How societal love ideologies effect the way we (fall in) love

Don’t skip this post thinking that you are uneffected by societal ideologies in your ability to love. If you’d do so, that would be giving yourself a huge compliment that most of us do not deserve (I’d be surprised to find someone who does deserve it). Most of these ideologies are so deeply engrained in us, that we don’t think them expectations from the society but those of our own; we have been brain washed to the extent that we take these foreign unauthentic ideas as those of our own. It takes a lot of work to abandon them and to look into our authentic self for the truest way that we are. One of the most prevalent societal love ideology is monogamy. As an ingrained ideal it is even stronger than heterosexuality is.

The way that we have been brought up, in western cultures, we believe an ideal man is a certain way, and an ideal woman is a certain way. These ideologies also change in time, and what was the ideal woman in the 1950’s is certainly not the same today. What we fail to notice is that the 50’s housewife still exists, only she doesn’t have the societal backing for her ‘backward’ life ambitions. As we liberate one type of a person, we oppress another one, until we understand on a deep level that everyone is profoundly different! Not all of us even want freedom to choose (and genuinely so)! Ironically, some of us will find it extremely unnerving to think that they’d have to choose for themselves what they are truly like, because they WANT to be told by society what a life should be like, and the closer they can match that ideal, the happier they’ll be. These are the people who will happily join a cult thinking it’ll solve all their problems… So to have absolute freedom of choice, we also have to allow cults to offer strict rules to follow for those who want rules.

The ideals that affect our love lives are born though idolisation of a certain couple (or group of people) who have found happiness in their own true way of being, such as heterosexual monogamy, but on the contrary, a Sheik that had multiple wives was said to be the happiest man on the planet, so all the Sheiks would mimic him and get themselves multiple wives without realising that what worked for this man would drive other men insane. In the storybooks of our childhood and beyond, we were admiring the prince who would protect and save the princess that was in terrible danger of some kind. While some women love to be rescued and some men love to rescue there are other women who would rather grab a sword for themselves and join their men in war for a righteous cause, and men who, on their turn, admire these strong women rather than feel threatened by them. We idealise people that seem happy to us, but when we try to walk in their footsteps we most often find ourselves disappointed and disillusioned. 50% of monogamous straight marriages end up in divorce in countries where divorce is not shunned, and in those that it is… It’s hardly a happy position to be in.

These ideologies work in a way that you are trapped in your own ego while others look upon your relationships and life style. Even if you would be the happiest you’d ever been with a certain man, but he didn’t have a decent job and he dressed in women’s clothing, you would likely fall out of love with him due to embarrassment; you would force yourself to. You would be ashamed to love him, because you would feel like you’re selling yourself short or that he doesn’t respect you enough to turn his life around. If you would be the happiest with two or three spouses, but your friends would think that as a cop out for people with a commitment phobia, you’d be quite likely to abandon that idea before it even got anywhere near happening. Shame keeps us from loving the people we truly love – sometimes. The monogamous heterosexual ideal has been the predominant ideal for centuries in the western culture, but it would be stupid to think that we are all heterosexual monogamists by nature. Bisexuals are a living proof that monogamy does not work as a one size fits all, nor does polyamory, where one partner is elevated above others while other partners are hidden from the rest of the family and friends as “extras”, because poly- anything doesn’t fit the society’s ideals, so strongly, that even some of the the polygamousORpolygynandrous living a polyamorist life style would pretend to be monogamous to some extent.

As we create ideals, they are strengthened by stories we tell each other. In all my life I have seen but one movie that described polygamyORpolygynandry¹ in an accepting light, and one TV series, which, coincidentally I didn’t watch. Almost without exception movies and stories we watch and hear are such that idolise the same type of love story between the same type of people. An attractive woman of the 2000’s won’t be one that is happily cooking and cleaning for their husband who comes home to read the newspaper complaining about his hard day at work. That same woman would also not have been dreaming of a marriage like that, yet, only 50 years prior, that was the ideal everyone was working towards. Then, a today’s norm was exciting and ground breaking, but what is a norm today will be considered close-minded and oppressive in another 50 years time. We should never assume we know what type of a relationship someone else would be happiest in, unless we are quite intuitive ourselves and unlikely to attempt to attract people to our own corner. On that note I must say that many people are heterosexual monogamists, but you should bravely question that for yourself, and before you start, remember that many people fall naturally into straight monogamy, but if you feel anything like “oh I don’t know if I’m polygamousORpolygynandrous, it sounds WAY too good to me to be true!” then you are definitely polygamousORpolygynandrous. 🙂

polygamyORpolygynandry² vs monogamy or straight vs gay are clearly not the only variables in the ideal love, but they are fairly easy to understand as examples. Even the ideal number of children is influenced by the society. Two or three is the acceptable number to want in western cultures and China is working hard to change the ideology from a  large family to one child, and succeeding, too.  Keep your eyes peeled for more examples of western love ideologies that you might not have noticed having… How and where the first sexual experience is to be had, and definitely how not to… Is a man allowed to be demanding of sexual attention or not? Should man cook? Where one woman is turned on by a man tirelessly begging her to put out, another woman is severely repulsed by such treatment. Is there anything wrong with either approach? I would say no, but being insulted rather than flattered by that comes from societal brain washing; when in reality the man finds the woman incredibly, insanely attractive, western culture has made us believe it’s a sign of disrespect. A lot of our ideals come from exactly that. Where one woman finds a certain behaviour insulting, has been taken as an overall statement covering all women, not just a few individuals. Another example; it is societally unacceptable for a man to be visibly turned on by breasts, but yet, breast implants are the thing to have as soon as you gather up a few extra dollars for yourself. How does that make sense?!

Bravely consider.

1. Depending on context. Some time ago, I used the term polygamy to mean either the generic concept of polygamous marriage or a MM+FF+ -type marriage or poly-committed relationship. ↩

2. Depending on context. Some time ago, I used the term polygamy to mean either the generic concept of polygamous marriage or a MM+FF+ -type marriage or poly-committed relationship. ↩

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