High Fidelity

So apparently it is fuck-around season.

Reports of extra marital/simultaneous relationships/affairs/falling in love with the “wrong” person seem to be falling at my door recently; from people I would never have dreamed previously would entertain such activities.

Lest it should be implied otherwise, let me make it clear that I do not in any way stand in judgement of decisions taken by anyone but myself.

Perhaps I was naive to assume that everyone was NOT at it.

So, time to [hypothetically] re-examine the flogged horse of Fidelity…the “old fashioned” values of marriage, the commitment of one person to another. Perhaps it is time to churn out the old staple liberal conversations of my early twenties, where Man and Woman; as human beings were never meant to be together monogamously, forever.

( This being a theory which has actually been fiercely contested, due the the monogamous ways of the caveman being thought to be fundamental to our survival as a species… but hey, my version got me laid back then).

So if we really are culturally and intrinsically supposed to want to be faithful to one person, then why is everyone out getting laid elsewhere?

Affairs of the heart are never simple; lust and want obliterate logic on a daily basis, in every office, on everys street and in many otherwise happy homes. Race, sex, creed nor religion stand in the way of the basic need to pro-create (or at least practice doing so); furthermore, the romanticism of each union is fueled by our fundamental fear (modern or not) of feeling “alone” (in my opinion!).

The cycle is, for the most part, futile. Sometimes falling for a perfect stranger’s notion is more natural than taking the next breath, but perfect strangers soon become less-than-perfect partners and none of us can see through rose tinted glasses or indeed beer goggles forever. So the search for the new interest begins again. But should we want to continually restart the same old game? Surely we are all searching and yearning for something more real than Picture Perfect First-Date Syndrome. Surely we all want something more than that first flush of excitement?

Is everyone out there really craving the early days of uncertainty, heart stopping excitement and passion?

Uh, yep, it would seem so.

And what defines fidelity in a society bereft of any actual boundaries anyway? If we fantasise about another whilst in the arms of our lovers, are we being unfaithful? or can we fuck whomever we like so long as our heart remains with our life partners?

What were the rules before us then? There must be some all knowing guru whom I can turn to and hear the rules so that I may live by them correctly, instead of being unceremoniously expelled from this fucked up school of life by getting it wrong?

Someone has to know what’s what, because my generation and I did not invent this phenomenon…we didn’t sit down one day in the early nineties and say, “you know what would go really nicely with this house music that we’ve invented, a bit of fucking around…mmm, radical man.”

And it’s all very well to blame the baby boomers, because, you know, everyone blames them for EVERYTHING THAT EVER WENT WRONG IN THE WORLD EVER, but really it’s not their fault either…in fact “fault” is a term that implies that multiple partners is wrong…and I refuse to be that person.

So in lieu of the baby boomers, we’ve got to look at the church right? Public enemy number whatever:

With even some of the major players in the Bible being depicted as openly polygamous; Catholic Priests in 700AD or thereabouts frequently taking second wives whilst the first were ill or dying [provided they look after the first - rules are rules after all]; even with monogamy being disproved as being from the scriptures, The Church ( sometime after it’s Roman invasion) has imposed both monogamy and celibacy on it’s followers. So here I suppose we can at least see where the hypocrisy comes from, if not the answer to who is making the rules exactly.

I personally think that we are supposed to be of such ego that we discount past practices and out of date and less sophisticated than the society within which we choose to live. You know, we’re more moral than all of that. But we are not. I know first hand the dramatic hurt that infidelity causes, I still bear scars of the same; yet I actually see it as an inevitable occurrence – a trial for the betrayed, a learning curve for the adulterer…to know another person whilst still in the context of a marriage, has to be a life lesson right? one way or another? Seriously. And simultaneous connections with people outside of a relationship are not necessarily the end of the first.

In conclusion, “adultery” is a not so brightly coloured thread through life’s rich tapestry. We will all come across it at some point and we may or may not be undone by it’s impact. But it’s out there. The forbidden sexual, emotional, physical or mental energy between two people that aren’t allowed to touch…

~ by Femme on April 30, 2008.