On Non-Monogamy: Do Open Relationships Work?

I believe people have sex with multiple partners to purposely keep themselves from becoming emotionally attached to just one person. This way, they always have a fall back plan just in case the one they're trying to love disappoints them. But, they'll never truly find out if someone really loves them unless they take the chance to be monogomous with them. Besides, why get married in the first place? There had to be something there to say "I do" to forsake all others. That's what truly makes Love so Special - saving it for "the one"

I don't care if people have polyamorous relationships, I just wish they weren't all crazy evangelical about it. Most of the poly people I've met sound like serial killers, "We're just doing what everyone wants to do, but just don't have the guts/strength/balls to do!" No. Some of us do not want that at all. As for me, I'm happily married and monogomous. I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if thier relationship makes them happy and isn't hurting, anyone good for them. However, I kinda think open relationships are choosing warm friendship over committed love. However, for some that, combined with lots of sex, is enough.

Sex is different things to different people. Monogamy is healthy and unhealthy and beautiful and confining...depends on the person, the point that person is at in life, the time of night, etc. For some people it's indistinguishable from love...for others it's a hard wired biological response (red wire connected to the red terminal, black wire to the black terminal...off you go). And, I do know one thing...to assert that people never go to their deathbed wishing they "had had more sex with more people” is just flat ass wrong. There's a reason pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry...people like sex (or at least the idea of sex)...with multiple partners a lot.

It seems arbitrary over history to make one behavior or another by an adult, or among mutually consenting adults, somehow unrightous if not illegal. Polly uninspiringly joins the crowd regarding non-monogamy. Ironically, she reverses when it comes to smoking. There may be more to life than sex but the same tautologically could be said of anything. But history is constant on one account. Sex will not be denied. When it is, perversion festers. Ask abused Catholic alter boys. If sex will not be not denied, then perhaps placing it in solidarity confinement (monogamy) is the best that those-who-want-to-tell-the-rest-of-us-how-to-live can do. Sure, marriage, kids, dogs and a white pickett fence are fine things too. But as variety in our meals, books, work and entertainment need not be a threat to other good things, neither need be the spice of additional sex partners. If monogamy were a golden answer, divorce in monogamous relationships would be uncommon. On MY deathbed...a satiated smile.

Did anyone else read the subtext that exists throughout this article? I truly believe Polly is not completely sure what she believes. It's as if she spent the many hours that it took her to construct this piece to talk herself into answering the question her article's title asks "Do Open Relationships Work?". She obviously came to the conclusion "No", which is completely baffling to me since she has not even tried it herself, only relied on the judgments she has passed on her "open" friends' relationships. Interesting indeed! ~Sadie confessionsfrommyopenmarriage.blogspot.com/