Monogamy used to mean something. It used to be a word with teeth. It meant one person for life. That was the deal you made at the altar, in front of God and all those bored witnesses. You stood there, sweating in a rented suit, and you made a vow: for life. Through sickness and health, riches and poor. One person. Forever. It was a beautiful, stupid, impossible promise. And it was honest, in its own deluded way.
But that was then.
Now, the word “monogamy” is a goddamn joke. It’s been hijacked, watered down, and sold back to us like some cheap, generic brand of happiness. It’s like what happened to punk rock. You had the Dead Kennedys, you had the Sex Pistols—raw, ugly, honest noise. It was stupid, sure, but it was real. Then the marketing guys came in, slapped on some leather and studs, and gave you heavy metal. Slayer, Metallica. It was louder, it had more solos, but it was just a polished, more acceptable version of the same chaos. They stole the fire and sold you the smoke.
That’s what they’ve done to monogamy. They’ve taken the old, hard, lifelong definition and replaced it with something soft and comfortable: “one partner at a time.”
One partner at a time. Christ. That’s not monogamy. That’s the very definition of polyamory, just stretched out over a longer, more pathetic timeline. It’s a war on words, a game of semantics played by people who are too cowardly to admit what they really are: animals, driven by the same old, boring, beautiful urges as the rest of us.
“I’m monogamous,” she’ll tell you, her eyes all wide and sincere.
“I’m monogamous this month, to one man.”
“Next month, I’ll be monogamous to another man.”
In the course of a year, she’ll have been “monogamous” with twelve different poor bastards. And by the rules of this new, gutless world, she’s not lying.
I remember this beautiful South African blonde I met once. Already had a reputation in the neighborhood, Mr. Playboy. I’m standing there, about to enter her little trailer, and she stops me, puts a hand on my chest. “I don’t date around,” she says, all serious. “I’m not one of your sluts. I do relationships. So if this is going to happen, we’re in a relationship.”
I looked down at her, at that raging fire in her eyes, at the promise of that wet warmth between her legs, and I asked her, “Alright. How many ‘relationships’ have you been in this year?”
She just blinked. “A couple,” she said.
A couple. It’s a war on words, a game of smoke and mirrors. There’s no honesty in the conversation anymore. What’s a “monogamous relationship” versus “polyamory”? They sound different, but they’re the same damn thing. The only difference is intent and time.
In a “monogamous relationship,” the supposed intent is that you’re looking for something long-term. You’re auditioning for the lead role in the rest of your life. In a “polyamorous” relationship, the supposed intent is short-term, strictly sexual.
But that’s bullshit. The problem with these modern “monogamous” relationships is that we’re asking one person to be everything. Your lover, your best friend, your therapist, your drinking buddy, your financial partner, your goddamn everything. And when you put that kind of pressure on one person, they always crack.
In a healthy relationship, a real one, you’re supposed to get rid of all the outside influences. All the other men, all the other women. You clean the slate. It’s just you and her. But what happens when she realizes you’re not as funny as the guy she used to hang out with at the coffee shop? What happens when she misses her drinking buddies, and you’re not interested in getting shit-faced with her on a Tuesday night? The conflict starts. The resentment builds. And then the cheating happens.
But in a polyamorous relationship, an honest one, you don’t have to pretend. You have a guy friend you go drinking with, play pool with. You have another you go to art galleries with. You have another one, the pottery dude you work with, who understands your creative side. And then you have the guy you want to fuck, the one you have a real, raw, physical connection with. You have different relationships for different needs.
I had a woman like that once. She wanted me on Tuesdays. That was my slot. But then I wouldn’t see her for two weeks. She had other commitments, other relationships that filled the other parts of her life. That didn’t work for me, because my needs weren’t being met. I needed more time. But she was honest about it. She wasn’t pretending I was her one and only.
So is what she was doing cheating? Is what the Catholic church lady with the dying husband was doing cheating? If it’s all out in the open, if there’s an understanding, then the modern version of “monogamy” would have to say no, right?
This is the invention of adultery. It was invented the same day marriage was. And if you look at the divorce courts, at the sheer, staggering number of people who can’t make that “lifelong” promise stick, you have to admit the truth. We are not a monogamous species. Our DNA, the animal part of us that we try so hard to pretend doesn’t exist, it’s not built for it.
But they tried to domesticate us. Like the wolves turned into dogs, the buffalo turned into cows. And now, here we are, in a society run by a strange mix of feminist ideals and beta-boy realities, with divorce rates at 55%, second marriages even higher. Abortions at an all-time high. The whole damn system is breaking down because it was built on a lie.
Monogamy, the lifelong kind, it was a racket. It was a way for society, for the government, for the church, to control you. It was about property, about bloodlines, about keeping the little people in line. And child support, marriage licenses, all that legal bullshit? That’s just the modern version of the same old cage. It’s like going to Africa and seeing diamonds littered all over the ground and wondering why they cost so much back home. Because it’s controlled damand of need. It’s an artificial scarcity designed to keep the price high or in this case the valve of manogamy.
Modern monogamy has no real meaning anymore. It’s a ghost. A word they dug up from a graveyard of dead ideas like marriage, motherhood, and all those other traditional values of the American Dream that no longer exist.
Yet, they still play the game, don’t they? They still walk down the aisle in the white wedding gown, a costume that’s supposed to mean something. They still write their vows full of bullshit absolutes: “I will never leave you,” “’til death do we part.”
It’s a goddamn scam. A piece of theater designed to make her feel valued, to make her feel like she’s not just another piece of meat. And to make him feel like he got something fresh off the market, something clean.
It’s peer pressure, plain and simple. It’s a way for people to feel good about themselves, to convince themselves they’re not the “little slut” their own actions would suggest. It’s a way to put a pretty, holy name on what they’ve always done: fucking around.
So they just watered down the definition. They took the hard liquor of lifelong commitment and cut it with so much bullshit that it’s not even intoxicating anymore.
The “new monogamy” is just the old polyamory, dressed up in a clean suit and pretending to go to church on Sunday.
And that’s an undeniable goddamn fact.
Now, “monogamy” just means one person at a time.
Until you get bored.
Until you get a better offer.
Until the next one comes along.
It’s a joke. A sad, pathetic joke we all pretend to believe in because we’re too scared to admit the truth about who we really are: animals, looking for a little warmth in the dark before the cold finally takes us for good.
