What I Learned From Anony

An Essay - and no explicit sex in this short piece!

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I am currently a tad addicted to Literotica - and no, it's not for the porn - explicit hardcore sex depictions - per se. It's for the emotional angst feelings generated in me in just one subsection of genre at Literotica.

The broader genre is "loving wives" - the much narrower subset is the cheating wives of unwilling cuckolds category and how that all eventually works out. Willing cuckolds, swingers, open marriages, with LOTS of gratuitous and explicitly depicted happy orgasmic sex, just doesn't do much for me. And that's not what this essay is about.

Cheating wives have been around for a LONG time in human culture, at least human literature, Eve was the very first cheating wife portrayed in the Old Testament. She had an EA (emotional affair) with Satan, and based on Satan's promises she betrayed God and her husband, and then tricked her husband into the sin of also disobeying God - acting immorally. (The very concept of "monogamy" in Judeo-Christian moral-philosophy goes back to Adam and Eve - God creating one woman for one man. Of course, early Jewish people themselves departed from this "best template" for marriage very soon in Biblical history - and so did some of the first Protestant sects, not just Latter Day Saints. Polygamy didn't stick around in any actual non-heretical Protestant denominations for very long.)

King David (as QUITE the "Alpha Male" in his time and place!) saw a beautiful woman Bathsheba, wanted her, and took her from her husband and impregnated her, then had her husband killed in the battle against Israel's enemies. Apparently Bathsheba was the willing adulteress in this affair, though realistically she had little choice in the whole matter. And this is one big clue in all of human nature - women often do NOT have much choice or real power to say absolutely "no!" to some men. It's not fair but that's reality. Nature and nurture both conspire against a woman's virtue.

In other literature realms perhaps the most interesting one that leads to the main point of this essay is the "King Arthur Legend" with Guinevere being seduced by Sir Lancelot while the wife of King Arthur. For sure most Anonys would give this whole sordid tale 1 star or less. The good and wise King Arthur is the husband, and yet Guinevere sleeps with another noble - and good - Sir Lancelot, anyway - one of King Arthur's best friends.

There are many variations on the King Arthur tales with the initial Guinevere and Lancelot adultery first appearing in the 12th century in French tales of "Lancelot and the Cart".

This particular Arthurian tale is expanded and perhaps best known in Thomas Malory's "Le Morte de Arthur" (The Death of Arthur) published in 1485.

Basically, Guinevere and Lancelot become more brazen and public in their relationship. This forces Arthur to take note after Mordred conspires to "bring the truth out", and Lancelot flees after Mordred successfully proves the infidelity to Arthur. Arthur then publicly condemns Guinevere to be burned at the stake. (Now THAT's a "Burn the Bitch" scenario!)

Arthur knows this will bring Lancelot back to try and rescue Guinevere. The whole Round Table of Knight's loyalty is torn asunder. Many knights owe Lancelot their very lives. Some knights just will not dishonor the Queen by participating in the Queen's death. Lancelot in a raid rescues the Queen. Arthur leads an army against Lancelot in his own castle. Loyalties are complex and fighting ensues between those still loyal to Arthur and those loyal to the Queen and Lancelot.

Meanwhile, back at Camelot, Mordred (the incestuous son of Arthur and his own half-sister...Arthur didn't know, he swears!) takes over Arthur's throne. All of Arthur's forces return home and eventually some of his own loyal knights beg Arthur to declare peace with Lancelot and get Lancelot and the rest of his knights back to fight Mordred and his evil forces.

In the final battle Arthur kills Mordred but Mordred also manages to strike the final mortal blow against Arthur.

What kind of crap is this? What's the point? What is the moral? Where is "true love"?

After Arthur dies, Guinevere refuses to live with or marry Lancelot. Instead she enters a Nunnery. Lancelot also soon lays down his weapons and enters a Monastery. Both repent of their adulterous sins, their lust and pride. This is actually a rather Biblical take on it all - just lust, pride, envy, adultery, and an Eve-like woman leading others into evil - and terrible consequences for all - including all England that without strong leadership and faithful Christian armed knights pulling together soon falls to the Saxon (and Angles) Germanic invaders.

Most Anony's (and indeed most authors in this one genre subset) seem to really, really believe in "true love". True "romantic love" - but just what IS this "true romantic love" - and how to define it? Is it subjective like porn was once described? ("I know it when I see it!")

