Loyalty and Monogamy

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kristen in Dubuque, Iowa.

Hey, Kristen, welcome.

Hi, Kristen, what’s up?

Well, I teach a class in U.S. History of Sexuality, and in that class, I have the students start by doing an ethnography of their youth culture where they put the rules or norms of their dating culture onto paper. And then at the end of the class, after we’ve studied the history of sexuality, we look back at what they said were the rules or norms of their dating culture.

And this year in 2021, the first time this has occurred, students used loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. And in 2019, that hadn’t come up. So I thought that was a really interesting change.

Loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. Do you know if they came up with this independently of each other or was there some group work involved?

It was independent. So I had 27 students and it appeared in several of them. And how did they define loyalty? Was it exactly like monogamy?

Well, I have a phrase from one of their ethnographies for you. Dating requires loyalty from both. No flirting or seeing others. And another person wrote, once you’re in the dating stage, you’re not supposed to be talking with others. In other words, loyalty or monogamy is required.

So instead of monogamy just being about being with one person, they’re adding on additional ideas. It’s not just about one partner, but it’s also about, like, don’t look. Like, you can be monogamous and look, right?

Right. You’re right. I didn’t catch that. Yeah, it’s definitely tied. They’re adding on. They’re expecting more, maybe, than other generations have expected. They’re holding their partners to a higher standard. That’s interesting that they’re redefining the word.

Right. And when on the last day of class, we talked through the ethnography, they had read, you know, everyone’s answers. And I asked them, am I understanding that you are using loyalty as a synonym for monogamy? They didn’t quite understand why I didn’t understand that. So we were talking about the different, you know, ways that we, you know, use language. So it was a great conversation between us.

And of course, I don’t understand a lot of the slang that they use, but this one was reconceptualizing a word in a very new way for me.

I like this, Kristen. It’s a report from the field, and it’s something to keep an eye on because words, as you know, aren’t static, and this kind of transition does tend to happen with young people. They’re the ones that move language forward. And we do find that cultural shifts appear in language in just this way.

So maybe you have witnessed not just the language changing, but culture changing as well. The equalization of the relationship.

Yeah, that’s an interesting way to think about it. So have you any other cases of this anywhere?

Well, there are some other terms that I think are worth bringing up here. Previous generations have talked about their ride or die. This is their person that they would commit themselves to fully. Or someone that you ride for. And those are pretty much the same. These are the person that you would do anything for, that you absolutely, this is, you’re 100% committed to this person.

And there’s a term being borrowed from gaming. I don’t know how fully this is in the relationship world, but it’s called maining. So maining in the world of video games is where you choose one character to play the most out of all the other possible characters that you could play. And so when you’re kind of dating around, you might decide to start maining one particular person, where you just date them exclusively, and then they become the person that you’re monogamous with or loyal to the most.

So there’s kind of like that stage between dating around and becoming committed, in between those two. It’s maining.

Interesting.

Main, M-A-I-N.

Yeah, M-A-I-N. They become your main person.

Am I the only one who keeps tripping over the term monogamous? Because I feel like that is, you know, I’m looking at the Greek. I mean, it has to do with marriage. And I’m thinking that maybe it’s a more old-fashioned term or something. You know, I think of, you know, somebody who’s monogamous is married to one person. A bigamist is married to two people. I have to wonder if…

If that’s part of it.

Yeah, if part of the evolution is moving to loyalty or faithfulness or away from that term monogamous, which to me sounds a little bit more, I don’t know, sociological, clinical, clinical. That’s the word I’m looking for. Is that any part of it at all?

I think so, because what’s interesting is they were trying to differentiate in this ethnography between the stage of talking and dating. So talking is when you’re getting to know someone, and you might be getting to know more than one person, and they were trying to differentiate between like a talking stage and a dating stage. And so this loyalty seems to be like key when you’ve moved into dating.

Oh, that’s interesting. And I feel like talking is laden with all kinds of meaning.

Yeah, I can just hear the quotes around that talking, capital letter T. Talking to her. He’s talking to her. They’re talking. In my junior high years, it was go with. It was go with was a very latent expression. You’re going with someone. You’re not just like, you’re not accompanying them to the store. You’re going with them, meaning you were a couple.

And talking is different these days?

Yes. Talking is where there isn’t any type of a commitment. It can involve sex between partners in the talking stage, and that’s probably generationally a new addition to that. So talking and dating have different kind of rules about sex and how they fit in.

Well, I love this report from the field, Kristen. I love this interface between culture and language. And we’ll look for more from you in our inbox. So do tell.

Oh, that would be a lot of fun. So thank you so much. It’s nice to talk to friends today.

We’re delighted to take your call. Take care and be well.

Okay, you too. Thanks. Bye.

Thanks, Kristen. And we love getting those data points from folks in the field.

Yeah. So if you have one, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email. The address is words@waywordradio.org, or hit us up on Twitter @wayword.