Authorities insist that relaxed sexual freedom must be illegitimate. They build a fence around a birthright with shame. Then, through custom, they sell you a constrained pleasure in marriage (and commitment).

The church and tradition have acted like a corporation controlling a resource when it comes to sex. The way a corporation sells a natural resource like water is to build a fence around the resource, then build the infrastructure, and to get you access, you pay them and they control the resource and cost.

Your sexuality belongs to you, you don’t need any intermediary to legitimize it.

Marriage is costly going in and costly getting out, from the venue, flowers, catering, etc. all the way to lawyers and settlements. It’s an industry, and that industry has nothing to do with affection. We have no reason to believe that uttering a promise in a ritual will guarantee anything to do with affection.

Marketers appease the uncomfortable sexual limits of tradition by suggesting things to buy commercially associated with sex, be it a car, Viagra, or an infinite number of products. The consumer receives a vicarious illusion of sexuality and faux potency with each purchase.

Prostitution, infidelity, and porn are the counterweight to this contortion of instinct called custom. Free, kind, generous, and inclusive sexuality gets perverted by convention into something possessive, selfish, and exclusive.

Why not embrace sexual freedom?

At the heart of this debate on matrimony is the question of human happiness and sorrow. While honesty does not guarantee the former, it does protect against the latter. Even if you don’t share my view, the history of human misery caused by marriage makes my questioning entirely justified.

Through intelligence, truthfulness, and kindness, you can render sexuality harmless. You can invite partners and extend your affections indefinitely.

By Todd Vickers