Mə-nŏg’ə-mē
January 3, 2008
Monogamy, the practice of having sex solely with the person to whom one is committed, is a discipline (no doubt) that, it seems, is losing popularity. That being said, monogamy continues to appeal to me.
Monogamy appeals to me, in part, because the other options don’t feel right. I was somewhat surprised to find my orientation toward monogamy reflected by Aiden Shaw, in his new book: My Undoing: Love in the Thick of Sex, Drugs, Pornography, and Prostitution (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006).
Shaw falls for Luke, a guy described as ‘lovely’; Luke and Shaw meet while performing a scene in a porn flick…and hit it off. Later the question of an ‘open relationship’ surfaces and Shaw writes, ‘I pictured Luke kissing Ashley [who was interested in having sex with Shaw and Luke at a New Year's Eve party], which gave me a strange sensation in my stomach. Intimacy and sex had been toyed with too much in my life; I wanted a monogamous boyfriend‘ (37).
I resonate with Shaw’s sentiments. There is something ’strange’ about sharing the object of one’s affection (OA, not to sound too corny) with others–sexually. But why? Sex, intimacy, and stability are associated, in my world, and, therefore, sharing OA, in the sense being spoken of here, suggests the lack of intimacy and stability. And stability is essential for me - if I am to be open and real with OA.
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Implied, of course, is that sex is significant. If sex is not significant because it is not a primary means of sharing intimacy and creating stability to the end of nurturing a particular way of being in relationship with the other - then monogamy is ridiculous. In my view, ‘just sex’ is nonsensical. The fact that we have come to believe in ‘just sex’ suggests the power of a certain, selective Buddhism: make a ‘purchase’ and feel no responsibility for it.
I also find the argument that human beings are not ‘constituted’ to be monogamous to be unpersuasive. It may very well be true that human beings are not ‘constituted’ to be monogamous. I am also reminded, by Philip Hefner’s The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993 - see part 4: ‘Culture’), that human beings are not ‘constituted’ to love the other; that is, trans-kin altruism does not come ‘naturally’ to human beings. Does it follow, then, that we should not love the other? I don’t think so.
It comes down to this: what might I become if I practice monogamy? Disciplines don’t come naturally, it seems to me. One practices disciplines for that very reason: they open up possibilities that would otherwise be impossibilities. Perhaps monogamy could be construed as a discipline of turning to the other - to that which is ‘beyond myself.’
There is another view…the proponents of this view also affirm the significance of sex. Sex is not significant, in this view, because of the effects of sex on US but because of what sex means for ME. We are no longer free to not have sex. A friend of mine revealed that his boyfriend (of, I think, 7 years) is the first and is the only person with whom he had / has had sex. I thought, I think out loud (as is my custom), “Wow! Really?!”
The thought of having sex with only one person in a lifetime (and I hope that for him) feels like an abyss to many (and I cannot say I, myself, have not felt this way). There is a certain way in which sex has become the most powerful means of self-affirmation. If I can ‘get’ guys that look like X, Y, Z and if I can have as much creative/good sex as possible - I, therefore, will be/must be valuable. I cannot deny the felt power of this perspective, and yet I find it to be a false, tiresome, and tragic (because we pass up wonderful people in this process … and find ourselves complaining about being alone or saying ‘men are pigs’) view.
I don’t think monogamy is magic; that is, there is no guarantee that because one is monogamous one’s relationship will last forever. I can only suggest that monogamy is an affirmation of limits: I am not free to be for myself; I am as I am for the other.
PS: Perhaps this is a better post (I have always liked this guy).
