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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This is a book for people energized by the possibilities of modern intimacy, but who feel unsure about their own romantic lives. Alternative lifestyles such as nonmonogamy, while liberating in theory, can feel remote in practice, as we are fixed in place by insecurities and social pressures.
In Romantic Agency, philosopher Luke Brunning encourages readers to think more deeply about what it means for relationships to not only work, but flourish. Guided by the thought that our abilities to be intimate cannot be taken for granted, he argues that our romantic agency is fragile and best cultivated alongside other people. Together we can become more realistic, balance playfulness with integrity, and value each other’s flourishing. Anyone can benefit from this exploration of intimate life, regardless of their relationship status or romantic ideals.
Compelling and timely, Romantic Agency is a groundbreaking account of love and relationships.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Transformations
Romance
Argument Summary
Method
Notes
1 Modern Romance
Selves
Society
Shifts
Disorientation
Democracy
Conclusion
Notes
2 Opening Up
Nonmonogamy
Greed
Unfairness
Monogamy
Freedom
Conclusion
Notes
3 Romantic Agency
Abilities
Relationality
Fragility
Conclusion
Notes
4 Shaping Intimacy
Specialization
Appreciation
Oversight
Anarchization
Conclusion
Notes
5 Realistic Conversation
Conversation
Realism
Optimism
Conclusion
Notes
6 Romantic Risks
Competence
Plans
Integrity
Playfulness
Conclusion
Notes
7 Jealousy
Jealousy
Pluralism
Removal
Management
Conclusion
Notes
8 Grasping the Good
Insularity
Compersion
Contentment
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion
Summary
Cultivation
Domination
Final Thoughts
Notes
References
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Romantic Agency
Loving Well in Modern Life
Luke Brunning
polity
Copyright Page
Copyright © Luke Brunning 2024
The right of Luke Brunning to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2024 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5152-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5153-8 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023946993
by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Pascal Porcheron for taking this project on at Polity Press, and to Ian Malcolm, Ellen MacDonald-Kramer, Leigh Mueller, Chantal Hamill, and Maddie Tyler for helping me to reach the finish. I would also like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers who helped me to improve the text.
This book is the product of my time at the University of Birmingham, and the University of Leeds. My colleagues at Birmingham, especially the ethicists and junior staff, supported me through several temporary contracts, the pandemic, and were kind.
The IDEA Centre in Leeds has been a wonderfully supportive environment over the past year. Thank you for the warm welcome Alice, Andy, Carl, Chris, Graham, Jamie, Jim, Josh, Kathryn, Liz, Merel, Nick, Paula, Rachael, Rob, Robbie, Robbie, Sarah, Sean, Sophie, and Tash. I also appreciate the contribution of everyone who commented on my work in the love reading group, the emotions workshop, the research seminar, the work-in-progress seminar, and other events. I have never had so much friendly criticism, and this book is stronger for it. Special thanks to Jamie Dow for nurturing IDEA’s research environment.
PRHS colleagues at Leeds have also been fantastic. I have learnt from their incisive comments at workshops and events, and benefited from their efforts to cultivate a healthy community. Special thanks to the Bini Brew crew for small-town solidarity.
Sophie Goddard and Ruby Hornsby have been amazing in helping Natasha McKeever and me to set up the Centre of Love, Sex, and Relationships and organize events. Without Alice Burn and Rachael Bowerbank, we would have struggled to make things happen – thank you.
I would also like to thank audiences at the ‘Love etc.’ workshop in Leeds, the MANCEPT workshop on the ‘Future of Love’, the MANCEPT workshop on ‘Equality in Intimate Life’ (especially Esa Díaz-León for engaging with my work on compersion); Angie Pepper for an invitation to speak with people from the University of Roehampton; Suzanne Whitten for the invitation to speak with people from Queen’s University Belfast; Nikhil Krishnan for the invitation to speak to an audience at Cambridge University; and Francesca Miccoli for an invitation to speak with people from Università degli Studi di Milano; and everyone who asked me questions. I would like to thank Herj Marway for conversation when this book was at an early stage; and Alba Cercas Curry, Sophie Goddard, Tom O’Shea, Joseph Saunders, and Margot Witte for some comments on earlier material; and all the other people whose questions or remarks have shaped my thinking over the years.
Few people make philosophy as fun as Pilar Lopez-Cantero. I have learnt much from her work on love, narrative, and the self, and her influence is visible throughout this book.
