Polysexuality – Part Four

Chapter 4: Polysexuality and Marriage

A happy marriage is a wonderful thing. Being happily married is the best way to be. I’ve been very happily married for more than two decades, I’ve never been divorced, and I believe monogamy is the best choice for me. Many people have of course been less fortunate.

Despite my belief in the goodness of a happy marriage, I have to admit that our attitude toward marriage is a cultural construct. Our attitude is not the right attitude, not the only way people can be happy, and not something we must preserve at all costs. There have been other ways of doing things in other cultures throughout history that have worked quite well.

Many people believe in the “sanctity” of marriage—that is to say, they believe it is holy, instituted by and required by God. I don’t think it is, but I do think it worth saving. The claim for the holiness of marriage is itself a cultural construct, even though we base it on religious beliefs. Although we live in an ostensibly secular country rather than in a theocracy, our laws regarding marriage are in turn based on this idea of its sanctity, even though we may not admit it. Thus, we feel the need to limit it, restrict it, and protect it from abuse or change, impossible though that is. Our ideas of marriage do change, but they change slowly, often decades or more after various pioneers suggest the changes and experience the resulting backlash from those who resist changing what they are used to until they have had a few years to grow accustomed to the new ideas and make them their own.

Monogamy is part of that cultural construct, though it is not illegal to be unmarried. Polygamy is not morally wrong, but it is illegal in the United States. Many people are repelled by it and have convinced lawmakers that for various reasons, it should be illegal. I think if gay marriage is ever legalized, then polygamy should also be legalized, but I have no interest in having more than one wife. One is ideal for me. Polyamory is somewhat similar to polygamy, but with the ties looser and less binding. Polysexuality is not the same as polygamy or polyamory. It’s not about love and lifetime, but about playing and having fun together.

Attitudes Toward Marriage Evolve

Our understanding of what a marriage should be, what a husband should be, and what a wife should be continues to change. At any one time, a great many people would claim that their own views on marriage are God-given and eternally unchanging, yet over the course of their own marriages, their views change. This should warn us against being too dogmatic about marriage.

In my own marriage we’ve gradually developed a division of labor. My wife pays the bills, but I do the taxes. I do the grocery shopping, I wash most of the clothes, she folds most of the clothes, I do most of the yard work, she does most of the cooking, I often clean the toilets, she usually vacuums, and we both have fulltime jobs.

Our division of labor is very different from the usual division when my grandparents were married or even when my parents were married, but changing lifestyles may lead to changing customs. The definition of marriage my grandparents might have given in the 1920s would be somewhat different from what many of us would accept today. In 1930 my grandmother couldn’t drive a car, and though she was a registered nurse, she stopped nursing when she got married. By the time I was born, though, she drove a car and worked part time in a hospital. Things continue to change.

A great many cultures have marriage customs that differ from our own. In India, for example, most marriages are arranged by parents, and young people marry without feeling any passionate love for each other, yet married couples still manage to be happy. Again, the way we do it is not the way it must be done.

Some people like meat and potatoes, others Mexican food, Chinese, Italian, or Indian, and I like them all. A preference for one kind of food doesn’t mean the other kinds aren’t tasty or nourishing. Similarly, we may prefer one sort of marriage, but that doesn’t mean another sort can’t be satisfying for those who like it. If it is satisfying, why shouldn’t it be acceptable? Does your marriage have to be like mine in order for me to consider yours valid? No!

What we tend to see as the right way to get married and the right way to be married are essentially things we’ve tacitly agreed to agree on. It’s part of our culture. If things change over the decades, the change will be acceptable to most people by the time it happens. If a few of us decide to make big changes now, we may anger a lot of people, but it isn’t a sign of the end of civilization. People will get over it.

Wedding Vows: What Did We Promise?

Most of us, when we get married, whether we get married in a church or in a civil ceremony, say something like this:

“I take you to be my wedded wife [or husband]

This is called a marriage vow. It’s made up of promises, oaths, things we swear to do. We swear we will remain married to each other until we die. We swear we will remain married even if everything goes bad and it’s not fun anymore. We swear we will remain married if we strike it rich or if we go bankrupt. We swear we will remain married even if one of us gets sick. We promise to love each other and hold each other dear (the meaning of “cherish”). To have means that we are each other’s prized possessions. To hold actually means much the same thing, like holding a bond or holding stocks.

Some religious denominations have vows where people swear they will be “faithful,” but surely the paragraph above outlines what we mean by fidelity: remaining married whatever the circumstances. Note that in these vows, the bride and groom do not promise that they will be monosexual, having sex only with each other. That sort of promise does make it into vows now and then, but it’s unusual. However, probably most people assume that the marriage vows should be seen to include marital monosexuality. They assume monosexuality because that is what our culture assumes, even though that isn’t explicitly declared. But when our cultural understanding of marriage changes, so will our understanding of these marriage vows.

Do we mean what we say, in any case? Are we faithful to these vows? According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, in 2004, for every 76 couples who got married, at least 37 couples got divorced. There were 2,224,000 marriages reported in the United States in 2004, and there were probably close to 1,200,000 divorces (National Vital Statistics Reports, 53/21 [28 June 2005]; retrieved 31 January 2006 from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_21.pdf; California and four other states didn’t report divorce statistics, so the number should certainly be higher, as more than a tenth of all marriages happened in these states, and surely divorces occur there, too).

