Adulterous Swans

The New Yorker ran a really interesting, nuanced article about cheating (In Defense of Adulterers: Esther Perel’s new book argues for a more compassionate understanding of our unruly desires.) and DANG but they chose a real prize for their illustration. Luci Gutiérrez did such a good job! She illustrated this sensitive and complex subject so well with such a seemingly simple image. 

The symmetrically entwined necks of the swans and their unified reflection on the water show that they are a committed pair at first glance*, but then the fact that they are looking off in different directions subtly shows they are actually out of synch with each other in different ways.

*Additionally, they literally make a heart in this position, in case the viewer might need a more iconic symbol of love:

The default is to always cast the adulterer as The Bad Guy who maliciously deceives their partner, and that reading can certainly be made with this picture, but there's another way to read the the cheated-upon swan, I think.

The cheated-upon swan is looking off to the left: they are not paying attention to their mate, not connecting through eye contact. In fact, they're not even looking in opposite directions, their eyes are cast at different angles just to emphasize how not-on-the-same-page they are. They're pre-occupied with their own affairs. They've been entwined with their mate for so long, they don't even notice them any more. 

The partnered swans may be entwined, but they're not actually in contact with each other. Look at the picture, they overlap but don't touch, they're not pressing against each other. Their lives are bound together, this signifies, but their partnership is on cruise control. There's no resentment, no hostility, but there's also no spark.

In my interpretation of the inner workings of these two birds' personal lives, I see that the adulterous swan is hungry for real connection, to be SEEN and appreciated again. This swan wants a partner to see them on their level, to mirror where they're at in their life. 

Enter: The Other Swan.

The adultering swans look deeply and directly into each others' eyes while the very tips of their beaks are not quite touching, there's just the tiniest gap between them from coming into bodily contact. That their physical relationship is so restrained, so chaste, emphasizes what an emotional connection they feel. They are simply drawn to each other through the magnetic pull of their emotional and mental connection!

The way the symmetry of the swans reflects their relationships is just so incredibly clever.

Partnered swans: symmetrically entwined necks but facing opposite and at different sightline angles = unified but uninvolved lives. 

Adulterous swans: perfectly symmetrically mirrored but not quite touching while making eye contact = emotional connection.

Also I just thought it was a pretty picture.

(A version of this writing originally appeared on my Twitter a while ago but I'll be damned if I'm gunna dig through that trash heap to find a permalink to that specific tweet thread. SORRYNOTSORRY. EDIT: N'mind, somebody else looked it up for me! Thank you, B! THE ORIGINAL THREAD)