Part-Time Pundit: Let's Talk About Sex

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August 5, 2005

Let's Talk About Sex

Kate Hudson doesn’t believe monogamy is possible. Skipping past someone who works in an industry known more for sex and coke parties than for long-lasting marriages, she’s wrong. She says she won’t cheat because that would disrespect her husband. There’s a little more to do with it than respect.

I’ve been married almost 4 years now, long enough to get comments from others when my wife and I are being affectionate that we’ve been married too long for that kind of thing. Passion and romance need to be cultivated or you will be looking at the situation Kate describes, where you have to force yourself to be faithful. That doesn’t make monogamy unrealistic, it just means it takes work and that’s the problem.

Far too many people go into marriage thinking it’ll just “work”. The results speak for themselves, most marriages end in divorce. When I was still a consultant, I saw many coworkers making choices to take road-warrior jobs so they can get more stuff even with the sacrifice of time with family. When I choose to take my job at the University with the attendant 70% pay cut, I choose time with my wife instead of the 5000 sq. ft. house on 5 acres. These messages get transmitted and received and has an effect on marriage. If you want a marriage to work, you must put the marriage at a high priority bilaterally.

But that’s not precisely what Kate is saying, she isn’t saying that marriage is unrealistic, but monogamy is. More specifically, she says it is ok if her husband cheats as long as he doesn’t get caught. Am I alone in thinking that’s ridiculous? Did marital fidelity become exclusively Christian (or religious) with the rest of the pop culture running around trying to keep up with their libidos?

Before I got married, I applied to seminary. Of course, when some people found out that I was pursuing that they’d ask, “But you can’t have sex?” or some iteration of the above. Not that I couldn’t get married, not that I would never have children, but that I couldn’t have sex. I was never asked about marriage or kids. This came from Christians and Catholics as well as those who are not. When I think of why I married my wife many things come to mind, her gentleness, sweetness, compassion, intelligence, sense of humor, the fact that I wanted to spend every day around her. Sure, she’s drop dead gorgeous too, but that’s not even all that important. The last thing to come out of my mouth as to why I married her would be because then I could have sex. I married her because I want a relationship with her; I value her companionship and her company, not because I wanted to have “legitimate” sex.

If you had to choose between unlimited sex with your spouse but no relationship or a relationship with your spouse and no sex, which would you choose? Sex is great but it isn’t the end-all-be-all of human existence and certainly not marriage. People on their deathbeds looking back on their life don’t usually express regret in not having enough sexual partners.

On to the realism of monogamy. Maybe I’m unusual, but maybe it’s just that I’m man enough to be satisfied with one woman. She’s beautiful and wonderful enough that the concept of sitting around fantasizing about other women while looking at porn is ludicrous. The idea of “you can look but you can’t touch” legitimizes the idea you can’t be satisfied with one partner, or for that matter, that satisfaction in a relationship is solely a factor of looks and the “quality” and frequency of sex. The realism of monogamy starts with the exclusion of all others, even inside the realm of the mind. Monogamy starts by not drooling over the latest flavor of the month presented by Playboy magazine, or yucking it up with officemates on the latest T&A report. It's pretty easy to choose to be faithful when you aren't in a strip joint, frequenting prostitutes, concerning yourself with the breasts of copuious amounts of women, or developing romantic relationships with other people.

Infidelity does not occur out of the blue. It isn’t like slipping on a patch of ice outside your house. There are those who go around sleeping with a bunch of people, and for them, I’m excluding in this because of the obvious character flaw. People who want to be married and stay married generally aren’t the type to sleep around as a habit. In marriages where the spouses have confidence and share themselves fully with the other, adultery is an offensive thought. That person is who you confide things to (a dynamic that needs to be worked on and developed) and who you share your heart with completely. When you start opening yourself up that way with another person of the opposite sex, you end up distancing yourself from your spouse at the same time. There is something about the human heart that wants to be shared completely with only one person. When you let one person in, you’re pushing another out. If you are spending your time with your spouse and building a life together, you just don’t have time or the inclination to go out and build a life with a mistress. If monogamy is so unrealistic, why does Kate Hudson not want to know about marital indiscretions of her husband should they exist? She may not think it is realistic, but she certainly seems to be expecting it and she knows her heart would register adultery as a huge violation of trust.

It sounds to me like pop culture is telling her that having sex with the same person for life is unrealistic while her heart is telling her that fidelity is something that should be there. Of course, there will be those who insist that any sense of fidelity is to make sex boring and to make life dull. Is excitement what people feel when after having a one night stand they wonder if they’re lover will call the next day? Or even remember their name? Can you really say one is enjoying their body and sexuality when their partner is just using them from cheap sex and plans to be gone before sunrise?

Kate, your heart is trying to tell you something, that it is perfectly reasonable to insist on fidelity, that it is realistic, and that you want to have your husband all to yourself. Ignore the culture you live in and realize that it’s ok.

UPDATE: Thanks to Dawn Eden for linking to this post.

Posted by John Bambenek at August 5, 2005 6:23 PM

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Comments

If memory serves, Kate Hudson is married to Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes. I'd bet dollars to donuts that this is something her rocker husband has repeatedly told her (probably right after being caught with a bevy of groupies), and in her self-delusion she bought it.

I see this phenomenon all the time in L.A. Predatory men tell beautiful young women that monogamy is old-fashioned, conservative, illogical, biologically impossible for men. And in their desperation to seem hip and politically correct, the poor dears believe it. Though deep down, they know they're wrong. But the culture has so warped their souls that they don't have the courage to swim against the current.

Posted by: Alistair at August 6, 2005 1:24 PM

Her husband HAS to cheat on her, if he dosen't, he won't live up to her dad-based image of masculinity, and she'll leave him. That's why I won't marry a Mexican.

Posted by: Dave Munger at August 6, 2005 3:36 PM

Dave:

I AM Mexican, and I find your comment rather ignorant and offensive. Do you even know any real Mexican women at all? If you do, and if they were happy that their husbands cheated on them (which I doubt), then let me tell you that their views, whatever they were, do not reflect the ones of the majority of the population, despite the stereotypes that exist.

Posted by: Veronica at August 6, 2005 9:18 PM

Bless you. May you and your wife continue to enjoy your total relationship. There is nothing that compares to the total trust. I know, I lived it.

Posted by: Pat in NC at August 8, 2005 7:01 PM

Wonderful post, beautifully written. It is very sad that women continue to ascribe to the Hillary Clinton model of marriage. I can't help wondering if the sex focused feminism of today is, at least in part, responsible for this.

Ny best wishes to you & your wife. It is wonderful to hear of couples so dedicated to each other. May you have many more happy years.

Posted by: NYgirl at August 8, 2005 10:22 PM

If my husband cheats, I am most definitely NOT okay with it.

I am faithful to him, and I expect him to be faithful to me. Period.

I think Kate is pretty. She is funny, perky, charming and the men she acts with in films often have crushes on her.

But Kate is not wise. She does not have a lot of life experience. Everything she knows seems to be passed-down knowledge from her mother.

Goldie says: Men cheat.
Kate says: Okay, men cheat. Just don't tell me about it.

I say, why in the world would a man expect his wife to be faithful if he is not willing to make (and keep) that same promise?

This kind of double standard makes me ill.

Posted by: lisa at August 16, 2006 7:23 PM