Will You Be Our Valentine?

It was never going to stop at redefining marriage. I think we all knew that. For a while there every second article in every second mainstream media news outlet’s lifestyle or relationships section was about gay marriage.

But with Valentine’s Day coming up, things have moved on. And moved on apace. Now every second article in every second mainstream media news outlet’s lifestyle or relationships section is about a third person in your relationship.

Polyamory is in and monogamy is out.

And when I say “in” I mean, it’s the new, liberating, putting the old ways of doing things aside that same sex marriage was going to be a few years ago. Of course we were told back then that really, we didn’t want to redefine marriage away, we just wanted to expand it to include couples who wouldn’t normally be able to be married.

Now, and mark my words, a throuple wedding will happen in my lifetime (barring me getting wiped out fully by a cyclist again while running like a did last week).

Of course we were scorned and told how stupid that was and “slippery slope is nonsense” etc, etc. The eyerolls were the least of it, and the abuse and scorn was the norm.

Yet here we are, four days out from Feb 14, and a table for three is increasingly popular. Take this from The Times of London. Like any good seduction, the article – more of a personal research piece really – by Yasmin Choudhury starts with the “ooh-er” titillation of it all:

Gemma and Sean want to have a threesome with me. We didn’t meet at a club, dancing, drinking and flirting until I couldn’t resist going home with them. No, we had a far more prosaic introduction – they sent me a like on a dating app.

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, here’s what you have to realise. This isn’t just the way of the future, it’s not the way of the past of those creepy Baby Boomers who are all sorta Hugh Hefner and stuff. No, this is actually quite – you know – ordinary.

Online, I’m surprised by how ordinary Gemma and Sean look. They’re both 24, a year older than me, live in London and actually seem quite conventional. And they’re in good company on Feeld. On the app I find an endless carousel of couples my age and younger, all looking for a third person to join them in the bedroom and wherever else they want it. Suddenly, I feel like a prude. Is everyone in Gen Z having threesomes? I’ve never even slept with a woman, let alone had sex with two people at once.

Yes, prude was what sprung to mind when I read that. Get with the Gen Z program girl! And the new term for it is just swell too! It’s called ENM – or ethical non-monogamy (just to differentiate between that and non-ethical non-monogamy). Phew, now that that’s settled, and we’ve acknowledged there’s you know, nothing wrong with it, nothing unethical about it in the way that driving a diesel car is unethical or not recycling is unethical, or buying shares in oil companies is unethical, we can get on with it.

And since it’s clearly ethical, soon it will become domesticated. Soon ENM will be driving kids to school, or picking up that extra litre of milk for the other throuple coming for coffee. Soon it will become part of the furniture. And then it will become mundane.

I can just imagine the throuple building a house. At the pre-start selection meeting with the builders when the three of you are choosing taps, tiles and fittings for the new house after you’ve saved the deposit (much easier with three incomes to be honest). I mean eventually you’ll want to settle down and have kids, right?

“So I like those mid-century looking tiles, what about you?”

“Well I prefer the Scandi look, what do you think?”

Goodness knows it was hard enough for me and Jill with just the two of us, adding a third is a recipe for a divorce, leaving a bereft couple feeling all lonely at the prospect of a lovely monogamous marriage.

Of course this is all part of the ongoing pitch in the Sexular Age. Normalise “the next thing”, the next step in deconstruction of the ethical, moral framework of the West.

But I digress. The CEO of Feeld dating app made this statement: “As a default, monogamy is coming to an end.”

Well late modern laissez faire Western lifestyles are coming to and end too as the chill winds of another global conflict summon us inextricably forwards. Like the 1920s/30s here we are on the cusp of another conflagration and where are we? We’re in a scene from the magnificent Cabaret, wilfully oblivious to the terror that’s coming.

And of course, I’m going to get the naysayers who point to polygamy in the Bible (never condoned, and definitely not countenanced in the New Testament). And of course I’m going to hear the “whataboutery” in terms of other cultures. Well why not go the whole hog as other cultures do and build your whole life around a strongman in a tribal community, a community with a tacit agreement to serve the interests of the whole, and that has no concept of expressive individualism, then go right ahead.

There’s a great rebuttal of the “Love Is Not a Finite Resource” push (it’s an upgrade of the Love is Love of the past few years), which completely shreds the whole polyamory idea. Have a read of it here. The key, of course, is that the word “love” is hiding the real agenda, namely “sex”. Sex, it turns out, as our consent culture is all too aware of, is a finite resource. The article goes on to show that the real issue behind the campaign is idolatrous. The only Person for whom love is not a finite resource is our immutable God, who alone needs no one and derives from no one and who indeed is love.

Right now, the General Synod of the Anglican Church in England has fudged the marriage question – yet again, with revisionist liberal members in thrall to the spirit of the age succeeding in having same sex marriages blessed by the church, even while the doctrine of the church still insists marriage is between a man and a woman.

They won’t stop of course, not until they get what they want. They’re the veritable disobedient dog who is not allowed on the carpet, but gradually inches and simpers its way to the edge, and then onto the fringe, before finally finding itself (now how did that happen?) on the carpet after all. And all along they’ll be more than happy to co-opt secularists as their attack dogs to shout down orthodox Christianity as hatef-illed and culturally recalcitrant.

And like that naughty dog they won’t stop at same sex marriage. And why not? Because the culture hasn’t stopped there. Somewhere in the mix the “throuple” thing will get raised in the General Synod – who knows how many years from now. and in smooth, but blasphemous tones, they’ll be explaining to us how in some deep, rich way we’ve never seen before, this is a reflection of the Ultimate Throuple, the Trinity, and hence should be celebrated as a primary expression of self-giving love. I’m not a betting man, but leave your money on the fridge now.

Oh, and of course, it will start the same way as the current marriage debate – with a whole dose of guilt lumped onto the orthodox perspective. Which is, funnily enough, exactly where The Times of London lands, as Yasmin Choudhury explains why she knocks back Gemma and Sean’s offer of a second date:

As I write this piece, I receive a message from Gemma. “Heyy! Lovely to meet you on Friday, would be great to plan a second date if you’re down x.” I feel guilty. I’m not interested in Gemma and Sean. I won’t be accepting their offer; I will be thanking them for their company.

Poor Yasmin feels guilty. She’s not only letting down Gemma and Sean, she’s letting the whole Gen Z side down. But cheer up, there’s hope. Before the article launches into a series of personal anecdotes from “throuplers” (a neologism I just made up, but I’m sure it will be old hat soon enough). she finishes with this flourish:

ENM might not be the perfect fit for me right now, but I won’t be ruling it out in the future. If it works for a growing number of my generation, why shouldn’t it one day work for me?

Probably because bad ideas don’t work. When Gen Z is five or six letters of the alphabet behind the zeitgeist (we’re going through all 26 letters again didn’t you know?) get back to me and tell me how that’s going. We’re busy mopping up the mess the Boomers have left in the wake of their Sexual Revolution.

I was going to comment on the article in The Times of London, but when I got to the end it said “Comments for this article have been turned off”. Gotta say I found it all a bit of a turn off myself, so I’m not surprised.