Non-Monogamy Works about as Well as Monogamy Does, Which Is to Say: Not Very.
On the sanitization of language.
The title of this piece was a quote extracted from the article written by Haley Mlotek as part of an excerpt from a book she released: No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce. The piece is called I Opened My Marriage. Maybe I Should Have Tried an Affair Instead. You should read it ‘cause it’s tea. I posted that article a few days ago on PI.FYI because I thought people should read it. The thing I liked most about her essay, was her honesty, properly describing the chaos she had to endure while being married, having an open relationship and frankly, doing a terrible job at both of those things from the events that she details in her account. There’s this quote that stood out to me:
For all the truth to some of the clichés about open relationships — they can definitely be corny, they definitely rely on an embarrassing lexicon, and are certainly a frequent mess…When I find myself getting too judgmental, I remind myself that non-monogamy works about as well as monogamy does, which is to say: not very.
I enjoyed her self-awareness in the matter and this quote awoke something in me. I love languages and words and picking them apart to help us express in our truest forms. I’ve read some articles, as well as comments on the internet about people who engage in open relationships, polyamory, among other forms of non-monogamy, who want to share their experiences. They always stood out to me for feeling dishonest in their nature and cadence. It’s not that I think you can’t love or have sex with more than one person through ethical and consensual means. Because I do think it’s a possibility. However, there’s a constant sanitization in the way people talk about these types of relationships, with a tendency to shift blame upon monogamous counterparts for being more “orthodox” in their practices, not knowing that they’re establishing just the same through their own forms of ostracism.
Furthermore, people make it feel as if the state of their relationships was perfectly polished due to them having an apparently well-installed system of communication. Even though it doesn’t happen only in non-monogamous relationships, I see it more prevalent in those sorts of cohorts, which at times ends up feeling, like Mlotek describes above, as something that heavily relies on an “embarrassing lexicon” to exist, as well as a sudden transformation of the people involved, into salesmen that speak on behalf of their preferred relationship dynamic. I understand that this may come as part of the deconstruction of romantic love, yet I can’t avoid thinking that at times, people in non-monogamous relationships want to deem their civil status as part of their impeccable behavioral pattern within the recognized form of interaction, making it sound duplicitous in their speech.
It’s not the dynamics that people engage in that I dislike. I dislike people feeling the need to constantly vindicate any type of relationship under the pretense that they communicate well, as if to show they’ve cleansed themselves from failure, because they know all the right words they must say. At that point, I can’t help but classify it as something deceitful. The very hygienic language comes across to me as a suppression for something else. That something else being other people’s feelings as well as an impending violence instigated among members of these communities through subjugation. As Mlotek mentions in the same article:
With her blessing we started texting, an illicitness offset by the therapeutic languages I read about open relationships. I read The Ethical Slut. I learned so many new words. An entire vocabulary existed, and I believed that if you somehow used them correctly, any bad feeling could be made to evaporate.
Of course in an open relationship that works well and exists for the right reasons, this may be no issue. But I just don’t think that’s in the nature of someone to eradicate their feelings with words, rather words serve as a conduit for whatever it is people want to express and I think that was Mlotek’s mistake. Hyper-analyzing the problem and saying what you think are the right words, may end up in people ultimately bottling up their feelings for the sake of the prioritization of the protocol developed before you, as they feel like they can no longer form a counter argument based on anecdotal evidence, hence, alienating them from their minds, which under the circumstances mentioned, can culminate in the hierarchization of the problem at hand, failing to ascribe importance to the dilemma and instead being more concerned about the respective formalities put in place simply out of habit.
In addition to this, the sanitization brings another dangerous component, which is the fallacy. On multiple occasions, I’ve been able to spot some people commenting on videos, particularly stemming from meme pages, that are depicting non-monogamous relationships in a negative light. Naturally, some people agree with these takes and attack others who may adopt these types of relationships as part of their identity (the internet being the internet). On the other hand, there’s other people defending themselves, as they’re the ones partaking in non-monogamy. Both groups are full of fallacies that concern me. The former group expresses the discontent they feel due to the dynamics feeling “weird”, “out of place”, “immoral” or “awkward”, which of course is not a very productive way to hold a debate over the matter, as they’re essentially advocating for the suppression of identities from the people who wouldn’t like to live a life under a monogamous system.
In that same vein however, there are the people who are in non-monogamous relationships, who claim “their system” is the way to go. After all, all you need is communication, unlike the group who engages in monogamy, implying that they don’t communicate and are incapable of true emotional understanding due to the “oppressive” limitations monogamy can bring. As I said, this is a fallacy that could be easily disproven. Believe it or not, there are healthy couples out there still. They may be more difficult to find due to the increasing polarization happening, mostly on the internet, but they’re there. I’ve also seen people arguing that in non-monogamous relationships, there’s no such thing as jealousy or fights, which again, is a fallacy. We are all humans and at various points in our lives conflict will rise up in some way or another. What can I say? There are people who cannot keep an agreement for the life of them, whether monogamous or not. But it’s important to take into consideration that their incompetence is not representative of the demographic i’m referring to. In spite of this, The necessity to assert a certain system as the one superior to the other, is damaging in my eyes, and language plays a key role in it because of the potential standardization it promotes with words, that ultimately serve in their function for the sake of isolation’s reinforcement, contained by a hollowness surrounding the jargon set in motion by the culturally advantaged population.