In the light of these statistics, what good are our oaths? Are we all liars or oath breakers? Granted, the divorce statistics include people being divorced for a second time. True, people who don’t marry until their mid-twenties are less likely to get divorced, as are those with college degrees, those earning over $50,000 a year, those who haven’t cohabited before marriage with many partners, those whose parents aren’t divorced, and those who are very religious and marry partners from the same denomination (http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/pubTenThingsYoungAdults.pdf; retrieved 31 January 2006). However, even some who fit the above profile get divorced. For those who don’t fit, the chance of divorce looks grim.

[BOX: What are the Scientists Saying? Anthony P. Thompson has put together a useful table on the "Incidence of Extramarital Behaviors" found by researchers since 1948. He includes information about their samples that help explain the differences. Kinsey's sample found that 50% of men and 26% of women had extramarital sexual experience. A 1970 study of about 8,000 men and women, most under 35, found that 40% of the men and 36% of the women had extramarital sexual experience. This is in line with a 1975 study of women over 40 who read Redbook that found that 39% admitted such experience. In 1980, 69% of Cosmopolitan readers over 35 had tried extramarital sex. Hite, in a large 1981 survey, found that 66% of men had experienced extramarital sex. Thompson mentions that "Nass, Libby and Fisher (1981) make an educated guess that 50 to 65 percent of married men and 45 to 55 percent of married women engage in extramarital sex by 40" (pp. 6--7). My estimates of the number of polysexuals is lower because I suspect that a large minority of those having extramarital sex are not actually polysexuals, but are monosexuals trying to find new spouses and doing what they think necessary. Anthony P. Thompson, "Extramarital Sex: A Review of the Research Literature," The Journal of Sex Research 19/1 (Feb. 1983): pp. 1--22.]

“No Fair Cheating!”

When I stand in the check-out line in the grocery store, it’s hard to avoid the headlines on the tabloid newspapers: various celebrities, male and female, are caught “cheating.” Their spouses are devastated and suing for divorce, so hurt or so angry that they are splitting up the family. Generally the spouses seem like nice people. I feel sorry for them.

But let’s be fair and think straight for a minute. If Jack and Jill swore in their marriage vows to remain together until death, no matter what, and those oaths did not specify that they would each remain monosexual in practice, and Jill divorces Jack because he has not remained monosexual, then which person has broken the oath and been unfaithful to the vows? Jill has! Yes, Jill’s feelings are hurt, but is this because Jack wants to hurt them or because our culture has conditioned Jill to feel hurt? Does Jack’s playing around mean he no longer wants to spend his life happily with Jill? Not necessarily. Is it possible, then, that a lot of divorces attributed to “cheating” spouses should actually be attributed to a culture that teaches us that if a spouse is not monosexual, the love is gone from the marriage?

Yes, I’m sure these people must be hurting terribly. They feel that their world is falling apart. They had always thought they’d be happily married, deliriously in love, and now it’s over, or so they think. They imagine their huge houses being sold, their children heartbroken, the scandal and gossip. But does it have to be that way? If they understood that their spouses still loved them above all, still wanted to be married to them, still thought they were the best, could they find it in their hearts to say, “My marriage comes first; my children come first; I love this person, and I’ve been happy; my spouse is a polysexual, and it’s not something personal”?

I hate the term “cheating.” Is the spouse being cheated? Of what? If a married couple is used to having sex together about once a week and continues to have sex together once a week while the wife is having sex with two other men once a week each, is the husband being cheated of his sex? No, he’s getting as much as he usually gets. If a polysexual man is having multiple sexual partners, is he cheating his wife if he continues to love and cherish her and be a good husband?

Many a woman assumes when she discovers her husband is having sex with other women that it is because she is inadequate in bed or isn’t giving him enough. “If only I’d dressed sexier at night or shown more interest,” she thinks. “If only I’d been willing to give him oral more often or been willing to try anal.” A man whose wife is seeing other men might be thinking, “If only I devoted more time to pleasing her than to my own pleasure,” or “Maybe I should have taken the time to learn more about being good at sex,” or “I should have seemed more interested in her body.” Of course these problems are common. Many men and women know virtually nothing about how to be good lovers. But when polysexuals seek out other partners, often they are entirely happy with the quality of their sex life at home. They simply want a quality sex life with other partners, too.

It’s hard to know how many divorces could be prevented if people understood that for polysexuals, sex outside marriage may have nothing at all to do with whether or not they continue to love their spouses. Some extramarital sex, of course, occurs because people are unhappy with their spouses and have given up on the marriage. In many cases, though, a monosexual spouse who wants to avoid a divorce need only recognize the orientation of a polysexual spouse and realize that this person will be much happier and a much better husband or wife if allowed to have multiple partners without having to sneak around. After all, the polysexual orientation seems to have a strong genetic component, rather like the tendency to obesity or left-handedness, and while it can be controlled, many people fail. Others finally say, “Why even try? I should be what I am.” When people with a strong genetic tendency toward obesity put on weight, that’s not a sign of something gone wrong in a marriage, even when they know their spouse disapproves. Likewise, when people with a strong genetic tendency toward polysexuality seek out sexual variety, they may be happily married. If monosexual spouses, male or female, rather than feeling inadequate or threatened by their polysexual partners’ need for sexual variety, allow room to wander, the marriage is saved, and if the monosexual spouse learns to accept this, the marriage may grow deeper and more fulfilling for both. It is merely the faulty expectations inculcated by our culture that makes this difficult.

