Playing Monogamy

by Simon(e) van Saarlos

PLAYING MONOGAMY
BY SIMON(E) VAN SAARLOOS
Love is love, but not really. To recognise love as love we need comprehensible images. What are those contemporary images that help us identify love and how could we identify love differently, figuring it as less defined by safety procedures, measured commitment and feelings of ownership and entitlement? Playing Monogamy refuses to see personal relationships as safe havens where people can hide from the precarities of society, and instead proposes to make public life more intimate and romantic.

Through a contemporary rereading of the cult of monogamy, van Saarloos playfully queers the way in which the structure of monogamy is upheld through social convention within Western contexts. Written for more of a lay audience, the book proposes an expanded and polyamorous engagement with intimacy and sexuality as a possible alternative. Originally written in Dutch and published by De Bezige Bij, Publication Studio is excited to bring this book to an English speaking audience for the very first time. We are also happy to share that this edition of the book, translated by Liz Waters, will include a foreword by Leni Zumas, author of the US bestseller Red Clocks, and a revised preface by Simon(e) herself, addressing how she might approach writing about nonmonogamy differently four years after the book's first publication—and after many experiences in between.

Genres: Nonfiction, Relationships, Feminism, Philosophy

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[sylvie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chance encounter. I have been wanting to read this book for a while and like how it found me, as I stumbled upon it in the bookcase at a friend's place.

This little booklet, mixing social theory and personal anecdotes, is essentially a little manifesto for living a polyamorous life. It discusses monogamy not only as a physical practice but policy and legislation - at once personal and political. It shows how monogamy, similar to capitalism, bases itself on notions of scarcity, exclusivity and feigned control and argues that monogamous coupledom will not provide us with the necessary security in a neoliberal world. Instead of disappearing into these types of relationships, through which we often exit larger communal life, we can reform life through different ways of loving and relating.

The book felt a bit like an introduction to thought on polyamory, which I might not necessarily be the target audience for, still I really enjoyed reading it and being taken into the author's universe of personal experiences and further discovering a way to discuss polyamory in a more political way. Moreover, helpful for myself, I found the concept of anti-fragility. The idea is that submitting to unforeseen circumstances is what makes you more secure than fruitlessly trying to exile risk.

[caro · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!! A little outdated since it was published in 2015 (9 yrs ago..) but the ideas and concepts still stand and make me think of what our relationships to our friends, partners and to ourselves could look like if we look outside the social boundaries in place —

“Non-monogamous living is about relationality in many forms, not just about sexual bonds”

[Ketevan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Polyamory/Non-monogamy at the 301 level. Excellent and short but very dense and not an introduction in any way.

[Sneha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of food for thought. Simone starts with the construct of how monogamy and capitalism are quite strongly linked. The idea of monogamy as something we open our eyes in this world, and automatically subscribe to must be challenged. The book makes a call for us to realize that this is just one of the many forms of love and play in our human existence, and just because it is overly normalized does not mean it should be followed blindly. Love like all other things in life should be explored, thought about, felt, and approached with curiosity. Very short, fast, and intriguing read.

[Can Lejarraga · Rating 3 out of 5]

mmmm bastantes sentimientos encontrados sobre este libro. por un lado hace muy buenos argumentos sobre cómo la monogamia nos priva de ciertas exploraciones personales y nos hace dependiente de un estilo de vida en el que existimos por una persona en vez de por nosotros mismos. por otra parte tiene una visión un poco neoliberal/burguesa de las relaciones poliamorosas que la verdad no sienta muy bien leer, llega un punto que hace más alegorías de personas como experiencias para lo personal que como personas en tu órbita social algo que personalmente no me mola mucho. en fin, no está mal, podría estar mejor.

[Maggie Greenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

didn’t convince me but certainly made me think differently about relationships & independence & friendships & singledom

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed various central insights of this book - on how social connection a la partnership can become anti-social when it ceases to be play and becomes performance; on profound relations less as function of assumed/constructed roles or hours logged (durable committed time) and more as function of play (in its multiple forms) and the vital concentration on living/connection play requires; on risk as integral to anti-fragility and anti-fragility as integral to expansive and profound connection.

These are communicated as part of a meditation on why strict monogamy is an illusion and how its performance cuts off profound connection, risk, and growth through both. Well, I'm not sure why the author relies so heavily on ideal-typic monogamy vs. the actual diversity of more expansive monogamous practice that exists and which can also reject performance and center risk, play, and vitality. Imaginary capital M monogamy (though it has such strong roots in actually existing monogamy) is the foil that makes this book run, but it is a reducing one, and the book would have been more insightful, less polemic, and more rightfully a treatise on good relations if this foil were either dropped or named explicitly as ideal type vs. actuality.

[Ville Verkkapuro · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good introductory book on ethical non-monogamy, from a very psychological and easy-to-understand human perspective. This was fast and delicious, referencing many great thinkers from the history to modern times. Something in between an index, a memoir and an essay. Very much to my liking and a refreshing snack in between heavier books on relationships and love. Something that is easy to recommend to people and I already borrowed it to a person who is something in between a friend, a lover and a partner.
The first line of the introduction in this is important: "Love is love, but not really."
It's all there, in that sentence, hehe.
But seriously, read this, whether you are mono or poly or neither or something in between or just curious on how we build our relationships.

[Will]

Kind of like an essay. I think the translation got funky in the last half. Or maybe my brain did; I kept feeling like I couldn't even parse what they were saying. Some nice parts for sure. Felt a little waffley at times, and a lot self-defensey at other times. Like not bold enough somehow, in a way that feels very liberal-arts college in my experience. That part is maybe me being annoyed at just mentioning all these little concepts that everyone takes for granted in one culture (progressive academia?) and kinda namedropping them or adding little strings to all these ideas without actually justifying that. It's the kinda thing my friend Mark would get pissed at. As usual I liked and appreciated the inclusion of the personal stories.

[Michelle Tran · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was well written, but I agree with the author in the preface of the English edition about some of the problems with the book (i.e. "Social Wheel of Five" being too simplistic, and I would like to see more commentary on how society would need to change to accommodate for non-monogamous relationships). However, I think that this book would've appealed more to me at 25, than it did for the me that recently finished reading it.

As an aside, I had been recently reviewing Taleb's idea of Antifragility for a completely different topic (work related), so it's been amusing seeing it in a completely different context here.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

really fun and insightful, though i wish the anecdotes were more directly tied to the lives of polyamorous people — lots of the examples are related to like, idk, the author’s food preferences and the arguments would be stronger if there were more insights from actual non monogamous lived experiences

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some really interesting paradigm-shifting ideas about life and relationships and also does that thing I appreciate where an essayist draws from all sorts of diverse places and analogies to explain something.

[Lylia]

i think the most interesting / original idea was the idea of romance as a form of excess, exaggeration, drag (in the sense of adding something that doesn’t belong) and risk (of rejection or being misunderstood)

[malou · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely loved this

[Serkan Kasapoglu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has changed something about the way I perceive myself, something I've disliked for a long time.

[Esther Jones Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeyeye. Goes off a bit in the 2nd half but so gr8 overall

[Claude · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last section got me right to the core. Thanks.

[Dora · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.75/5

[Liselot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nu voor de tweede keer gelezen en ik wordt nu gegrepen door andere zinnen, maar het is en blijft een PAREL van een boek. Geeft een politieke dimensie aan relaties en (non-)monogamie. Ik wil het eigenlijk ook nog eens in het Nederlands om te kijken wat dat voor me doet!