Should there be some wiggle room in monogamy? I was a vegetarian for a few years during the 80s. Or maybe I wasn’t.It all comes down to whether you’re willing to overlook an occasional pepperoni pizza and a few slices of bacon every now and then.
“Nobody’s denying that an all-veggie diet (like monogamy) can be an excellent approach to life for many reasons, ranging from ethical to environmental to emotional.”
Ooo pick me pick me! I’m denying Doctopher :~)
Largely fueled by misinformation, I ate almost exclusively vegetarian for most of my 20’s; and I agree with so much of what you’re saying on this topic and have communicated through your podcast. However, I want to politely challenge the way you presented this [iconic] Sex at Dawn metaphor in this writing. It seems you’re being too generous to absolutists (or just making absolute statements) in order to prove the point that absolutism is over-prescribed. It’d be nice to see you include some examples like that of a Buddhist diet (including celibacy), and those monogamous marriages ‘that oddly just work.’ I understand you said things like “can be an excellent approach,” but I think it’s too rare for all-veggie diets or conventionally monogamous relationships to be actually healthy to represent it this way.
Have you considered getting this idea published into some big media outlets? Or just submit it as an op-ed to every serious article you find that is full of absolute notions around vegetarianism and marriage? I think it’s gold.
An interesting tangent to this is to ask: is vegetarianism actually more ethical, and also is monogamy? i.e. are they even laudable theoretical goals all things considered? I'm not sure. Strictly enforced monogamy has side effects. Like repressed anger and rage, which will find an outlet somewhere (beating the kids? aggression in business affairs? religious fundamentalism?). Vegetarianism too might be shooting itself in the foot. If we got rid of all animal sources of calories - including seafood, and the large quantity of cattle, sheep, goats and chickens that live off marginal land which cannot be used to cultivate crops - we would need to convert additional wilderness into new farmland to make up the shortfall. That would turn more natural ecosystems into cultivated land. Cultivation (annual ploughing, tilling, pesticide/fertilizer treatment etc.) is one of the most destructive of all human activities to nature. Every year a genocide is visited on the animals - and plants I might add - that make fields their home, and the soil is gradually depleted each harvest. That doesn't happen in pastures and marginal lands commonly used for cattle, sheep and goats. There's no getting away from the fact that to live, we must kill and eat things, whether plants or animals. And if plants, many animals are sacrificed in the process. Are pesticides vegan/vegetarian?
I think the distinction between social monogamy and sexual monogamy really needs to be hammered more. When you consider them separately the notion that humans are "naturally" sexually monogamous really starts to break apart. Certain cultures, like that of the United States, attempt to reframe some aspects of itself as the exception or failures of the individual. I.e. "Homelessness isn't a legitimate outcome of America's capitalistic society it's the personal failure of individuals" or "Cheating, and other unfaithful behavior, is a failure of one person and not an indictment on humanity's monogamous nature." The problem is these behaviors occur too often to be exceptions. Even faithful serial monogamy doesn't live up to the monogamous ideal of a man and women becoming pair-bonded mates for life.
The more interesting question, to me at least, is whether our species evolved as a socially monogamous. The closer to present times you study the more examples you find of non-monogamy. For a long time I thought it was likely that hunter-gatherers were not socially monogamous. Women had the support of sisters, brothers, and mothers and so would not necessarily depend on the father of their child for support. And this no doubt occurs. But when reading about African hunter-gatherers I was struck with the lack of examples of socially non-monogamous relationships. Everyone was having sex with everyone but there does seem to be a basic structure of social monogamy, or more accurately serial social monogamy. There was an expectation of social monogamy.
I'm still undecided. On the one hand, the lack of examples (that I have personally come across) seems to point to social monogamy. On the other hand, by the time anthropologists and ethnographers were actively studying hunter-gatherers they had already become influenced by missionaries and religion. It's highly possible that hunter-gatherers knew what westerners expected to hear and gave the appearance to avoid unneeded conflict. The bias of western ethnographers probably also caused them to view the social dynamics of hunter-gatherers inaccurately. The book Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman is the most illuminating book I have found on African Hunter-gatherer sexual life. Her words have me leaning towards social monogamy as the likely social configuration of our ancestors. Considering that the !Kung have been found to have the deepest unbroken lineage of over 100k years (the Hadza lineage is about 40k years) there way of life may be the clearest picture we have into our ancestral way of life. Then again things can change greatly in 100k years.
In the area of diet, I have started calling myself an Exceptioterian. Meaning I generally don't eat meat, sugar, gluten, etc., but I will make an exception if it's really worth it. Award winning barbecue in Alabama. Chocolate croissant in Paris. You get the idea. Perhaps the same should apply here. You can go outside the lines, but it better be worth it!
