You, Her/Him, and Another: A Thought Experiment

Following is a thought experiment designed to illuminate how monogamy compels us to wield mere information as a weapon against both ourselves and others, inflicting deep and long lasting harm. The thought experiment makes use of four nearly identical scenarios. Each scenario involves three individuals: You, Him/Her, and Another. You, is you dear reader. Him/Her is somebody that you are dating or have dated and Another is someone with whom Him/Her has, at some point, a one-night stand. In each of the four scenarios that follows the individuals and the one-night stand itself are identical.

THE FOUR SCENARIOS

Scenario #1—Once Upon a Time

You have been dating Him/Her for about five months when the question of past experiences arises. Your lover tells you that they’ve only had one one-night stand in their life. The one-stand in question is, of course, the same one that features in all four scenarios. Your lover tells you that it was about two months before the two of you met, that it took place between Him/Her and Another after meeting at a pub, and that both of them really enjoyed the experience. Nevertheless, they did not get close and only maintained casual contact. After hearing of this interesting but innocuous past experience, you file it away as a mere piece of trivia, a matter of getting to know your partner better.

Scenario #2—Devastating Overlap

Scenarios #1 and #2 are identical with the exception of timing. You have been dating the same individual as in #1, only this time for about a year. In this scenario too your lover divulges the self-same information: the exact same one-night stand with the same sex took place between Him/Her and Another after they met at the same pub. It was, as with #1, a good experience but there remained only minimal contact (and no physical relationship) between them. In this scenario too the one-night stand took place seven months ago. In other words, it took place while you were dating. You are devastated, crushed, broken-hearted. Your emotions shoot up to level 10 and you careen forth and back between despair, fury, regret, vengeance, self-doubt, self-righteousness, and more. You are equally physically impacted: shaking, crying, yelling, destroying things, binge eating or not eating at all, returning to old vices, etc. Despite Him/Her’s assurances that there is genuine and deep love for you—and despite ample evidence over the past year in support of these assurances—you terminate the relationship.

Scenario #3—The New-Love Shield

Scenario #3 has the same three individuals with the exact same one-night stand. In this scenario, you had been dating Him/Her for one year. After a year or so, however, the relationship was dissolved with more than mild drama and hurt feelings on both sides. Whatever contact you have had since has quickly devolved into fighting. But it’s been four months since the breakup and you have a new lover that you are enthralled with. Him/Her, of course, does not know this. To spite you, your ex sends an email detailing a one-night stand—the very same one-night stand as in the other two scenarios above—that evidently happened between Him/Her and Another the night just prior to this email after they met at a pub. It was, as the email tells it, an altogether enjoyable experience for both Him and Her. You are ecstatic about your new relationship and are more or less unaffected by the email. You write it off as a juvenile attempt to wound you and you have no trouble putting it out of mind.

Scenario #4—The Vulnerability Lens

Scenario #4 is identical to #3 with the exception that, in the four months since the break up, you haven’t been dating. There is no one new in your life. There is no new lover that makes you feel special and who is a source of ongoing happiness. This time when you receive the email detailing the one-night stand between Him/Her and Another that took place only one night prior it cuts to the bone. It hurts deeply and your emotions careen forth and back between despair, fury, regret, vengeance, self-doubt, self-righteousness, and more.

