All language subtitles for Monogamish.2014.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG

**

[ Thunder rumbles ]

**

-"Dear Dan,
I'm writing to you today

'cause I'm in a state
of total crisis.

My wife has just left me
after nearly 10 years together,

and my whole world has crumbled.

I'm not sure where to turn.

I'm about to lose my home,
my adopted family,

and everything I care about.

I know I'm not alone.

1.1 million Americans
get divorced every year,

which doesn't exactly
give me solace.

Of course, it's not
just the couples who suffer.

By the time
they reach adulthood,

half of all children
see their parents split up,

like I did.

When I got married,
it seemed so romantic.

We were so young and in love.

Were we naive to get married?

How was I supposed to deal
with the inevitable changes

that every relationship
undergoes --

from the passion of first love

to the day-to-day demands
of domestic life?

Is it natural
to be monogamous --

to be with one person
for our whole lives?

Or are we, at best,
as you say, monogamish?"

**

"I'm setting off today
in search of some answers.

I'm really hoping you can help."

[ Engine starts ]

[ Engine idling ]

**

-I don't know where to start.

Um, you know, that desire,
that impulse,

you know,
to be so overwhelmed by love

that you want to permanently,
somehow,

enshrine that, that,
that momentary feeling

by codifying it
through marriage

is evidence, all by itself, that
you shouldn't get married --

that you're not mature enough
for marriage.

And you have so much
working against you,

that you're both so young.

You know, if you're gonna
measure success by,

"Are we gonna be together
for the rest of our lives,

are we gonna be able to preserve
forever this feeling

by getting married?" --

No.
No, you're not.

**

-I was completely promiscuous

for the late part of the '60s
and early part of the '70s.

The pill had just become
widely distributed,

and there was a wave
of feminist thought

that said that women
almost had the obligation

to be as promiscuous as men.

It was a mighty time.

**

I felt like I had a series

of the same sort
of relationships

that went
to the same dreary end.

I went back to Wyoming,

and I was in this much more
19th-century condition

where I thought,
"Well, you know,

I'm running a large ranch
in Wyoming.

This is impossible to do with,
you know,

frontier housewives
for a fortnight.

What I really need is a wife,
and if I'm going to do that,

I'm going to try to be married
in the conventional sense,

and I'm not going to be
polygamous, as is my tendency,"

and I managed
to convince somebody

to come up there
into this frontier state

and marry me,

and then imposed
monogamy on myself

for a good long time.

**

-When I got married,

it was the most optimistic,
hopeful, loving act

that I've ever engaged in.

I'd always, before, put the
brakes on every relationship,

always been hesitant.

And I decided that,
"I'm going for it."

[ Sentimental music plays ]

-Do we really
understand marriage?

Do we understand
the social aspects of marriage?

-Does each of us really want
to make the other one happy?

-Most Americans tend to think
that the traditional marriage

was the one that they see
on "Leave it to Beaver,"

as though, you know,
that might be a documentary.

[ Chuckles ]
So they think of it

as a male-breadwinner family,

the wife at home,
doing the vacuuming,

spending all of her time
raising the children.

-They make sure that
everything is on the table

in just the right place.

-We have an idea
that the American family --

a mom, dad, two kids,
and a picket fence,

suburban household --

that this is the way
family has always been

and always should be.

-It's a nuclear family
of two people

who once loved each other --
and may still --

and who have
committed themselves

to exclusive sexual relations.

-The world is a scary place,

and we need somebody to help us
feel safe and secure.

That is what a spouse,

or somebody that
we choose to commit to,

provides for us.

-My parents never got married.
-Mm-hmm.

-Like, they spent 10 years --

very wonderful years --
together.

But it was, you know, a very
unconventional relationship.

In the 1950s,
my maternal grandfather, Billy,

married my grandmother, Marge.

They had two kids -- my aunt,
Carin, and my mom, Debra.

They lived in the nuclear-family
model for just a few years,

until my grandfather
ran off to Italy,

where he became
a spaghetti-western star.

[ Gunfire ]

While there,
he started a commune

where free love
was practiced

and societal structures
of all kinds were rejected.

When she was 15, my mom
dropped out of high school

and went to Italy
to find her dad.

They ended up getting along
really well,

and she stayed there.

When she was just 16,
she met my father,

an Italian prince
named Dado Ruspoli.

My dad had been a well-known
playboy in the '50s and '60s

and was still married to Nancy,
his second wife,

when he met my mom.

Nancy and my dad had a son --
my older brother, Francesco --

and Nancy and Francesco lived
with Nancy's boyfriend,

upstairs
from my mother and father.

When my mom was 17,
I was conceived,

and they went to Thailand,
where I was born in 1975.

My dad was 50,
and my mom was 18.

There was even a newspaper
headline once that said,

"Here is Prince Dado Ruspoli

with his wife,
his son, and his lover" --

my mom -- "pregnant."

Then my little brother
Bartolomeo was born.

Meanwhile,
my grandfather, Billy,

had three more children
with three different women --

Hania, Dirta, and Pat --

named Casomir, Alexander,
and Wendell.

When I was 8,
my parents separated,

and my brother and I went
to live in Los Angeles,

where we were raised
by our now-single mom.

We did get to spend
our summers in Italy,

in the family castle
outside of Rome,

with our dad.

When he was 70,
Dado married for the third time

and had two more children --

my sister Melusine
and my brother Theodore.

-I tell you the truth.
I never went through marriage.

I never went through marriage,
and one of the reasons

is because I had an example
in my family with your father --

with many, many wives,
with many children --

and I got extremely confused.

Also, if I tell you the truth,

I thought it was very much fun

to see all this thing going on.

And then I saw my father, also,

marrying once, marrying twice,
marrying three times,

and blah, blah, blah.

So all the thing
confused me very much

that when I understood that
what my father had told me,

all, you know, growing up,

saying that marriage was sacred,
that fidelity was sacred,

et cetera, et cetera,

and suddenly, I understood
that all this was a lie.

**

-It's a complete falsehood.

-In fact, this is
a relatively-new invention.

-Our family situations have
always been rather complex.

It's never been just about,
you know, one man and one woman

and they come together for life
and so forth and so on.

-We look at history through
the lens of the current day.

In our book, we call
this process "Flintstonization."

-Marriage never existed
the way that we see it

and the way that it developed
in the last 100 years.

-What made you decide to choose,
you know, being married?

-I was forced,
since I was very small,

into the role of the caretaker

and the responsible one.
-Mm-hmm.

-My brother
was a little bit wild,

and my mom was very young.

When I met my wife,

she had come to Los Angeles

to pursue an acting career.

We fell madly in love
with each other

and had this extremely
passionate connection.

-Mm-hmm.
-And she was very young,

and I got to provide
a sense of security within,

you know,
a world full of unknowns.

**

All I remember is

I said I was thinking
of getting married,

you know, secretly.
But I'd already done it,

so I didn't know
how to tell you that.

-I think it's wonderful,
the way you got married.

You both gave yourselves
so fully to this love,

and honored it
by getting married.

It was a beautiful act.

**

-My own thinking went
through quite an evolution.

I was raised in the '60s,

and, in that time,
the anthropological theory

was that marriage was invented
to protect women and children --

that women traded
sexual monogamy

in return for the man going out
and hunting the meat

and protecting them
from the saber-tooth tigers.

