Ready To Receive It

In 2012 a close friend of mine lent me a copy of “Sex At Dawn”. She handed it to me with excitement and told me that the co-author Christopher Ryan would soon be coming to Australia to present at the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House. 

As I read the blurb on the back of the book, I felt confronted. The book felt dangerous. 

“This book examines why infidelity is rampant! Did you know that humans are not naturally monogamous?!” My friend excitedly exclaimed. All of a sudden she was starting to feel a little dangerous too. Yet as she spoke, my mind turned to all of the stories of infidelity that I had heard throughout my life.

After the flashbacks of infidelity had flooded my memory, my mind returned to Liam and our newfound and tender love. I thought of his beautiful brown eyes and how deeply he loved me and how deeply I loved him. The thought of us hurting one another immediately made me feel uneasy. Was this book going to tell me that we would eventually be pulled into the arms of others by evolutionary forces? 

Later that night I started reading the book and I could not shake the feelings of discomfort. Is monogamy something that we, as a society, are tricking ourselves into with the promises of ‘happily ever after’? 

Still confronted, and after only reading the first two chapters of the book, I returned it to my friend. I thanked her and explained that I was not in the right headspace to read it. Liam and I had not been together for long, and my understanding of true, romantic love was highly monogamous.

When Liam and I began dating, we fell in love incredibly quickly. We spent every possible moment together and were consciously pair bonding. Cultivating and nurturing our attachment to one another came with desire and ease. Looking back, I value our time of monogamy and the foundations of trust and security that were laid. 

Years after I had returned “Sex At Dawn” to my friend, I found myself revisiting it. But this time, the book no longer felt dangerous, and I no longer felt confronted and fearful. I now felt validated. Liam and I had found non-monogamy in our own time, and while the contents of the book hadn’t changed, my perspective and experiences had. 

I awoke to the fact that people throughout history, and across different cultures have had intimate relationship configurations that reached beyond the stories that I had been told. I quickly realised that the pleasure and openness that Liam and I were indulging in was not new or radical, it was far older than I had imagined.

As I read about the sharing of partners within friendship and community groups, I reflected on some of the major attractions for me to non-monogamy. The enjoyment that I felt from witnessing the friendships between Liam and male lovers of mine was undeniable. The acknowledgement of how normal it is to have desires and attractions for people outside of a monogamous pairing felt freeing. 

“Sex at Dawn” unpacks so much of this, and my initial resistance still confounds me.

But as Dr. Christopher Ryan said to us on the next episode of the Evolving Love Podcast…

 “...the message arrives when you are ready to receive it.” 

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Episode 26 of Evolving Love Podcast ft. Dr. Christopher Ryan is released this Friday.