Monogamy

For the last two decades, my sexual-emotional relationships have happened within what has come to be known as non-monogamy, a field in which I am an activist, theorist, consultant and who knows what else. And despite all that, and despite dedicating body, mind, emotional networks and a great deal of my energy to the matter, I still come up against repeated difficulties in trying to sustain relationships that are plural and healthy for everybody involved. And it’s not just me. The same thing happens to other people in the social circles I’m involved in: anguish, guilt, jealousy, lack of comprehension by those around us… all the psychological horrors get going.
It’s not me and it’s not us: it’s the system.

Polyamory is the practice of having multiple emotionally close relationships that may or may not be sexual. Research concerning polyamory has just begun to determine how relationships among partners in polyamorous arrangements may vary. Most of the research assessing perceptions of polyamorous partners has focused on primary-secondary configurations; however, non-hierarchical configurations exist and can involve having multiple primary partners or having only non-primary partners. The current research is the first to examine perceptions of partners and relationship quality in various polyamorous configurations and compares results for each configuration to monogamous partners. Results from online convenience samples suggest that co-primary and non-primary configurations are common among polyamorous participants, with approximately 38% identifying with one of these configurations in 2013 and 55% in 2017. Furthermore, our results suggest that while relationships with partners in co-primary and non-primary structures still differ in some ways (e.g., investment, acceptance, secrecy, time spent having sex), they are closer to their ideals on several psychologically meaningful indicators of relationship quality (e.g., commitment and satisfaction). In other words, despite rejecting hierarchical primary-secondary labels, many of the same relationship qualities differ systematically among partners in non-hierarchical relationships. Furthermore, pseudo-primary partners and primary partners in these relationships are more comparable to monogamous partners than they are to secondary partners. We discuss how these results inform our understanding of polyamorous and monogamous relationships and suggest future directions based on these findings.

This article analyses how monogamy, polyamory and other forms of non-monogamy are displayed, interpreted and debated among LGBT groups. Is there a defence of affective and sexual multiplicity or does an endorsement of monogamy predominate, in order to claim greater legitimacy? The study was conducted between 2012 and 2017, based on ethnographic research carried out with virtual LGBT groups. I argue that there is no consensus that monogamy is an oppressive norm analogous to heteronormativity among lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, nor that polyamory is their ideal model for overcoming it. Through this study, I contribute to the understanding of the moral conflicts developed in the field of 'sexual politics' in contemporary Brazil.

This M.A. thesis develops a black feminist approach to the study of non/monogamy, connecting conversations in black feminist thought, black sexuality studies, and consensual nonmonogamy (CNM) studies. Scholarship in CNM studies examines compulsory monogamy as a system of regulation that favors two-partner intimate relationships, but often does not recognize compulsory monogamy’s role within larger racial projects. Without sustained engagement with work on racialized sexuality, CNM studies offers little challenge to the racial-sexual order underlying compulsions toward monogamy, and thus has limited applications in the context of black populations. However, literature on black sexuality helps illuminate varied dimensions of compulsion as we work to consider nonmonogamy beyond a universalized white subject.

In this thesis, I center black feminist analyses of racialized sexuality to highlight how racialized sexual regulation in the US constitutes a form of “compulsory non/monogamy,” a system of simultaneous compulsion toward and disruption of (more legibly) monogamous and heteronormative forms of intimacy. I focus especially on the work of Adrienne Davis, Hortense Spillers, and Dorothy Roberts, whose work offers foundational analyses of race, reproduction, and domination; and L.H. Stallings, whose theorization of “funk” continues foundational black and feminist scholarship in less-explored directions on the study of black eroticism. Contextualizing these scholars’ work with other literature on black sexuality, I demonstrate how black feminist thought reveals historical dynamics of “compulsory non/monogamy,” offering intersectional analysis of power that redefines the terms and terrain of “consensual nonmonogamy”—moving us toward a radical, anti-racist critique of compulsory forms of both monogamy and nonmonogamy.