But then, in the '70s,

a lot of female anthropologists
came along,

and they pointed out,

if the men were out hunting
and the women were home,

who was protecting the women
from the saber-tooth tiger?

Then you got
a totally different theory

of the invention of marriage --

that it was invented
to oppress women.

**

-[ Speaking Italian ]

-In Assyria, in Mesopotamia,

and through
the entire ancient world,

a woman's virginity --
her marriage value --

was really more
of an economic thing

than an emotional thing.

A father in Assyria,

if his virgin daughter
was raped,

the father is the one
who had the remedies

against the man
who raped his daughter,

not because
his daughter was raped,

but because someone
actually stole his property.

His daughter wasn't worth
as much after being raped.

What does the court do?

Can the father collect
the money that he lost

from the rapist's family?

Yeah, he generally could,

but at the same time, the best
solution was often seen

to force the rapist
and the girl who was raped

to settle down and get married.

That's really a traditional
remedy for rape.

**

-With the advent
of agriculture,

the concept of private property

entered the cognitive lexicon
of our species.

-As men had
multiple sexual partners,

they didn't want women also to
have multiple sexual partners,

because they wanted to know

that their property
was going to descend

to their own child.

-"Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's wife."

Read that in context
in the Old Testament,

and what you find is it says,
"Nor his house, nor his she-ass,

nor his ox, nor his servants."

In other words, "Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's stuff."

It has nothing to do with
respecting his relationship.

It's about respecting
his property.

**

-Eventually,
I came to the conclusion

that marriage had nothing to do
with the relationship

between the husband and the wife
and the children.

It was a way of getting in-laws.

In-laws were the reason
for marriage.

"I marry my son
to your daughter,

and therefore,
we have a relationship.

I owe you things,
you owe me things."

**

-When I got married,

her parents took me in
like a son.

It was amazing.

I did not expect

that level of being
brought into a family.

I had never really known that.

I felt, for the first time
in my life,

the possibility
of true stability.

So marriage, for me, wasn't
just about love and commitment,

but it was also integrating
into this larger family unit.

And I think
it was a feeling that,

"It's not just my desires
that count anymore.

Let's expand that sense
of what and who matters."

**

-For a lot of history,

marriage was not
a romantic institution.

-The social-conservative
position on love and marriage

was you don't mix
those two things,

because love is unstable
and sexual desire is unstable.

-I love you, Nora.
Do you love me?

-In the 20th century,
the idea of romantic marriage --

that an individual falls in love
and finds their soul mate

and then marries that person --

came to predominate at least our
public discourse about marriage.

-I think so,
but I have to think about it.

[ Mid-tempo rock music playing ]

-Back in Italy,

I wanted to find out
from my cousin Claudia

why people had gotten married
in our own family,

going back 1,000 years.

-Most of these marriages
are to consolidate power --

I would say all of them --

until a generation when,
instead,

passion come in the story.
Hmm.

These marriages of passion
are leaving us

and basically selling tickets
at the door

to have people coming
to visit the garden

to try to pay the bills
of the gardener and whatever.

**

The last great marriage

who was made to bring money
into the family

was Matarazzo -- this one.

**

He married all his girls,
all organized,

to aristocracy in Italy.

-And did you ever ask
our grandfather

how he felt about this?
Was he -- Well, did he --

-Well, I tell you
what he felt about this.

He felt that he didn't --
Basically, I think,

that he wasn't madly in love.

He was a [speaking Italian]
He loved women.

And I think that
our grandmother suffered a lot.

I think she --
I know she suffered a lot,

because my father,
when he talks about her,

he still cries
when she was crying,

waiting for the grandfather
to come home.

-So it wasn't very good
for women --

this whole situation?
-No.

This always happened,
always happened.

All these women cried.

All these women cried.

**

-My grandfather, Billy, had
three kids that are all my age.

All around the same time
that his daughter, my mom,

was having me,

he was having kids,
in the mid-'70s.

Two of them were born
almost exactly the same time,

from women
that he met on this --

that he was living with
on this commune.

And my uncle Wendell,
who lives in Torrance,

has been married 15 years --

certainly the only example
in my family

of somebody
who has decided to go

the traditional
marriage-monogamy route.

-Good to see you.
-Good to see you.

Having seen Billy saying,
"I'm never gonna commit,

I'm going to love who I want,"

how on Earth do you go from that

to saying,
"I want to be with you forever"?

-To me,
it was about the promise.

It was about standing there,

making the covenant,
making the promise,

and being there
for the children.

I didn't want my kids to feel
like I did.

-Which is how?
How did you feel?

-Kind of, you know --
kind of abandoned.

-Right.

My first memories in life

are of the rupture
of my parents splitting up,

and I know that
that's affected me.

I know it's part of why
I suffered so much

in the end of my marriage --

because I had a total fear
of abandonment.

-Well,
you said something before,

when we first started talking
about your marriage and divorce,

there were no children.

You didn't have any childen
with your wife,

and that made it simpler.

And it does.

And I'm actually sometimes
accused of being conservative,

because the first question
I ask somebody when they say,

"You know, we've been together
a certain amount of time.

We're thinking about
getting divorced" --

The first thing out of my mouth
is, "Do you have kids?"

Because it does change
the advice that you give,

because I don't think that
adults have a right

to just careen around,
traumatizing children.

Kids have this desire for --
this need -- for some constancy.

Is marriage a response to this
free-love shit in the '60s?

Is this sort of modern,

sort of bring-the-gays-in
marriage movement?

Perhaps.
Perhaps it is.

You know, I don't -- Your
childhood sounds fascinating.

It doesn't sound like
you're wrecked by it.

And it seems like you're not --

You know, you probably had a
really colorful life experience.

I wouldn't trade yours
for mine, though,

even though my parents divorced
when I was a teenager.

But for the first, you know,
15, 16 years of my life,

it was, everything stayed
the same one day to the next.

**

-As I was separating,
one of the first people

I turned to for advice
was my neighbor Roberta,

a wise and eccentric woman
who seemed to have had

a lot more experiences
with these things than I did.

-Susie.
-[ Barks ]

-Why did you keep leaving
these men, do you think?

-They were boring.

They weren't the right person
for me,

but there wasn't a good way
to leave them.

I moved to California
because I was married to someone

I didn't really like anymore,

and he came out here
to pursue an acting career.

He had pretty eyes.
That was it.

He was an alcoholic.
He died at a young age.

And then I was married
and had a second child.

Then I left him

and followed
some unemployed writer.

-So, what about marriage?

Is it a doomed institution?

-No.
I think people --

people want to be together
with a partner

and want to have kids
and all that.

**

-The first time I saw her
in that cafeteria in Detroit,

she was sitting at a table
near the window.

Light was coming onto her,

and, you know, and those eyes.

Like, it was --
I was just like, "Wow."

Like, you know?
Like, "Wow."

-Seven years later, I got
a letter to my mom's address.

"Hey, this is Wendell.
I live in California now.

Give me a call."

I called him here in Torrance,

and we decided that
we were gonna do this now --

We're gonna get married
and have kids

without having met
in person in seven years.

