The Ownership Standard
Here's a question: what does love have to do with fidelity?
Maybe I've just been immersed in alternative lifestyles for too long. Maybe I've just been corrupted by the "evil secular influence of modern society." Maybe I'm just a fucking lunatic who can no longer relate to what's normal becasue I've become too detached from reality by spending so many hours lost inside the Vulcan-like hard logic of my own mind. But I just can't seem to understand anymore what love and monogamy have to do with each other.
The problem I have is this: if you love somebody, you want that person to be happy. If that person wants to play around with somebody else, or if that person even falls in love with another person (but she still loves you), why is that such a big deal? When did we become so obsessed with stifling the life out of our loved ones that we can't tolerate any deviance from the two person connection? Is it only to fulfill our own egos? To fool ourselves into believing that we are everything that other person could ever want, as long as they live, through sixty years of marriage?
There's a lot of life to be lived in our short times on Earth. For a lot of folks, I'm sure it isn't a big deal to have only one physical relationship with one person for that entire time. But why does it have to be so bloody painful for so many people if the one you love wants to explore something beyond what you've got?
Why have we developed into a society of proprietary couplehood? Of ownship standards where we feel we have the right to pull another person's strings and tell them what they can or can't do in the name of love? What does love have to do with owning another person?
The answers to that are fairly apparent. It's the way that our society has evolved, I'm sure--mostly based on a patriarchal paradigm where the male had to ensure that all offspring were actually carrying his genes. Throughout most of our history, we've had cultures where it was OK for the male of a household to have multiple wives or concubines, but the women were executed if they strayed at all. So is the ownership standard just a relic of ancient patriarchal thinking? My guess is that's pretty close to the truth. That ownership ideal, where the man had to make sure his women were faithful to him, evolved into the Romeo and Juliet fallacy of exclusive and everlasting two-person intimacy.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not being cynical about the idea of romance and intimate, perpetual closeness between two people. I just think love, and lust, has the potential to healthfully spread beyond that two-person standard without destroying the world. It's not just possible--it's almost mandatory. These feelings are brimming in us all the time: sexual desire, an intense longing for closeness for somebody we meet who flips our switch in just the right way. The ownership standard insists that we must constantly repress these feelings. To have to constantly remind ourselves, "No, no, no . . . I'm in love with person X. I can't be having these feelings about person Y. It's wrong!"
How much more powerful is the kind of love that can transcend the need for ownership? How much more closeness and trust does it show when you can say honestly to your lover, "I'm not going to hold you back, even if I risk losing you, because your happiness is more important to me that my need to have you to myself?"
I had the same old argument with the ex last night. She largely blames me for her leaving because I refused to tell her "NO" when she decided she wanted to get involved with another person. Believe me, it wasn't because I didn't want her anymore. When she ultimately did decide to leave some time later, it was the most soul-crushing, heart-rending, devestating experience I've ever lived through. Yet, she thought it meant that I didn't need her as much because I was willing to allow her to sleep with someone else.
How do I have the right to allow or not allow anything where another grown human being is concerned?
I understand where she's coming from. But it doesn't change the fact that I couldn't have made any other decision and still be the person I am. If other people enter into a relationship and the other person's faithfulness is so important that they need to make that kind of contract that says that, "I won't fool around if you won't because the thought of you being with someone else is too hurtful to me," that's perfectly fine. But I'm not going to place those kinds of restrictions on another person. It's simply not who I am. And it's not even because I need that freedom for myself--I'm perfectly capable of leading a monogamous life, if it's that important to the person I care about. As I said, my idea of love is wanting that person to be happy. Much like a parent wants her children to be happy. How in the world does my wanting my spouse to be happy at all costs translate into me not caring about her?
We've become so engrossed in this ownership mentality that it backfires even on the one with her freedom. She takes her liberty and then decides that it means I don't care about her anymore, simply because it didn't bother me if she wanted to be with another person. Her enjoyment of that relationship could only benefit me--if she was happy, it made me happy. But she sees it as though love and proprietaryism go hand in hand--that you can't truly love someone without wanting to own her. Absurd to my mind, but perfectly rational to a person who has grown up with that mentality. To me, it's only the sign of a frail ego when a person has such a tremendous need for faithfulness on the part of his partner.
I understand it. I do. But Goddamned if it doesn't still make me frustrated on occasion.
Here's a question: what does love have to do with fidelity?
Maybe I've just been immersed in alternative lifestyles for too long. Maybe I've just been corrupted by the "evil secular influence of modern society." Maybe I'm just a fucking lunatic who can no longer relate to what's normal becasue I've become too detached from reality by spending so many hours lost inside the Vulcan-like hard logic of my own mind. But I just can't seem to understand anymore what love and monogamy have to do with each other.