Aside from these fallacies that display high levels of immaturity surrounding the topic from both sides, it further alludes to a venomous bias that is carelessly brewed over as the language implemented, indicates an increasingly sanitized version of the experiences shared by non-monogamous people, while simultaneously designating monogamous people are at fault for being the way they’re, signaling there’s an extremism in their comportment, as they refuge themselves in the status quo, which allows for people in non-monogamous relationships to position themselves in a role of constant victimization that produces stagnant growth, impeding them from seeing the true struggles that both, monogamy and non-monogamy may carry.
And this is the part where I get truly frank. People in non-monogamous relationships do not have the privilege to leave in peace, even when it’s legal (more on that below). The fallacies spread are not contributing to building a solid case in favor of non-monogamous relationships. The structure of the very fragile system gets jeopardized because of misinformation being scattered and unfortunately, having a chunk of the population say “love is love, and people can love and have sex with whomever they want” in the context of non-monogamy, is not going to cut it. In fact, the generic aspect to this slogan can bring forth an unexpected yet ingrained sense of complacency, as it suppresses, in my opinion, the feelings of an individual for the sake of having them be more agreeable, which ultimately leads to the same results delivered through monogamy, by having them subjugate to an already existing institution, while failing to recognize the more serious aspects to non-monogamous relationships, which personally makes me think it’s a detractor to people who are interested in escalating the conversation to other topics within the confines of non-monogamy, as uncomfortable as they might be. All this to say, this type of rhetoric is infantilizing at best, misleading and enslaving at worst.
It is then and there, that the prominent insistence in utilizing different terms that are heavily reliant on technicalities, which do not produce any emotive effects, is observed under a lens that enhances the superficial generality of the discourse being brought up. Despite the vocabulary being expansive, the constraint is found in the presentation of said trivialities that reproduce with an administered pomposity, which determine the ambiguity in the feeling as inessential to the conversation, having in its place, the product of a confabulation.
But why is this important? As I said, it’s fundamental to create serious discussions regarding structure. More precisely, family structures. When you’re not being taken seriously or what you’re doing is deemed as criminal activity, in the case of bigamy in some countries, the language you utilize becomes critical to your survival. If you try to make light of it, as well-intentioned as it may be, there might be a disregard for you as a community and even as an individual inside the community. As the simplistic and hasty terminology is on the rise, cultural movements instigate virtue-signaling as a way of granting supplementary peace of mind, advocating for it to please the cultural elites that are in place, mostly located in first world countries. This type of language barrier is what ends up exhibiting a lack of emotional resilience from people who are insistent on using it, while the expected reciprocity simply fails to reach its target, bearing in mind the perception that there is nothing to truly overcome, extended from people who are not sharing the same experiences.
“Equity language doesn’t fool anyone who lives with real afflictions. It’s meant to spare only the feelings of those who use it."- George Packer
On the other hand, the sanitized language implemented by people in non-monogamous relationships, not only makes their approach more fragile, but also manifests an attempt to deter from the culpabilities that non-monogamous relationships may have, as the ambiguity gets eradicated in favor of ameliorating the appearance of the system, which is something that I see in a frequent manner. The exploration of the dimensions of these types of arrangements and its consequences, as well as the mere suggestion of having it be deserving of criticism, get swept under the rug. Instead of avoiding them I think it’s important to concede its problems and understand the inconveniences it may bring in order to properly examine the situation from a critical lens, and analyze how to best solve incidents that might arouse according to one’s emotional needs.
Frequently, progressive views rejoice in the concept of adopting these types of relationships as part of a deliberate exercise that basks in free will, yet they obstinately neglect to see the shortcomings of belonging to these institutions outside of their own context, of course, which could evoke exploitative practices that become more difficult to resolve when handling the quandary with multiple people at once in, say, a more conservative environment. In the book Hunger: The Oldest Problem1, written by Martín Caparrós, the problematics of non-monogamous relationships get indirectly criticized. Explicitly, under the guise of polygamy, where an individual, typically a man, gets to have several wives. In the book, Caparrós begins the conversation about world hunger by establishing what it means and what it doesn’t, putting up front the terms that people take advantage of to establish a lack of emotional connection through worldly nothings. The author writes:
At the Sahel hunger is ever present, but it becomes brutal at the beginning of the period that the French call “soudure” and the anglo call “hunger gap” and us hispanics call it nothing, because what for. It’s those months when the grain of the previous harvest is done with, and that of the next one struggles to emerge from the ground. That’s when the government asks for help or not, international agencies warn about the danger and mobilize their resources or not, and those millions [of people] eat or don’t.2 (p. 21).
