You Know Better

I have been trying, for about 2 weeks now, to put together a post about monogamy. It’s been very frustrating that it hasn’t come together like I intended it to. I just got done reading another piece excusing deception, lying and cheating on your partner. It seems like that’s all I’ve been seeing lately, are posts trying to justify the actions and choices of the unfaithful. Some of them are based on scientific research that claims humans are not biologically designed to be monogamous, casting aside the fact that we’re more than just simple minded animals driven by our sexual urges and we’re fully capable of making the decision to commit to a single person for a lifetime. Some of them, like the post I just read, blame one partner for not holding up their end of the bargain, sexually, and claim that if a person’s sexual desires aren’t being met then they should be free to look elsewhere.

All of these things are true, to an extent, but there’s a huge fucking problem with this one-sided logic. Because we’re human beings and we have the capability to make choices, we can’t simply excuse away our negative behavior as some uncontrollable biological urge. We have the ability to predict the consequences of our actions and we know that if we choose to cheat on our partner that they’re going to be hurt.

The blog I just read talked about Dan Savage and his opinion on monogamous relationships:

– if you are in a relationship with someone where the sex was great in the beginning, if the person involved led you to believe that sex would be an ongoing piece of your relationship’s equation, and then suddenly the sex stops, then you have a biological and natural right to go get your needs met somewhere else.

While I agree with a lot of what he says, I believe this is absolutely, 100% wrong. You see, when you are in a committed, monogamous relationship with someone, you owe it to that person to exhaust all possible options before you get your needs met somewhere else.  And that decision needs to be one your partner is involved in or that ends your monogamous relationship, not one that you make behind their back. Sex is almost always great in the beginning of a relationship. Then this little thing called life happens. People get job promotions, mortgages, bigger bills, kids, stress on top of stress on top of more stress and these things can have profound effects on the sex drive. Sometimes health problems, particularly hormonal ones, will pop up. Sometimes the medications to treat these health problems or the health issues themselves will cause a lack of sex drive. There are million and one reasons why the sex might not be as smokin’ hot as it was in the beginning of the relationship.

If you’re in a monogamous relationship you aren’t automatically entitled to hot, steamy sex. I don’t know how on earth we managed to encourage such an entitled generation of people, who believe that everything needs to come to them easily. Relationships and hot sex? They take work to maintain. If you aren’t getting what you want out of your relationship, talk to your partner, for fucks sake, y’all. How hard is that? If you find out that there are medical issues or stress that are interfering with things, figure out what the hell you can do to manage them. Share the burden. If that doesn’t work, for whatever reason, but both of you are trying really hard, that doesn’t give you the license to go get your needs met elsewhere. There are other ways to be intimate with your partner and there is a huge sex toy industry. Seriously, check out my banner links and you can see just a hint of what’s out there to spice things up. Masturbation can even be done with your partner present and it might spark a new fetish for you.

If nothing else is working for you, you can talk to your partner about opening up your relationship so that you can get your sexual fulfillment from somewhere else. This still is going to require communication and honesty and boundaries, but if it works for you that’s great. Otherwise you should simply end things with your partner, if you absolutely can not find a solution to what you’re missing in your relationship. But under no circumstances should you ever, ever cheat on your partner.

Lying and deception is wrong. There is nothing you can say that will justify doing things to someone you’ve promised to be in a committed relationship with. If you’re going to lie, cheat and deceive your partner, accept responsibility for the choice you made to do so. Don’t make up some half-cocked excuse about human biology and your sexual needs. If you’re going to (knowingly) participate in an affair with someone who is suppose to be in a committed monogamous relationship, fucking own it. Don’t paint yourself as some god damn philanthropist because you helped them realize what they were missing in their life and helped them file for the divorce they didn’t have the balls to ask for. What you did is not right. Not in any way, shape or form. It was wrong and you need to be accountable for the wrong choices you make instead of making excuses and justifying what you did.

But we don’t like to admit when we make a wrong move, do we? We don’t want to be responsible for the choices we make. We want to point our fingers at everyone else. It makes us feel kinda icky when we have to admit that what we did wasn’t right. So we try and try and try to blame the society we live in for having outdated morals and traditions that they try to force on us. Like there is something wrong with expecting people to be decent human beings and have respect for each other by not lying to people. If you’re incapable of having enough empathy for your fellow man, then it makes you a shitty human being. It’s time you started coming to terms with that.