**

-What's your philosophy
on monogamy, in general?

Do you think it's
something that's just
an unattainable ideal,

or do you think it's possible?

-I don't think men are
basically very monogamous.

-You think men are
less monogamous than women?

-Yes, by nature.

But, I mean,
speaking for myself alone,

I must be a man.

-The word "nature" is
a very contextual thing,

as if there is some natural way
of making love

and some unnatural way
of making love.

-Wild, flagrant abuses
of the God-given gift of sex.

-When you start to say

that something is objectively
natural or unnatural,

you really get into trouble.

-The body has a design.

People who say, "Oh,
we should overcome nature" --

In "The African Queen"...

-It's only human nature.

-Nature, Mr. Allnutt,

is what we are put in this world
to rise above.

-Bullshit!

You're not gonna
rise above nature.

You're not an angel.
You're an animal.

You're an ape,
just like everybody else.

Deal with it.
[ Monkey screeching ]

So, they say, "Well, you know,
monogamy is natural.

Look at the penguins.

This film, the --
What was it called?

The "March of the Penguins."

Churches across the country
were renting out cinemas

so they could take
the whole congregation in

to see this film,
the "March of the Penguins,"

which was this stellar example
of monogamous parents

teaming up
to get through the winter

in celebration of monogamy.

But those penguins
take a new mate every season.

Your typical emperor penguin

has 20 or 25 sexual partners
in its lifetime,

and yet this is held up

as an example of monogamy
occurring in nature.

If you're gonna do this at all,

do it with the species

that are most closely related
to human beings.

Let's talk about primates.

Over 300 species of primates,

many of which live
in complex social groups

with more than one male.

How many of those species
are monogamous?

Goose egg.
Not one, not one.

Unless you think
we're the sole exception.

-* Face to face with Christ,
my savior *

-Do you have a Bible?
Do you study the Bible at all?

-No, I don't.
-You really should.

God told us to be fruitful
and multiply

and replenish the Earth.

-Do you think that
we have an obligation

to stay in the marriage
even if we're not happy in it?

-If we are following God's
commands, he will make it work.

-I had no religious upbringing,
thank God.

My parents kind of did
the rebelling before me.

But marriage and religion have
been tied closely together,

and I can see why that is.

In a world where everything else
is commodified and replaceable,

the idea of one thing
that's sacred.

-Religions always
insert themselves

into human relationships
and human sexual expression

because if you can
come in between people
and their desires

and if you make their desires
their ticket to Hell,

potentially,
without your intervention,

you can control
those people forever.

That's why religion rushes in to
regulate sexual relationships,

interpersonal relationships,
marital relationships --

Because you can control people
if you seize that,

which is not to say
that religion

and the pageantry
and the symbolism,

and religion
can solemnize a moment,

and it has a beauty.

And, you know, the moment can,
emotionally,

feel very transcendent.

And then, if you have
these dance steps, basically,

that you can go through

that make manifest
those transcendent feelings

and then tie you to
this history, in your family,

going back generations,
to be able to say that,

"This thing that I'm doing now,
my parents did.

My grandparents did.
My great-grandparents did.

My great-great-grandparents
did."

I don't know what my
great-grandparents were like.

I do know they married,
and so did I.

-Ave, Maria,
piena di grazia.

Tu sei benedetta fra le donne

e benedetto é il frutto
del tuo seno, Gesú.

-Oh, my God.

Right, right, right, right.

-"Fallen" in the sense of --

-Yeah.
But I tell you the truth,

that our saint
was a rebel herself.

-What year is this,
more or less?

-1650 or '60.

I have to see it on the tree.

She was obliged by her father
to go to the convent

because she didn't want to go.

And so she lived in the convent,
you know, in luxury.

You know, she treated very badly
the nuns.

She didn't follow the rules.

-She had many lovers, I heard.
Right?

-Well, that, of the lovers,
I don't know.

This, I don't know.

-Is it true that she was
supposed to marry somebody,

and then he came
and liked the sister?

-No, no, no, no.
He didn't like anybody.

In those times, there was
no question of liking somebody.

It was the father who decided
that the boy that she loved

had to go and marry
her youngest sister.

The father probably thought

that Giacinta was
a little bit too wild

and too much a rebel
to be good for marriage,

and so he decided
to send her in this convent.

**

-Marriage actually
means a lot to me.

I'm very old-fashioned.

I'm actually 17,
and I have a 1-year-old son.

I have been with the father
for three years now.

A lot of people, they ask me,

"How can you be with someone
so long?"

What's important to me
is having somebody

that's always gonna
be there for you

and that trusts you
and loves you.

-Or when you see, like,
really old couples,

where one is pushing the other
in a wheelchair,

it's, like, there is
definitely no sex appeal,

but the one person will be loyal
to the other to the grave.

And I think that supersedes
that,

"Oh, I have butterflies
in my belly,"

because I'll have it sometimes,
but not all the time.

So if I'm just only gonna
be nice on butterfly days,

oh, that's gonna be bad.

-If you'll humor me, I wrote
letters to you, imagining,

during the different stages
of my marriage and divorce,

that I would have liked
to have asked you, maybe,

and see how you would react.

"Dear Dan, I've been married
five years now,

and everything is so good

that I'm wondering
if I should be worried.

I know that sounds funny, but I
wonder if being too comfortable

can have a negative effect
on a relationship."

-At a certain point,
my beloved wife --

who I love to this day
very much -- had children,

and something changed profoundly
in her hormonal makeup

and cultural makeup as well.

And suddenly, she was about
as interested in sex

as she was in canasta,

which was a game
that she didn't even play.

And I'm thinking,
"Well, you know,

a little offshore drilling,

what difference
is it gonna make?

I intend to be married
to my wife forever.

I'm faithful in my heart,"
which I truly was.

I felt like I could do
the whole thing

on a don't-ask-don't-tell basis
and everything would be fine.

But, you know, the problem is

that she was then
continuously trying to trick me

into lies of commission,

which were different
from lies of omission.

You can't just up-front lie
to the other party

and expect your relationship
to survive it.

Eventually, it just had
this terribly erosive effect,

and it ended this.

I mean, there were a lot
of things that ended this

besides that --
And not the least of which

was that there was no sexuality
at the core of it.

-Why does good sex
so often fade,

even for couples who continue to
love each other as much as ever?

Why does good intimacy
not guarantee good sex?

Can we want
what we already have?

And why is the forbidden
so erotic?

-Now they're radiant
with excitement

and the thrill of taking matters
into their own hands.

When this excitement
of the moment settles down,

what will remain?

-Being in love
is like being high.

I mean, you're wild,
and you feel it.

And I think that has
to transform into love,

because that state is like
you know, snorting coke.

It's not a state that
you can live in all the time.

-I don't think I'm alone
in the world

in having a relationship

going from being very sexual
to not as sexual

because it's evolved
into other things.

It's become more
of a companionship

and it's become more
of a sense of complicity

and settledness.

-I'm curious in the tension

between passion and aliveness
and freedom on one side

and security and stability
on the other.

-We're fed this story
that we're supposed to be able

to find a lifelong,
monogamous pairing

that continues to be sexually
juicy at the same time,

but you're each other's
co-parent for children,

you're running a household
together,

you're sharing
all of your finances,

you're dealing with logistics

and picking up
the dry-cleaning together.

