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BIG POST: Why Long-Term Monogamy Doesn’'t Work In 21st Century America

abcd_z
July 15, 2013
11 upvotes
/r/TheRedPill
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Post Information
Title BIG POST: Why Long-Term Monogamy Doesn’'t Work In 21st Century America
Author

abcd_z
Upvotes 11
Comments 18
Date July 15, 2013 12:08 AM UTC
(13 years ago)
Subreddit Posted in /r/TheRedPill
Original Link https://old.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1ib0sj/big_post_why_longterm_monogamy_doesnt_work_in/
Archive Link https://theredarchive.com/r/TheRedPill/big-post-why-long-term-monogamy-doesnt-work-in.233857
https://theredarchive.com/post/233857
Red Pill terms in post
monogamythe red pill
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Comments

[–]LouisWinthorpIII 11 points12 points13 points 13 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

Citing a lot of statistics, with zero sources.

[–]abcd_z[S] 3 points4 points5 points 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

Yeah. The least accurate part I found is where he claims that "Infidelity rates are between 47% and 78%", when the numbers I found range anywhere from 7% to (at the top end) 40%. source.

The average divorce rate (around 50%) is accurate, although I haven't verified any of his other divorce statistics.

[–]puaSenator0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I think that original quote is closer to "those that thought about infidelity". I remember reading something like that a while ago and it hit around 60 percent.

[–]stackedmidgets2 points3 points4 points 13 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Dalrock did it better with better citations.

[–]abcd_z[S] 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

Do you have a link?

[–]stackedmidgets0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Like his whole blog. Less succinct I guess but I wish someone had dumped that on me when I was 18.

[–]MartialWay11 points12 points13 points 13 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

"50% of you are going to suffer horribly in a divorce. The only thing worse than that is staying married".

Mark Minter

[–]TRP Vanguardss_camaro1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago* (1 child) | Copy Link

Basically the 'winners' get to keep a post-wall woman; i.e. western marriage is a all-round bad deal for men.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

In all kinds of marriage winners get to keep a post-wall woman, no matter if 21st America or 16th century Azerbaijan, however, the traditional idea is generally that after a certain age men will be more interested in kids and a large family than sex. You know it is the idea that you come home, you are too tired from work to have sex anyway, and you are not living a very healthy life anyway working 12 hours in the coal mine, so you don't care how wife looks but she cooked a hearty dinner and you watch your 4-5 kids jump around and you are happy. This would have been the idea. I mean if I look at say Turkish women in Europe, they tend to have little sex appeal but they always push a pram. This is the idea of the traditional deal.

I mean the biggest WTF I see on Reddit is the consciously childless marriages, I haven no idea why those men married, closely followed by one kid only more as a friend than as a kid.

I mean basically looking at it from the marriage winners perspective, the prize to win is 2 - 3 kids, if there is any point in playing, it is that, if it is the type of woman who would not ruin her figure or career with that then marrying is beyond and downright crazy and pointless. No matter where you actually live on the planet, although it is obviously worse for first-worlders.

[–]Scarlett_Begonias0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago* (9 children) | Copy Link

I don't know about all his statistics (some looked a teeny bit unrealistic to me), and I'm not sure I agree with every single thing he said, but I agree with the thrust of the argument. Long term monogamy is very clearly not working for us as a society. It's only a matter of time until we realign our ideology to mesh better with reality, and find a new "ideal" for relationships.

One of the best things in this article was his discussion of jealousy:

Answer: Jealousy is a big topic, and beyond the scope of this discussion. I will say that I do understand…we’ve all felt jealous at one time or another. But understand that jealousy comes from three places: 1) bullcrap societal programming, 2) territorial caveman crap in your DNA that no longer has any relevance in the modern world, and 3) your own personal insecurities and self-esteem issues, likely gained from negative childhood experiences. Guess what? All three of these things are BAD. Bad, bad, bad. All three of these things are hurting you, not only in your relationships but in other areas of your life as well. All three of these things you must work on and solve. Seek counseling if you need to. But don’t assume just because you feel something its because you’re doing something wrong. Sometimes it is. But often it isn’t.

It reminded me of one of the personality questions on OKCupid, which asks whether jealousy in a relationship is healthy or unhealthy. No one should answer that it's healthy. It's not; it does nothing! Even if you don't accept that attempting monogamy is futile, what is jealousy really doing for you? In my experience it doesn't prevent cheating (sometimes quite the opposite), it doesn't bring you closer to the other person, it just makes everyone feel bad and puts unnecessary strain on the relationship.

EDIT: If you downvote me for this, would you mind explaining why? I don't think anything in this post was inane, irrelevant to the discussion, offensive, etc. If you disagree with something I said here, why not take a moment to respond and say "I disagree, because [reasons]"?

[–][deleted] 4 points4 points4 points 13 years ago | Copy Link

[permanently deleted]

[–]abcd_z[S] 4 points5 points6 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Remember that BlackDragon is first and foremost a PUA, so his reasoning here is "Overcome your jealousy so that you can be okay with open relationships, and so that she can't manipulate you by trying to make you jealous."

[–]Scarlett_Begonias1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

I totally agree. I never said people should ignore jealousy, just that they shouldn't accept it as a healthy emotion to have all the time without examining why they feel that way. Most people think they feel jealous because of external factors, but I agree with the author of the article that jealousy is really a personal, internal thing.

Another way to look at it - we all feel anger sometimes. It's unpleasant, and we'd rather not feel it. We all (hopefully) agree that repressing said anger is not the way to fix things, but we also agree that we don't let it rule us. Being angry at something isn't going to make it better, in the same way as being jealous isn't going to keep your SO from cheating on you. You examine why you're angry, determine whether anger is even an appropriate reaction, and then attempt to fix the problem if there is one.

I think what this guy was saying about jealousy is that it's not really a problem until you make it one. There's no reason to deny your jealousy, but there's also no reason to say that everyone must be monogamous and monogamy is the only natural way, just because you're jealous. [EDIT: He was specifically arguing against jealousy as a reason to support long-term monogamy.] I wanted to add that jealousy is not useful and not healthy, so we should try to mitigate it rather than just accepting it at face value.

[–]DaddyMonster2 points3 points4 points 13 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

Being angry at something isn't going to make it better, in the same way as being jealous isn't going to keep your SO from cheating on you.

Jealousy prompts mate guarding behaviour which is useful if done right. Remember that emotions are evolved responses to some evolutionary pressure. In this case, the behaviour which jealousy triggers may counteract the risk of infidelity.

Read "the dangerous passion". While it is blue pill in parts, it has some relevant points.

I think what this guy was saying about jealousy is that it's not really a problem until you make it one. There's no reason to deny your jealousy, but there's also no reason to say that everyone must be monogamous and monogamy is the only natural way, just because you're jealous. [EDIT: He was specifically arguing against jealousy as a reason to support long-term monogamy.] I wanted to add that jealousy is not useful and not healthy, so we should try to mitigate it rather than just accepting it at face value.

IMHO you can't have a proper intimate relationship with someone if you are unable to be jealous. Jealousy implies investment in a relationship. If you're invested, it is natural and rational to guard the investment, and jealousy prompts that behaviour. Naturally, excessive jealousy is unhealthy, and disproportionate jealousy is going to be counterproductive, but just saying it isn't healthy or useful without qualifying the statement is useless.

IF you want polyamory, it isn't a healthy emotion, but some would say that it's polyamory that's unhealthy and not the other way around. Polyamory hardly the norm. Note that I'm saying it isn't the norm. That isn't the same as saying it is unnatural. That being said, what makes a behaviour healthy or not is context dependent.

It is understandable that those who engage in non monogamy for whatever reason demonise jealousy as unhealthy and useless. They must rationalize it some way. Smacks of hamster though, to think that a normal healthy person could invest in another emotionally and then not want that person for him or herself. Humans are greedy apes.

[–]abcd_z[S] 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Jealousy prompts mate guarding behaviour which is useful if done right

Not really. Animals in the wild have always been able to slip away from protective mates. Even scientists observing wild animals were unaware of the female infidelity until DNA testing started becoming prevalent.

IMHO you can't have a proper intimate relationship with someone if you are unable to be jealous.

That's the "no true scotsman" fallacy. If I point to a relationship that exists without jealousy (such as several of mine), you can just say "well, that's not a proper relationship," completely ignoring the fact that it is a functioning intimate relationship, and that it works quite well without jealousy.

Jealousy implies investment in a relationship. If you're invested, it is natural and rational to guard the investment

The goal is to be intimate without being invested. Intimacy is an emotional state, one that can change on a whim and makes no demands of the other person. Investment is an emotional binding of yourself to the other person and a reduction of your personal freedom.

You'll forgive me for designing my relationships to allow one but not the other.

It is understandable that those who engage in non monogamy for whatever reason demonise jealousy as unhealthy and useless.

Well, yes. If you practice non-monogamy but don't have your jealousy issues under control, you're going to be in for a world of hurt.

Smacks of hamster though, to think that a normal healthy person could invest in another emotionally and then not want that person for him or herself.

Again: intimacy, not investment.

[–]DaddyMonster0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

Jealousy prompts mate guarding behaviour which is useful if done right

Not really. Animals in the wild have always been able to slip away from protective mates. Even scientists observing wild animals were unaware of the female infidelity until DNA testing started becoming prevalent.

That's like saying penicillin isn't useful because people can still die from infectious disease despite having been given it. If medicine isn't applied in the right way at the right time, it won't work, and it's the same with mate guarding behaviour.

If jealousy and mate guarding behaviour was useless it wouldn't have evolved. Nature hates wasting energy on useless shit.

IMHO you can't have a proper intimate relationship with someone if you are unable to be jealous.

That's the "no true scotsman" fallacy. If I point to a relationship that exists without jealousy (such as several of mine), you can just say "well, that's not a proper relationship," completely ignoring the fact that it is a functioning intimate relationship, and that it works quite well without jealousy.