With diet, I know I’ll feel lousy the next day but I decide it’s worth it. So here too. You know there is going to be a cost (jealousy and/or they go outside the lines too). But it’s worth it.
One problem I have with monogamy is not that there are temptations to have sex with other people (that could easily be dealt with-imagination and tasteful porn). The problem is that it also seems to isolate sensitive males from having other people to connect with emotionally than their partners. The problem is statistical-in our culture, or perhaps in some areas more than others and some subcultures more than others, there are very few emotionally available males, so if one is such a male and wants other people to connect to emotionally than one's partner, other females are the most likely option. But one's partner then may become jealous of emotional intimacy between their parter and other females, even if there is no sex. And this also has an ironic side effect on one's sexual appetite for one's partner...I think this problem has been largely invisible to most modern monogamous females.
Another problem is that monogamy seems to have evolved in cultures that also are warlike and conquering, such as Christianity and Islam. It evolved because it gave advantages to those cultures (better warfare and more material productivity), allowing those cultures to outcompete non-monogamous cultures.
Very cool you brought this up, as I’ve been thinking a lot in this realm lately. Desiring more intimate, vulnerable, and “reliable” relationships is largely what led me to serial monogamy and prioritizing my female partners over male friendships. My parents [fairly innocently] presumed I was gay because all my good friends were female until I was 10 or so...playaa lol. Seems like culture unfortunately drove a lot of feminine out of me once sex was a real possibility! It seems my story isn’t particularly unique. So many men experience this.
I’m happy to identify as a ‘sensitive male.’ And I certainly agree there is a relatively small percentage of emotionally available men in the world [on average]; but I think it’s maybe important to distinguish between emotionally available and sensitive. The vast majority of males ARE sensitive. The availability is what’s suppressed, not the sensitivity.
Yeah, you could be right. Emotional expression and availability to others' emotional expression are both selected agains. Toughness, competitiveness, status seeking, skill, analytic intelligence and sexual prowess are selected for in patriarchal cultures. But now that feminists have tried to devalue all these other typically male traits (some of which are good and valuable), without at the same time encouraging intimacy between men and between men and women, young men are rebelling, inspired by the likes of Andrew Tate. Or something like that. I wonder if a culture where some of these male traits are valued and at the same time intimacy for males outside of just their monogamous partner is valued, is possible outside of hunter-gatherer cultures.
Wow yes excellent points/questions you’re posing. I imagine this better masculine-feminine balance does exist to a degree in non-hunter-gatherer modern cultures around the world eh?...but I’m doubting it pervades anything more than small subcultures. I wonder about the modernized indigenous cultures in my corner of the U.S. Their matriarchal/patriarchal balance is fascinating. I even wonder about my Amish neighbors. Plenty of fucked up things you hear about conservative Christian cultures, but the Amish men I know seem to have very close friendships...maybe that’s because they don’t allow true intimacy with their wives though. I’d be very interested to hear this discussed more if anybody has examples around the world.
I think you're right about amish men being able to have intimate friendships with other amish men. And from my first hand knowledge of amish men, some of them do have intimacy with their wives as well... So maybe the emotional isolation of men is not just a function of patriarchy (maybe not at all a function of patriarchy, except for the view of men as disposable, which patriarchy encourages except for alpha males, and many feminists have also encouraged) and monogamy, but the breakdown of families and place-based communities is also a factor
Good points. I think you're right that the only real intimacy many men ever find is with a lover, whereas many women can have intimate friendships that fulfill that need.
What I'm saying though, is in addition to emotionally unavailable males who might only be able to be intimate during sex (or not), there are emotionally available ones that through no fault of their own, are unable to find other males to connect with in an emotionally intimate way (because of the small sample size), AND BECAUSE OF MONOGAMY (which is de facto emotional monogamy for men, not just sexual monogamy) are not able to find women to be emotionally intimate with either. This happens not just because of one's monogamous female partner, but other women figure "he's in a committed relationship, therefore I will not seek out any emotionally intimate connection with him". It's really outrageous, but because those who suffer are men, nobody cares. Men are disposable...
Correction in my reply above: Islam promotes polygyny, not monogamy, although the net effect is the same (most men are monogamous with only a few wealthy alpha males having more than one wife), and the causes are probably the same as cultures that promote monogamy (namely the evolutionary advantages of patriarchy)
You can't fool Mother Nature. I know plenty of people who are vegetarians and/or in monogamous relationships. But Nature has caught up with some of them and they lapsed, which let to torment and guilt. If they understood evolution and the behaviors that insured survival, they would not have felt so guilty.
