Bisexual Monogamy
Rarely does work published in academic journals in my field deal directly with issues I’ve thought about in my personal life in practical terms. However, recently I cast out my net looking for philosophical work on bisexuality and the academic trolling turned up a gem. A philosophical paper by Kayley Vernallis addresses the topic of a workshop held at the 9th International Conference on Bisexuality (9ICB) I attended this summer. In "Bisexual Monogamy: Twice the Temptation but Half the Fun?" (Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 30 Page 347 - Winter 1999). Vernallis argues that bisexuals can commit to monogamous relationships–that part of the argument goes down easy. There is no necessary conflict between monogamy and bisexuality, nor a necessary connection between a bi orientation and a "bedhopping" lifestyle. So far this is just good common sense and Vernallis is correcting common misperceptions about what it means to be bisexual. More controversially Vernallis argues that monogamy while possible for bisexuals, is more demanding because of our sexual orientation. Writes Versallis, "given certain deep and pervasive constructions of gender and sexuality in our society, monogamy imposes greater sexual costs on bisexuals than it does on heterosexuals and homosexuals." Her argument turns on the role of bisexual behavior in the ideal bisexual life. She also explores the relationship between sexual behavior and sexual identity, arguing that we needn’t be essentialists about gender to think that the bisexual who forgoes sexual experiences with one gender in favour of monogamy with a member of the other gender makes more of a sacrifice than the heterosexual or homosexual who limits him or herself to a single sexual partner. Vernallis believes that the full sexual flourishing for bisexuals requires lovemaking with both male and female partners. I’m tempted by two very different responses to this position. First, it’s not clear to me that the conflict between monogamy and sexual flourishing isn’t there no matter what one’s orientation. (It may be that there are other goods only possible in a mongamous relationship and so one trades off full sexual flourishing in favour of some other good. But that’s an argument for another time.) Second, Vernallis’ identity argument–we are different people with different lovers–is also true, gender differences aside. It may be that this article offers a good prima facie case against monogamy but I am not convinced by the claim that demands of monogamy are necessarily worse for bisexuals.
October 10th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Vernallis seems to have an interesting thesis there, but I don’t think I’d agree with it either. I think that rationale remains based in a system that assumes orientation to be the prime and overriding factor in relationship style, as well as assuming that the gender of sexual object choice is the prime force behind attraction in the first place. I think both of these are massively culturally reinforced ideas that don’t hold water.
A given orientation is not a prerequisite for a given “matched” relationship style or particular relationship needs - heterosexuality does not predict monogamy, for example (witness the enormous swing culture out there that’s pretty darned heterosexual, not to mention the huge cheating stats), and it’s arguably even weirder to try and state that homosexuality predicts monogamy (gay bathhouses, anyone?). Likewise there are lots of straights and gays who do want monogamy - I mean, there’s a reason why the traditional wedding business is booming, and at the same time, why gay activists have been focused on same-sex marriage for years now! So right there we have two examples of polar opposites on the mono/poly spectrum, both of them within groups of (theoretically) monosexually-oriented people.
Attraction and desire are based on a whole long list of things other than gender. To take two opposing examples: I think a very sociable heterosexual woman with a high libido and a wide range of interests (sexual and otherwise) who connects easily with people at numerous levels and often finds herself attracted to the men she meets might theoretically find it challenging to limit herself to a single partner. On the other hand a bisexual who’s only interested in sex once every couple of weeks and really only likes people with a very specific sort of aesthetic or personality type might theoretically be overwhelmed at the idea of having to maintain more than one relationship at a time.
I think the “sacrifice” of monogamy is directly proportional to one’s desire for and ability to sustain relationships with multiple partners, irrespective of gender, rather than on how many genders one is open to boinking. In other words: if you tend towards non-monogamy, it could be a sacrifice to give it up; if you tend towards monogamy, it probably won’t be a sacrifice to give up non-monogamy. The link to bisexuality is incidental at best, and it’s unfortunate to see someone reinforce a whole load of stereotypes with this kind of theory!