.
“Bigamy is having one too many wives. Monogamy is the same.” – Good old Oscar Wilde. Not sure we can rely on him for a full working knowledge of heterosexual monogamy but I like the quote regardless.
“I can’t fly a flag for monogamy or whatever the opposite is; it depends on the person and the situation.”
And here is one from that well known philosopher, Sting. Yes, he of the Geordie teacher turned musician. I rather like his notion that he cannot think of the opposite for monogamy and the fact that he is quite clear that it is all about the context.
“Marriage requires a special talent, like acting. Monogamy requires genius.” – Warren Beatty. He’s always had a fairly healthy non-monogamous attitude to life. Yet he apparently changed his behaviour on meeting Annette Benning, who he married eighteen years ago when he was in his mid fifties. Has he become a genius?
“A man is only as faithful as his opportunity.” – You’d have thought this quote came from a woman but this one is actually from Chris Rock.
“Men would like monogamy better if it sounded less like monotony.” - Another comedian but this time it is a woman – Rita Rudner.
According to the radio the other day, monogamy is God’s will. It is the natural order of how we should live.
Apparently, the reason that it is bad luck to see a single magpie is because they mate for life, and therefore it is deemed unlucky that one is flying around on his or her own.
I was once told that birds are the most monogamous of species. Once they have mated, in the main, they tend to stick together. Well, that is what I thought until I did a small piece of research that I will return to later.
From the shortest of Google searches, and certainly not a complete study of the subject, it appears that, for western society, monogamy can be tracked back to the Romans and the Greeks before them, even though the leaders were hardly the most monogamous people in the world. They were advocates of monogamy and this became the norm in western society for the thousands of years since.
Looking back further to prehistoric times it appears that, according to artifacts found, stone-age women had sex for recreational purposes and not, as had been previously thought, merely for procreation. Discoveries from these times include a range of wooden dildos. Some of these have voluptuous bodies, delighting in and celebrating the female form, often without a face to accentuate the wonderment of the big boobs and open fannies that are creatively crafted.
It was only when the “hunter/gatherer” societal changes came into play that people became monogamous; over-protective about their domain, their possessions which apparently included their partner.
How funny that when talking about sex there is that notion that we should talk about the “birds and the bees” as the simplistic take on sexual behaviour.
Well let’s just do that, because their sexual behaviour is hardly monogamous.
As I stated previously, I had always heard that birds mated for life but apparently this isn’t strictly true. Although a large majority of birds only have one partner with which they procreate, they tend to have sex with quite a few of their species. Birds may have one “life partner” but they fuck around with whoever they feel like and once more, not merely for procreation.
As for bees, well that is clearly a matriarchal society where the queen not only decides who she is having sex with but she also manages to store sperm, thus deciding which eggs are going to be fertilized and which are not. In doing this, she also determines the sex of the offspring with the fertilized eggs becoming female and the non-fertilized becoming male – the drones.
Looking at our closest animal relatives, there is no suggestion of monogamous behaviour in chimpanzees. As for Bonobos, they are certainly worth having a look at. They live a very civilized and peaceful existence. They seem to live in a communal way and have sex in what we might deem to be a promiscuous manner. They have sex after they have had an argument as a means for making up and calming down. They have different sexual positions that is unusual for animals who normally have sex in exactly the same position. They have heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual sex and they are far from monogamous.
According to current research only 3-5% of mammals are monogamous and even these animals, such as otters, beavers and foxes have a little play around on the side from time to time. It is also pointed out that these mammals that are monogamous are reliant on systems of support, like the beaver needing company to build a dam. Therefore monogamy has developed as a practical solution to the necessities of life.
Research also suggests that, in the main in the animal kingdom, males are biologically determined to “spread their seed” whilst females are programmed to get the best genes from the best males.
But of course, we are not animals. We are superior beings with a multitude of intelligences, agilities and dexterities unknown and seemingly impossible for the simple animal-life around us. Survival of the fittest and all that!
That is the excuse that some people would use to further their determined stance on “natural orders” in relation to monogamy. Add to this the dogma of religious doctrine and the notion that it is “God’s will” that we maintain monogamous relationships - and is it any wonder that people feel that this is the way that they have to live their lives? Like it or not, beliefs in a deity of one sort or another, from Greek mythology to the emergence of Christianity and other western religions, has shaped the way our society behaves.
But of course, we are animals. We may have the means and the ability to communicate by speaking and writing but we are still animals with an instinctual intelligence to fight, flee and fuck. These are an integral part of our being - just as they are in the rest of the animal kingdom. How often do we actually follow our instincts, especially when so much of our western teachings dictate how we live our lives - and thereby contradict that instinctual understanding?
How can we rethink when we have been so conditioned to one way of living that this in itself seems to be an instinct? But one could hardly call monogamy an instinct!
I have been surrounded by monogamy all of my life. There’s been the odd divorce here and there in my family but in essence, it appears that we are a pretty monogamous bunch of people. The learned behaviour has become instinctual. Expectation is that we remain faithful to one partner, hopefully for life, and that if one gets tired of the situation, then one should just stoically get on with it!
Although this may be an extreme, there are hundreds and thousands of families who think in the same way. They might say that they are more liberal in thinking but society expects monogamy. Look at the way people have formed opinions in an extremely set manner about the likes of John Terry and Tiger Woods about their alleged infidelity?
One thing that I found very difficult, almost impossible to ignore, was this instinct for behaving in a certain way. It was and is very real. I have often said that I cannot be ashamed or upset by behaving in a way that seemed the most natural thing to do. How could something so utterly wonderful, something that seems so totally life-giving be the wrong thing to do? Maybe animals that fuck around feel the same way? May be animals are far more in tune with their instinctual intelligence than many humans are? Who was it who decided that this instinctual behaviour should be relegated to second class rating?
