What if they aren’t monogamous?
There’s a reason that person hasn’t chosen to be committed to just you. What if it isn’t cause their dad is shit or there’s a void in their life? What if it’s not about readiness? What if it’s just their lifestyle and they don’t know how to verbalize that? And they seem selfish cause they want you, and they can’t have only a piece that’s just not how you give. So it’s all or nothing. And, they could give you all of them, but it would only be temporary. Because ultimately, they want to share themselves with others too? What if lying and deceit is based off a mix of power and fear. Further more, what if youaren’t monogamous? What if all these ‘what ifs’ apply to yourself?
Monogamy is defined as a relationship with only one partner at a time, rather than multiple partners. A monogamous relationship can be sexual or emotional, but it's usually both. Most of us in this westernized culture are used to this kind of relationship. One person partnership at a time.
Polyamory is characterized by or involved in the practice of engaging in multiple romantic (and typically sexual) relationships, with the consent of all the people involved. Polygamy is more so about a marital relations. It is a practice or custom of having more than one wife or husband at the same time. That’s getting real Latter Day Saints with it though, and I have enough true crime cases talking about them, so let’s just keep it simple with polyamory and monogamy for now. Besides half y’all reading this aren’t even married, so no need to ask why if it don’t apply.
To be honest monogamy has been shoved down our throats, probably for our entire lives. There are generations of cultures embedded in marrying one person and being with them for the rest of your life. You build a nuclear family, and continue the family tree. But as our society changes, our two most recent generations have broken the mold. People are finding more independence and truth in who they are. Gender roles are manifesting into something new, acceptance among people is becoming more normalized, it isn’t far off to believe that relationships and how families look are evolving as well.
Now I am not here to spew a rhetoric to fear or embrace anything, I just wanna chat about it.
From a person who is a monogamous. I am aware of the insanity that comes with it. I fall in love with love, and I'm head over heels with the idea of finding that one person, and choosing to grow with them.
I am aware that our generation is forcing people to consider multiple options though. For example, a platonic partnership where people decide to be life partners with people they have zero sexual attraction to is becoming more popular. And I get it… life is getting expensive. If you aren’t a fucking Data Analyst there is a chance you’re only making like $70,000 a year, if that. All of us are in debt. The cost of living sucks. Not to mention if people do want to fall in love they have to either wear a mask to go outside to “meet someone at the grocery store” (which by the way 9 times out of 10, I look like shit when I am running errands, please don’t ask me for my number while I’m in the produce section trying to take advantage of the 10 for 10 mango sale) or meeting online.
If it isn’t in person you’ve got to use a dating app, Hinge, Tinder, Bumble, Black People Meet, Grinder, Christian People Meet… my God. And we become insatiable. Its like gambling, every swipe is addicting because there’s a chance that your person is right behind the flag football player who has one to many photos with their dog. It’s too much. You know what’s sad? Running into the same person on multiple apps, like you thought the Tinder guy who just wants to fuck you wasn’t going to be on Hinge giving half ass answers to questions:
“What am I competitive about?
Everything”
like okay Josh.
Anyway dating is hard, but the thing is the history of monogamy was made from a selective, easy ass way, to be monogamous. And even back then people were cheating.
See, monogamy is a scam, its a pyramid scheme wrapped in glitter and a poofy white dress. According to the Ethnographic Atlas by George P. Murdock, of 1,231 societies from around the world noted, 186 were monogamous; 453 had monogamy and occasional polygyny; 588 had more frequent polygyny.
Monogamy is more so social than sexual. See, originally it stemmed from a couple reasons. One being bi-parental ability. Having a male and a female in a household to raise a child gives the child have a better chance of being whole, and being supported emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially.
Even before then, as told by Science Illustrated, as humans evolved, what was realized is that competition is tough. Males can impregnate multiple women at one time, whereas women can only get pregnant once every nine to ten months. However, monogamy evolved in humans when low ranking males were struggling with competing with the higher ranked rivals. Which resulted in low ranking males, revealing their more caring side to potential suitors. Basically even if you can get a bunch of women pregnant, a higher ranked male (8, 9, 10s) were the ones getting on the punanny while the lower ranked males were not. I think we can see where incells were born, but that's for another discussion.
Socially, and I promise this is the last history lesson I give, monogamy was first established in Greece. One of the plausible reasons is monogamist groups were at an advantage militarily over polyamorous groups. Imposing monogamy meant that fewer men would leave a group to search for wives elsewhere, and would be available to fight battles and pay taxes. As Christianity emerged we embraced monogamy and took it further insisting that two people must reserve their bodies and desires for each marriage ‘becoming an ever lasting threesome with God,’ that is like not even me being witty that is a quote from the book The Biology of Moral Systems. A love based marriage was an idea to keep couples faithful. It was used to help you stomach being with the same person for the rest of your life if there is a chance that you'll love each other forever.
