Is SGB around?

[spiderslegs]

Open relationships - tell me more.

Spider I think there is a certain naivity in your posts, TBH.

Yes, of course, it is possible to love more than one person as we love all our children. I can honestly say that I still love, or am very fond of, some of my ex's who have remained close friends decades after we split up. But I don't continue to sleep with them now I am committed to another man. This is because HE would not be happy.

But how does loving lots of men work in real life?

IME men are much less tolerant of open relationships than women- if they really love the woman. This is shown by your DH's reaction to your thoughts now. If they are tolerant, they tend again, IME as a woman in my 50s, to be not fully committed anyway, and looking to play away with permission.

Despite what you assume, I really don't have an issue with anyone who wants to live a non-monogamous life. I do though think that eventually as many or mroe people end up as hurt or disappointed as people in 1:1 relationships. I think it is a fantasy to think you can be close to someone and have sex without emotions being involved.

I am not alone in this- the sex expert Suzi Godwin has written about this lots of times in her books and columns in The Times. Getting close enough to exchange bodily fluids is not like having a cup of coffee- it involves emotions and you are kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

The more people who are involved in such a set-up, IMO, the more opportunity there is for one of them to be hurt.

IMO and it is only mine, that is why monogamy exists- not because of some social construct, but because it lessens the potential for people being hurt.

AmeliaGrey: a lot of people have a lot invested in the cult of compulsory monogamy. Some of them get squawky and abusive when people question it because they themselves are not naturally monogamous and are in fact miserably trapped, and their reasoning is that they suffered and endured and other people refusing to do so Shouldn't Be Allowed. There's a big Relationship Industry with a hefty profit motive (monogamy does become dull so you have to keep buying stuff like romantic dinners, books on how to SPice It Up, couple-holidays and therapy) which, like the diet industry, depends on never actually delivering a permanent solution. There are insecure people with pointless lives who have invested so much of themselves in the idea that they are entitled to own another human being's sexuality that anything anyone else does in the slightest way different is a major threat.
And those who do the 'Waa, waaa, what about love?' as though only heteromonogamous romantic love exists or matters are generally talking rubbish. Heteromonogamous romantic love is all very well for some people, often short-lived and completely and utterly irrelevant to some.
People have been chipping away at the cult of compulsory monogamy for a long time. The fact that monogamy is not natural, not always healthy and above all not necessary for many people is not going to go away, and eventually people will be able to negotiate the relationship patterns that suit them best without social shaming and ridiculous cultural pressure to conform to an outdated ideal that was never that ideal anyway.

Oh and Ike: Get over yourself. You're either someone who does know the OP, in which case you're about two steps away from looking at a harassment warning, or you're a monogamist idiot who'se projecting your own inadequacy onto other people.

SGB what I find irritating when you jump on your soap box is that you like to make political/sociological points- but you conveniently dismiss emotion with what appears to be a snarl.

You sound very bitter as if real love has passed you by- so you've made it a mission to denounce it, in the main.

You are fully entitled to your views- but I think you are offensive at times to those monogamous couples who do love each other and have stuck together for 60 years or more. You appear to credit people who think differently to you with no intelligence, or ability to see through the froth of advertising.

Although you say you have a live and let live approach to life, you are far more abrasive and patronising towards people who do not think as you do, than people are who simply say that non-monogamy is not for them.

Saying that SGB holds the views she does because she is very bitter that real love has passed her by strikes me as abrasive and patronising.

AmeliaGrey: I am not dismissing the fact that some people find romantic heteromonogamy makes them happy. Good luck to them. But in general, the ones who are happy with the relationship pattern they have chosen are less likely to be frightened, threatened and aggressive towards people who want to live differently. The problem is, as I keep having to point out, that romantic heteromonogamy doesn't work for everyone. Your continued banging on about 'waa, waa, emotions' is a bit silly because you don't seem able to get your head round the fact that different people experience different emotions in different ways and at different intensity. Heteromonogamous romantic love is one way of experiencing some emotions, that's all. I have tried it in the past. I found it OK for a while and subsequently boring and too narrow a way to live, so I no longer engage in it.