Sex-Free Cheating

There is a kind of “cheating” I consider much more significant because it involves a true alienation of the affections. Sometimes a man, say, decides he no longer loves his wife and wants out of the relationship. He begins looking for another life partner, finds one, and begins plotting his divorce and remarriage. He gives the special love he has promised to reserve for his wife to the new woman. Probably he is having sex with the new woman, but this is not necessarily because he is a polysexual. For him, she is his new wife in all but name. The wife who discovers this sort of transferal of love is right to feel cheated and right to want a divorce. The oath her husband took has been broken.

Or perhaps a woman meets a man at work who seems much more ideal to her than her husband. She starts meeting him for dinner or drinks, and gradually she lets herself fall in love with him and start fantasizing about leaving her husband. Perhaps she says, “I’m not cheating because we haven’t had sex.” This highlights the perversity of defining sex as “cheating.” If she were having sex with the guy because she’s a polysexual but remaining true in her heart to her husband, she wouldn’t be cheating. Even without sex, though, if she’s deliberating breaking her promise to love and cherish her husband until death in order to transfer her love to this new man, she is definitely cheating her husband of her love and affection.

Yes, people make mistakes in whom they marry, and it’s natural that they want to try again with someone else and do better if they’re unhappy. It may be that both partners want out of the marriage. Nevertheless, they ought to realize that their choice to no longer love each other and to end the marriage is breaking their word, their promise, their oath.

There are other ways of bruising, if not breaking, the marriage vows that we sometimes don’t think about. I know a man who loves sports so much that he spends hours a day watching them or playing them. It’s as if his real wife is sports. He’s not a professional, but he’s talented, and he plays basketball and baseball on a couple teams each season. He married a woman who also loved sports, but when the kids came along, she no longer had time to play. Instead of being a good father to his children, he was watching games when he was home and playing them if he could. He wasn’t functioning as a husband and father, and eventually his wife divorced him. He was bringing nothing useful to the marriage but a small paycheck and his sperm count. His next wife divorced him for the same reason.

Many wives feel neglected and unhappy because their husbands may be monosexual, but they spend most of their hours watching sports on television. Is this how men show their love? Other wives are unhappy because instead of coming home after work, their husbands go out for “a few drinks with the guys.” Their urge for male companionship is stronger than their love for their wives, and they get angry if their wives question it. They find the male/male bond more satisfying. The result is that the neglected marriage fails to thrive. This sort of “cheating” is generally considered less important than having multiple sexual partners, but many people are quite able to have multiple sexual partners without neglecting their marriages.

I’d love to see the National Enquirer trumpet on the front page that some CEO has cheated on his wife by playing golf with his buddies every Sunday morning for the past year, when she’d enjoy being taken out to brunch or accompanied on a walk or something.

I’ve talked with many women who have told me that never in their married lives have their husbands brought them flowers, candy, or perfume, cleaned the toilet, washed the dishes, stayed at home with the television off just chatting for an evening, cooked a meal for them, cared for them when they were sick, or gone for a walk with them.

I don’t care if these men are strictly monosexual. As far as I’m concerned, they are second-rate husbands who aren’t being true to their marriage vows. A polysexual husband who plays with other women now and then but loves only his wife and does the things listed above for her should be considered by far the better husband, the man faithful to his vows.

I might add here that there are probably more than a million couples in the United States who occasionally “swing,” having sex with other couples or trading partners. If everyone involved is happy with it, then this is certainly not “cheating.” Jealousy is rare when everyone involved is having fun.

[BOX: What Are the Scientists Saying? Anthony P. Thompson, summarizing research by J. Bernard, writes, "Bernard (1974) points out that, in its strictest interpretation, infidelity occurs not only with extramarital sexual relations but also whenever one or both spouses cease to love, honor, cherish, or comfort on another" (p. 2), on J. Bernard, "Infidelity: Some Moral and Social Issues," in J. R. Smith and L. G. Smith, ed., Beyond Monogamy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1974).]

The Right “Chemistry”

Some evolutionary biologists and psychologists have speculated that men are genetically programmed to want multiple sex partners because the more women they have sex with, the better the chance that they will have progeny capable of surviving. They have claimed that women are genetically set to want only one mate because they want the mate to help with parenting. Men want to spread their seed far and wide, while women want to build a nest and keep it feathered (for a useful bibliography and a much more nuanced view, see David M. Buss, The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating, rev. [New York: Basic Books, 2003]).

