Promises, expectations, discipline, love, lust + trust

[First: some interesting articles on Wikipedia. Psychology of Monogamy. Forms of Nonmonogamy. Now...]

Sister Toldja has a pledge for women everywhere. She proposes that all women take this pledge:

I, (your name), will not knowingly engage in inappropriate physical contact with another woman's man. As I want to have a man of my own who I can trust with my heart, I will not help to deny another woman the right to have that. Furthermore, I will encourage any man who tries to solicit me for such activities to reconsider either his desire to cheat or his place in the relationship all together. I will NOT be "the other woman".

After reading the entire post, I realized I have so much that I feel about relationships that thinking of responding was exhausting. That alone discouraged me from even saying anything in response. But of course I couldn't work with that feeling lingering so hence this post.

First lemme say I trust Toldja enough to feel she is coming from the right place, but since I don't know the sisters chiming in I have no idea if they are co-singing sensationally like how people be obsessed with Obama but are too lazy to actually be pro-actively political... or if they are really co-signing from a place of genuine understanding of what Toldja is trying to get at with the pledge.

What it comes down to is that I wish men and women could talk more openly in person and in collective spaces -- not a brother confiding in private to his "3 best-friend-sisters that he ain't even attracted to" -- about sex, sex drives, lust, love, monogamy, and more.

I’m a connecting type of person. I connect dots wherever I find them cause I believe in the oneness of things in this universe we live in (I know the actual word “universe” has become cliché lately, but stay with me).

So I can't talk about women making pledges not to sleep with other women's men without talking about why women are doing that in the first place. And I can't talk about that without talking about why men are stepping out on their women.

I guess part of my concern is that I feel this sentence in the pledge -- "As I want to have a man of my own who I can trust with my heart, I will not help to deny another woman the right to have that" -- is a little vague. It has the potential to be turned into something romantic and needs to be further critiqued (so says me, lol). Well here are some of my thoughts:

Toldja’s post focused on women who knowingly have sex with another woman’s man and it touched a little bit on relationship men who cheat. I’m interested in why women (or men) knowingly have sex with another person’s mate. I’m also interested in why people who are in relationship cheat. Maybe it’s “liberal” of me, but I feel like understanding these issues that cause so much hurt and confusion is a better investment of energy than taking a pledge minus that understanding. I believe this because I’m skeptical of all humans. Not that I think we are evil, rather that I think we are naturally only fallible. Because I believe this I’m less concerned about perfecting humans and more concerned about humans communicating and understanding each other so that when we fail each other (something I see as a given) we understand why and that understanding helps us heal faster and prevents relationships from breaking down due to our human failures.

Along the lines of the categories that I observed in Toldja’s post, I’m going to try to keep my musing in categories as much as possible for the sake of progress. Without definition, these conversations are worthless and only create more misunderstanding. And I despise that, as I think it is the number one thing keeping us disorganized and in mental slavery (I know that’s a cliché too but as Danielle said, so is everything now days). I’ll start with the categories that I observed in Toldja’s post and I’ll transition into categories that her post led me to think of:

[2 Categories] People who have knowingly had sex with another person’s mate:
Single women who have knowingly had sex with another woman's man.
I do know some of these women. And to be honest, none of them are black women, save for the ones I see in music videos and on talk shows. I think what drew the women I know to do this was that they were more susceptible to loneliness and isolation than the men I know. So when a handsome, comforting, friendly brother comes along they were willing to give into those urges. The women I know are also not as egotistical and territorial as men in a situation where its not her territory at stake, so the combination of loneliness and lack of ego holding her back is a recipe for this situation. With black women I think it’s different. At first I was going to say that for black women, respect for the man’s woman tends to trump their desire or loneliness. But that ain’t necessarily true. I think this gets to what Toldja’s pledge is about. Many black women I think are already insecure about relationships and their chances of long term partnership with someone. And so they discipline themselves not to knowingly get with another woman’s man really out of a karma-like self-interest rather than a true respect for the other woman. In other words I fear most women taking Toldja’s pledge are doing so because they don’t want something coming back on them, rather than cultivating a true respect for other women. While it may be a way to get people on the right track initially (something I’ve accepted as necessary), long term this is a recipe for failure. I don’t think this is a sustainable way to cultivate organization and harmony between people. At some point we have to go deeper than being motivated to do good out of fear and insecurity. But it’s a start.

