Still more poly links

[chanaleh]

I always think these posts will be "last one for a while", but there's just more coming up all the time. :-}

This whole Tiger Woods thing is causing a fair bit of commentary from the non-monogamy faction (much as the whole Bill Clinton thing did 12 years ago). But in particular, I couldn't not repost the one from my fandom object Jay Michaelson, to wit:
It's Not Just Tiger: Monogamous Marriage Is An Anomaly
"... Whatever we think about such normative questions, the facts of the matter are beyond dispute: monogamous marriage as an ideal that's actually meant to be upheld is a very recent, and not very successful, innovation."

Anyway. Moving on.

Some weeks back, ablock found me this paper, which is 10 years old, but still relevant:
What Psychology Professionals* Should Know About Polyamory
*Including, clearly, the one(s) consulted by my mother within the past three months.

Secondly, I read this NPR story earlier this year (though it dates from 2008). It made me cry the first time through, and has stuck with me incredibly over the past several months, though I had to go dig around a bit to find it again:
Two Families Grapple with Sons' Gender Preferences; Psychologists Take Radically Different Approaches in Therapy

First, read the article. Seriously.

Now: Consider the pictures of those two little boys.

Bradley, whose undoubtedly-well-meaning therapist advised his parents to cut him off from spending time with girls, playing with girlish toys, role-playing female characters, or anything else that might cause him to "backslide"?
• "As his pile of [girly] toys dwindled, Carol realized Bradley was hoarding. She would find female action figures stashed between couch pillows. Rainbow unicorns were hidden in the back of Bradley's closet. Bradley seemed at a loss, she said. They gave him male toys, but he chose not to play at all."
• "'He was much more emotional. ... He could be very clingy. He didn't want to go to school anymore,' she says. 'Just the smallest thing could, you know, send him into a major crying fit. And ... he seemed to feel really heavy and really emotional.'"
• Plus, "'... I'm still quite certain that he is with the girls all the time at school, and so he knows to behave one way at school, and then when he comes home, there's a different set of expectations.'"
Yeah. Really successful intervention.

Whereas Jonah, whose family and therapist encourage and support him her in wanting to be a girl?
"They have these little conferences, and, you know, we were asking, like, 'How's Jonah doing? Does she have problems with other kids?' and the teacher was like, 'God, I gotta tell you, you know, Jonah is one of the most popular kids. Kids love her, they want to play with her, she's fun, and it's because she's so comfortable with herself that she makes other people comfortable."

That's the part that made me cry. Particularly when I first read it, months ago. It also resonates strongly with a quote I snagged from drwex more recently:
"My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly." -- Audre Lorde, 2004

I happened on a "proverb" sometime in the past year or two (it was cited as a Chinese proverb, I think, but I can't find any justification for that; if anything it seems to be a Sufi-influenced pop psychology maxim) along the lines of "Stress consists in the tension between the way things are, and the way you would like things to be." Which is to say, the way out of stress is acceptance.... or conversely, what can be much more difficult: taking action to realign perception and reality, in order to restore integrity between them. Truth will out. Trying to pretend that reality is other than it is? Not helpful, and not sustainable.

Some of the recaps I found expand nicely on the points I wanted to make about this:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/05/close-my-eyes-i.html
"It's not just the part about taking his toys away. It's that they are asking him to believe, not that he is doing something wrong, but that who he is is wrong. Worse, they are asking him to lie about it. ("He's like 'No, NO! I'm happy being a boy.'") He "feels he's leading a double life", and the reason he is leading one is not for some comprehensible reason: for instance, because the Nazis have invaded and he must not tell about the family hidden in the attic. It's because his parents don't allow him to tell the truth. And why not? Because the truth about what he wants to play with, what he wants to draw, even, for heaven's sake, his favorite color, is bad."

http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2008/06/stop-trying-to.html
"The ramifications of this type of intervention are not fully understood, but with fifty percent of transgendered children ideating suicide [emphasis mine] [...] this type of treatment is probably far better than the potential alternative. As profiled in the NPR series, both Jona and Violet are much happier and emotionally healthier since being allowed to live in the female gender that matches their internal identity. Bradley, on the other hand, is still struggling with his attempts to remain male and seems, with little joy, to be saying and doing the things that he knows are expected of him. Is he 'fixed'? It is unlikely, since even the current DSM says that treatment for childhood gender identity disorder is 'likely to be long-term with small gains made on underlying issues as treatment progresses' and that a prognosis for treating the disorder is 'mixed' and that 'same-sex identification may be very difficult to achieve.'"

