Monogamous order and the avoidance of chaotic excess

Bibliographic Data

ID12978393
AuthorsMark Finn (University of East London, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume3
Issue2
Pages123-136
Publication date2011-02-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePsychology and Sexuality (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1941-9902 • E-ISSN: 1941-9899
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19419899.2011.551834
OpenAlexW2016831893
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited34

In Western culture sexual fidelity is widely regarded as a prime source of relationship stability and personal happiness and thus a worthy practice. This article is an empirical and critical account of monogamous coupledom as a privileged relational experience. Data is drawn from fourteen in-depth interviews with Australian men and women who self-identified their cross or same-sex partnerships as sexually and emotionally monogamous. Monogamy, as participants construct it, is critiqued as an action and policy that produces an exclusive and contained essence of relationships and that guards against a perceived chaotic excess that is set up in opposition to it. Such action is seen to impel a sense of mastery in relationships and selves that are properly enclosed, channelled and thereby ordered. The socio-historic binary arrangement of an ordered inside and chaotic outside is focussed on as enabling a superior monogamous order while also underpinning its precariousness and psychological frailty. Drawing on Deleuzian ideas about a non-privileged and non-hierarchical system of relating, an alternative way of intimately connecting with others is brought into theoretical view, one that does not favour contained and fixed essences as foundations for relationships, intimate connections and life

Construct (python library · Happiness · Opposition (politics · Politics · Population · Reproductive health · Set (abstract data type · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Demography · Law · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology

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