When I spoke about my work with female friends and acquaintances, I often floated the notions that compulsory monogamy was a feminist issue, and that where there is no female sexual autonomy, there can be no true female autonomy. This was met with everything from enthusiastic agreement to complete confusion—what did monogamy and infidelity have to do with feminism?—to denunciations of women who stepped out as “damaged,” “selfish,” “whorish,” and, my favorite, “bad mothers.” By self-described feminists.
