| Chapter 1: | Operationalizing Fidelity |
The Importance of Gender and Sexual Orientation
Gender and sexual orientation are key factors in measuring definitions, patterns, and experiences of monogamy and nonmonogamy (Henshel 1973; Gilmartin 1977; Blumstein and Schwartz 1983; Rust 1996; Ringer 2001; Josephs and Shimberg 2010). Further, marriage is a social institution predicated upon heterosexuality and the socio-sexual control of women through monogamy. Whereas marriage as an economic arrangement has shifted to marriage as a romantic, relational, and affective union, such predications are still characteristic of the master template informing relationships today. Words like romance, intimacy, love, commitment, monogamy, fidelity, and even sex—which are commonly used in academic and everyday life—remain gendered, heterosexist, and mononormative in their meanings and applications.
Gender affects not only how individuals define sex, love, and even intimacy but also what is considered monogamy (Risman and Schwartz 2002). Moreover, because men and women exhibit different sexual behavior patterns (Kinsey et al. 1948, 1953; Blumstein and Schwartz 1983; Laumann et al. 1994) gender may also influence decisions about engaging in monogamy, nonmonogamy, or polyamory.
For example, Gilmartin (1977) and Henshel (1973) found that men tend to introduce their wives to swinging and are usually the first to quit swinging as well. This is due to both the jealousy husbands feel about their wives’ having sex with others and to the wives’ tendency to enjoy sex with other partners while becoming more sexually aware. Women also have more same-sex sexual experiences than men do in group sex, a fact that furthers the notion that lesbian sex is both stimulating and desired by heterosexual men. Heterosexual men are more nonmonogamous than heterosexual women are, paralleling the cultural attitudes and practices of women toward sexual commitment and of men toward sexual diversity (Josephs and Shimberg 2010). Men are also more likely than women to struggle with the restrictions inherent in monogamy (Schmookler and Bursik 2007).