Are Humans Meant to be Monogamous?

[Selena_Kitt]

One of those things is one man, one woman, one family for life, with reasons and purposes so obvious as to be self evident; (one of my favorite terms).

So why didn't it work for you, Ami?

*curious*

No judgment... it didn't work for me either, the first time. I'm on my second go-round. And I'm "young" yet... so they say...

But we are not poly and have no intentions or, as yet, inclinations that way. I have no judgments about those who do ... I just don't think it's for me/us...

and funny, in all this talk about "typical men"... it would be my husband who would be much less inclined to stray that me... I wonder what that says?

 

[amicus]

So why didn't it work for you, Ami?

*curious*

No judgment... it didn't work for me either, the first time. I'm on my second go-round. And I'm "young" yet... so they say...

But we are not poly and have no intentions or, as yet, inclinations that way. I have no judgments about those who do ... I just don't think it's for me/us...

and funny, in all this talk about "typical men"... it would be my husband who would be much less inclined to stray that me... I wonder what that says?

~~~

I don't take that as a personal question in the usual way, Selena, that is not your style.

As I have tried to say, in an objective sense, I see monogamy, for all parties, as an 'ideal' to strive for, the best possible answer to shared human habitation.

The reasons it perhaps doesn't work that often is, I think, because of the variations involved and there are numerous, that work against it.

Youth also factors in, my high school sweetheart marriage involved two people aged eighteen with very little knowledge of anything and our paths took different directions almost without our awareness.

I still think that human quest for a love of a lifetime is a worthwhile dream to pass on, to write and muse about, although it may be achieved by only a few.

Them be my thoughts....smiles....nice to hear from you.

ami...

 

[Selena_Kitt]

~~~

Youth also factors in, my high school sweetheart marriage involved two people aged eighteen with very little knowledge of anything and our paths took different directions almost without our awareness.

I still think that human quest for a love of a lifetime is a worthwhile dream to pass on, to write and muse about, although it may be achieved by only a few.

Them be my thoughts....smiles....nice to hear from you.

ami...

My first was a young, "starter" marriage too, first year out of high school for him, second for me...

But culturally, we once married at 12... 13... 14... a woman at 18 was an "old maid." And it was primarily spurred by biology within the culture - we could have babies starting around then, and we didn't live as long.

Sometimes though, I think, the further we get away from our natural biological clocks, the more unstable things become in the culture. We live in a very biomedical society - we want to be masters of the universe, controlling conception, birth, pain, aging... it may be moving toward a "freedom" more like anarchy and chaos than anything else...

I share your dream of lifelong monogamy, but I don't think it's as romantic as we'd like to believe. Being with someone for that long requires a great deal of growth, change, and work. A lot of hard, hard work. Most people aren't ready to do their inner work let alone work that stuff out with another person.

 

[AllardChardon]

Selena,

Inner work, yes, that is the very thing that eventually split my marriage in two. My parents were bohemians, pot smoking, jazz playing beatniks in L.A. in the late 50s. I was born in 52. I was raised with no religion and told by my dad that reincarnation was more likely than heaven and hell. I experimented with the drugs of the sixties, avoiding anything that had to be injected with a needle.

With no fear of eternal damnation (early on, my father established that playing with yourself was perfectly natural) God (Disney's version of Zeus in Fantasia) was a good guy overall and my friend.

This is the long and personal way around this block, so when the time came to begin inner work, it was easy for me. Nothing to overcome first. As I cleared out my nasty little habits with conscious purpose, I felt the freedom from the burdens of my eog mind. A Course in Miracles saved me, but not my marriage.

I begged my husband to take the course with the next group a year later. At my bidding he did so, but not willingly. I was sure he would see that he needed to dump his anger and hatred from his Catholic upbringing and we could finally have the kind of union I had hope for, for so many years. No way. Give up fear, anger and hatred. Not that Catholic.

So it was inner work that really broke our union. I was into it and he was not. I think we could have worked the rest out, if he had been willing. But hindsight is 20/20.

I am sad to say, that at 52, my ex is just realizing that alcohol does not heal anything but merely delays the inevitable and is finally looking at the reasons why he drank in the first place. I do not recommend beginning inner work in your fifties.

 

[rgraham666]

Better late than never.

 

[JagFarlane]

Hmmmm a few thoughts on this touchy subject.

First I'd like to point out that whilst the opening post refers to men being more promiscuous I have to point out some other things that have been proven:

While slightly more men than women are likely to stray from marriage once...beyond one stray...women are more likely to stray multiple times.

