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Analysis Section
Analysis of interview transcripts and the media texts did not yield unitary accounts of ‘infidelity’ and ‘monogamy’ in relationships. Instead ‘infidelity’ and ‘monogamy’ were discursively regulated when participants drew on the ‘Relationship Parameters’, ‘Man: A Sexual Being’ and ‘Passive/aggressive Infidelity’ discourses. These discourses were found to work as explanatory devices, particularising instances of infidelity in relationships. The repertoires of ‘Monogamy-A State of Mind’ and ‘Infidelity-In the Eye of the Beholder’ were explored, these show how participants continually redefine monogamy and infidelity during conversations. The categories of ‘infidelity’ and ‘monogamy’ were found to be functionally situated during conversational interactions, the meaning of the categories continually shifted dependant on the context of which the participants spoke.
‘Relationship Parameters’ DiscourseParticipants within the specific context of the interviews employ ‘Relationship parameters’. These work at the micro-level as explanatory devices that aid participants in negotiating issues of accountability and blame for their extra-relational encounters. Employing ‘Relationship Parameters’ localises and particularises the behaviour to a specific relationship and a specific set of relationship circumstances, and therefore localising the ‘blame’ and ‘accountability’ to the specific relationship and not the individual involved.
Karen draws on aspects of this relationship to characterise it as not particularly serious, she wasn’t ‘in love with this person’ (line 421), and she wasn’t ‘having sex with him’ (line 422). By drawing on these aspects of the relationship she negates such issues of ‘emotions’ and ‘commitment’ that would be invoked by the ‘Have/Hold’ discourse if the relationship were of a sexual nature. Furthermore by describing the relationship as ‘just one of those relations that you had’ (lines 420-421) Karen draws on cultural norms to particularise the relationship to the specific historical time, and therefore it was not just Karen who was having such relationships, rather the relationship was characteristic of the social climate. Relationship parameters can also be employed to validate the decision to continue a relationship after an extra-relational encounter has occurred:
In this extract Elaine distinguishes between the relationship circumstances when her partner had an extra-relational encounter, it ‘had happened so long ago and it was so early in our relationship’ (lines 110-111), and the relationship when the encounter was revealed. The relationship had now developed into a mutually beneficial investment of resources and time, they had ‘started buying a house together, we had a lot vested in the relationship’ (Lines 113-114). Elaine employs this ‘economic’ discourse to characterise her relationship (Willig 2001). Therefore, because the encounter is located in the ‘early days of the relationship’ (line 61) it becomes something to be ‘worked’ through it the context of the present relationship. Elaine positions herself within the economic discourse and as such can be seen as a ‘responsible social actor’ acting accordingly (Willig 2001). Relationship parameters are employed to justify the decision to continue the relationship and ‘work through’ the ‘infidelity’. In the following extract, the decision to have extra-relational encounters is again localised to the specific relationship parameters:
In this case ‘relationship parameters’ are employed to localise the decision as to whether married people should always be faithful to each other. The decision is particularised to the ‘foul and awful relationship’ (line 88), and therefore negates the issue of accountability from the individual because it is localised to the relationship. This relationship parameters device also works retrospectively as a rhetorical device to justify Fran’s own extra-marital relationships, to undermine notions of her behaviour being something for which she is accountable. ‘Man: A Sexual Being’ Discourse
Participants often drew on the ‘Man: A Sexual Being’ discourse when they relayed accounts of male infidelity. This reading is informed by Hollway’s account of the Discourse of Male Sexual Drive (1989:54). This discourse encompasses the idea that men are driven by the biological necessity to seek out (heterosexual) sex. This discourse relies on assumptions such as the sex drive being a natural and inherent characteristic. After repeatedly being used throughout traditional psychology texts and media texts when referring to and accounting for male infidelity it is hardly surprising that this manner of accounting has entered common discourse. An example of this is the following extract taken from a chapter in ‘The Good Relationship Guide’ dedicated to infidelity:
As Stokoe (2000:553) relates ‘any commentary that treats women and men as different groups reinforces the dichotomy’, in this way the ‘Relationship Guide’ can be seen to be reinforcing and constituting gender polarisation. Such commentaries are ‘genderising’ behaviour, the ‘Research’ isn’t localised, but generalised to all ‘men’. It is through such references that the ‘Man: A Sexual Being’ discourse has entered common discourse and has gained ‘cultural currency’ (Seu 2001, Stenner 1993) and therefore when participants do draw on it, the discourse needs little further explanation. Reinforcing the dichotomy:
In this extract Diana distinguishes between the behaviour of males and females. Diana orientates herself as a woman -along with women in general- to the Have/Hold discourse (Hollway 1989:55), where for women ‘sex’ comes imbued with emotional being. ‘Sex is not love, it is only a territory which love has claimed for itself’ (Kundera, cited in Montreynaud 1998), in this way sex has become a ‘carrier variable’ (Seu 2001), it carries with it notions of emotional attachment and commitment. Diana positions men within the ‘Man: A Sexual Being’ Discourse, where they are positioned as containing a natural ability to separate sex and love. In this way males are positioned as not seeing their sexual infidelity as necessarily damaging to their relationship. This substantiates the polarisation of genderised behaviour.
