Sex at Dawn

Gould, author of The Lifestyle, a cultural history of the swinging movement in the United States, interviewed two researchers who’d written about this Air Force ritual. Joan and Dwight Dixon explained to Gould that these warriors and their wives “shared each other as a kind of tribal bonding ritual, with a tacit understanding that the two thirds of

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husbands who survived would look after the widows.” The practice continued after the war ended and by the late 1940s, “military installations from Maine to Texas and California to Washington had thriving swing clubs,” writes Gould. By the end of the Korean War, in 1953, the clubs “had spread from the air bases to the surrounding suburbs among straight, white-collar professionals.”¹⁴

Are we to believe that these fighter pilots and their wives were “naive”?

It’s true that many high-profile American forays into alternative sexuality in the 1970s ended in chaos and hurt feelings, but what does that prove? Americans also tried, and failed, to reduce their reliance on foreign oil in the 1970s. By this logic, it would be “naive” to ever try again. Besides, in intimate matters, discretion and success tend to go together, so no one really has any idea how many couples succeeded in finding their own unconventional understandings by experimenting with low-key alternatives to standard, off-the-shelf monogamy.¹⁵

What isn’t debatable is that conventional marriage is a full-blown disaster for millions of men, women, and children right now. Conventional till-death-(or infidelity, or boredom)-do-us-part marriage is a failure. Emotionally, economically, psychologically, and sexually, it just doesn’t work over the long term for too many couples. Yet while few mainstream therapists would contemplate trying to convince a gay man or lesbian to “grow up, get real, and just stop being gay,” these days, when it comes to unconventional approaches to heterosexual marriage, Perel points out, “Sexual boundaries are one of the few areas where therapists seem to mirror the dominant culture. Monogamy,” she writes, “is the norm, and sexual fidelity is considered to be mature, committed, and realistic.” Forget about negotiating alternatives: “Nonmonogamy, even consensual

nonmonogamy, is suspect.” The notion that it might be possible to love one person while being sexual with another “makes us shudder,” and conjures “images of chaos: promiscuity, orgies, debauchery.”¹⁶

Couples who turn to a therapist hoping for guidance on ways to loosen—but not break—the bonds of standard monogamy are likely to be offered little but defensive condemnation and stilted bromides like this advice from an evolutionary psychology based self-help book called Mean Genes: “The temptations we all face are deeply ingrained in the genes of our hearts and minds ... [but] as long as we remain interesting dynamos, there will be no conflict between monogamy and our infidelity-promoting mean genes.”¹⁷ Interesting dynamos? No conflict? Sure. Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.

Perel is the rare therapist willing to publicly consider the possibility that heterosexual couples might find alternative arrangements that can work well for them—even if they find themselves outside the bounds of what mainstream society approves. She writes, “It’s been my experience that couples who negotiate sexual boundaries . are no less committed than those who keep the gates closed. In fact, it is their desire to make the relationship stronger that leads them to explore other models of long-term love.”¹⁸

There are an infinite number of ways to adapt a flexible and loving partnership to our ancient appetites. Despite what most mainstream therapists claim, for example, couples with “open marriages” generally rate their overall satisfaction (with both their relationship and with life in generaH significantly higher than those in conventional marriages do. ⁹ Polyamorists have found ways to incorporate additional relationships into their lives without lying to one another and destroying their primary partnership. Like many gay male couples, these people recognize that additional relationships need not be taken as indictments of anyone. Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt, authors of The Ethical Slut, write, “It is cruel and insensitive to interpret an affair as a symptom of sickness in the relationship, as it leaves the ‘cheated-on’ partner—who may already be feeling insecure—to wonder what is wrong with him.. Many people have sex outside their primary relationships for reasons that have nothing to do with any inadequacy in their partner or in the relationship.”²⁰