Could Monogamous Couples Learn from Open Relationships?

Most wellness experts will tell you that having multiple partners isn’t the best idea for your emotional sexual health, but is going through life two-by-two the only way to a healthy sense of sexual wellbeing? While monogamy and the traditional couple is still very much the way most people “do” love and relationships, about 5% of Americans are looking outside their couple for love and sex — with their partner’s full permission.

 

Known as consensually non-monogamous relationships, these couples don’t conform to the cultural norm of two-become-one, to quote the wellness expertise of the Spice Girls. There is a dizzying array of consensually non-monogamous relationships, including anything and everything that says “that’s ok, Hun, you have your cake and eat it too.” Open relationships, occasional ‘swinging’ and even long-term commitments among multiple people fall under the banner of consensually non-monogamous relationships, and researchers are keen to find out how these relationships may challenge the ways we think of jealousy, commitment and love – and even change monogamy for the better.

 

According to Bjarne Holmes, a psychologist at Champlain College in Vermont, ‘People in these relationships really communicate. They communicate to death.’ And if there’s anything the monogamously inclined can learn from people in open relationships, it’s how to communicate about your needs. In fact, Holmes notes that people in consensually non-monogamous relationships ‘are potentially doing quite a lot of things that could turn out to be things that if people who are practicing monogamy did more of, their relationships would actually be better off.’ However, as a relatively new phenomenon, there’s a lot to learn about consensual non-monogamy, let alone from it.

 

Psychologists conducted a few studies on partner-swapping and swinging when it first came into the public eye in the 1970s, but Elisabeth Sheff, a legal consultant and former Georgia State University professor writing in 2011 in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, points out that this research was limited to mostly white, heterosexual couples who engaged in swinging for fun. Therefore, we still know very little about the people who consent to non-monogamy, and why they do it. As the research we do have mainly involves surveys and self-reports, we can’t trust the results completely as everyone talking about themselves represents themselves in the best light possible, and not the most truthful one.

 

Still, we can make some key definitions within the field of consensual non-monogamy. Some couples undertake sex-only arrangements, in which the two partners are committed to each other but can also engage in no-strings-attached sex with other people. Consensual non-monogamy also includes polyamory or multiple committed relationships that occur at once with the consent and knowledge of everyone involved. What consensual non-monogamy does not involve however, is cheating, or stepping out without the permission of the other partner.

 

Nationwide statistics on consensual non-monogamy are lacking, but, in the US, University of Michigan psychologist Terri Conley has estimated that about 5% of Americans are in one of these types of relationships at any given time – that’s more than 15.5 million people! Amy Moors, a graduate student in Conley’s lab, points out that lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals are slightly more likely than heterosexuals to enter non-monogamous relationships, as are people who have open personalities and a high interest in new experiences. The studies also show that polyamorous individuals are often well-educated and hold more master’s and doctoral degrees than the general population, although they’re they’re not particularly wealthy. Holmes comments, ‘That tells me that it’s probably people who are often more focused on experiences in life,’ than money.

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