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11 Life-Threatening ideas that ruin relationships - Toxic Monogamy
I've pondered on this idea of monogamy all of my adult life and wondered why something about it just never felt right. After an internal battled of shame and guilt reinforced by societal messaging/norms, religion, and judgment of others, I finally decided to face the fact of the matter. It's just not natural.
After doing some studying of my own, i've found that monogamy like many other norms today was introduced and reinforced as a tool in capitalism and many other systems of control in the modernization of Western Philosophies.
From an anthropological perspective, as communities evolved from "hunters and gathers" living in communal spaces and sharing everything, to "farmers" who claimed land and people (then women as the norm) as their own, ownership became a norm to claim personhood of a human being as property.
From a biological perspective, studies have shown that out of over 5,000 mammal species' studies, humans are a part of only about 3%-5% of those who normalize the practice of being with one mate.
From a psychological perspective, this idea of sexual conservatism has plagued communities for decades, particularly marginalized communties like the LGBTQ populations. Sexual conservatism is a traditional set of beliefs concerning relationships, monogamy, and premarital sex. This learned behavior of thought control introduced feeling of shame and guilt in association with the desire to share love with more than one person at the same time. When in fact, a 2003 study by Rowatt & Schmitt illustrates that persons with tendency to present socially desirable answers also tend to present themselves as sexually conservative. This conservative view of sexuality is coherent with the search for social approval and conformity to social norms, usually expressed by these individuals. What is also interesting is that these same people when expressing general attitudes towards sexuality that are not considered threatening to self, reputation, or how they are seen by others, even people with high social desirability also present liberal attitudes about sex. What does this mean? We are ALL FREAKS...some of us are just more open about it than others. And that's ok.
Thanks to instgramer NanaKingDecade I am finally able to articulate in words just how damaging this idea of Monogamy as a norm or standard is for individuals and ultimately the collective. Check out these 11 ideas rooted in the practice of monogamy that I feel kill relationships today.
1. The normalization of jealousy as an indicator of love.
2. The idea that a sufficiently intense love is enough to overcome any practical incompatibilities.
3. The idea that you should meet your partner's every need, and if you don't, either you're inadequate or they're too needy.
4. The idea that a sufficiently intense love should cause you to cease to be attracted to anyone else.
5. The idea that commitment is synonymous with exclusively.
6. The idea that marriage and children are the only valid teleological justifications for being committed to a relationship.
7. The ideas that your insecurities are always your partner's responsibility to tip-toe around and never your responsibility to work on.
8. The idea that your value to a partner is directly proportional to the amount of time and energy they spend on you, and it is in zero-sum competition with everything and everyone else that/who surrounds your life.
9. The idea that the blueprint of your relationship should mirror the expectations set by your family, religion, or environment.
10. The idea that hiding your desires from your partner and yourself will somehow make them disappear.
11. The idea that being of value to a partner should always make up a large chunk of how you value yourself.
As we think of this idea of monogamy, what is it teaching us about how we see ourselves?
