Editor’s Note: Every Saturday, we run a column by Maria Padhila on a relationship-based theme, usually focused on polyamory or what some call responsible nonmonogamy. — efc
By Maria Padhila
“Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t touch anyone.”
I’ve been getting promos for the movie Contagion, which uses this line in its advertising, in my official mailboxes for a while because of a project I’ve been working on. I’m not a scientist or a microbiologist, but one of my real-life jobs is writing for them, so I get to talk to some very smart, advanced people about things that scare most people.
But the message in the movie tagline has extra resonance, as the filmmakers’ intended, because this is the message of fear we’ve been being force-fed for a while. It applies to all parts of life — don’t talk to strangers, don’t travel, don’t have fun, don’t have sex.
Whenever there’s a discussion online or otherwise about any form of open relationships, one of the first questions is always about ‘diseases’. When someone, especially a woman, writes about having several partners or even simply enjoying sex in any kind of online media, about half the comments will be warnings that she will get a disease, die of a disease, or give diseases to others.
As a study of epidemics in the past hundred years or so will show, people seem to be doing a very good job of getting diseases, dying of diseases, and giving diseases to others whether they have multiple partners or not.
One of the oddest yet most common of these types of comments is usually along the lines of: ‘I hope you enjoy having all those diseases’. A variation: ‘I hope your partners like getting all those diseases’. It’s as if the Internets are rife with sadistic Sunday school teachers. It’s right up there with ‘Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about’. It’s just the most bizarre thing I could imagine anyone saying, and it’s all over the place.