But I don’t fuck around!
I am actually beginning to worry about my commitment to monogamy, whether it is so deeply embedded in me that I may never be able to shake its shackles clear from my mind. I appreciate that is a pretty odd statement from someone who is allegedly ‘playing away’. I am just having an ‘honesty’ moment. It might disappear in a while.
On the radio the other day, the debate was about whether humans could remain monogamous, but it was a non-debate in a sense because all of those present actually practiced monogamy even if they were slightly differing on the reasons why. Also, the debate was set in a religious framework which meant that alternatives to monogamy were somewhat limited and predictable. However, there was one person there who explained that polygamy was allowed under Islam as long as the man provided equal love, care and devotion to each of his wives, and that he took no more than four at a time. Naturally, under Islamic law a woman is not allowed to take four husbands. Another of the contributors was suggesting that we probably ought to have a look at the alternatives to monogamy and that there were plenty of places within the bible where polyandrous situations were recorded.
However, it was only when they talked to a man who was living with two other women where the comments became more interesting. This man had emigrated to Eastern Europe so that he could live without prying eyes and tutting. His initial partner had been involved with the other woman. He had then started seeing and presumably fucking the other woman until they all agreed that they could live happily together as a threesome.
To be honest, I’m not sure that is the way that I would like to live but I would never rule it out. There may come a time in my life when that is precisely what I want. It’s just not what I want at the moment and without any tone of admonishment – each to his or her own!
The one statement that really hit home was relative to promiscuity. Once more, there is an assumption that if you are not monogamous then you are, by default, promiscuous. The very fact that you are prepared to have sex outside the monogamous relationship, according to some in society, means that you are promiscuous.
I am not promiscuous. The woman on the programme agreed with me. I choose to have a relationship with another person but that does not mean that I want to sleep with every Dick I see. In some ways, life would almost be simpler if that were the case.
I think it is probably about time that, as a society, we really looked in greater detail about how we actually use words such as these, that are loaded with insinuation and inaccuracy.
Here’s another example of inappropriate words and sex.
Recently, a friend of a friend phoned up and said that she was worried that her ex-partner was, and I quote, “shagging around”. In reality, she is worried that he has found another lover but the way that she expressed that fear is also loaded with insinuation just by the use of the word “shagging”.
“Shagging” is seen as coarse, as promiscuous, as animal-like. She is actually worried that he has fallen in love with someone else not that he is fucking every fanny that he falls upon.
As it happens, he is shagging around - but is “shagging” the right word to use when it is so full of negative tones?
He has explicitly said that he has no commitments. The one person that he is regularly having sex with actually encourages him to have sex with other people and wants to know the details of his encounters. He is careful to ensure that he is maintaining his sexual health and those whom he chooses to fuck. So what crime is he actually committing? None as far as I am concerned.
He is having sex with a range of women and he is accepting that at this point in his life he does not want a monogamous relationship. Good on him!
Another comment from the radio programme was that in order to be polygamous or polyandrous, one probably needed to have a high level of emotional intelligence, or rather that one could reason and condition the destructive emotions that so frequently seep into such situations, like envy, jealousy, anger, infuriation, etcetera.
I think this is probably true. In order to have a polyandrous existence, it doesn’t mean that you should never have a jealous thought in your head, although that would be a wonderful blessing. It just means that when those jealous thoughts creep in that they are managed and understood to be the destructive emotions that they are and that they should be eradicated as quickly as possible if you are going to live peacefully and unperturbed in your chosen form of sharing life in a different way.
It’s strange and quirky that in my research on this subject, I should come across that quote from Sting. As a woman in her forties, I grew up with a slight adoration of the iconic, spiky blonde. If I was a decade earlier, it might have been another such pop idol and a decade earlier still, I may have looked to the Beatles or Elvis.
But what Sting says is absolutely true.
What precisely is the opposite of monogamy? Even scientists have recognized that there are different forms of monogamy and in some instances the monogamy of animal life is pretty similar to what we so bitingly refer to as “serial monogamy”.
Not only can we not determine the opposite of monogamy but we have to face each situation and each person in their own way. It absolutely depends on “the person and the situation”.
Sting himself has been hounded by the tabloids for having sex with others outside his marriage. Yet the tantric one probably agreed to this with his wife. From what I can gather, Trudi likes to dabble as much as her partner. They effectively have a committed relationship which is essentially monogamous but they enjoy recreational sex with other people involved, either as a couple or individually.
Haven’t they probably got it just about right?
Sometimes, I think so.
Sometimes I think that is precisely what I would like in life – which is why I am sure that the shackles of preconditioned thinking are so hard to break.
Somewhere along the line, somehow, I have fallen for the monogamy bug but by circumstances and by thought, I cannot reason that this is the way to live. I choose not to be monogamous but even if I didn’t, even if I was totally faithful, I could not believe that everyone should be partnered for life.
I married in my early twenties. I am simply not the same human being as I was then. I may be a different person now to how I am in twenty years time. Thankfully life is not that stagnant.
People should be free to live their lives how they do, and they shouldn’t be seen as monogamists behaving badly.
Everybody has their ideal and sometimes that ideal fluctuates.
Right now, I am somewhat envious of Sting and his partner.
Isn’t it possible that monogamy is feasible with a glorious amount of recreational sex thrown in?
Ultimately, that sounds good to me, but it is equally possible for a person to care for two people, have sexual relationship with two people (or more) and be totally committed to both.
Maybe it boils down to honesty and trust once more, as it does with so many things in life.
.
