One Way Neutering Marriage Would Change It

Neutering marriage will reduce the expectation that marriage means monogamy.

One of the standard vows in a marriage ceremony is some variation of "forsaking all others". There remains to this day a general consensus that a married person engaging in sexual activity with someone else, especially behind their spouse's back, is doing something wrong. When I refer to sexual infidelity, I also include a married person engaging in sexual behavior with someone other than their spouse even if with the spouse's awareness, consent, encouragement, or participation.

Despite the generally held ideal that a husband and wife stay sexually faithful to each other, there is a significant amount of infidelity. However, if studies are to be believed (see here and here), most spouses do not stray. Certainly, even our present day society, which excuses or even expects all sorts of shenanigans by unmarried (heterosexual) people, looks down on "cheating", and specifically, "swinging" or "swapping" is almost as suspect.

So it is interesting to see that once again, sources that have been sympathetic towards the push to neuter marriage also let us know that sexual fidelity, in the sense understood when it comes to marriage, does not apply to an alarmingly high percentage of committed, "monogamous" homosexual relationships. The latest example is this piece by Scott James found on the New York Times website (H/T: Institute for Marriage and Public Policy).

A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.

So some "experts" want us to believe that in addition to removing the uniting of the sexes as a core aspect, removing the expectation of reserving sex for your spouse will help marriage survive. Why not also remove the aspect of making any sort of promises to another person and the expectation of cohabitation? I mean really... It's like saying you can keep your two oranges – we're just going to replace them with two baseballs and take one away. But you will still have your "two oranges"... because that's what we'll call what's left.

[Much more after the jump]

New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.

I wonder how many others did so without approval?

None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.

Like I've written before – there is a concerted, misleading public relations campaign going on. In addition to changing the sociology of marriage, a legal reality of neutered state marriage licensing across the country would be used as a tool to force other changes in the culture, mostly by litigational bullying.

I'm sure there are truly monogamous same-sex couples out there (some lesbian couples report the sex going away completely, which I don't consider monogamy, but rathjer "non-ogamy"). However, the existing prevailing culture within the homosexual population would reduce the expectation of monogamy in marriage if "marriage" generally included same-sex pairings. See what David Benkof has written about monogamy when it comes to same-sex couples.