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On Polygamy

photograph of three paper cutout figures holding hands

When gay marriage was legalized by in 2015, conservative lawyer John O. Hayward lamented in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision that “the only remaining marital frontier—at least for the Judeo-Christian nations of the West—is polygamy.” It’s difficult to determine how many practice plural marriage in the United States; one oft-repeated but sourceless estimate says somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people, and the Pew Research Center puts the number at less than 0.5 percent of Americans. Though polygamists only make up a tiny sliver of the population, a 2020 poll conducted by Gallup showed that the practice is increasingly viewed as morally acceptable in the United States, jumping from around a 7% approval rating in the early 2000s to around 20% in 2020. This change could be the result of the widespread erosion of “traditional marriage,” or the proliferation of reality shows like Sister Wives, which normalize plural marriage. Then again, a more recent reality show called Escaping Polygamy, which follows three sister-wives who leave their Mormon community, suggests that for many, polygamy is still viewed as a a primitive and restrictive form of social organization rather than a viable alternative to monogamy. Is polygamy just one of many ways to organize a household, as Sister Wives suggests, or a trap for vulnerable women?

Polygamy, as practiced in most cultures, tends to involve one man with two or more wives, who share the burdens of domestic labor and child-rearing. There are tangible benefits to polygamy; housework is shared, which reduces burnout, and both children and spouses have access to a vast social support network. David Barash, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, proposes in his book Out of Eden: The Surprising Consequences of Polygamy that monogamy is infrequent in the natural world, and therefore too restrictive for human beings. At the same time, the argument that polygamy is “natural” is a complicated one. Even if a form of behavior is common in the natural world, we shouldn’t necessarily feel compelled to take it up. 18th-century philosopher Montesquieu further demonstrates the problem with the “nature is destiny” argument. Asian women, he wrote in The Spirit of Laws, reach sexual maturity at eight years old, before their sense of reason developed, so they need to be in “a state of dependency” on (presumably reasonable and sexually mature) men in a plural marriage. In cooler climates, reason and sexual maturity arrived at the same time, which led to monogamy and equal relations between the sexes. Of course, his hypothesis was mired in racist pseudo-science, but he illustrates the problem with attributing any social arrangement to “nature”: not only is it difficult to pin down what exactly we mean by “natural” (any concept of nature will itself be a social construct, in other words), but it leads us to paint our practices or institutions as inevitable and not subject to change. Like any social arrangement, polygamy has benefits and drawbacks, and raising it up as a utopian solution isn’t any more productive than disparaging it wholesale.

Criticism of the practice can come from both ends of the political spectrum, and disdain for polygamy usually makes a point about some larger ill plaguing society. As historian Sarah Pearsall explains in her book Polygamy: An Early American History, polygamy is as much a political metaphor as it is a form of domestic organization. She points out that polygamy was considered to be “the supremely unenlightened form of marriage” by Europeans, who encountered the practice both in North America and Africa. The frequency with which indigenous peoples practiced plural marriage demonstrated their unbridled sexual appetites, and therefore justified imperialism. Western thinkers in the age of Enlightenment also believed that plural marriage was insidious to good government. Wealthy men would inevitably have many wives while poor men could only afford to support a few, breeding jealousy and distrust that would ultimately undermine the stability of the state. In contemporary Western Europe, polygamy is inextricably linked to immigration and cultural assimilation. Traditional sects of Islam allow for a man to take multiple wives, but in countries like Germany and France, which have a large population of Muslim migrants, the practice is against the law. This isn’t to say that banning polygamy is necessarily Islamaphobic; it’s been well-documented that in many cases, plural marriages lead to abuse and exploitation of underage brides. But when France passed a bill in February of this year that increases the power of the state over mosques and schools with the ostensible aim of curbing the practice, it’s clear that a government’s stance on polygamy is very rarely just about polygamy.

