The Non-Monogamy Thread

Guess I just found my new safeword.

 

Shit I've been using banana. Time for a switch!

 

Depends on what you view as traditional, in the span of human existence monogamy is the exception, not the rule. We just happen to live in that little blip where it's normal and non-monogamy is considered weird.

That said I've been sufficiently brainwashed and while I would do an MFF threesome with the wife, I would never do MMF or MMFF for her so I wouldn't expect her to do it for me.

 

Not disputing you, just curious to read more about this - how do you see monogamy as the exception over the span of human existance? I've seen other information showing from dig sites that "families" being buried together and that anthropologists believe that mates were selected, implies that cavemen were likely monogamous.

King Solomon was said to have had 700 wives and 300 concubines. The sort of history recorded in the Bible is a short span of human existance. The multiple wives often stemmed from the society under which they lived. They were very patriarchal. Women were hardly allowed to fend for themselves and were often treated as property. With so many wars causing dead husbands, the remaining men would often take the other women in, as a way to protect and support them. (I guess it's ironic that the Bible speaks of so many multiple wive families, yet most JudeoChristian religious people support the one woman one man scenario today.)

 

I admit to being completely selfish in this regard. If the wife suggested a MFF I would be all over that. But I'd only be willing to do a MMF under very specific circumstances - on June 32nd, in the light of a new moon, under the branches of an American Chestnut tree.

 

I don't think it's the term "poly" he was referring to, but the addition of "play" to the overall phrase. Calling poly "play" can come across as meaning that it's not very serious and doesn't require much thought or consideration to engage in.

 

Wow, I tried googling it to support my case and the best looking source was a yahoo questions thread.

So I guess I'll just have to default to saying that I heard an anthropologist explain it's believed that cavemen basically had sex with whoever whenever and there really wasn't much jealousy within small tribes. I mean if STD's didn't exist, pregnancy was the desired outcome and you didn't have a puritanical society telling you that having sex with multiple partners is bad, wouldn't you fuck whoever whenever?

It is also believed that they didn't know that only one man's seed impregnated a woman, but that they were all responsible for the child.

I have no idea how true it all is though and can't find my original source.

 

This hypothesis is supported by the prevalence of fertility rituals.

It makes sense if you think about it -- sex only lead to babies sometimes, and then only after a long gestation period. It wouldn't have been at all obvious that the two activities had that strong of a casual link.

 

At the risk of beating a dead horse, the source you're looking for is the book Sex at Dawn. I highly highly recommend it, it's extremely well researched and very well written. The thing I appreciated most about the book was that it presented information that hasn't really been researched or acknowledged in our current culture, but it didn't make prescriptive recommendations. It's not like all those crazy food books (and I have read and liked Michael Pollan, but yikes, major guilt factor) who tell you this is what you should do going forward now that you know this information. It merely presents the data, and asks you some probing questions to pose to yourself as you put your own life together.

The book is actually what got my husband and me thinking and talking about non-monogamy. I will swear on anything you require that the subject of non-monogamy in our relationship did not come up because one of us had our eye on someone or was given a shot by someone.

I'm not sure that we'll ever go through with it. The major factor is laziness: finding someone to bone is hard enough when you're single, now add a shitload of complicating factors. A non-insignificant factor is that we would be capital-S SHUNNED by family and friends if it ever came out that we were doing extracurricular activities. The other thing is that we are really turned off by the whole "lifestyle" aspect: the community with its lingo and customs and insularity is pretty offputting. In my perfect world, we'd meet couples we like and various individuals are attracted to each other and like to hang out together, and maybe sometimes after a dinner party you wouldn't go home with the person you came with. This seems pretty much impossible given the amount of negotiation and boundary setting that needs to be set up to make non-monogamy work.

To be honest, though, just talking about the fact that we aren't jealous of each other has been a huge relief. It's also been fun and added a little spiciness to our sex life to talk about who we meet that we're attracted to. Even if neither of us ever has sex with anyone besides each other, the attitude shift has been very freeing!

 

I have not read this book. So could your paraphrase what about it made you think it was a good idea? Was it something that you had been toying with in your mind and the book convinced you it was something to consider? Or were you maybe totally against it until the book convinced you?