While gender dysphoria has never been my issue, there are other kinds of dysphoria. This past year, when I was supposed (and I mean that also in the transitive sense, universally supposed) to be the happiest and most contented I'd ever been, was the first time in my life when I regularly contemplated what would be the most practical, i.e. effective, way of killing myself. Gazing longingly at bridges and overpasses. Eyeing the timing of oncoming cars analytically. Running my fingers over the kitchen knives. If it were just a matter of flipping off a switch, it'd be one thing, but it's just so hard to destroy a living body. Gas smells awful; You might as well live. -- Sorry to anyone for whom this paragraph is triggery; sorry, sorry. But people should know. Me. This.

I mean, I never got to the point of serious intent, in the sense of actually making plans. But the impulse of "it would be easier -- and possibly even morally preferable -- to die rather than keep living through this" persisted for months. Turns out that's an indicator of a serious disconnect between my external and internal landscape. No kidding, huh?

Truth will out.

(Around Yom Kippur of this year -- after we had started making the decision to split up, in September -- something came up one evening on the topic of death and/or dying, and I remarked to Tiger Boy, "Actually, you know, dying is sounding a lot less appealing at the moment than it has in some months." "I... think that's good," he answered. And so it is. So when my mother said to me very seriously in October, "You are throwing away your happiness with both hands," I was able to say back with equal seriousness, "No. I really don't think so.")

FYI, the second article in the series is on transgendering puberty, here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90273278

Comments

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

“Some weeks back…”
That's cyan_blue's paper.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Er, well, I know -- that was how it came up. But I didn't know if she wanted that publicly associated. >:-)

Ah, but I see she links to her professional webpage from her LJ, so OK.

(I haven't met her, but I know she visited Boston recently!)

[navrins]

Thanks for both links!

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of service. :-)

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

That's a heartbreaking article. As the parent of a small child, the idea of being so cruel, of attempting to control so absolutely the direction and content of a child's most important work--their play--is just shocking and awful.

[bluepapercup]

was the first time in my life when I regularly contemplated what would be the most practical, i.e. effective, way of killing myself.

*huge hug*

I have been there. It maybe wasn't really totally about non-monogamy for me (though that turned out to be part of it!) I was at that point at the end of my relationship with Ben. There was also a point where I regularly fantasized about his untimely death as well, so that I wouldn't have to deal with our situation anymore and I couldn't be at fault for ending it.

Er. Anyway. What I mean, is, you're not alone in feeling the ways you have felt. Thank you for sharing, and letting us be here to witness your honesty.

[muffyjo]

Thank you for these, I find them very helpful. I want to pass them along to my therapist so I'm especially pleased about the one for therapists!

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Well, having just gotten out of a 5 year relationship with someone raised like little Bradley, I can conclusively state that this is the WORST PARENTING EVER.

I just do not understand people who are willing to sacrifice their children to the will of the mob. Seriously. It breaks my head every time I try to contemplate it. You've produced this little person who is your entire responsibility out of your own flesh and blood, and what the mob thinks is more important that who that child is? REALLY?

I always end up wanting to just scream and throw things. I can't even read this sort of article without wanting to go on rampages.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there is some sort of philosophical disconnect here... I found both examples horrible. In the first, no one is explaining to the kid why to fit in, and in the second no one is explaining the full consequences of not fitting in... the focus seems to be on whether they're happy or not, which has nothing to do with whether they're a productive member of society.

[navrins]

Yes, this.

To be fair, (a) it's a bit much for a 3-year-old to understand, and (b) we don't know what isn't stated in the article, which is a brief summary of what I can only assume is a much more complicated situation.

I also have a problem with the implicit assumption that the only two possible options are "force him to act like a boy whether he wants to or not" or "accept that he's transsexual."

