Deveney Watch, 3rd June 2009

Oh, it was almost too good to be true.

La Dee was obviously enjoying herself during her Comedy Festival outings, getting away from the kids and her temporary (read the whole thing before you howl) sexual partner. She was writing good stuff, doing what she does best. Being funny, which she undoubtedly is.

But, I suppose in an attempt to whip up some controversy as a follow-up to her 'Animals in clothes' debacle, she's pumped out this piece:

Time for more than unhappily ever after.

As always, I have difficulty knowing where to start:

'It'S not working. And none of us wants to admit it. It's time we got more creative and honest about relationships. Instead of being prescriptive and judgemental, let's be descriptive and productive.'

Let's not be judgemental, she says. That's absurdly rich coming from her. As rich as it would be coming from me, in fact. At least I admit it.

Secondly, 'it's not working. And none of us wants to admit it.'

Oh, I see. Because Deveney is having a hard time with it, we *all* are. Right. Phew. Thank goodness someone has the guts to speak the truth (cue eye-roll).

'It's time we admitted we need to go beyond the fairytales and the outdated and unrealistic social models created by and for religious oppression, financial and gender inequality and social convention. We need to find a new relationship model.'

Really? A happy marriage is a fairy tale? Created by and for religious oppression? Granted, there is much oppression within marriages in certain religions and if not as a whole, within sects thereof. Marriage laws were certainly created in many cultures irrespective of religion to ensure the male hegemony continued. She's not wrong but the reality is human greed and often not the religion itself. But the modern Western marriage? Please. How would she know anyway? She's not married and I reckon my marriage is as progressive as anyone's without breaking the actual definition of marriage.

'At least a third of marriages end in divorce.'

Correct. And two-thirds don't. No, not all of them are happy, but two-thirds don't. At the same time those that fail are not examined. She's good at this. Bare stats are enough, let's dictate The New Way with them. Awesome. The population of the country with AIDS? Small. What should we do? Ditch 'em, according to her mathematical reasoning.

'Statistics on sexual outsourcing aren't available, but it's clearly something that occurs more than we'd like to admit. I'm not just talking about physical intimacy outside people's "official" relationships, I'm talking porn, sex toys, cyber sex and emotional intimacy.'

I don't know if that's strictly true. What she wants is something to support her view and she didn't/wouldn't/couldn't find it. So let's just plough on regardless. At least columnists like Bolt and Devine have fake stats to support their dopey views, this one drops all pretence. There are thousands of studies around this, all of it disturbing and none of it explicity denounced by the queen of the New Way.

'But consider for a moment the judgement embedded in these terms: infidelity, adultery, monogamy, virgin, slut and family values. These words and phrases are brainwashing tools embedded in our minds early in our lives to prevent us developing emotional and ethical templates beyond the two or three rickety versions in common use. Relationships are not one size fits all.'

The last sentence is correct. The rest, interesting. Here we have a woman who is with Richard Dawkins on the sexual jealousy front. In other words, we shouldn't be bothering ourselves with finding and sticking to one person. A slut is a slut, male or female, sorry to break it to you. Monogamy is judgemental, it would seem, rather than honorable and admirable for those who are within that relationship format. Virgin is judgemental only because she makes it so. Infidelity is the breaking of sexual trust between a couple (and therefore the fundamental trust) whether unspoken or declared. It is a rightfully judgemental term, it denotes an action and it's an abhorrent one no matter what the state of marriage. You say it, you stick with it. If you can't stick with it, for whatever reason, don't say it. Too hard for La Dee, it's all about the regret.

"Swans have long been viewed as a symbol of fidelity and everlasting love. But researchers from the University of Melbourne tested the DNA of cygnets and found that one in six is the product of an illicit encounter."

Gasp! Animals don't have a sexual conscience. Next you'll be telling me the sky is blue and the earth revolves around the sun.

'As with swans, so with us. According to some estimates, one child in every 10 is not biologically related to one of its putative parents. Almost a quarter of paternity tests conducted by one of Australia's largest DNA laboratories find the man submitting a sample is not the father.'

She's a genius, she's pointed out that people do The Wrong Thing. Except in her world, it's not the wrong thing, it's An Other Thing. It's not infidelity, it's scoring a root with someone else for the pleasure of it and getting a kid out of it. It doesn't make it right and it doesn't make it okay. A partner who does this is detestable and infidelity is heart-breaking.

'This suggests all children should be DNA tested at birth.'

WTF? No, no and a thousand times no. Most people don't *need* that (one in ten ring a bell? Someone get this woman a calculator). Yes, every parent and child deserves to know whose is whose but seriously, must we live in suspicion all the time? Shall we DNA test her kids? That would be fun. A whole TV show - Cath's Kids.