-In one relationship,

we want security,
stability, dependability --

all the anchoring,
grounding experiences of life.

And at the same time,
we also want our love life

to bring with it mystery and awe

and the unpredictable
and novelty and surprise

and the unexpected
and that which fuels desire.

**

-Every new relationship
that's sexual

is kind of an adventure,

and then the adventure
goes away.

Then it's just kind of
where you live,

and it's not an adventure
anymore.

It's not a surprise anymore.

And how can you continue
to surprise each other

without feeling like

you're having to pull rabbits
out of a hat all the time?

**

-People go into relationships
and go into marriage

with some really
misguided notions

about what it should
and what it should not be.

There's a depth of connection
that you have in monogamy

that you just don't have
otherwise.

You're happier.
There's a sense of safety.

-But that very sense of safety
that you're talking about

is the antithesis of sexuality.

-I don't --
I wholeheartedly disagree.

We need to differentiate
between sexuality and intimacy,

because I think anybody
can get naked and have sex,

and, you know,
it can be pleasurable.

But not everybody can reach
a deep emotional place

with somebody else,

and that's what I believe
that you can only do

when you're in a committed
relationship with someone else.

-If love isn't eroticized --

if it remains something rational
and something ethical

and something
unchanging and eternal --

then we go through life
in a kind of despair.

And a lot of people
think of love this way,

but it makes human existence,
this mortal existence,

a kind of waste of time.

From the other side,
if Eros isn't spiritualized...

-Power hungry, domineering.

-...then life becomes

just this transient,
animal sort of existence

where we're driven
from one satisfaction
of appetite to another.

-And so we can stay married
and not be sexually,

to each other,
who we were at the start.

We have to recognize, though,
that adult human beings

want to feel that kind of sexual
passion and that kind of desire.

-We are basically
asking one person today

to give us two sets
of fundamental human needs

that spring
from different sources,

take us in different directions,
as if they are one.

How you reconcile
the domestic and the erotic

or your need for security
with your need for passion

with the same person
isn't a problem that you solve.

It's a paradox that you manage.

**

-I can't help noticing
you guys are dressed the same.

Is that a coincidence?
-That is a coincidence.

-That is kind of
a coincidence, yeah.

-The longer you're together,
the more you look alike.

-Yeah, I guess that's true.

[ Both chuckle ]

-So, how did you guys meet?

-Um...
-Um...

-Well, we got snowed in
on New Year's Eve,

ended up having to all
share a big bed

in the middle
of the living room.

And she and I stayed up talking,

and by the end of the night,
we were dating.

[ Chuckles ]

-What is the meaning of marriage
for you guys?

-Companionship.
-Companionship, stability.

You have somebody
to fall back on

and know is gonna be there
when you need someone.

Both of us are on
our second marriage.

Both of us had spouses who
decided to look for the mystery

and look for something else.

So it makes us not think
in that way, I think,

because we've wanted that
stability in the first place,

so we've found it now
and we're happy.

**

-Tell me about
this marriage here.

What does this represent to you?

-Allora, this marriage here
is very interesting

because this was
Ortensia Farnese,

who was the niece
of the Pope Paul III Farnese.

And he gave Vignanello
to his niece, Ortensia,

who married this man here,

who was Sforza Ercole Marescotti
from Bologna, this one here.

That's where our family comes
into Vignanello --

beginning of 1500.

She was the niece of the pope,

so she was very powerful --
very powerful.

So she kills her husband
in this room,

and she razes his coat of arm.

-Do we know why she was
so angry with him to kill?

-One minute, one minute.

She had other two husbands
after him,

and both, she had them killed
in the village.

She didn't like these men.

There was no lawyers then,
luckily.

You poisoned the people
in those times, right?

If you didn't want --
To get rid of them,

you didn't have
those stupid lawyers

who suck your blood from here
and nothing happens, ever.

I hate the lawyers.

At least -- Ciao,
and light, little drink

or a bang on your head
or whatever,

and, ciao, much easier.

**

-I'm very skeptical of the idea

that there is anything hardwired
in human beings.

Unlike animals, who have
to respond in programmed ways,

we can make choices,
and we do make choices.

-The Mosuo people of mountains
of Southwestern China,

they separate the realm
of desire and domesticity.

You separate family life,
which is a daytime activity,

from sexuality, romance,
and love,

which is primarily
a nighttime activity.

Men and women alike can invite
or refuse sexual relationships

with as many people
as they do or don't want.

Children are raised
by their mothers,

their grandmothers,

their mothers' sisters
and brothers.

And so biological paternity
is irrelevant.

-Among the Inuit, men and wife,
by mutual consent,

may allow the wife
to have an affair

or to sleep with a guest
who's coming overnight

or even to travel
with a different man.

Sexual infidelity,
under certain circumstances,

is perfectly okay
within marriage.

Among the Bari of Venezuela,

a woman is actually encouraged

to take lovers
during her pregnancy.

Every man who sleeps with
a woman while she is pregnant

is considered to give something
of his substance to the child.

-Like mothers everywhere,
she wants to have

the smartest, funniest,
strongest kid she can.

She'll have sex with
the funny guy and the strong guy

and the guy who's a good hunter
and the most intelligent guy

to get the essence of all these
different men into her baby.

And then,
when the child's born,

these different men
will come forward and say,

"Yes, I'm a father.
Yes, I'm a father."

So fatherhood's
a team enterprise.

-But the tremendous variability
of everything

from social structures
to personal relationships,

throughout history,

suggests to me that
it's just a just-so story

to pretend that any way we
behave is encoded in our genes.

-I think everyone's different.

I think, for me,
monogamy is important, though.

-I'm pretty traditional,
I guess.

I think it's essential
to a relationship.

-I think
monogamy is important --

and commitment.

It lets you focus on...

what you can build together
in this relationship,

out of trust.

And I think,
to make a relationship work,

it has to be the most important
thing in your life,

and he was.

But then, what happens
is you end up cutting off

parts of my sense of adventure
and curiosity about life.

And so at a certain point, I had
to come back to my true nature,

and that was not to be married,
in a relationship

with what felt claustrophobic,

what felt like it was limiting
rather than expansive.

-After how many years did you
start to feel this way?

-About seven years.

-So, she came.

I was able to provide
this incredible world

and the sense of stability
and the sense of excitement

and bring her into my world.

And then, as she became
more and more successful,

I became emasculated.

And I think that it...

It...

Yeah, it was,
I felt very vulnerable.

**

-How I feel about love
is I'm trying to learn, at 73,

to believe and feel
and internalize

that somebody loves me
their way,

not my idea
of what they should be doing

or my idea of what I want back.

-For philosophers
like Kierkegaard,

love was a place where
you could bring your desires

into communion with your reason

and have a genuine synthesis,
a genuine harmony.

-And then I fell in love,
like they do in movies --

you know, like in Shakespeare
or opera, I mean.

And, you know, I think
it's an unusual condition,

and it generally ends with
everybody dead on the stage.

But I had
one of those experiences.

I looked across a crowded room,

and I knew,
for the first time in my life.

I hadn't even seen her face yet.