I also have a problem with the one kid's parents buying him lots of girl toys and then taking them away. If you're gonna hold the line on being a boy, hold the line - don't suddenly change the rules on him. That's a terrible idea no matter what it's about.

I think that if I were faced with a situation like these, I would want to start out somewhat like (Bradley?)'s parents: gently try to encourage him back to boy behavior. Because sometimes kids just have whims for a while, and I doubt whether it's a good idea to let your kid grow up with a condition that many people will view, rightly or wrongly, as shameful, if you can easily help it. But I think there's a limit to how far I'd push. If he really does hold out for being a girl, even when I've tried to gently push him back to the "norm," and explained to him as best he's able to understand it what the likely consequences of acting like a girl will be - the consequences that neither he nor I can control - well, then at that point I think you've got to accept that this is the way he is, and let him go that way, doing your best to help him (her?) deal with the extra difficulties that decision will cause, and making sure to keep open the way back to being a boy in case he decides to take it as he grows older.

[dpolicar]

What explanations would you suggest? And what good would you expect them to do?

[(Anonymous)]

All that's being discussed in the cases of Jona and Violet is stopping the onset of puberty, so there is no need for a way back. This therapy is only a pause button, not a definitive journey down one path or another. Combined with the requisite psychological counseling to determine if this really is the right path for the child as they become an adult, I think you overestimate the downside and I suspect you're blind to the very real potential upside.

Speaking as someone who wishes this therapy had been available 30 years ago when it would have done me some good, this is a blessing for those who can partake of it.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I do understand the instinct to herd back to the norm. But I think it's unlikely that anyone is going to grow up behaving as the other gender for the rest of their life because of a whim they had at age three. The nature of whims is that they don't last.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I also have a problem with the one kid's parents buying him lots of girl toys and then taking them away. If you're gonna hold the line on being a boy, hold the line - don't suddenly change the rules on him.

Well, but, that was the "therapy", right? I mean, the therapist told them it was the best way to help. And in all fairness, therapeutic intervention is often about shaking up existing patterns. :-}

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I think it's just as unfair to say monogamy is unnatural as to say that polyamory is, or heterosexual vs. homosexual, etc. People are wired differently. sdavido and I are both completely monogamous (which works out well, since we're married); when single, neither of us was emotionally able to date more than one person at a time, even casually. I now can't imagine being attracted to anyone else. I would never force my lifestyle, or my religion for that matter, on anyone else, but I should have an equal right to not be called "unnatural."

[besamim.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I'm fully accepting of poly relationships but to be told that my monogamous preference is the odd one out is, well...odd. As for the "natural/unnatural" angle, well, there are animal species that have multiple simultaneous mates, those that are serial monogamists, and those that are monogamous for life.

Also, with regard to the linked Jay Michaelson article, why do certain people (he's hardly alone in this) persist in arguing for acceptance of polyamory by citing the historical pervasiveness and acceptance of polygamy? Hello? Polygamy, as practiced from the earliest recorded history to the present day, is a highly patriarchal and hierarchical institution in which wives are often purchased as a luxury by wealthy men, and even when that's not the case, there's nearly always a "head wife" who gets most or all of the inheritance and other rights, and even she is subordinate to the husband. Even in polyandrous (as opposed to polygynous) societies, in which women have multiple husbands (due to a shortage of women), it's the husbands who are firmly in charge. Either way, this has nothing to do with modern-day polyamory which is rooted in egalitarian mores, in addition to not being limited to heteronormative relationships.

Surely poly advocates can come up with a better analogy or precedent than polygamy, which is rightly banned in modern Western society, even if not originally for egalitarian reasons.

[melopoeia.livejournal.com]

I agree with vettecat in the "we are all different" thing; I second that by saying we are differently different. Some parts of me, if they had won out, might have made me poly, but other parts of me wouldn't be happy that way. So I found my own path. Definitely monogamous, but is it what a conservative monogamous person would consider monogamous? I don't know. And I'm less invested in that than my happiness, and my husband's happiness as it works with mine.

Accept your nature, but never be surprised when you surprise yourself, either.

I have had occassion to find life worth choosing.

[navrins]

I hadn't read the article about Violet when writing my comment. In her case, I think the right thing was done. They tried to nudge her back to the norm for a while, but when it became clear that wasn't helping, they changed course and did what did help. I have no problem with that.

