Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [8]
Many people also believe that unashamed sexual desire, particularly desire for more than one person, inevitably destroys the family—yet we suspect that far more families have been destroyed by bitter divorces over adultery than have ever been disturbed by ethical consensual nonmonogamy.
MYTH #4: LOVING SOMEONE MAKES IT
OKAY TO CONTROL HIS OR HER BEHAVIOR
This kind of territorial reasoning is designed, we guess, to make people feel secure, but we don’t believe that anybody has the right, much less the obligation, to control the behavior of another functioning adult. Being treated according to this myth doesn’t make us feel secure, it makes us feel furious. The old “awww, she’s jealous—she must really care about me” reasoning, or the scene in which the girl falls in love with the boy when he punches out a rival suitor, are symptomatic of a very disturbed set of personal boundaries that can lead to a great deal of unhappiness.
This myth also leads to the belief, so often promulgated in Hollywood films and popular literature, that sleeping with someone else is something you do to your partner, not for yourself, and is, moreover, the very worst thing you can do to someone. For many years, in New York State, adultery was the only legally acceptable grounds for divorce, leaving those who had unfortunately married batterers or drunks in a very difficult position. And the legal punishment for “cheating” could be to lose one’s job, home, money, and kids, because of the wounding to the “betrayed” partner—that is, if you got caught. So one was supposed to cheat in secrecy to protect one’s partner’s dignity and keep the family together.
MYTH #5: JEALOUSY IS INEVITABLE
AND IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERCOME
Jealousy is, without a doubt, a very common experience, so much so that a person who doesn’t experience jealousy is looked at as a bit odd, or in denial. But often a situation that would cause intense jealousy for one person can be no big deal for another. Some people get jealous when their honey takes a sip out of someone else’s Coke, others happily watch their beloved wave bye-bye for a month of amorous sporting with a friend at the far end of the country.
Some people also believe that jealousy is such a shattering emotion that they have no choice but to succumb to it. People who believe this often believe that any form of nonmonogamy should be nonconsensual and completely secret, in order to protect the “betrayed” partner from having to feel such an impossibly difficult emotion.
On the contrary, we have found that jealousy is an emotion like any other: it feels bad (sometimes very bad), but it is not intolerable. We have also found that many of the “oughta-be’s” that lead to jealousy can be unlearned and that unlearning them is often a useful process. Later in this book, we will spend a lot more time talking about jealousy and the strategies many people have successfully employed to cope with it.
MYTH #6: OUTSIDE INVOLVEMENTS REDUCE
INTIMACY IN THE PRIMARY RELATIONSHIP
Most marriage counselors, and certain popular TV psychologists, believe when a member of an otherwise happy couple has an “affair,” this must be a symptom of unresolved conflict or unfulfilled needs that should be dealt with in the primary relationship. Of course, this is occasionally true, but not nearly as often as many “relationship gurus” would like us to believe. Moreover, this myth leaves no room for the possibility of growthful and constructive open sexual lifestyles.
It is cruel and insensitive to interpret an affair as a symptom of sickness in the relationship, as it leaves “cheated-on” partners—who may already be feeling insecure—to wonder what is wrong with them. Meanwhile, “cheating” partners get told that they are only trying to get back at their primary partners and don’t really want, need, or even like their lovers.
Many people have sex outside their primary relationships