Polygamists, much like same-sex couples, have historically struggled for recognition from the state and society at large. As Andrew Solomon explains in an article for The New Yorker, “polygamists face innumerable legal obstacles, affecting such matters as inheritance, hospital visits, and parentage rights. If wives apply for benefits as single parents, they are lying, and may be committing welfare fraud; but if they file joint tax returns they are breaking the law.” Though polygamy is criminalized in most places, that may not always be the case. In March of 2020, the state of Utah, which famously has a large Mormon population, effectively legalized plural marriage, though supporters of the bill argue that they’re trying to liberate those who have been forced into plural marriage by allowing them to seek help without fear of legal retribution. Criminalizing the practice makes those who wish to leave their situation less likely to come forward, in other words.

Critics of polygamy have raised up polyamory as a less hierarchical alternative. As Solomon explains,

“Unlike polygamy, which is usually religiously motivated and typically involves a man with multiple wives who do not have an erotic relationship to one another, polyamory tends to be based on utopian ideas of sexual liberty and may involve a broad range of configurations . . . In the popular imagination, polygamists are presumed to be right-wing misogynists and polyamorists to be decadent left-wingers, but the two groups share goals and, often, ways of life.”

The choice to enter a plural marriage is rarely political, but polyamory is consciously revolutionary, and both groups remain on the fringes of society at large. Polyamory, like any social arrangement, is never perfect, but it does prevent many of the abuses common in plural marriages, and presents an interesting challenge to monogamy as an institution. This isn’t to say that we should all abandon monogamy, but at the very least, criminalizing polygamy in all its forms is hardly the way to save those who want to leave their situation. As social mores change and these non-conventional relationships become increasingly visible, legislators and citizens alike will have to confront both the good and bad of plural marriage.

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What It Means to Be a Hero

photograph of mural of DC superheroes

This is an article about oral sex, gender roles, and fictional characters who like to dress up in dark leather and hurt each other (specifically, DC’s Batman and Catwoman).

According to a recent interview with the executive producers of Harley Quinn, an R-rated DC-owned television show streaming on HBO Max, the corporate owners of the Dark Knight vetoed the showrunners’ intentions to include a sex scene between Batman and Catwoman where the Caped Crusader would have performed cunnilingus on Selina Kyle. Explaining their decision, DC told the producers that “…we sell consumer toys for heroes. It’s hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone” because “Heroes don’t do that.”

For many reasons, it’s understandable if you’re confused right now.

Why are comic book characters (ostensibly created as children’s stories) involved in sexual content? Why is Batman (a “good” character) having sex with Catwoman (a “bad” character)? And why don’t heroes “do that”?

The first two questions are answered fairly easily: since his introduction in the pages of Detective Comics back in 1939, Batman has developed into one of the most popular, recognizable (and, therefore, lucrative) characters in American culture. With dozens of live action and animated movies and television shows, video games, graphic novels, and more, it is safe to say that, in 2021, Batman is not just for kids — HBO’s Harley Quinn is on the list of properties like the Oscar-winning 2019 film Joker and the Arkham games from Rocksteady that are marketed more directly to older fans. (To be clear: this is hardly a new phenomenon: Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and plenty of other authors have been writing “adult” Batman stories for decades.)

Similarly, Catwoman has developed since her debut in 1940. While Selina Kyle was originally a simple jewel thief and burglar (and was famously portrayed as a straightforward villain by award-winners like Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt), recent decades have seen the character grow into more of an anti-hero who often trades flirtatious banter with Batman. From the latex-clad Michelle Pfieffer dating Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne in 1992’s Batman Returns to the most recent pages of Tom King’s take on the characters (which saw Kyle and Wayne in an overt romance), the sexual tension between the Cat and the Bat is a well-established element of their relationship.

So, what about the sex?

Although the quote doesn’t give us much to go on, it seems like there are at least two ways to interpret the studio executive’s warning to the Harley Quinn showrunners; “Heroes don’t do that” might mean:

1. “Heroes don’t have sex.”

2. “Heroes don’t give oral sex.”

For several reasons, option (1) seems unlikely: not only is sexual virility a common feature of the “masculine hero” trope in American cinema (think of everyone from James Bond to Captain Kirk to Indiana Jones), but the full quote suggests specifically that “Batman going down on someone” would hurt toy sales.

Again, there is more than one way to understand what “Heroes don’t give oral sex” might mean in this context:

3. “Heroes can’t be depicted performing sex acts.”

