Everybody Lies

I got into a discussion with a friend recently that humans are not monogamous and that monogamy is a social construct. Granted, before the days of antibiotics and reliable birth control, it was useful. But nowadays there’s no need.

Non-monogamous people catch STIs at the same rate as “monogamous” people. This is due to the fact non-monogamous people are more likely to get tested and are more open about their relationships. Basically, “ethical non-monogamy” means everyone is aware of the sex between multiple partners and “monogamy” means they are blissfully unaware.

The stat I remembered seeing is that 30% of marriages have infidelity. When I went to find it I found a site that analyzed a collection of various studies/surveys and one study found that 70% of married Americans have cheated at least once.

I could bombard you with all the various numbers from various sources that answer various slightly differently worded questions but what’s the point? The one I find the most telling is that 74% of men and 68% of women say they would cheat if they were guaranteed to not get caught.

My friend asked me if I really thought the people that were monogamous, the 30-70% that supposedly actually kept their vows, only did so out of guilt. They were incredulous that would be the only reason. And yet it seems like I was right. Actually, it’s worse in my opinion. It’s not guilt that keeps them from cheating because if they knew they wouldn’t get caught the guilt wouldn’t stop them.

Admittedly, guilt is what has stopped me. I have cheated on Dakota before, which looks a bit different in the context of non-monogamy. I have kissed and slept with men that I was allowed to kiss and sleep with previously under a certain circumstance. Those circumstances were not blanket permission. This was the rocky transition when I first started seeing men instead of only women. I hadn’t necessarily acted differently than I otherwise would’ve with women but he viewed me being with men differently. This is all me justifying my behavior a bit but at the end of the day I did know I was pushing boundaries. And I could’ve never mentioned that I pushed boundaries… Except oh my God I felt guilty.

The only reason I never had a full on affair is because of guilt. Does it make me a bad person to say that? Or just an honest one… since a large majority of people admit they would cheat if they wouldn’t get caught. And those are the people that admit it.

The problem is people want to be non-monogamous while having a monogamous partner. They want to be the only ones sleeping around. Interestingly, I’m currently living the dream. I have two partners who are only sleeping with me. But I think I only found that because I didn’t ask for it. I think looking for something so one-sided shows you’re not someone that can handle non-monogamy as a whole. Dakota has expressed that he likes me having control over him (duh). This is a way I exert control but at the end of the day I still like sharing him with girls that want to share him. He’s just no longer allowed to look for his own partners. I have actually encouraged Sean to seek out other partners because I don’t feel it’s fair to him for me to be his only one. He is, for the time being, not interested.

I think on the spectrum on monogamous to polyamorous most people are not quite in the middle. I think people tend to pair with one primary partner naturally but without societal pressures more of us would have a more casual partner in addition to that. And I feel pretty confident in that assessment because that seems to be the norm as is. It’s just that everybody lies about it.