Thanks for articulating this clearly in a short piece Chris.
I agree, and I've taken the same approach with my own mostly-vegetarianism — and also with alcohol. For many years I mostly drank alcohol, and then, since 2018, I switched to only rarely drinking it. Ha, well, I did also drink other things, but I did drink a lot, and more the point is that when I "stopped" I didn't stop 100.00% with a deadly fear that if I ever touched a drop again that I'd somehow relapse into a 'meat-eater', i.e. daily drinker. Having the flexibility to operate within own boundaries—and with my cognition and intuition, responding to the present moment, which sometimes takes me up to and even over the boundary is much more interesting than trying to super-strictly adhere to an arbitrary rule, regardless of the circumstances.
I also think strict adherence to a rule tends to put the focus too much on the rule and too little on the person. I just read a short book called The Abstinence Myth about how the focus on abstinence often gets in the way of folks changing their relationships with alcohol, by distracting from the real reasons someone might be drinking more than they want to.
(Not to drone on about alcohol... y'all can drink however much you want! Same here. It's just that now how much I want is a lot less.)
I think this because in real life, boundaries are not hard lines. I've appreciated coming to think about how traditional American monogamy makes the assumption that the closure of the relationship, the barrier, the hard line between "us" and the rest of the world is what makes the relationship strong and "safe," and yet, we know that closure, like building a literal wall across a border, is not what makes any dynamic system strong or safe. That's a false, fragile security (see, of course, Taleb's great book Antifragile). Real strength comes from the ability to thrive and grow as a dynamic system within a larger dynamic system, to flex and adapt and interact with the rest of the world. Even in a voluntarily monogamous relationship, the boundary can be more open and fluid, a zone, let's say, in which "we" interact with others, as opposed to a closure that supposedly guarantees safety.
Safety. Bleh. There's often so much falsehood there. That's something else to write and talk about... In the meantime, I've been writing and thinking about some of this lately in "Someone Else's Discipline is just... Bullshit" →
True. I eat veggie during the work week but have my love affair with meat on my days off. Food and pleasure are definitely friends and living a great moderate life without shame and being truthful to one another. Much love. Meg
Chris Ryanalogous! 😘
“Nobody’s denying that an all-veggie diet (like monogamy) can be an excellent approach to life for many reasons, ranging from ethical to environmental to emotional.”
Ooo pick me pick me! I’m denying Doctopher :~)
Largely fueled by misinformation, I ate almost exclusively vegetarian for most of my 20’s; and I agree with so much of what you’re saying on this topic and have communicated through your podcast. However, I want to politely challenge the way you presented this [iconic] Sex at Dawn metaphor in this writing. It seems you’re being too generous to absolutists (or just making absolute statements) in order to prove the point that absolutism is over-prescribed. It’d be nice to see you include some examples like that of a Buddhist diet (including celibacy), and those monogamous marriages ‘that oddly just work.’ I understand you said things like “can be an excellent approach,” but I think it’s too rare for all-veggie diets or conventionally monogamous relationships to be actually healthy to represent it this way.
Have you considered getting this idea published into some big media outlets? Or just submit it as an op-ed to every serious article you find that is full of absolute notions around vegetarianism and marriage? I think it’s gold.
An interesting tangent to this is to ask: is vegetarianism actually more ethical, and also is monogamy? i.e. are they even laudable theoretical goals all things considered? I'm not sure. Strictly enforced monogamy has side effects. Like repressed anger and rage, which will find an outlet somewhere (beating the kids? aggression in business affairs? religious fundamentalism?). Vegetarianism too might be shooting itself in the foot. If we got rid of all animal sources of calories - including seafood, and the large quantity of cattle, sheep, goats and chickens that live off marginal land which cannot be used to cultivate crops - we would need to convert additional wilderness into new farmland to make up the shortfall. That would turn more natural ecosystems into cultivated land. Cultivation (annual ploughing, tilling, pesticide/fertilizer treatment etc.) is one of the most destructive of all human activities to nature. Every year a genocide is visited on the animals - and plants I might add - that make fields their home, and the soil is gradually depleted each harvest. That doesn't happen in pastures and marginal lands commonly used for cattle, sheep and goats. There's no getting away from the fact that to live, we must kill and eat things, whether plants or animals. And if plants, many animals are sacrificed in the process. Are pesticides vegan/vegetarian?