It's a braver woman than I that can be in an open relationship. I'd rather have a string of one night stands.

Well I think that is what people in open relationships often do Posie, but without the secrecy. Although I am sure some form long-term relationships with a second or third person as well. And that, if you ask me, is when the trouble starts.

SGB I can easily get my head around the fact that emotions are different for everyone.

What I don't do though is extrapolate my own feelings so that they become a pseudo-sociological "fact" , or pseudo-anthropological evidence, rather than a personal lifestyle choice- which is how your own way of living and preferences come across.

You can't seem to get your head around the fact that some lifestyle choices work not because of conditioning and/or marketing which promotes a "cult" ( a very emotive term anyway) , but because people who are as intelligent- or more so- than you are, choose to live that way.

When you explain WHY you do not like or want to live a monogamous lifestyle you imply- maybe intentionally, maybe not, that you are somehow more intelligent and have made a better choice, and that other people are being both brainwashed and taken-in somehow.

That is what I object to- not yours, or anyone else's choice to live whatever life they choose.

Actually, as with the childfree who have thought about their choices, those who reject monogamy after thinking it through are the moral and intellectual superiors of those who engage in monogamy and parenthood without thinking much about it, just because 'everyone does' and then find out that it's not a way of life for them. Lifestyle choices, whether the choice is celibacy, monogamy, polyamory or a string of FWBs, work when the people making them have thought them through. Or, if people make the choice that fits in with the dominant cultural mode because they don't really think about it, they are lucky enough to find that it happens to suit them and it works for that reason.
And it's not pseudo-science to point out that heterosexual monogamy is not instinctive, natural behaviour. THe only people who really believe that are the sort of nutters who insist that there's no such thing as gay animals. Monogamy doesn't work for substantial numbers of people. Unfortunately, many of those people blame their difficulties on their individual partners, rather than questioning the instituation itself.

Sorry to add a flippant note to all of this but my main problem with the idea of non-monogamous relationships is that is that I have no idea how one would find potential partners with a similar outlook???? Also, at 43, where would I find middle aged non-monogamous partners interested in a woman of their own age??? More than being in a non-monogamous relationship I would like to be able to amicably divorce my dh and co-parent in a friendly way!!! However that too is made very difficult by society.

Trust me, feel, you would have NO problem finding non-monogamous partners

SGB Monogamy doesn't work for substantial numbers of people. Unfortunately, many of those people blame their difficulties on their individual partners, rather than questioning the instituation itself.

I would like to know how this can be proved.

Scientifically.

When I said pseudo-science I was referring to the fact that you blame monogamy and its desirability for most people on the media, men and so on. You also refer to it as a cult.

IMO this is an emotional term. A cult refers to something which is followed through brainwashing or pressure, and where the believers/members are possibly duped into believing something which is unsubstantiated.

Yes, marriages/ long term partnerships fail- but it's akin to saying capitalism is bad in principle because some businesses go under.

Ameliagrey: Quite a lot of people think that capitalism is bad in principle. It's a valid viewpoint. Capitalism is certainly a social construct that is sold to people as the 'best way'.
And heteromonogamy is one of the foundations of capitalism, actually, because it depends on women's unpaid labour - the best model for human relationships under industrial capitalism is the male earner and the female domestic servant/support system.

Oh I see. so women investment bankers and CEOs are just a fantasy are they?

Look- the point is that it's horses for courses.

Marriage is far from perfect. No one who is married would say that it is. It can be boring. But, especially if you have children and care about your partner then you give it your best shot and stick with it, even though it's not perfect.

neither is the lifestyle you choose. You'd be a fool to try to paint singledom and swinging as the perfect lifestyle, and it's far from most people's first choice.

What gets under my skin about your posts is that you seem to hate women. You paint them as simple minded helpless creatures who are somehow duped into serving men's needs. I don't know where this comes from, but you need to get over that idea.