As Samantha so eloquently put it ‘men cheat for the same reason that dogs lick their balls, because they can’. Such utterances within conversations and their presence in media texts can be seen to produce and reproduce the ‘social order’, genderisation, at a micro level (Stokoe 2000:555). The discourse of ‘Man: A Sexual Being’ is continually re-produced with reference to male extra-relational sex because it carries cultural currency; this re-constitutes the discourse as ‘valid’ and as an adequate account of males’ sexual behaviour. Participants within their interactions and everyday discursive practices/manoeuvres have uncritically reproduced the ‘Man: A Sexual Being’ discourse as if it were ‘true’, a ‘fact’. ‘Passive/Aggressive’ Extra-relational DiscourseWithin this discourse participants make use of the Permissive Discourse (Hollway 89:55), this encompasses the idea that sexual desires exist asocially and that they have the right to be expressed. This permissive discourse can be seen to contrast with the Male Sexual Drive Discourse (Hollway 89:54) within which women are often viewed as the object through which men achieve sexual gratification. Within the Permissive Discourse women are seen as equal subjects in the expression of sexual desires. Therefore women are able to draw on this discourse to ‘justify’ and explain their actions. The following utterance was generated after Karen was asked why she was still unfaithful, despite having expressed that she thought the behaviour was ‘really wrong’ and made her feel ‘guilty’ afterwards;
Karen then talks about the relationship she was in at the time:
Karen first relies on the physical attributes of the ‘other man’ to account for her behaviour, and within the context of the Permissive discourse her behaviour is a ‘normal’ expression of her desire. Karen then draws on ‘Relationship Parameters’ as an explanatory device, ‘it wasn’t as if I was in love with this person nothing like that. I wasn’t having sex with him’ (lines 421-422), to account for her infidelity. Finally, Karen positions herself within a further discourse, which I have called ‘Passive/Aggressive Infidelity’, ‘this guy came over to me and I just couldn’t, I don’t know, I just didn’t walk away’ (lines 423-424). Karen talks about how ‘this guy’ came over to her, she didn’t actively seek to have an extra-relational encounter, she just ‘couldn’t’, ‘didn’t walk away’, the ‘cheating’ was done to her.
Karen firstly draws on the permissive discourse and then relationship parameters as explanatory devices to account for her behaviour; finally she negotiates this account by taking up a ‘passive’ position within the permissive discourse. ‘Monogamy: A State of Mind’ RepertoireParticipants draw on the ‘Monogamy: A State of Mind’ discourse as a rhetorical device to aid them in (tricky) negotiations surrounding behaviour that is classed as ‘unfaithful’. This discourse is highlighted in the following example: The following conversation comes about because the participant Karen has asserted that she only defines a union between two people as a ‘relationship’ when it is monogamous. Monogamy then is the defining parameter of what can be classed as a relationship (for Karen). The other participant taking part in the discussion, Judy, is talking about what she termed a ‘casual relationship’; whilst in that relationship Judy ‘snogged’ two other people. At first Karen resists Judy’s’ classification of her relationship with partner Matt as a ‘relationship’, as according to Karen a relationship isn’t a ‘relationship’ if it is casual.