The problem I have is this: if you love somebody, you want that person to be happy. If that person wants to play around with somebody else, or if that person even falls in love with another person (but she still loves you), why is that such a big deal? When did we become so obsessed with stifling the life out of our loved ones that we can't tolerate any deviance from the two person connection? Is it only to fulfill our own egos? To fool ourselves into believing that we are everything that other person could ever want, as long as they live, through sixty years of marriage?
There's a lot of life to be lived in our short times on Earth. For a lot of folks, I'm sure it isn't a big deal to have only one physical relationship with one person for that entire time. But why does it have to be so bloody painful for so many people if the one you love wants to explore something beyond what you've got?
Why have we developed into a society of proprietary couplehood? Of ownship standards where we feel we have the right to pull another person's strings and tell them what they can or can't do in the name of love? What does love have to do with owning another person?
The answers to that are fairly apparent. It's the way that our society has evolved, I'm sure--mostly based on a patriarchal paradigm where the male had to ensure that all offspring were actually carrying his genes. Throughout most of our history, we've had cultures where it was OK for the male of a household to have multiple wives or concubines, but the women were executed if they strayed at all. So is the ownership standard just a relic of ancient patriarchal thinking? My guess is that's pretty close to the truth. That ownership ideal, where the man had to make sure his women were faithful to him, evolved into the Romeo and Juliet fallacy of exclusive and everlasting two-person intimacy.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not being cynical about the idea of romance and intimate, perpetual closeness between two people. I just think love, and lust, has the potential to healthfully spread beyond that two-person standard without destroying the world. It's not just possible--it's almost mandatory. These feelings are brimming in us all the time: sexual desire, an intense longing for closeness for somebody we meet who flips our switch in just the right way. The ownership standard insists that we must constantly repress these feelings. To have to constantly remind ourselves, "No, no, no . . . I'm in love with person X. I can't be having these feelings about person Y. It's wrong!"
How much more powerful is the kind of love that can transcend the need for ownership? How much more closeness and trust does it show when you can say honestly to your lover, "I'm not going to hold you back, even if I risk losing you, because your happiness is more important to me that my need to have you to myself?"
I had the same old argument with the ex last night. She largely blames me for her leaving because I refused to tell her "NO" when she decided she wanted to get involved with another person. Believe me, it wasn't because I didn't want her anymore. When she ultimately did decide to leave some time later, it was the most soul-crushing, heart-rending, devestating experience I've ever lived through. Yet, she thought it meant that I didn't need her as much because I was willing to allow her to sleep with someone else.
How do I have the right to allow or not allow anything where another grown human being is concerned?
I understand where she's coming from. But it doesn't change the fact that I couldn't have made any other decision and still be the person I am. If other people enter into a relationship and the other person's faithfulness is so important that they need to make that kind of contract that says that, "I won't fool around if you won't because the thought of you being with someone else is too hurtful to me," that's perfectly fine. But I'm not going to place those kinds of restrictions on another person. It's simply not who I am. And it's not even because I need that freedom for myself--I'm perfectly capable of leading a monogamous life, if it's that important to the person I care about. As I said, my idea of love is wanting that person to be happy. Much like a parent wants her children to be happy. How in the world does my wanting my spouse to be happy at all costs translate into me not caring about her?
We've become so engrossed in this ownership mentality that it backfires even on the one with her freedom. She takes her liberty and then decides that it means I don't care about her anymore, simply because it didn't bother me if she wanted to be with another person. Her enjoyment of that relationship could only benefit me--if she was happy, it made me happy. But she sees it as though love and proprietaryism go hand in hand--that you can't truly love someone without wanting to own her. Absurd to my mind, but perfectly rational to a person who has grown up with that mentality. To me, it's only the sign of a frail ego when a person has such a tremendous need for faithfulness on the part of his partner.
I understand it. I do. But Goddamned if it doesn't still make me frustrated on occasion.
Very insightful blog.
I agree with you on many points, but being female I can see why your ex felt the way she did. I can also see your side where you want the other person to be happy and thought that was exactly what you were doing. Women are odd creatures and I think that we have some unspoken rules that get men into trouble. We want them to read our minds and act a certain way occasionally without ever stating that to them. For me, it was (and still is) a difficult thought process to break. I work on it everyday.
My thoughts in general: In a swinging relationship, there are still rules. If you don't know where you stand with your partner, it's never going to work. Swinging takes trust, caring and understanding mixed with a little perversion (according to society). I wouldn't run willy-nilly into a swingers club with a somewhat new relationship on your back without knowing what the boundaries are or where you stand in the relationship - am I a placeholder until something better comes along, or am I your girl with rights and veto power. I've been the both a placeholder and the woman with veto power (in two separate relationships)...I can tell you swinging is easier when you know your place.
Reading your blog definitely made me think.
And I'm all for establishing rules and boundaries that are agreed upon by both people. We certainly had those when I was in my relationship. I just felt a little betrayed that the boundaries and rules she came up with wound up being used as ammunition against me simply because I agreed to them and didn't fight with her against what she herself wanted to do.