ANALYSIS

1. two wildly different interpretations of the same data

In all four scenarios, you were dating someone who gave you some information about him- or herself: at some point there was a one-night stand with Another. In each case the one-night stand is exactly the same: Him/Her met at the same place, had the same sex, enjoyed it to the same degree, and maintained the same minimal level of Platonic contact afterwards. In the first scenario, hearing of the one-night stand had little effect. In this first case, hearing of the event and hearing that it was a fulfilling experience caused no hurt. You were perhaps even a little happy for your lover. The second scenario, however, is radically different from the first. Even though, in both scenarios, the exact same one-night stand took place seven months before your lover tells you about it, the information is a mere curiosity in the first case and the source of excruciating pain in the second. What is the difference? The difference, of course, is not in the material conditions. Those are identical in both scenarios. The difference is in how you interpret the meaning, value, and significance of the information. The same amount of time has passed, the same people are involved, and you came to learn about it in the same way. Nevertheless, in the first scenario you interpret the data, the new information, as largely irrelevant and you simply file it away in your brain under “facts about my lover.” In the second scenario you interpret the same data as not only relevant but of paramount importance. In fact, given the overwhelming evidence that points to Him/Her’s genuine love for you—a love that is unquestionably felt in return—you make the single most important thing in determining the destiny of the relationship NOT any of the myriad things shared and exchanged between You and Him/Her, but instead something between Him/Her and Another. Let's be clear: once the monogamous contract/ultimatum is in place, once exclusivity has become the wellspring of meaning, value, and significance, then betrayal of that agreement is a heinous act and cannot be other than devastating. The point here is not that, given a monogamous relationship, You could interpret the information about Him/Her and Another in some benign fashion. The point is that the mutual bind itself—that mutual contract You and Him/Her force upon one another in the standard monogamous relationship—forces this interpretation and prohibits any others; it thus skews the relationship heavily toward the resulting devastation. But this mutual bind is not natural, necessary, or even beneficial. The core agreement in monogamy is mutual control over each other’s body. As such, one of the most severely defective characteristics of monogamy is that it makes the most important thing about love a matter of what each person does outside of the relationship. This, of course, automatically breeds paranoia, insecurity, and possessiveness. What’s worse, it makes physical contact with any others trump all else in meaning, value, and significance: an interpretation that makes an event that lasted less than three hours trump all that has been shared and exchanged in your relationship over the course of a year.

2. mistaken identity in the chain of cause and effect

It is common for us to lament our situation when we’ve been cheated on and ask, “how could he/she do this to me?” And, again, let’s be clear: in the case of monogamy where the very heart of the relationship is a promise of exclusivity, there is little in this world more fucked up than stepping all over your relationship and your lover/spouse’s very emotional/social/physical well being (sometimes irreparably) by betraying someone’s trust to satisfy carnal cravings. This thought experiment is NOT a defense of infidelity. This exercise in hypotheticals is designed to show the incoherence of monogamy.* Digressions about how heinous cheating is aside, the sentiment “how could he/she do this to me?,” contains a fundamental error in its logic. The actual sex act that constitutes the one-night stand in each of the four scenarios may be the direct cause of many things (such as an STD) but it is NOT the direct cause of the pain and suffering endured in scenarios #2 and #4. The erotic contact between the two bodies did not yield the woe. This is clear in #2 owing to the fact that you felt nothing at all when the one-night stand was actually unfolding. While Him/Her and Another were having sex, you were at home cuddled up with an engrossing book, or you were with friends playing cards, or you were at the movies with your mom… or, more than likely, you have no idea exactly what you happened to be doing while they were having sex. It wasn’t the material conditions of the one-night stand that caused hurt, pain, and suffering. It was the mere information itself. It is the sheer idea of Him/Her having sex with another. Now, some might want to object and say that the duplicity that kept the one-night stand a secret for seven months does not mean that it wasn’t the one-night stand itself that caused the harm. As soon as you were aware of the betrayal the damage was done: if there was no act of infidelity, there would be no damage. Therefore, you might want to say, it must be a primary cause of the hurt. But this is clearly not true. If we consider yet another scenario, one in which there NEVER WAS a one-night stand but, owing to the paranoia, possessiveness, and insecurity mentioned above, you somehow become erroneously yet utterly convinced that, while dating you, Him/Her had a one-night stand with Another after meeting at a pub, then the same insufferable consequences follow. The mere idea of this one-night stand, even without any basis in reality, can still cause the exact same outcome. It is you who, in the first scenario, fold up this information like a scrap of paper and stick it in the back pocket of your mind. And it is also you who, in the second scenario, wield this same information against yourself as a knife to make a thousand cuts.

