Cheat to Win:Strategies to build anti-monogamist solidarity

Written September 2022 by some friends in the Midwest

Why would we want to help our friends cheat?

To us, “cheating” is an act of rebellion against Monogamy. Monogamy is a system of social control that pushes us to define our relationships using restrictive rules, which isolates us in couples and families and in doing so keeps us from establishing the communal closeness that we need if we are to effectively challenge capitalism and the state. Cheating is alleged when somebody pursues any kind of interpersonal closeness that is forbidden by the (perhaps implicit) rules of a “romantic” relationship they are part of. Most people think of cheating as a selfish mistake that somebody makes when they do not care about their “partner” enough or are blinded to reason by an overwhelming (but still bad and punishment-worthy) urge. We have a more optimistic view.

Cheating opens a door. It challenges the assumption that the current social world based on obligation and restriction is the only possible one. That challenge will be met harshly by those who would act as the footsoldiers of Monogamism — which might be any and all of us, given how ubiquitously we are indoctrinated into it and how strongly it’s rewarded within our social institutions. The goal of such a response is to show the cheater that violating the rules is untenable, to punish them deeply enough that they won’t dare violate the social order again — or that if they do, they will do so in secrecy and shame, and only in ways that don’t actually have the capacity to challenge the system of Monogamy. Cheating itself is not enough. In fact, the cycle of suppressing desire until people cheat and then punishing them for it is part of what makes Monogamy work. A steady stream of cheaters who can be publicly humiliated helps demonstrate just how essential the system of Monogamy is to our supposed peace. The Monogamists can point to the most recent cheater that’s been outed and exclaim “See, look how awful desire is if left to its own devices! If we didn’t police our affections, people would be this reckless all the time! Imagine the chaos and pain!” Nevermind that it is Monogamy itself that produces the restrictions that make cheating possible (and painful), not desire.

But there is another path. When people cheat (as with other “personal” rebellions) we open a door to a world with less restriction. If we can hold that door open against the Monogamists trying to slam it in our faces, new paths can open before us. When our friends cheat, we want to help them hold that door open, steady their feet, and find a path to further joyful defiance of the punishments and demands of Monogamy. We do not envision a Monogamous world in which everybody is cheating on each other (we don’t need to, in fact; we already live in that world). We envision a world in which our little rebellions are nurtured and enlivened instead of snuffed out, where they can grow into revolts and revolutions that build communities in which we can meet our needs with less coercion, restriction, and artificial scarcity.

Encouraging each other to cheat is only a meaningful liberatory act if we understand what can come next. This is just the same as effectively supporting any rebellious direct action: we can be more successful if we also build analysis, affinity, systems of resource-sharing, and ways to mitigate any punishment that might result. When we protest, we may prepare ourselves and our comrades for weeks and months and years prior; we may have contingency plans, bring snacks and water, develop a common understanding of what roles need filled and who can fill them, arrange for jail support, and decide which lawyers we will call. We can approach the small rebellion of cheating in the same intentional way.

How can we help our friends when they cheat?

These are practical notes, based on our experiences with cheating, about how to help our friends who cheat and how to cope with the punishments of Monogamy while building supportive community spaces in which individual rebellion against Monogamy can transform into deeper action to build less coercive and restrictive ways of relating to each other. This is not a definitive guide or manual; just some things we’ve been thinking about that seem useful to share.

1.) Recognize that the category of “cheating” is built to justify punishment, not describe behavior.

What constitutes cheating is different for different people, is usually not clearly communicated, and often will suddenly expand or contract based on the emotional state of the people making accusations and what conflicting interests they have. “Cheating” is not a cogent category of behavior, but a label that is used to cast moral judgment on expressions of desire that need to be suppressed to preserve Monogamy. People who cheat should know and be supported in knowing that their behavior is not unjust; another person’s claim to their bodies, minds, and social lives is. They should know and be supported in knowing that their desires make sense, and that there is no amount of being well-behaved that will stop Monogamy from trying to control and suppress our desires.

We can resist this by demystifying and contradicting the language of Monogamy. Cheating is almost always about sex, but often also about emotional closeness. The language we use to talk about these things often blurs a concrete understanding of our behavior and reinforces shame. We should avoid euphemisms (including the word “cheating” itself). Instead of “what happened between us”, we might say “that time we had sex in your living room”, or “when you told me something you were afraid to tell your partner”. Instead of “it sounds like he’s mad that you cheated”, we might say “it sounds like he’s mad that you had sex with somebody without his permission”. Instead of talking about “inappropriate closeness”, or “affairs”, we might talk about “loving friendships” and “passionate sex”. In refusing to use the stigmatizing language of the Monogamist mythology, we open space for questioning its rightness before, during, and after somebody cheats.

2.) Build shared analyses of the harms of Monogamy that are not just criticisms of individuals

We should study the ways that systems of power cause harm and cause us to harm each other. To challenge something as deeply-ingrained in our culture as Monogamy, we need to understand that systems of hierarchy will cause us to harm each other even if we don’t intend to.