Natasha McKeever deserves special thanks. Her constructive feedback made this book better, and her encouragement helped me to finish it. She has done so much to make the study of relationships more visible, both at Leeds and beyond, and is a joy to collaborate with.
Thank you to my family Gary, Rosalind, Laura, Rosie, Gill, Ian, Ali, and Ryan. You’ve put up with my antics and kept me going. Thank you to Plosh, Honey, and Minnie for the constant amusement, and for not walking on my keyboard.
Most importantly, Jenny. You show me what it means to nurture and to be delighted by the world. Thank you for your love.
Introduction
Transformations
Love approximates a space to which people can return, becoming as different as they can be from themselves without being traumatically shattered, it is a scene of optimism for change, for a transformational environment. (Lauren Berlant)1
This book is for people who like to think about romantic life.
We live in a time of growing openness to new kinds of intimacy and curiosity about romantic flourishing. Although things are far from perfect, we are less tolerant of miserable relationships, and are more creative in how we live and love. Divorce and remarriage are common; blended families thrive; television dating shows now mention queer desire and non-monogamy.
This openness is exciting. We have greater hope that we can build relationships which suit us, and increasingly feel this is more important than sticking to traditions or following trends. The enforced closeness of the pandemic heightened these feelings as we reflected on our intimate arrangements.
But the growing spotlight on personal flourishing can also create anxiety. We might be unsure what kind of romantic relationship we want, let alone what would be good for us. Even if our desires are clear, our insecurities may leave us doubting whether we can act on them. Will we miss the familiarity of an exclusive relationship? Can we cope with jealousy? What if we are not supported by our friends or family?
This anxiety is not helped by our shifting romantic landscape. Apps and websites have transformed our dating habits in ways which increase our choice, but also our disappointment. Using them can feel like work, tiring but necessary. Worse, the many options to adjust our filters, write a better bio, or just switch from Tinder to Hinge only reinforce the idea that, ultimately, our romantic happiness is down to us – not a nice feeling when yet another date sucks, or we are dumped for someone else.
Dating apps help place the idea of compatibility at the heart of modern romance. Narratives within dating shows or films also reflect this. The underlying thought is that if we can only get things right at the start and find ‘our person’, someone with the same desires and values, then the relationship will flow easily from there. This can be a hard thought to resist since it fits nicely with consumerist instincts: diligent research is supposed to guarantee our satisfaction.
I take seriously this mix of optimism, curiosity, and anxiety. At its heart is the core tension I shall be exploring in this book, which is that we might not have the romantic agency to bring our desires to life. Romantic agency is the name I give to the bundle of abilities which allow us to direct our romantic lives and relationships as we wish. The appeal of unconventional intimacies can make it easy to forget that relationships are ultimately sustained through activity, and that this requires various skills.
These abilities are often acquired slowly, and can be easily undermined. We learn to cope with repressed childhoods, restrictive social norms, or oppressive government policies in ways that can obstruct our flourishing. Even if we are lucky and avoid these problems, unhappy relationships, messy break-ups, or abuse can shape our personalities in ways which make it harder to thrive. These changes are often slow and lie outside of our conscious control. If we step back, we might notice our confidence fading, our insecurity rising, or that we avoid vulnerability by being evasive or aggressive.
Similarly, by focusing on compatibility we can overlook the ways we are changed in our relating to others. We mostly develop our romantic agency when being nurtured by romantic partners. As a result, our desires, values, and character may evolve in surprising ways. These changes can enrich our lives, even if we end up unlike the person we initially described to others in our dating profile.
I will argue that we need to take seriously our romantic agency, and that of our partners, and make choices to protect those abilities. Doing so sets us on the path to flourishing relationships. This process requires us to be realistic, and may leave some desires unsatisfied for now, but it helps us to navigate the tumultuous world of modern romance.
So how do we nurture romantic agency? A full answer would consider political policy as well as personal effort. My focus in this book, however, is mainly on the latter – on the traits and practices which help us to foster intimacy. I will provide arguments to favour a specific way of looking at romantic life, and to embrace several key traits. There are no shortcuts to cultivating those traits, or simple rules that could take their place. Relating well to other people is ongoing and difficult.
Romance
Before summarizing the argument of this book, it helps to clarify what I mean by romantic life. I understand romantic life broadly, since we experience intimacy in many ways. Romantic life includes our sexuality, dating practices, and relationships. Romantic love, specifically, is a contested idea, and is not a feature of all romantic relationships.2
Similarly, sex is a feature of some but not all romantic relationships. Some asexual people, for instance, who do not experience sexual attraction to others, have little or no sexual activity with their romantic partners.3 Other people are celibate or cannot have sex. For others, sex occupies a minor part of their romantic lives.
