Do open relationships freak you out?

[altlover85]

I don't know if they "freak me out". I just don't know how full or complete any relationship is within an open relationship.

And so why call any of them a "relationship" beyond how anyone may have many relationships with different people anyway. Lots of people have friends, sex partners, hiking buddies who mean the world to them. One need not box them into what one might call several relationships within an "open relationship". They're all simply people with whom you have relationships however similar or varied.

But then, really, don't we only mean SEX is included when we call for an "open relationship"? Otherwise, all of the other persons can simply be viewed as friends, loved ones and assorted life associates. A person who seeks an "open relationship" simply seeks permission to have sex with other people.

To me, a genuine personal relationship means one other person with whom you decide to commit yourself wholey. That would include sex. Otherwise, why have any relationship if one is only going to be one of many anyway.

Perhaps the people in the relationship don't feel that sex is the most important factor (or that there may be other factors that are equally important) in deciding who they will be in a relationship with?

 

[hungkee]

Perhaps the people in the relationship don't feel that sex is the most important factor (or that there may be other factors that are equally important) in deciding who they will be in a relationship with?

Perhaps.

But I would tend to think that the more common or typical request for an "open relationship" is when one is seeking permission to have sex with others outside of what may be a or the "primary" relationship. Otherwise, such a person isn't really needing to ask if he can have a friend, a study partner or hiking buddy outside of the relationship. I doubt that a person would approach whomever he is in a principle relationship with the request to have an "open relationship" if that were all he were seeking.

I tend to think that most of it pivots around sex or the permission to have sex with others or someone other than with whomever one is in the primary relationship.

 

[altlover85]

Perhaps.

But I would tend to think that the more common or typical request for an "open relationship" is when one is seeking permission to have sex with others outside of what may be a or the "primary" relationship. Otherwise, such a person isn't really needing to ask if he can have a friend, a study partner or hiking buddy outside of the relationship. I doubt that a person would approach whomever he is in a principle relationship with the request to have an "open relationship" if that were all he were seeking.

I tend to think that most of it pivots around sex or the permission to have sex with others or someone other than with whomever one is in the primary relationship.

What I mean is that the permisson to have sex outside the relationship may hold less weight than it might for other people who aren't involved in open relationships.

I think as a society we attribute too much to the bond that sex can have and sometimes we focus too much on sex and less on the other components of a successful relationship.

 

[Centipede]

no. they're just not for me.

a lot of my friends have open relationships and they seem to be happy, i'm no one to judge.

 

[fetaby]

Why does it have to be only about sex? It's impossible to find a second person who shares a different set of interests than the first, who would make a good study partner or hiking buddy when the first doesn't care to? It doesn't always have to be sex alone. One of the men here who spoke of his open relationships recently emphasized the fact that he dated other men and the nature of their relationship was different than his first partner.

I find it hilarious the extent to which people will go to vilify something they don't understand.

I don't believe hungkee was vilifying anything, just trying to define the parameters of the discussion. And as he said, closed relationships are open to just about everything except sex.

I have movie buddies. We go to the theater to watch movies together. My partner doesn't like going so he doesn't. I go and have a good time, that doesn't mean our relationship is open.

But I suppose there are those people out there who think being in a relationship means having each other crammed up each other's ass so tight there exists nothing outside of the two.

 

[drewthesaltyboy]

I don't know if I could do an 'open' relationship per say, however, my partner and I do want to try a threesome. We've agreed that if we do something like this, it cannot be anyone we know and the extra will have to 'host'. We're really interested in seeing each other in action. Call it cuckolding if you will, but I get excited at the thought of my man engaging in something like that with another bottom. I guess I get bad anxiety when it comes to the thought of him cheating on me, so I'd rather just see the infidelity happening in front of me. It eliminates temptation.

 

[jasoncrew03]

I think they should just call each other friends. It's stupid and confusing. And either way i still think they're desperate whores.

 

[hungkee]

Why does it have to be only about sex? It's impossible to find a second person who shares a different set of interests than the first, who would make a good study partner or hiking buddy when the first doesn't care to? It doesn't always have to be sex alone. One of the men here who spoke of his open relationships recently emphasized the fact that he dated other men and the nature of their relationship was different than his first partner.

I find it hilarious the extent to which people will go to vilify something they don't understand.

Yeah. But in practical terms as most people would probably understand it, those wouldn't require an "open relationship" with one's presumed significant other. "Honey, can I have a friend?" or "Darling, I like the guys on my bowling team and would like to go have beers with them."

See? It just doesn't have the same meaning as "Sweetheart, I won't be home tonight because its Danny's turn to suck my dick."