It is a valid criticism of Monogamy to say that it denies basic resources (housing, healthcare, social recognition, human touch, validation, opportunities for income, etc.) to people who cannot or will not operate within rule-based relationships. However, it is also important to build awareness of the ways that Monogamy harms the people who agree to rule-based relationships, not just the ways it denies resources to the people excluded from them. People are not resources to be distributed (or hoarded, as the case may be), and focusing on how rule-based relationships harm the people they exclude (even if this is true) rather than on how they harm the people entrapped in them may be less likely to feel supportive and more likely to worsen guilt and shame in people who are struggling to follow their desires.

We should also build skills in approaching people in rule-based relationships compassionately. They are not bad people just because they are enacting the harms of Monogamy on each other. They are trying, like the rest of us, to make sense of and exist in a world that is hostile to their freedom. The harms caused by cheaters and those they cheat on are actually the harms of Monogamy. This is not to say we are obligated to stand by specific people while they actively harm us. But when we witness the harms that we enact on each other within rule-based relationships, it’s important to blame the system of Monogamy rather than the desires of individuals to meet their social and material needs. When we see a messy divorce (which is a normal and common outcome of rule-based relating), instead of saying “that was a bad marriage”, we want to say, “marriage is bad because it leads us to mistreat each other like this.”

3.) Be clear and consistent about our critiques of relationship hierarchies

It is tempting to stay quiet about our qualms with Monogamy because people will find it alienating or will believe that because we object to some things they do we reject them as people. It is true that people see us as threats to their rule-based relationships when they find out we don’t have an absolute moral objection to cheating. It often does not matter how carefully and kindly we say that we will not monitor or enforce the coercive agreements they have made to control each other’s bodies; it’s something that has lost us many friends. Any of us may not be able to pay the cost of this isolation at any given time; social scarcity is artificial, but it is real in the current world. But when we can, it is powerful to be up-front about our position as a matter of course. This does not mean being always contrarian or judgmental. It can be done with kindness and care. If resistance to Monogamy is a consistent part of our interactions with the world, rather than appearing only in periods of conflict about cheating, people have more space to engage with it non-defensively. Besides, building friendships so fragile that they would fall apart if you mentioned a political disagreement is often counterproductive.

4.) Build our own and mutual support networks

This is essential to all the other steps. We can only sustainably do unpopular rebellious things in public when we have security and solidarity. We need people who understand us and our motivations who can support us in figuring out what we want to do and help us see it through. Part of building a world where cheating can be a step towards liberatory relating instead of just producing scapegoats for the system of Monogamy is building broad and flexible networks of mutual support.

We should not rely on a person who has cheated with one of us to provide support during this time. When we have watched our friends cheat, they often end up distressed, under huge social pressure, feeling guilt and shame about their interactions with us, and struggling to maintain their self-worth and dignity. This is not a good place from which to provide effective support, if any. In the same way, someone who has cheated should not rely only on one person (especially the person they cheated with) for support during and after cheating. They will usually have lots of conflicting desires and strong emotions around interacting with this person, which can make receiving support difficult. There is also a risk of replacing one restrictive system of dependence (their relationship with their partner) with another (their relationship with the person they cheated with). It is important to help our friends build connections with many liberation-minded people as a matter of course, long before cheating is on the table. Without this kind of loving, distributed support, many people can only imagine cheating as a shameful secret vice rather than a path by which their deepest desires might pull them towards revolution.

5.) Support people in choosing to cheat, and choosing how they proceed afterwards

Cheating, like any rebellion, can only lead us to revolt if we know we can choose that path. Consider a precinct maintenance worker who spills a can of paint, and a protestor who spray paints a precinct’s front window. One of these is an act of rebellion, and the other a mere accident. Framing cheating as an impulsive mistake rather than a choice to express desire while under duress keeps us from seeing the power in our desires. As with any potentially life-changing act, the person cheating should be able to choose how they do it on their own terms. It’s tempting to get swept away in a delirium of desire (or at least play along with this script), but this can backfire by letting everybody pretend that cheating is an error rather than a reasonable choice. Stopping to say “what do you want right now?”, “are you wanting to do this right now?”, etc., besides being good consent practice, helps preserve everybody’s awareness that they are making a choice to follow their desire.

It is important to honestly state your boundaries about what information you will share about an episode somebody considers cheating, and who you will share it with. This can feel hard if these boundaries don’t comply with Monogamist customs of secrecy and shame. Stating boundaries is not the same as making rules or requiring that other people either keep secrets or share information in certain ways. If you do not want to keep your experiences private, don’t promise to. Discuss this with people who are moving to cheat with you as soon it makes sense to. If somebody believes they are cheating in absolute secrecy, and this expectation is broken, they will suffer punishments they didn’t knowingly choose. This makes the harm of those punishments harder to mitigate, and makes it easier to see cheating as an ignorant mistake rather than as a choice to express desire which should ultimately be nurtured and multiplied. This is not to say that nobody should ever keep information to themselves. It is often strategic and even necessary for safety to limit how information spreads. We simply aim to spread and hold information in ways that help people meet their desires, rather than in ways that uphold the suppression of desire by Monogamy. We also aim to be transparent about this strategy, and model it so that it is easier for others as well.