4. “Heroes don’t perform that specific sex act.”

And, again, option (3) seems unlikely: not only are sexual innuendos and double entendres commonplace on the silver screen — including even in animated DC superhero shows intended more overtly for children — but Batman himself has already been featured in sex scenes. Even if we rule out straightforwardly pornographic content, there is still plenty of evidence that heroes have sex of one kind or another on screen (or just off its edge, at the very least).

So, that leaves us with (4). In context, it seems like particular emphasis is on the term ‘heroes’ — other characters might “do that,” but heroes don’t. Why might someone think this?

Here’s where a little philosophy can be helpful. According to the French theorist Luce Irigaray, “Female sexuality has always been conceptualized on the basis of masculine parameters” (from This Sex Which Is Not One, published in 1985) — as many feminists have pointed out, the historical over-emphasis of men’s perspectives has traditionally led to the silencing of women’s perspectives. When it comes to sexuality and the experience of sex, Irigaray argues that oppressive cultural habits have turned the public understanding of sexual pleasure into something that properly “belongs” to men: “Woman, in this sexual imaginary, is only a more or less obliging prop for the enactment of man’s fantasies.” So-called “good” women (in Kate Manne’s analysis of the term) will play their part within this misogynistic system, thereby allowing the patriarchal structure (that benefits men) to be upheld. Against this, Irigaray calls for a “rediscovering” of women’s pleasure (and, by extension, women’s perspectives and power): “in order for woman to reach the place where she takes pleasure as woman, a long detour by way of the analysis of the various systems of oppression brought to bear upon her is assuredly necessary.”

Ironically, the socially-constructed nature of various gender roles, although stereotypically beneficial for men in many ways, also serves to define expectations and norms for them that, when breached, can bring shame and ridicule down onto the offending man’s head. This is just one more disturbing element of so-called “toxic masculinity” that, in short, is much like Manne’s point about how misogyny can benefit “good” women: patriarchy can hurt “bad” men (or “men who are bad at being men”). Not only can this observation help to explain, for example, homophobic reactions to gay men (but not gay women), but, as philosopher Robin Dembroff argues, “Patriarchy, it turns out, doesn’t put men on top; it elevates men who are most mirrored within manhood — an ideal that was shaped, all along, to reflect that group of men. Or, to put it simply, patriarchy puts real men on top.”

It is not hard to see, then, why a corporate exec concerned with merchandise sales might worry about Batman giving Catwoman oral sex: in such a scene, the woman — and the woman alone — would (presumably) be experiencing sexual pleasure in precisely the way that the patriarchal system cannot compute. Were the characters’ positions reversed, and Catwoman were giving Batman oral sex, then consumers and toy-purchasers would likely interpret that as just one more risqué sign of the hero’s strength and power — in short, of his manliness. For Batman to “go down” on Catwoman might suggest instead that he is submissively giving up his masculinity — and, by extension, his right to be a hero.

By definition, heroes don’t do that.

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The Jezebel Stereotype and Hip-Hop

photograph of Lil' Kim on stage

Back in the day, black people were depicted in media through a series of racist caricatures that endured the majority of the 20th century. These caricatures became popularized in films, television, cartoons, etc. There was the classic sambo–the simple minded black man often portrayed as lazy and incoherent. Then, there was the mammy–the heavyset black woman maid who possessed a head-scratching loyalty to her white masters. The picaninny depicted black children as buffoons and savages. The sapphire caricature was your standard angry black woman, a trope that is still often portrayed in media today. But perhaps one of the most enduring caricatures is that of the jezebel. This caricature had an insatiable need for sex, so much so that they were portrayed as predators. One of the ways that this stereotype has endured time is through hip-hop. It could be argued that some black women in the rap game today reflect some of the attributes of the jezebel due to the promiscuity in their music. Therefore, are black women in rap facilitating the jezebel stereotype and, in turn, adversely affecting the depiction of black women in general?

