Can you have all the sex in the world without sacrificing the intimacy of a significant other? A new study suggests the answer is: Totally!
While critics of open relationships remain cooped up in their studies, droning on about how humans will never be able to differentiate between love and sex, plenty of same-sex couples are demonstrating how open relationships can indeed be highly successful, perhaps even allowing each party to become closer to one another, more communicative, and more satisfied with their love-lives in general, especially when compared to their so-called “more faithful” peers.
Related: Just How Many Gay Men Are In Open Relationships? These New Stats May Surprise You (Or Not)
A new study conducted by Christopher Stults, a researcher at The Center For Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies at New York University, interviewed gay men and their partners, all of whom were in the age range between 19 and 43.
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“We wanted to see how these relationships form and evolve over time,” he tells The Guardian, “and examine the perceived relationship quality, relationship satisfaction, and potential risk for HIV/STI infection.”
So far, his findings strongly suggest open relationships can be every bit as satisfying as closed ones; perhaps even more so.
“My impression so far is that [couples in open relationships] don’t seem less satisfied,” he says, “and it may even be that their communication is better than among monogamous couples because they’ve had to negotiate specific details.”
Related: The Rules About Your Open Relationship Have to Do With Trust, Not Worrying About Getting The HIV
Based on his findings, being in an open relationships doesn’t increase the likelihood of contracting HIV, either. “To my knowledge, no one contracted HIV and only one couple contracted an STD.”
Of course, there’s a library’s worth of studies that contradict these findings. In 2012 alone, four studies from the University of Michigan found that people in monogamous relationships found the arrangement “overwhelmingly more favorable” than open ones.
(So perhaps those of us who need slightly less conventional arrangements should steer clear of the University of Michigan.)
Then there’s still the whole societally-ingrained stigma about open relationships so that civilization remains suitably snoozy. Couples like 26-year-old Hugh McIntyre and 26-year-old Toph Allen have chaffed up against that stigma firsthand.
Related: STUDY: “Monogamish” Gay Couples Happier Than Single Or Monogamous Guys
“We’ve run into gay and straight people who have assumed our relationship is ‘lesser than’ because we’re not monogamous,” McIntyre says. “I think that’s offensive and ridiculous.”
The way to make an open relationship work is pretty much the same way to make any relationship work: Both parties must be open, honest communicators who fundamentally know what they want. Two golden rules: “Always tell the other person when you hook up with someone else, and always practice safe sex,” Allen says.
Brian Norton is a psychotherapist who works almost exclusively with gay couples, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s department of counseling and clinical psychology. He has a much darker theory as to why open relationships “work” with gay men:
Related: Gay Guys Are Having More Open Relationships Than Ever
“The experience of coming to terms with your homosexual identity can often be associated with emotional abandonment, shame and rejection,” he says. “So our experience with love and intimacy at an early age is often broken and compromised, so when someone tries to get close to us as an adult, defenses get close. It’s human nature to avoid revisiting feelings of abandonment, and open relationships may be a way of keeping a distance between another man.”
Not that people in open relationships necessary agree. “I feel a greater sense of connectedness with Hugh because I get to see him explore his sexuality with other people,” Norton says, “and I feel gratitude to him for giving me the same leeway.”
Of course, no relationship — open or closed — will work with a guy who’s a liar, unreliable, wishy-washy, or a glassy-eyed emotional vegetable.
Those should just be one-night stands.
Related: Guys Reveal How They Really Feel About Open Relationships
Josh447
I disagree with Brian Norton’s analysis. Straights come from broken homes in childhood and mate just fine without having to have or promote open relationships due to fear of intimacy. His theory holds about as much water as ‘people are gay due to a distant father and over bearing mother’. Which leads me to conclude he may very well be a “straight” closeted bisexual or gay right wing religious fundamentalist. Bottom line is men are wired to screw, a lot, and monogamy is instilled, not inborn. People are waking up to the garbage religion has nailed us to the cross with, and we’re politely, in most cases saying Fuck off to misinformation about sexuality. It’s time to get real, authenticate and get on with real living, not some fake religious judgment bubble created to drain dollars and life force out of humanity.