To me it doesn’t matter to me whether I can find an explanation for why something started happening. I’m happy merely to know that it happens. I would be pleased to see scientists expand their explanations to account for the fact that most men seem to be either happily monosexual in orientation or at least able to live that way without much difficulty. It isn’t due merely to cultural conditioning. Some men simply don’t want sexual variety. I’m also interested in why a substantial percentage of women (at least a quarter, I’d guess) are polysexual in orientation (even though they might not discover the desire for more partners until middle age or unless their husbands neglect them sexually).

Also, as best I can tell, men are not having sex with lots of women because they want lots of children, but because something inside them craves sexual variety. Perhaps there is a genetic need for survival that makes all creatures do whatever it takes to maintain themselves through offspring. Perhaps that is driving our behavior without most of us realizing it. However, perhaps most creatures seek variety because they seek a certain kind of pleasure they get from it. Perhaps creatures are less driven by an unwitting genetic urge for continuation of the species (or of their own line) than by a well-recognized but genetically based love of good feelings—an urge with an immediate pay-off. This pleasure imperative has the same effect, but is less mysterious. Indeed, so long as creatures seek sexual pleasure, life will continue without any need of a genetic urge for maintaining the species. So long as creatures seek sexual pleasure, at least occasionally the result will be pregnancy and childbirth, even among a species with many ways of preventing pregnancy.

Women are not being monosexual because they want only a few children, though it may be that many stress monosexuality in order to keep food on the table, provided by their husbands. If the evolutionary speculation is true, women should want many partners, as some husbands are infertile. Polysexuality makes evolutionary sense (for an excellent and witty review of the current scientific thinking on this by a zoologist and a psychiatrist, see David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton, The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People [New York: W. H. Freeman, 2001]). Many systems of religious beliefs have strongly encouraged both monosexuality and many children, and this influences us.

In American culture, young people put great emphasis on being in love as the fundamental consideration leading to marriage. A great many divorces, particularly among people who have been married only a few years, are due to the feeling that they no longer love each other the way they did at first. This is one of many areas where understanding the polysexual orientation can be a great service to society.

Recently National Geographic published a cover story called “Love: The Chemical Reaction” (February 2006). Although it simplified the chemistry a great deal, it shared some interesting information. It claimed, essentially, that the complex of feelings of lust, passion, and romance we call being “madly in love” that often leads to marriage is not only chemically induced, but is not induced by the same chemicals that cause the feeling of warm, companionable friendship called love that people who have been happily married for years experience from day to day.

It’s a little like the difference between being high on the methamphetimine called Ecstasy and taking a couple ibuprofen for pain relief. One fills you with wonderful feelings that are not your normal state and make it difficult to think rationally and be duly cautious, while the other makes it easier to be your real self with a minimum of pain. People who are “in love” are not entirely in their right minds or able to make clear-headed decisions about their future. It’s as if they were high on Ecstasy. These are the people who are deciding to get married—imagining that they will remain high their entire life. As one might expect, teenagers who get married after “falling in love” are among those most likely to get divorced when they come to their senses.

Rutgers University anthropologist Helen Fisher put a number of college students who had recently fallen “madly in love” in an MRI and watched what happened when she showed them photos of their love interest. She found that two particular areas of the brain lit up: the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus. These areas, as the article puts it, are “home to a dense spread of receptors for a neurotransmitter called dopamine” (p. 35). Fisher claims that dopamine is what gives people the sensations linked to being “madly in love” (for more information, see Helen Fisher, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love [New York: Henry Holt, 2004]; also see Charles Pasternak’s critical review of the book at http://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/love.asp; retrieved 31 January 2006).

Among other things, dopamine stimulates passion, pleasure, and the libido. Cocaine and amphetamines can both cause a surge in dopamine levels in the brain (“Dopamine,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine; retrieved 31 January 2006). If seeing one’s passionate love interest sparks a somewhat similar response (though naturally, not artificially, as with drugs), it’s no wonder that the feeling of falling in love is something like being high.

But as the poet A. E. Housman wrote about being drunk and seeing the world as it isn’t, ” ’tis pleasant till ’tis past: / The mischief is that ’twill not last.” As Lauren Slater writes in National Geographic,

Biologically speaking, the reasons romantic love fades may be found in the way our brains respond to the surge and pulse of dopamine that accompanies passion and makes us fly. Cocaine users describe the phenomenon of tolerance: The brain adapts to the excessive input of the drug. Perhaps the neurons become desensitized and need more and more to produce the high . . . (p. 44).

That is to say, being madly in love is exhausting. Our brains get used to the extra dopamine, and eventually they stop reacting to it by making us feel passion and desire.

This explains why the romantic high that leads so many people to get married seldom lasts. Its end is a natural phenomenon, and no one is to blame. Sometimes it can be stimulated again: a glass of wine in front of a warm fire, a vacation to a resort in Jamaica. But the feeling will be temporary.

Even college graduates don’t understand the transitory nature of romantic passion and are disappointed when it ends. What are teenage lovers who end their education with high school supposed to do? Far too often, they divorce, often in their mid-twenties after producing a child or two.

