Hello Folks. The following post is from John Martin Green. He asked me to post if for him. In the future look for posts from JMG.
At least week’s Black Men’s Xchange-New York we took up the topic,
Monogamy vs. Polyamory, or Polyandry: Creating New SGL Paradigms?
After defining the terms, polyamory and polyandry, both of which involve relationship practices extending beyond individuals having a single mate, with the consent of all involved, participants shared their perspectives on those relationship models and others they’ve attempted or considered.
Among the most interesting outlooks espoused included the idea that:
With all of the relationship structures cited (including polygamy), with the exception of polyandry, the central figure is male, such that, operating in a patriarchal society as we are, there is a power dynamic in those configurations that favors the man. As same gender loving (SGL) men, these might well prove ‘win-win’ situations for us.
Other participants shared that their reasons for attempting or considering relationships extending beyond monogamy include:
Because men, both by nature and nurture, have been socialized to be sexual ‘conquerors,’ in monogamous relationships there is frequently clandestine sexual activity afoot which threatens the monogamy.
Examples along these lines included mentions of real and proverbial church ‘Pastors’ whose spouses, even as they marry, know they are entering tacit polyamorous relationships.
Some of the reasons proposed by participants that alternatives to monogamy might loom as hopeful for SGL folk included:
The anonymity observed in internet sexual hookups, and in more traditional covert sexploits can be spiritually, if not literally, deadly.
With marriage counselors, churches and all the other institutions in society buttressing the maintenance of their monogamous unions, the divorce rate among heterosexuals still hovers upwards of 60%. SGL people, with little or no institutional support, and more often, negative sanctioning for our mating from those same institutions; and having, like all other men, been socialized to be sexual conquerors, might spare ourselves of “The Myth of Monogamy”* through the creation of our own mating structures.
* “The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People” (Hardcover)
by David P. Barash Ph.D. (Author), Judith Eve Lipton (Author) "Anthropologist Margaret Mead once suggested that monogamy is the hardest of all human marital arrangements..."
At least week’s Black Men’s Xchange-New York we took up the topic,
Monogamy vs. Polyamory, or Polyandry: Creating New SGL Paradigms?
After defining the terms, polyamory and polyandry, both of which involve relationship practices extending beyond individuals having a single mate, with the consent of all involved, participants shared their perspectives on those relationship models and others they’ve attempted or considered.
Among the most interesting outlooks espoused included the idea that:
With all of the relationship structures cited (including polygamy), with the exception of polyandry, the central figure is male, such that, operating in a patriarchal society as we are, there is a power dynamic in those configurations that favors the man. As same gender loving (SGL) men, these might well prove ‘win-win’ situations for us.
Other participants shared that their reasons for attempting or considering relationships extending beyond monogamy include:
Because men, both by nature and nurture, have been socialized to be sexual ‘conquerors,’ in monogamous relationships there is frequently clandestine sexual activity afoot which threatens the monogamy.
Examples along these lines included mentions of real and proverbial church ‘Pastors’ whose spouses, even as they marry, know they are entering tacit polyamorous relationships.
Some of the reasons proposed by participants that alternatives to monogamy might loom as hopeful for SGL folk included:
The anonymity observed in internet sexual hookups, and in more traditional covert sexploits can be spiritually, if not literally, deadly.
With marriage counselors, churches and all the other institutions in society buttressing the maintenance of their monogamous unions, the divorce rate among heterosexuals still hovers upwards of 60%. SGL people, with little or no institutional support, and more often, negative sanctioning for our mating from those same institutions; and having, like all other men, been socialized to be sexual conquerors, might spare ourselves of “The Myth of Monogamy”* through the creation of our own mating structures.
* “The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People” (Hardcover)
by David P. Barash Ph.D. (Author), Judith Eve Lipton (Author) "Anthropologist Margaret Mead once suggested that monogamy is the hardest of all human marital arrangements..."
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