Why emphasise on monogamy?

[robvalue]

Connected with less violent crime? What does this mean?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Monogamy helps to create more stable social relationships, is connected with less violent crime, is a more obvious source of financial and emotional support for children and helps people break out of the selfishness of seeking sex for the purpose of hedonistic indulgence (which treats people as a means to an end).

Sex is actually just two consenting people (or maybe more, who knows?) who want to use their sexual organs for some gratification with others who are of the same mind. 

Maybe some people *want* to be a means for an end, or maybe some people just have a lust for one another and want to fuck. Nothing wrong with that at all, and thinking there is, leaves you about a century behind the rest of us. 

If I want to indulge in some hedonism (oh, and I do, frequently), then I will. ^_^

[CapnAwesome]

While people may want more then one partner, they normally (and contradictory) want their partners to sleep only with them. So that biology argument goes both ways. Monogamy on a macro level is what is best for society. Every polygamist (Men marrying more then one woman, not free love which is very different) culture has treated women like shit, every single one, from ancient polygamist societies to modern Muslims or Fundamentalist Mormons. These cultures also produce a huge excess of horny young men with no outlet, which destabilizes things for an obvious reason.

[bennyboy]

Fuck all the people you want, or be loyal to one person. In the end, it's your life and you should do whatever the hell makes you happy and not give a fuck what others think.

Even my wife?  Because fucking all the people I want and doing whatever the hell makes me happy will have exactly one person hurt by it. I've often desired, and occasionally had the chance, to have sex with women who are not my wife. But so far I haven't done so, despite the very great desire to do so, because I can imagine how my wife's face would look if she ever found out about it.

Should I tell her to stop holding me down and let me live my life? I don't imagine that conversation going well. I will get much more freedom than I probably want, I'm guessing.

[Foxaèr]

Humans are of the primate species.

A common trait within the primate species, though it is not a solidarity, is that polygamy is common.

From a scientific perspective, monogamy is quite unnatural.

We humans have delegated unto ourselves this misconception that we must be monogamous. The fact that a huge percentage of the world's population cheat on their partners is a testament to that fact.

[Esquilax]

If we biologically were are programmed to want more partners, and even dissatisfied with one partner over time (biologically that is), why emphasise on monogamy?

So... you do understand the complete shitshow that is biological development via evolution, right? Why are you talking about a blind process influenced by environmental factors that are completely heedless to common sense as though it's some perfectly rational path to the most optimal organic configuration based on the facts involved?

It's not. Ask literally anybody and they'll tell you the problems with their biology. Imperfect design prevails at every level of human beings.

[Foxaèr]

Imperfect design prevails at every level of human beings.

I think you meant imperfect evolution.

[Seraphina]

If we biologically were are programmed to want more partners, and even dissatisfied with one partner over time (biologically that is), why emphasise on monogamy?

I don't know if women and men are biologically programed to want more partners but we're biologically programed to propagate our species. Taking care of infants and young children takes a lot of time, effort and resources. From a woman's point of view, a man who is monogamous at least for the first few years of child-rearing is more desirable than a man who would rather spend his time and resources outside the home.

[Excited Penguin]

Other than kids, I have no fucking clue.

And I bet if we were all really smart we could come up with better ways to raise kids as well. I've never been a parent, and I only know about my own and what I've seen of others, but I think they don't have a fucking clue what they're doing, nor do they necessarily care as much as society or they themselves would have you believe they do. And it all shows in the end. There's not many people, I bet, that could honestly say they weren't fucked up by their parents.

Anyway, back on topic, this rant having been mostly aimed at some of the earlier posts I deigned to read before replying.

Monogamy is stupid as a rule. And it's particularly idiotic to ilegalize polygamy. But marriage is a sham itself, so who gives a fuck.

[vorlon13]

Time for another Brian story, a Tru Life Vorlon adventure:

When I encountered Brian, I was already in a monogamous relationship. And it was nice. We'd been dating exclusively for a some time, and had spent weekends together at each others homes. We had been introduced by friends and had their support.

All was fine.

And then I met Brian.

I was immediately upset. Had a meltdown and was miserable. My partner was there and was very supportive, he recognized I was going through a profound upheaval.

My explanation to him and myself was despite Brian being the 'trigger' it had not much to do with Brian. I was still new to 12 Steppers and had real concerns regarding my sobriety, and my sanity as the AIDS crisis was so rapidly becoming so very much worse. I worked out on my own it wasn't so much Brian as it was the sum of all the people with AIDS I had encountered up to that encounter. So instead of my thinking it was mostly Brian, I decided it was like 1/12 Brian and 11/12 the other 11 people who had passed by that date.

Fairly rapidly, I found I couldn't bear to be around my partner. I was dismayed, I needed his support, I didn't want to go through this mess alone, and as depressed as I was when he wasn't around, it was worse when we were together.

So, I was honest with him, I told him it wasn't fair to subject him to this depression I was in, and in any regard, I wasn't capable of doing it anyhow.


Years pass. My experience with Brian stuck with me even through losing many more friends and acquaintances to AIDS.

In exasperation one day, I said to myself regarding Brian, "What the fuck is it about Brian?!?!?!, It's not like I was in love with him!!"


And then it hit. That was precisely the answer.


I never considered the possibility I was in love with Brian. My partner at the time surely figured it out, and never threw it back at me. I wouldn't have believed him at the time any how. And how could I be in love with Brian ?? He was already gravely ill when I met him. He continued to deteriorate, despite an enormously brave attitude about it he expressed seemingly effortlessly even as the HIV was surely killing him. We never had a happy moment, never dated, I never had the slightest illusion he would recover or even survive much longer than he did.

This is love?


Get out of here. Not even remotely does that comport to any representation of love in books or songs or movies I had encountered.

So off I went, miserable and depressed for years. And finally figuring it out didn't help much. Realizing I had finally diagnosed my condition, there was damn little in y world to suggest a palliative.


Any how, this relates to the topic thusly:


even unaware as I was about being in love with Brian, I couldn't be with another while he was alive. And for years after he passed. Monogamy to me isn't a choice, it is an inherent and salient and inescapable property of the condition called love. Even being released of all conscious societal constraints on 'cheating', I could not do it to Brian. I didn't know why, I couldn't explain it at the time, but it's clearly there as an inescapable fact to me.


So, from my own experience, I have my answer to the topic. it is beyond my ability to mess with it, it just is.


Now, as for the post script, slowly,oh so slowly, since Brian has been gone now for many, many years, I see the possibility. There is reality and truth to that vow "till death us do part", I know it for a fact. But it's been a long time to get there.

As for my partner, (IANMTU) he eventually found refuge in a Catholic religious order. One dedicated for caring for the sick. I knew the first part of what he did for many years, but not the caring for the sick part. That second bit cleared up what to me was a major mystery of my adult life, why did he do join them ??

Discovering the mission of his order was a big relief to me. He had found his niche and I'm not troubled by his choice at all. I could even imagine his (oblique) experience with Brian as being something he viewed as a calling.

The kind frequently attributed to the guy upstairs . . .