Polyamorous couples organize their sex lives in ways that could be informative to monogamous couples
Monogamy is a reasonable enough organization of relationships and is probably best for most couples. However, a truly healthy marital relationship ought to be built on an understanding that, as necessary as it may be, monogamy is nonetheless a bit ridiculous. Not only do polyamorous couples know this and have consciously moved away from it, but the ways they organize their relationships also invite monogamous couples to think differently about sex.
In fact, the word open in “open relationship” does a lot of work indicating what is being declared. Our quickly going to sex as the defining, essential “rule” that open relationships deviate from exposes the manner in which sex is really about ownership and deeper insecurities about abandonment in a world where, increasingly for most people, all social needs are organized around a nuclear family. For many, we’re terrified of losing our partners exactly because our relationships with them are “closed.”
This isn’t to make light of that fear or the other significant fear, infidelity. Infidelity, which can take many forms, can be a real destructive harm and in some cases, a form of abuse. Instead, I’m arguing that looking at how some people organize their lives can be informative and even beneficial to others. In order to do so, here are four things polyamorous couples can teach monogamous couples about sex:
1. Invite new forms of sexuality, including fantasy, into a primary relationship
Some people get along well but less so sexually; others have great sex but only one kind. Of course, there is also the double-edged curse of the familiar. Variety, newness, and difference are aesthetic virtues, as well as important for sex. Polyamory invites new forms of sexuality into a primary relationship—different bodies, kinds of sex, pacing, etc. Monogamous couples can do so too whether through porn, masturbation, or fantasy. Exploring wishes and desires can invite a more expansive sex life.
2. Find pleasure in sharing of past loves and relationships
A polyamorous orientation is an explicitly pro-sex position, which is to say it celebrates a variety of sexual experiences and makes room for those to exist alongside one another. In polyamory, there’s not solely a presumption of scarcity or competitiveness. In examining the role of jealousy and its myriad associations, there are lessons here for monogamous couples in the sharing of past relationships whether a first love, a passionate fling, or a different kind of sexuality shared with someone else. Notably, this value can do some work in eroding the gendered, toxic double standard around “body count” that inevitably shames women or insists they pretend their own experiences, as well as the joy that accompanied them, never existed. It can also allow for sharing the pleasure of these experiences of not only sex but love with a partner.
3. Make room for attraction to other genders
Polyamory makes room for partners’ exploration, including different genders. This too can exist for monogamous couples even if in the realm of fantasy. There is a collective belief (which is to say not everyone buys into it) that when you get married, a couple becomes forever only sexually interested in their current partner, and partners are only attracted to the gender represented by that partner. This serves the idea of monogamy in itself (“My marriage is secure”) but also the fantasy that a spouse won’t merely be faithful but forever satisfied—not just in reality but in the realm of attraction and desire. This worldview carries the burden of being false but also cuts off an entire source of connection and excitement, resources that are at risk in the long slog of a monogamous marriage. Monogamous partners can build a sexual contract that allows these realities not merely to exist but to be shared and delighted in.
4. Acknowledge that sexuality can exist in any relationship
Strict notions of monogamy see closeness of all kinds—flirting, intimacy, friends (i.e. Mike Pence’s rules about sharing a meal with a woman)—as off-limits. However, when we do so, we cut off whole aspects of ourselves. The great fear that “something is happening here” with your partner’s work friends, for instance, is true: Something is happening and it is sexual. The truth is sexuality (not sex) can exist in any relationship. Having an agreement that does not turn into actual sex and even having agreements about certain limits on it may be fine, positive, and necessary for many couples. But the fantasy that they won’t happen, the endeavor to eliminate “risk,” or the attempt to render out the sexuality inherent in them are impossible and unhealthy. They reduce the possibilities for expressing ourselves and experiencing closeness with others outside of primary partnerships in ways that can be incredibly rich.