We do not need to be in a relationship to have a romantic life. Single people have sex, go on dates, talk to potential partners, and process break-ups. Much of romantic life lies outside socially recognized relationships. The partnered perspective, usually that of couples, may be socially dominant but is one of many perspectives. As the prevalence of infidelity indicates, our romantic attention can easily be directed to people outside our recognized relationships.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but my understanding of romantic life also includes people who identify as aromantic. ‘Aromanticism’ is a label used by people who experience little to no romantic attraction. Although most aromantic people have little interest in romantic relationships, many enjoy sexual intimacy.
I am often asked how to draw a boundary between romantic life and other forms of intimacy but I am not sure there is one. Counter-examples are available for every candidate feature we can consider, from bodily intimacy to sharing projects or domestic space with someone. Asexual romantic couples, non-cohabiting spouses, platonic co-parents, aromantic sexual partners, friends with benefits: these configurations exist and complicate any attempts to define romantic life. Appealing to romantic love does not help either. Not all romantic entanglements involve love, and it seems unlikely we can define romantic love in a way which makes it radically distinct from love of friends or family.4
If pressed, my preferred approach to the boundary question is to say that romantic life is distinct not because of some special experience involved, but in virtue of how we locate our experiences in a web of social meanings. Our social world is animated by labels and stories which shape how people interpret what we are doing.5 These patterns of meaning are imprecise, contested, and local to specific social contexts. But they have momentum. If you have sex with someone you love, for example, chances are other people will ‘read’ your intimacy in romantic terms. You could disagree with them, but the need to disagree and to define yourself against their interpretation points to the social reality of the meanings in play. We understand what counts as romantic not in terms of some essential feature, but in terms of the stories and labels we reach for to make ourselves understood.
I will shift between talking of romantic life, in general, and relationships in particular. Talk of relationships is not intended to imply they are all long-lasting or socially recognized. I will also talk of relationship configurations and policies. A configuration is the broad set-up of the relationship, for example whether it is monogamous, heterosexual, or domestic. A policy, in contrast, is a specific rule or expectation which we might have within a relationship, such as agreeing to use contraception or to share finances.
You might think that, rather than focusing on romantic life, in particular, it would be better to focus on intimacy as a general feature which can be present in different parts of life, from the family to the workplace. No doubt this would be a valuable project. Understanding what intimacy is, for example, is no easy task.6 Some of what I say below also applies to intimacy more broadly, and it would not be a stretch to have named this book ‘intimate agency’.
That said, romantic life demands independent attention. Here I am influenced by my own experiences. Romantic relationships have a tendency to engage our desires, emotions, and bodily presence in ways which are sustained and intense. Living with someone, or spending lots of time with them, shapes our personalities more strongly than many friendships.
Our attitudes towards romantic life are also more ambivalent. It is hard to reconcile the ideal of relationships as the place where we can be most ourselves and resist tradition with the reality that social pressure seems greatest in romantic situations and we are often held back by our habits and entrenched feelings.
A final reason to focus on romantic life concerns our relationships. Even if intimacy is common to many areas of life, we often pursue romantic intimacy in defined relationships. The idea of a relationship helps us to organize and make sense of our actions with other people. We make many decisions by thinking about our relationships: how are we to spend our time, what shall we do, where shall we be, how shall we behave, what are we prepared to miss out on? There is a sense, then, in which each romantic relationship is entered into as an ‘experiment in living’, to use John Stuart Mill’s phrase. Even if we are happy with our own experiment in living, there is value in exploring other experiments because other people may have stumbled upon a better arrangement or come to understand a familiar value, such as commitment, in a new way.7
Argument Summary
This book divides into two parts. The first four chapters aim to tidy our thinking about romantic life by describing our situation, replying to some concerns about unconventional relationships, and then focusing our attention onto the idea of romantic agency. The rest of the book provides an account of some traits and practices that nurture our romantic agency.
In chapter 1, I present my understanding of modern love. Although our romantic practices are changing, and new attitudes are forming, they are still structured around several entrenched romantic norms about love, romantic exclusivity, and sex. Together, these norms can be disorienting.
