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Arielle Friedman's avatar

Monogamy is a form of boundaries, which are good things that all adults should have. I don't get the hostility - is it retributive? Like, they screw us, so fuck you back?

There are enough examples historically of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, I'm seeing shades of that here

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Adam Golding's avatar

You're probably conflating Monogamy with 'having one partner' -- is getting your friends to agree to limit their number of friends a form of boundaries? Is getting someone to agree to literally anything a form of boundaries independent of what it is?

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

Here's another one: I will not remain in this relationship if you have sex with my friends.

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

Here's a boundary: I will not remain in this relationship if you date others.

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Adam Golding's avatar

What would be an example of an abusive relationship ultimatum?

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

It would depend on the context. Abuse isn't defined by a single act, but by a pattern of manipulative and controlling behavior

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Adam Golding's avatar

Let's say present-day society.

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

I mean the context of the relationship. Abuse is a pattern, not an act.

Now who's being mononormative ;)

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

I'm curious what you'd think of Bret Weinstein and Heather Haying's chapter on the topic. They look at non-human animals, and point out that monogamous species have a far greater degree of gender equality. Male and female swans, for example, are roughly the same size, and the males are selective sexually. In "harem" species, by contrast, the males tend to be much bigger, and compete violently for the females, who are highly selective but often overpowered.

Humans are somewhere in the middle, and we can choose. I do tend to think monogamy is healthier - if we accept the premise that women are sexually hypergamous, then polyamory will result in a small number of men with many partners, and many men with no partners. This matches what I see in our society as "free love" spreads (players on one hand, incels on the other), and seems like it leads to a lot of problems. In particular, I can see the breakdown of monogamy impacting gender equality in ways that hurts both sexes.

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Adam Golding's avatar

I mean, I've commented on her blog and on their podcast every time the topic comes up, I'll find a link, but would start with their failure to adopt sex/gender pluralism and remark it's no surprise they fixate here as well.

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Adam Golding's avatar

(Compare to Spencer Quayshawn's race pluralism here: https://dailynous.com/2015/06/15/philosophers-on-rachel-dolezal/ )

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

This is interesting, I'll read the whole thing later. Seems clear to me that sex is biological on a far deeper level than race.

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

Here's a question: to what extent do you believe sex is socially constructed versus biological?

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Adam Golding's avatar

As a pluralist I don't think there is a single extent--your question is mononormative in its false presumption of uniqueness...

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

Can you elaborate? Does that mean it's different for different people...?

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Adam Golding's avatar

No but it entails that biological sex is not the only kind of sex and thus we have to justify appealing to biological sex over any other kind of sex in a given context. Same goes for gender or if you juxtapose sex and gender, whatever your terminology the same issue applies.

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Arielle Friedman's avatar

To be clear, I'm talking sex as in male/female (I think you are too). In my view, this is inherently biological. How do you see it as non-biological?

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