The Great Experiment
Jun. 4th, 2002 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raybearThey ask
"Isn't it easier to just be monogamous?"
They ask
"Don't you get jealous?"
They ask
"Is it worth all the trouble?"
I love answering the first question. No, monogamy is not easier. The effort is exactly the same, only the energy is going in different places. I can stomp up on my political soapbox about cultural conditioning regarding open relationship and criticize societal standards of marriage as sexist and anti-queer and anti-love. I can say that 50% of supposedly monogamous marriages fail. (Statistics are my favorite tools in an argument.)
The second question is easy to answer too, though perhaps harder to convince the asking party. Sure, I feel jealousy. Sure, it's hard to examine where the feelings of insecurity and envy and hurt feelings reside, to poke and prod and excavate. But the end result is a happier, healthier heart, not bogged down with "what-if's" and "shoulds" and absolute, total, heart-stopping fear of being alone or abandoned no matter what evidence exists that contradicts.
The third question is more complicated, partly because the real question is:
are ANY relationships worth all the trouble?
Today I say yes. Tomorrow I'll probably say yes too. And maybe for one hour next week I'll say no.
But I've still out-voted myself.
Nonmonogamy isn't just about sex
(though don't get me wrong, the sex can be nice).
It's about establishing and building absolute trust and faith in each other without relying on feelings of ownership and obligation.
You know that one person you were desperately in love with and believed they were your soulmate? You wanted to be with them no matter how many times they lied, cheated, ignored, or abused you? Remember how powerful that feeling of near unconditional love? How you were willing to accept them back and be with them no matter what's occured?
Eventually you learn you're delusional.
But I aspire to have that power of feeling towards my partner.
Towards her.
Only instead of heartbreaks and lies and delusions, she'll bring me honesty and truth and discussions and respect.
But what about those in-between? Those lovers I unintentionally label "secondary"?
I think I'm capable of a thousand types of love. And I want to experience them all -- some of them with different people. The more I explore, the more I open myself, and one day perhaps I can give a partner 999 styles of loving them (the remaining one is solely for myself).
And then will it all be worth it?
How could it not?
"Isn't it easier to just be monogamous?"
They ask
"Don't you get jealous?"
They ask
"Is it worth all the trouble?"
I love answering the first question. No, monogamy is not easier. The effort is exactly the same, only the energy is going in different places. I can stomp up on my political soapbox about cultural conditioning regarding open relationship and criticize societal standards of marriage as sexist and anti-queer and anti-love. I can say that 50% of supposedly monogamous marriages fail. (Statistics are my favorite tools in an argument.)
The second question is easy to answer too, though perhaps harder to convince the asking party. Sure, I feel jealousy. Sure, it's hard to examine where the feelings of insecurity and envy and hurt feelings reside, to poke and prod and excavate. But the end result is a happier, healthier heart, not bogged down with "what-if's" and "shoulds" and absolute, total, heart-stopping fear of being alone or abandoned no matter what evidence exists that contradicts.
The third question is more complicated, partly because the real question is:
are ANY relationships worth all the trouble?
Today I say yes. Tomorrow I'll probably say yes too. And maybe for one hour next week I'll say no.
But I've still out-voted myself.
Nonmonogamy isn't just about sex
(though don't get me wrong, the sex can be nice).
It's about establishing and building absolute trust and faith in each other without relying on feelings of ownership and obligation.
You know that one person you were desperately in love with and believed they were your soulmate? You wanted to be with them no matter how many times they lied, cheated, ignored, or abused you? Remember how powerful that feeling of near unconditional love? How you were willing to accept them back and be with them no matter what's occured?
Eventually you learn you're delusional.
But I aspire to have that power of feeling towards my partner.
Towards her.
Only instead of heartbreaks and lies and delusions, she'll bring me honesty and truth and discussions and respect.
But what about those in-between? Those lovers I unintentionally label "secondary"?
I think I'm capable of a thousand types of love. And I want to experience them all -- some of them with different people. The more I explore, the more I open myself, and one day perhaps I can give a partner 999 styles of loving them (the remaining one is solely for myself).
And then will it all be worth it?
How could it not?
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no subject
Date: 2002-06-04 03:37 pm (UTC)You know, I never get asked the first and third question. I get the second one, frequently. I think it says more about the people who ask it, than the issue itself.