3. underlining the main point

The third and fourth scenarios are helpful in underlining the main point. The main point is that the attachment and insecurity at the heart of monogamy compel us to interpret events in self-damaging ways. Between the third and the fourth scenarios it is clear that the determining factor in making the information we receive harmless or harmful is our own state of mind. When we feel secure and cared for as in scenario #3 it is easy to simply dismiss the information and perhaps even feel compassion (or else pity) for our ex. When we feel self-doubt and insecurity as in scenario #4 it is easy to turn this information into a bludgeon with which to beat ourselves mercilessly. It is the way that monogamy orients us with respect to ourselves and others that drives us to interpret the simple fact of two other people having enjoyable and healthy consensual sex as something so terrible that the mere idea of it alone inflicts endless torment. It is owing to the way we connect to and prioritize our own selfish needs and wants—and it is therefore not at all love—that makes us set each other up for failure and set ourselves up for self-abuse.

*This incoherence is part of the explanation as to why, despite nearly universal consensus that infidelity is a repulsive act, it still is universal enough to transcend language and culture, political views, age, race, gender, etc.

Controlling, Determining, and Otherwise Limiting

When a person, group, or other controlling entity seeks, struggles for, or achieves/is granted control over the conduct of another (or others), said party becomes a “governor,” in the broad sense of the term, caught up in “government,” where governmentality refers to the entire range of practices “that constitute, define, organize, and instrumentalize the strategies that individuals in their freedom can use in dealing with each other” (Foucault, Ethics. 300). In other words, in relationships that are first and foremost power relations, there are incentives, tools, and strategies for making use of whatever freedom one has in attempts at controlling, determining, or limiting the freedom of others.

Is not the standard monogamous project one that is best characterized, not as an erotic relationship nor a loving relationship, nor even a domestic partnership, but instead a relation of power? Is not the quintessential concern in the standard monogamous project the ability to control, determine, and otherwise limit the freedom of another? In a relationship where all the love, attention, affection, respect, appreciation, and on and on... in a relationship where all that one could desire from another is not only present but abundant, what need is there for governing the other’s freedom, for curtailing possibility? By what exigency or right does one find it not only acceptable but imperative to make another subject to such governance? And more pressing still, how is it not only acceptable but a normal expectation that one will leverage their very love as the strategic means for procuring such governmental power over another? Yet this is nothing more nor less than the ultimatum that people present each other with every day in pursuing “love”: submit to my governance or else I shall occlude my love for you and reject your love for me!

And just to emphasize that our approaches to love, intimacy, and family are the apotheoses of perversity, the vast majority are not satisfied with merely being granted such governance. “You must govern me in kind!  If you lack interest, even in the slightest, in taking such possession of me, your willing helot, the shallowness of your love is exposed!  If you truly loved me you'd insist on being my governor!”

After all, in this most barbaric of models, to love is to take hold of, to govern, to possess; of course, the inevitable extreme of love, then, is to consume, to devour.  Since it is a mutual and reciprocal domination, of course, the apex of love, love's culmination, is the obliteration of oneself and one's beloved.

sexuality

Kindred to "family" as vivisected below, anything other than a cursory look at so called "sexual identity" reveals a similarly troubled coherence. Sedgwick, again:

[T]hink of all the elements that are condensed in the notion of sexual identity, something that the common sense of our time presents as a unitary [and universal!] category. Yet, exerting any pressure at all on "sexual identity," you see that its elements include

your biological (e.g., chromosomal) sex, male or female;

your self-perceived gender assignment, male or female (supposed to be the same as your biological sex);

the preponderance of your traits of personality and appearance, masculine or feminine (supposed to correspond to your sex and gender);

the biological sex of your preferred partner;

the gender assignment of your preferred partner (supposed to be the same as her/his biological sex);

the masculinity or femininity of your preferred partner (supposed to be the opposite of your own);

your self-perception as gay or straight (supposed to correspond to whether your preferred partner is your sex or the opposite);

your preferred partner's self-perception as gay or straight (supposed to be the same as yours);

your procreative choice (supposed to be yes if straight, no if gay);

your preferred sexual act(s) (supposed to be insertive if you are male or masculine, receptive if you are female or feminine);