And, you know,
she turned at looked at me

and had the same deal,

and we were living together
a week later

in spite of the fact
that she was freshly married

to somebody
far better qualified than me.

And during the time
that we were together,

I could see the beauty of women,

appreciate it
even better than usual,

because it was detached
from any desire to own.

It was like knowing
that the mountains are
beautiful at sunset

without having the slightest
desire to own the mountains.

I didn't even think

that this was something
that existed in men.

And then I put her on her plane
in Los Angeles one night,

2 days before her 30th birthday.

And when she got off that plane
in New York, she was dead.

**

I had never put all my eggs
in one emotional basket

like that before,

and I was completely devastated.

[ Sniffles ]

I had then experienced
voluntary monogamy

and involuntary monogamy,

and I decided that I was not
gonna try to be monogamous again

unless I felt that same
kind of completely
voluntary sense of it.

[ Fireworks exploding ]

-The idea of losing
all of this love,

all of this family --

My whole identity had gotten
wrapped up in this,

for better or worse.

And the idea of losing that
was really scary.

And then, when it happened,

it was even worse
than I expected.

And I remember my mother,
you know,

being in a very interesting
position

to help me through this,
because on the one hand,

she saw me suffering

and wanted
to take care of her son

that's, like,
in this terrible position.

But at the same time,

I think she related
very much to my wife.

She helped me to understand
that it wasn't about me.

-If you really love someone,

it's about wanting them
to be a full human being,

wanting them to, to grow,

wanting them to be fulfilled,

whether it's with me or not.

And in your breakup,
I saw that pivotal moment

where you were
in so much pain --

everything that validated you,

everything that
you had created together,

the years
that you spent together.

But at that moment,
to really question,

"What is love?

If I love this person,
how do I deal with my own pain?

How do I let go with love?"

And you were able to do that.

**

**

**

**

-First of all, you've known me
since I was a kid.

You've known my mom
since high school.

I can understand
the impulse that says,

"I've really gotten to know
this person.

I know everything
they're gonna say

before they say it.
I'm bored."

So then you say, "Okay.
Well, we've had a great run,

and let's part ways."
-Sure.

-And there's this great
Nietzsche line --

"I like a life
of brief habits" --

because I get totally immersed
in something,

and then we part ways
as friends,

having learned something
from each other.

-Yeah.
-And then we continue to grow.

Do you think there's
something more enriching

with this, like,
soul mate for life

than somebody who has
a relationship every 10 years

and then has the next thing

because they've
really outgrown it

and they just have exhausted

all the possibilities
of that relationship?

-Yeah.
If people can stay together,

the relationship can change,
the dynamics change.

But if you can expand
and include,

then as you get older
and get more life behind you,

you have a larger family,
a larger tribe,

a larger connectivity
to society.

You have more people
who you care about

and, you know,
theoretically care about you.

That's, I think,
a much better model than,

"Okay.
I've done this for 10 years.

I've had this experience.

I've taken what I need.
I'm a bigger, better person.

And now I'm gonna go over here
and have more of my experience

and become more of me and --"
No.

Most people, if you walk
around the streets

and look at their faces,

they're fucking miserable --

miserable because they're living

in a shallow pool
of nothingness.

**

-Where are we now?

Because last time we talked,
we were in the castle.

What is this place?
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]

This used to be Palazzo Ruspoli.

This used to be all in the hands
of your father and my father.

This was a name.
It was an identity.

It was in our family since 1700.

We give up everything.
For what? For sex.

-So, how was this
given up for sex?

Because Dado basically
ran after women,

not thinking about the future.

Dado had five children
from different women, you know,

and my father had, you know,
all of these wives.

But where is the wife
with the money?

-I think Sigmund Freud
really had it right in his book

"Civilization
and its Discontents,"

when he was talking about the
sexual urge being so powerful

and the needs of society

being completely contrary
to the urges that people feel.

The first legal collections
out of Mesopotamia

were consumed
with questions of marriage --

monogamy, adultery,
sexual issues, bestiality,

things like that.

And it was seen, primarily,

as necessary to visit
the worst kinds of punishments

on those who broke sexual rules,

and specifically,
those were adulterous women.

The first death-penalty statute
I could find on Earth

was the impalement of a wife
for committing adultery.

-But you know why your father
and my father

never wanted women with money?

There's a reason.
-Why?

-Because they always said --
both of them --

that women with money
try to control them

and they do not want
to be controlled.

They always told me --
my father and your father.

This is a very Latin,
macho way of thinking --

of the insecurity of men.

-The laws surrounding sex

generally reflect
man's terror at women --

man's terror
at women's reproductive power,

man's sense of helplessness
in front of women,

and our desire to do anything
that we can do

to tell ourselves that
we have control over forces

that we really, in life,

feel like we have
no control over whatsoever.

[ Sentimental music plays ]

-Do you think you can
help us get married?

-Why, I'm in favor of marriage.

-The United States government
has made a decision --

a long-standing
public-policy objective --

to encourage its citizens
to get married.

Part of this comes from lack of
separation of church and state

and Judeo-Christian morality

that this is the best way
to organize families.

People call this
the marital-industrial complex.

-* I will be your Casanova

* With that, you must agree

-* I know you're a Casanova

* But you'll have to marry me

[ Swing music plays ]

-I think, if you're ready
to get married --

-How long?
-I wasn't ready to get married.

So -- Well, but we did.
So I don't know.

-Why'd you get married?

-Prom night, I was 19.
She was 17.

I took her to her prom.

Nine months later...
-Nine months later...

-...we got married --

under the gun, so to speak.

It's been hard.

-Montana shotgun wedding.

-Yeah.
-[ Laughs ]

-We have an economic system

that's based on an idea
of a male breadwinner

and who's supporting
a wife and children.

This is a way
that the government

can privatize dependency

and not have
to take responsibility

for caring for those single
mothers and their children.

But that form of social-welfare
state has completely failed.

The largest group of people
in poverty in America

are single mothers
and their children --

more than mentally-ill people,

drug addicts,
physically-disabled people,

and people who don't speak
English, combined.

Going into a government office
and saying, "I need food.

I need help
to support my children

so that we don't
become homeless,

like many of the other
single-mother families

in this country,"
and having the government say,

"Why don't you get into
a sexual relationship

with a man
who will support you?"

is akin to the government
being a pimp

to poor women in America.

**

-"Dear Dan, it's been three
months since my separation.

Now that I'm single again,

I have to admit
there's something exciting

about the idea of starting over,

of rediscovering myself

through new experiences
with new people.

I realize now, looking back,

that, that attraction
to the new,

it's always there.

I think it must be there
for everyone.

What did you do when you felt
that pull to something new?"

-I always cheated on --
I just did what I wanted.

And I think I did it when
I was pissed off at somebody.

I'd just go find somebody.

Or when I wanted out and I
didn't have the nerve to do it.

Women have to make a story up
about it,

that they're in love
or they're very interesting

or this person is spiritual.

You know what?

You just wanted to get out
and get laid

and have attention.

It's more about the attention
and the excitement,

because, I mean,
sex is sex, you know?

It's like, how different
is it gonna be?

But it's all the -- It's all
the building up to it

and the flirting
and the somebody pursuing you.

When you're married,
that doesn't happen.

-But, of course,
the culture tells us
sex isn't that important.