But the decrease in dopamine production needn’t signal the end of a marriage. The high is over, for the most part, but true love is still growing. Instead of fire, there is warmth. Long-term love relationships, it seems, trigger the release of oxytocin, a hormone made in the brain (p. 48). Oxytocin induces uterine contractions. It also helps mothers bond with their babies. When oxytocin floods the brain, it makes people feel loving, warm-hearted, and trusting. It reduces pain, stress, and anxiety and may help lower blood pressure (“Oxytocin,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin; retrieved 31 January 2006). It’s no wonder that research shows that happily married couples live longer than unhappy couples or singles.

Oxytocin is released when mothers nurse their babies. It’s also released any time a woman’s nipples are stimulated. Orgasm releases oxytocin for both men and women, and this helps explain why sex helps people bond with each other. Similarly, if a couple stops having sex, their sense of bonding may decrease. Oxytocin needs estrogen to work, so it works best in women. This is why women bond more easily than do men. Touching and hugging help to stimulate oxytocin, too (see Paul Byerly, “Oxytocin in Women: The Bridge Between Touch and Sex,” http://www.themarriagebed.com/pages/biology/female/female-oxytocin.shtml; retrieved 31 January 2006).

It seems that oxytocin is readily available throughout life. In a healthy long-term relationship or marriage, it’s produced when a couple touches, hugs, kisses, makes love, shares, eats together, chats, walks together, thinks warm thoughts about each other, or gazes into each other’s eyes. Indeed, in a good marriage, oxytocin is being produced and causing bonding day by day.

Can the passion ever return? Can dopamine-caused romance once again infuse a marriage? Helen Fisher and her colleagues say it can. “Aron and Fisher also suggest doing novel things together, because novelty triggers dopamine in the brain, which can stimulate feelings of attraction” (p. 49; also see Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic [New York: HarperCollins, 2006]).

Many couples, possibly a million, indeed, have discovered that polysexuality can rejuvenate a marriage. The novelty of meeting new partners, whether separately or, even better, as a couple, stimulates dopamine, which causes romantic passion, and there is enough for not only the new partner but for the spouse. Many long-term swinging couples claim that their weekly or monthly visits to their favorite swing club gives them an erotic jolt that lasts for days and keeps their marriages fresh.

When they’re done wrong, extramarital sex and premarital sex can seem cold and empty. However, if they are done right, not only is there dopamine leading to the renewed thrill of passion, but there is the warm bonding caused by oxytocin release during foreplay and intercourse. People who go to swing clubs often play with people they barely know, but when everything works well, a bond can develop from this intimacy that lasts for years and transcends the transitory bonding that happens in, say, a cocktail party. It’s not as deep as what two long-term partners have, but it’s special.

If a husband and wife share this with each other, they have friends in common, but they also have even more reason to stay together and stay in love. Their own love for each other increases as they play together. The chemicals help it happen. As people are fond of saying in some swing clubs, “The couple that plays together stays together.” They not only have the bonding of oxytocin, but they have much more dopamine in their marriages than most couples, so the passion recurs more often.

If you are a monosexual, reading this, perhaps, to understand a polysexual spouse, what are you feeling right now? Are you beginning to sense that for the polysexual, whether male or female, heterosexual or homosexual, desiring or having multiple sex partners may not reflect at all unhappiness in a marriage? Your partner may feel nothing but love for you, be very happy being married to you, yet somehow crave more variety. The best explanation for the craving is gene and environment-induced polysexuality. Your partner may be struggling to deal with genetically natural and normal needs that our culture condemns for reasons that are partly valid, but needn’t be.

I Want My Own Baby to Inherit My Property

Why is it that our cultural norm is monosexual monogamy when so many of us are genetically polysexual (though also monogamous)? Part of the reason is the way Christians over the centuries have interpreted the Bible, marginalizing many of the relevant Bible verses while placing undue emphasis on a few verses taken out of their cultural context. This will be explained later in the book.

Anthropologists and biologists will probably agree, however, that there is something in men, deeply ingrained over thousands of years, that makes them want to be certain that they are the fathers of children born to their wives. If we search the ancient laws of Sumer, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, China, and more, we find harsh laws against women who get pregnant by another man. We find similar laws among many more recent primitive cultures studied by anthropologists. Some may believe that men are more likely to be polysexual in orientation, but whatever the reason, men are also terrified of their wives being polysexual.

Perhaps this is because men have known their own desires and assume that their wives have similar desires. Perhaps, in centuries past, they’ve known they were having sex with other men’s wives and feared other men would get to their own wives, as well.

In tribes practicing female circumcision, it seems this is done to lessen women’s sexual pleasure so they will be less likely to take other lovers. The assumption is that wives will do whatever necessary to fulfill their needs because women are naturally polysexual. Their pleasure is less important to their husbands than their monosexuality, so they are circumcised. The requirement in many Islamic countries for women to keep their bodies and sometimes even their hair and face covered also seems to be due to men knowing their own hearts and being uncertain of the hearts of their wives. What cannot be seen is less likely to be desired.

In Bible times, we find, wherever people then were writing laws, men felt that the primary way of assuring a sort of immortality for themselves was by being remembered. They were most likely to be remembered by their descendents. Their descendents were most likely to remember them if the men owned land they could pass down to their descendents. Men imagined future generations of heirs blessing them for faithfully maintaining their inheritance and passing it on.

