Monogamy, when agreed upon by two people who both only have the emotional energy and capacity for one partner, is more than okay and admirable.
But #monogamy as a default state — and for that matter, as an institution — is inherently tied to a mutual expectation of partial "ownership" of the other party. Expression and exploration of one's sexuality outside of this one other partner is seen as a bad thing by default, completely undeserving of discussion.
On top of that, such a system has its roots in a husband literally owning his wife in multiple ways, and echoes of this are still visible to this day. Many of the "stricter" religions still involve anything from a father "giving his daughter away" to literally selling her for a dowry, with love being entirely out of the equation.
Monogamy as a personal choice is fine. Monogamy as a default state, however, is inherently toxic in my opinion. A cultural shift to wider acceptance of freer and more traditionally "queer" forms of love would be a massive net positive for society. :ms_polyamory_flag:
@bryn to underscore it: I've spent years to find a way to say "my wife" in a way that's not sounding like "my car". And the best I've come up with is still fairly clunky. "Woman I'm married to" does not fit in most conversations.
/cc @w4tsn
@w4tsn sure, when addressing I use her name of course! But when I'm in a group of people and tell some story, then this sentence would usually be:
"my wife did this amazing thing for that huge trade show ... <yadda yadda yadda>" because in that context, where she's not in the room and nobody is likely to ever meet her, the name is not exactly helpful.
@claudius I get it. I also stumble over this. It might be odd, but I try to adress them in such situations by "a friend, someone I know, that awesome leader I know" especially if they'll never meet (most likely). I only use terms of such significance like "someone I love, someone I live with, my companion, yada" if I want to deliberately express something with it in a given situation. If we don't know each other well you might never know if I'm in a relationship or not :blobcatgiggle:
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