6.) Expect punishment

Everybody thinks they know what a big deal it will be when cheating is discovered, but it’s often bigger than we anticipate. Usually, everybody involved is punished in one way or another. The person who cheated may find themselves suddenly ostracized by a surprisingly wide social group. They may be pressured by the person they cheated on and others to make right the supposed wrong of cheating. This can include demands to end friendships, restrictions on what they are “allowed” to do, pressure to make personal and public declarations of wrongdoing and promises of redress, pressure to engage in specific kinds of counseling or mediation, requirements to share access to devices and other personal information so that they can be surveilled, pressure to give up hobbies or interests, prohibitions against spending time “unsupervised”, and ultimatums to quit jobs or relocate. The person who they cheated with may be publicly identified (either overtly or through gossip) and ostracized or pressured to atone in various ways. The cheater and the third party are usually viewed as guilty and offered little to no support. They may have to choose between submitting to heightened control or being excluded entirely. The person cheated on may also be stigmatized for not being a good partner, or for continuing to associate with a cheater, but is more likely to be viewed as a victim who should be supported.

People who have cheated or helped somebody cheat may lose access to basic resources, including housing, social support, income, transportation, healthcare, ways to communicate with people, etc. Sometimes this is an intrinsic part of a new boundary or restriction, and sometimes partners who have been cheated on will just immediately withdraw any support they were giving to the cheater. They may pressure mutual friends to do the same. They may go on the offensive, talking badly about the cheater to friends, family, coworkers, bosses, and others, or harass or assault the cheater. Before seeing this happen, we may think “oh, this person’s ‘partner’ is a reasonable person, they wouldn’t do that.” But we must remember that in our culture jealousy about cheating has been considered a valid excuse for all kinds of harmful behavior, including rape and murder, and is a common reason that people lose housing, income, custody of children, access to transportation, community support, and other vital resources. Violence directed at a cheater, whether structural or interpersonal, direct or indirect, will often be excused as understandable and blame for this violence will be placed on the cheater it is directed at.

We may think that our progressive friend groups would be able to take a nuanced approach to something like this. On the contrary, cheating is as threatening to many non-monogamous people as it is to monogamous people. If somebody is labeled as a “cheater”, they will often be excluded from any social space in which people heavily value rule-based relationships. It turns out this includes most social spaces, even non-monogamous ones (after all, “ethical non-monogamy” typically just means “sufficiently-policed non-monogamy”). This might happen abruptly in the form of a confrontation or ultimatum, or over time as one finds they are just no longer invited to things.

Knowing about these consequences helps us prepare for them. It helps us identify normative responses to cheating as violent tools that maintain a restrictive social structure rather than the just desserts of a transgression that Monogamist mythology pretends they are. It further shows us that these consequences are finite and can be resisted. Seeing this, we know we might make reasonable choices to face these consequences, especially when we can help each other recover from them and rebuild less violent ways of relating to each other.

7.) Share resources through networks of mutual aid

Responses to cheating, as part of anti-Monogamist struggle, intersect with other domains of the struggle to liberate ourselves from the artificial scarcity created by capitalism. For many people, having access to housing, social support, financial stability, and many other basic needs all depend on engaging with rule-based “dating” and “family” structures. In this way, Monogamy intersects with other systems of power that keep us from meeting our basic needs. Our strategies against these systems must intersect, as well. An important part of moving towards liberation for all people is building support networks through which we can meet these needs whether or not we are partnered in rule-based relationships (or fulfill the other conditions by which Capitalism decides who is worthy of dignity and resources).

Resources people may need after cheating, especially if they decide not to pursue rule-based relationships afterwards, include many things that are currently most accessible within the couple form:

Housing and support in finding housing
Jobs and support in job searching
Transportation
Insurance / healthcare resources
Help leaving harmful relationships or situations
Help making self-care and safety plans
Help maintaining residency and immigration status
Help navigating custody of children/dependents
Ways to find affection and touch
Relationships in which to process emotions
Support in understanding their own desire and pleasure
Help establishing and pursuing meaningful projects
Help establishing and enforcing boundaries
Support in building self-esteem

And there are many more. These are also important strategies to help people who are “breaking up”, or who find themselves on the wrong side of Monogamist judgment in some other way. This is not to imply that we must commit to being able to house, feed, and counsel everybody we might share sex or other intimacy with. Expecting an individual or a small group to meet all these needs, especially in the high-conflict and high-stakes social environment of allegations of cheating, is neither realistic nor something we would propose. The list above are resources that we would aspire to supply through distributed mutual aid.

We hope that this document is a starting point, a resource that can let more people establish a footing that lets them be bold and caring in the face of Monogamy’s policing of desire. We envision a world in which integrative projects oppose the supposedly “private” domination of Monogamy alongside the “public” dominations of the state, the prison-industrial complex, white supremacy, colonialism, and other institutionalized forms of control. We dream of a world with abundant housing, food, love, joy, and pleasure for all people. We dream of a world in which the idea of cheating doesn’t even make sense, because there is no reason to try to control each other’s desires.

Stay safe.
Be dangerous.
Cheat to win.