“Monogamy: pairing or exclusive sexual bond maintained over time with a single person”
But, Is monogamy something intrinsic and defining of the human being?
Before continuing, I warn you: what you are going to read next requires an important exercise of Mental opening. Ideas will be exposed for the simple fact of thinking regarding them, without necessarily having to agree or disagree. Reflection, analysis and introspection.
You have decided to continue reading, fantastic, but if at the end of the text you conclude that I am a promiscuous psychologist, hummingbird and that encourages debauchery, definitely, you will not have understood ANYTHING.
In some previous article, I mentioned the word INTROJECT:
In our culture, we introject hundreds of principles that mark our actions, and that, at times, can be a burden. For example:
- “Sf we want to be someone important, we should study at the University”.
- “Before turning 30, you have to get a stable job, have a partner, be a mother, and suffocate with a mortgage.”
- “You always have to love and prioritize the family.”
I wonder: in this same line, Is it possible that we have also introjected the monogamous model as a way of relating emotionally? Is it possible that this model and its inheritance challenge some scientific postulates that point more towards a natural tendency to have varied sexual or sentimental relationships?
quoting Manuel Lucas MatheuSpanish sexologist, and life member of the International Academy of Medical Sexology:
And it can have its logic. I would bet that a high percentage of the people who read this article (and I include myself), or they do not own a home, or they have a mortgage in equal parts with their partner. There will also be those who have separated and sold the home she bought with her boyfriend, even admitting to forgiving money in order to lose sight of the bank and her ex.
Taking a look at the wonderful animal kingdom, I will tell you that there are monogamous species that remain faithful to their pair, but often the reasons for this fidelity are usually more practical than romantic. One of them is usually proximity, since, if the members of a species live separated by great distances, they will tend to seek the love of the closest congener. In equivalence, something similar happens to someone who has never left his town, and he marries his lifelong girlfriend, who is the daughter of the neighbor of Frasquita’s granddaughter.
And beware, this is fabulous, but I return to the question Is monogamy something inherent to the human being? Or is it rather something assumed and internalized by cultural and instrumental patterns?
through the Coolidge effect, biology and psychology, explain to us how the predisposition of males and females to have sexual relations increases when new receptive partners appear. It is scientifically confirmed that the presence of new or different sexual partners produces hormonal changes that reduce, or even eliminate, the post-ejaculatory refractory period in the case of men. This means that if, right following ejaculating, there is access to a different sexual partner, there is no need for recovery time to copulate once more. This example seems to be scientific evidence of the natural and genetic tendency of our species to have sexual relations with different partners.
In essence, we are living matter, energy, protons, electrons, neutrons, electromagnetic fields, inches and inches of sensitive skin and nerve endings, which we have culturally endeavored to catalyze through the monogamous format.
And I wonder once more What is the “ballast” of having normatively assumed this model of love and sex forever with the same person?
My father once told me the story of a man who bragged regarding having an extremely faithful dog:
To publicly demonstrate how honest his dog might be, he subjected him to a demanding test of faith before the town: He would leave him locked up in a room for seven days with a container of food, but he would give him the order NOT to eat anything at all, otherwise, he would be forced to sacrifice him for contempt. The animal spent the first four days without approaching food. On the fifth day, he prowled it, on the sixth he approached to sniff it, and on the seventh, subdued by hunger, he might not resist it and ate. When his owner arrived, disappointed by the “betrayal” of the animal, he kept his word and sacrificed it.
Really, Do true love and fidelity need extreme tests of faith to be measured or evaluated? Is it fair that we prosecute and sentence those who love us well, for a punctual instinctive act or thought? In my opinion, mechanical instincts and automatic thoughts should not dramatically undermine the foundations of a real and well-established relationship.
The problem is that we have tried so hard to divinize the values of loyalty, fidelity, exclusivity, union, merger, co-ownership and infallibility of the monogamous modelthat we generate expectations of idealization that are almost impossible to maintain.
Where is the border of infidelity? it’s more, What is an infidelity for you? Suffering an erection before a pleasant visual stimulus, is it infidelity? If you masturbate thinking regarding the guy you spent two hours talking to last night, are you cheating on your boyfriend? Is infidelity forgivable? Possibly, there is no single answer to these questions. Each one sets the limits of what he considers infidelity where he wants, or where CANbut it is clear that, as in so many other things in life, here too, rigidity is a BALLAST.
Every night, with scattered attention, but with a very open mind, I accompany the moment of dinner watching some scene from First Dates. And yes, I guarantee you that I learn a lot from young people when I listen to their polyamorous stories and open relationships, that although they look alike, they are not the same. I think and conclude that, in reality, those people capable of freeing themselves from the bonds of a rigid model that practically does not admit error, will be capable of living much healthier sexual and sentimental experiences. It is possible, that under this prism “open mind”, there are relations free from the ghost of jealousy, betrayal, deception, obligation, restriction, idealization…
…And there I stay for a long time, pondering in my soliloquy with a scattered mind following an intense day of work… And even being able to reflect and understand the advantages of this approach, and even visualizing myself competent to commune with a philosophy that I consider more akin to the genetics that our traditional model, because of the monogamous introject, I can’t help but get emotional listening to the latest song by Manuel Carrasco, while I wait for the swallows to return to my balcony, and return the coffees at 07:15.
Jose Manuel Chirino
Illustration: Anthony Sarria.
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