Non-Monogamy 2.0

I have been in a non-monogamy positive environment for so long that I have forgotten that it is actually not a normal thing. I have been talking to people about non-monogamy for about twelve years now, but the benefits of non-monogamy have always seemed so obvious to me that writing about them feels almost boring (just like most social media content about non-monogamy and polyamory is boring – there, I said it, it’s finally off me). So I skipped to its criticism (this is pretty outdated now – if you are interested in an updated academic version of the argument, please let me know: I am in a desperate need of feedback) which now seems to be a bit premature. After discussing it with a friend, I got the impression that I still had something to say about non-monogamy that is both positive and interesting (my friend may have just been being polite and pretending to be interested, but they brought this on all of you). This text will feature a fictional character Amanda, a white woman now probably in her early 40s who discovered non-monogamy some twenty years ago, and it will take the popular form of ‘myth debunking.’

1. Non-Monogamy Means Lack of Love for Your Partner

I cannot speak for polyamory, but an open relationship could mean even more love. When Amanda was young, she believed that ‘you can only truly love one person’ and that ‘sexual desire is connected to love.’ While these ‘truths’ are harmful on their own, they are particularly devastating when combined. Of course, our society knows about sexual desire without love but 1) it is considered less noble, 2) women are supposedly much less capable of it, and 3) ‘if you truly love someone, you would never cheat on them.’ The last one, a variation on ‘No true Scotsman,’ is a dead end: it can’t even be refuted (or proven, for that matter) due to its tautological nature.
So Amanda suffered because, like many young people, she felt desire for multiple people at the same time, but she felt she had to decide which one she ‘truly loved’ and stick to them. Following the second premise (‘sexual desire is connected to love’), she chose the person for whom her sexual desire was strongest. Confusing sexual desire with romantic love, she became a professional serial monogamist. Once she discovered the open relationship scenario, she realized that love and lust can be decoupled. Henceforth, she stopped passively accepting what was happening to her and instead became capable of conscious love that was not doomed to diminish over the years with diminishing sexual desire.

2. Non-Monogamy Means Lack of Commitment

Even in non-monogamy-friendly or (ideally) -neutral contexts, such as sociological studies, monogamy is associated with a higher level of commitment (cf. Hangen et al. 2019: 443). There is a popular meme in non-monogamous communities: A: “I am polyamorous.” B: “That’s fine, I am not looking for anything serious either.” I believe it is based on the common practice of people browsing through dating apps and casually dating multiple people until they decide to commit to one of them and ditch (or ghost) the others. Even Amanda did this. Not with dating apps, of course – she is too old for that – and mostly without sex (because ‘sex means love,’ right? Right??). After her last monogamous relationship, just before her conversion, for unspecified reasons, she broke all the rules. After about three months of sex and no commitment whatsoever, a revelation came upon her: sex is fun and sometimes it’s nothing more. Commitment, on the other hand, is a negotiable and negotiation-worthy category.
When non-monogamous set up is not the goal, there is no reason to identify commitment with monogamous behavior. The commitment that arises independently of sexual attraction and activities is stronger because it is not subject to sexual contingencies. Amanda can now commit to a relationship that can last across time and space without the pain of enforced celibacy.

3. Non-Monogamy Means Lack of Security

It depending for whom (more on this later), but for Amanda’s partners of the new type, it definitely means more security. As a serial monogamist, when she felt sexual attraction to someone new, she either left her partner for the new one or cheated (then confessed, cried, got forgiveness, cheated again, and ended up leaving her partner anyway). Sexual desire usually diminishes with time, but only if it is satisfied, so it may be safer to give in to it. Even ‘falling in love’ doesn’t necessarily endanger the long-term relationship because attraction and infatuation fade, whereas only love can last longer. Now that she is able to distinguish between the three, her long-term partners are safer than ever.

4. Jealousy is Normal

No, it is not! Jealousy is a perverted, life-threatening condition, for both its subjects and objects. Just get rid of it, for your own sake. It can be trained, believe me. If you love someone, you want them to thrive, not suffer in your chains (no kink shame, I am speaking metaphorically). It doesn’t matter whether you are monogamous or not, jealousy is terrible. You should only be monogamous because you want to be, not because you are jealous – that’s not a good reason for anything.

5. Non-Monogamists Are Not Your Competitors

I promised to be positive but … well, sorry to break it to you, but we are. In a different way than you think, though. Amanda would never want to ‘steal’ someone’s spouse or partner, because why would she? If that person is non-monogamous, there is no ‘stealing’ to begin with, and if not, the last person she would want to get romantically involved with is a cheating ‘monogamist’ – imagine all the trauma and ambivalent feelings! What she can do, however, is have fun with them. So she will not ‘lure the father from the family’ but she could be an object of his infidelity. This is admittedly not the most ethical thing to do, but it is ultimately on the cheaters – there is no cheating if no-one cheats.

6. Non-Monogamous People Are More Responsible When It Comes to STIs

That’s what we like to say, and yes, we seem to be better at it than cheaters (Conley et al. 2012), but not better than honest monogamists (Platteau et al. 2017, Hangen et al. 2019).

References:

• Conley, Terri D., Amy C. Moors, Ali Ziegler, & Constantina Karathanasis. 2012. “Unfaithful individuals are less likely to practice safer sex than openly nonmonogamous individuals.” Journal of Sexual Medicine 9(6): 1559–65. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2012.02712.x.
• Hangen, Forrest, Dev Crasta, & Ronald D. Rogge. 2020. “Delineating the Boundaries Between Nonmonogamy and Infidelity: Bringing Consent Back Into Definitions of Consensual Nonmonogamy With Latent Profile Analysis.” The Journal of Sex Research 57(4): 438–57. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2019.1669133.
• Platteau, Tom, Jacques van Lankveld, Lieselot Ooms, & Eric Florence. 2017. “Sexual behavior and sexually transmitted infections among swingers: Results from an online survey in Belgium.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 43(8): 709–19. doi:10.1080/0092623X.2016.1263702.