-I know! The culture tells --
-Right?

And they accuse you of being...
-I know.

-...overly concerned with sex,
but that's the one thing that

we kind of base our monogamous
relationships on, right?

-Right. The culture says,
"Sex is so unimportant

that you shouldn't
prioritize it in a marriage,

but sex is so hugely important

that you can't have it
with anybody else."

These forces are in conflict,
culturally.

We tell people,
"You're a bad person

if you think too much about sex.

You're a bad person if you look
at your partner and reject them

because the sex isn't there."

And then we look at them
and say,

"You're a bad person
for fucking somebody else."

**

-I have that whole cliche list

that girls make
in romantic comedies

where you're like,
"Make your list,

and then he'll come,
then you'll find the dude."

I would love to meet somebody
that I don't want to cheat on.

You know what I mean?

And I don't even think
it's hard.

I didn't cheat
in my five-year relationship.

Well, cheating,
I feel like, comes --

I'm already lying.
Okay.

I feel like, for me,
every time I've cheated --

And I've cheated
in a lot of relationships,

but not with --
Well, one time with sex,

most of the time with make outs,
all the time emotionally.

That's -- I always break up
with a person I'm with

the minute I cheat.

I need that to --
Like, as a hook to get me out.

**

-I call it
the shadow of the third.

The shadow of the third

is, really, the third exists
all the time --

either in your head,
either in fantasy --

between you and me,

either in our memories
of our past

in acknowledgment that
we've known other people,

either in reality,
because we've allowed each other

to be with those thirds.

But the third exists
all the time.

-There's a guy at the gym.

I call him
my Latino guilty pleasure.

I look at him, but I come home
to my husband, you know?

And Wendell laughs about it.
Like, he jokes.

When he's there, he's like,
"Look. There's your dude."

-Yeah.
-It's funny.

And you really don't
have to have sex

with just anybody
who's good looking.

-And what about porn?
-Some people don't care,

and some people are like, "Oh,
like, so many guys watch porn,"

and they just kind of make it,
like, like a mainstream thing.

Like, am I not enough for you?

Like, do you know what I mean?

Like, I'd be, like, offended,

because I'd be, like,

you have to, like,
go to, like, porn

and, like, look at images
of other women.

It's, like --
Also, I find creepy.

Like, I don't know.

Some people think it's,
like, normal,

but I just think it's creepy

to, like, watch
someone else have sex.

-Some couples deny
its existence

and would rather, you know,

tighten the hatches
and hunker down

and make believe that there is
no outside world.

Okay.

Then when they find
their partner online
doing porn renting,

you know, they have a deep sense

that their partner is
having sex with somebody else.

-You go against
every other advice columnist

in the world, probably,

and say that infidelity
isn't always a bad thing.

Can you kind of
spell out the times

where you think that people
have permission to cheat

and when they don't?

-The difficulty,
when you you talk about

when it's okay to cheat,

is that everyone pictures sort
of an idealized newlywed couple,

together a couple of years,
and then he or she cheats,

and, of course, that's, like,

the worst thing
you could possibly do.

And often, the "cheating"
comes later in a marriage.

Like, two people
can have 20, 25 years.

One of them is done with sex.

One of them actually does not
want to have sex anymore.

What is that other person
supposed to do?

Are they supposed to submit
to having their sexual life

unilaterally declared dead?

Or are they supposed to divorce?

What if they can't divorce?

What if their partner
is dependent on them

for health insurance or
economically dependent on them

or they have small children?

I look at that situation and go,

"Well, there are
two options there.

You can leave,
or you can cheat."

And sometimes cheating
is the least-worst option.

**

-What happens
in long-term relationship

is that people will often create
an illusion of familiarity.

They really think they know
the person that's next to them.

In my experience,
they often think they do

until they find out the other
one has cheated on them,

and then they realize
that maybe the person

that lives so close to you,
they may be familial,

but they're not necessarily
known to you.

-I look at a marriage,
and I see a history --

these two people together.

I see children.
I see property.

I see two extended families
that have knit together.

I see a network of friends,

neighbors,
other relationships --

all these people emotionally
invested in this partnership.

Somebody cheated.

And "the people who think

that I put too much
importance on sex" say,

"Oh, no, no, no.
You must discard all of this.

Divorce and the trauma of it.

Traumatize your children.
Rip your lives apart.

Rip these two
extended families apart.

Force friends and relatives
and neighbors to choose sides."

They put so much weight on
that one sexual transgression.

There's a higher loyalty
than just,

"I didn't touch anybody else,
ever, over 50 years."

[ Swing music plays ]

When non-monogamous behavior
destroys a relationship,

we all hear about it.

When non-monogamy
saves a marriage,

it never gets the credit.

-Very few of us these days

expect to live our whole lives

having sex with only one person.

-We generalize this idea that
the only healthy relationship

is one man and one woman,
and the fact is,

most of those
don't even work out.

-Who were you really with --

That -- That little, blonde
secretary from the office?

-Because the mistake,
I think, we made in,

like, the '50s
and '40s and '60s

was instead of giving women
the same freedom

that men had always enjoyed,

we imposed on men
the same limitations

and restrictions that
women had always endured.

-[ Sobbing ]
-The divorce rate's over 50%,

and the amount of affairs
is even larger,

and most police calls are
for domestic violence, you know?

We're not very good at two
people getting along, period.

-And yet, despite the massive
rates of dissatisfaction,

lack of female orgasm,
and infidelity in relationships,

we're still fed this story

that that's the way
it's supposed to be

and if it's not working for you,

there's something wrong
with you.

-We talk about intimacy.

People talk a lot
about intimacy.

But they have intimacy
with their friends.

They have intimacy
with relatives.

They have intimacy
with other people,

but the sex thing,

there seems, almost, I think,

this superstitious aura
around it that,

that thing, you can't have
that thing with everyone else.

Everything else you do
in a relationship

you can do with anyone else,
but somehow, this sex thing,

you can't have
with anybody else.

-You get a million letters
in an advice column,

and it's amazing how often
the same, like, sentences pop up

in a million different letters

from a million
different couples.

"But I would take a bullet
for him."

"I would walk through fire
for her."

"I can't forgive."

It's, like, how is forgiving
harder than getting shot?

-Right.

-But that seems to be
people's hang-up.

-If one of you were to slip up
and be with someone else,

would that be grounds
for ending your marriage?

-Probably.
-Yeah.

-His suitcase and crap
would be in the front yard.

-I'd never talk to him again.

-Oh, yeah, for sure.
Straight up, just like that.

Even if I was in love with them,
how can you respect yourself

if you're gonna get back
with somebody who cheats on you?

-I was in Cambodia
shooting music videos

for a Cambodian hip-hop band.

And she comes over to me
and puts her hand on me.

"You got to meet my daughter."

-I didn't want to have
anything to do with it,

and then I sat down

next to this incredibly
good-looking, cool guy,

and that was it.

-We fell in love.

-We were together for five years
before we got married.

It felt very safe and nurturing

and different
than what I had had growing up.

I was definitely attracted
to the fact

that he'd grown up in a family

where the parents
had been together,

basically, their whole lives.

-I had a picture-perfect
childhood

with a lot of stability
and a lot of routine,

which is something that,
having kids now,

is a big priority for us.