Single men who have knowingly had sex with another man's woman.
Firstly I have to say I don’t know any men who knowingly have had sex with another man’s woman, I’ve only heard about them in music videos and talk shows. A woman in a relationship stepping to a man is unheard of in my experience. Then again, women stepping to men period seems like a rarity nowadays. But say a woman who is in a relationship does step to a man I think what keeps most men from not sleeping with another man’s woman has more to do with his masculine ego more than his respect for the other man, given that he doesn’t even know the woman’s man. He simply doesn’t want a woman who is paired with another man. It’s a territory thing, I believe. And even then, it’s less about him respecting another man’s “territory” than it is about his ego not being attracted to “territory” that already “belongs” to someone else. Not to say that men don’t a motivation to respect other men, but it’s more about the ego than that respect. So loneliness doesn’t trump ego for most adult men. But in terms of what prevents most men from doing this, respect may be a factor but it doesn’t trump ego as the primary restrictor.

[2 Categories] Relationship people who have sex outside their relationship:
In talking with a lot of people lately about sex and monogamy, I’ve come to realize that cheating is not all the same to many people. Now I’m fully aware that this goes against many people’s viewpoints. But regardless of your viewpoint, if there is a viewpoint other than yours then your viewpoint is by default forced to coexist with those other viewpoints regardless of how you feel about it. Their mere existence dictates this. Therefore, cheating or having sex outside of one’s relationship can be broken down into four categories in my view. But first, these are some general thoughts on monogamy, loyalty, love and trust:

Can a man cheat on his women and still love her? Yes. Can a man cheat on his woman and not hurt that woman? Highly unlikely. So, for men I believe the reason cheating is not the enemy of love is because they can cheat and still love their woman strongly.

As I've matured, love has come to have less to do with infatuation, butterflies, tingly feelings, and romance, and much more to do with friendship and understanding. If my woman is attractive to me (physical attraction I’ve learned, while not fully, is partially in the eye of the beholder), a true friend of mine and I feel that she understands me and is down to support my passions in life and is down to talk, is open-minded, creative, loving (meaning non-judgmental) and is passionate about something herself then I can love her forever.

Yet despite that, I believe a man is still going to be attracted to other women, Men are even able to have sex with another woman knowing they have all of those qualities at home and not feel they have betrayed their love for that women. I’ve seen it with many of the elder men in my life.

But whether or not they have betrayed their woman's trust is another issue. Trust is built on expectation. So if a woman has communicated that she expects monogamy and a man cheats he has broken her trust. There are women however who do not expect monogamy and thus a man can have sex with another woman and not break the trust of his relationship. What I'm getting at is that relationships need to be customized.

I'm not a cheerleader for polygamy, but the women who are most refreshing to me are those who are open to critically discussing the psychology of western "romance" and monogamy. In other words, if this conversation bother you, then you bother me.

So all that to say, I'm with the pledge if it's really about the pledge, as I trust for Sista Toldja it is. But to the co-signers, just make sure u ask yourself that and answer honestly. Make sure the pledge ain't about promoting or proselytizing your feelings and views on monogamy. And make sure that you are moving past pledging simply because you are scared of karma and are insecure about your chances of having love.

When I was a child I disciplined myself out of fear. I avoided sin because I was scared of hell. It was unsustainable. When I failed I was hurtful and hateful to myself. When others “failed me”, I was bitter and full of disappointment, constantly disillusioned and jaded. I've also tried disciplining myself not for the sake of seeking harmony with myself but for the sake of teaching someone else a lesson... of "showing" someone "this is how it's done". I was being very passive aggressive though and I used it as a substitute for truly understanding and engaging people. I learned no one wants to feel passive aggressive energy, it reeks of arrogance. Education is useless without community and community is impossible without humility. Therefore education is useless without humility.