One response to the disorientation of modern love is to explore possible alternatives. Non-monogamous lifestyles, such as polyamory where we have multiple intimate relationships, offer a vision of unconventional intimacy. Yet discussions of non-monogamy remain morally polarized. Some think non-monogamy is obviously immoral; others, that monogamy is. In chapter 2, I cut through these debates. After defending non-monogamous lifestyles from the worry that they are impractical, greedy, or unfair, I argue that some kinds of intimate restrictions can help us to sustain relationships.
Chapter 3 focuses on romantic agency. I show how these abilities are formed alongside other people, can be undermined, and might not be enough to help us satisfy our desires. Chapter 4 then explores the impact of different relationship dynamics on romantic agency, with their benefits and pitfalls. I explore the idea that exclusivity is a useful form of intimate specialization, and that non-monogamy might keep alive romantic appreciation, increase oversight, or offer us new relational practices.
The second half of the book begins, in chapter 5, with a discussion of realism. We can struggle to understand ourselves, our partners, or our relationship dynamic because we are defensive or fixated on a romantic ideal. Overcoming these gaps in understanding helps us to be more realistic, which, in turn, helps us to make choices that suit our romantic agency. We achieve this through conversation with others, not romantic negotiation.
Realism has its limits because we may struggle to understand how we will react in unfamiliar situations. Will opening up a relationship, for example, be satisfying or overwhelming? To require us to know how we will react entrenches traditional relationships, so is there a good way to take romantic risks? In chapter 6, I suggest that integrity and playfulness help us here. Understood correctly, integrity makes us reliable; we consider other people and make amends for our inevitable missteps. Playfulness helps us to explore, be serious but flexible, and accept that other people mess up.
Turbulent feelings such as jealousy are common barriers to intimacy. In chapter 7, I explore jealousy in detail and argue that, since jealousy can play a variety of roles in romantic life, we should be wary of blanket calls to remove it. We are better off trying to manage jealousy and we do this through, amongst other things, the compression of our feelings, and efforts to ‘hold’ other people experiencing challenging emotions.
We might be good at managing the negative aspects of romantic life yet fail to appreciate the positive aspects. In chapter 8, I consider how we can grasp these good things and become less comparative by exploring contentment and the idea of compersion, the emotion of feeling good for a partner’s flourishing with someone else.
I conclude by considering how we cultivate romantic agency. This is partly the personal task of working on ourselves, but also the social task of encouraging exploration and working to minimize domination. Some of these personal changes are best served through building nurturing environments, not just introspection.
Method
Writing about romantic life can be difficult. When we generalize, we risk neglecting the particularities of love and relationships, but if we fixate on detail, we risk having limited relevance. It is also easy to moralize or be uncharitable when writing about intimacy or, to avoid those dangers, to be clinical and overlook its messier aspects.
Hopefully I can avoid these dangers. I want this book to contribute to the wider conversation about romantic life. Many of the themes I examine are being discussed with care in everyday conversations around the world. My contribution is to systematize some aspects of these discussions by approaching them with the resources of modern philosophy.
Occasionally, people have suggested to me that romantic life does not need philosophy; that we should leave alone a fun and intuitive part of life. This seems wrong to me. Intimate life is practically and intellectually challenging. Romantic relationships are shaped by social and political factors, not just personal ones. The ordinary concepts we use in talking with partners, concepts such as commitment, consent, respect, reciprocity, and love, are intricate and subject to different interpretations. The ordinary work of making sense of these ideas, of bringing them into focus and acting on them, is partly philosophical work.
This does not mean we are always theorizing. In practice, we usually think hardest when we disagree or have to make tough choices. We rarely stop to scrutinize our assumptions or core concepts. Occasional reflection is useful, however, and I hope to contribute to those moments and provide new questions to consider. One relevant idea within the book is that we have to create nurturing surroundings because rational reflection is rarely sufficient to change us as we would like.
A note on my choice of language. This book is written from my perspective, and I have biases like anyone. I have intentionally decided to write of what ‘we’ think or what is good for ‘our’ romantic lives, for two reasons. I want you to feel included and to consider these ideas from your perspective, but I also know it can be annoying to be attributed a viewpoint you do not hold. My hope is that the occasionally jarring quality of ‘we’ can be more useful than the neutral ‘one’ because it helps you to recognize the places where we disagree.
Finally, a note on notes. This book uses endnotes only to provide references to the texts I mention or to relevant readings. All caveats, objections, and asides are in the main body of text.
Notes
1
Cited in Ann Brooks,
Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society: Love in an International Context
(London: Routledge, 2019), 3.