What I was thinking of as "the way back" is making sure you don't get invested in the child being transsexual before they have. If the child were to decide at some point, no, I really am the gender my body looks like, you don't want them to feel like they can't change their mind again, and push them into remaining transsexual when that isn't really what they want. I don't know, and I don't think anyone yet knows, how realistic this scenario is; maybe it would never really happen. But maybe it can.

[navrins]

I don't think that's necessarily true. Conditioning is a powerful thing. If a child gets positive reinforcement at an early age for behaving, on what is at that time a whim, like the opposite gender, it may be that that is a factor in causing GID/transsexuality. If they're seriously headed in that direction even without any such reinforcement, then so be it - but I wouldn't want to be responsible for pushing a child toward what will end up being a harder life.

[navrins]

By the way, if my persistent commenting on this is bugging anyone (especially chanaleh, to whom it's all getting emailed), please let me know. It's something I've been thinking about lately for various reasons, and I seem to be glad to have an excuse to share my tentative conclusions at this point, but I don't need to.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to be a bit harsh, but this sounds awfully like the "if you let a boy have a pink blanket, he's going to totally grow up to love the cock OH NOES!" logic. Allowing a kid to play they way they want and act in a way that makes them comfortable and is non-hurtful to others is not "positive reinforcement" so much as not imposing some really stupid societal requirements on a kid. If a child has enough will to insist that they want to be called a different name, they'll have enough will to insist the other way if they "change their minds". And if a parent's sensitive enough to their kid's distress to notice that they've got gender issues as young as five, they'll also notice if the kid's distressed at the changes. The point is to let the kid grow naturally. If you force them to stay in an alternate gender if they realize it's a mistake, then you're still doing the same bad thing as not letting them express themselves in the first place.

As someone with a number of gay and trans friends, I feel pretty confident that none of them did this to please someone. They did it because this is who they are, and they didn't get a choice about the matter. As chanaleh says, truth will out.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

My four-year-old son *loves* dressing up as Cinderella, complete with frilly purple dress and crown. And he loves trains. His favorite color is purple (probably because his sister's favorite color is purple). I don't think this is going to push him into feeling out of place with his gender, but it might be his way of expressing things he's not sure about yet. But I don't want to interfere either....

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

It maybe wasn't really totally about non-monogamy for me

Well, it certainly wasn't TOTALLY about non-monogamy for me either. But that was the Deal-Breaker. The part that made *him* say "oh, no, everything else you might be to me doesn't matter, nothing I can do here."

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Well, because the part it DOES nevertheless counteract is the "OMG BIBLE SEZ ONE FLESH" argument that there is NO ROOM in a deeply moral/ethical conception of marriage for OUTSIDE ATTACHMENTS.

I see what you're saying about the fundamental disconnect, though. :-}

It's clear to me that societal conceptions of what constitutes an "ideal" or even "good" marriage have tended to shift greatly over the centuries, never mind the millennia, and even within "Western" society. In some ways, this is a real "First World Problem" kind of question -- people never used to live long enough to have to deal with each other for more than 20 years or so ;-) so there was always remarriage but it was more usually due to widowhood, and so on. More to the point, when all your energy goes to bare subsistence, you have none left to worry about whether your marriage is Emotionally Fulfilling.

I have more thoughts on this, but they're going to have to percolate a while, as I am out of time right this second!

[seventorches.livejournal.com]

What you said. I find monogamy...restful.

[gingicat]

Oh, Dear God, how can you let children be tortured the way Bradley is being tortured?

[gingicat]

Agreed.

[navrins]

You may very well be right. I don't claim to know the answer, or even if there is one answer - quite possibly it is different for different people. There could be some people who are [trans, gay, poly, Republican...] because of some strong genetic predisposition, others because of a weaker genetic predisposition plus some formative experiences in their childhood that led them to feel a certain way about themselves and what sort of person they were, others with no genetic predisposition but some very strong childhood experiences... and any number of other reasons. And that's why I would want to be very flexible in dealing with any particular individual.

