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Last week, I was chatting with a friend who was telling me about her polyamory difficulties. Specifically, she’s perfectly happy having multiple partners, but some of the guys she’s met have tried to convince her to be monogamous with them and she’s rather frustrated with that, understandably.
Her story reminded me of the first cat that ever came into my life. Carter was a huge orange tom cat who terrorized the neighbors’ cats, and in once case, a Doberman Pinscher. But with people, he was sweet and friendly. In fact, he was so friendly that he managed to convince several people up and down our street to feed him. He’d always sleep at our house (usually on my bed), but during the day, he’d wander …
Continue reading Polyamory: Some Kitties Are Just Like That
CNN.com posted a story today about former sugarbaby Holly Hill’s perspective on men, sex & fidelity. She’s of the opinion that men are going to stray/cheat anyway, so women might as well make room for that. Or as she puts it, “It’s better to walk the dog on a leash than let it escape through an unseen hole in the back fence.”
Now, if that’s something that folks want to agree to, I have no problem with that. In fact, I generally think it’s a better option than sneaking around, since you can agree to boundaries that help you each feel comfortable and safe. The problem I have is with her phrase “negotiated infidelity.”
I understand that for many people, fidelity means sexual monogamy and …
Continue reading The Oxymoron of “Negotiated Infidelity”
Over on the Good Vibrations Magazine, I received a comment from a woman whose husband travels a lot. The two of them have a non-monogamous relationship and she’s had some difficulty finding casual partners:
I wanted to address your concept of having casual sex in a positive fashion, and how difficult that seems to be, especially for men. It’s a paradox…most men seem to choose casual sex because they don’t want to have to deal with “relationship” stuff, but if you’re sleeping with someone on a regular basis, you’re having a relationship, albeit one that leads to the bedroom and not the altar. It’s much more difficult to have casual sex than a committed relationship: it takes honesty, openness, integrity and an extremely high degree
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Continue reading Having Trouble Finding Casual Sex
via Franklin Veaux
I’m not convinced that this accurately describes all of the ways that people are non-monogamous, but it definitely captures many of the complexities and the relationships between different structures.
I especially like his explanation for making this chart:
I’ve been told, many times, that the word “polyamory” is not really necessary, as it’s simply a synonym for “open relationship” or “swinging” (or, depending on the person talking to me, “cheating”). This idea seems to assume that there’s really only one kind of non-monogamy, which is kind of silly.
There’s a bit more at his site. Check it out. …
Continue reading A Map of Non-Monogamy
CNN posted an article today called “The Downside of ‘Friends with Benefits,’” which is another example of someone writing about sex without taking a look at their own assumptions about sex, relationships, and how people work.
The focus of the article is the increase of STIs and the claim that having more than one partner at the same time (“concurrency” if you want to get technical) increases one’s risk for sexually transmitted infections. I can buy that- if you’re exposed to more people (everything else being equal), you’re at a higher risk, just like you’re at a higher risk for the flu if you’re around lots of people than if you stay home.
According to the article The Contexts of Sexual Involvement And Concurrent Sexual …
Continue reading Love, Romance, Fidelity, and FWBs
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