Monogamy is the enemy

[adepslanae]

Christian fucktard: 'Sex isn't an essential part of life!!!' (in the context of 'if you have a violent husband it is okay to live apart but you can't have sex with anyone else ever).

I disagree so much with that I can't even.

Especially since I've been thinking a lot about Silent Hill 2 ever since rewatching it, and I'm also watching one more playthrough on and off.

Some people analysing the game keep harping on how it's all about sexual frustration and 'toxic masculinity'.

Wrong.

James's #1 problem is caretaker burnout, something with which I can very much sympathise.

That makes him very much sexually frustrated, which leads to Serious Problems.

But the thing is, I don't think it's weird for someone in their 20's/early 30's to be sexually frustrated if their wife has been sick for three years with a terminal illness.

Sex is an essential - and natural - part of life, all the more so if you're under stress.

Sex, in and of itself, is not the enemy.

The real problem, as far as I'm concerned, is toxic monogamy, and the (consequent) demonisation of sex.

How much better would families cope with illnesses or any other dramatic situation if instead of a married couple there were more partners able to rely on each other? And if someone's partner is sick, they shouldn't have a finger pointed at them for wanting to have sex/or having sex with someone else. It doesn't need to be about betraying their partner, you know, but about a moment's respite, a needed distraction, the possibility to have something nice in their life while they deal with hard shit, without any guilt or any other negative repercussion getting in the way.

The same reasoning of course also applies to the Silmarillion, where monogamy is just as strict and just as toxic.

And in both cases it's the person (woman) who's sick that ends up being thrown under the bus first and foremost.

As is the case with RL more often than not.

And that is not okay, that is so not okay.