A curve γ in the plane is t-monotone if its interior has at most t − 1 vertical tangent points. A family of t-monotone curves F is simple if any two members intersect at most once. It is shown that if F is a simple family of n t-monotone curves with at least ǫn 2 intersecting pairs (disjoint pairs), then there exists two subfamilies F 1 , F 2 ⊂ F of size δn each, such that every curve in F 1 intersects (is disjoint to) every curve in F 2 , where δ depends only on ǫ. We apply these results to find pairwise disjoint edges in simple topological graphs with t-monotone edges. . Research funded by an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship.1 A 1-monotone curve is often referred to as x-monotone. Every t-monotone curve can be decomposed into t 1-monotone curves.