The greater education, and dare I say "retraining", of ourselves must involve understanding each other, having compassion for oneanother's issues and bullshit and loving oneanother because of all of that, not always "despite" that. And certainly we must never make comfort a prerequisite of love. I'm not saying we ought to embrace women who cheat with other women's men, or embrace men who lust for other women while in a relationship, but damn, this shit been going on for so long. Don’t we eventually have to ask why it keeps happening? Do we even understand what and who we are so mad at? Are we content with constantly being disappointed?

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve learned that having sex outside of a relationship happens for different reasons, and happens in different ways, with different motivations and different consequences. There are four different categories that I can think of:

Relationship men who’ve sparsely had sex outside their relationship.
Some women expect monogamy. But some do not. And often times I feel women who expect monogamy are insecure about the women who don't expect it. Hence things like this pledge. I'm not so sure some lighting bolt of Karma will strike a woman who does not expect monogamy in the first place. So if a woman takes the pledge only to ensure herself good karma or only to be an example to other women she’s not guaranteeing herself much.

Some women may expect love, but she may also feel that love is not monogamy. And not being monogamous is not equal to being a player or a pimp.

For some men the expectation of monogamy being lifted actually causes monogamy. For some of these men they will be monogamous for the rest of their lives, for other men they will step out on their woman just one or a few times. But even if that happens one or a few times I do not think the lifting of the expectation of monogamy was done in vain because a man who steps out on his woman but knows his woman does not have the expectation of monogamy hovering over his head knows that his relationship is not in danger of being destroyed, his woman knows this as well. Monogamy is not synonymous for trust to all people. She may find out about the incident and be upset, but at least they know that because their relationship is not based on the expectation of monogamy that it can weather a storm, or sparse storms, of lust.

Relationship men who regularly have sex outside their relationship.
Admittedly, for other men the expectation of monogamy being lifted is a cue to abuse their woman and be players or pimps. I find that the psychology of this man is vastly different than that of a man who merely wants the expectation of monogamy lifted from over his head for the sake of a stronger and more honest relationship.

Relationship men who’ve never had sex outside their relationship due to a lack of desire.
Only when I was a young boy did I encounter other young boys, religious fanatics, and ghetto philosophers who made this claim. And in retrospect I can tell it was mostly because they were young practitioners of a religion that professed this as sin and so they claimed a lack of desire because they feared judgment -- either from God or from other believers. I know no adult males who make this claim. If you find one, let me know.

Relationship men who’ve never had sex outside their relationship due to discipline.
Quite possible to find, but for how long? This is a person who claims to be at peace with resisting certain urges. My experience with this was that I tried… and failed. And I hated how I felt after I failed. I beat myself up. But say others have succeeded… I wonder, because we are all human, where those urges manifest themselves elsewhere in this person’s life? They say no one is free from “sin” and everyone has a vice. Do they discipline themselves here and sacrifice discipline elsewhere?

Dating:
Dating people who’ve had sex with a friend of a person who they either are dating or have dated.
I’ve done this before. This is bad just because it’s too close for comfort. You end up shitting where you sleep which is no good.

On the other hand is the betrayal of friendship by the friend. Why would the friend do that to her friend? Most likely for the same reasons why they’d do it to a person they don’t know.

People who’ve had sex with a friend’s mate or date.
My friends tend to have a “law” against this, unless in some circles I guess where they might make an agreement that this is okay. Swingers? That law though makes me think that the gist of Toldja’s pledge is a good thing. Men get together and discuss the laws of brotherhood when it comes to dealing with women. Women ought to do the same thing. Communication is vital in a society like ours that has so many cultures that there is no culture. Friends definitely need to communicate with each other who is dating who and not assume. There ought to be discussions between friends that establish clear laws of brotherhood and sisterhood. I find with my brothers, we assume nothing. There’s been a point in all of my close male friendships where we’ve discussed this, rather than assuming and possibly being disappointed later on.

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