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When explaining psychopathology to my students, occasionally, someone presents a case where the person is in a polygamous relationship or involved in BDSM, and I try to raise the question of whether this sexual behavior might be bad for this individual.
I don’t know if it’s true that people had to choose Lancaster or York at peril of their lives during the Wars of the Roses, but if true, I don’t imagine a reflective soliloquy on the virtues of other flowers was a safe course to follow. My own attempts to say, “Nearly any act can be sick or well,” have fallen on receptive ears when the suspect act is monogamous heterosexual mating, but applying the question to any other kind of sexual liaison is seen, by a vocal minority, as extremely inappropriate.
I had thought, before I became aware of the full force of many contemporary students’ immunity to analogic thinking, that I could teach psychopathology by first examining a behavior that was considered mainstream. I still think it’s an interesting exercise (if you’re not looking to pick a fight), and that’s what this post is about.
Two Models of Psychological Health
Psychological health, the opposite of psychopathology, comes in two distinct flavors, growth and adjustment. The adjustment model labels as healthy those behaviors that make us fit in with the demands of our cultures, workplaces, families, and social relationships. Psychopathology is that which stands out. Otto Rank protested against this view of health by saying that the secret goal of psychoanalysis was to turn people into “patient, docile Philistines.” This was back when it was all right to insult Philistines, who I am sure had a flourishing artistic community, designing clothes for Goliath and whatnot. Jonathan Shedler called mere adjustment the illusion of mental health. If psychopathology means, simply, nonconformity, then overt monogamy is healthy and no further inquiry is needed.
In the growth model of health, different theories define growth in different ways, but they all relate to self-actualization, or a fulfillment of that theory’s idea of what a human being is. Behaviorists want people to behave according to their own advantage; cognitive behaviorists want people to behave rationally; ego psychologists want them to manage rather than be managed by their inner conflicts; humanists and self psychologists want them to foster the real self and not the false self; systemic practitioners want them to define roles they can fulfill. None of these are objective or value-free, not even a goal of maximizing cheerfulness and minimizing stress, or a goal of living closer to God. This is one reason it’s important for practitioners to thoroughly learn multiple theoretical orientations: Just when you’re thinking object-relationally that it’s sick for someone to be utterly conflict-avoidant, you can remind yourself that the ensuing stress-reduction might lead to increased longevity.
Any Relationship Structure Can Be Pathological
Enough prologue: What are the pathological reasons someone might pursue heterosexual monogamy? The most common one is that they dislike or hate sex and don’t want anyone to know it. Increasingly, if you’re hard-wired not to be interested in sex, you can just stay single, but there are still going to be a lot of uncomfortable interactions about your status. Even now, it might be easier to marry someone equally uninterested or, failing that, someone who will just have to be frustrated. People who have been shamed for their sexuality might cringe at the idea of exploring what rocks their boat. Dating, engagement, wedding, and anniversaries can then all be understood as avoidances. If you have sex every Saturday night, perfunctorily, you can perform heterosexual monogamy and indefinitely avoid the question of what turns you on.
They might be gay and homophobic. Certainly, there have always been gay or bisexual people who behaved monogamously heterosexual to avoid the social stigma—that’s not pathological; it’s just sad, a considered choice under bad circumstances. But there are others who don’t know they’re gay (or bi or cut out for polyamory) or won’t admit it to themselves, and they cling to heterosexual monogamy not because they hate sex per se but because they hate their own sexual predilections.
Heterosexual monogamy can enhance one’s status in certain subcultures. For some, the main benefits of mating are not love or sex but winning the competition for best partner, biggest ring, most perfect wedding, social standing, and so on.
Some people are afraid of being alone or of life itself, and they cling to someone to help them avoid it. Some just want to have children and find it most convenient to do so in a culturally conforming relationship.
Some people—this is true—get married to torture someone. They see important connections not as collaborations but as counterpoints. They don’t, for example, feel successful, they feel like winners; not free but escaping; not loved but preferred. Successful, free, loved individuals like to be around others of their ilk. But winners need losers, escapees need wardens, and the preferred need the disregarded. Monogamy often provides a readier receptacle for othering than other romantic structures can provide. “The old ball and chain” usually refers to a person, not a community.
Sometimes, it’s not monogamy itself that is pathological but the commitment to the particular relationship. A relationship may be or may have become bad for you. Monogamy is then avoidant of change and any stigmas associated with splitting up. Ironically, these stigmas are often rather minor but they can seem major while you’re married. Worst of all, a commitment to monogamy in a relationship that isn’t working can keep the couple from insisting on what is needed to make it work.
Any act or relationship structure may be pathological or healthy depending on its function and not on how it looks.
