I also used to be a fucking nob jockey. I don't know if I am getting smarter or Jezebel is getting dumber, but my respect for their content has plummeted in recent months.
And now they are declaring a war on monogamy. Oh yeah, I totally see that. Right now I'm looking out the window and the streets are brimming with angry swingers and polygomists wielding AK 47s and throwing hand grenades at white picket fences. Its terrifying shit.
Does this look like war to you? Or does it look like as much fun as you can have with giant lips and plus signs floating above your head?
(or does it actually just look like two couples making out in the same room? It's kind of the fatal flaw in my Polygamous Sims model)
Since when is defending a relationship model that falls beyond the status quo the same as declaring war?
When those defenses start to eradicate and threaten the normalacy of said status quo, that's when.
Lamenting that society doesn't have adequate support systems for those dedicated to monogamy because of a few mainstream pro-poly texts* is just as ridiculous and pathetic as insisting that its tough to be a heterosexual in this day and age because Queer as Folk played for five seasons. The fact that the conversation surrounding relationships is minutely and sloooooooooooowly expanding to incorporate non-monogamy as a viable, and maybe even a better, relationship choice does not change the fact that the normative world is built for [heterosexual] monogamists, by [heterosexual] monogamists; everything outside of this is other.
When those defenses start to eradicate and threaten the normalacy of said status quo, that's when.
Lamenting that society doesn't have adequate support systems for those dedicated to monogamy because of a few mainstream pro-poly texts* is just as ridiculous and pathetic as insisting that its tough to be a heterosexual in this day and age because Queer as Folk played for five seasons. The fact that the conversation surrounding relationships is minutely and sloooooooooooowly expanding to incorporate non-monogamy as a viable, and maybe even a better, relationship choice does not change the fact that the normative world is built for [heterosexual] monogamists, by [heterosexual] monogamists; everything outside of this is other.
Instead of getting so upset and threatened by different relationship models, try examining the root cause of your defensiveness. What do you have to gain in the taken-for-granted status of monogamy? What privileges will you lose if this is no longer the case? And what threatens you so much about change, about discussion and debate, that you have to shut it down by labeling it a 'war'?
*disclaimer: I haven't actually read the texts Schwyzer references in his article, but my critque of this knee-jerk defensiveness remains valid even if the books are utter horseshit.
