Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology

210 Pages·2016·3.44 MB·English

by  Angela Willey

UNDOING
MONOGAMY

UNDOING
MONOGAMY
The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology
ANGELA WILLEY
duke university press durham and london 2016
© 2016 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞
Designed by Heather Hensley
Typeset in Whitman and Trade Gothic Condensed by Copperline
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Willey, Angela, [date] author.
Title: Undoing monogamy : the politics of science and the
possibilities of biology / Angela Willey.
Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2015045617
isbn 9780822361404 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn 9780822361596 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn 9780822374213 (e-book)
Subjects: lcsh: Non-monogamous relationships. | Monogamous
relationships. | Sexual minorities — Sexual behavior. | Sexual
ethics.
Classification: lcc hq980.w555 2016 | ddc 176/.4 — dc23
lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045617
Cover art: Resa Blatman, Aphrodite’s Garden (detail).
resablatman.com
this book is dedicated to those
who live the high costs of the
naturalized privatization of care.

Despite claims to the contrary . . . there are few signs that
heterosexual monogamy is in terminal decline. The majority of
adults continue to live in heterosexual relationships, while the
normalization of homosexuality could be said to be working
toward the heterosexualization of lesbian and gay lives. . . . In
the process the norm of the “loving couple” as the ideal basis
for adult life becomes even more fully entrenched. We should
maybe heed the critical insights of those earlier feminists who
warned that the concentration of love and care into couples and
families impoverished the rest of social life.
— Stevi Jackson, “Love, Social Change, and Everyday Heterosexuality” (2013)
We need to know where we live in order to imagine living
elsewhere. We need to imagine living elsewhere before we
can live there.
— Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters (2008)

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
introduction Politics and Possibility:
A Queer Feminist Introduction to Monogamy 1
1 Monogamy’s Nature: Colonial Sexual Science and
Its Naturecultural Fruits 25
2 Making the Monogamous Human: Mating,
Measurement, and the New Science of Bonding 45
3 Making Our Poly Nature: Monogamy’s Inversion and
the Reproduction of Difference 73
4 Rethinking Monogamy’s Nature: From the Truth of
Non/Monogamy to a Dyke Ethics of “Antimonogamy” 95
5 Biopossibility: Molecular Monogamy and
Audre Lorde’s Erotic 121
epilogue Dreams of a Dyke Science 141
Notes 147
Bibliography 169
Index 191