If a wife got pregnant by another man, it was possible that a husband could unwittingly leave his own inheritance to another man’s son, a man who was not part of the family. Not only would a man’s own memory wither, but the memory of his ancestors. He would be forgotten. (Jewish ideas of immortality through memory are based on this.) The assumption is that after a man died, his wife’s lover would come forward and explain to the son who the real father was. Thus, having sex with another man’s wife was in a way the ultimate theft, stealing a man’s wife, property, children, memory, and immortality.

[BOX: What Do the Scientists Say?: Have husbands throughout history been right to worry about other men getting their wives pregnant? David M. Buss writes, "A female colleague of mine who wishes to remain anonymous told me that she discovered a 10 percent genetic cuckoldry rate, using DNA fingerprinting technology, in a study she was conducting on the genetics of breast cancer in the United States. So perhaps 10 percent of the readers of these pages have genetic fathers different from their putative fathers, products of their mother's clandestine infidelities." (The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating rev. ed. [New York: Basic Books, 2003], 236.)]

Throughout most of English literature there are accounts of men having sex with other men’s wives. In Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale,” for example, written before 1400, medieval college students happily enjoy the wife of a carpenter and the wife and daughter of a miller (and the women enjoy them, too!).

Many of the old English and Scottish ballads sung for centuries where they were composed and then sung later in Appalachia deal with this, too. In “Matty Groves,” for example, the wife of a lord spies handsome young Matty and drags him to her bed while her husband is off tending the sheep. The idea is that she wants sex, but her husband fears an heir not of his own blood and kills Matty. Surely songs like this had some basis in fact.

This is in part due, perhaps, to the fact that men often couldn’t afford to marry until they were older; or after being widowed, having money and power, they married girls rather than women their own age. This was the so-called “May-December” marriage that was considered a sure recipe for a wife playing around. The sympathy of the audience was often with the wife because only a foolish old man would want a wife he was unable to satisfy. As the old man was also often relatively wealthy, there may have been audience jealousy involved, as well.

Shakespeare’s plays are full of references to cuckolds, to husbands who “wear horns.” In The Merchant of Venice, for example, Gratiano, hearing that his new wife and Bassanio’s new wife have slept with a lawyer and his clerk, says, “What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserved it?” (V.i.265). He is assuming that women take lovers when their husbands prove unsatisfactory. In Othello, the supposedly cuckolded general says, “A horned man’s a monster and a beast.” Iago replies, “There’s many a beast then in a populous city, and many a civil monster” (IV.i.62–63). Othello, of course, becomes a beast and murders his wife for an act she has not committed.

[BOX: In As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 3, the fool Touchstone decides to marry the "country wench" Audrey, who says, "I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul." Touchstone replies, "Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter." They will marry in the forest, among the "horn-beasts," such as deer. But "horn-beasts" leads Touchstone to comment on the likelihood of husbands "wearing horns" and to argue that it is indeed "more honorable" for a man to "wear horns" because horns are a form of defense, and a defended city with towers and wall is more honorable than an undefended village. He says,

Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of his goods': right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want.]

Whether or not many men in cities were cuckolded in Othello’s day, Shakespeare and his audience believed they were. The word cuckold comes from the old French word for the cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in some other bird’s nest. (When a man placed his progeny in another man’s wife, that other man was cuckolded or cuckooed, and somehow the injured party came to be called a cuckold, when the cuckoo parallel should actually refer to the man planting the heir in the nest.)

In the tales and songs of Spain and Italy, we also find this concern with men impregnating the wives of other men, and this was considered a matter of “honor” and a reason to kill. Such lovers as Casanova and Don Juan excelled at this, and the assumption was that a great many women were eager to enjoy these men. Whether they were or not, men believed they were. Again, the real concern behind the stated concern with honor was the integrity of inheritance: a man wanted to make sure that his heir was his own flesh and blood.

We might consider in this context the feudal droit du seigneur or “right of the first night.” This was exercised in France until the French revolution (see the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities for an example) and in England during the middle ages. Lords claimed the feudal right to have sex with any girl who worked on their estates on her wedding night. (Whether they often exercised this right is questionable.) This was a matter of showing one’s power over others: just when a man most wanted his new wife for himself, the lord took her. Beyond this, the nobility assumed that servant women were theirs for the taking. Also, breeding with the lord could improve the bloodline, so to speak. (In “The Miller’s Tale,” Chaucer writes that the pretty young wife Alison is good enough “For any lord to leggen [lay] in his bedde, / Or yit for any good yeman [yeoman] to wedde” (ll. 161–162). A working girl was fit for a lord to play with or for a working man to marry, but she shouldn’t expect to marry the lord. We find a woman who did dream of marrying the lord in Thomas Hardy’s 19^th century novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles. It does not end happily.)

This is the cultural context from which our fear of “unfaithful” women developed. Were many women practicing polysexuals? Probably not. But men feared they might be because they knew they themselves were or would be if they had the courage and opportunity. This is probably related to the idea developed by biologists that men have a need for many partners, while women do not.