 

[DigitalFudge]

You know Naughty, every time I have tried to understand the person that you are I get it wrong and you clock me. I don't think I will ever understand what you want out of a person, out of sex, or out of any type of relationship


However what I can do is appreciate the unique individual you are. While making anti-slut threads dragging you indirectly

Gotta do what we gotta do

 

[bankside]

You're basically saying anything short of marriage isn't a real relationship.

Sometimes it takes a real relationship to build up to an eventual "till death do us part," but you don't make that decision right away. I honestly do not understand how you would expect someone to. That's all kinds of extreme.

NO, that's the opposite of what I'm saying. It is a real relationship, but when a person says "yeah, I've had 5 partners, a few one night stands, and three long term relationships in the last 15 years" they do not mean remotely the same thing by "monogamy" that seems reasonable for that word to mean.

"I'll sleep with anybody, but only one at a time" is not monogamy. And calling it "serial monogamy" like the adjective somehow changes everything is as meaningless as calling it "serial snardlarvarken."

I have no problem with people who have highly active sex lives, as long as they are very serious about not spreading disease. Responsible promiscuity, sure, great. I have no problem with all different kinds of unconventional relationships. I'm fine with people who both have a history coming together and forming a relationship. But if they come at it with the same attitude as their "last 3 monogamous relationships in the past 2 years," I just can't take the description seriously.

Speaking of unconventional relationships, I agree with you here:

What I am saying is that you're missing the aspect that the person in the open relationship can have romantic connections with more than one partner. Meaning: more than just going bowling with friends; more than just getting a quick blowjob.

If there is anything that could even theoretically interest me in something more adventurous, it would be the possibility of something more than just fucking a stranger. Having found the guy who is right for me, I am finding it a little hard to imagine the guy who would be "right for us" so our spitroasting fantasy will just have to remain in the realm of imagination.

 

[hungkee]

What I am saying is that you're missing the aspect that the person in the open relationship can have romantic connections with more than one partner. Meaning: more than just going bowling with friends; more than just getting a quick blowjob.

Stop limiting it. If you're going to put it down, at least attempt to understand what you are putting down.

I don't know about you, but for me sex isn't the only difference between friendship and relationship.

I think that you are underplaying if not denying the sexual aspect or angle in someone asking for an "open relationship". I would think that most people hearing such a request would agree that it implies the sexual. Otherwise, one might simply just not be going "steady" with whomever one is dating. Or one is dating someone who dates a lot of people.

But in those instances, they barely need to come to some agreement about having an "open relationship". If its been decided that they are not going steady, then, they barely need to think they're in such a relationship as for one of them to ask if it can be "open".

The request for an "open relationship" would more commonly be found in or associated with those who have some established personal (romantic) relationship between them.

Now, if all of "romance" and intimacy of such a relationship does not include the sexual, then, one may or may not be asking for an "open relationship" (outside of that relationship) as one seeks more of the same (just wine and sensuous cigarette smoking) OR as one might seek the sexual.

Like a JOHN EDWARDS. A man may find himself in an actual marriage but it may not be providing him with everyone he wants.

In his case, that seemed to be sex or a particular sort of sex. And it may have even meant making another baby.

But clearly it didn't just mean that he was asking his late wife if he could go over to Rielle Hunter's house to watch a movie.

Perhaps to MAKE a movie. But not to just watch one.

All of that said, I do understand what you may be trying to convey - which is that emotional cheating some people mention. When a person isn't having sex with a 2nd or 3rd person but the emotional ties are very strong. so strong as to be perhaps more intimate than those feelings one may have with one's principle or original partner.

And yeah, that can happen. And its often proven to be MORE damaging than simply having an "open relationship" in which one wants to gets his rocks off.

So even moreso, I would never agree to such an open relationship - even when its likely my partner who is asking for it isn't having S-E-X with the other person.

Because I would still wonder why he needs this other relationship so much and yet can't move on from me. Because it wouldn't be just a friendship he's asking for but instead permission to share a part of himself - and intimacy - he's apparently not able or willing to share with me.

And that sort of makes him somewhat of a stranger to you always whether in your house, your bed or your life.

 

[altlover85]

NO, that's the opposite of what I'm saying. It is a real relationship, but when a person says "yeah, I've had 5 partners, a few one night stands, and three long term relationships in the last 15 years" they do not mean remotely the same thing by "monogamy" that seems reasonable for that word to mean.

Reasonable to you perhaps. But whoever this person is, he or she is actually being monogamous, regardless of whether or not it fails some test that you impose upon the word.