It has been brought up as a theory that whilst a woman seeks genetically good material to father her children, she seeks other men to raise them. A breakdown would be...that she seeks those that have the badboy image of well toned body and good looking for the creation of children, but seeks ones that are financial stable in order to raise them.

But these are...just studies upon human psychology. and humans are well known to change thier habits by sheer willpower. For example, the nuns and priests whom deny themselves sex to serve thier god, and the many couples whom remain paired for the rest of thier natural lives. Monogamy is just...a desire between two whom wish it to be so. For many, this is not what they desire...but simply a social goal

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I do not recommend beginning inner work in your fifties.

Honestly, it's when most people actually come to it, in our culture. And formerly "stable" marriages quite often break up at this point. Growth always causes friction, and fast growth can not only be painful (they don't call them "growing pains" for nothing) but devastating.

Cabbages, when you plant them, if they grow too fast, will split in half, because the inner leaves actually outstrip the growth rate of the outer ones. We are all on a continuum, some faster, some slower than others. Hell, karmically, who knows how many lifetimes (if there is such a thing...) we have to work with, really? Maybe some of us are moving in geological time... feels like it sometimes, that's for damned sure!

So if we have two very different things growing together at very different rates, disaster certainly can happen. Denial is what broke up my first marriage as well... my growth rate was far outrunning his... in fact, he has stayed very static, has fought hard to retain that status quo.

But I don't fault him for his fear or refusal to face the light. It isn't easy to let those tender buds blossom into something greater. It makes you vulnerable and exposes you to a great deal of dangerous possibilities. But as Anais Nin once said, "The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom..."

That point is different for everyone.

 

[AllardChardon]

Selena,

But as Anais Nin once said, "The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom..."

True enough. I liken it to the womb, where we all started. It is nice and warm and floaty in there, all your needs are met without asking. All too soon, you are too big for this perfect place. You get slowly squeezed tighter and tighter until the outer muscles of the womb start trying to expell you from this warm safe place, which now has become a writhing cage. Pushed out, head first preferably but not always, you arrive in a cold, bright, dry place and you must cough up mucus and breathe air into your lungs instead of water for the first time. No wonder we are traumatized by birth. A natural death looks much easier than a natural birth.

But the pain of childbirth for the child is not remembered with clarity and growth from then on is still painful at times. Ah, but the glory of the growth. It is worth it.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Thank you for the compliment...they may blacklist you here because of your kind and gentle treatment of the one whose name shall not be spoken...

Actually, Ami, no one will blacklist anyone for talking with you. You know that quite well.

But it won't take long for Allard to realise that you are a cesspit of nasty judgemental notions, and that there is no reason to talk to you any further-- all by herself.

At which point you will add her to your list of "usual suspects" and blame her for your continued unpopularity here.

Funny how that happens over and over and over again.
(edit to add)

The ladies of Lit did not appreciate my discovery or my humor in suggesting that the biology of sex, concerning the female, was less concerned with fidelity than with procreation....grins....

I wish you would think carefully about this. You pontificate utter crap all the time. And you never sound as if you are being humorous. Don't blame your jokes falling flat on your audience.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Hmmmm a few thoughts on this touchy subject.

First I'd like to point out that whilst the opening post refers to men being more promiscuous I have to point out some other things that have been proven:

While slightly more men than women are likely to stray from marriage once...beyond one stray...women are more likely to stray multiple times.

It has been brought up as a theory that whilst a woman seeks genetically good material to father her children, she seeks other men to raise them. A breakdown would be...that she seeks those that have the badboy image of well toned body and good looking for the creation of children, but seeks ones that are financial stable in order to raise them.

But these are...just studies upon human psychology. and humans are well known to change thier habits by sheer willpower. For example, the nuns and priests whom deny themselves sex to serve thier god, and the many couples whom remain paired for the rest of thier natural lives. Monogamy is just...a desire between two whom wish it to be so. For many, this is not what they desire...but simply a social goal

Nice, thoughtful, post, Jag!


The words I've bolded are especially germaine, IMO. We are, indeed much, much more than the product of our basic biological imperatives.

 

[JagFarlane]

Nice, thoughtful, post, Jag!


The words I've bolded are especially germaine, IMO. We are, indeed much, much more than the product of our basic biological imperatives.

Well it is something I tend to think of. For example, you can take my grandparents...this year will be thier 54th wedding anniversary and according to my mother, they show more love and devotion to each other now than ever before. But it is a good example of how two can truly work together, and enjoy thier lives together. They have seen the rough times, and the good times, together and strive to continue to be with one another, for that is who they are, that is what they desire.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Actually, Ami, no one will blacklist anyone for talking with you. You know that quite well.