2
Benjamin Bagley, ‘(The Varieties of) Love in Contemporary Anglophone Philosophy’, in
The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), 453–64.
3
Luke Brunning and Natasha McKeever, ‘Asexuality’,
Journal of Applied Philosophy
38, no. 1 (2021): 497–517.
4
Bennett W. Helm,
Love, Friendship, and the Self: Intimacy, Identification, and the Social Nature of Persons
(Oxford University Press, 2009), 4.
5
Ásta,
Categories We Live By: The Construction of Sex, Gender, Race, and Other Social Categories
(Oxford University Press, 2018).
6
Jasmine Gunkel, ‘What Is Intimacy?’,
The Journal of Philosophy
(forthcoming).
7
R. C. Otter, ‘Perfectionist Argument for Legal Recognition of Polyamorous Relationships’, in
Philosophical Foundations of Children’s and Family Law
, ed. Elizabeth Brake and Lucinda Ferguson (Oxford University Press, 2018), 95–114.
1Modern Romance
… most approaches to society presume that society equips individuals with the tools to be competent members of it. (Eva Illouz)1
Depending on who you ask, you will get a characterization of modern love as a time of great decline, a time of exciting possibility, or something halfway between. This chapter offers my perspective. I want to unearth and organize some of the norms and constraints which structure our romantic interactions and ideals. With a good grasp of our romantic situation, we are better able to understand how it can impact us and why we might seek to live differently.
Selves
Our romantic lives are doubly constrained. We are creatures of a particular kind, but we are also receptive to the norms and structures of our society. To understand our romantic situation, we must appreciate both sources of constraint.
So, what are we like? Here are some dimensions of an answer that will prove important as this book develops.
We are vulnerable. Irrespective of our self-image, we are creatures who depend on others. This dependency marks our lives from the beginning and is visible in our attachment bonds. In infancy, we form attachments to caregivers. An attachment bond is an orientation to a specific person who serves as a source of security and an anchor around which we strike out and explore the world.2 This bond takes different forms, depending how we are treated, with ‘secure’ attachment being prized in connection to later development and even virtue.3 We form attachments throughout our lives, including in our romantic relationships.4 These bonds are not easily moulded by our conscious thought. As Monique Wonderly describes attachment, to be attached to someone is to experience them ‘as felt needs, such that without them we are not quite alright, but we feel as though we are in some sense unwell, less together, and unable to navigate the world quite as competently’.5 Our ability to act well, and feel grounded in our abilities, depends on the behaviour of our attachment figures.
Our relationships with attachment figures also illustrate the many ways we are porous. We are open to, and absorb, the presence of other people by internalizing their presence. Family, friends, and lovers become figures in our interior conversations; they are perspectives from which we view the world.6 Our patterns of thinking, storytelling, and even how we move our bodies are marked by the idiolects we form with these people. Sadly, the way a specific person shapes our interior life often only comes into view when things change suddenly, such as after a break-up or bereavement.7
Internalization enables us to be historical and shaped by our past. New relationships are often seen through the eyes of old relationships, which can be confusing. Specific traumas can reignite in a present moment and shake our sense of place or identity.8 Past abuse, assault, and betrayal can colour a relationship with someone new. Further back, our character is shaped by our time as children in the home or the classroom. Deeper still is the social impact of poverty or oppression, which shapes our life chances. Significantly, the past does not just impact what we want or think, but also how our bodies behave and what we are prone to feel. Insecurity or jealousy, for example, can overwhelm an open mind.
Conflict and ambivalence, which are common features of romantic life, are exacerbated by our opacity. We are not easily known to ourselves, and our peculiarities can evade easy understanding. This is a structural feature of creatures like us – our attention is not broad enough to capture our complex habits and interior lives.9 Our defensiveness makes this lack of self-knowledge harder to overcome. It can be easier to seek refuge in fantasy, rather than confront unpleasant aspects of ourselves or those around us.