They are our sisters, mothers, neighbors, and friends. They are the women whose marriages you think are “good”—or at minimum “fine.” But they are also the women who are online prowling for secret lovers to fulfill sexual desires and untapped passions. They did not “fall” into this. They weighed their options. And then they sought out and took a lover. And they’ve granted us a peek into their minds, psyches, and worlds.
Using a sample collected from Ashley Madison, a niche online dating site catering to married individuals seeking an affair partner, this book is the result of a yearlong inquiry into women’s extramarital experiences. Ultimately, these women reject the binary proposition of marriage that assumes that either we work on our marriages and remain monogamous within them, or we break up the relationship and take up other relationships. These women conceive of an alternate solution to a marriage that is not wholly working, where their own needs are ignored, unmet, and not prioritized. Thus, the women in this study are engaging in secret defiance of the expectations of marriage and primary partnerships. Many felt at the end of their capacity to endure in their primary partnership when they first sought an outside partner.
These women spoke of their primary partnerships as spaces of constraint, and their roles (“wives,” “girlfriends,” and “fiancée”) as limiting and restrictive. They spoke of their participation in outside partnerships as an exercise of power through autonomy and personal authority that their role as “wife” did not permit. These women were not mate-shopping, and most did not categorize their outside partnerships as ones of “love,” but as relationships of sexual utility. Outside partners provided much needed sexual release for women whose appetites exceeded their primary partner’s, or whose marriage was sexless. These women believed that their affairs helped them manage their emotional life and emotional responses to their primary partners, and ultimately enabled them to remain and endure in their primary partnerships.

While past studies have measured several indicators of relationship quality in relation to types of relationship agreement, most have not included polyamorous relationships, and have almost exclusively included samples of gay men. The purpose of this study was to address this gap by examining five dimensions of relationship quality and eight dimensions of relationship equity in a sexually diverse Canadian sample (N = 3463) across three types of relationship agreements (monogamous, open, and polyamorous). The data were collected online as part of a larger study. In order to compare relationship types on relationship dimensions, MANCOVAs were computed using age, relationship duration, cohabitation status, sex, sexual orientation, and an interaction term of sex and sexual orientation as control variables. High scores of relationship quality and equity were reported by the overall sample, and scores on all scales did not significantly differ by types of relationship agreement. Overall, these results strongly suggest that these types of relationship agreements are equally healthy viable options.

Das Verständnis von Romantik und die damit verbundenen Erwartungen an die romantische Liebe sind in der reflexiven Moderne immer komplexeren und zunehmend widersprüchlichen Transformationen unterworfen. Die These dieser Arbeit lautet, dass das Eindringen des Internets in die romantische Sphäre diese Widersprüchlichkeit in hohem Maße radikalisiert.

This article examines the construction of monogamy as a social institution through various discursive fields. It shows how religion, sexology, psychology, law and popular science all play a part in the normalisation and naturalisation of monogamy as the only normal, healthy and moral way to maintain a romantic relationship. It goes to further show how a traditional gender binary and a sexual double standard are constructed as a part of this mononormativity in each and every one of those discursive fields. Following that, the article looks into polyamory through a queer and feminist lens, and explores its theoretical potential in subverting these patriarchal conceptions. It then suggests the idea of the ‘polyamorous continuum’ and the ‘polyamorous existence’ as an alternative paradigm to the institution of monogamy. It is a paradigm that allows for a broader spectrum of relationship formations, including ones that feature elements of sexual and/or romantic exclusivity, which are bere...

What makes romantic jealousy rational or fitting? Psychologists view jealousy's function as preserving a relationship against a 'threat' from a 'rival'. I argue that its more specific aim is to preserve a certain privileged status of the lover in relation to the beloved. Jealousy is apt when the threat to that status is real, otherwise inapt. Aptness assessments of jealousy must determine what counts as 'threat' and as 'rival'. They commonly take for granted monogamous norms. Hence, compared with jealousy in monogamous relationships, norms of polyamory set the thresholds for what counts both as threat and as rival much higher.

In this paper, I argue that intimacy confining constraints— or a categorical restriction on having additional intimate relationships—is morally impermissible.Though some scholars believe that this problem attaches exclusively to monogamous relationships, I argue that it also applies to non-monogamous relationships—such as polyfidelitous relationships—as well. As this point requires a deconstruction of the juxtaposition that erroneously places monogamy and non- monogamy as binary opposites, this paper reveals a variegated and interpenetrating fi eld of intimate non- monogamous relationships, the existence of which gets us closer to realizing the transformative power contained within non-monogamous relationships.

