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Open Marriage Hasn’t Caught On?
Why hasn’t open marriage caught on?
Open marriage, the sensible alternative to monogamy?
On the plus side, a couple may enjoy a close-knit family and loving spousal relationship, but with an exciting dash of sexual variety.
Sex columnist, Dan Savage, is all for it. But he acknowledges that there are advantages to monogamy: sexual safety from infections, emotional safety, paternity assurances.
Still, he thinks monogamy brings boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted. Plus, society imposes monogamy on men, who were never expected to be monogamous, he complains. Read the rest of this entry
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Why Hasn’t Open Marriage Caught On?
Open marriage, the sensible alternative to monogamy? With several high-profile men caught in sex scandal, the notion is being pondered.
On the plus side, a couple may enjoy a close-knit family and loving spousal relationship,
but with an exciting dash of sexual variety.
In a recent New York Times piece sex columnist, Dan Savage, acknowledges there are advantages to monogamy: sexual safety from infections, emotional safety, paternity
assurances. Still, he thinks monogamy brings boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted. Plus, society imposes monogamy on men, who were never expected to be monogamous, he complains.
Men. And what about women?
The ground rules for sex with others run along the lines of “sex for fun without emotional involvement.” But for many, if not most women, the only good sex is emotionally connected. So it can be hard for men to find enough partners to enjoy just-for-fun romps.
New York University sociologist, Judith Stacey, says it’s easier for men to separate physical and emotional intimacy. Lesbians and straight women tend to be far less comfortable with nonmonogamy.
And therein lies the rub.
Asked if his view is male-centric, Savage admits it is. So open relationships may work best in partnerships between men. Luckily, Dan Savage is gay.
I suspect women’s widespread desire for emotional connection is more cultural than biological, and I’ll discuss why in a later post. Either way, that’s most women’s reality. While some want more sexual variety than their spouses, more often it’s the other way
around.
But even when everyone’s open to opening marriage, jealousy can be a killer. Kate Spicer of the London Times researched the nonmonogamous community and said that everyone she spoke with had experienced fierce jealousy.
And likely for good reason. Sex so often leads to deep emotion that partners may be lost as a consequence of the intense involvement.
To be honest, neither of us was emotionally prepared for the realities of an open relationship. The first time I found myself not having sex with another man, but making love to him, I cried. I rang my husband to say I could never see this man again. Open relationships can be messy and exhausting.
Her husband eventually left her for a woman who would not tolerate nonmonogamy.
Psychiatrist, Judith Lipton, who co-authored The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and
Infidelity in Animals and People, says that monogamous lifestyles go against “some of the deepest-seated evolutionary inclinations with which biology has endowed most creatures, Homo sapiens included.”
Yet Lipton doesn’t think open marriage is the best answer for most. “Who can tolerate it?” she asks, “I have not met many people who can.”
Besides, animals have it easier. They lack the human capacity for jealousy or the deep emotional bonding that humans so often crave in relationship.
And is monogamy really so bad? Among the college-educated divorce and infidelity are both down. While the trend is turned around among the working class stress, and not sexual boredom, seems to be the culprit.
Meanwhile, married men are healthier and happier than their single brethren who are free to gain as much sexual variety as they can muster. Men are also quicker than women
to remarry after death or divorce.
In a world where so many of us seek soul mates to fill us with passion, joy, intimacy, transformation, and oneness, the dalliances of open marriage can seem both distracting and lacking.
Open marriage may work for some couples when they are lucky enough to find suitable others. But in a world of imperfect options, most of us seem to find monogamy the happier choice.
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Are Women Culturally Monogamous?
We know that women aren’t destined to be monogamous by nature. Culture affects our sexual psyches.
Polygamist inclinations vary from person to person, but today’s Western women are much more monogamous than our Tahitian or American Indian sisters were before European contact. We are now also much more monogamous in our inclinations than men.
In surveys, men say they would prefer to have 14 partners over a lifetime. Over that same lifetime, women prefer to have only one or two.
A friend suggested that women were lying because they feared seeing themselves as sluts. Yet women admit to five real-life partners. (Here they are certainly underestimating. The real number is likely 8 or 9 for both men and women, given men’s estimate of 12.) But if they’re so worried, why not say they’ve had only 1 or 2 partners?
I was surprised by the low number of “one or two” as the preference, but I doubt women feel the need to go that low just to feel socially acceptable.
Younger women’s preferences may be higher. During the first year of college many willingly experiment with sex – and freely admit to it. But they quickly tire of random sexual contacts. Most drop out of the casual sex scene by sophomore year.
Men, on the other hand, don’t tire of the casual hook up, and want to continue even after college.
When it comes to open marriage or swinging, men are usually more enthusiastic, and more often initiate the idea.
So women seem less interested in casual sex than men. Quite likely because they are more repressed.
I feel that women are more repressed than is healthy. But I’m not sure that limits are all bad, for women or men.
When I read women’s studies literature, women are often advised to have sex more the way men do: have fun without guilt.
Yet men’s studies, which comes from a feminist perspective, often advises men to have sex more the way women do it. Don’t follow the 4 F’s: Find ‘em, Feel ‘em, F- ‘em, and Forget ‘em. Do not use women as a means of gaining a notch on your belt. Have sex in a context of love and care.
What do you think? How would you describe women’s ways and men’s ways of having sex? What are the positives and negatives of each approach? Is one way better than the other? Is there an optimal in-between? Do men and women tend to have different views on this issue?
I’m interested in exploring the matter. I’d like to year your thoughts, too.
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Share this:
Are Women Culturally Monogamous?
We know that women aren’t destined to be monogamous by nature. Culture affects our sexual psyches.
Polygamist inclinations vary from person to person, but today’s Western women are much more monogamous than our Tahitian or American Indian sisters were before European contact. We are now also much more monogamous in our inclinations than men.
In surveys, men say they would prefer to have 14 partners over a lifetime. Over that same lifetime, women prefer to have only one or two.
A friend suggested that women were lying because they feared seeing themselves as sluts. Yet women admit to five real-life partners. (Here they are certainly underestimating. The real number is likely 8 or 9 for both men and women, given men’s estimate of 12.) But if they’re so worried, why not say they’ve had only 1 or 2 partners?
I was surprised by the low number of “one or two” as the preference, but I doubt women feel the need to go that low just to feel socially acceptable.
Younger women’s preferences may be higher. During the first year of college many willingly experiment with sex – and freely admit to it. But they quickly tire of random sexual contacts. Most drop out of the casual sex scene by sophomore year.
Men, on the other hand, don’t tire of the casual hook up, and want to continue even after college.
When it comes to open marriage or swinging, men are usually more enthusiastic, and more often initiate the idea.
So women seem less interested in casual sex than men. Quite likely because they are more repressed.
I feel that women are more repressed than is healthy. But I’m not sure that limits are all bad, for women or men.
When I read women’s studies literature, women are often advised to have sex more the way men do: have fun without guilt.
Yet men’s studies, which comes from a feminist perspective, often advises men to have sex more the way women do it. Don’t follow the 4 F’s: Find ‘em, Feel ‘em, F- ‘em, and Forget ‘em. Do not use women as a means of gaining a notch on your belt. Have sex in a context of love and care.
What do you think? How would you describe women’s ways and men’s ways of having sex? What are the positives and negatives of each approach? Is one way better than the other? Is there an optimal in-between? Do men and women tend to have different views on this issue?
I’m interested in exploring the matter. I’d like to year your thoughts, too.
Georgia Platts
Sources: Brizendine, Louann. The Male Brain. Crown. 2010, Kimmel, Michael. Guyland. Harper. 2008
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