Real quickly I wanto to apologize again to this board -for my post Friday morning. I have not been that drunk in a long time, a very long time. In my drunken state I think I overreacted a little bit and reverted back to childish screams into the night. I have a girlfriend, and she has a boyfriend, so it was probably just innocent bit of flirtation that mutated a little with alcohol in us both. I have no desire to screw up what I have with my present g/f.

Since I have this thread up, however, I do want to give it some content, so I have a question for the Totseans:

Where do you think our ideas of monogamy and monoamorous relationships come from, and why are they so important in our society? Is it a way to suppress competition and jealousy? I do realize that there are distinct advantages to bonds like that in an evolutionary context, but as social animals you'd think that the groups, tribes, and villages might have easily adopted romantic and sexual relations that are more like... Say the Bonobo monkeys. (in which sexuality pervades almost all relationships, Which is to say treated recreationally, as gifts, for bartering, and so on...) And here realize that I am intentionally overlooking "bed buddies," -or whatever you want to call them- because they, when they even work, are an exception to a general rule, and are looked down upon by many people.

I hold strongly to the ideals of faithfulness, fidelity, and so on, but mostly because they are sacred rules I was raised with and are followed by almost everyone I know. (if not all so well...) However, I don't genuinely see the reason behind it. You can have two parents, and love them "the same"; you can have two siblings, two friends, and love them the same; yet, you are only supposed to "have eyes for one?" Where does this sense of jealousy, ownership, and exclusive intimacy come from when dealing with the romantic relationships? And why do we make such a huge distinction between "friendship" and "romanitic friendship" -or relationship, rather. I mean, these things are ingrained, and they go deep -But I can't find the roots, even in myself.

Of course, now that we have so many STD's, I suppose it is a good practice to have around -plus the loss of any real community. Yet still, physical touch just in general is much more important than people realize. The feelings of attraction, empathy, understanding, closeness, intimacy, and love seem all interwoven to me... I mean, aren't they? This question spans a greater area than mere sexuality, but it is still in there, and I am curious to what people think on the subject. (sorry for the length of this post)

(long post below ... be warned)

quote:Where do you think our ideas of monogamy and monoamorous relationships come from, and why are they so important in our society?

The vast majority of monogamous traditions in modern society come from religious bases. By and large (and this is according to my own estimation) religion couples both mythology, history, and sociology to attempt to control the way of life practised by its adherents.

Consider -- without the threat of damnation-in-the-afterlife hanging over us, what was (and is, for that matter) really to stop most people from living by the rule of the sword and doing whatever they pleased? So religions had a vested interest in making up rules-authored-by-God in order to get everybody acting in a fashion that was conducive to advancing society (i.e. instead of plundering/raping/pillaging people would respect their neighbours and not engage in activities which would set person against person, such as adultery).

The relevance of religion in modern society is, as a result, growing increasingly questionable because we now have secular sources of authority and sober thought which can tell us why, on purely humanitarian bases, why things like war and crime are wrong.

Regardless, however, the importance of monogamy is self-evident in society: There are perhaps 251 males born for every 249 females.

If every guy did, for example, what is allowed under Islam in places, and took four wives each, we'd have 62 guys with four wives, one guy with one wife, and 188 guys running around with severe sexual frustration and nothing to keep them occupied.

It's not a hard bit of deductive reasoning to look at that situation and see that there would be civil unrest in such a place, with 3/4 of its population unmarried and unable to engage in adultery.

(Granted, the Islamic world isn't nearly as bad as that because a) most men don't take more than one wife, and b) men have a shorter life expectancy. This causes, in general, a surplus of women, and this is perhaps the cause of why polygamy is a sometimes accepted practise there and elsewhere where the conditions are similar)

But at least, in our supposedly monogamous society, everybody can say "at least there's somebody out there for me."

If we were to remove that basic security from the minds of post-adolescent young adult men by allowing polygamy all over the place, it wouldn't be long before we'd have rape gangs of poor or disadvantaged post-adolescent young adult men roaming the streets with firearms.

quote: (...) as social animals you'd think that the groups, tribes, and villages might have easily adopted romantic and sexual relations that are more like... Say the Bonobo monkeys. (in which sexuality pervades almost all relationships, Which is to say treated recreationally, as gifts, for bartering, and so on...)

It's good that you mentioned the Bonobos -- they're related to the chimpanzees but practise slightly different social customs. However, they illustrate the important fact that a population which is completely sexually satisfied never engages in violence.

However, there's no indication that humans evolved from such an ape population in the first place. If you look at Bonobos, they display almost no sexual differentiation at adulthood.

(sexual differentiation -- a slight or marked difference in physical attribute (size, shape, color, etc.) between males and females of the same species at sexual maturity)

Where you have sexual differentiation, it's a general biological rule that males compete for females in one way or the other. When the sexual differentiation is size-based, the competition is often physical.

