Kipnis' "Against Love" chapters 3 & 4

Throughout chapter 3, “The Art of Love,” author Laura Kipnis illustrates different types of affairs, and how adulterers may feel getting into one, being in one, and getting out of one. Kipnis provides a multitude of possible reasons for why people engage in affairs, from boredom to dissatisfaction. She spends more time in the chapter describing what it feels like for people to be in affairs, persuading the reader to believe one can’t achieve this level of happiness/fun/excitement/desirability/love in a state of monogamy. Kipnis illustrates the extent to which adulterers rearrange their lives such as, taking up new hobbies or prolonging the work day, attempting to create satisfactory excuses to keep their actions of their new secret life safe and hidden. She writes of adultery as a way to “experiment with possibilities,” an idea she wants everyone to work with, not merely artists (114).

After providing three different scenarios of adultery, Kipnis begins to explain how adulterers have the great fortune, or misfortune, of being “routinely exposed to the most privy aspects of each other’s primary relationships” (119). While this can lead to excitement for the adulterer, giving him or her inside information and possibly, confirmation that their affair is for the best, it can also lead to a case of too much information and the demise of the affair.

In later sections of the chapter, Kipnis describes negative aspects of becoming involved in an affair, possible negative self-realizations. The most significant, Kipnis writes, is the feeling of self-disgust. The author furthers this section with a discussion on deception, and the potential disastrous consequences of lying to one’s partner. She writes, “The sustaining premise of modern coupled life is that our intimates are those we don’t lie to: we like to think of intimacy as a private enclave of authenticity set apart from ordinary social falseness and superficialities” (127). Kipnis concludes chapter 3 with a discussion on the reasons and potential ramifications of marriages staying together “for the sake of the children” (139).

In chapter 4, “…And the Pursuit of Happiness,” Kipnis focuses on numerous stories of our nation’s politicians’ extramarital affairs, with all of their scandalous details. From former President Clinton to Georgia congressman Bob Barr, Kipnis exposes their stories as evidence of her argument of the erosion of the “public/private distinction in American political culture” (145). I found her argument throughout this chapter that “whoever gets caught, at some level, self-engineers this fate” particularly interesting (147). I can understand how this could both explain and exasperate the sexuality scandals focusing on prominent national politicians. On one hand, when a person in such a famous position in national politics becomes involved in such a scandal, it’s easy to argue they should have known better, being in such a prominent position. Yet if one flips around this argument, it would be easy to claim that such famous figures believe in their own scandal immunity, leading them to participate in a potential scandal. Kipnis continues on to include a discussion on gay marriage, civil ceremonies, and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). I found her encouragement of a civic dialogue on the institution of marriage the most promising aspect of the entire book. We, as a nation, must be willing to entertain the “possibility that marriage was an institution in transition or an institution being redefined” (153).