Posted by Tony 
Posted in Pop Culture, Posts by Tony, Queer / Theology
January 4th, 2008 at 12:42 am
“Fidelity pledges, whether to nations or marriages, do hold particular property relations in place: break those vows and anything might happen. Sentimentality should not cause us to lose sight of the fact that marriage always was and is an economic institution; additionally, that private property always required monogamous marriage to insure patrilineal property distribution through inheritance. (A distribution that is only really ensured to the extent that wives can be convinced to bed only their own husbands, one explanation for why women’s sexuality was always more closely policed than men’s. And why women need to be inculcated with a higher degree of sexual repression than men, so that bedding anyone but their own husbands would be all the more unthinkable.) If this mattered more in an era when wealth was based on landholdings rather than on more recent forms of cultural capital like professional expertise, the old ideology and its moral codes still linger — finding other rationales and justifications to attach themselves as necessary. Now monogamy is required for general stability and the “national fabric” rather than the transmission of family estates: same medicine, new package.” Kipnis, Against Love, 184
You’ve fallen into the misogynistic trap, Tony.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Tony,
For all the other intellectual cogitations you go through in this post, I think you hit it right on the head in the third sentence: “Monogamy appeals to me, in part, because the other options don’t feel right.” I can follow all the various arguments for non-monogomy or polyamory or intellectually (or even the sorts of things that Jason here quotes), but when it gets down to the “feeling”, they just don’t feel right for me. And I think many of us intellectual types can often use a little reminding to pay attention to feelings more often. One of my biggest problems with many so-called queer theologians (including some of the ones under whose tutelage I have directly studied) is their tendency toward a slight judgmentalism against those of us who would practice monogamy, even if our reason not one of principle but one of “feeling right” for us.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Ok, you’re right that the other guy’s post captures it well too: “I respect anyone’s choice to have an open relationship with his boyfriend or no relationship at all, so please respect mine. It’s not my fault I was born into a generation that thinks being gay is OK, that doesn’t try to mask sexuality with sex, that isn’t afraid to find love.” (emphasis added)
January 4th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Jason and Matt (Matt, btw, I have not forgotten about your language question): Thanks for your comments.
Jason: The quote is a bit confusing because the author plays with important terms that I don’t run together. For instance, I don’t associate monogamy with marriage. In addition, ‘fidelity pledges’ - a bit of a redundancy - are, I think, the foundation of all types of relations, whether monogamous or not (and don’t, necessarily, leave the relationship open to ‘anything’ if broken)? The overall feel I get from the quote is that monogamy reinforces oppressive power structures (e.g., those that oppress women - woman as property of the male) . And, if we are taking about monogamy as it is applied to marriage, and if we are taking about making a choice for this type of relationship due to some kind of ‘cultural pressure,’ then I don’t think there is a fundamental problem with the author’s argument. However, the argument I made is different.
I attempted to argue for a type of self-art, if you will. Whereas certain forms of monogamy may lead to the idea of owning the other, certain forms of non-monogamy can lead to irresponsibility for the other…based on a shallow anthropology. I am arguing for monogamy not because I feel comfortable with possessing the other…but because I don’t feel comfortable with the self that forms by moving in a different direction; Monogamy seems to open up a way of being that is other directed.
This choice for monogamy, then, has nothing to do with ‘marriage’ or ‘ownership’ nor is it the result of societal pressure or the need for professional status nor is it ‘required’. It’s a simple means of working toward being for the other.
Matt: I did not want to make a moral argument for monogamy, so I began with my feelings about the topic. And you’re right: in many respects, the feeling is argument enough. I do, however, think that feelings are connected to specific, underlying assumptions, thoughts, theologies we hold about the world in which we live. I have attempted, here, to connect the feelings to some thoughts…and add some thoughts that make way for the feelings.
And I hear you re: the judgment you felt at that fine theological institution. I cannot say I did not get some of that, myself.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I have to agree with you and Matt. It just feels right. Hell, its the safest bet in a world filled with venereal disease. In fact as an anthropologist, I read that monogamy may just be the outcome of several millennia of social evolution. That other forms of marriage or companionship have proven not to be what’s best for the individuals involved.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Glad I found your blog!
Thought provoking especially with monogamy as something that is constitutive of ones- self as related to the other. And that is key. It is not the degree to which one’s love for there other is that which holds or possesses the other, but the degree to which the relationship with the other is a medium for freedom. That is what I found with marriage, but only after I was perfectly well off not being married. Trying to find one’s self in the other is not effective and I think people trap themselves there. It becomes an idealization of what you want in someone else to echo what you want to be for yourself. When the ideal and the reality do not match it creates despair - that and an entire online dating industry among other venues.
So love is a relation of how one can find freedom to be one’s self in relationship with an other. This is a key component in how one understands theological anthropology as much as how one understands the ability for love to allow an other to be an other - unconstrained by your own desire. And it is here that we find freedom.