your most eroticized sexual organs (supposed to correspond to the procreative capabilities of your sex, and to your insertive/receptive assignment);

your sexual fantasies (supposed to be highly congruent with your sexual practice, but stronger in intensity);

your main locus of emotional bonds (supposed to reside in your preferred sexual partner);

your enjoyment of power in sexual relations (supposed to be low if you are female or feminine, high if male or masculine);

the people from whom you learn about your own gender and sex (supposed to correspond to yourself in both respects);

your community of cultural and political identification (supposed to correspond to your own identity);

and—again—many more. Even this list is remarkable for the silent presumptions it has to make about a given person's sexuality, presumptions that are true only to varying degrees, and for many people not true at all: that everyone "has a sexuality," for instance, and that it is implicated with each person's sense of overall identity in similar ways; that each person's most characteristic erotic expression will be oriented toward another person and not autoerotic; that if it is alloerotic, it will be oriented toward a single partner or kind of partner at a time; that its orientation will not change over time. Normatively, as the parenthetical prescriptions in the list above suggest, it should be possible to deduce anybody's entire set of specs from the initial datum of biological sex alone—if one adds only the normative assumption that 'the biological sex of your preferred partner' will be the opposite of one's own. With or without that heterosexist assumption, though, what's striking is the number and difference of the dimensions that 'sexual identity' is supposed to organize into a seamless and univocal whole.

from Tendencies, pp. 7-8

family

In our time (now) and in our place (here), the institution of marriage is supposed to be assimilated into the institution of family, becoming its very nucleus. This institution, too, exists in a substantially, if not radically, different form than it did even prior to WWII. The failure rate of this institution is, perhaps not surprisingly, expanding nearly on pace with marriage. Though "family" is a term that has shifted and morphed through time and is something that often looked different from place to place, class to class, etc, it is, just like marriage, becoming increasingly incoherent. Consider this passage from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick:

Think of that entity "the family," an impacted social space in which all of the following are meant to line up perfectly with each other:

a surname
a sexual dyad
a legal unit based on state-regulated marriage
a circuit of blood relationships
a system of companionship and succor
a building
a proscenium between "private" and "public"
an economic unit of earning and taxation
the prime site of economic consumption
the prime site of cultural consumption
a mechanism to produce, care for, and acculturate children
a mechanism for accumulating material goods over several generations
a daily routine
a unit in a community of worship
a site of patriotic formation

and of course the list could go on.

from Tendencies, pg. 6

courtship

one of the interesting starting points for thinking about why our monogamy, our marriage-model, is sickly is one whereby we consider contemporary courtship. courtship tends to proceed along a couple of fairly distinct phases: the fledgling phase of initial contact and engagement, the transitional phase wherein the twosome become "invested," and the final phase, monogamy, wherein the couple play out an ersatz marriage. in the beginning, the generosity and care, the compassion and selflessness of a fledgling relationship is a marvel to behold. we can recognize in these giddy beginnings something precious. generally speaking, the mindsets and concomitant interpersonal dynamics of first and second dates, of that period of time when the future is still a deep nocturnal mystery and anything can happen, of the precipice overlooking sheer possibility, are the lovers in us at their best. we feel privileged to be in the company of this other person of whom we are bedazzled. we make no demands, do not feel we own rights with respect to their time, attention, body, or affection. we do not feel that this beautiful being with whom we are hoping to begin a love affair is accountable to us in any way. we make few assumptions and harbor few expectations. can you imagine a second date where one of the would be lovers demands to know why a call wasn't returned or else demands to know who their date spent the previous several days with and in what capacity? when we first begin the ritual of courtship we lay no claims; the other person is their own person and, beholden to none, can do anything they so desire. that they choose, out of endless other options, to offer their time, attention, affection, etc. is a source of great joy and pride. as the fledgling phase begins to slip into the transitional phase, however, this all begins to change. instead of the other being cherished for who they are in their singular uniqueness, they begin to be measured against implicit and explicit criteria. each person's process of evaluating the other is just one in an extensive series of actions that are consequent upon a critical shift from other-interest to self-interest. the full effect of this shift is realized in the final phase of courtship: monogamy. mutual agreement to be beholden, to be accountable, to be limited, to be possessed, etc. is the mature expression of the shift from other-oriented (e.g. reveling in the undeserved affections of another) to self-oriented (e.g. reciprocal imposition of limits). the question for me is this: why does the first phase give way to the second and third? why can we not retain what is valuable, what is beautiful, in the ways in which we initially engage one another even as our relationships deepen?