So, hunger.
Martín Caparrós finds himself in The Republic of the Niger when he comes to this conclusion, a country located in Africa, that shares borders with Nigeria and characterizes itself, for the complicated situation related to the precariousness and state of hunger that the inhabitants are in. It is there where Caparrós interviews Ahmad, a farmer who works with a shared land of eight hectares alongside four other men in his family, making him richer than his neighbors in the area. His side-hustle consists of traveling for months at a time to Nigeria, to sell lanterns, leaving his wife and three children behind, waiting for him to send money back to them every 15 days or so.
Caparrós highlights the levels of ambition that Ahmad carries, detailing the patience with which he explains that one day, he’ll do something with his life. He’ll be independent, have his own land, his own TV, have his two oxen for them to plow the field. He even recounts how he almost got there! having his two oxen, as he verbalizes his experience working tirelessly as he crossed the border towards Nigeria to sell lanterns. It was then that he got enough money to purchase the two oxen that would definitely make him grow his business and help him with the harvest.
-But I got tempted.
- What do you mean you got tempted?
…
-I got married. I’ve got my second wife already. (p. 68).
The author then goes on to explain that Ahmad, while knowing he had an opportunity, and what’s more a responsibility attributed to him by members of his own family, preferred to get married to a 17 year old who’s also his first cousin, using the money to celebrate a “beautiful” wedding with lamb being served, singing and dancing. Proceeding to tell him that now he has to work even more, because maintaining two wives is not easy, though he’s optimistic about the possibility of him getting to a more financially stable life.
When asked about the reason as to why he got married again, he said he felt like it. When pushed to elaborate, he explained it was because 6 of his 9 friends who are all in the same group already have a second wife, and he didn’t want to feel lesser than, since they were constantly mocking him for his civil status of just one wife and three children, when he should have a second wife and more children by now, bonus points if underage, I guess. Between the required dowry and gifts, the whole thing costed 200.000 francs…just the amount he had to buy the oxen.
Caparrós addresses the situation by saying:
It would be easier-more simple-to write that Ahmad doesn’t get to buy his livestock because the socioeconomic situation and the disparities and the injustice all mount up to it-and it’s true, but it’s also true that he had an opportunity and preferred not to take it.
It is only then, that we observe the juncture where action and language converge, pushing a sense of thoughtlessness upon the recipient of such mockery, transforming it into a disregard for the safety of the people he already has in his life, having him dictate his wish as if it were a command, even when the gap for wishing is so minuscule, that its mere materialization would unleash volatility and dissatisfaction for everyone involved.
The journalist proceeds to argue that, said type of systems instigated by the patriarchy, that don’t budge for a miserable woman, but move mountains for the covetousness of a proud man, are part of a mechanism through which there’s an omnipresent ratiocination of slavery, having feminine subjugation as a contributing factor used to the man’s advantage. The woman suppresses her autonomy way before she gets married, on account of the fact that it’s her parents who must decide her path, and said path could only benefit them as they have a say on how quick they’re planning to get rid of her; chances increasing with a bigger dowry or the possibility of falling soon under extreme poverty if they keep her around for not much longer, since she cannot get a traditional job as she’s most likely to not have completed her education, it is then that she must dedicate herself to know how to perform the tasks of the household properly to please her family, her husband.
Her identity transfers to her husband once the marriage is conveyed. She has to comply to whatever the man says, so that way she can keep on being fed. Yet the opportunities of having three meals a day, get even smaller once another wife enters the space of the relationship. And she also has to comply, or else she won’t get fed either. It is then that Caparrós makes a case for the feminization of hunger, that gets all the more complex once family structures are extended at the man’s command. The painful neglect becomes all-encompassing for that woman’s life, having her get used to a feminized poverty against her will, as she and so many others, were instructed to do, setting her up to fail from the very beginning.
It’s at that point, that a banal ecosystem inundates the landscape, as we see people in increasing positions of privilege, invoke crocodile tears through minutiae that argue a fake perception of oppression by engaging in wishy-washy subjects that fall flat, as it attempts to antagonize monogamous structures for its brutal practices while rejecting in an unwavering manner, the setbacks pushed onto society thanks to non-monogamous practices, particularly on women, for the imposition of coercive and authoritarian practices that rely on human trafficking, chauvinism and exploitation as much as monogamy does.
Bibliography:
Caparrós, M. (2022). El Hambre. Random House.
Packer, G. (2023, April). The moral case against equity language. The Atlantic.https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/04/equity-language-guides-sierra-club-banned-words/673085/
A book everyone should read.
Caparrós, M. (2020). El Hambre. Random House. The quotes directly extracted from the book were translated by myself from its version in Spanish.