I think the distinction between social monogamy and sexual monogamy really needs to be hammered more. When you consider them separately the notion that humans are "naturally" sexually monogamous really starts to break apart. Certain cultures, like that of the United States, attempt to reframe some aspects of itself as the exception or failures of the individual. I.e. "Homelessness isn't a legitimate outcome of America's capitalistic society it's the personal failure of individuals" or "Cheating, and other unfaithful behavior, is a failure of one person and not an indictment on humanity's monogamous nature." The problem is these behaviors occur too often to be exceptions. Even faithful serial monogamy doesn't live up to the monogamous ideal of a man and women becoming pair-bonded mates for life.
The more interesting question, to me at least, is whether our species evolved as a socially monogamous. The closer to present times you study the more examples you find of non-monogamy. For a long time I thought it was likely that hunter-gatherers were not socially monogamous. Women had the support of sisters, brothers, and mothers and so would not necessarily depend on the father of their child for support. And this no doubt occurs. But when reading about African hunter-gatherers I was struck with the lack of examples of socially non-monogamous relationships. Everyone was having sex with everyone but there does seem to be a basic structure of social monogamy, or more accurately serial social monogamy. There was an expectation of social monogamy.
I'm still undecided. On the one hand, the lack of examples (that I have personally come across) seems to point to social monogamy. On the other hand, by the time anthropologists and ethnographers were actively studying hunter-gatherers they had already become influenced by missionaries and religion. It's highly possible that hunter-gatherers knew what westerners expected to hear and gave the appearance to avoid unneeded conflict. The bias of western ethnographers probably also caused them to view the social dynamics of hunter-gatherers inaccurately. The book Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman is the most illuminating book I have found on African Hunter-gatherer sexual life. Her words have me leaning towards social monogamy as the likely social configuration of our ancestors. Considering that the !Kung have been found to have the deepest unbroken lineage of over 100k years (the Hadza lineage is about 40k years) there way of life may be the clearest picture we have into our ancestral way of life. Then again things can change greatly in 100k years.
In the area of diet, I have started calling myself an Exceptioterian. Meaning I generally don't eat meat, sugar, gluten, etc., but I will make an exception if it's really worth it. Award winning barbecue in Alabama. Chocolate croissant in Paris. You get the idea. Perhaps the same should apply here. You can go outside the lines, but it better be worth it!
I wonder what would be the equivalent for monogamy? Exceptogamist? Like going out of the partnership lines only when it is super worth it!
That seems right!
With diet, I know I’ll feel lousy the next day but I decide it’s worth it. So here too. You know there is going to be a cost (jealousy and/or they go outside the lines too). But it’s worth it.
Very good analogy, very wise to take one second to evaluate the cost-benefit, also knowing that ‘indulging’ all the time gets old fast too.
One problem I have with monogamy is not that there are temptations to have sex with other people (that could easily be dealt with-imagination and tasteful porn). The problem is that it also seems to isolate sensitive males from having other people to connect with emotionally than their partners. The problem is statistical-in our culture, or perhaps in some areas more than others and some subcultures more than others, there are very few emotionally available males, so if one is such a male and wants other people to connect to emotionally than one's partner, other females are the most likely option. But one's partner then may become jealous of emotional intimacy between their parter and other females, even if there is no sex. And this also has an ironic side effect on one's sexual appetite for one's partner...I think this problem has been largely invisible to most modern monogamous females.
Another problem is that monogamy seems to have evolved in cultures that also are warlike and conquering, such as Christianity and Islam. It evolved because it gave advantages to those cultures (better warfare and more material productivity), allowing those cultures to outcompete non-monogamous cultures.
Very cool you brought this up, as I’ve been thinking a lot in this realm lately. Desiring more intimate, vulnerable, and “reliable” relationships is largely what led me to serial monogamy and prioritizing my female partners over male friendships. My parents [fairly innocently] presumed I was gay because all my good friends were female until I was 10 or so...playaa lol. Seems like culture unfortunately drove a lot of feminine out of me once sex was a real possibility! It seems my story isn’t particularly unique. So many men experience this.
I’m happy to identify as a ‘sensitive male.’ And I certainly agree there is a relatively small percentage of emotionally available men in the world [on average]; but I think it’s maybe important to distinguish between emotionally available and sensitive. The vast majority of males ARE sensitive. The availability is what’s suppressed, not the sensitivity.
Yeah, you could be right. Emotional expression and availability to others' emotional expression are both selected agains. Toughness, competitiveness, status seeking, skill, analytic intelligence and sexual prowess are selected for in patriarchal cultures. But now that feminists have tried to devalue all these other typically male traits (some of which are good and valuable), without at the same time encouraging intimacy between men and between men and women, young men are rebelling, inspired by the likes of Andrew Tate. Or something like that. I wonder if a culture where some of these male traits are valued and at the same time intimacy for males outside of just their monogamous partner is valued, is possible outside of hunter-gatherer cultures.