Gender identity develops throughout childhood and into adolescence (hey, I'm studying for my final even while commenting on LJ!) and lots of things can play into it - kids LEARN how to play, partially by the feedback they get from people around them about how they play. A kid who gets rewarded (by smiles, compliments, presents) the first time zie plays with a doll or expresses interest in wearing dresses is more likely - not certain, but more likely - to internalize that as a good thing to do than one who is not rewarded. They're not likely to remember, at 15, that Mommy smiled at them when they were 15 months old and did a certain thing, and frowned when they did a different thing, but that doesn't mean it didn't play a role in making them who they are today. (And I'm not saying it's the parent's fault, either - I'm just saying that the parent plays a role, in combination with lots of other factors over which they have no control.)

By the time a kid is asking to be called a different name, they've already had whatever formative experiences, if any, contributed to that. By that time, yes, this is who they are, and most likely you need to accept that. But if that's a parent's first clue that there's something atypical about their kid's gender identity, they haven't been paying enough attention.

Okay, now I'm going to put the computer away and *really* go study for my final.

[gingicat]

My boy likes pink. And trucks and cars. And scarves. And baby dolls (which his preschool teachers think is wonderful). He has not asked to wear a dress, but I'll let him if he does. He has occasionally worn pink to school with no repercussions. He likes all kinds of books appropriate to his age. One of our friends has called him "your little metrosexual." I call him my little boy.

My little girl is okay with whatever clothes we put on her, whether hand-me-downs from her brother or her girl cousins. She likes dirt and dolls and cars and stuffed animals and climbing and being generally adventurous. She is beginning to settle down to have stories read to her rather than pointing at pictures and demanding that I name the objects in them.

My little boy is four. My little girl is two. I have no problem with them stepping outside traditional gender roles for any reason, and I can't see how encouraging them to play with the things they like does anything bad. Frankly, I have more important things to worry about, like getting my sensory-overload boy to eat a variety of foods and use the potty without prompting.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I'm groggy and probably not parsing correctly, but I feel like the most important lesson I learned from watching my parents' marriage (nearly 36 years at this point) is that you cannot, and should not, expect to be everything for your partner. That's why you also have friends, after all.

Most couples (which includes Jethrien and I) tend to exclude romance/sexuality from the things that you can get elsewhere. But as Dan Savage constantly notes, there's no reason that has to be so.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Jethrien beat me to it, and it's just as well, because I probably would have been harsher. But in short form: If childhood experiences, particularly parents "encouraging" you in a particular direction, can strongly influence sexuality or gender identity, then why are there gay and trans people in the Bible belt?

Also, there is nothing inherantly "masculine" about trucks or "feminine" about the color pink. Society's choices of what's appropriate for each gender are almost entirely arbitrary. Likewise, what's hanging between your legs is unaffected by whether you wear pants, shorts, skirts, culottes or nothing at all. Did wearing skirts (kilts) turn Scotsmen into women? No, but neither were they responsible for turning them into claymore-hefting berserkers.

Which is the biggest problem I saw in this article (I wrote a locked post about it back in May): That not only are they trying to "cure" a transgender child, but they're doing it in a totally arbitrary and obviously ineffective and cruel way.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

For the record: When I was 7 or 8, I liked to wear an old bridesmaid dress my mother had dumped in the costume box. It had nothing to do with wanting to "really" be female and everything to do with it being one of the best costumes we had. Gender seemed like an arbitrary limit to playing pretend. (Kinda like my female friends who could play Batman if Wonder Woman was already taken.)

Nowadays, I identify strongly as cisgendered and straight. YMMV, but I doubt it's anything to worry about.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

this article (I wrote a locked post about it back in May)

Aha! I could NOT remember where I had initially come across it. Thanks!

As noted, it's... kinda stuck with me. :-}

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't mind the stream of comment notifications one bit. :-)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone is talking about *rewarding* a child for acting out cross-gender -- either experimentally or in terms of deep identity. I take the point of this approach to be that if the *child* finds it *intrinsically* rewarding, as exhibited strongly by both these two, you let them take the lead without pushing an agenda either way.