Karen then handles this potentially problematic line (For Judy) by re-assessing Judy ‘relationship’. As Pamerantz states, people will continually assess and reassess their talk whilst in group situations (Pamerantz 1984).
Previously Karen defined a ‘relationship’ by monogamous behaviour, she then negotiates this problematic discussion by further defining Judy’s relationship in terms of what behaviour Judy ‘thought’ was appropriate, and not what behaviour she was actually doing within the context of her ‘relationship’. The relationship becomes a state of mind (not a behavioural stance) that is moderated by how monogamy is rhetorically im/positioned. Karen negotiates a ‘Power-Positioning’ (Stenner 1993:120) within this discourse, she is now responsible for redefining how Judy should feel about her behaviour, which she previously thought of as casual, now gets redefined as ‘unfaithful’. Later on in the discussion Judy negotiates the issue of how her partner may have felt about her behaviour, she draws on ‘relationship parameters’,
It was ‘towards the end when the relationship was dying down’ (Lines 473-474). Ironically, although drawing on this relationship parameter does negate the issue of assigning ‘blame’ or accountability for her behaviour and the ‘harm’ it may have caused her partner, Judy states that she thinks she ‘still would have done the things even if it was in the middle of the relationship’ (Lines 484-485). Judy is able to locate this incident in ‘the past’, her relationship behaviour is defined in terms of an attitude she held ‘back then’ (Line 444), by reflecting on ‘past’ behaviour it allows her to talk about past ‘indiscretions’ without needing to negotiate the issue of any ‘blame’ assigned to her ‘now’. Discussion of this relationship narrative demonstrates quite succinctly the difficulty of accessing one ‘true’ account of relationship behaviour. Within the context of the participants’ discussion the relationship is reflectively re-told and hence the relationship is continuously re-narrated and re-constituted. Another example of how the ‘Monogamy: A State of Mind’ discourse is used to negotiate discussions about relationship behaviour occurs within Interview 7. Gwen was in what she defined as a casual relationship, her and her partner were just ‘dating’ (line 126) and Gwen had had an extra-relational encounter with another guy. In the following extract Gwen talks about why this encounter isn’t classed as ‘cheating’:
Gwen goes on further to talk about how she viewed this retrospectively and why she still felt guilty even though it had been agreed between her and her partner that it was ok -within the context of their relationship:
In contrast to the previous narrative between Judy and Karen, in this account Gwen attempts to negotiate ‘blame’ or ‘accountability’ for herself, instead of negating ‘blame’ by relying on her account that her behaviour was acceptable within the context of her relationship. The idea that Gwen should be monogamous within relationships is mediated by how Gwen ‘feels’ about polygamous behaviour, and not by how the relationship itself has been defined. The relative function of this manoeuvre for Gwen could be inferred to be many things. Firstly, this may result from Gwen orientating herself to the ‘Have/Hold’ discourse (Hollway 1989:55), which in part states that sex should take place within the framework of a lasting relationship; sex and love are intrinsically linked. By negotiating accountability and blame for her behaviour Gwen can still preserve the ‘essence’ of the have/hold discourse, and hence views her extra-relational encounter as wrong and for which she is morally accountable. Secondly, Gwen does justify her behaviour in terms of relationship parameters, it was a ‘casual’ relationship, and therefore her behaviour can be seen as acceptable, but because she may not wish to be viewed as the ‘sort of person’ (Line 131) who has such casual relationships she negotiates accountability for herself. Gwen negotiates a position of ‘moral high-ground’ at the micro level, so that she can still be seen as ‘not the sort of person’ (Line 131) who ‘cheats’ within the interview context. Finally this narrative account could be reflective of socially restrictive discourses surrounding the idea that women cannot feature in ‘casual’ sexual relationships without feeling the need to justify them in terms of love and emotions. As Hollway (1989:55) states, although the have/hold discourse is gender-blind, in practice it is applied more stringently to women, and the result is a ‘double-standard’. Men do not have to refer to the have/hold discourse to negotiate sexual encounters in the same way that women do. ‘Infidelity-In the eye of the Beholder’ Repertoire.Within this discourse ‘infidelity’ is seen as a negotiated construction defined within interactions. In this context what is classed as infidelity is not always mediated by the physical act of ‘cheating’, instead it is defined through exploration of such issues as ‘intent’, ‘investment’ and ‘emotional involvement’. Often the decision regarding whether the infidelity is acceptable or ‘serious’ will reflect such issues. This makes the act of defining infidelity quite problematic as within interactions and explorative discussions it takes on many different guises. Mediated by emotions The following extract is from interview 9, at this point in the interview Fran has been talking about a previous relationship, in which she had a extra-relational encounter with Bill who she’d liked since she was sixteen;
This example shows how the act of Fran being ‘unfaithful’ with Bill is redefined, and to Fran is really considered as not being unfaithful because she ‘really wanted to be with Bill anyway’ (Lines 259-260). What is classed as infidelity in this situation isn’t defined by the physical ‘act’ of cheating, it is defined in term of how Fran felt about Bill and her partner at the time. As Lawes (1999:7) states, ‘the right person is a powerful explanatory device’, and in this context it is drawn upon to redefine what is defined as infidelity. The following extract also indicates that ‘forgiveness’ after a person has had an extra-relational encounter may not be merely mediated by the ‘act’ of ‘cheating’.
