Stuart Wakefield:
It’s not for me (I’m way too competitive) but I can totally understand why some people might prefer it. In the words of Victoria Wood, “I don’t go around panting for intimacy like a misguided poodle, but an awful lot of people do”. Surely it’s better to be in an open relationship if you’re going to do that anyway?
Damon Suede:
I’ve done both. At heart I’m a monogamist. I’ve never been a cheater and I’ve never been with a cheater. That said, I’ve been in four or five nonmonogamous relationships and they were all pretty amazing. You can’t legislate devotion in a relationship and who would want to? My feeling is always, if you want to be with someone else, then you should absolutely go do that immediately. It all depends on the temperaments in play. In open relationships the main requirements were honesty and lack of jealousy. Hard things to maintain when you’re dealing with actual humans in the actual world, but possible. Doing it successfully really depends on the people involved. I do think monogamy is unnatural, but then, so is literacy... I’ll say this, every open relationship I ever had ended because of geography, rather than hysterics. And every monogamous relationship of any duration ended for the exact opposite. A lesson there about the human animal, I imagine.
On the other hand, the compulsion to mate and hunker down is equally primal, mainly (I imagine) because the human organism is too simple to process complicated emotional situations over extended periods of time. Two is EXPONENTIALLY simpler than three or four or more in an emotional/sexual dynamic. Still humans are animals and monogamy is a beautiful abstract idea to which many animals aspire. Mainly, I’d say people have to determine what they can actually offer and what they can truly handle. Bullshitting your way through relationships only gives you a healthy relationship...with the bullshit. All that being said, I’ve been with my partner and happily monogamous for over a decade. Context is everything. :)
Thorny Sterling:
I can’t even imagine actually doing it. Makes my chest ache to try. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate someone else or be curious about what he’d be like, but I couldn’t ever act on it and I couldn’t stand it if my husband did. I guess I’m just built for one at a time.
D.H. Starr:
I am way to jealous to agree to an open-relationship, although I’ve been the outside partner on multiple occasions when someone else has an open relationship. It’s one of those things which seems to be somewhat accepted in the gay community but not in other communities (at least not as openly).
Edmond Manning:
The truth is, I don’t know. I know that I would prefer monogamy. As some of the other guys have said, I don’t think that I could do an ‘open relationship’ very well. The relationships I’ve been in were monogamous and I was happy with that. But who knows? After 10 years of marriage, maybe I’d want to experience something outside the two of us. Maybe I would want him to experience that. It’s hard to put myself in those shoes as I’d have to be a completely different person to make that decision.
Your turn! What are your thoughts on open relationships, and why is it such a deal breaker for so many MM romance readers?
The guys are back Thursday, August 16th talking about, er... jacking off.
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The arrangement works, I think, if both parties go into it knowing the score and don't mind. But it doesn't work when one partner, somewhere along the line, decides s/he wants to play around and the other is still clinging to monogamy. More likely than not, that's going to be a couple-buster. And a painful one.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a poly(amorous) relationship with 2 people - and they each have other partners (who I'm also friends with). It works because we trust each other and are honest with each other. The other people I know who are poly have all pretty much said the same thing - everyone involved has to know the full situation. Otherwise it's not a poly relationship, it's that much nastier state: 'cheating'.
ReplyDeleteYes it can get a bit complicated but it's worth it :)
I can completely understand how a non-monogamous relationship could work for people, I just don't know that I could do it. Although it has crossed my mind... The thing is, monogamy pretty much happens one way, but having an open relationship can happen lots of ways, with lots of guidelines (rules?) for what kind of hooking up is okay, and when. I think it's something it might be cool to see more in our lit, but I don't see myself writing, and yeah, there's a definite romance reader bias against it. As humans, for whatever reason, we're possessive. Some people can overcome that, some can't.
ReplyDeleteThe danger is with jealousy--nobody wants to be (or read about) the jerk who expects his partner to stay true while he feels free to do whatever he wants, with whomever he wants, whenever he wants. We recognize the double standard. On the other hand, an awful lot of people are only good at sharing what they don't really care about; the more they care, they more possessive they become. I think that's related to why an open relationship is a deal breaker for so many readers: it often reads as though the characters only mostly like each other, not as though they're head over heels for one another. It contradicts what many readers want to believe about how the stories represent reality (fanciful though that may be). I think most readers want to believe either that there's one perfect person out there for each of us who can make us happy all on his own, or that there's someone capable of loving us so much that he doesn't want anybody else. Especially for people who are naturally inclined toward monogamy (and I'm guessing most romantics fall into this category), a relationship that is willing to admit outside partners often comes across as one that's just not quite good enough to be completely satisfying on its own. Readers hold their characters to a higher (or at least stricter) standard than they hold real life people.
ReplyDeleteThank you pointycat. I'm fascinated by hearing the experiences of those who have found a way to make it work. It's always so practical and almost ordinary in the real world when you start talking about real people and so mysterious and "what-iffy" when talking about the theoretical.
ReplyDeleteMagistra17sum - interesting thoughts on jealousy. I found myself agreeing with a lot.