Opacity would not be as challenging as it is if we did not change. But we are mutable. We change in ways which can outrun our ability to make sense. Our bodies age and undergo significant shifts through puberty, midlife, parenthood, the menopause, and into later life. Our surfaces and textures change. Sexual desire and even orientation may alter unpredictably.10 We might transition gender. Illness or injury may require chemical response. Sustained exercise can mould our muscles and mindset. These physical shifts sometimes have psychological shadows which together alter intimacy. Social changes also shape us. When we take on new roles or identities, like becoming a parent or starting a new job, we are acquainted with new values and patterns of action.11 Even moving to a different built environment can change how we are prone to act around other people.12
Finally, we are fiercely comparative creatures. We understand ourselves in reference to many standards: social ideals and role models, traits of character, conceptions of what is normal. Our sense of success and failure also relates to social standards of excellence, to the ‘regulative ideals’ of being a friend, lover, or spouse.13 Similar forms of comparative evaluation shape our judgements about gender, ability, race, and appearance. This ranking is ongoing, and inflects every aspect of our lives, including our emotional responses. Aaron Ben-Ze’ev goes so far as to say that ‘emotional meaning is mainly comparative’.14 Emotions, such as envy or hope, make sense of our world relative to a baseline. This baseline includes both our sense of how things are for us, or others, and our sense of how things ought to be. In turn, our sense of how things ought to be is informed by our social context, and enlarged by our imagination. Our emotional lives will suffer if the grip of either is too dominant, or inflexible. This will prove important when thinking about contentment, in chapter 8.
I have described some dimensions of our nature. As should be clear, we are vulnerable to being shaped by forces which either predate us or seem external to us. People working within the existential tradition of philosophy would say we are sedimented into our context. Jesse Prinz, for example, describes sedimentation as ‘the phenomenon of experiencing the world and acting in it through the filter of the past, without necessarily realizing it’.15 The geological metaphor captures the sense in which the influence of history and our social context norms, ideals, and significant projects is not some ‘benign residue that we can bring into the light and then wipe away’ but rather ‘a pervasive lattice of forces that make deviation difficult or even impossible’.16 One reason why sedimentation is hard to notice is because it appears natural. Our experiences, the meanings associated with them, and the norms structuring them, can seem ‘just how things are’. Actively understanding, let alone freeing ourselves from, this sticky sediment is not easy.17
This is not to suppose that sedimentation takes one form or is experienced the same way by everyone. Nor must we think that our actions are rigidly determined by our social world. But recognition of the ways we are open to influence, the ways our social context provides that influence, and the stickiness of that influence, should make us inquire more into the content of our social world. In particular, we can ask: which norms shape our romantic context?
Society
Three norms lie at the heart of our romantic culture: amatonormativity, mononormativity, and sex negativity. They can be given simple definitions, but their reach can be hard to recognize until they are threatened.
Amatonormativity is a term coined by Elizabeth Brake to capture ‘the disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal’.18 Amatonormative societies such as my own, the contemporary United Kingdom, privilege romantic love over friendships or other kinds of caring or intimate relationship; they hold that love is more significant than sex; and they are hostile to people who are intentionally single. Amatonormativity can be seen in every restless question about when we will find love, secure a partner, and marry.
Mononormativity expresses the idea that our romantic relationships should be dyadic and exclusive, which means they should involve one and only one person at a time.19 This exclusivity should ideally be sexual and emotional, and we should also be ‘partisan’ – that is, closed off to the idea of meeting new people or interacting with them romantically.20 Talk of ‘the one’ is evidence of mononormativity, and ‘supermonogamy’ is the even more extreme idea that we have literally only one soulmate.21
Sex negativity, or what Michael Warner calles ‘erotophobia’, expresses the idea that sexuality, attraction, desire, and sex are fraught, potentially dangerous, and need hiding away or controlling.22 In sex-negative societies, free expression of sexual desire and delight in sexual pleasure is suppressed, or tightly managed, or is only available to some people.
These three norms form part of the fundamental romantic ideal of our time, where someone is meant to have a life oriented towards one partner, who is the sole focus of their romantic desires and feelings, which deepen over time, and with whom they share a domestic life. In turn, this ideal is fleshed out by other social norms concerning sexuality and gender, race, class, age, and ability. For example, the dominant social conception of a romantic relationship, the picture that comes to mind or which features in literature, film, and adverts, is one involving cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied people of a similar racial and class background. Other forms of romantic life are increasingly tolerated, but do not come to mind as easily when people talk about romantic love, and are rarely celebrated.
It is worth noting that the three core norms do not share the same historical trajectory. Amatonormativity is perhaps the most recent in the sense that romantic love has only recently been viewed as central to committed relationships and individual flourishing.23 These core norms also intersect uneasily. We could embrace one of them without embracing the others. More interestingly, they are in subtle tension with each other. If amorous relationships are so important and central to our flourishing, for example, then the monogamy norm seems restrictive. Why not have several amorous relationships? If sexuality is dangerous and needs careful management, then why are relationships where sexuality is typically absent, like friendships, valued less in our society than amorous unions?