Although when quizzed further Bess does define what ‘cheating’ she would forgive in the context of her present relationship, this first reply from Bess does indicate several things about how she constructs ‘infidelity’. Firstly it implies that there is nothing ‘inherently’ unforgivable about ‘infidelity’, instead (secondly) the issue of forgiveness isn’t defined by what the person did but rather who did the ‘cheating’ (or maybe who they did the ‘cheating’ with). In this context the act of ‘cheating’ and the issue of forgiveness is mediated by Bess’ feelings towards the ‘cheater’ and not the act itself. Mediated by Thoughts As the above examples show several other factors are taken into account when people define what infidelity is to them, this area becomes even more problematic when we consider the following extracts;
Defining the ‘act’ of cheating becomes even more problematic as Clare and Ben include what people are ‘thinking’, the following extract touches on the problems with this area;
These extracts typify the discourse ‘Infidelity-In the Eye of the Beholder’. The term ‘infidelity’ is not a fixed phenomenon that participants orientate to, the concept of ‘infidelity’ appears to be defined by multiple factors and not by concrete ‘acts’ that are classed as ‘cheating’. The category of ‘infidelity’ is a fluid and re-definable entity, the meaning of which shifts throughout conversations and is defined by the ‘narrator’ and other participants in discussion. Mediated by the Relationship Context/Intent
Ian himself in this interaction first relays the ‘casual’ aspects of the relationship, he viewed the relationship as a ‘continued one night stand’ (line127) and this view mediated how he saw his behaviour, he didn’t think his conduct was ‘that important’ (line 148) in the context of his relationship. Unfortunately his ‘partner’ at the time did not share the same opinion, and viewed the relationship as more ‘serious’ (line132). Again, it is not the case that the ‘act’ determines whether something is labelled as ‘cheating’ or not, it is the (re-defined) context within which the act takes place, and hence which re-constitutes that act as ‘unfaithful’. In this case Ian attempts to negate any accountability for his behaviour by saying he ‘didn’t intentionally’ (line 130) go out and ‘cheat’ because from his construction of the existing relationship parameters he positions his behaviour as acceptable. This positioning of Ian as the ‘unintentional cheater’ acts as a rhetorical device to support Ian’s reasoning, and to undermine notions of his behaviour being something he would normally do within the context of a relationship. These mediating devices work within the repertoire ‘Infidelity-In the eye of the Beholder’ as rhetorical devices that negotiate the positioning of the narrator. The devices are often deployed by the participants to particularise and localise their behaviour, which can often serve to position the participants within the wider context of interview, as someone who doesn’t usually have extra-relational encounters. Also by re-negotiating their behaviour as ‘acceptable’, and by positioning themselves as not ‘unfaithful’, this negates any further responsibility they may feel to justify their ‘unfaithful’ behaviour. I think these examples have been able to show how ‘infidelity’ cannot be defined and viewed as a ‘concrete’ category that participants can ascribe to, but instead the meaning of ‘infidelity’ is one that is continually redefined throughout talk and is functionally situated. |