It's paradoxical - or maybe more of an Hegelian contradiction - that this has occurred at the same time that sex is featured more and more, from FOX News' "soft porn" features to a popular fiction series like Sex and the City. The latter dealt with people's sex lives with a frankness that was a key element of the series' success. But Bussel's article, discussing the real-world version of that, jumps out at the (American) reader like a rather scandalous take on universally accepted standards.
She makes the point that "monogamy", by which she means single-partner sexual commitments, work fine for most people. But in the real world, some people have other than monogamous sexual relationships, both in terms of "cheating" and in less serreptious version.
It's a sign of how the word "monogamy" in American English has come to be understood as referring to sexual relationships that I feel compelled to note at this point that in medically-based "safe sex" advice, maintaining an exclusive relationship with a trusted partner is highly recommended, apart from any more general moral considerations.
But, whatever moral judgment one passes on it, it's a fact of our world - yes, even in "Puritanical" America - that sexual "monogamy" is not universally practiced, to put it mildly. As Bussel writes:
I agree ..., completely, that "fantasy is a good thing." And for many people, monogamy works just fine. But for others, both men and women, monogamy is not a perfect system and doesn't allow them to fully realize themselves. By that I don't mean "sleep with anyone they want," but rather that we may reveal different aspects of ourselves to different people. Think about your various close friends; the way you interact with them is likely different for each one. Some people have that same experience with lovers; they may be married or in a long-term relationship, but have someone else they see occasionally or frequently. Open relationships are not all about sex, either. We may want someone we can talk to, share with, who provides a different kind of support or energy or way of relating than our primary partner.It's notable here that Bussel is using "monogamy" in a broader sense, as an institutional model of relationships. That's different than using "monogamy" to refer exclusively to sexual relationships.
I've been in both open and monogamous relationships, and one thing I can safely say is that there are plenty of people in so-called monogamous relationships where there's all kinds of cheating going on. Or, as Betty Dodson told me a few years ago, "America practices serial monogamy with cheating on the side. It's never acknowledged and it's lied about." If you've been cheated on, you know the pain and heartache this can cause, likely fostering distrust that can stay with us in future relationships. Even if there's not cheating, it's likely that one person may be up to something the other wouldn't necessarily approve of (flirting, for instance). Furthermore, when we make monogamy the be-all and end-all in relationships, in some ways we make the letter of the law more important than the spirit. Would you rather your partner make love to you every day, even though their heart's not really in it?
The exclusively-sexual meaning of "monogamy" may be so entrenched in American usage by now that we need a whole new word or phrase to mean the broader cultural-social context in which Bussel uses it in the passage just quoted. It's a shame to think that the sniggering-frat-boy definition has become a defining one. But language has its own rules of development, and the frat-boy version may have carried the game for the word "monogamy".
Which is a shame. Because the changing nature of family relationships should be something that can be discussed more frankly in what the Christian fundamentalists like to call "the public square", i.e., normal respectable writing and conversation, without having it instantly translated in the listener's mind to an advocacy of "free love" or promiscuity. But it's probably a sign of something not entirely good that a term like "free love" is generally understood to be a bad, sinful thing. Incorporating the notion of freedom into love shouldn't be in itself a sinful concept.
It's also entirely understandable that mainstream politicians and more ideological activists would want to separate the issue of gay marriage from an implication that it means a breakdown of sexual morality and order, to which the opponents of gay marriage would be happy to have such an association made. Marriage is not only a social institution as well as a cultural practice. There are good reasons that most democratic societies define legal marriage or other legally-recognized forms of partnership ("domestic partners") on the basis of single-partner relationships, reasons from healthcare concerns to responsibility for children.
None of this is new to family law courts. They face challenges every day to fit the needs of children and partners into the actual structure of relationships as they are lived.
But the discussion over marriage laws, particular on the issue of gay marriage, often seems to be stuck in a strange state of suspension, as though there is some standard of Traditional Marriage that has been accepted since forever.
The institution of marriage as we know it in the United States has changed considerably since 1776. It's changed significantly in more recent decades, as well. The establishment of community property laws, for instance, was a significant change in the legal positions of partners in a marriage.
If we look a little farther back, the changes are even more obvious. Prior to the Civil War (1861-65), women's property rights in general were distinctly subordinate to those of male relatives, not just husbands. Women also couldn't vote. Women's disadvantage in property rights and opportunities for independent work outside the home were even more restricted in the South than in the North.
"Traditional family" for slaveowners was theoretically a union between a man and a woman. But the real existing family practices of slaveowners often included sexual activity with slaves, as well. In most cases it was male slaveowners with female slaves, though female slaveowners were also known to indulge their sexual impulses with male slaves, as well. I haven't read about same-sex activity in that regard, though it undoubtedly took place.
Slaves formed single-partner relationships, but they were strictly informal. The slave codes did not recognize slave marriages. And the rights of husbands, wives and children were essentially nonexistent. Families could be divided at any time by slave sales, and they very frequently were. Slaveowners could require one slave to breed with another whether either partner wanted to do so, and whether either partner was in a single-partner relationship with someone else.
But that was the "traditional family" under slavery.
Clearly, the institution of marriage in the United States today is not what it was in many ways in 1860. I think it would be beneficial if the political discussion about gay marriage and other family-law issues could take place in a less-constricted framework that recognizes that legal frameworks of marriage have to change in regard to changing social developments and norms.
Legalizing divorce doesn't mean that any particular couple has to get divorced. But it allows those for whom it is a preferable option to do so. Setting the legal age for marriage without parental at 18 doesn't mean that everyone has to get married at 18. In fact, compulsory marriage is not legal at all in the US, so the fact that marriage exists as an institution doesn't require any particular adult to use it.
The same thing is true with gay marriage. It's no threat to heterosexual marriage to give gays and lesbians the option for legal marriage. And, just as having divorce legalized doesn't stop a church from teaching that divorce is a sin, having gay marriage be legal wouldn't stop any church from teaching that homosexuality is a sin.
But in the larger discussion of not only what's legal but what should be considered moral or socially acceptable does need to take account of the realities of contemporary life. It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that not all "alternative" sexual practices should be considered benign.
What Bussel's post reminded me, though, is that the conventions of political conversation on "family" often don't take account of the realities of the way healthy adults actually live their lives. Good for her for contributing to the public discussion in a positive way. Even if politicians can't talk about the real world in an equally frank way.
Tags: gay rights, rachel kramer bussel
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