Cheating with Honor? The Holy Grail of Monogamy
I know, I know, “til death do us part,” and “I only have eyes for you” sounds really romantic, but let’s be honest, that’s a holy crock of shit for most of us. After watching our parents divorce and cheat with the best of them, many of us are left scratching our heads thinking, “what’s next?” While the monogamous dydadic relationship model still works for a good 30 to 40% of the population, what about the rest of us supposed heathens and sluts?
According to national surveys ranging from the prestigious Kinsey Report to the Cosmo magazine scratch and sniff girl surveys, over half of us are lying through our pretty teeth about what we say we want and what actually happens behind closed doors, and the statistics surrounding infidelity are staggering. Indeed, most experts do consider the ‘educated guess’ that at the present time some 50 to 65 percent of husbands and 45 to 55 percent of wives become extra-maritally involved by the age of 40. Conservative infidelity statistics estimate that “60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair. And with this many marriages affected, it’s unreasonable to think affairs are due only to the failures and shortcomings of individual husbands or wives.” (The Monogamy Myth, 2003)
So what are we to do with modern love relationships? Fuck like bunnies without abandon until we drop? Join Swingers-R-Us and call it a day? Walk around feeling disconnected, doomed and jaded about all prospects of long term relationships? Abandon our princess bride banter on the joys of Wuv and Maaawwage for good?
This might come as a surprise to some of you,(it was to me!)but it seems that there are OPTIONS to being a big bad nasty cheater. Out of the mucky underworld of infidelity there are cultural uprisings of alternatives in the world of sex, love and relating, and they are definitely giving the status quo a good run for their money.
This shake up seems to include snapping ourselves out of the often unrealistic cultural coma we were all force fed to begin to redefine relationships to encompass who we ACTUALLY are versus who we CLAIM to be, as well as developing a little known aptitude called TELLING THE TRUTH!
And big surprise, many of these paradigm-stretching folks are right here in our beloved San Francisco.But who are these people? And can these new paradigms really last when the culture is so entrenched in a sometimes ill fitting and deceptive cloak? How do we retrain ourselves to live beyond our programming? These are the questions many of us are grappling with…
The truth about the relationship revolution might surprise you, and in the upcoming issues of Sex+Design; we will explore the lives and thoughts of real life relationship revolutionaries, social activists and educators in the field of non-traditional relationships to allow you to see for yourself….
In the next issue, I have the privilege of interviewing the world renowned author and relationship expert Deborah Anapol. In her own words, Deborah readily admits that her new book, Polyamory in the 21st Century, “would have been impossible to write when she first started exploring this territory 30 years ago because at the time, only a handful of survivors of the sexual revolution were willing to admit they were still non-monogamous – it was very unfashionable! Four books, hundreds of TV shows and magazine articles and thousands of workshops later, it’s a new world!”
Our in depth conversation will cover her perspectives on intimate relationships that don’t conform to our culture’s monogamous ideal but endeavor to be honest, ethical, and consensual. This will include exploring the practical, the utopian, and the shadow sides of this intriguing, yet often challenging lifestyle while shedding light on the reasons people choose these alternatives and how their lives have changed as a result, including her own.