-We were the first of
our friends to get married.

We were really young.
-Hmm.

-And we were also the first
of our friends to have kids.

-A lot of folks around us,
friends,

were still just
sort of wild and crazy

as we were settling into this.

-Having kids is incredibly
tiring and intense

and overwhelming,
but we work so well as a team

that it was actually
incredibly attractive

to see him become a father.

That rebonded us again.

-And I think
what's interesting, too,

about any long-term relationship

is that you sort of fall in
and out of love with each other.

-We have -- and had --
such a close bond,

and I felt so incredibly
loved by him.

It was never a question
of whether we were gonna
be monogamous or not.

It just sort of was our life,
and we were such a pair.

**

-Non-monogamous people say,

"Because I care about you
so much,

I want you to have
other experiences like that

with other people.

Never would I want
to deprive you of that.

I want you to be able
to have other experiences

that are meaningful of that sort
with other people.

And it makes me happy
to be able to give this to you."

It's a very different
relationship.

-Polyamory is the idea

that you can be in more
than one loving relationship.

It's a different model
than monogamy.

-It is a model in which
you actually say,

"One can love more than
one person at the same time,

and one can construct a system

that can incorporate
those multiple loves."

-Most married gay men,

after they've been together
for five years or so,

are in, either in action
or in open verbal agreement,

an open sexual relationship.

This is to say that they reserve

the emotional sympathy
for each other,

but they're having casual sex
with other people.

They realize that
our biological compulsion

to have sex with other people
doesn't go away

the minute
you put a marriage ring on.

-A friend of ours
came to stay with us,

and he told us that he and
his wife had an open marriage.

And we're like, "What?"

No one we knew
had ever talked about that

or been in a relationship
like that.

It kind of sparked
this thing between us,

where we thought, "Why not?
Let's see what happens."

We had had nine years
of monogamy

without even considering
not having it.

Sandy was brave enough
to allow me to kind of start

a relationship
with this other person,

and that was the beginning
of our exploration.

That was three years ago?

-The lessons of polyamory

that are applicable to people
who are monogamous as well

is the idea that your partner

does not need
to be everything for you

and that you can
take responsibility

for getting your needs met.

So, for instance, I don't like
to do adventure sports.

They make me feel like
I'm going to die.

My partner can go and do that
with somebody else.

I like to go to dorky policy
conferences all day long.

My partner doesn't want
to do that, and that's fine.

-I have been on quite a journey

from, like, utter shame to utter
celebration of my sexuality.

I'm the daughter

of a fundamentalist,
conservative Christian minister,

and I was hard-core Jesus girl
until I was about 22.

Vonnegut said, "Every argument
in a marriage boils down to,

'You're not enough people
for me.'"

We thought we invented
polyamory, absolutely.

I'm thrilled to have since
read all the literature

and met many wonderful people,

but at the time,
it felt really scary

because of how much
we cared about each other.

**

-I've been with Terry
for almost 20 years,

and we've been together
through thick and thin

and we've raised a kid together.

But because we're
publicly non-monogamous,

I get letters
every fucking day from people,

saying, "You don't really
love each other.

You're not really committed."

They will say,
"Every relationship

I've ever been in
has been monogamous."

And I will write them back
and say,

"How many relationships
are you talking about?"

And they will say,
"Oh, you know, I'm 35,

and I've had five committed,
monogamous relationships" --

that you've ended for newness,
for novelty, for new love.

You've had to discard
these people one at a time.

I have never discarded Terry,
he's never discarded me,

and we are less committed
than you with the five exes?

-Yeah, so you're pro-commitment.
That's what's --

-I am pro-commitment.
-And all of the other benefits

that come from what otherwise
people think is only possible

in a monogamous relationship.

-Right. And sexual exclusivity
is the enemy of commitment.

-Polyamory is already
socially acceptable.

We don't call it polyamory.
We call it divorce.

So, John marries Susan,
and they have two kids together,

and then they divorce.

And John still has
a relationship with
Susan and the kids

because, you know, John has
to be in the kids' life.

And John goes off
and marries Samantha.

My brother, for example, has
been divorced four times, right?

Does that mean that he's failed
to love all his previous wives?

No.
So we already accept the fact

that it's quite possible

to love more than one
human being at a time.

Anybody who tells you otherwise

probably shouldn't have
more than just one child.

-With kids, you open your heart
in a way where you understand

that you can love
multiple people fully

and at the same time.

**

-I personally am a polyamorous
woman and a queer woman.

I've had a long-term
male partner whom I live with

and a long-term female partner.

I've never been unfaithful,
and I don't want to be.

And so I've sought out
a relationship

in which we can both have
the freedom, with full honesty

and checking in with each other,

to have relationships
with other people.

-My wife's French.
-Mm-hmm.

-You edit this carefully.
We were married in 1976.

We have a lot
of similar interests

and, more importantly,
points of view on the world.

We're best friends.

For sure, we're soul mates.

I'm polyamorous.

-I knew that
conventional marriage

didn't feel right for me,

and so I've decided
that I want to be out

in order to give other people
an image of possibility.

-For me, polyamory,
or being polyamorous,

means that I can be in love --
in love --

with more than one person
at the same time.

-I found it
incredibly attractive

that he was so brave
and willing to let me do that.

And all our friends were like,
"You guys are nuts.

This is gonna ruin
your relationship.

You're gonna completely,

you know, drift away
from each other."

And we found the opposite
to be true.

We found that, because
we kind of went into it

with pretty radical honesty,

we had so much more faith
in each other,

and it rebonded us...

-Hmm.
-...and made us

more attracted to each other.

It's hot.

-It was me
and my first girlfriend.

So, one of the things
we started talking about,

"You're attracted
to this person.

Why shouldn't we
make out with them?

I mean, what will that do?
You and I are secure.

We know we're not gonna
leave each other.

It was amazing to have
that experience of a new person

but also have the comfort of,

"This is -- I have this
long-term relationship."

-Most relationships,

there's a place
where each individual says,

"Hey, I need to go.
I need my time.

I need my time to grow,

and then I can come back
and give more."

This feels like an iteration,
or a version, of that.

-The point is
to have more love in your life

and to have deeper connections.

-No matter what happens
or where we go

or whatever direction,

we always seem to come back
to each other

and reconnect
and share our experiences.

-If, all of a sudden,
polyamory was widely accepted,

what would that do for the way
we think of property at large?

What would that do
for the way we think of

who we have duties to

and who we're responsible to?

Instead of two fundamentally
different experiences --

the one I have with my partner

and then the way I feel
about strangers in the street --

they start to blend
and bleed together more.

You don't put all of your
compassion and passion

and generosity into one person.

-I mean, I also think
it definitely --

It takes
a certain personality type.

This is not for everybody.

-As part of our research,

we went to a free-love commune
in Portugal.

I can see by you
rolling your eyes and --

-Love ain't free.
Sex isn't free.

-Do you think --
-There's costs.

There's consequences.

There's other people's lives
in the balance.

-Well, their attitude was, like,

"We can provide stability
as a group

and as a community
for the kids,

which is more than
this kind of rupture

that happens
when the divorce happens."

-I agree with that.
You know, it takes a village.