The contribution aims to analyze the classical echoes in Jerome’s letter 123 de monogamia sent in 409 to Geruchia, a Gallo-Roman noblewoman. Quotations and allusions to the classics, renewed and transformed, intertwine with the doctrinal essence of the text. Virgil’s, Ovid’s and Lucan’s references, utterly fit in the Christian context, through a modus operandi which reveals itself to be, once again, not only intentional, but also systematic.

Sex is dead and so is monogamous marriage. What will replace them? Read about alternative lifestyles (such as swinging), sexual preferences (such as bi- and homosexuality), sexual paraphilias (such as incest, fetishism, and pedophilia), and the role of malignant narcissism in the disintegration of relationships between men and women.

While past studies have measured several indicators of relationship quality in relation to types of relationship agreement, most have not included polyamorous relationships, and have almost exclusively included samples of gay men. The purpose of this study was to address this gap by examining five dimensions of relationship quality and eight dimensions of relationship equity in a sexually diverse Canadian sample (N = 3463) across three types of relationship agreements (monogamous, open, and polyamorous). The data were collected online as part of a larger study. In order to compare relationship types on relationship dimensions, MANCOVAs were computed using age, relationship duration, cohabitation status, sex, sexual orientation, and an interaction term of sex and sexual orientation as control variables. High scores of relationship quality and equity were reported by the overall sample, and scores on all scales did not significantly differ by types of relationship agreement. Overall, ...

Increasingly, challengers to antipolygamy legislation have framed polyamory as a sexual orientation, arguing that some people are immutably predisposed toward forming multiple relationships. Drawing on a qualitative study of 40 bisexual women in Toronto, Canada, this article argues that polyamory and monogamy are better viewed as strategies of sexual expression rather than as immutable orientations. Such an approach accommodates identity shifts between monogamy and polyamory that enable women to manage and negotiate their visibility as bisexuals. Viewing monogamy and polyamory as strategic identities can help health care practitioners more accurately assess their clients’ needs and health risks.

This study contributes to the development of nascent bisexual theology by examining bisexual women’s lives in relation to the stereotype that bisexuals desire concurrent male and female partners.  Building on qualitative email interviews with forty bisexual women in the Greater Toronto Area, this thesis finds that monogamy and polyamory function as strategic identities.  If bisexual theology is to speak authentically to the needs of bisexual women, it must provide a critical analysis of these identities, understand and respond to their role in shaping communities, moral agency and theological knowledge.

Genesis has been cited in support of both traditional monogamy and nontraditional views of marriage. The creation of the first humans as a male-female pair is commonly regarded by conservative Christians as paradigmatic for marriage. On the other hand, those who question the notion of a normative definition of marriage argue that the Genesis patriarchs legitimately took multiple wives. This paper examines this objection and defends the traditional view that the norm for marriage is monogamy.

Questions about polygamy are likely to dominate Western family law in the next generation. Two generations ago, contraception, abortion, and women’s rights were the hot topics. This past generation, children’s rights and same-sex rights have dominated public deliberation and litigation. On the frontier of Western family law are hard questions about extending the forms of valid marriage to include polygamy and extending the forums of marital governance to include religious and cultural legal systems that countenance polygamy. This Article analyzes the 1,850 year tradition of Western laws against polygamy and the growing constitutional and cultural pressures to reform these laws today. I show how the traditional Western cases against polygamy and same-sex unions used strikingly different arguments drawn from the Bible, nature, rights, harm, and symbolism. I conclude that, because these arguments are so different, Western nations can responsibly hold the line against polygamy, even if they choose to accept same-sex marriage and its accompanying norms of sexual liberty, domestic autonomy, equality, and nondiscrimination. I reject ideological arguments, pro and con, that anti-polygamy laws are a form of traditional Christian morality. I reject slippery slope arguments, from the right and the left, that acceptance of same-sex marriage must inevitably lead to acceptance of polygamous marriage. And I reject arguments from domestic and international sources that religious freedom norms command the accommodation, if not validation, of religious polygamy. The West may, and in my view should, politely say no to polygamy. An Appendix to the Article provides a detailed guide to different forms and terms of plural marriage discussed and prohibited in the West—real polygamy, constructive polygamy, successive polygamy, and clerical polygamy.

Starting from the concept of “cuckold” and having placed the substantial differences with the “troilism”, despite the terminological error committed by almost all the researchers who consider these two terms of synonyms, we proceeded to analyze the clinical, neurobiological and relational profiles, to then investigate the borderline forms of troilism: Open couples, polygamy and polyamory. By analyzing the possible etiological causes, which are the basis of these manifestations, it was concluded that probably the multifactorial is the most suitable answer, with a clear orientation towards the psychological causes deriving from a post-traumatic stress adaptation (substantially in the field of paraphilias or narcissism with adaptive forms, therefore self-destructive).

This article examines the construction of monogamy as a social institution  through  various  discursive  fields.  It  shows  how  religion,  sexology,  psychology, law and popular science all play a part in the normalisation and naturalisation of monogamy as the only normal, healthy and moral way to maintain a romantic relationship. It goes to further show how a traditional gender binary and a sexual double  standard  are  constructed  as  a  part  of  this  mononormativity  in  each  and  every one of those discursive fields. Following that, the article looks into polyamory through a queer and feminist lens, and explores its theoretical potential in subverting  these  patriarchal  conceptions.  It  then  suggests  the  idea  of  the  ‘polyamorous 
continuum’ and the ‘polyamorous existence’ as an alternative paradigm to the institution of monogamy. It is a paradigm that allows for a broader spectrum of relationship formations, including ones that feature elements of sexual and/or romantic exclusivity, which are bereft of the patriarchal elements of mononormativity.

In the present dissertation, infidelity is analysed ‘as performance’ in the frame of contemporary heterosexual relationships in Western society. There are two basic aims from several branches of inquiry. Firstly, I attempt to analyse and display a structure of infidelity that allows questioning the couple formation as we know it. Secondly, I aim to explore the double-standard between two kinds of betrayal, namely infidelity and surveillance. Both convey deception, lies and dishonesty. Theoretical and fictional material are both used to develop the arguments and extract from them the behaviour, body performance and reification of infidelity. I aim to be a weaver who uses theoretical and fictional threads to build a pattern where betrayal appears as a fractal figure.

Controversially, psychologist and public intellectual Jordan Peterson advises “enforced monogamy” for societies with high percentages of “incels.” As Peterson’s proposal resonates in manosphere circles, this chapter reconstructs and briefly evaluates the argument for it. Premised on the moral importance of civilizational sustainability, advocates argue that both polygamous and socially monogamous but sexually liberal mating patterns result in unsustainable proportions of unattached young men. Given the premises, monogamous societies are probably justified in maintaining their anti-polygamist social and legal norms. The case for imposing stricter sexual norms on socially monogamous but sexually liberal societies is weaker, however, as male involuntary celibacy in those places isn’t as directly caused by male intrasexual competition, and since less intrusive social interventions are more likely to ameliorate “the incel problem.”

Homo Sapiens, anatomik olarak 200.000 yıl önce Afrika’da ortaya çıkmış ve modern davranışlarına 50.000 yıl önce kavuşmuştur. Modern dünyada kültürel olarak da evrilirken, çoğu insan topluluğu tek eşli olmaya karar vermiş veya yaşadıkları koşullara uygun düştüğü için tek eşliliğe (monogami) yönelmiştir. 50.000 yıl önce çok eşli (poligam) olduğuna inanılan Homo Sapiens, neden günümüzde monogam yaşamayı uygun bulmuştur? Bu yazımızda hem bu kavramları inceleyeceğiz hem de bu soruya cevap arayacağız.

Romantic partners provide both erotic and nurturing experiences, though these may emerge more strongly in different phases of a relationship. Unlike individuals in monogamous relationships, those in polyamorous relationships can pursue multiple romantic relationships simultaneously, potentially allowing them to experience higher levels of eroticism and nurturance. This research examined eroticism and nurturance among individuals in polyamorous and monogamous relationships. As expected, polyamorous participants experienced less eroticism but more nurturance in their relationships with their primary partner compared to secondary. Furthermore, people in polyamorous relationships reported more nurturance with primary partners and eroticism with secondary partners compared to people in monogamous relationships. These findings suggest that polyamory may provide a unique opportunity for individuals to experience both eroticism and nurturance simultaneously.

