NOTE: I posted the following entry last Friday afternoon and then took it down that evening. Something felt not quite right about it. So while I’m still eager to hear people’s thoughts on the matter, I sliced out the personal part. If you happened to catch that part during a few hours on Friday, well then, aren’t you lucky? 
And no, the following is not a secret message/hint directed at anyone I know personally.
____________
I’m doing an informal poll: what do you think of non-monogamy? More specifically, what’s your response to this first paragraph from The Ethical Slut:
Many people dream of living an open sexual life - of having all the sex and love and friendship they want. Most never try, believing that such a life is impossible. Of those who try, many give up, finding the challenges insurmountable - or at least too hard for them. A few persist, and discover that being openly sexual and intimate with many people is not only possible, but can be more rewarding than they ever imagined.
Do you know of people or are you someone who makes it work? Are you an absolutist or relativist regarding monogamy? Is the idea of non-monogamy appealing to you or not?
harmony said,
March 3, 2005 @ 4:11 pm
I’m in the “whatever works for you” camp. Ultimately sex and relationships are about agreement, and if everyone involved can get on board with whatever set of guidelines you have laid out, I would say why not go for it and have fun? In theory, that seems like it would work out great.
In practice, people are…people. Jealous, emotional, irrational about matters of the heart and what sex means and what love is. It’s not something that would ever work for me, for those reasons.
But I don’t have an ethical issue with it as long as everyone is in agreement about what the rules are. You know: safe, sane, and consensual and all that.
SorchaRei said,
March 4, 2005 @ 12:08 am
I know people who make it work. For some years, I made it work myself. Then I started to pay attention to my own inner voice, and discovered that while I could make it work, it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
(I was doing it because it was a popular political action in the lesbian community in the 80s, and the arguments in favor all made intellectual sense to me. In fact, they still do. However, that doesn’t change the fact that this is not how I live when I give myself the freedom to live how I really want.)
For me, sex and love and living are all about integrity. When I forget to pay attention to aligning my deepest self with my choices, I end up hurting other people and myself. I no more think that people whose inner selves are poly should stop that than that I should stop being monogamous because of some political argument.
As for [being] more rewarding than they ever imagined, sure, if it works for you and your partners and their partners, and if it’s a genuine expression of your Self.
alix said,
March 4, 2005 @ 1:59 am
Heh, when I came back to respond and didn’t see the post, I wondered if I’d dreamed it.
I think it’s not disimilar from other sexual preferences. Some people are gay, straight, or bi. Some people are more comfortable with monogamy, others are not, and yet others are happy either way.
For me it depends on the relationship, and the feelings of my partner. I could never imagine my current relationship being anything but monogamous, but have been perfectly content in open relationships in the past.
One of the downsides to monogamy though, at least for me, is it brought a fear of betrayal to the mix that is not there in open relationships. It’s taken me YEARS to get beyond this.
Pamela said,
March 5, 2005 @ 12:27 pm
I’ve tried two replies to this, once in reply to the original post.
It’s really rather simple in that the dynamicism of relationships needs to be evaluated by the participants and decisions need to be made to honor both (or all) parties involved. I think Harmony states this very well above.
I think multiplicity of options has different meanings during different juncture of our lives. Sexual energy ebbs and flows, and I enjoy monogamy because it frees my energy and focus up for other endeavors. Love and sex takes time and energy!
My motto is whatever floats your boat. With varying levels of compulsion in various individuals, who is to say what the so-called norm might be.
But I myself have shied away from liasons with others that I knew were not bound to monogamy because of the inherent time/ego/energy complications I could foresee. Bottom line, monogamy works for me, I like partnering and commitment seems to feel natural to me. I’m too brainwashed by Western individualism to comfortably transition into a tribal/collective sexuality at this point.
kona said,
March 12, 2005 @ 5:31 pm
Yeah, I agree with many of y’all’s points above. What it comes down to for me really, is that it’s hard enough to really learn/grow all I can from/with intimate relationships with one other person, that it seems ridiculous to add others into the equation.
I could never really see it work with people from/brought up in this culture; other cultures I just don’t know.