Wow yes excellent points/questions you’re posing. I imagine this better masculine-feminine balance does exist to a degree in non-hunter-gatherer modern cultures around the world eh?...but I’m doubting it pervades anything more than small subcultures. I wonder about the modernized indigenous cultures in my corner of the U.S. Their matriarchal/patriarchal balance is fascinating. I even wonder about my Amish neighbors. Plenty of fucked up things you hear about conservative Christian cultures, but the Amish men I know seem to have very close friendships...maybe that’s because they don’t allow true intimacy with their wives though. I’d be very interested to hear this discussed more if anybody has examples around the world.
I think you're right about amish men being able to have intimate friendships with other amish men. And from my first hand knowledge of amish men, some of them do have intimacy with their wives as well... So maybe the emotional isolation of men is not just a function of patriarchy (maybe not at all a function of patriarchy, except for the view of men as disposable, which patriarchy encourages except for alpha males, and many feminists have also encouraged) and monogamy, but the breakdown of families and place-based communities is also a factor
Good points. I think you're right that the only real intimacy many men ever find is with a lover, whereas many women can have intimate friendships that fulfill that need.
What I'm saying though, is in addition to emotionally unavailable males who might only be able to be intimate during sex (or not), there are emotionally available ones that through no fault of their own, are unable to find other males to connect with in an emotionally intimate way (because of the small sample size), AND BECAUSE OF MONOGAMY (which is de facto emotional monogamy for men, not just sexual monogamy) are not able to find women to be emotionally intimate with either. This happens not just because of one's monogamous female partner, but other women figure "he's in a committed relationship, therefore I will not seek out any emotionally intimate connection with him". It's really outrageous, but because those who suffer are men, nobody cares. Men are disposable...
Correction in my reply above: Islam promotes polygyny, not monogamy, although the net effect is the same (most men are monogamous with only a few wealthy alpha males having more than one wife), and the causes are probably the same as cultures that promote monogamy (namely the evolutionary advantages of patriarchy)
You can't fool Mother Nature. I know plenty of people who are vegetarians and/or in monogamous relationships. But Nature has caught up with some of them and they lapsed, which let to torment and guilt. If they understood evolution and the behaviors that insured survival, they would not have felt so guilty.
Thanks for articulating this clearly in a short piece Chris.
I agree, and I've taken the same approach with my own mostly-vegetarianism — and also with alcohol. For many years I mostly drank alcohol, and then, since 2018, I switched to only rarely drinking it. Ha, well, I did also drink other things, but I did drink a lot, and more the point is that when I "stopped" I didn't stop 100.00% with a deadly fear that if I ever touched a drop again that I'd somehow relapse into a 'meat-eater', i.e. daily drinker. Having the flexibility to operate within own boundaries—and with my cognition and intuition, responding to the present moment, which sometimes takes me up to and even over the boundary is much more interesting than trying to super-strictly adhere to an arbitrary rule, regardless of the circumstances.
I also think strict adherence to a rule tends to put the focus too much on the rule and too little on the person. I just read a short book called The Abstinence Myth about how the focus on abstinence often gets in the way of folks changing their relationships with alcohol, by distracting from the real reasons someone might be drinking more than they want to.
(Not to drone on about alcohol... y'all can drink however much you want! Same here. It's just that now how much I want is a lot less.)
I think this because in real life, boundaries are not hard lines. I've appreciated coming to think about how traditional American monogamy makes the assumption that the closure of the relationship, the barrier, the hard line between "us" and the rest of the world is what makes the relationship strong and "safe," and yet, we know that closure, like building a literal wall across a border, is not what makes any dynamic system strong or safe. That's a false, fragile security (see, of course, Taleb's great book Antifragile). Real strength comes from the ability to thrive and grow as a dynamic system within a larger dynamic system, to flex and adapt and interact with the rest of the world. Even in a voluntarily monogamous relationship, the boundary can be more open and fluid, a zone, let's say, in which "we" interact with others, as opposed to a closure that supposedly guarantees safety.
Safety. Bleh. There's often so much falsehood there. That's something else to write and talk about... In the meantime, I've been writing and thinking about some of this lately in "Someone Else's Discipline is just... Bullshit" →
https://decidenothing.substack.com/p/someone-elses-discipline-is-just
Congrats again on the house!
True. I eat veggie during the work week but have my love affair with meat on my days off. Food and pleasure are definitely friends and living a great moderate life without shame and being truthful to one another. Much love. Meg