The article is titled, “What Open Marriage Taught One Man About Feminism” and details Sonmore’s “open” relationship with his wife.
It begins with this paragraph (emphasis mine): “As I write this, my children are asleep in their room, Loretta Lynn is on the stereo, and my wife is out on a date with a man named Paulo. It’s her second date this week; her fourth this month so far. If it goes like the others, she’ll come home in the middle of the night, crawl into bed beside me, and tell me all about how she and Paulo had sex. I won’t explode with anger or seethe with resentment. I’ll tell her it’s a hot story and I’m glad she had fun. It’s hot because she’s excited, and I’m glad because I’m a feminist.“
Sonmore then writes about a realization he had, expletive included: “It wasn’t until my wife mentioned one evening that she’d kissed another man and liked it and wanted to do more than kiss next time that I realized how my status as a Man depended on a single fact: that my wife fucked only me.”
He continues, “We are afraid that when it comes time for sex, they won’t choose us. This petty fear has led us as a culture to place judgments on the entire spectrum of female sexual expression: If a woman likes sex, she’s a whore and a slut; if she only likes sex with her husband or boyfriend, she’s boring and lame; if she doesn’t like sex at all, she’s frigid and unfeeling. Every option is a trap.”
Sickeningly, Sonmore writes, “The point is that it should be women who choose, not men — even the men they’re married to. For my wife, the choice between honoring our vows and fulfilling her desires was a false choice, another trap.”
Then he explains when he became a feminist: “When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn’t rejecting me, she was embracing herself. When I understood that, I finally became a feminist.”
Founder and editor of the Social Memo
This is horribly pathetic.
ReplyDeleteThe definition of sacrifice: Giving up something of value for something of greater value. The wife believes taking her vow seriously and giving into her desires is a "false choice". I would say his wife is has no honor and does not value him as a man or husband, she doesn't sacrifice for her marriage. I feel bad for the kids, both mom and dad are deeply troubled.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your definition of sacrifice, but I don't follow you from there. She felt that sexual promiscuity wasn't something she had to sacrifice to keep her marriage and, it turns out, she was right. She was surely also right in the general sense that one needn't always accept monogamy as the price of marraige, you just need a spouse for whom it isn't a deal-breaker.
DeleteEven if she was taking the position that her sexual options were of greater value then marriage, I'm not sure that shows a lack of honor if she is upfront. It may show a lack of judgement, but that is a matter of opinion.
Finally, its really a leap to assume that because she won't make that particular sacrifice she won't or doesn't make any sacrifice for the marriage, or that she doesn't honor or value her husband. Marriage is about more than monogamy and it demands many other dimensions of sacrifice.
LIberals truly believe and act upon every perverse and evil idea that they can perform and act upon. No wonder our yutes are so confused and conflicted and stupid on so many issues and life styles. They are liberally propagandized from youth on and we have a dumber set of voters and people think that liberalism is good for …a 3rd world state that Obama has foisted upon us. Libs would have our yutes to also believe Islamism is good for our..nation. Like the murder of our Marines. Liberalism is truly insanity.
ReplyDeleteHow are you so sure they are political liberals? I have spent decades involved in kink, fetish, and non-monogamy and I can tell you that people involved are just as likely to be tea-party Republicans or Paul libertarians as liberals or Democrats. And that is in NYC, where liberals and Democrats dominate the larger mainstream population.
DeleteThis isn't about kink, fetishism and non monogamy though is it. It's an article about feminism and feminism is liberal clap trap.
DeleteThis is as far as a man can fall. Spineless weakling.
ReplyDeleteA woman can choose whatever she wants, but If my wife choses to cheat on me she chooses to not have me and my money in her life
ReplyDeleteAnd feminist women should be okay with their husbands handing over part of their income to support other families, because equality.
ReplyDeleteThis spineless human deserves zero respect. He will be crying in his beer like a little girl (after all, he is a feminist) when his "wife" dumps him for another dick.
ReplyDeleteThis is not about liberal or conservative values. This is about a wife walking all over her husband and not respecting him. If she wants to go out and fuck some other man, she should get a divorce and a real job to help pay for her lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is not about liberal or conservative values, but I don't follow you on the "not respecting" part. The article says that she came to him with her desire to have sex with other men and after dicussion and negotiation he consented. I'm not clear what the disrespect in that is, unlike cheating, which is so much more common. He also says that he has sex with other women as part of the deal, which hardly seems like being"walked all over," and that he likes the arrangement.
DeleteThat's really all we know and how is any of that disrespect? As for her getting a job to pay for her lifestyle, I believe you missed the point that she is the primary breadwinner in the family, not him.