Fair enough, though I do wonder how many people who claim non-jealousy would fare if they were watching their partner getting fucked by another, and the partner was getting off more than with themselves. Some would be ok with it, I'll grant you that, but the majority? I'm not convinced.

Jealousy implies investment in a relationship. If you're invested, it is natural and rational to guard the investment

The goal is to be intimate without being invested. Intimacy is an emotional state, one that can change on a whim and makes no demands of the other person. Investment is an emotional binding of yourself to the other person and a reduction of your personal freedom.

What you're describing is essentially a glorified hook up.

It is understandable that those who engage in non monogamy for whatever reason demonise jealousy as unhealthy and useless.

Well, yes. If you practice non-monogamy but don't have your jealousy issues under control, you're going to be in for a world of hurt.

If one's got a tendency towards jealousy in any form, IMO one shouldn't practise non-monogamy. It's funny when you look at poly-forums, cuz it seems jealousy is what being discussed the most. "I have this emotion that tells me this shit is wrong. Please help me hamster it away." Go cognitive dissonance.

Smacks of hamster though, to think that a normal healthy person could invest in another emotionally and then not want that person for him or herself.

Again: intimacy, not investment.

I define intimacy as mutual emotional investment. How do you define it?

[–]abcd_z[S] 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

If jealousy and mate guarding behaviour was useless it wouldn't have evolved. Nature hates wasting energy on useless shit.

Not necessarily. It could be a side-effect of other evolutionary changes that just happens to not adversely affect the overall genetic fitness of the species. See also: appendixes, wisdom teeth.

Fair enough, though I do wonder how many people who claim non-jealousy would fare if they were watching their partner getting fucked by another, and the partner was getting off more than with themselves. Some would be ok with it, I'll grant you that, but the majority? I'm not convinced.

So you're saying that you don't believe other people could be as non-jealous as they claim to be. Sounds like a personal problem to me.

If one's got a tendency towards jealousy in any form, IMO one shouldn't practise non-monogamy.

As a side-note: Even when you pepper your text with IMO and IMHO, it doesn't change the fact that you're pushing your opinion as the correct one. Instead of "in my opinion," it reads as "this is the way it is."

Anyhow, non-monogamy has massive benefits if you can overcome jealousy issues. You don't seem to think the tradeoff is worth it (or even possible?), so we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

It's funny when you look at poly-forums, cuz it seems jealousy is what being discussed the most. "I have this emotion that tells me this shit is wrong. Please help me hamster it away." Go cognitive dissonance.

Hamster-wheeling involves rationalizing your behavior after the fact and making no attempt to take responsibility for your actions or change them in the future.

In comparison, the discussions you mention involve an awareness and acceptance of an unpleasant emotional state and an attempt to change the thoughts and behaviors that lead to it. It's no different from taking anger management classes except that the emotion in question is jealousy, not anger.

What you're describing is essentially a glorified hook up.

If a glorified hook up contains both sex and female affection then yes, I suppose I am.

I define intimacy as mutual emotional investment. How do you define it?

A specific emotional state bolstered by physical behavior. The very concept of "investment" is anathema to the PUA, because the more you invest in her, the harder it is to withdraw when the situation requires it.

[–]Scarlett_Begonias1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Jealousy prompts mate guarding behaviour which is useful if done right. Remember that emotions are evolved responses to some evolutionary pressure.

The thing is, we're affected by very different pressures now. I'm sure we evolved the capacity for jealousy for a reason, but I don't think it's nearly as useful anymore. As the author of the original article said, lifelong monogamy/marriage were plenty useful when they came about. Because of the course our species has taken, however, it would be much more useful for us to make room for other models, whether it's short-term monogamy or open relationships or whatever.

In this case, the behaviour which jealousy triggers may counteract the risk of infidelity.

This could be true, but I think it's usually the opposite. I've heard plenty of guys (and girls actually) with jealous mates say things like "Well if she's gonna think I'm cheating all the time anyways, I might as well just do it." And not all of these mates are overly jealous or crazy about it.

IF you want polyamory, it isn't a healthy emotion, but some would say that it's polyamory that's unhealthy and not the other way around. Polyamory hardly the norm. Note that I'm saying it isn't the norm. That isn't the same as saying it is unnatural. That being said, what makes a behaviour healthy or not is context dependent.

Agreed... However I think polyamory should be accepted as one possible type of "normal" relationship. The growing popularity of polyamory, IMO, is a response to everything the article said about traditional monogamy not working anymore.

It is understandable that those who engage in non monogamy for whatever reason demonise jealousy as unhealthy and useless. They must rationalize it some way. Smacks of hamster though, to think that a normal healthy person could invest in another emotionally and then not want that person for him or herself. Humans are greedy apes.

Wait, I thought polyamory could be ok/natural/whatever? Now you say that a normal healthy person couldn't be alright with it? A person can be both abnormal and still healthy right?

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