It's true. They haven't even blacklisted me (yet) for rather liking you, Ami!

 

[Stella_Omega]

It's true. They haven't even blacklisted me (yet) for rather liking you, Ami!

hey, I liked Ami for a while. Sometime last year, he, and I, and Shang, had a long thread together. At several points, Ami said things like; "You are more than i thought you were" and various other intimations of connexion. And the same with me.

However, it didn't seem to stick, the next time we talked I was, once more, merely an anonymous symbol of liberalist decadence. Nothing about Stella stuck in his memory, beyond the one evening.

My conclusion is that the man really doesn't care about anyone else but himself-- lacks any sort of empathy. From his words, he doesn't actually get it, that what he says two weeks ago comes back in his face today. Maybe he's pretending he doesn't get it. Maybe claiming he meant humor by his ugly words is his rationale. Maybe he's a fucking liar. The results are the same. Ami is an ugly little man, by word and deed.

Hey, Ami, you're claiming "We were too young" for your first breakup. What're your reasons for the rest of them? And how do you rationalise your cybersexing with 'young innocents' these days?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

My conclusion is that the man really doesn't care about anyone else but himself-- lacks any sort of empathy.

Thinkers aren't feelers... people that far into the rational end of things often have very very little empathy, unfortunately...

But I'm sorry you were hurt, Stella. Some of what he says can be and is hurtful, and I don't condone it, in him, or anyone - even myself.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Thinkers aren't feelers... people that far into the rational end of things often have very very little empathy, unfortunately...

But I'm sorry you were hurt, Stella. Some of what he says can be and is hurtful, and I don't condone it, in him, or anyone - even myself.

Ami is a feeler, not a thinker. He feels so acutely that he pretends to be a non-thinker. But his 'intellectual' arguments are only rationalising his purely emotional reactions. Trust me on this, it's glaringly obvious.

I am sure he is intentionally hurtful.
He's had many opportunities to not be, after all-- never taken them.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I am sure he is intentionally hurtful.
He's had many opportunities to not be, after all-- never taken them.

I know.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I know.

So, he can fuck off into the clear blue sky.

 

[neonlyte]

So, he can fuck off into the clear blue sky.

Tut, tut...

I'm thinking he's intentionally hurtful when he's hurting himself... (let's play Lit shrink). He's more abrasive generally with women, except Roxy (f) and Pure (m)... we could mull that over, or just accept that in their case, it's politiks.

ETA: On topic, monogamy means one partner at a time, doesn't it?

 

[NoJo]

So, he can fuck off into the clear blue sky.

Or maybe you two should just have sex

 

[Stella_Omega]

Or maybe you two should just have sex

Well, I do have sex.

I don't know if he does, though.

Oh, you mean with each other? eewww...

ETA: On topic, monogamy means one partner at a time, doesn't it?

you mean-- no threesomes?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

ETA: On topic, monogamy means one partner at a time, doesn't it?

good question... I assume so...

but do we mean monogamous "for life"?

 

[Stella_Omega]

good question... I assume so...

but do we mean monogamous "for life"?

I kind of do. And I think that humans--generally speaking, and we've seen proof that it's not always so-- are not going to be monogamous for life, life being from say, seventeen, to an old age death at, say 85.

*counting on fingers* that's sixty-eight years. Back in the 'till death do you part' days, death happened much sooner for most people, having nothing to do with old age.

 

[neonlyte]

good question... I assume so...

but do we mean monogamous "for life"?

Yeh... good question. I could see myself being monogamous with one partner at a time, I'm likely, however, to be a 'lifer' - 34 years in October, so I'm half way to Stella's '68 year cradle to grave'.

What has worked, for us, is not being afraid to change (lifestyle). Hell, I think we do it just to spice up our life

Jeanette Winterson said, in an interview, that she planned her life around seven year cycles, feeling the need for radical change after that period of time, she might have been onto something.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yeh... good question. I could see myself being monogamous with one partner at a time, I'm likely, however, to be a 'lifer' - 34 years in October, so I'm half way to Stella's '68 year cradle to grave'.

What has worked, for us, is not being afraid to change (lifestyle). Hell, I think we do it just to spice up our life

Jeanette Winterson said, in an interview, that she planned her life around seven year cycles, feeling the need for radical change after that period of time, she might have been onto something.

oh, I think she does have something! Now that I think about it, this mostly-monogamous period of our partnership has been about seven years... Hmm.

 

[NoJo]

oh, I think she does have something! Now that I think about it, this mostly-monogamous period of our partnership has been about seven years... Hmm.

Time to fuck Marylin Monroe, methinks