There are also many known instances of the royalty and nobility of Europe catching various sexually transmitted diseases from prostitutes. These could be passed on to their wives, and they could also lead to the infertility of both men and women. Thus, there might be no heir. Again, the inheritance was of major importance.

Polysexual Responsibilities

What should this mean to us? Must we continue to fear the lovers of our spouses? Is monosexuality the only way to insure the inheritance? A growing number of couples are using in vitro fertilization when wives have a hard time getting pregnant. Sometimes the sperm used is not the husband’s. In other cases women are inseminated directly with sperm from donors. Some husbands are uncomfortable with this, but gradually we are getting over our queasiness regarding paternity. Then there are surrogate mothers who are pregnant with another couple’s child. Many people adopt children today, and the adoptive fathers love the children and gladly leave them their estates.

Today there are many reliable forms of birth control available. Unlike the past, it is now easy for men and women to have sex without having children. Thus, the major cultural reason why women should worry about their husbands (they might divide the inheritance with a child born to another woman) or why men should worry about their wives no longer need apply. Men can still get other men’s wives pregnant, but if they do, it almost has to be a deliberate act, rather than an accident. Also, in our culture, few men would think of making another man’s wife pregnant so their physical son could inherit another man’s wealth. We just don’t think that way anymore.

Here are some things polysexuals and those married to them should consider before becoming active. A polysexual man has a duty to any woman he plays with to not get her pregnant. A polysexual woman, likewise, should not play unless she is sure she will not get pregnant. Such a pregnancy is not fair to the other partners involved. A man should not play until he has ascertained that birth control is assured. A woman should do the same. If there is a possibility of pregnancy, there are certainly several other enjoyable ways of playing. Polysexuals should never enter into sex blindly. This is irresponsible.

Actually, many active polysexuals have been sterilized so pregnancy can’t happen. This is the most responsible approach, but it’s not feasible for men and women who still plan to make babies at some point.

Polysexuals also need to be cautious about disease. While it would be bad enough if they caught a sexually transmitted disease, it would be far worse if they passed it on to a non-polysexual spouse. Thus, polysexuals should get themselves checked whenever there’s a possibility that they might have picked up something. They should require condoms for all vaginal and anal intercourse unless they know each other well and are sure that each other is clean. They should be cautious in their choice of partners and have the guts to politely say no to anyone if they have any reason to question whether the person is clean. They are at most risk with young studs and party girls. They are at least risk with older people who are married and have very little experience apart from their spouses.

Very few monosexual spouses are likely to be delighted to hear that their loved one is a polysexual who wants to begin practicing. A big part of fulfilling one’s marriage vows is avoiding what hurts one’s partner. Unfortunately, it isn’t always possible to be what one is without causing pain. My high school acquaintance who decided he was gay probably hurt his wife a lot, but she understood that this had always been his orientation, and she supported him. A man in the Marines may volunteer to fight overseas. It may well be that his wife wishes that he weren’t in the Marines at all, but he is her husband, she knows he is what he is, and she bears with it. Meanwhile, he doesn’t want to hurt her, but in his heart he’s Semper Fi, and he’s taken an oath of service.

Polysexual spouses have many duties toward their monosexual partner. It’s their duty to be discreet, to not tell all their friends what they’re up to, not tell their parents and siblings. They need to be considerate of their partner’s feelings. They should never make a pass at a friend of their spouse. They should never do or say anything that might embarrass their spouse if they can help it. They should not flaunt what they are, neither should they ever taunt their spouse with what they are.

There may be some monosexual husbands and wives who want to know the truth and hear what their polysexual spouse has been up to. More likely, if they are understanding and give their permission for the polysexual to play, they would prefer not to hear about what’s been going on. Some polysexuals might think they’d be much more comfortable if their spouse would let them tell what they’ve been up to, but this is certainly a place where they can respect their spouse’s wishes. If the spouse doesn’t want to hear, they should count their blessings and say nothing.

Polysexual husbands and wives of monosexual spouses should never forget their promise to love and cherish. If polysexuals spend so much time seeking other partners that they stop being devoted to their spouse, then they will make their spouse doubly unhappy. This is the road to divorce. Polysexual husbands and wives should strive to be the very best husbands and wives possible. They should redouble their kindness, helpfulness, and gentleness.

If they haven’t been thoughtful, polite, and helpful before, then now is a good time to start. If a monosexual wife finds that since her husband got permission to play, he’s been spending much more time with her, helping to do the daily chores, doing the things she likes to do, taking her to restaurants or away for weekends, she may decide that he’s become a better husband since he became a practicing polysexual. (And, of course, why shouldn’t he become a better husband and a happier man? Add to this that if he is playing with his wife’s permission, he is certainly not “cheating.”)

Finally, it’s important to consider the wellbeing of the children, if there are any. I know of several teenage and older children who know their parents are polysexual and are happy for them. However, it’s interesting that while the parents sometimes suspect that some of their grown children are genetically polysexual and would be happier if they admitted it, very few of these children are actually practicing, even if they know that their parents are. Thus, it seems to me that polysexual parents are not generally providing an environment that encourages polysexuality among their children. Even if the parents are open about it, I’ve never met parents who urge their children to “Go and do likewise.” They seem to believe very strongly that children should not be exposed to polysexuality, but should be left to discover it on their own. As for child abuse, happily polysexual parents seem to be far less likely to turn to their children for a sexual outlet than are more inhibited parents.