The practical impact of these core norms is also uneven. Some of us have more ‘intimate privilege’ than others. This is a term coined by Nathan Rambukkana to capture the fact that if, relative to other people, we have more of an ability to take up social space, to use resources, take action, express opinions, and generally chart the course of our lives as we please, we have more of an ability to shape our romantic relationships as we like and deviate from established romantic norms.24 Marginalized and oppressed people have this ability to a lesser extent. So, although amatonormativity, mononormativity, and sex negativity are deeply sedimented in many societies, we must resist the temptation to suppose they shape everyone’s experiences evenly.
It is tempting to think these core romantic norms are waning due to social change, the impact of the sexual revolution, and the radical activism of feminists and sexual minorities. But look closer and they remain dominant. Local deviations from one norm are often allowed only if accompanied by the vocal explicit endorsement of the others.
Increasing acceptance of homosexual marriages, for example, often involves the explicit attempt to emphasize their monogamous character and distance them from forms of plural intimacy. Philosopher Stephen Macedo, for instance, offered arguments in favour of gay marriage in the United States only to then suggest that ‘legitimizing the “poly” option within marriage undermines the good of marital commitment as currently understood because so many married persons would find this a deeply unwelcome option’.25 Only a few years previously, people were directing the same reasoning towards gay marriage itself.
Nor have the sexual revolution and modern ‘hookup culture’ replaced the social ideal of exclusive amorous relationships, or the thought that marriage should be to one person at a time. Similarly, sex negativity sits alongside the sexualization in society, as paradoxical as that can seem. As Warner makes clear, an underlying social aversion to eroticism ‘can coexist with and even feed on commercialized titillation, desperate fascination, therapeutic celebration and punitive prurience’.26 Sexual expression is tolerated insofar as it does not fundamentally challenge amatonormativity, or monogamy. In my current political climate, for example, it is hard to imagine people, especially women, being elected to national political office after proclaiming their enthusiasm for uncommitted casual sex and disinterest in long-term loving romantic relationships.
Shifts
Deeply sedimented norms serve as fixed points around which societies change. We can better appreciate our own romantic context by briefly considering some of the ways our romantic practices and intimate ideals have changed.27
One broad shift is the move to romantic individualism from relationships embedded in community. There used to be more clarity around romantic life partly due to its underlying contractual structure which left less space for personal inclinations and expression.28 People understood their individual roles relative to family, wider society, and the state; they had a reasonable sense of how to form, maintain, and possibly end romantic relationships.
The social changes instigated by industrial capitalism brought pressure to bear on the social oversight of courting and marriage and began to muddy romantic expectations. The grip of community and family weakened as industrialization changed how people lived, where they lived, and for how long they lived.29 As jobs clustered in cities, so did romantic opportunities. Proximity bred passion, and passion bred politics as new people formed new visions of love and marriage and sought greater romantic freedom.
These social changes transformed how we understand romantic life. Love went from being a welcome side-effect of some pragmatic unions, to the core goal of courtship.30 Relationships became increasingly private and domestic sites of personal romantic happiness, rather than social units of production.
These changes continue into our time. Our use of dating apps and websites helps to further ‘privatize’ intimacy.31 Even friends and family might struggle to know who we are attracted to, dating, or have relationships with. Romantic entanglements can become ‘public’ much later, and in ways we try to control. In countries with a free internet, we can experiment and seek romantic satisfaction with little oversight.
Romantic relationships are now increasingly viewed as what Anthony Giddens called ‘pure relationships’, which we sustain only as long as they meet our desires.32 Relationships are viewed as good in their own right, and can be enjoyed without pooling resources, sharing a home, or raising children with someone. We still value commitment, clearly, but we increasingly see ourselves as bound by personalized bundles of rights and responsibilities rather than traditional obligations. Perhaps the limit case of our modern forms of romantic self-definition are ‘situationships’, where we engage in sexual or romantic activity but ‘implicitly or explicitly agree that they are to be non-relationships’.33
I do not want to overstate these changes. We may form relationships in new ways, and value them for different reasons, but our romantic ideals would not be alien to someone from the late nineteenth century. Romantic life remains amatonormative, monoganormative, and sex-negative. These norms are points of orientation around which we experiment; we have some flexibility in how we respect these norms, but less freedom to walk away completely.
The psychological dimensions of the shift to romantic modernity are more interesting.
