Photo: Jonathan Borba / Pexels, Instagram
Sure, most animals don't practice monogamy. But animals also don't lie to their spouses.
By John Sundholm — Written on Apr 24, 2023
Plenty of people nowadays feel that monogamy isn't natural—that it is evolutionarily encoded within us to want to be with as many partners as we possibly can. That is, the best way to propagate any species, after all.
Science says it's a bit more complicated than that, but still—there's some truth to the claim. But some people seem to use claims about this supposed evolutionary imperative to sleep around as an excuse to cheat on their partners with impunity, and one man online is being accused of just that.
A man online defends his infidelity by claiming monogamy isn't natural because animals don't practice it.
That's not exactly true—there are animals who practice monogamy, like certain penguins for instance, and some species even seek out a new life partner when their current one passes away, just like many humans do. But they are a tiny minority, especially among mammals—only 5% of mammal species are monogamous. Even in humans, monogamy is a relatively new concept—some 80% of early human societies were polygamous.
Even so, human relationships still have emotional dimensions and involve trust. Even most of those who are polyamorous or have open relationships practice "ethical non-monogamy"—multiple partners without secrecy and with boundaries within a relationship. This man, who appeared on the popular Instagram account Humans Of New York, can't be bothered with any of that.
The man says his wife and mistress fulfill different needs.
"My wife has my back," he told Humans of New York's photographer, "more than the girlfriend. If I ever got in trouble, my wife would be there—so I love her too." But he says, "it's two different worlds" when it comes to his relationships with the two women. "My wife and I fu-k, but when my girlfriend is in front of me—it’s like: I need that now."
He says he and his mistress, who is also married, came together at precisely the right time after they'd already been with multiple partners.
"Then we came together to reach the zenith." He goes on to say that their sex life has "never gotten old," and every time they're together is different. "We’ll go through phases: do one thing for a month, put it down, pick something else up."
For quite a while, their relationship was strictly sexual. "For the longest time I didn’t know her husband’s name, or where he lived," he said. But then things "got blurred," and that's when the drama began.
The man says his wife is 'naive' to think he'd be faithful because it's 'impossible' for one partner to fulfill his needs.
A few years into his relationship with his mistress, he got caught cheating. "It was my fault," he writes, "I was drunk; wife got the phone." Drama ensued, and he and his wife ended up in couple's counseling. His sexual relationship with his mistress proved particularly distressing to his wife. "In therapy, my wife was like: why don’t you do that stuff with me?" he writes.
But he says this is only natural, and that one person can't fulfill all of another person's needs. "It’s like, look, nobody checks every box. It’s impossible, impossible," he says. "If your wife checks five, and you got six other boxes—you’re going to check those boxes somewhere else."
This, he says, is why monogamy is nonsense. "It’s made up. It doesn’t work. Look at nature—the males fu-k different females, the females fuck different males." But his wife was shocked nonetheless. "She was like: ‘But you took a vow,'" the man says. "And I do feel bad. I’m sorry to disappoint her."
But he maintains her expectations are totally unrealistic. "You can’t be so naïve that you think all [of a] sudden the leopard is going to change his spots." He thinks it's especially naive given that "when we first got together—I was cheating on the girl I was with."
People were appalled by the man's blasé attitude toward infidelity, and even people who practice non-monogamy agreed.
For most people, it wasn't the non-monogamy they found shocking, it was the man's total disregard for his wife's trust.
Calling the man "a liar who has no remorse," one Instagram commenter wrote, "The implication that it’s her fault for trusting him makes me physically ill...trusting someone is the only way to truly, healthily love them. If they break your trust, you are NOT naive and it is NOT your fault EVER."
Another firmly agreed. "It amazes me how many men justify intentionally hurtful behavior by telling the woman they are hurting that she should know better even though he told her he would do the opposite of what he’s doing," they wrote.
For many people, that was the crux of the thing—that the guy was using pronouncements about how monogamy isn't natural as an excuse to be totally dishonest with his wife.
Or as a guy on Twitter put it, "Polyamory is totally fine, assuming everyone is on board with it. But clearly, that wasn't the case here." He went on to tell people like this man, "If you can't be monogamous, be up-front about it. Don't vow to be monogamous."
That's the entire ethos behind "ethical non-monogamy," after all, as the video below explains. If you want to follow your evolutionary imperative and have multiple partners, then by all means—but hurting someone else in the process shouldn't be part of it.
Or as a person on Twitter perfectly summed it up, 'I really dislike this whole 'this is what animals do' justification... You're not an animal - you have awareness of what you're doing and who you're hurting. Don't take vows you can't keep." It really is that simple.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.