I didn't see any mention of males having any sexual agency. Or that in a monogamous relationship, the male isn't supposed to sleep around either. Patriarchy doesn't exist. Gender roles do. Too many people conflate the two. Even in the 1940's, where my grandma was expected to be a homemaker, guess where my grandfather was? WWII followed by the coal mine. I'm all for ending gender roles, but it's hard not to notice that men are still held to theirs, even by feminists. You hear all about what was expected of women like my grandmother, but nobody cares that my grandfather faced even worse expectations. Women deserve respect for existing, while men don't get it unless they provide. It's just as evident in 2015 as it was in 1945. Good luck getting a second date when she finds out she makes more money than you.
ReplyDeleteIt's fake. A Google search of the author's name brings up no related results. Clicking on the author's name at the top of his article only only brings up that article. He has no posting history whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteThe article was written by a feminist troll at NY mag to elicit angry responses.
A true weakling, cuckhold, and sissy. How will your children ever respect you? By the end of the year, she'll have you "prepping the bull".
ReplyDeleteLet me add the perspective of a man who is (a) a militant feminist, (b) has a strong a strong cuckold fetish, and (c) has a non-monogamous marriage.
ReplyDeleteI read this article. It was tortured rubbish. The man's point is essentially that only after he became the homemaker and primary child-carer, and learned his wife had libido did he finally understand feminism. So, um, great to see you catching up with the last century.
He also says that he and his wife now have an open marraige (he is not a cuckold fetishist, by the way), they both date outside the relationship and it works for them. OK, fair enough, its your life.
He implys, but never actually says, that feminisim and open marriages go hand-in-hand, which is bullshit. Speaking as someone who knows all kinds of people with open marriages, open relationships, and a variety of non-monogamous arrangements (and am in one variety myself) I have never seen any correlation at all. In fact, my non-monogamous friends are actually more likely to NOT be feminists then my monogamous friends.
In fact, the whole inclusion of feminism in the article seems forced. It is basically an article about how a guy came to have an open marriage he never expected and is basically happy wih it. He goes into the benefits, challenges, mechanics, etc. as well as sharing his evolving feelings from his early fears to his current embrace. What any of it has to do wiht feminism is never really explained in any rational way.
So its an open marriage? By definition he can sleep with whoever he wants to if he actually want too, there's no article here. this is just how open marriages work.
ReplyDeleteIf it where an closed regular marriage and he did allow his wife to sleep with other men and he wasn't allowed to do so with women I would call this marriage a failure. Because I wouldn't know what the basis of this marriage would be, Certainly not trust or love.
My wife and I have the greatest relationship and have been married for 34 years, 4 kids, a good life. Over the years, she has had a couple of "flings" that I found out about after the fact, but she really is not interested in me openly approving of her sleeping with others, and she has told me since her flings that she would never cheat on me again. She has said that she is fine with it if I meet a woman who turns me on and I want to have sex, and she is ok if I have a threesome with two women…she said it turns her on to think of me in bed with other women. So basically I have the green light to be with other women as long as I don't deceive her, go behind her back, because as she said, "trust is everything". When I am away traveling, she encourages me to go out and "have a good time". For example, I recently went to Italy with my son and she text me saying, "make sure you buy me a diamond bigger than the ones you buy your girlfriends out there.". So frankly, I could not have asked for a better wife or a better situation; I have the beat of all worlds. At first she had asked me to limit my activity to the other women giving me handjobs, or blowjobs, or assjobs, but she then realized that there was a natural tendency to go further on to intercourse, and she eventually encouraged that as long as I did not get anyone pregnant and did not catch and spread diseases. Guys, can you ask for anything better than this? In the mean time, Iave told my wife that she too should be able to enjoy sex with others, but by and large she really is not that much interested. She is more turned on after I come home from one of my dates, and she immediately wants to have sex wih me right after the date. Sometimes that is a struggle for me, but on occasion I have brought the other woman home and we wind up having a threesome. Life just doesn't get much better folks. She has gone out to dinner and theater with other guys, and she may make out with them or give them head or a hand job, but she is not interested in going beyond that.
ReplyDeletePretty much everyone here who commented is completely wrong, and it's sad to see such judgement from those who don't know what the hell they are talking about. What really urks me is the biased tone of this article from the author "sickening" , "disturbing" (as if you make the rules about everything and know, that is the only thing that is disturbing.). The piece by Sonmore is not really about feminism, it is about "cuckolding", and making/letting/encouraging his wife to be a "hotwife" and fullfill her sexual desires with another man known as the "bull" in cuckold fetish terms. Sonmore's wife may enjoy it, but the Sonmore (as he says in his article repeatedly) that he likes it and it turns him on. Basically it makes them both happy, so what the hell is wrong with everybody here, if they both are happy doing it, then there is no issue other than you not agreeing with it. It's not messing up your life, and it seems to not be messing up their lives either, in fact, it sounds like it has strengthened their marriage. Many couples who have cuckolded before claim that it does bring them closer together. For those who can't understand this, the erotic satisfaction from both parties in the act can come from several things. Jealousy, and Voyeurism to name a few.
ReplyDelete