Like a tasty meal that turns bland when it is often eaten, good sex turns sour when it is often done with the same partner. Heard this argument before? This is what I often hear from male friends who have realized that they can no longer stay monogamous. I know many women who are monogamous. But I don’t know many men who have stayed sexually and emotionally loyal to just one partner in their whole lifetime. Those men who could actually enjoy seeing the same face, hearing the same voice, getting high on the same smell, and loving the same body for the rest of their lives.
Statistics do not often tell the score on fidelity. The numbers tell more about those who fulfill their so-called biological destiny, multiplying climactic nights with motley partners.
Random sampling In fact, I did my own random sampling on
infidelity. And what I found out was similar with what the surveys said. In the workplace and in my community, infidelity is the norm rather than the exception. About six years ago, I worked as a journalist in a US territory somewhere in Micronesia. I lived with about 40 female and male co-workers in a housing provided to us by our employer. And guess what? My friend and I felt that we were the odd-persons in our quarters. Ninety percent of my co-workers – many were men, some were women, young and old, orgasmic and non-orgasmic looking – had more than one sexual partner. You say it’s only a phenomenon among overseas Filipino workers? Nah. I had also worked in a province somewhere in the Visayas about three years ago. The result of my sampling? Eight out of 10 people I worked with were having sexual relations outside marriage. And then I remember about 13 years ago, I joined a supposedly progressive organization of musicians – composing and singing songs about the oppressed, about respecting the rights of others. The organization did not last. It ended because of third party affairs that sowed distrust and misunderstanding among the group’s members. In my own community, in a sleepy third class town in a province near Manila, wives are often quiet. But don’t think that because they are quiet, they also have quiet lives. They just decide to keep mum. They think of no other solution to their gnawing pain, the feeling of being killed every day as their husbands go bed-hopping. Two years ago, the husband of my neighbor died. He committed suicide over a disastrous affair with his kept woman. Few days after he was buried, I heard the wife belting out songs. She later on told me that she sang not out of grief, but out of relief. "Now it’s finished. He could no longer hurt me."
I’m like the bird Don’t think that I’m monogamous because my mother or my teacher taught me how to be one. My stubborn head refused indoctrination. I was spiritual, but not religious, and was never dogmatic. I didn’t often attend Mass. I never learned anything from the priests and the nuns about fidelity. I think I’m genetically monogamous because my faithfulness to my partner is effortless – yes, perhaps similar to the behavior of some
parrot species, which are by nature loyal to their mates. Don’t also think that because I presume that I’m naturally monogamous, I think less of people who are not like me. In fact, I sometimes think that like the small brain of a monogamous bird, a portion of my brain that deals with relationships did not develop, too. Thus, in my lifetime, I wasn’t able to experience many "birds." Actually, I only had one, and was contended in having only one "birdie." I married that bird about 12 years ago. Call it addiction. I never got tired of looking at the face of my Birdie. He was charming in every angle. It didn’t matter whether he bathed or not. For me, he looked awesome. Once, when we were already in our ninth year of marriage, I saw him from afar, and my heart thumped fast, like a high school girl mesmerized by her crush. My Birdie also had the smell that made me calm. It was a distinctive smell I never found in other men.
Smelling other birdies Oh yes, I smelled other men too. I did expose myself to temptations, which helped me realize that I was a real monogamous momma. How was I able to smell other men? My Birdie and I had some turbulent times that hurt my ego. One day, out of self-pity, I called up a male friend to eat at a Chinese restaurant in Manila. Later in the night, we found ourselves inside a motel in Pasay City. My date was an instant catch. He was already attracted to me even before I got married. But instead of making him activate my G-spot, I turned on his soft spot. He was getting closer to me, and was about to touch me when I cried hard and said, "Sorry, I can’t do this." His arousal turned into pity. He hugged me and cried, too. I didn’t tell him that I thought his smell was repugnant. Of course, he didn’t have bad odor. It was just that he didn’t smell like my husband. I hurriedly went home after surviving that temptation challenge without a sweat. I saw my husband sleeping in our bed. I came near him, quietly smelled him, and cried. There were other men that I smelled, without them knowing it – during interviews with my news sources, during talks with friends, and meetings with office mates. But I tell you, no smell of a man made me feel the way I did with my husband.
Like the prairie vole, too Either I’m like the loyal parrot, or a prairie vole, a mouse-like mammal, which is one of the only three percent of mammal species that form monogamous relationships, according to scientists. I learned about prairie voles when I was looking for an explanation about my monogamous behavior. Here’s what I learned about the behavior of prairie voles as explained in an article in
The Economist: "Mating between prairie voles is a tremendous 24-hour effort. After this, they bond for life. They prefer to spend time with each other, groom each other for hours on end and nest together. They avoid meeting other potential mates. The male becomes an aggressive guard of the female. And when their pups are born, they become affectionate and attentive parents."
According to the article, prairie voles are capable of being faithful to their mates because their brains have receptors for oxytocin — the so-called fidelity and trust hormone among mammals, said to be released during hugging, touching, and orgasm.
My Birdie is a rabbit My Birdie flew away from me two years ago. Finally, he was able to muster enough courage to admit that he wasn’t a parrot or a prairie vole like me. "You can never find a monogamous man. There’s no such guy," my husband told me. My Birdie didn’t actually want to leave me. He wanted me to accept the fact that he wasn’t a prairie vole. But I married him because I thought he was the vole I was looking for. He even swore to me that he was that vole. And so I let him fly away. Scratch that. He wasn’t a faithful bird. I let him – the polygamous rabbit – hop away from me. I am thankful that though sometimes I still miss his smell, I no longer feel the urge to be with him again. Voles and rabbits can’t be together. I don’t know if there is still a parrot or a prairie vole out there for me. But I’m no looking for one, at least for now. I just sometimes think that rabbits shouldn’t be pressured to get married. Rabbits should not rush on to marriage just because they think that they can be voles. Wanting to be monogamous, and staying monogamous are two very different things. It would be worth waiting for the time when fidelity drugs are already available for those who want to stay monogamous. There would also be less broken hearts if machines are invented to measure a person’s monogamy threshold. But even without the drug and the machine, it’s still comforting to know that I’m a certified prairie vole. Life is difficult when one doesn’t really know thy self.
- GMANews.TV
Soledad Montes is the pseudonym of a 30-something journalist. 
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