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I’m generally in favor of anything that gets more discussion of sexual and relationship diversity into the news, but the recent allegations by Newt Gingrich’s second wife about his demand for an “open marriage” after having an affair for six years has highlighted the general confusion about what these words mean.
For example, W. Bradford Wilcox, the Director of the National Marriage Project, wrote in an opinion piece:
[I]n the United States today, women are significantly more likely to express opposition to infidelity and significantly less likely to engage in it. In the 2000s, only 10 percent of married women, compared with 16 percent of married men, reported that they had been unfaithful to their spouse, according to the General Social Survey.
So a
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Continue reading Open Relationships, Infidelity, and Cheating
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
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