Before we get any further, it should be noted that rap music has never been kind to women, especially black women (see “Hip-Hop Misogyny’s Effects on Women of Color”). You wouldn’t have to look far to confirm this. After all, Dr. Dre’s iconic album The Chronic has a song called “Bitches Ain’t Shit” with uncle Snoop Dogg singing the hook. It’s become a staple in rap music to disregard women in some form or fashion. But perhaps a line from Kanye West’s verse on The Game’s song “Wouldn’t Get Far” best embodies treatment of women and black women in the rap genre. West raps “Pop quiz how many topless, black foxes did I have under my belt like boxers?” In the music video, a bunch of black women in bikinis dance around West while he raps. Black women in rap are presented as objects of sexual desire–they’re arm candy. It’s the updated version of the jezebel. Before, as a racist caricature, the jezebel stereotype was used by slave masters to justify sex with female slaves. But even prior to that, Europeans traveled to Africa and saw the women there with little to no clothing and practicing polygamy. To Europeans, this signaled an inherently promiscuous nature rather than a social tradition. To them, it meant sexual desire.

Now, there’s a narrative of black women rappers in hip-hop who are embracing their sexualization in media. Junior M.A.F.I.A rapper and the Notorious B.I.G. femme fatale Lil’ Kim started this trend, spitting verses that your parents definitely would not have let you listen to as a kid. For example, on her song “Kitty Box,” Kim raps,

“Picture Lil’ Kim masturbatin in a drop

Picture Lil’ Kim tan and topless on a yacht

Picture Lil’ Kim suckin on you like some candy

Picture Lil’ Kim in your shirt and no panties.”

Fast forward from Lil’ Kim, and there’s Nicki Minaj with her song “Anaconda,” where the music video features her and several other black women twerking. But even past Nikki Minaj, there’s new rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who, although having developed an original sound, seems to have traces of Kim and Minaj in her music. On her song “Big Ole Freak,” Megan raps,

“Pop it, pop it, daydreaming ‘bout how I rock it.

He hit my phone with a horse so I know that mean come over and ride it.”

Posing a compelling contrast to “Big Ole Freak,” is another MC, Doja Cat. In the music video for her song “Juicy,” Doja dances to her lyrics that sound like a mash up of Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj, rapping,

“He like the Doja and the Cat,

yeah, He like it thick he like it fat,

Like to keep him wanting more.”

Though Doja’s music has traces of that jezebel stereotype with sexual desire, there’s a positive aspect to it as well. With all of the sexual innuendos in “Juicy,” at its core, the song is about body positivity. While rapping about that “natural beauty,” Doja features women of all shapes and sizes in her music video and is unapologetic about her figure–it’s as if her message is more about empowerment than it is sex. Megan Thee Stallion also incorporates empowerment for women in her raps with the term she coined “Hot Girl Summer,” which to Megan, is where women are unapologetic about their sexuality and simply enjoying life. At the same time, women in rap have also always put forth some positive sentiment in their music. One of the pioneering rap artists for women were MC’s like Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, and MC Lyte. For example, in her song U.N.I.T.Y., Queen Latifah begins her verse by rapping,

“Every time I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a ho,

Tryna make a sister feel low, You know all of that gots to go.”

So, are the rappers today merely facilitating the jezebel stereotype and sexualization of black women? True, the messages in their music are reminiscent of some aspects of the jezebel trope, but there’s an aspect of positivity that challenges this reductionist view. It could also be that rappers like Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion are just smart entrepreneurs who understand that sex sells and are simply capitalizing on an opportunity. But these rappers might also be changing the sexualization of black woman by taking over the narrative for themselves.

But what does this mean for the rest of us? How does this help the black women who have to endure that stereotype everyday? They don’t have the platform like Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion do to start trends and see its impact. But maybe that’s where trends like “Hot Girl Summer” come in handy here. While the music and image from rap artists like Doja and Megan seem negative to some, it’s a form of empowerment for black women. Perhaps listening to “Juicy” lets some black women feel proud about their bodies and trends like “Hot Girl Summer” let them feel unapologetic about their bodies. Simultaneously, it’s important to understand that as time passes, stereotypes–how we define people–change meaning or lose meaning completely. But with that said, it’s still important to not forget the history of where those ideas came from.

