Book Day 21: Human Variety
There are people who get married, and then for 40 years do not think about having sex with another person even one time.
There are people who get married, and then for 40 years do not think about having sex with another person even one time, even though they find other people attractive sometimes.
There are people who get married, and then think about cheating once or twice, and then do not do it because it is not important to them compared to their marriage.
There are people who get married, think about cheating every year or so, but then do not want to blow up their marriage, and so do not do it.
There are people who get married, think about cheating every so often, but then do not do it because they do not want their partner to cheat on them, and so not cheating to not be cheated on seems like a fair balance not to disturb.
There are people who get married and then cheat once or twice, and keep it a secret forever from everybody they know.
There are people who get married and then cheat once or twice, but tell their spouse about it, they get very sad, and then they make up.
There are people who get married and then have a prolonged affair and keep it a secret forever.
There are people who get married and they cheat with somebody of their same gender and keep it a secret, because they are closeted.
There are people who get married, have many affairs, and keep it a secret.
There are people who get married, have many affairs, and it is an open secret.
There are people who get married and want to still have sex with people who are not their spouse, but would not want it to be something that is considered something as elevated as an “affair” because it is not particularly meaningful to them in the way that an affair would be.
There are people who know off the bat that they would have to discuss with any boyfriend or girlfriend they are serious about that though they want to be married, they have the sort of disposition for which an “open marriage” is what would work for them because they are just like this and know they are going to just be like this, even though not being like this might be easier.
There are people who think they might not be suitable for marriage, even though they like the idea, because they are attracted to many people and want to have sex with people who aren’t even particularly attractive to them, but would not want to hurt anybody’s feelings about it.
A lot of people talk about how “monogamy is natural” or “nonmonogamy is natural.” There are a lot of people in the world and the variation between people is incredible.
I did not even include “asexual polyamorous” people in my descriptions above. There are genuinely all sorts of people who genuinely have all sorts of dispositions.
There are people who would be horrified having a job in which they work at a salon giving their clients a bikini was every day, and people who are genuinely completely fine with it.
There are people who are genuinely happy working at a hospital every day and people who really would hate it.
There are people who genuinely would not mind sharing their husband with a few sister-wives, and people who would not ever want to be in that situation.
There are people who genuinely want to be submissive to their husbands and people who really could not imagine a more horrible way to live.
You would meet someone, who tells you they actually are a certain way, and I find it is better to believe them than to not believe them.
I do not think it is more “enlightened” to be polyamorous. I think some people just are polyamorous, and some people just practice polyamory. I think there are polyamorous dipshits just as there are monogamous dipshits. There are millions and millions of people of each type. Some of them are going to be dipshits, and some of them are going to be loud.
For every loud person saying polyamory is the path, there is at least one person saying that polyamorous people are the devil.