I also suspect that the number of children this applies to (directly, in terms of gender dysphoria) is not that large, on the whole. The vast majority of small boys don't have deep-seated yearnings to be girls themselves. Even if a larger percentage of them adore playing dress-up in tutus and princess gowns, many of them will grow out of it as their interests turn in other directions down the road. Maybe some of them will turn out to be transgendered, and grow up to be women (whether straight or lesbian). Presumably some of them will eventually discover that they're gay, but remain male-identified. Maybe... whatever, you know? I'm also sure there are plenty of well-adjusted adult gay men who were perfectly stereotypical small boys. *looks around*

Personally, my intuition is that encouraging all kids to play (and role-play) however they want is healthy, and that there's no need to make too big a deal out of their choices from one month to the next, even if they exhibit definite patterns. But, conversely, pathologizing the categories of things a kid wants, loves, and is drawn to? I feel that's a bad thing.

[drwex]

*leaves a pebble*

You're inspiring me to post, too. And, credit where credit is due, Pygment was the one who first found the Lourde quote. I'm glad it resonated with you, too.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm at something of a loss to understand why "explaining the full consequences of not fitting in", especially to a preschooler, is even a relevant issue here.

Are you thinking that if the child understood the consequences of not fitting in, they might choose differently?

Do you think it's inappropriate for the focus of attention to be on the child's level of happiness?

poly fidelity and culture

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

Well, the Christian Bible sez one flesh, anyhow. The Jewish prohibition against same was culturally based.

Even more than the fundamental disconnect, here's what bugs me:

• Tiger was actively or by omission lying to his wife about agreements they made. Most poly people I've been acquainted with also tend to have their own agreements about what works for them - and breaking those is cheating. I've seen it be incredibly destructive, and when poly is involved, it tends to be a terrible rippling tide that destroys multiple relationships... and Michaelson wants to claim this as a pecadillo rather than an ethical failing? If someone is going to cheat, having open relationships only changes the particulars of the cheating - not the fundamental disrespect and disregard for other's feelings at the core of it. Using an instance of infidelity as a platform to promote polyamory seems deeply misguided to me.
  
• Notice about how he pulls out the old chestnut about male desire, and tosses feminism under the bus - maybe I'm misreading, and maybe it's the context of his post, but the subtext seems to be 'come on, men are just LIKE that, if people were okay with it, things would be cool, man!' and women are almost... irrelevant, agentless.
  
• Another reason why patriarchal polygyny is a lousy model to point back to - just because some other model is out there and older... doesn't mean anything except that it's another cultural construct in a completely different cultural context. For good reason, he doesn't mention Mormon fundamentalists.
  
• Humans are adaptable cultural animals. To assert a particular cultural construct of affiliation isn't "natural" is rather missing the point (at least not without serious data to the contrary). Not to mention, a negative case doesn't tend to win friends.
  

Re: poly fidelity and culture

[besamim.livejournal.com]

An excellent expansion on my thoughts re polygamy and naturalness.

I didn't read the Tiger Woods-related article, mainly because I haven't been following his tsuris in any detail due to lack of interest. Nonetheless, I've seen the "men are at the mercy of their desires" argument before, and a weak argument it is indeed, whether it's used as justification for a phenomenon I do otherwise accept (polyamory), or for ones I don't accept, such as infidelity or certain Orthodox Jewish measures to prevent infidelity (separating women and men during worship, prohibiting women from singing in the presence of men, and the like).

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

At the least, the child's adult life will be filled with people who aren't going to focus their attention on his happiness. Learning how to modulate one's behavior-of-the-moment as a bridge between what one is and wants and what is needed and expected by society is quite important.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

"... Whatever we think about such normative questions, the facts of the matter are beyond dispute: monogamous marriage as an ideal that's actually meant to be upheld is a very recent, and not very successful, innovation."

And for that matter, the belief that the ideal is actually meant to be lived seems to be largely confined to the United States (and Canada, I assume). And those places/times seem to correlate with the belief that marriage is primarily to gratify the spouses, as opposed to being a job within the extended family system. (One consequence of spouse-centered marriage is the rising demand for same-sex marriages.) And also correlated with the idea that one's life should be an open book, that what one does and what one says and what everyone else knows about you should match your principles and society's principles.

Oddly, some of Tiger's mistresses aren't at all prey to these ideas, are largely un-ashamed and are now cashing in our their celibrity.