Many children would be very uncomfortable if told that a parent is a practicing polysexual. It’s much better to keep children in the dark if one thinks they might be upset than to make oneself feel better by telling them something they can’t handle. It’s also possible to lose one’s children’s respect. They might think one weak or incompetent or inadequate or a bad parent.

With most children, it should be very easy to tell them, “Mom and dad are going to a party, and we’ll be home very late. Your babysitter will take care of you.” If only one spouse is polysexual, it’s easy to say, “Mom has to go away on a business trip. She’ll be home tomorrow.” In most cases, there may be no reason to ever tell one’s children what one is up to.

If these suggestions are followed, a polysexual marriage can be very pleasant for all involved. Even the monosexual spouse may end up with a much more attentive partner to make up for the fact that the partner is polysexual.

It isn’t always possible to know right away if a person is polysexual. Some people may have enjoyed dating many partners, may have had sex with several people before marriage, yet never considered multiple partners after marriage. Others may have gotten married at a young age after dating only one person, and they may have never had much of an opportunity to think about polysexuality. Some people are raised in conservative homes where sex isn’t mentioned, and whatever sexual feelings they have are repressed.

I would argue that people are either polysexual or monosexual by genetic fact, but polysexuals may never realize what they are or may only gradually come to realize it. One woman was married twice without guessing. Only when she was in her mid forties did her boyfriend gradually convince her to try swinging. Once she tried it, she realized that she loved it and that this was what she’d always been looking for without realizing it. Now she says that if she ever marries again, it will have to be to another polysexual.

It’s possible that you have always thought of yourself as a monosexual. You’ve always imagined a long and happy life with the spouse of your dreams and no other man or woman. But perhaps as you’ve read this you’ve remembered times when you’ve wondered what it might be like to have another partner or several at once. Perhaps you are a woman who sees herself as heterosexual, yet you’ve sometimes found yourself wondering what the touch of another woman would be like.

If your spouse becomes a practicing polysexual and you have that ability in you without realizing it, it’s quite possible that you may find yourself becoming interested in hearing what your spouse has been up to. Your spouse may convince you to attend a party or club. You may find yourself entering a wonderful new lifestyle.

Achieving Maximum Happiness in Marriage

Perhaps your partner isn’t aware of his or her polysexual needs, but just feels a sense of incompleteness and unease that is misdiagnosed as a mid-life crisis. Perhaps you sense that your partner is a non-practicing polysexual or fear that your partner is actually a practicing polysexual. Perhaps you see in your mind the collapse of your warm and comfortable marriage and the loss of much you hold dear. You are preparing for disaster.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Polysexuals can fall out of love, too, and even if your partner is not a polysexual, it may be that your marriage is near death. On the other hand, if you and your spouse can deal with the issue and you can free your spouse to explore while providing a warm, safe, loving, oxytocin-filled relationship, you may end up with an even happier relationship than before.

But you’ll need to stop equating sex with marriage and get over the idea that sex is acceptable only within marriage. Stop thinking that “marital unfaithfulness” means extramarital sex. If your spouse loves you and wants to stay with you, count your blessings and do everything you can think of to keep it that way.

The real unfaithfulness is when your spouse stops caring, is cruel, shows no compassion, doesn’t want to talk with you or spend time with you, refuses to share household duties with you, doesn’t do acts of love and kindness, doesn’t provide for you well. Think about this paragraph. Compared to this, a loving polysexual partner is a joy. You could do much worse.

And after all, what is it you want most from a marriage? If you say, “What I want most is for my partner to not play around,” you aren’t thinking straight. That’s a negative statement. You’re not asking for pleasure; you’re asking for an absence of pain, and that pain is caused by a culture-based misunderstanding. If you stop thinking of polysexuality as pain, you will be freed to think of ways to improve your marriage.

Dare I suggest that if your spouse is a polysexual who wants permission to play, you are in an excellent position to improve your marriage? Sit your spouse down and offer a deal. In exchange for your allowing your partner to occasionally meet with other people, you have a list of demands.

Ask for things that will improve your marriage. Ask your spouse to be discreet and to promise to never say bad things about you to anyone. Ask your partner to spend time with you, and specify what you’ll be doing together during that time. Ask your partner to walk with you, chat with you, and help you with this or that. Ask your partner to have frequent health exams and to promise to wear condoms. Ask your partner to spend time every day hugging or touching you. Ask for sex as often as you feel you’d like to have it.

You might also consider asking your spouse to promise to go to a marriage counselor with you. Explain that what you want is for the two of you to learn how to enjoy each other more while ironing out any resentments or unmet needs. Each of you will win. If the counselor helps, you might even consider asking your partner to go with you to a sex therapist. Explain that the goal is not changing the polysexual orientation, but learning to be better lovers with each other. You will get more sex if you want it, and it will be better sex. Meanwhile, you may even become so talented that your spouse loses interest in meeting others. It’s even possible that you’ll discover in yourself an unexpected polysexual orientation.