Please can anyone share or talk to me about 'alternative' relationships ?

[mymuchness]

OK deep breath - I'd really like to know about alternative relationships and how it works both practically and emtionally, what the pros and cons are etc.

I just feel that marriage is so confining and also that oddly I wouldnt mind if my husband was with other women if he could learn from those experiences iyswim?

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts?

purplepeony, I think you're being very hard on SGB. In her defence (although I'm sure she's perfectly capable of defending herself), SGB is not saying monogamy in itself is wrong, but that the idea that it suits everyone definitely is. And surely the high divorce rates, unhappy marriages, multiple affairs, etc etc bear this out.

I don't think SGB comes across as jealous, bitter or angry. She is arguing a minority view so of course she has to put her point across more strongly.

2rebecca at 'have your cake etc' dissection

Thanks MabelMay, you're bang on - anyone arguing a minority viewpoint is always considered to be 'strident' or 'bitter' unless they repeatedly apologise for hurting the majority's ickle feelings by challenging their views.
ANd I have found this thread irritating in the way that the defenders ofthe status quo seem to think it;s fine to call the OP naive and tell her she doesn't love her H properly, but get all squawky when the general sanctity of monogamy is questioned.

Oh, and it;s helpful of PP to use 'feminist' as a term of condemnation - a good incidator, that one

Mabel I think you need toread SGB posts more carefully. She is saying absolutely that monogamy is worng; how could you have possibly missed that? she talks about a cult.

Does this piece from her post not convince you?
seems pretty damning to me. What an insult to all the highly educated women this world-drs, lawyers, brain surgeons, astronauts- to call them "breeding stock" because they want to be in a 1:1 relationship. Asolute twaddle.

And monogamy is all about men protecting their own interests and treating women as breeding stock; I haven't got time to google all the links but Cornelia Fine's new book will have some good stuff on neurosexism and the way in which we are forever being told that certain things are 'natural' when they are a way of privileging one group over another. If monogamy was so 'natural' it wouldn't need to be peddled so strongly with so much propaganda, nor would it need to be enforced with so much violence.

SGB- xd posts.
This has nothing to do with minority views or feminism; people can accept minority views if they are logical and fair. It has everything to do with you thinking that you are always right and that women have no brains. Your posts are insulting to the very women you seem to want to "protect" because you seemto want to bag on about society duping them in some way about the virtue of monogamy.

As I said, you live your life if it suit s you, but don't try to keep making pseudo-sociological theories that don't stack up.

Tbh, the point of SGB's I most disagree with is that monogomy is more time consuming then alernative relationships.

I think monogamy has become more popular, precisely because it is less time consuming then polyamory - only one person to make time for/support etc.

Certainly, I am aware of a lot of cultures where it was the norm for men to have more then one wife, you'd think such a patriarchal system would be popular for evermore, but is has died out because it is so time consuming and costly.

There are many societies and cultures where monogamy is not/has not been the norm. For instance, it was traditional for Eskimo women to take up with another man when the husband was away at sea. This arrangement suited all parties. The woman had another man to provide for her, the man got another woman to look after him and also more sex! The husband who was away on a dangerous sea journey knew that his wife would be provided for in the event of his not returning. Everyone happy in their igloos!

There have also been different periods in history when monogamy has been less popular. You could argue that monogamy isn't that popular now, what with a divorce rate of 50% in America and an (unknown!) percentage of people who indulge in extramarital affairs.

Jumping in here...

Tadpoles has got it exactly, I took SGB to be saying that there is a 'cult' surrounding monogamy that is separate from monogamy itself. We have this ideal of monogamy, which just doesn't seem to be working in general.

DP and I are both bisexual and we had an open relationship before we had the DDs, no time now but I imagine we'll go back to that way of living one day.

Lucy: Yup, that's always been my point - not that monogamy itself is wrong if that's what floats your boat, but the cult of it that some people subscribe to, which involves bothering other people, nagging the non-monogamous about how messed up they must be and seeing the whole world through the prism of 'Is this person/situation a Threat To My Marriage?'

What is a good swingers site if you want intelligent slim couples? OK I sound a fattist intellectual snob here, but I probably am. We're both fairly sporty and both have degrees and if we were going to go down the "wife swapping" route are probably going to want a couple similar to us.

Neither of us want our photos on the internet?
We're in Scotland which doesn't help, presbyterian prudery still has a strong hold here.

We're over 40 which rules a few sites out as well.

I don't know 2rebecca, but I'm hoping someone can help you.
I went to a few swingers clubs in the USA some years ago now. It was for journalistic work - honestly, honestly - not for my own personal pleasure, and it's true to say that 90% of the people there were overweight and unattractive.

Why is that? I'm sure there are beautiful swingers out there but they probably are part of a more "exclusive", less easy to find, club.

Hope you find what you're looking for!

Try here 2rebecca

www.theadulthub.com

our marriage is pretty much sexless and my wife does not want me having an affair locally, but she knows i travel once a month or more withw ork and is happy for me to have fun on my nights away
i use FABSWINGERS a free sight and swingingheaven have met some nice couple/singles on them too

I think you mean a free site- or maybe not as you were!

Batman, does she really know what you get up to?