of the big ones being that a lot of people never seem to grow the hell up.
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