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Banned Books: Why the Restricted Section Is Where Learning Happens

photograph of caution tape around library book shelves

The books included on high school reading lists have not been discussed nearly as widely as the books not included on those very lists. For years teachers and parents have debated which texts students should be able to read, and what parameters should be utilized to determine whether a text is appropriate for a certain age group. However, this debate has moved far beyond whether books are appropriate and has begun to explore how this form of censorship affects students. An article published in The New York Times discusses the banned books of 2016 and how their banned status reveals important facets of the current American psyche. In fact, the author states that the most prominent themes associated with the banned books of 2016 related to gender, LGBTQIA+ issues, and religious diversity, all of which were themes heavily discussed during the election year.

James LaRue, the director of the Office for International Freedom, illustrates his experience receiving reports from concerned parents who worry about the appropriateness of certain texts in their children’s school libraries. However, LaRue does not agree with this method of parenting and states, “They are completely attached to the skull of the child and it goes all the way up through high school, just trying to preserve enough innocence, even though one year later they will be old enough to marry or serve in the military.” This point is echoed by author Mario Tamaki who expresses that deeming books as inappropriate marginalizes groups of individuals and can adversely hurt students who relate to their characters. He states, “We worry about what it means to define certain content, such as LGBTQ content, as being inappropriate for young readers, which implicitly defines readers who do relate to this content, who share these experiences, as not normal, when really they are part of the diversity of young people’s lives.”

Both of these individuals relay their concern for the influence of banning books on young readers and this point is reiterated by Common Sense Media a non-profit organization which seeks to provide education to families concerning the promotion of safe media for children. Despite their specialization in appropriate media for children they encourage parents with the article, “Why Your Kid Should Read Banned Books,” which outlines how the most highly regarded pieces of literature were at some point banned in mainstream society. However, their banned status says nothing of the important messages held between those pages. They make the statement, “At Common Sense Media, we think reading banned books offers families a chance to celebrate reading and promote open access to ideas, both which are key to raising a lifelong reader.” This organization’s support for encouraging  a conversation regarding censorship and the importance of standing up for principles of freedom and choice is a critical facet of this continued debate.

On the other side of this debate are concerns of not only violence, language, and substance abuse, but questions about how explicit stories of suicide and self harm may influence young readers who are depressed or suicidal themselves. This concern was heightened due to literature such as the popular young adult book Thirteen Reasons Why, which revolves around a teenage girl’s suicide. Author Jay Asher has been outspoken regarding why censorship of his book specifically is harmful to teenagers. In an interview he describes knowing that his book would be controversial: “I knew it was going to be pulled from libraries and contested at schools. But the thing about my book is that a lot of people stumble upon it, but when it’s not on shelves, people can’t do that. Libraries, to me, are safe spaces, and if young readers can’t explore the themes in my book there, where can they?” Asher acknowledges that it is nearly impossible to create a book which will be appropriate for all readers. He outlines his experience talking to a student who was overwhelmed by the contents of the story. The student decided to refrain from finishing the remainder of the book until she felt completely comfortable, effectively self-censoring.

These attitudes towards censorship reveal troubling social implications when considering which books are chosen for exemption from libraries, as an article published in The Atlantic describes. There is a clear separation themes of violence and fantasy in comparison to the highly-censored themes referencing race or sexuality, which reveals a larger issue of the struggles of minority authors getting children’s books published. According to The Atlantic, “this means the industry serves those who benefit from the status quo, which is why most scholars see children’s literature as a conservative force in American society.” The author reinforces the ideas discussed by adults concerned about the limited access to a broad range of ideas in children’s literature, and concludes by stating,“This shared sensibility is grounded in respect for young readers, which doesn’t mean providing them with unfettered access to everything on the library shelves. Instead it means that librarians, teachers, and parents curate children’s choices with the goals of inspiring rather than obscuring new ideas.”

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Masculinity Across Sports

When conjuring up the perfect image of masculinity in your mind, most people imagine the typical high school jock. He plays football, basketball, ice hockey, or a similar hypermasculine activity. Rarely does a runner, swimmer, or this sort of “second tier” of masculinity in sports arise. By assigning masculinized predispositions to certain sports, could the conversation surrounding masculinity become skewed from a young age? If so, this would certainly create a problematic discourse around certain sports and limit a conversation for LGBTQ+ communities to have a voice within this realm.

