Nonmonogamous Bonobos

Dr. Christopher Ryan, in a book he co-wrote with his wife, Cacilda Jetha, Sex at Dawn, advances that humans, at their uncorrupted core, are nonmonogamous. Or rather, that monogamy is really fucking tough. He uses comparative primatology research into Bonobos to bolster his case, along with research on past and present hunter gatherer tribes that coexist nonmonogamously. Imbedded in the argument is the idea that the agricultural revolution, with its introduction of accumulated resources and wealth, brought about a monogamy revolution. This was done for reasons too numerous to detail, but the gist was that kinship, through marriage and giving birth, created a vehicle for the passing of the resources.

I wonder at my own propensities toward nonmonogamy. When I was married I noticed that my interest in cuckold porn ramped up. In our codependent dynamic, there was a great deal of bilateral jealousy, a bit more so on her end but I was definite prone to jealous, possessive thinking. In attempting to analyze my desire to tune into a black guy having sex with a white girl while her white husband looks on, I thought that it may have been a salve for my jealousy. A way for me overcome my jealous fears, through a sort of exposure therapy, aided by a pleasurable orgasm at the end.

But the jealousy antidote would certainly not tell the full story. I, for reasons that may be fleshed out at a different time, am a natural flirt, so much so that I’ve provided myself with the rationalizing belief that flirtation is the spice of life. For me, it really is though. I am all for connection, all kinds at all times. I never cheated but boy did I come close. I racked up my fair share of cheating-adjacent experiences. Strip clubs, a sexting exchange, kisses on the lips of friends, firing up Tinder on my honeymoon after going dancing, sans ring. I am not proud of all these behaviors. They were done surreptitiously, shrouded by shame. Perhaps they were made sweeter by their taboo nature. Or perhaps they were desperate attempts to flee an arrangement I was unhappy in.

So the question is, is it in my nature to be nonmonogamous, to actually try to live out that sort of lifestyle, or is it something that will exist in the realm of fantasy, perhaps played out with a partner in lesser ways. I am presently resisting the urge to drill the answer down to a label or a succinct phrase. At the end of the day, as the Buddhists would recognize, it’s a process and there is only the present moment. Ultimately, I do not know what the future will bring and uncertainty is threatening to my anxious mind but it’s also a freedom. It is a freedom free from the constraints of labels and of expectations. We all want to be free.