I agree with Hillary.

The nuclear family isolated,

by itself in a ranch house
in the suburbs,

without elders around,

without other community members
involved or intimate

in the lives of the children,
that is an aberration.

-We are here
in the most remarkable project,

called the Peace Research Center
of Tamera.

-This is the place,
the edge place,

of actually finding
the ways of the heart,

the ways of connection
between human beings.

It's really about finding ways
to reopen our hardened hearts.

-You were saying last night
that some of the other women

were offering
their partners to you?

-Yes.
-What was that like?

-My eyes nearly fell
out my head...

[ Chuckles ]

...because
it's so countercultural.

-How did they do it?
What did they say?

-I was talking about
a real terror

of being back in relationship

after being single
and celibate for a while.

And one of the women said,

"You know, my lover is
so gorgeous and so tender,

and if it would really
help you, go.

You have my blessing.

If he can help you
in your healing process,

I would love that."

-Women want to express
their sexual nature

as much as men do,

particularly if they are
allowed to bloom

and if the whole sort of overlay
of patriarchal stickers --

you know, "slut" and so forth
if you show your desires --

and you are allowed
to really express your wish

for sexuality, intimacy,
love, and so forth,

then you start to bloom.

Most women never bloom
in our society.

-It takes so much work
and so much processing,

and every time someone new
comes into your life,

you have to navigate

all the personalities
and issues that come up.

-Is it harder to be left
by two women

than to be left by one?
-Oh, totally.

I had totally committed love

and, you know, beautiful
erotic relationships

with two amazing people.

Then, when it went wrong,
I had double the heartbreak.

And for some reason,
I never imagined that.

I always thought, "You know,
that's one cool thing

about this setup,
is if someone left me,

there would be
another person there

and that would ease
my heartbreak a little bit."

I never imagined that they would
both leave at the same time.

And they're still together.

-The sociologist,
100 years ago, Georg Simmel,

pointed out that there's
these inherent differences

between a group of two
and a group of three or more.

In a group of two,
you can't have secrets,

because if we come out
in the morning

and the milk is spilled
and there's only two of us,

we both know who did it.

Either you did it or I did it,
and I know, if I didn't do it,

that you did it
or I know that I did it.

In a group of three,
you can never know.

You can know that
you didn't do it,

but you can't know
who of the other two did it.

With a group of three or more,
you get politics.

You can get two ganging up
against one.

You can get one who tries
to divide and conquer

the other two.

-My little brother
is polyamorous,

and he's trying really,
really hard to make it work

because he believes in it.

But I've noticed that all it's
ever really brought him is pain.

It's like communism.

It's a great idea,
but good luck making it work.

**

-I think this is a real, major,

and probably unresolvable
conflict in people's minds.

I believe that human beings
have the capacity

for monogamy or polygamy.

I think that we have impulses
in both directions

and that we'll do a lot better

if we recognize
that we have both impulses

and that we're going to be
conflicted about it

and that we need
to talk about it honestly

and that not everybody
is going to resolve the problem

in the same way.

I don't think there's
one right answer to this.

Some couples are going to find

that monogamy is so important
to them as a value

that they're going
to have to work hard

on ways to wall off
their sexual relationship

from the sexual temptations
around them.

-Monogamy and marriage
have been thought of

in lots of different ways,

and it hasn't always
involved love.

And it hasn't always involved
the set of obligations

in relationships
that it does right now.

But we also have to remember
that it's an ideal,

and ideals are often
very hard to achieve.

-We can do better than this.

But here I am.

You know, I'm 64 years old,

having spent a long life

trying to figure out
better ways to do it,

and I'm still, you know...

I can't say I know a great deal
more than I did when I was 18.

[ Chuckles ]

-Having grown so much
out from the experience,

I ask myself, like, "Maybe
it was for the best, right?"

Do you ever tell people,
like, "That's it.

Maybe you should split up now."

-I won't tell people,
"No, you know what?

You just need
to throw in the towel."

I'm still a firm believer
in monogamy.

The notion of monogamy
is no longer this archaic idea

where it has to mean kind of
sexual deprivation and monotony.

I think it can be a very vibrant
kind of institution or construct

that provides some stability
for people to grow.

-We have reached, I think,
a world-historic paradox,

that we expect more
of the marriage relationship

than ever before in history,

but we no longer think
that marriage

is such a vital institution
that everybody has to enter it.

So, when a marriage works today,

I think that it's arguably
more fulfilling sexually,

emotionally, more fair --
definitely more fair --

more passionate
than ever before in history.

But there are also
more alternatives to marriage.

And when a marriage doesn't
live up to those ideals,

it seems less bearable
to people.

-And if people think
getting married

is the only way
they can fall in love

and have relationships,
that's a sad prospect,

because then, what they get told

when the relationship
comes to an end

is that they made
a terrible mistake

and they must have been
terribly stupid.

Right?

How could they
have been so dumb?

This wasn't the real one.

This wasn't true love.

This wasn't the one-and-only.

Well, we'll have to try
for the next one-and-only.

-We wish that everybody
had the ideal marriage,

and we hope that it could be an
absolutely pervasive phenomenon,

but it might be beyond
the capacity of many people

to achieve that.

That doesn't undermine it
as an ideal.

-If your spiritual,
ethical value in life

is located in
your monogamous marriage,

then good for you.

My parents have been married
52 years.

And, as far as I know,
they've been pretty damn happy

every one of those years --
and monogamous.

And Mom and Dad,
if you see this,

I don't want to hear about it
if you weren't, you know?

-So, we've been married
over 50 years.

-When I saw her,
she just seemed to be the ideal.

I learned later,
she wasn't, but...

[ Both laugh ]

**

-I am his --
like, no one else's.

I'm not embarrassed by it
at all.

He's mine, also.

-We've grown so much together
over so many years.

-I just cannot imagine
being with anyone else.

-Is monogamy and marriage

something that
you would recommend,

that people should
try and preserve?

-I would say
love should be preserved.

Whether that means
getting married,

I never knew that
we had a choice.

-I can't imagine any other...
-I mean, yeah.

What would life be like
without her?

I mean, it would be meaningless.

My whole life has been
with this woman,

and it's been great.

So I don't have any regrets.

**

-"Dear Dan, it's been four years
since my divorce.

I've learned so much during
the making of this film,

thanks, in part, to you

and all the other people
I talked to.

Of course,
there aren't any easy answers

to these questions
I've been asking,

are there?

On the contrary,
it seems that the deeper I dig,

the more complicated
it all gets.

One thing is certain, though --

Love is universal,
but it's a delicate process.

It requires constant nurturing

through communication
and honesty.

My hope is that we've helped
people have conversations

that they might not
otherwise have had

and maybe think, without shame,

about the relationship model
that could work best for them.

The other conclusion
I've come to

is that change is constant --
in ourselves,

in our relationships,
and in the culture at large.

I started with an ending,

so now it seems appropriate
to end with a beginning --

an uncertain one, a risky one,
an exciting one,

and one that would have been
impossible

without having gone
on this journey with you.

Will it work?
Who knows?

What counts as working, anyway?

That seems to change
all the time, too.

I'll let you know
the next time we talk.

Thanks again.

Yours, Tao."

**

**

**