Continue reading “Masculinity Across Sports”

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Same-Sex Marriage: A Libertarian Perspective

The dust is just now beginning to settle on same-sex marriage in the United States, since the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges established the unconstitutionality of state-level bans on such marriages. Though the law of the land has been established, all the legal and sociocultural effects remain to be seen (for example, can elected officials receive a religious exemption from performing certain job-related duties).
Is same-sex marriage a victory for freedom? It’s hard to say, and depends on who you ask. The ability to marry a partner of the same sex at the same time both expands the life possibilities for many citizens, while also bringing them into the fold of semi-coercive social norms regarding what a proper long-term romantic relationship and family look like. The Supreme Court let “love win,” but that love is now an increasingly institutionalized one.
To those who we could call “rule of law” libertarians, the most important consideration is fairness and impartiality under the law. This perspective comes down in favor of same-sex marriage for obvious reasons having to do with fairness and equal protection. End-the-state libertarians, on the other hand, strongly disapprove of government in marriage to begin with (on the grounds that it invites and normalizes the meddling of government in private affairs), and object to its expansion (even to same-sex couples) as more of a bad thing. Some in the LGBTQ community (who may or may not be libertarians or anarchists) share this concern, believing that marriage is a kind of well-meaning but ultimately pernicious encouragement towards the conventional domesticated lives they don’t actually want.
No principled libertarian objects to gay marriage for specifically moral reasons, having to do with “marriage” being reserved for the permanent bond between a man and a woman, for instance. Whether it is un-libertarian to have reservations about progressive views regarding the malleability of sexuality and family is a trickier question (certainly progressive, libertine, and conservative libertarians have basically always co-existed in libertarianism’s big tent).
Libertarians do reasonably worry that same-sex marriage will lead to the abridgment of other liberties, namely freedom of religion and freedoms of association, especially through commerce (see, for example, the fight over whether religious bakers must bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple). However it is certainly nothing new in principle that some values in a plural society would necessarily become pitted against others. And it does not seem to be the goal of same-sex marriage proponents to use that position strategically for the purpose of dismantling other liberties, though the possibility is real and conspiracy theories abound.
Could there be other libertarianism-consistent reasons to oppose same-sex marriage? Not really. Allowing only straight marriage in order to “strengthen the nuclear family” runs afoul of the libertarian goal of making minimalist policy that is as value-neutral as possible. Even if same-sex marriage and parenting somehow did in fact weaken family life overall (it’s complicated, and family stability may matter more than gender), that would be a less important consideration for even most socially conservative libertarians than establishing state neutrality in marriage. In any case, there are relatively hands-off ways for the government to fight childhood poverty and provide opportunity to families, like properly-structured earned income tax credits and basic food support, that do not necessarily require discriminating on the basis of the biological or adoptive parents’ sexuality.
Similarly, slippery slope arguments against same-sex marriage don’t seem to be consistent with libertarianism. The threat of a slippery slope from same-sex marriage to multiple partner marriage (polygamy) is real. However, that move only seems like a pernicious slippery slope if one assumes that legally-sanctioned marriages must be between one man and one woman in the first place. Rule-of-law libertarians would likely reject that assumption.
In the end, it is not really up for debate – from a libertarian perspective – whether people of the same gender should be allowed to marry conditional on the fact that government is in the marriage business in the first place. Since marriage, in the civil-legal light, is about distributing the benefits and burdens of a particular form of citizenship, that form of citizenship should be in some strong sense available to all.
It’s a separate issue as to whether the government should require private businesses that cater to heterosexual weddings also to cater to same-sex weddings. The primary values at stake here are economic freedom versus non-discrimination, but the situation is much more narrow than the marriage question in general (which necessarily has broad and far-reaching consequences over many citizens’ whole lives). Whether a libertarian, or anyone, should trade some economic freedom in the attempted pursuit of non-discrimination is, however, a topic for another time.