Josh447
Ps. Fear of intimacy and getting close to someone is usually modeled by parents for children. Being gay, even if it feels strange and alienating as a youth, all kids still copy what’s in the household emotionally, and if there was a strong parental bond or other extended family bonds with Aunts Uncles etc that were positive, the child certainly picks up on that up gay or straight. Same is true for the opposite negative (“broken household” relationships) but it has nothing to do with being gay or straight, it has to do with being a human with emotional programming.
Masc Pride
I think open probably is the more realistic way for gay men to go about relationships, but I also think the idea that you can have “all the sex in the world” with multiple partners without at all compromising intimacy with your main partner is total wishful thinking driven by hormones. Maybe two very mature guys that are super determined to make their relationship work no matter what could make it work, but that type of maturity and determination usually isn’t common when it comes to male-male relationships. Most guys are ready to get back online and “start fresh” at the slightest hint of a minor disagreement (which I’ve totally been guilty of too).
Magnus
While I have no issue with people who desire to be in open relationships, I’m getting tired of the narrative that is trying to push those of us who prefer monogamous relationships into embracing it and adopting it ourselves, as if it is the way in which everyone should live. Some of the polyamorous people can be really pushy about their lifestyle in trying to get everyone to be like them, similar to how some vegans try and make everyone adopt veganism and if they don’t they sneer at them and turn their noses up at them. “Oh you eat meat, huh…?” “Oh, you’re still practicing monogamy huh?”. I hate the narrative that somehow monogamy is too old school or close minded. If you want an open relationship fine, but stop trying to push those of us who value monogamy to not only accept it, but to embrace it and adopt it for ourselves as well, it aint happening when it comes to this gay boy.
AtticusBennett
it’s not what you do, it’s why you do it and how you are about it.
http://littlekiwilovesbauhaus.blogspot.ca/2010/01/what-is-monogamy-all-about.html
polyamoury has worked rather perfectly for me, 8 years now 🙂
if you’re monogamous because “you’re jealous and possessive” then understand that those are the wrong reasons to be monogamous; at that point, your monogamy is a defensive mechanism, not something borne of true and simple love and trust with your partner
self-interrogate. understand yourself and understand your partner.
i know many many MANY long-term monogamous gay couples. and many many MANY long-term polyamorous and/or openly-sexual ones.
the keys to success for ALL types of those relationships is trust, communication, understanding, and partners who have moved past the emotional-pulls of insecurity, jealousy and possessiveness.
1898
If the goal is to open minds and hearts about the validity of open or poly relationships, the tone and attitude of this article is not doing that goal any favors.
ErikO
No they’re not. Open relationships or open marriages do not work out or last at all.
AtticusBennett
@ErikO: i know many. i’ve been polyamorously involved and happy for 8 years now.
stop being upset that you can’t get one man and some of us can get, and keep, several.
ErikO
@AtticusBennett: LMAO you know nothing about me. I’m not single, and if you want to be a whore go ahead.
Masc Pride
@ErikO: Don’t get sucked in. Atticus gets his sh!ts n giggles from sitting on this site 24/7 and personally attacking anyone who dares to have a different opinion (while spamming the comments section with links to his silly blog).
AtticusBennett
@ErikO: let’s see you and your boyfriend! i bet you’re both real prize lookers 😉
@Masc Pride: how’s it goin, closet case? still letting daddy dictate how you live your life? 🙂
ErikO
@Masc Pride: I understand that now that Atticus is a troll.