In a culture where compulsory monogamy is largely accepted as necessary, if not entirely desirable, what enables a shift in consciousness, individually and culturally? In this chapter, I examine this question in connection with a problematic in anarchist politics: how to shift from Statist to anarchist(ic) forms of social organisation. Inspired by feminist critiques of hierarchical separations of the personal from the political, and currents within anarchist/poststructuralist thought on the State as a pattern of relationships rather than an institution, I argue that these two questions have more in common than one might expect. In making this argument, I draw upon interviews with 16 people who described their experiences of intimate relationships which crossed borders of sexual orientation identity. In the most painful aspects of their stories, I saw the State in the form of policing and borders, in the form of representation: claiming the authority to speak for others, to tell them who they are and what they (should) want. Reminding me of my reading in and direct experience of anarchism, I also saw the roles of empathy and imagination in their empowerment and resistance. In contrast to frequent patterns of identity politics, the people who shared their stories with me were not necessarily nonmonogamous in their resistance to compulsory monogamy. Rather, they imagined different choices and made an effort to develop sexual arrangements with their partners that met the needs of both (or all) involved. This process is at the heart of my understanding of anarchism; utilising empathy and imagination, people get together to directly develop social arrangements (economic, political, sexual, aesthetic, etc) in order to meet everyone's needs. Saying that, this ideal is not always put into practice; anarchist political culture has not entirely escaped the patriarchal context which separates and prioritises the political over the personal. In conclusion, this chapter argues that struggles to resist compulsory monogamy and struggles to resist the State have much to offer each other: intimate relationships are more likely to flourish in a general atmosphere of autonomy and anarchist practice would benefit from greater attention to love, sexuality and intimacy.

In this paper, I seek to contextualize the fight for the (already accomplished) legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Portugal within the wider frame of LGBT activism in this country (Cascais, 2006), and in the interplay of several differently positioned activists. Within this frame, I will analyze how the theoretical work of Miguel Vale de Almeida (2008), in seeking to legitimize the fight for monogamous same-sex marriage, seems to have engaged in identitary Othering and misrepresentation vis-à-vis polyamory. Such misrepresentation is contingent to the non-empirical confounding of polyamory and polygamy, along with the essentializing of gendered dynamics in intimate relationships, and the erasure of lesbian and gay ethical non-monogamous relationships. Thus, by deploying similar straw-men fallacies as those used by conservatives to fight against LGBT rights, polyamory is (apparently) successfully critiqued and shown to have to subsume or silence itself to an alleged strategic essentialism required for passing legislation in favor of same-sex marriage.

This paper concludes with a reflection of the (political) dangers of petitioning for silence of Othered identities, and how such petitions are based on the same identitary violence and disciplining that LGBT movements have been trying to fight for decades, and that draws on homonationalism, homonormativity and heterosexual privileges to affirm itself.

Normative western understandings of intimate relationships continue to draw upon the discourses of romantic love and the ideal of finding ‘the one’ who meets all our romantic and sexual needs. As desire is not sexually or emotionally exclusive, even people in normative relationships have to make sense of desires beyond the monogamous ideal. Bisexual people engage in these negotiations from a challenging cultural position. As a desire for more than one gender, bisexuality is persistently culturally associated with wavering desire, promiscuity and multiple partners. In light of these cultural conditions, I explore how Finnish bisexual women – and their (ex-)partners of various genders who do not identify as bisexual – negotiate desires that exceed the boundaries of normative relationships, such as attraction to ‘someone else’. I draw on the follow-up interviews of a longitudinal interview set conducted in 2005 and 2014–2015. The majority of the interviewed bisexual women and their (ex-)partners lived in monogamous long-term relationships. Yet women’s bisexuality often brought the monogamous norm under explicit negotiation. In many cases, bisexuality as a culturally ‘weak’ identity did not offer a solid frame for women to interpret their desires for people of more than one gender. The notion of bisexuality highlights the excess of sexuality beyond any normative relationship, but makes bisexual women especially vulnerable to stigma. The negotiations around women’s bisexual desires, however, broadened the participants’ (normative) ideas of relationships, and made space for women’s bisexuality in their monogamous relationships.