Is Infidelity ‘Better’ Than Consensual Non-monogamy?
Strangely, many people seem to think so
Americans don’t like cheaters or infidelity. Despite the statistics about just how many Americans engage in them, 89% of people find that affairs are morally wrong. “American social taboos on many issues — especially issues of personal sexual choice — have been changing over time, but views on infidelity have not budged. It has been consistently frowned upon by the masses, across decades and demographics.”
You’d think that the main complaint would be the level of dishonesty and betrayal inherent in engaging intimately with other people behind your partner’s back, but for a lot of people, this doesn’t seem to be the case — many Americans don’t like consensual non-monogamy either. It seems that for some, although infidelity is “breaking the rules” at least it acknowledges that a particular set of rules exists.
By contrast, consensual non-monogamy (CNM) has no inherent structures and the parameters must be determined by the people involved. It completely and totally disrupts the traditional trappings of romantic/sexual relationships and this seems to be the real issue that so many people I encounter have with CNM.
As Franklin Veaux pointed out, “In short: People worry more about straying outside social norms than they do about lying to their partner…and cheating might be unacceptable (at least on paper) but it’s still within socially normal behavior.”
These Aren’t ‘Real’ Relationships
Because CNM doesn’t fit into the box of we rode the relationship escalator all the way to marriage, some people are of the mind that these aren’t ‘real’ relationships. I’ve been told that polyamory is “just hooking up the way single people do” and then trying to give it a fancy name to cover that up. As someone recently said to me:
Polyamory is like trying to convince someone that cheating is good for them and therefore good for you too, so that you will agree to it. It’s just more hypocrisy. If you are having an “open relationship”, you are not in a relationship. The word relationship imples (sic) linkage or a desired bond. If you don’t desire a bond, you don’t desire a relationship. That kind of intimacy cannot be “shared”.
The belief that you can only love one person at a time and be committed to only one person at a time has deep roots in patriarchy, which in turn, has deep roots in our culture. Never mind that the plot of many a Rom-Com is that one of the main characters is in love with two people at once. Never mind that many people still do love their ex, even if they no longer feel that they can live with them or be committed to them. Never mind that many CNM relationships do seek to and succeed in forming a real bond.
I’ve been with my husband for over 30 years, and with my various intimate partners long-term or intending for that to be the case. I don’t know how anyone imagines that multi-year relationships aren’t “real.”
There are some forms of CNM that tend to be more about sex, such as swinging, but even then, couples often find caring community and tenderness for their partners. Umbrella labels give you a sense of the connection, but there are still no hard and fast rules or uniform experiences. Compared to hook-up culture, CNM quite often has a lot more connectivity, even in casual contexts.
There are people out there — mostly young men — who want to pretend that they are consensually non-monogamous, but actually aren’t. These are the ones who give CNM a bad name and make some people believe that open relationships are nothing but a cover for selfish behavior. They tend to consider themselves relationship anarchists, but if your desire is to do whatever you want without any concern for the other person, that’s not actually a relationship of any sort, much less a consensually non-monogamous one.
You Can’t Be Committed To More Than One Person
Once again, this is a narrative straight out of our patriarchal roots, wherein a woman is given by her father to a man as a sort of chattel. She cannot be owned by more than one person at a time or have allegiance to anyone but her lawful husband. Therefore, in the collective consciousness, these things are impossible even when they are not legally required. Remember that the commenter above opined, “That kind of intimacy cannot be shared.”
This presupposes that every relationship must be a marriage-equivalent in order to be intimate or committed, but that is a false assumption. Social connection and deep personal intimacy are the strong suits of homo sapiens. We are genetically wired for both interdependence and connection, something that has been postulated to be one of the things that allowed us to thrive when other hominin strains died off.
In times past, both men and women used to write letters to their friends similar in tone and level of adoration to the love letters of today, calling each other things like “my darling” and “sweetest” as a matter of course. The social conventions we have today around intimacy are just that — social conventions. The notion that you can only truly love or be intimate with one romantic partner at a time is an assumption that comes out of those.
Humans do have a long history of pair bonding, but historically, that had little to do with sexual exclusivity and there are still many cultures in the world where that isn’t an accepted part of something that looks like a marriage.
A few cultures, such as the Marind-anim people of Melanesia, believe that it takes the semen of more than one man to make a child. In Lowland South America, and in parts of Africa partible paternity, where two or more men father a child, is common in many tribes. Spreading fatherly feelings throughout the group helps to maintain solidarity and cohesion as well as promotes the well-being of a greater number of children.
That’s what is considered normal there. And aside from other cultures and the customs of other periods in history, telling someone in the here and now that they can’t actually love more than one person — when they have the experience of doing just that — is condescending and rude. Not all love looks and feels exactly alike, but that doesn’t mean that only the sort that you’d have for a life partner is valid or real.
The word committed means feeling dedication and loyalty. It doesn’t mean married to. Presumably, most people have the experience of being committed to their friendships and their family, so why can’t you be committed to more than one intimate partner? I know of a few polyamorous people who live with the equivalent of two husbands or two wives, but most polyamory happens in parallel, where partners have other people they are partnered with in a separate and non-overlapping relationship. And, there are nearly infinite other possible configurations because CNM people forge their own intimate relationships to suit themselves.
All those relationships don’t have to be exactly the same in order to be deeply bonded and committed. They also can potentially be casual and uncommitted and still be loving. Unlike what our culture has taught us, the only two options aren’t the relationship escalator to marriage and casual hookups.
“It’s just too weird…”
Consensual non-monogamy is weird to some people because it’s so culturally ingrained in them that people ought to be exclusive, jealous, and possessive. Some even believe that jealousy is an indication of real love, although I don’t see how wanting to own and control someone else is the least bit romantic. More vestiges of patriarchy…
Renowned anthropologist, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy points out, “In a traditional Canela marriage ceremony, the bride and groom lie down on a mat, arms under each other’s heads, legs entwined. The brother of each partner’s mother then comes forward. He admonishes the bride and her new husband to stay together until the last child is grown, specifically reminding them not to be jealous of each other’s lovers.”
The norms of our culture are not the only real or valid ones, and they indicate that all sorts of relationship configurations are indeed possible.
Naturally, people who wish to remain sexually and romantically exclusive should absolutely do that, but considering that close to half of all marriages end in divorce and that infidelity is far from uncommon, perhaps it’s time to normalize the honesty and robust communication that takes place in healthy CNM relationships as a valid option. From my point of view, it’s sick and perverted to consider deceit and betrayal to be more socially acceptable than consensual agreement to have whatever sort of intimate relationships that you want.
© Copyright Elle Beau 2022