The Bonobos don't compete -- they just screw randomly and frequently. They also don't have a heirarchy in their groups.

Chimpanzees, being slightly different, have a different system. A female in season will mate with all the males in the troop, and although they won't fight over her, the males display a small measure of sexual differentiation by having large testicles -- they essentially engage in 'sperm wars', where the successful breeding male will have enough sperm volume to displace his rivals.

Baboons, on the other hand, are very sexually differentiated -- the males are sometimes twice the weight of the females and much stronger. They fight over females of breeding age, and their social structure is different as a result -- one dominant male controls a harem of many females, and is constantly fighting off rivals to maintain his dominance. In contrast, they don't require large testicles because there's no need -- they compete physically to win females and only use as much sperm as is needed to procreate.

Humans, as you'll observe, are more like baboons than chimps or Bonobos -- males are usually 1.5 to 2 times the mass of females, have tendencies to gather harems (albeit unofficially) and compete physically to establish dominance. We have (compared to other primates) smaller testicles, since we compete according to physical prowess and not by 'sperm wars'

It has been suggested, however, that this is precisely why monogamy evolved in ancient man -- not being top predator, the ancient troop leader & dominant male found himself in the precarious position of needing the support of the other male members of his troop to help in hunting and to fight off predators. It's also suggested that the only incentive at the time, to entice the subordinate males to do so, was to give them limited breeding freedom. Assuming that the breeding rate was the same then as it is now (i.e 251 males to 249 females, and on an evolutionary timeframe we were doing this sort of caveman thing not long ago), this meant one female per male (although I'm sure that then, as is now, the dominant male gets his pick).

It's entirely possible that we evolved from having that kind of informal arrangement then, to having it much more widespread now and codified by law.

This is all too long to read.

^I'm sure that "too cerebral for me to read" was what was meant.

[This message has been edited by Infrared (edited 04-18-2004).]

bloody typical! just for once we have a non- 'U r Gay' thread that seems thought out and intelligent BUT its 2am here and i'm too jacobed to read anymore. will catch up in the morning.

I agree that relationships are made up by religion. Ive never known anyone who has a girlfriend or boyfriend that dosent argue all the time. Im never going to get married because its stupid. The only differants between having a girlfriend and a girl thats a friend that your fucking is that they start telling each other what to do and there around each other all the time and start getting annoyed at each other. No 2 people can stand to be around each other for too long.

i didn't really read the long ass posts, but i think monogamy is in part religiously based, but alot of it is probaly human nature. Poeple jsut want to be loved and if the person your involved with is also involved with ten other people, it dosen't really fulfill those needs to be wanted and loved. Sex is different though.

I am polygamarous and I enjoy it heaps. I am also religious...

But even in the Bible, you read stories of men with multiple wives so its not as if its wrong. There were LAWS bought in to stop people having more than one partner in certain countries wasn't there?

quote:Originally posted by ADMIN|STRATOR:

I agree that relationships are made up by religion. Ive never known anyone who has a girlfriend or boyfriend that dosent argue all the time. Im never going to get married because its stupid. The only differants between having a girlfriend and a girl thats a friend that your fucking is that they start telling each other what to do and there around each other all the time and start getting annoyed at each other. No 2 people can stand to be around each other for too long.



your 13 aren't ya?

by the way, it works monogamie......as long as you consider threesomes bein monogamous..

When language first became developed enough to explain the concept of love, it probably piqued the interest of those who hadn't experienced it yet and gave another reason for monogamy.

Yeah, it's a wild-ass guess, but if you've been in love you know that, while you're so afflicted, there ain't no one else who matches up with your current interest, and you can't explain why. There's something so simple and exquisite about the sensation that it could never have been something we were convinced of by religion or society; people may try to expound on its virtues, create laws to "protect" it, or what have you, but the precursor to all that is something that happens inside us naturally.

What religion and society have done is romanticize monogamy to such an extreme that people go out and look for it wherever they can, and cling to it once found. The major effect has been to create misery and despair in those who fail their quests for love. Finding the right partner is the ultimate test of the Zen saying, "When you seek it, you cannot find it." If everyone would simply shut the fuck up about how important it is to only maintain strictly monogamous relationships and let everyone do their thing until they stumble across a suitable match, a lot more people would live happily.

quote:Originally posted by dark-easterbunny:



your 13 aren't ya?

by the way, it works monogamie......as long as you consider threesomes bein monogamous..

I think the word you're looking for is 'exclusive' -- an exclusive threesome would be much safer from an STD perspective, yes.

The Greek word 'monogamy', however, literally means mono (one) and gamein (to marry) -- to marry or partner with one person.

I suppose in this case bigamy might also work -- it imperfectly describes a marriage of three people.