Sex & Love
The Inconvenient Truth About Monogamy
Do you think monogamy was put in practice to benefit women? Think again.
In 2017 I was shooting an episode of the Grapevine where the topic of discussion was gold diggers. I attempted to explain the subtle ways our romantic customs center male desire, often at the expense of female agency.
That’s when I said it, before a room of cheering women, and slack-jawed men.
“The truth about monogamy is — monogamy is the way that we can ensure that average Joes get to get married too!”
In my defense, I was neither praising polygamy nor slamming—well — broke men. I threw it in as an aside.
I thought this was common knowledge. In my mind, I was merely mentioning a historical fact; but in reality, I was stepping on a cultural land mine.
Not only did the clip, later dubbed “monogamy is for broke men,” instantly go viral, but it provoked a fusillade of attacks from men for which I was totally unprepared. The harassment was so intense, I feared for my safety, and for years, every time the video reemerged, sparking a small brush fire on my timeline, I cringed. Sure, I gained thousands of new followers practically overnight, but the minute-long clip, extracted from an hour-long…