Despite the actual physical adultery love (sex) that was portrayed many times in the Arthurian tales - not just Lancelot and Guinevere but also Tristan and Isolde - what also occurred starting in the 12th century was refined concepts of chivalry - including "romance" and "romantic love". At that time most marriages - especially aristocratic and the "knightly" professional warrior class - were arranged marriages where "pure" progeny was the complete expectation. 100% physically faithful wives. BUT - "romance" started to allow for "pure" romantic love - basically "emotional affairs" between a married Lady and "her" Knight. The Arthurian tragedy graphically illustrated the terrible consequences of "crossing the line" between allowed extramarital "love" and actual extramarital sex. The 15th century Malory treatment really poured it on.

But the thing is - the modern liberal treatment of "true romantic love" - just is not actually natural to human beings. "Natural" here being defined as "genetically imprinted." This doesn't mean it can't be made "natural" in a cultural "nurture" way. The Medieval Judeo-Christian based (actually just call it Roman Catholicism) culture tried to do exactly that - promote true sexually faithful monogamy as broadly as possible - while allowing the many benefits of "true love" chaste Emotional Affairs. This worked out very well for the vast majority of people for centuries. Realistically only the "top 1%" had the economic resources and leisure time to devote to "Chivalric romance" anyway. Or "cheating" - peasants half-starved all the time had NO resources to invest in just "fun" sex!

Divorces were very, very rare generally but even among this top 1%. Essentially divorces only occurred when reproduction failed (as in the most famous case of Henry VIII) or when actual physical adultery occurred and was known without question by the husband. Women and children were huge beneficiaries of these policies, actually. (In the very misogynistic classic pagan Roman culture, men could divorce their wives quite easily - Julius Caesar divorced Pompeia merely on the rumors of her MAYBE being alone with another man. Wives could not divorce their husbands though. There was no parity in this regards. And common sexual mores of that time was merely that powerful "virile" (virtuous) men could sleep with whomever they could "seduce" and their wives could not.)

Nonetheless, women WERE still treated pretty badly, compared to men, in these Western European Christian societies - but that was really just due to "nature" much more than "culture". Only women got pregnant and had children - and that was still a dangerous thing to do. Whether Queen or chambermaid, having children until very recently in human history - and only in the most advanced first world countries - is still a pretty chancy thing to do, health wise.

Yes, in many ways it sucks to be a woman - but modern Feminist "women's power" initiatives don't actually make rational sense and don't actually fix the most basic "problems."

And, in fact, modern liberal sexual mores hurts far more women (and children!) than it helps. Especially in the now insane aspects of "romantic love" as portrayed in so much of modern entertainment culture. Because trying to follow the disparate and inherently "Catch-22's" means it's all pretty much ends up being - no one can win!

Modern women are supposed to be "just like men, equal to men, BETTER than men" in all ways and all things. Educated just as well, Just as successful in EVERY business and profession - from firefighter to professional warriors (like SEALS and Army Rangers and Navy pilots) to lawyers and CEO's. And they are supposed to be just as "sexy" as all get out. Love sex and be adventurous - just like men are!

Right up until they meet that "special someone" when "true love" kicks in. This "true love" means both people "in love" are no longer even ATTRACTED to other people, in any significant interpersonal way. No "special friendships" (EA's) and certainly no physical affairs - that shouldn't even be a possibility - and any human that does this is sadly just "defective". And this state of being "in love" continues for 40 or 50 or 60 years or longer.

Is there a possibility something might be a little bit off with all this?

The most real thing any of us ever experience is totally (or to a very large part) purely subjective: it is our own emotions. The exception to purely subjective is merely the things that cause us physical pain or pleasure - which has a certain emotional impact, itself.

Me, I get an emotional "kick" from reading a good "loving wives" story. All good entertainment engages our emotions in any of several ways, eliciting "feelings" and emotions - from fear to excitement to sadness to elation and many others - some much more subtle.

Anonys (and most others) have probably experienced the feelings that a romantic relationship with another human being causes. These feelings include the purely physical pleasure ones of merely touching - and being touched by - another human being. These pleasurable feelings begin when we are all infants. If you REALLY want to screw up a human being, just don't hold them and pet them enough when they are babies. Most human babies will actually die if they aren't held and touched a minimum amount of time - the being held while being fed part is important. The touching is as important as the food.