As we talk about the West, the most important reason why monogamy came into play, was money. If a person is married to multiple people or has multiple partners, their money is spread around. It started more so in the UK, families that were wealthy would marry into each other to keep the money in the family. You are more likely were to marry someone in your class, then in a lower class because how the hell does that help you or your family? To add a pretty bow to an otherwise disturbing transaction you include in a ceremony, a beautiful wedding and a beautiful dinner and the support of two families coming together, **cue the violins**. As we evolved more as a society, you brought in the idea of love. There are 7 billion people on this planet and you will find the person for you to fall in love with, and get married. (With the hopes that they make around the same amount of money if not more than you, and your families are able to keep generational wealth in the bloodline.)
Of course that manifested itself into an incredibly high rate of divorce in the 2000s, especially after the recession. I would know mommy and daddy dearest did not make it past 2008.
Now here we are, and the narrative is changing, people are waiting to get married, and that's like a big thing we should talk about. Instead of being 16 and falling in love and being with that person forever, people are waiting till their mid to late 20s to really settle down. And I think that is important, because it allows a person to get to know themselves before they give themselves in a major commitment to someone else. Our brain doesn't even fully develop until the age of 25, so why the hell would we make a lifelong commitment before then? And we’re ever evolving beings. The person I am at 27 may not be the person that I'm going to be at 47, there's going to be some changes. And I can only pray that my partner sticks around for the ride, because I'm at a place where I know I'll stick around for his. But this isn't about me, this is about people being honest with the idea that monogamy ain’t for everybody. Shout out to Wale.
I just want us to be real with ourselves, what if polyamory could be considered a true option.
Polyamory is the ability to share yourself with multiple people and everyone gives their consent. There are pros to that. They say it takes a village, having three or four people in a household raising kids there's more income, there's more love to go around, there's more experiences. There is no capacity for love to be stifled by just one partner. And if you do it correctly you can have an intimate, emotional, and sexual relationship that is healthy for everyone. You can build a sense of community while also having different people benefit different sides of yourself. You learn better relationship skills in general, and it can help you have a better understanding of yourself, instead of getting one person to view you so intimately, you have several.
However there are also cons. A majority of people, especially in a westernized culture cannot afford it. Originally, it was thought of as a way to grow a household, but polyamory almost runs the risk of evolving into an expensive experience. I heard an interview done by Joey Bada$$ where he admitted to being polyamorous, he did not have any interest in being tied down, and wanted to date multiple women. However he is also financially able to do that. He can take these women on dates, he can buy them gifts, if they are in a bind he can financially support them. I've seen a couple athletes also give in to this notion of being polyamorous, and the women buy in too. They are supported in the way they need to be emotionally and financially. We all know Nick Cannon has flown around the country getting every woman pregnant in each state, but he is a millionaire. He can afford that. If you are looking for a polyamorous relationship where you can date freely, be prepared to spend some bread. Not only that but relationships, emotions, they get difficult. I got into a fight with my boyfriend that lasted 2 days, and it took so much out of me, and him, I could not imagine knowing anyone more intimately than the way we know one another. There's also the feeling of temporary. Polyamorous relationships are subject to change, because the idea is that evolving beings connect with those on their level. Whereas monogamy kind of pushes this notion that we evolve together.
Last but certainly not least what the majority of people do these days, is they choose to live a polyamorous lifestyle but they don't really understand it, and thus they fall in love with monogamous people who aren’t willing to budge. Which leads the polyamorous person to choose greed, “I want you and I don't want anyone else to have you, but I want to have other people.” Thanks make sure you get ‘I'm an asswipe’ tattooed on your neck while you're at it.
If you're going to date multiple people at once be up front and honest. Brittany Renner said it herself, had her partner been upfront with her with what he wanted to do sexually, maybe she would have been on board, but he wasn't and he cheated and he broke her trust. The reason monogamy works so well is because it is a social cultural norm. And as emotions get involved it's hard to share. Men are probably more likely to be open to multiple partners at once, because it is easier for them to become aroused, and they don’t have to worry ab out the fall back of social stigma. It doesn’t mean their sex drive is different from women’s , women just have more to think about, and that makes it harder to live as truly and freely. The more risk for women, realistically the more of a push to have some sort of emotional or maybe more so mental push when it comes to sexual relationships. Regardless of anatomy or social standing, I think we all can agree that sex is better when you both care.
Whether polyamorous, monogamous, or asexual, its okay to be honest with yourself about your preference. I have a couple people in my life that I know would probably be better living a polyamorous experience. In the same breath I know a couple people that would benefit from continuing to be monogamist, and in a final breath I know some people who probably would be their very best if they were just alone. Society is changing, and being deep rooted in cultures that are hundreds of years old isn't going to cut it completely. Personally, for me polyamory won't work, because I only own a full sized bed. All jokes aside after being conditioned to have one way of life for so long and falling in love with the idea that you meet a person then they're supposed to be for you, (not taking into consideration proximity, or language, or culture, exist) I think that two things can be true: One you can have a soulmate you can have that person that you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, and two you can have multiple soulmates you can have different people across this globe that would match with you perfectly, but it is up to you to choose, do I search for those souls and see if I can share, or do I choose this one person to grow and be with?
