Grand Opening
“We have been taught by our culture that when our partner has sex with another, we have lost something. Not to sound dumb, but we are confused. What have we lost?”
—Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, The Ethical Slut
“Sweet Marie, she loves just me
(She also loves Maurice McGhee).
No she don’t, she loves just me
(She also loves Louise Dupree).
No she don’t, she loves just me
(She also loves the willow tree).
No she don’t, she loves just me!
(Poor, poor fool, why can’t you see
She can love others and still love thee.)”
—Shel Silverstein
If you know a lot of couples, especially if you hang out with radical, artistic or bohemian types, you will eventually come across someone who will say to you, “I’m in an open relationship.” (They may or may not be buying you a drink while at the time.) Now what?
Just what is an ‘open relationship’, you ask?
It’s not always an easy thing to define, especially when the term itself refuses to be pinned down. ‘Polyamorous,’ ‘nonmonogamous,’ or ‘married with lovers’ (okay, so I made that last one up) are all variations on the theme. When someone tells you about they are in an open relationship, the only thing you can assume is that they’re not operating under the traditional rules and regulations of monogamy. Are they checking you out for a troika? Possibly, but rather than guessing, your best bet is to ask your compadre exactly what he or she has in mind.
Historically speaking, the nuclear family as we know it today, is a relatively recent invention. For most of human history, people have lived in much larger, extended groups that included grandparents, in-laws, cousins, and often, multiple wives (polygyny) or, although it was a lot less common, multiple husbands (polyandry—which sort of makes sense, because there’s only so much time a woman can spend picking up discarded socks and underwear from the cave floor).
Ancient peoples from the Middle East to China to the New World practiced various kinds of polygamy, and in many places they still do—legally or illegally—as fans of HBO’s Mormon soap Big Love can attest to. Polygamous families often base their practice in religious traditions, and are generally socially conservative, with the man acting as patriarch. The man spreads his seed, the women spread their legs, and everyone lives in harmony, minus the Partridge Family bus.
With the free-love explosion of the 1960s, however, a different kind of relationship appeared, mostly among middle-class white Westerners. Baby boomers raised in the stiff, formal middle-class traditions of the Eisenhower era emerged from suburbia ready to question the old ways of making a living, making war and making love. They began to wonder why relationships had to consist of one man and one woman. Was that really all there was? (If that’s all there is, then let’s keep dancing.) Wasn’t it possible to love more than one person? And how does someone who’s bisexual become fulfilled? In a quest to answer these conundrums, sexual pilgrims began to experiment, forming pioneering networks and communities to support their new lifestyles.
For this reason, many people confuse polyamory with swinging, a form of open relationship that became popular in the 1960s, which is strictly for recreational sex primarily for sexual exploration and takes a number of different forms (orgies, sex clubs, wife swapping, and so on). Swinging is a well-defined ‘scene’ with clubs and other social networks; while polyamorists have support groups and social groups, they tend to be less oriented toward casual hookups. That said, not everyone who’s in an open relationship is looking for a long-term commitment. Some may want casual sex, a long-term fuck-buddy or simply a one-night stand. A person in an open relationship might be looking for one of these or another on different days, depending on their mood, or what’s going on in the context of their primary relationship.
—Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, The Ethical Slut
“Sweet Marie, she loves just me
(She also loves Maurice McGhee).
No she don’t, she loves just me
(She also loves Louise Dupree).
No she don’t, she loves just me
(She also loves the willow tree).
No she don’t, she loves just me!
(Poor, poor fool, why can’t you see
She can love others and still love thee.)”
—Shel Silverstein
If you know a lot of couples, especially if you hang out with radical, artistic or bohemian types, you will eventually come across someone who will say to you, “I’m in an open relationship.” (They may or may not be buying you a drink while at the time.) Now what?
Just what is an ‘open relationship’, you ask?
It’s not always an easy thing to define, especially when the term itself refuses to be pinned down. ‘Polyamorous,’ ‘nonmonogamous,’ or ‘married with lovers’ (okay, so I made that last one up) are all variations on the theme. When someone tells you about they are in an open relationship, the only thing you can assume is that they’re not operating under the traditional rules and regulations of monogamy. Are they checking you out for a troika? Possibly, but rather than guessing, your best bet is to ask your compadre exactly what he or she has in mind.
Historically speaking, the nuclear family as we know it today, is a relatively recent invention. For most of human history, people have lived in much larger, extended groups that included grandparents, in-laws, cousins, and often, multiple wives (polygyny) or, although it was a lot less common, multiple husbands (polyandry—which sort of makes sense, because there’s only so much time a woman can spend picking up discarded socks and underwear from the cave floor).
Ancient peoples from the Middle East to China to the New World practiced various kinds of polygamy, and in many places they still do—legally or illegally—as fans of HBO’s Mormon soap Big Love can attest to. Polygamous families often base their practice in religious traditions, and are generally socially conservative, with the man acting as patriarch. The man spreads his seed, the women spread their legs, and everyone lives in harmony, minus the Partridge Family bus.
With the free-love explosion of the 1960s, however, a different kind of relationship appeared, mostly among middle-class white Westerners. Baby boomers raised in the stiff, formal middle-class traditions of the Eisenhower era emerged from suburbia ready to question the old ways of making a living, making war and making love. They began to wonder why relationships had to consist of one man and one woman. Was that really all there was? (If that’s all there is, then let’s keep dancing.) Wasn’t it possible to love more than one person? And how does someone who’s bisexual become fulfilled? In a quest to answer these conundrums, sexual pilgrims began to experiment, forming pioneering networks and communities to support their new lifestyles.
For this reason, many people confuse polyamory with swinging, a form of open relationship that became popular in the 1960s, which is strictly for recreational sex primarily for sexual exploration and takes a number of different forms (orgies, sex clubs, wife swapping, and so on). Swinging is a well-defined ‘scene’ with clubs and other social networks; while polyamorists have support groups and social groups, they tend to be less oriented toward casual hookups. That said, not everyone who’s in an open relationship is looking for a long-term commitment. Some may want casual sex, a long-term fuck-buddy or simply a one-night stand. A person in an open relationship might be looking for one of these or another on different days, depending on their mood, or what’s going on in the context of their primary relationship.
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