Brenden Nemeth-Brown Nemeth-Brown is an economics and political science student who enjoys long walks on the beach. E-mail him at bnb@ucla.edu. Click Here for more articles by Brenden Nemeth-Brown
Monogamy will have its virtues one day. There will be a need for stability in the household. There will be a need for a child to have one mother and father. There will be a need for refuge and constant warmth after living a solitary youth. But until we college students reach that day, monogamy will only hamper our personal development.
How could someone advocate promiscuous behavior and immoral conduct on a widespread basis, you might ask? Well, I’m not quite doing that. This is not the rant of a sexually repressed loner who feels the need to emancipate himself by treating women as conquests. Quite the opposite. It is exactly because there are so many available, beautiful and empathetic women that I feel restrained by a social construct that keeps me from experiencing them.
Perhaps I fail to see the beauty in spending another night on the couch watching a movie with my girlfriend. Perhaps dedicating myself to one person would actually allow me to better experience the plethora of interesting people I will meet in the next 10 years. Perhaps I should understand that this is all training for marriage. Didn’t you know the only way to live for the present is to constantly meditate on the future?
College lasts for four years. This is the last time many of us will be able to experience different people and ideas before we all become wage slaves. Two weeks of paid vacation every year does not bode well for personal development. That is why this time is so precious and why so many couples are throwing their youth away. These lost souls are cut adrift from their peers, trampled under the horses of delusion and conceit. All assimilation with the masses has ceased. They have become voyeurs.
Illustration by RACHEL REILICH/Daily Bruin
Sacrificing personal development for a deluded notion of security is prevalent throughout college relationships. If you need to be constantly reassured that you are intelligent and desirable, get a dog.
Significant others are like overbearing parents: they are there for emotional support and guidance, but they prevent you from truly finding yourself. They extinguish your desire to evolve by making you think you need their approval for every action you make. Attempts to lash back at them always fall short, for you are too brittle and too dependent to defy them.
Falling to the other extreme is not healthy either. Chasing your tail and tracking down every woman you see causes a bitter animosity for the opposite sex. Everyone becomes a used commodity, sold to the highest (or most drunk) bidder. While this conduct will undoubtedly be continued, it does not undermine my goal of a polygamous single life.
Occasionally it may be even good for you. A bloodletting, if you will. But there is a grave difference between excessive womanizing and engaging in healthy polygamous relationships. The former is marked by a lack of compassion and even hatred for a supposedly inferior sex. The latter exalts women as awe-inspiring.
Talking to a Russian friend of mine put many of these issues in perspective. “I don’t understand you Americans,” he would say, “why is everyone looking to get married at 18 years old?” I didn’t have a good answer to that question. My feeble reply was that we are a culture that has its roots in New England Puritanism, so you will have to excuse the majority of Americans for being brainwashed by it.
But should we excuse Puritan behavior because Americans do not have the courage to question their oppressive ideology? I have never felt there was a rational basis for monogamy at our age. Besides worries of diseases and pregnancies, which can be avoided, most Puritans believe their obligation to one person to be a moral one.
Somehow, you cannot be a good person and date different people at the same time. It means that you don’t “love” the other person.
When did all this excessive moralizing begin to torment the minds of America’s youth? You cannot escape the conservative ideology that demands you “love” one other individual, even if you don’t know what love is.
I remember watching an episode of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” during which Regis Philbin asked a 16-year-old boy if he “loves” his girlfriend of two weeks. “I guess I do,” the boy replied rather bashfully. “Well, that’s great to hear,” Regis exclaimed with a toothy grin.
Imagine Regis’ response if the boy had told him he was seeing two women. Gasps would seep from the audience and Regis would quickly move on to another question. Not that the moral weight of the world should rest on his shoulders, but Regis’ attitude is indicative of a conservative culture that demands conformity.
I admit that I too have hid behind the great moral shield of Puritan ideology. There were times where I used the excuse “You cheated!” to avoid discussing the more basic problems that plagued my relationships. Most of my friends agreed that cheating was irreconcilable and any of my other complaints were mere icing on the cake. Somehow it made more sense to blame someone for something that didn’t truly bother me.
But maybe the experience turned out to be the best for me. I felt much happier dealing with several people on different terms. Instead of constantly feeling guilty for not giving enough time, I felt emancipated by a feeling that I was in control of my own destiny. No longer was I worried about trying to make someone else happy and falling short; I was making myself happy.
But again Puritan ideology is tapping on my shoulder, demanding that I clarify my previous statement. When I encourage unmarried individuals to shun monogamy, it is not because I want everyone to be promiscuous in all endeavors. That sort of lifestyle does not lead to happiness or fulfillment.
What I would want for everyone are several relationships of varying degrees of intimacy. Maybe some are existentially comfortable with one person, but I do not believe that to be the case with the majority of this campus. After all, we are nothing but evolved primates, roaming this Earth and procreating at geometric rates.
Monogamy is a ghost that haunts us all. One day it will grab ahold of us, and we will know that we must sacrifice our independence for the protection of our children.
But until that day, do not walk into its mist. The intoxicating effect of monogamy will suffocate you, and drown you in a sea of a misguided moralism.