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4.5
This book once again demonstrates the old adage that you can't tell a book by its cover. This new book by faculty of Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY is a little gem although badly mis-titled. The cover, a titillating image of three people in a bed, is designed to sell books but does not adequately reflect the scholarly nature of this important work. Bergstrand is an academic sociologist who has studied the swing community as well as marriage for the past 20 years. This book is a delightful deconstruction of monogamy exposing all of its weaknesses. With great detail it covers conventional monogamous marriage and its components and how we are all taught to unthinkingly subscribe to emotional monogamy, sexual monogamy, and practical monogamy forever. Most importantly it explores two alternatives to monogamy -- swinging and Polyamory from an academic sociological viewpoint. I am sure one day this book will be considered a major support document for the Polyamorous and swinging communities. Part one of the book titled, Swinging in America: The New Monogamy? describes the swinging community and how well swinging works for some, by allowing for emotional monogamy while permitting sexual exploration and variety. It compares the demographic data from 1100 members of the swinging community with the results of the University of Chicago's General Social Survey. Not surprisingly swingers are just like everyone else. They are sitting next to you at church, or on jury duty. Many personal narratives of swingers describe how their lives had been enriched, and marital happiness improved, by opening up their marriages to sexual nonmonogamy. For seasoned swingers, the data seem to indicate both improved quality and strength of marriages. These are not the stories society wants you to hear. For me the best part is the last half titled The Rise and Decline of Monocentrism. The first part is A Social Construction of Monogamy: The Religious and Economic Narratives. It concisely discusses the historical roots of monogamy and how monogamy has become a sacred cow never to be discussed in polite society. It continues with how monogamy is supported by capitalism, as well as the religious, legal, and psycho-therapeutic (read marriage counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists) communities. These entities conspire to keep monogamy alive and well and work towards fostering preconceived notions of how society would like the truth to be --- i.e. monogamy is the only socially acceptable path and any other approach is wrong. I found it interesting that the marriage and family counseling community buys into the one-size-fits-all monogamous model. The therapists carefully develop elaborate therapeutic strategies for treating the problems caused by monogamy. They seem unwilling or unable to explore the idea that monogamy, in and of itself, might be the problem. They refuse to look elsewhere for solutions and seem to believe if you don't embrace monogamy, you are sick and need therapy until you get it right. No one ever considers that monogamy might be the problem. Again, this is not a story society wants to hear. The authors, in the last chapters, propose nonmonogamies (Polyamory and swinging), as possible alternatives to monogamy. This is a refreshing change from the standard textbooks on marriage and family.The chapter titled Sexuality and Monocentrism: The Heretical Narratives explores sexual repression by the church. This sexual repression was supposed to "....prevent human lust from systematically dismantling all that is good and orderly in civilization." And the authors go on to say"Our search of scholarly literature did not turn up a single study which suggested that a repressive sexual morality had a positive outcome for individual character and personality or for society. These findings run counter to all of the assumptions found in the monocentric narrative. But a number of heretical voices have been saying all along that there is a price to pay when society constrains our sexuality." (pg. 133)Gee, whoever would have thought..... ' The authors examine a topic usually considered forbidden in conventional marriage textbooks -- Sexual Habituation. Being with the same sex partner for many years leads to habituation, perhaps a polite way to describe boredom. And this boredom can lead to seeking other sex partners for variety. This behavior, of course, can lead to infidelity and nasty divorces accompanied by visits to marriage and family counselors. Quoting from the chapter titled: Toward a Nonmonocentric Narrative of Love, Sex and marriage"The denial of sexual habituation and the need of many, if not most, people for sexual variety becomes a major stumbling block to honest communication and trust in monogamous relationships regardless of how hard they attempt to achieve it. In a monocentric society where the repression of sexuality has been imposed on us since childhood we have learned to routinely lie to others about our innermost desires and anxieties surrounding our sexuality. We collectively agree to pretend that our sexual selves are nothing more than the dried up remnants of desire which the traditional monogamous model of love requires them to be. In an atmosphere of such deception even the deepest love is necessarily marred by suspicion." (pg. 167) How society can deal with the very human need for sexual variety is explored in detail by, again, taking a thoughtful look at swinging and Polyamory. This book is a well written academic must-read for those advocating exploration of Polyamory and swinging lifestyles especially in marital and family therapy. It is especially useful for those who teach marriage and family sociology, counseling, and sex therapy. It is well known that many marriage and family therapy courses do NOT teach anything about nonmonogamy. Nonmonogamy may finally have its whole head underneath the psycho-therapeutic tent wall.Kenneth R. Haslam MD
