It all started when a girl at uni questioned why people on Facebook put their status as 'In an Open Relationship.' "You might as well tell everyone you're a slut," she exclaimed.
And it got me wondering: to what extent is this sentiment shared? I figured they must be common enough for it to even be an option. But in looking at the profiles of my 544 Facebook friends – only 3 were listed as 'In an Open Relationship.'
So I posed the following question: An open relationship is one where each partner is free to have sexual relations with other people. Do you think this type of relationship is acceptable? Do you think they can work?
Here's what some of you said…
• Any person who wants to be in an open relationship shouldn't be in one at all.
• A relationship should be between two people. Two people who love each other enough to be faithful to each other. To have sexual relations with others is stupid and selfish. [It's not that] the love and trust found in a normal relationship [isn't there, but] they have given parts of that away to their sexual relations.
• Well then [an open relationship] isn't really a relationship is it? Even the ancient civilisations got it wrong by having concubines… animals probably got it more right than half of the human race. Like ducks… they have one life mate.
• It isn't acceptable if you want your relationship to last. But if it's just to mess around, then it is acceptable. However I wouldn't practice it myself because I don't think it will last.
There's no real point in having that attraction if you're going to have intercourse with another.
• I think it will never work out especially if there are feelings attached. One person will eventually end up loving the other more and that is when the fight starts with jealousy and what not.
• It'll only work out if no one wants to get serious.
• How are you supposed to know whom you're compatible with if you don't explore?
Even though the final two points sound the most favourable, they still imply that in the end (after you want to become serious, and after you find out who you're compatible with) – emotional and physical monogamy is the way to go.
This suggests that the people who replied were all speaking from the same frame of thought - the result of a culture where monogamy is institutionalised in most western picture books, movies, government policies – even religion.
But despite such adversity, you don't even have to go to a parallel universe to see it thriving. The prevalence of open relationships since the 1960's (The Age 2004) suggest that they can, and do work - as long as you're dating people who are into the same type of open relationship. Take the following excerpt from television reality show The Secret Lives of Women:
DEE DEE ON SWINGING
Dee Dee is a swinger, she has a monogamous relationship with her husband – and their sexual activities with people outside of this primary relationship are considered separate. "We don't play with the same people on a continual, regular basis – because we'd be forming a relationship with them – we don't want to... I have one relationship and that's the one with my husband."
BRIGITTA ON POLYAMORY
"I'm polyamorous… [which] means 'many loves'… Polyamory is based on love, friendship, relationship – and it's definitely not multiple booty calls." Marcia, one of Brigitta's girlfriends stands by her polyamorous lifestyle by saying: "I don't really know why I should throw out one perfectly good relationship just because I meet somebody else amazing."
So maybe it's not about cheating on your partner through sexual relations with other people. Maybe it's about sustaining one, or many relationships without cheating ourselves out of our natural urgues i.e. sex. The point that people in open relationships are trying to make – and what a lot of people don't understand is that they're NOT a community of nymphomaniacs. For example, the YouTube clip above attracted comments like 'slut' and 'skank.'
According to Practical Polyamory, "Polyamory's opponents make alarmist, erroneous public statements in an attempt to gain support for their pro-traditional marriage agenda."
As Tristan Taormino, a New York sex educator puts it: "There are so many myths about open relationships. I think one of the most popular is that people in open relationships have intimacy issues and trouble with commitment. The assumption underlying this myth is that true intimacy can only be achieved between two people in a monogamous relationship. In other words, if you are emotionally and physically intimate with more than one person, it somehow dilutes the intimacy of each relationship. This is based on the notion that love is a quantifiable thing, like, if you have 100 pounds of love, you can give 100 pounds to your partner. But if you have multiple partners, you have to split the 100 pounds between them... Monogamy does not automatically equal intimacy and non-monogamy does not automatically equal lack of intimacy. Plus, non-monogamous relationships often involve the same level of commitment as monogamous ones."
Cass King, who is in a polyamorous marriage with her husband John Woods, agrees. "It's funny how it's easily understood that my love for my aunties doesn't diminish my love for my mother, but it's less acceptable to say that my love for my boyfriend doesn't diminish my love for my husband. It's like somehow the sex changes everything, confers an ownership on my love and on my body. I don't believe in that."
And numbers comparing marriage and divorce rates suggest that she isn't the only one. But with little, or no academic literature on the culture of open relationships – until then, let's join the dots.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, "Over the past two decades, marriage rates have declined, while divorce rates have increased." Could, or moreover, is this a portal for open relationships?