Scribe38
@Masc Pride: partially agree with you. I was in an open relationship for about 10 yrs of my 20 yr relationship. In a lot of ways it increased our intimacy. I liked sharing with my now husband other sexual experiences I had, and hearing him talk about other guys. Some of the hottest sex we have had, was me trying to bang him harder than the other guy could. We were honest with our needs and for a long time it worked for us, unfortunately sometimes FWB got hurt even though they knew the rules from the start. When we got married, the only thing I had left was
to give my guy fidelity. I don’t miss the open relationship, but have some cool memories
Magnus
@AtticusBennett: “if you’re monogamous because “you’re jealous and possessive” then understand that those are the wrong reasons to be monogamous; at that point, your monogamy is a defensive mechanism, not something borne of true and simple love and trust with your partner”
Why are you ployamorous? I’m not jealous, but I’m not willing to share my mate nor do I want him to want me to be shared. I want us to be considered as one flesh and one blood, two coming together. It’s fine if you want to lead a polygamous lifestyle, but why dump on monogamous people as being “jealous” or “possessive”?
Masc Pride
@ErikO: He has many other accounts as well. Just ignore Atticus for awhile and notice a mysterious new user will pop to hop on your every comment with a suspiciously identical rhetoric.
@Scribe38: Cool story, bro.
Sandor Magus
@AtticusBennett:
EVERY SINGLE person I have met who has been in an open relationship, both gay and straight, has eventually ended that
relationship. I have never ever seen one successful one yet. They have all ended sooner or later. The longest I have ever
seen an open relationship go on is ten years, the average I have seen is between 2 to 4. They are built on a poor
foundation and are structured to fail and collapse. All of this is just simple rationalization on the part of those
involved, on why they believe open relationships are good. If you want to be in an open relationship, just don’t be in a
relationship and just sleep around, you’re probably not built for a relationship to begin with or don’t have the fortitude
to withstand a non-open one. The people writing this crap aren’t trying to convince you, they’re trying to convince
themselves that the open relationship lifestyle can work. It never works in the long run. The idea of an open relationship
is contradictory and thus why eventually it always fails.
Cheesecake
@Masc Pride: @AtticusBennett:
“Masc Pride” and “AtticusBennett” are easily the two MOST ANNOYING users on here. They’re both pretentious and very in your face about their opinions.
Queerty needs to add a block or hide user option, simply for these two, I get tired of both their obnoxious inane antics. Let me settle the long standing debate between you two, you’re both stupid.
Oh and “AtticusBennett”, if I were you I wouldn’t be bringing looks up into an argument.
You’re both puerile idiots, who I just want to SAGE/ hide already. I doubt I am the only one here who thinks this. You two would probably be great for each other, because you;re both full of shit and both full of yourselves.
Kangol
@Sandor Magus: I’ve seen several. In fact, most of the long-term gay (20+ years) relationships I know are either monogamish or open. None are strictly monogamous. But gay, bi and trans people should create the relationships that work for them. If you find a monogamous relationship works for you, and you can sustain it for longer than 5 or 10 years, good for you. If you find a monogamish or polyamorous or open relationship works for you, good for you. Trust, commitment, and love are key whatever kind of relationship you’re in. To everyond in a relationship, wishing you the very best!
Magnus
@Kangol:
“But gay, bi and trans people should create the relationships that work for them.”
Why did you not mention our heterosexual peers in that one?
Paco
When a guy tells me he wants an open relationship, I ask him if he is prepared for the possibility that I will have sex with someone I click with better than with him. That is the danger of opening up a relationship to many others. You can’t control who you will fall in love with. Sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side.
Geeker
To each their own but the way I look at it is if I’m not enough for you then I’m not the right guy for you and you’re not the right guy for me.
qbert
@Sandor Magus: For what it’s worth, my husband and I have been together for 17 years and non-monagmous for all of them. While the vast majority of our monogamous friends have divorced or split up. But then again we know from relationship statistics that the majority of relationships (monogamous or not) don’t survive long term.
Really you just need to build the sort of relationship that /you/ are comfortable in and that /you/ find fulfilling. Relationships are hard and non-monogamy does add extra challenges. It happens to work pretty well for me and my husband but I certainly understand why someone wouldn’t want to sign up for the all extra complexity.