Has anyone read the cover story of the most recent New York mag? It's called "The Affairs of Men," and the cover shot is of a "happily married" guy lying next to some chick in lingerie that's "not his wife." Hmm.
The basic premise of Philip Weiss' piece is that men need variety, they're hard-wired to want to monopolize the sex and emotional lives of as many women as possible, and that sexual exclusivity is unnatural and unfeasible. Someone he calls a "forward-thinking friend" claims that "we make the mistake of thinking some people have a stronger will, they don't." Is it safe to say that people, and women in particular, should man up and embrace the reality of never really being enough for someone, just by virtue of not being more than one person?
It's human nature to like variety. And maybe the idea of total monogamy is in fact unrealistic. If that's the case, why is marriage a (the?) primary institution in our society? Did Indian maharajas, who married multiple wives and also kept thousands of courtesans, have it right? In the words of Kris Kristofferson, we want constant and guilt-free access to "some strange."
"Why does society consider it more moral for you to break up a marriage, go through a divorce, disrupt your children's lives maybe forever, just to be able to fuck someone with whom the fucking is going to get just as boring as it was with the first person before long?" --Susan Squire, author of I Don'tStrange that there should be such a premium placed on monogamy when there exists this universal and hovering sense of inadequacy. What kind of magic is monogamy doing that it makes us believe that all of our intellectual, sexual, and emotional needs can be met by one person?
Some interesting things in this article, if you choose not to read it for yourself:
*Average number of partners for men throughout their lives is 35. For women, it's 6.
*27% of people have fantasized about someone else while in the act with their partner.
*Men can feel perfectly happy and satisfied with their partners, and still cheat.
*A woman's affair is more likely to be long, emotional, and undetected.
"A relationship is a myth you create with each other. It isn't necessarily true, but it's meaningful. The key to that myth is that the other person is enough for you. You know in your head that one other person isn't enough for you. But if you don't honor the myth, then it crumbles."I know this post is long and probably somewhat byzantine, but I'm wondering if we just need to completely revamp our idea of what a healthy relationship looks like. If human nature necessitates variety in all aspects of life, including love/romantic relationships/sexual partners, then we need to get real and stop seeing marriage and monogamy as the only feasible options. If human nature is equally comprised of irrationality and emotions, then things like hurt, jealousy, betrayal, etc. prevent us from being ready to move past that courting-dating-marriage-kids model. So what's the solution?
7 comments:
On the most basic level sex is a rigged game of hot potato and whenever the music stops the chick is always left holding the bag. Playing a game you can only lose isn’t much fun and if you can’t lose why wouldn’t you play as often as you could? I think this is a crass way of explaining the respective tendencies of men and women towards sexual polygamy and monogamy. You see it play out in nature all the time, and no matter how often we consider ourselves creatures of reasoning, as animals we are often moved by our baser instincts.
As for marriage being the primary institution of our society, it’s because it was logistically necessary for a society to function. A woman raising kids by herself, until the last 50 years, was way too difficult and unrealistic. And despite the fact that today there are many men who are willing to do it, given a choice, no guy wants to raise another man’s kids. When you throw that in with a guy’s possessive and jealous nature when it comes to his woman, the institution of marriage prevented a lot of arguments, fights, and unnecessary beef. If you disagree explain why nearly every civilization had some form of marriage. It was the only way that made sense. If you were a king then you had the resources to provide for plenty of women, so you got a free pass and were an exception to the societal rule. Today the structure of society has changed and naturally certain problems have come to the front mainly sexual relationships outside of a relationship.
There is a difference between the general meaning of sex to men and women and while you don’t need to agree with it, if you don’t understand and accept that, it’s pointless to try and have a conversation. For women the desire for sex is almost always preceded by an emotional connection on some level. Even a one night stand is usually predicated by the woman feeling some sort of emotion. Case and point, a woman will not sleep with a guy she feels indifferent about no matter how attractive he may be. This is what meat heads never seem to understand. With guys this isn’t the case, a woman just has to be attractive and the flame is burning hard, an emotional connection usually almost always happens after the physical attraction. Assuming that in a normal relationship between two people that third party has an interest, it is more likely that the man in the relationship will have give in to having sex than that the woman will. As a result, why by no means impossible, it is not surprising that men have sex outside of their relationship more often then women. Please notice that I’ve always said sex and not cheat.
In the world of women there are two types of cheating, one of which is completely oblivious to men as a whole, but for the sake of fairness should not be left out; emotional cheating. I understand what emotional cheating is but it still really doesn’t make much sense to me or get to me so I’m not going to explain it. Suffice it to say, chicks do this all the time. In fact I’m willing to bet that if emotional cheating were counted as a statistic, women would out rank men in terms of cheating overall, because they do it all the time. Furthermore women count emotional cheating as worse than actually physical cheating, which makes the complaints of the rate of male infidelity all the more hypocritical. So basically, it’s kind of the same on both sides of the fence and therefore the desire for variety isn’t “a male problem” and more just human desire and we have try to keep it check like so many other things.
Considering all that I think that a completely monogamous relationship is possible but it contains a caveat and that is that in a relationship everyone needs attention. Men need lots of physical attention and women need a lot of emotional attention, and if they’re not getting their cooking at home they’re going to go out and eat.
The words that immediately come to mind from reading this post are "the old cow syndrome" from the movie "Someone like you." The whole idea is that men do not want to sleep with the same woman after a certain amount of time. While I am a bit disheartened by the article, I am also equally hopeful because I know there are a lot of men in the world who don't suffer form the "old cow syndrome." I can honestly say from personal experiences that such men do exist. I don't mean to imply that there are men who are not controlled by "the other head," but where there is a negative there has got to be a positive. So for those of us women who have been lucky and blessed enough not have met the skanky ones, let's enjoy our good fortune and hope that one day the "cheaters" realize that maybe stability and faithfulness isn't such a terrible thing.
The thing that bothers me is not that they think stabiity and being faithful are bad qualities. It's that while they may think those things are great, people have an inherent and undeniable need for more. You want what you can't have, something amazing gets tired due to longevity alone, etc. And worst of all, it's kind of built into us. We're very animialistic in that way.
g's up, hoes down
im sorry, i had to.. im just kidding.
this whole conversation you brought up really seems to me to be male-dependent. "They, they, they." The thing is, men only do what girls allow them to. And cheating men are allowed to because most likely they are cheating on an insecure woman. Of course there exist guys out there who are decent and are not anti-monogamous in nature. The thing is, so many girls tend to fall for the guys they know will be shady when it comes other women. How many times have you crushed on the bad boy versus the good guy? How many times has a good guy turned out to be a platonic friend?
Enough with the "they, they, they." If you demand a decent guy, you'll get one. If you settle for a cheater, well then you'll get that too. But don't lament over a ridiculous sentiment that most-to-all guys are anti-monogamous. That's just silly.
I suppose I was making it a male thing, when in fact human nature of course applies to both sexes. I do think that men are more prone to cheat, though. And the whole bad boy thing is also a gender stereotype. I'm with a "good guy" and "bad boy" types annoy me with how cool they think they are, for the most part. I think women just like to be with men who are good to them, but also aren't afraid to be a little authoritative and aggressive.
Anyway I didn't mean to offend by saying that all guys are anti-monogamous. I really, really hope that's not the case. The article was just disheartening, coming from a man who thinks this is true of all men. Yet another justification for cheating, I guess. "Every guy does it. I'm a man, this is how I am." Etc. Glad to hear you're not such a douche :)
This reminds me of the old saying there's no p**sy like new p**sy and I honestly just don't think there is a man out there that does not cheat...sadenning but true...however there are men who know the difference between a wife/main girl and a side chic and in honoring those, that's what makes relationships work these days
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