Loading ...Aug
01
Do Open Relationships Stand A Chance?
By
Just like a thirty-year old Ford station wagon, these things rarely work
The relationship, regular intimate contact with another. It’s always on people’s minds. If they’re not in one, they want one; when they have one, they obsess if it’s the right one. In pondering the merits of the casual serious relationship, I mulled over the many other types of relationships out there for us to explore. With nearly all in casual or serious relationships, the majority of relationship types never get experienced. Some are illegal or reprehensible, such as beastiality (intimate relations with an animal) or paedophilia (intimate relations with a child). Not many would ever choose to give these a spin. But there is one that’ll make even the most happily and lengthily married (males at least) euphorically smile for a moment: the open relationship, the holy grail of the relationship world.
For those of you not in the know, an open relationship is one in which the couple (bi, gay, straight – it doesn’t matter) are in a serious relationship, but where both parties are free to secure other emotional and physical partners, too. The couple may decide to have rules about the number, type, and extent of intimacy in the extracurricular pickup or they may establish an environment in which anything goes.
Non exclusivity isn’t a modern innovation. There was no prohibition against Biblical Jews having multiple marriages. China’s Confucianist philosophies spread throughout Asia and multiple marriages became common in East and Southeast Asian countries. Thailand only abandoned the practice legally in 1935. The two most numerous religions in the world have had segments of their faiths engage freely in multiple partners. The Morman Church practiced polygamy until it was discontinued in 1890. Fundamentalist Islamic republics still allow it.
What was practiced in days of yore wasn’t really polygamy. It was polygyny – one man could have multiple wives. The woman was not free to seek other partners. For the man, depending on the society, polygyny was not a truly open relationship either. A Morman man could be intimate with any of his wives, but he wasn’t free to seek relationships outside that circle whereas a genuine open relationship is one where both the man and the woman are free to search for extra intimacy anywhere, known as polyamory.
Polyamorous relationships are not in fashion today – if they ever were. When doing some research for this article, I came across allusions that some famous celebrity couples were polyamorous. Will Smith said that his and his wife’s perspective is “that you don’t avoid what’s natural and you’re going to be attracted to other people,” hinting of a life for both of multiple partners. His wife Jada later denied this to be true, as well she might. The corporate backers behind Will’s success might not be pleased with a power couple being openly polyamorous. The late actor Ossie Davis and his wife were polyamorous but they didn’t shout their open relationship status from the hills. “We had to be discreet,” said Davis. “And, if the word, can be apt, honorable in our behavior, both to ourselves, to whomever else might be involved, and most of all, to the family.”
[Click the picture to read the rest of this brilliant article]
Related posts: