- Profoundly committed to the better life, the promiscuous, like the monogamous, are idealists. Both are deranged by hope, in awe of reassurance, impressed by their pleasures. We should not be too quick to set them against each other. At their best, they are both the enemies of cynicism. It is the cynical who are dispiriting because they are always getting their disappointment in first.
- A couple is a conspiracy in search of a crime. Sex is often the closest they can get.
- At its best monogamy may be the wish to find someone to die with; at its worst it is a cure for the terrors of aliveness. They are easily confused.
- No one gets the relationship they deserve. For some people this is a cause of unending resentment, for some people it is the source of unending desire. And for some people the most important thing is that they have found something that doesn't end.
- In a society without scapegoats there would be more conflict. People feel too vulnerable without someone else to blame and punish. Similarly, a society without sexual infidelity -- or without the promiscuous going their wanton way -- could be dangerous. Who would we be fascinated by, who would we persecute?
After all, a couple without a third party are radically unprotected from each other. And when people are unprotected from each other it can go either way.
Excerpted from "Monogamy" by Adam Phillips (Pantheon).
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