It's arrogant . And patronising.

plus but pus if you want....

oh I notice that you are in fact SGB - whatever -its early and I've got a life to get on with...

Does guessing knicker sizes move Ike one step closer to an harrasment order? ;-)
You do appear a little obsessed/jealous...

I have read this thread in part but what I have read is extremely interesting. I do not wish to high jack it but, I lived in a monogamous (sp. ?) relationship for over 30 years. I have now left this relationship. So here I am looking at what I lived and what I intend to live. I am not a young filly thinking about having a fling but a mature and professional woman having a very close look and think about things. I agree with SGB that alot of people live their relationships as they think they should and not how they would really like to. I know! I did! I am now analysing how I will look at any future relationships and of course, if I fall in love (ha, ha) I may tend to become monogamous again, but to be honest, I think that keeping women in their moral roles is what society did best to keep them silent and at mens' service (even when working full time, etc., etc.). Haven't got time to develop further, which is a pity as it is an extremely interesting subject, but wanted to add my pinch of salt. I hope that you all have a very pleasant day.

Ike: Seriously, get a grip. While you are almost certainly just a keyboard wanker who's having a bad day and therefore wants to try to spoil someone else's, your posts are skating a bit close to the line where, you know, the boys in blue might want to Have A Word. 'I wouldn't do anything but someone else might?'
Are you one of the buckethead raiders or something?

ameliagrey Small point, but swinging and non-monogamy are not the same thing at all. Swinging is generally couples meeting up with people (either another couple or in groups) and having sex with each other. I know quite a lot of people in open or polyamorous relationships and none of them are involved in swinging. Some of them are in pretty long term stable situations which are very similar to long term monogamous relationships in the way they have to be worked at etc.

I disagree that SGB paints women as 'simple minded helpless creatures who are somehow duped into serving men's needs.' All of us, men too, have been brought up in a system where there is a long history of inequality and unfairness towards women and that is all I see her saying (although I'm not talking for her, just saying how I read it). So 'where it comes from', the stuff SGB is saying is all pretty basic Feminism 101. It starts when little girls are thinking about their dream princess wedding at age 4 and carries on when they're told by pretty much everyone and everything for the next 20 years that they need a man. So no, SGB is not saying that individual women are simple minded helpless creatures, but that there has been a lot wrong with the way women were raised/treated and that we still have quite a way to go.

Elusive

I must get on with my work but can't let this one go totally yet-

the points you raise mighthave been relevant 50 years back but they are outdated- as are the ones of SGB.

I am a professional woman from a very poor, working class, northern background.

It was expected of me to marry at 21 and have children like my grandmother and mother. Needless to say I didn't want t hat and wanted to go to university and have a career ,which I have. I also at some point got marrried and had 2 children.

My own daughter has just left uni. Marriage and children are possibly on the cards for her at some point but she has made it clear that forging her own life, career etc are more important just now.

I do though have 2 close friends who do not work- one with children, one without. They are intelligent women but they do fall into the category of supporting their man who earns the omeny. And you know what? They are happy. They'd laugh if you said they were subservient or "domestics". they like their lives.

This feminism stuff that is bandied about here is old hat. Life has moved on. It's the 21st century- not the 1930s.

Oh- and I know what swinging is grin. we have a swingers group in the village where I live.

They'd laugh if you said they were subservient or "domestics". they like their lives.
I'm sure they would, but what makes you think I would? :) Why on earth would I say that? About your friends or about anyone? I don't think that about other women.

Feminism is not outdated - 2 women are killed by their partner or former partner in the UK every week, women are more likely to be living in poverty than men in the UK, there is still large unfair pay discrimination in this country, sentencing for women is unfair, the list goes on and on.

Your life sounds pretty sorted and like you don't have a need for feminism in your personal life. That's lovely, but it doesn't mean that all the problems that feminism sought to address are fixed. Far from it.