 

In regards to caveman sex, wouldnt monogamy be a huge disadvantage in natural selection?


Back when the human species was struggling, random sex ensured an even mixup of dna, creating stronger, more diverse babies.

Monogamy works against natural selection, so I don't see how this has always been a part of our nature.

 

For me, the book really validated a lot of what I had already been feeling, which is that monogamy is really a cultural construct, and not something that everyone intrinsically feels the need for.

I had definitely been toying with the idea before I read the book, but more in an allowing-husband-extracurricular-sex-if-necessary way rather than a mutual-non-monogamy way. On the flip side, I'm pretty sure my husband had not considered it at all before he read the book. Although, for what it's worth, I would NEVER have considered non-monogamy before meeting my husband, and really not before we'd been together for a few years. I think (and he agrees) that we can talk about physical non-monogamy because we're both so confident in the strength of our relationship.

 

Not necessarily, no. Natural selection isn't just about reproducing, it's about reproducing successfully. Which means, not only do you need to pass on your genes, but your offspring need to pass on theirs. Also, monogamy is by definition random sex. Let's say that your average monogamous caveman had the same number of children on average as your average polygamous caveman (and let's say that number is 5 for the sake of discussion). Having 5 different children with 1 woman vs. 5 women is a gamble, evolutionarily speaking, but it balances out. Have 5 kids with one woman, and your kids are all the same. Have 5 kids with 5 different women, and they're on a bell curve of fitness. As long as monogamous caveman has a partner who is of above average fitness, he is statistically at an advantage over the polygamous caveman who might only have one child fitter than all 5 of monogamous caveman's. So, yes, you're putting all your eggs in one basket, but the risk carries a potentially huge reward. Throw in the x factor of whether the monogamous cave-family's children have a higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood and reproducing, and you see where this goes. And I'm not saying this to argue that monogamy really did give pre-historic man an evolutionary advantage, but rather, it isn't necessarily a huge disadvantage.

But ultimately, what you should take away from this lesson is that while the study of biology and evolution is a legitimate scientific endeavour, evolutionary psychology is a realm of bloggers who like to observe human behaviours and come up with post-hoc explanations using bad science. Maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine, but I don't think what might have happened on the pre-historic savannah should be used to inform our modern day behaviours.

 

Part of my last serious relationship was an open relationship because we tried to do a long-distance relationship for a while. We figured it made sense. The open part was solely sexual - no dates, no sleeping with the same person more than once to minimize the chances of sex leading to anything other than being solely sex. It kind of worked in that context. Sure, there was anxiety about him meeting other people that had the added benefit of being in the same city, but that anxiety was always there due to the distance and was just under a different label of being afraid of him cheating on me when it wasn't an open relationship. He was actually the one who asked that we "close" the relationship, which I was pretty surprised at. (Then he cheated on me a few months after that, so I'm pretty sure he was much more upset at the idea of me being with other people than no longer being okay with the idea of an open relationship on his end.)

Once our relationship ended (after a few months of being in a typical monogamous relationship living in the same place) I left knowing that I had no interest in being in a long-distance relationship again, but wasn't too soured with the idea of an open relationship. I don't regret that decision, and when I started dating again I was open to the idea with someone new because I wasn't looking for anything serious. But, the next time I'm dating someone that I end up being in love with, I don't think I could do a similar kind of open relationship, especially assuming that we'd be in the same place (what with the not wanting a long-distance relationship and all). I'm not really sure why. One-night-stands usually aren't that great once you remove the excitement of having sex at all. And I know I'd never have an interest in an open relationship that's not just about sex. I just don't have enough room in my head or my heart for feelings for more than one person.

 

My marriage is probably best described as monogamish. While extra-marital sex happens, it's not additional romantic relationships. I don't have, for example, a girlfriend on the side. Sometimes we also have threesomes, but that's not something we really consider to be in the same category since it's a mutual pleasure for us both.

Over the years we've evolved a fairly complex set of rules and guidelines about who, what, where, when, etc. Part of how I knew she was the one I wanted to marry is the ability for us to have these kinds of conversations about needs and wants. We communicate, we trust, and it works out.

 

If you have the time, this is a fascinating story about a guy with a wife and a live-in girlfriend. It sounds great in theory but one woman is enough.