monogamy

monogamy. the qualifying prefix "mono" means one and the core part of the term, gamos, is a Greek term that actually means "marriage." indeed, the terms for husband and wife are gametēs and gametē respectively. the etymology of the term is not a matter of simple trivia. the practice of monogamy, as much as the word, has everything to do with marriage. this is true despite the fact that often the practice and the word are conceived of in terms of sexual partners: if you are monogamous you restrict your sexual activity to one and only one person. there are several reasons that monogamy, despite it's marital connotations, is understood in terms of what people do with their bodies. the most important reason, perhaps, is that we have made sex the very locus of value and significance in our romantic relations. but i am getting ahead of myself; we can return to this critical issue later.

even though people often intend the term to designate personal dedication to a principle of restricting physical intimacy to a single other, monogamy cannot strictly refer to a quantum of sexual partnering. if we tried to interpret "monogamy" as meaning "one sexual partner" we'd have to contend with incoherency consequent upon considerations of time and meaning. one partner? when? only one partner ever? certainly not: not only is virginity little prized when it pertains to men, few if any would claim that monogamy is not possible between two people when at least one of them has been sexually active with one or more other persons in their life. perhaps the sexual sense of the term is "one partner at a time?" in the strict senses of the terms, this is also not a viable configuration. one partner at a time would necessarily refer to one partner versus multiple partners simultaneously. few if any would imagine monogamy to refer to isolated discrete sexual encounters that involved only two individuals as opposed to a threesome, foursome, fivesome, or other orgiastic assemblages. no, monogamy in the sexual sense, refers to the complex notion of maintaining one and only one sexual partner over the course of an indeterminate period of time. this period varies in duration according to the whims of the two so involved. so the key variable here is clearly time. as we've already discerned, the span is not a single event nor is it all periods of time. so what, we might ask, makes a particular stretch of time distinct from other periods of time where sexual engagements with others does not count as non-monogamy? the period of time integral to the definition of monogamy is one in which a twosome initiate and subsequently enact a marriage whether ersatz (dating) or the genuine article (matrimony).

the institution of marriage, then, is merely the outward facing surface of the gamos, the truer marriage in which all people young and old participate when engaging one another romantically: an interpersonal arrangement that is ruled by an emotionally and psychically gripping constellation of beliefs from which the moral character of certain actions derives. it is this constellation of beliefs that i find lacking at best and the source of great suffering at its worst. from these beliefs arise contractual obligations, the structure of interpersonal dynamics, and the moral relevance of actions. and again i must ask, despite the difficulties that will inevitably befall me should i seriously pursue this inquiry, what if the very concepts that we use to imbue our relations with meaning, value, and significance, yield intense harms? is it worth reevaluating these concepts when such a task can only be done through a process of rending oneself from these grids of meaning that have thus far provided the very conditions of possibility for one's own values, identity, and aspirations? i have no conviction within me as strong and as certain as that which assures me that the long and painful process of tearing off my very skin is worth it as nothing is more important in life than love. yes, i will be utterly naked and exposed. yes i will be afraid. but the stakes cannot be weightier.

on Castration

In order to ensure a genial sort of intimacy—a domesticated beast far removed from the calls of the wild, one that will not stray too far from the yard—we castrate our basic feelings for one another well before they approach adolescence. Paying no heed to the actual person before us, the magnificent being who is unlike any other that has ever existed or will ever exist, we remove our scalpels and deftly go about our ugly work. Because we are, at this point in history, a sickly and pathetic race, we fear the noble form that our feelings aspire to and prefer the broken to the feral.