Now, just "sex" with another person can involve merely the pleasure of touching, as well as the more specific pleasure of touch involving the sex organs and erogenous zones. But "love" for another human being is another level of pleasure that involves deeper levels of emotion than the "base" physical touch layers. The sex act DOES release hormones in both men and women that lead to a certain emotional bonding. These hormones aren't as immediately powerful as the immediate "high" of orgasmic sex - but can build up when two people have continuing sex together. And the more sex they have together reinforces this "bonding". These same hormones come into play when a mother nurses her baby - which also helps mother-baby bonding and putting up with all the hardships of caring FOR a human baby 24/7.

This is one part of "romantic love." Some other parts are the more "mental" parts - just the communication parts - enjoying talking together, shared activities, similar sense of humors, simpatico emotional reactions to events and other people, and finally, trust in the other person in all kinds of ways.

One problem is that all the really fun intense emotions of "love" just fade a tad over time. Part of the thrill is one of "discovery" - sex acts discovery, likes and dislikes discovery, real similarities and differences discovery. But after everything is known about the other person, then what? A little boredom creeps in? The banality of sameness?

The same thing happens with all the feel-good sex chemicals. The feelings intensity just fades a tad as it is experienced more and more. Naturally "highly sexed" individuals can escape this better than others, for longer - but even those doing daily sex with their compatible mates for year after year inevitably can suffer a little bit of "is this all there is?" doubts at times. Those outside the more "normal" high-sex zone can also suffer from just NEEDING extra stimulation to enjoy sex "as much" as when it was new. BDSM types, "risk taker" seducer types (men and women) fall into this category where everyday sex with a "sure thing" partner becomes "boring" sooner.

The human kind of "all the time" sex - "hidden estrus" (hidden time of greatest fertility) unlike most mammals and even apes who depend on specific advertised estrus hormonal timed sex - works really, really well in pre-modern cultures were average life expectancies were less than 40 years for everyone and closer to 30 years for women - in order to insure the close monogamous bonding where husbands took care of their wives and their 10 plus children - right up until death of one or the other. For about 199,000 of the 200,000 years scientists tell us "homo sapiens" has been in existence - every woman needed to have 10 children - of which five reached reproductive age (14 or 15 years old) themselves, just in order to maintain a ZPG "steady" population. Human population "explosion" did not really happen until just the last 2000 years or so. What we today all consider so "normal" just isn't - in evolutionary terms.

The fact "a woman reaches her sexual peak at 40" is just a joke by Mother Nature. (See my "Myth of the Female Orgasm" essay.) Throughout human evolutionary history 99.99% of women never ever even REACHED 40 years of age in the past. The ravages of childbirth and disease and periodic starvation saw to that.

Nevertheless, even in today's modern world there are all kinds of real advantages to faithful monogamous marriage for life - one man and one woman - even if they only have 2.1 children. (What it takes in first world countries now to maintain ZPG.)

The advantages are:

1:Protection from STD's.

2:Best care for the children produced. Physically, psychologically, emotionally, and educationally.

3:Accumulation of assets/wealth. Ties in with "2." caring for children but also extended family. The Rockefellers used to marry their own cousins as part of this wealth accumulation and maintenance "scheme". And they didn't think much of divorce, either. Until recently, of course - when they are already rich and have great "pre-nup" lawyers.

4:The most sex happens amongst married people. The CHEAPEST sex happens this same way. (See 3:) The most stress free and satisfied life is by faithful married people. Poll after poll continues showing this.

5:Crime is reduced. Cheating is a crime (moral if not legal). If cheating is viewed as "OK" by general society, then why not other "small" criminal activity? And it IS amazing how many "love triangle" murders really do occur in modern countries in the real world. Faithful monogamy would stop a lot of this. Oh - and the one factor that most accounts for a child's chances of being a criminal, ending up in jail or dead by criminal activity, or a druggie and forever poor? It's not what race they are - it is whether they grew up in a two-biological-parent home, or not.

Leaving the whole question of marital fidelity to real "romantic love" just misses the boat in so many ways. I know this won't change many Anony's minds when it comes to "BTB" vs. any possibility of reconciliation, but one can hope a tad. Sometimes education/reeducation is a tad necessary and sometimes women just aren't as much "at fault" as the black or white crowd just KNOWS they are.

Really.