Monogamy Genes
This is really interesting to me. I think it explains a lot, actually. I never liked the "some people are jealous" thing as an explanation. I don't doubt that I'm more "jealous" than some people I know who are honestly flabbergasted by exclusivity. But I never really thought it had to do with my being weird and controlling.
Well, okay, I'm dominant, and that may be related somewhere along the line. I can't imagine someone being my devoted slave and having another serious relationship. It fritzes my brain to try to figure that out. And no, I don't mean that I think that the submissive folks I know who have multiple partners are less devoted. I just... for me part of the power dynamic is knowing they're mine, and I can't quite figure out dealing with them being someone else's too.
I just... don't really feel like being deeply intimate with others when I'm intimate with one. It puzzles me and feels threatening when my partner doesn't mirror those feelings, even if I know the person loves me. I worried that was a failing for a long time, but I came to think it was... well, "orientational" is a really overused word these days, but it's the best one I can think of.
It's not that I never desire anyone else -- hell, I've played with others while partnered, and I co-topped just last week. I'm not monogamous as an identity (though I very often am in practice) so much as I am monoamorous, but that word hasn't caught on yet. :) And that's not really an identity so much as it's just how I am.
It's more that somehow, to me, a sexual relationship makes me want to get as close as I can to one person, and opening up the same degree of emotional connection with someone else simply to "be poly" seems like a waste of time. I can imagine ending up in multiple close relationships, but I'd have to be very, very close to everyone. I can't even imagine going looking for that, much less going looking for that from the outset because I have an inner sense of myself as needing many sexual loves. It's not that I don't think some people do, it's that it just doesn't parse as anything connected to me.
Anyway, article (worded in a rather anti-poly way with which I don't agree):
What if you could tell whether a man is husband material just by peering at his genes?
There has been speculation about the role of the hormone vasopressin in humans ever since we discovered that variations in where receptors for the hormone are expressed makes prairie voles strictly monogamous but meadow voles promiscuous; vasopressin is related to the "cuddle chemical" oxytocin. Now it seems variations in a section of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in people help to determine whether men are serial commitment-phobes or devoted husbands.
Hasse Walum at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues looked at the various forms of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in 552 Swedish people, who were all in heterosexual partnerships. The researchers also investigated the quality of their relationships.
They found that variation in a section of the gene called RS3 334 was linked to how men bond with their partners. Men can have none, one or two copies of the RS3 334 section, and the higher the number of copies, the worse men scored on a measure of pair bonding.
Not only that, men with two copies of RS3 334 were more likely to be unmarried than men with one or none, and if they were married, they were twice as likely to have a marital crisis.
Well, okay, I'm dominant, and that may be related somewhere along the line. I can't imagine someone being my devoted slave and having another serious relationship. It fritzes my brain to try to figure that out. And no, I don't mean that I think that the submissive folks I know who have multiple partners are less devoted. I just... for me part of the power dynamic is knowing they're mine, and I can't quite figure out dealing with them being someone else's too.
I just... don't really feel like being deeply intimate with others when I'm intimate with one. It puzzles me and feels threatening when my partner doesn't mirror those feelings, even if I know the person loves me. I worried that was a failing for a long time, but I came to think it was... well, "orientational" is a really overused word these days, but it's the best one I can think of.
It's not that I never desire anyone else -- hell, I've played with others while partnered, and I co-topped just last week. I'm not monogamous as an identity (though I very often am in practice) so much as I am monoamorous, but that word hasn't caught on yet. :) And that's not really an identity so much as it's just how I am.
It's more that somehow, to me, a sexual relationship makes me want to get as close as I can to one person, and opening up the same degree of emotional connection with someone else simply to "be poly" seems like a waste of time. I can imagine ending up in multiple close relationships, but I'd have to be very, very close to everyone. I can't even imagine going looking for that, much less going looking for that from the outset because I have an inner sense of myself as needing many sexual loves. It's not that I don't think some people do, it's that it just doesn't parse as anything connected to me.
Anyway, article (worded in a rather anti-poly way with which I don't agree):
What if you could tell whether a man is husband material just by peering at his genes?
There has been speculation about the role of the hormone vasopressin in humans ever since we discovered that variations in where receptors for the hormone are expressed makes prairie voles strictly monogamous but meadow voles promiscuous; vasopressin is related to the "cuddle chemical" oxytocin. Now it seems variations in a section of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in people help to determine whether men are serial commitment-phobes or devoted husbands.
Hasse Walum at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues looked at the various forms of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in 552 Swedish people, who were all in heterosexual partnerships. The researchers also investigated the quality of their relationships.
They found that variation in a section of the gene called RS3 334 was linked to how men bond with their partners. Men can have none, one or two copies of the RS3 334 section, and the higher the number of copies, the worse men scored on a measure of pair bonding.
Not only that, men with two copies of RS3 334 were more likely to be unmarried than men with one or none, and if they were married, they were twice as likely to have a marital crisis.