'This is not a new thing. It has not been caused by raunch culture, permissiveness, feminism or the move away from religion.'

Or towards it, for that matter. See, the funny thing about humans is that whatever label they apply to themselves, they're still humans.

'I know millions of stories. And so, I'm sure, do you. The bloke who recently found he had a brother from an affair his mother had when he was four. The dad with two families. A woman who left her husband because he was gay but now wishes they had come up with an arrangement whereby they raised the children under the same roof. A deeply religious woman, married for 25 years, who covers her head as prescribed by her religion but who has spent every Friday night for the past decade at a bondage club (she's always home by breakfast). And my happily married mate who goes to a sex club once a month — with his wife's blessing and clear rules on what's permitted and what's not.'

This passage amazes me. Boys will be boys in NRL is not good enough for her, but in here, it's all cool. It's just another model for relationships. Let's not worry about the real cost of this sort of thing. If this 'happily married mate' is happily married, why is he off shagging at a sex club? Why is his wife not going with him? Why is she silly enough to accept him breaking the vows of marriage (if they took them)? Good luck to them, can't wait to see them in ten years and ask them how it's worked out for them. The pair of them are half-wits and I assume the wife is just trying to hang on to something, however broken. Working hard for the relationship, despite the obvious gaping holes.

Except...well...

'Work hard, by all means, but relationship disintegration is not a failure. It's a fact of life.'

'Teach them that if something is not working, you try to change it. But also teach them to know when something is a lost cause.'

When it all gets too hard, give up. It's not a bad thing if you let your marriage or relationships die because you're too lazy or indisciplined. Marriage is a 'rickety' relationship model. Yeah, right on sister.

'It's time for us to bravely blaze a trail of truth and reality. It's tricky, but we're smart. The long way round might be the short way home.'

So, we're back to the Cath Deveney of old - hysterically blaming social normality ('religious oppression') for society's ills and suggesting we just drop certain moralities and head off into the wide blue yonder. To me, these sorts of columns are the pre-justification for her possibly impending relationship breakdown. The tone of the article is dark and I'll take a punt that things aren't rosy at home so she's just laying the groundwork for herself. I would be ecstatic if I were proved wrong - relationship breakdowns are a curse for anyone involved. I hate it.

This sort of stuff is poisonous - it's ill-thought out and is just a libertarian view of the human condition - do what you like as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. But if you do hurt someone, and they tell you, then they are simply being judgemental. She is presenting little that is new. She quotes Esther Perel, the author of Mating in Captivity,

'[Perel] describes the human condition as being torn between "security and adventure". She speaks of the puritanical streak that runs through the heart and crotch of our culture.'

I don't see much of that and Deveney herself vacillates between the two extremes to suit her point. I don't think Perel meant what Deveney wants her to mean, by the by, but Deveney will take it where she can get it.

We are torn between security and adventure - that's why so many young people work for a few years to save up to go backpacking. That's a good thing. Going to a sex club when you're married (or at all, if you were to ask me) is not a good thing, it's destructive, selfish and stupid. If the NRL sex scandal was anything to go by, these models don't work and to preach them as a solution is hypocritical. She consented - look where it got her. Nowhere nice. Can she ever have a 'normal' relationship again? Unlikely. She is scarred for life. But of course, these are the exceptions to her rule, unlike her facile and unverifiable examples of 'good' relationships.

I am not saying that these 'alternative' relationships can't work. They feed the greed of those involved and can continue for many years, but plenty of people get hurt along the way. Of course, Deveney would condemn the polygamist Mormon or Muslim model because they're religious, but do the same thing outside it, then good for you. In fact, well done you, get in there. But speak to anyone who really knows about this stuff and they'll tell you the wreckage the majority of these relationships leave behind. Deveney often, and rightly (if self-righteously) preaches against greed, but here she is advocating it. She is advocating sexual and emotional greed to make it all work. But it won't because it can't, we're not wired that way, whether you believe in God or not. Whether you subscribe to religion or not. Humanity makes the same mistakes time and again to feed our greed and look what happens.

Just because 'I have a friend...' doesn't make it right, widespread or indicative of an alternative way. I have a friend who put his nuts in a vice and still had kids. So must we all do this? Er, no. Because the vice of greed, of any sort, hurts you one way or another, whether your nuts are involved or not.

On the other hand, I'm pleased this stuff gets printed, because it should be out in the open (she's such a pioneer, no?) to be dissected and, in the course of time, dismissed as the extreme view, which it is.

Plus, I feel better railing against her than I do yelling at co-workers.