poly/open/normal/animal/wft you wanna call it:
i can exist in a monogamous relationship if the partner i choose to be with needs that. i do not need every piece of my life to work in the ways that make the most sense all if the time. I am mostly an anarchist living in a capitalist corporatocracy after all. cognitive dissonance has become a native plant in my forest.
& now, some notes on what i appreciate about open relationships. none of these elements negate my insecurities, nor immunize me from failure in any way, but they feel true today. some of these are not entirely thought out, nor tested for accuracy, but they all made enough sense to type.
as i often prefer, i will continue to use "i" statements whenever possible, rather than allowing the assumption that anyone else experiences the world precisely the way i do.
- i simply don’t believe in monogamy. it does not describe a natural way for nearly any animal to exist, and the way humans do it is particularly constructed and limiting. to be more descriptive, the massive amount of power and importance placed on this oft-presumed fidelity is neither reasonable nor honest. if i were to attempt the level of perfection that some monogamists expect, i can only fail. never thinking of another person as sexually attractive is not possible for a large number of people. myself included.
- many people are all love with other people all of the time, or often. why would i want to limit that love to certain types of physical interaction, while not limiting the emotional interaction?
- if monogamous couples could limit emotional connection between their partners and other people, should they? what allows for the difference between emotional and physical limitation/control (folks in favor of it might call it something else, like abstention), and should i/we/they allow for it?
- with all of the terrible ways humans control one another, i am not interested in supporting ones that feel unnecessary and unnatural. particularly those that are not regulated by secular-law, and therefore are much easier to explore and deconstruct/resist/disobey.
- deconstructing power is important for me. in any and all ways possible. i prefer to live by rules made by myself and people i respect. i prefer those rules place power in a horizontal orientation, and that they are decided on via all affected parties. (if these were in order, this one should be closer to the top)
- to say for certain, we all only have one life to live and i have no interest in limiting a partner’s experiences in their life. i would prefer that partners gain the experiences that help make their life make sense, and feel as good and full as possible.
- i can not be all things to all people. a partner and I will grow and change, and trying to do that in a way that works together will take work. i do not believe that i will always be the only person a partner will want to sleep with, nor that I can fulfill all of the sexual desires they may have or develop. other folks know more than I do, have different bodies/spirits/minds, and have different skills.
- as partners we may want to learn from or experience a sexual interaction that the other is not interested in. we may also want to watch. we may want to hear/share about it later, or see a video. we may prefer not to know about what is shared with other people at all. this is all to be decided, and likely to evolve with time. i don’t ask a partner to get all of their emotional needs met by me, nor physical. this includes sex.
- despite the possibility of jealousy, i believe that an open relationship is more honest because it shows love beyond ownership. it allows partners to find deeper connections because they are bound by fewer social contracts.
- it can challenge us as partners to remain interested and/or interesting/engaged, and can help to foster/maintain kindness. with fewer social contracts we have to remain the positive and supportive force in one another’s lives.
- for reasons similar to why i would prefer not to marry a partner, nonmonogamous relationships take the social and political bonds out of a relationship. the only thing holding it together is the love that the partners have for one another, in all of the ways that love will change, tide, and hopefully grow.
- if either/any of us wants to be with someone else and seeks out another partner through our open relationship there is room for a dialogue about what that means for us. in my experiences with monogamous relationship this kind of things seems like it would only look like a failure of the relationship, rather than an opportunity for partners to explore life with other people while loving each other.
- monogamy can occasionally promote cheating and lying because there is often no room to even discuss how anyone feels toward other people. silencing feelings can create resentment and drive me/partners to behave in ways other than they otherwise/naturally would.
- i like to be challenged by my relationships with people, and open relationships have proven emotionally challenging in the past. this creates a longer and more dialectical process throughout the relationship that i feel keeps me engaged on a level that i need to be.