Sociologist Eva Illouz argues that romantic modernity fosters a distinct ‘emotional modernity’.34 This mindset is a consequence of the fragmentation of romantic life into domains of domestic, emotional, and sexual competence. Our conduct in each domain has become a matter of expertise. Keep house. Work on our relationships. Stay attractive. Be good at sex.
As the proliferation of dating shows illustrates, albeit in exaggerated form, modern romantic culture is explicitly comparative. We evaluate our performance and prospects against those of other people, and delight in judging celebrity relationships. Dating apps put the gameshow in the pocket. We can screen potential partners in terms of discrete categories – likes, traits, values, looks – or sift them using an aggregated ‘match’ score. Opaque algorithms promise to make our comparisons easier and compatibility more tangible.
Disorientation
Although the shift to modern romance generates uncertainty, people disagree about whether this is a bad thing. Eva Illouz, for example, gives voice to uncertainty in pessimistic mode. She argues that modern romantic life is characterized by ‘negative’ relations in which the shape of our personal desires means that we either shy away from relationships, or struggle to form and maintain them.35 According to her this happens in several ways.
First, as our romantic relationships become associated with possibilities for self-expression, development, and the exercise of autonomy, we might stop relating to other people as distinct individuals and use them instead as instruments for our fulfillment. Our striving to be romantic experts, or to compare and judge, hamper our ability to see someone as a messy, particular, individual.
Second, the casualization of romance creates a ‘generalized, chronic and structural uncertainty’.36 Lack of clear dating rituals, for instance, can make it hard to understand and appreciate the feelings of other people. We think that was a friendly drink, but they thought it was a date. These ambiguities often favour privileged people who can exploit them while denying they are doing so. Another example concerns our increased romantic choices. When we are trying to evaluate ourselves and stand out relative to the ‘shifting reference points’ of romantic worth, such as our beauty, humour, or sexual experience, it is easy to feel our confidence fade. We risk becoming defensive and braced for rejection. These doubts about our worth may also hinder our ability to appreciate other people as individuals.37
Third, the rising demand for romantic expertise, and the division of romantic life into spheres of competence, including emotional competence, means we are trying increasingly to seem confident and secure rather than ‘needy’.38 Neediness can be viewed as a burden from the perspective of the pure relationship ideal, in which we evaluate each other in terms of what we each contribute to a relationship. Detachment can also appear sensible when we are unsure whether a date will lead to something more, or whether they really like us.
Fourth, we are prone to monitor ourselves. How vulnerable should we be? How much personality is it wise to show? Romantic life involves strategizing and self-awareness as we question how much risk we are prepared to embrace in the pursuit of intimacy.
Curiously, Illouz thinks that these forms of ‘negative’ relating have ‘no moral implications’.39 To me, however, they sound troubling (not to mention exhausting). We should worry, I think, if modern romantic practices or norms make it harder for us to attend to other people as individuals. This attention is central to plausible accounts of what romantic love involves.40 It also seems central to good sexual interactions.41
Strategies of detachment are also likely to hinder intimacy and alienate us from a valuable aspect of human interaction. Signalling detachment to someone is rarely helpful when we are attached to them, and hiding neediness in contexts of genuine need only makes our lives harder, and lonelier. If our attempts to withdraw become habitual, they can morph into what I would call romantic irony, where we hold the joys and disappointments of romantic life at arm’s length and resist becoming emotionally invested or vulnerable.
Alternatively, we might get trapped in tiring efforts to stand out from the crowd and make ourselves seem like a good romantic match. It is hard to change our appearance, harder to change our character, harder still to adjust our social position, and impossible to alter our history. These efforts also risk turning our attention away from other people or the positive features of our situation.
The coping strategies which Illouz regards as central to modern romantic life look to me to be examples of what Lisa Tessman calls ‘moral damage’.42 We are morally damaged when we develop traits that help us to cope with an oppressive social context, but in ways which make it harder for us to lead flourishing lives. She notes that we cannot guarantee that ‘society equips individuals with the tools to be competent members of it’.43
Tessman’s work focuses on societies marred by racial or sexual oppression, but her general ideal can be adapted to any context where norms and practices are entrenched. To be clear, this is not to suggest that the personal impact of romantic norms is as severe as that of racial norms, nor to overlook the ways that these norms intersect.44
Moral damage takes at least three forms: we can fail to develop a useful trait or virtue, such as compassion; we can manifest a helpful trait too much, or in the wrong contexts, like caution; and we can develop a trait or habit which undermines our wider flourishing, such as jealousy or romantic irony.