"I'll sleep with anybody, but only one at a time" is not monogamy. And calling it "serial monogamy" like the adjective somehow changes everything is as meaningless as calling it "serial snardlarvarken."

I'm not sure how you make the jump that someone that's had more than a few sexual partners will "sleep with anyone".

 

[pat grimshaw]

You know Naughty, every time I have tried to understand the person that you are I get it wrong and you clock me. I don't think I will ever understand what you want …

Naughty is perverse and he knows it.

He's already told us he worships oddity and those people who are different. He's a Bohemian. That's why he calls himself an Artist. Those artists are the outsiders on the fringe of all of us ordinary, boring, bourgeois, law-abiding normal people.

(I used to be like that until I grew up. )

 

[bankside]

You are really saying that a person who has had three relationships in 15 years with flings and one night stands in between doesn't know what monogamy is? Really?

I just... my mind is blown, here.

So if someone has three 3-4 year relationships in which they share everything with their partner, are faithful, and those relationships eventually fall apart, yet in between those relationships, they've had dates/flings/one-night stands... that person doesn't know what monogamy is?

I think instead of picking on the words "relationship" and "monogamy" and raising them to a ridiculously high standard, you need to just make up a new term that fits yourself and the unbelievably high horse you are on.

Again this is not about high horses or "raising" things. It's like once Elizabeth Taylor hit Marriage Number 5, there's just no point in pretending she's using the word "marriage" the same way the rest of us do. But even at #5 she wasn't done.

It's the same thing with "monogamy." If it's not all that important for someone to try to limit themselves to one partner, find that person, then live their lives together, then it's not all that important to them. I'm okay with that. If they're happy with "one at a time," great. It does make me curious to know if one at a time is okay for those people, why not all at once?

 

[altlover85]

How do you make the judgement that

it's not all that important for someone to try to limit themselves to one partner, find that person, then live their lives together

when you don't know what is going on in the other person's mind?

We can't all have an amazing relationship with the first person we have sex with, even if that is what we truly desire.

If they're happy with "one at a time," great. It does make me curious to know if one at a time is okay for those people, why not all at once?

You make it seem as if people that have had more than one relationship plan to have break ups.

Someone can be with one person and not have the desire to have sex with other people while with that person. The relationship can end and the person can go on to the next relationship with the intention that this relationship will work and for some reason it doesn't work. Maybe the person just has bad luck. Just because things don't work (and therefore the person ends up having multiple relationships) it doesn't necessarily follow that the person is not interested in monogamy.

 

[bankside]

^We're not talking about marriages, we're talking about relationships. You seem to be putting pressure on relationships to be a marriage, and deeming them "nonsense" unless they are till death. That is utterly ridiculous.

But yes, a person committed only to one other is in a monogamous relationship. Just because that relationship "only" lasts a few years (God forbid!), doesn't make it less real.

No, we're not talking about marriages. It was a simile, a comparison.

And again, and can't say it much more because I'm going to bore even myself, but you keep missing it: I'm not saying it's less real, or less worthy, or less important, or results in less happiness for the people involved. It's just less monogamous. Serial monogamy can only claim to be monogamy on a technicality.

 

[bankside]

How do you make the judgement that



when you don't know what is going on in the other person's mind?

I make the inference based on their behaviour and their head count.

We can't all have an amazing relationship with the first person we have sex with, even if that is what we truly desire.

Some people have sex with the first person they have an amazing relationship with.

You make it seem as if people that have had more than one relationship plan to have break ups.

Someone can be with one person and not have the desire to have sex with other people while with that person. The relationship can end and the person can go on to the next relationship with the intention that this relationship will work and for some reason it doesn't work. Maybe the person just has bad luck. Just because things don't work (and therefore the person ends up having multiple relationships) it doesn't necessarily follow that the person is not interested in monogamy.

They could have bad luck. Someone who is widowed five times should consider meeting people other than at the local volcano climbing club, but I believe their monogamous disposition.

But when people have relationship after relationship that they intend to last forever and then they just don't go the distance, it's not the relationships they happen to land, it's caused by something in their understanding of what a relationship is, or their skill in making it happen.

 

[hungkee]

Serial monogamy unlike an open relationship doesn't carry with it the required partner willing to share.

A genuine "open relationship" (versus being a 4th ex-wife) requires both partners in the "principle" relationship to be in agreement on such terms.

 

[altlover85]

I make the inference based on their behaviour and their head count.

And of course you could be wrong.

Some people have sex with the first person they have an amazing relationship with.

Yes, some do, but my point is that just because you have the intention of a relationship lasting forever, that doesn't mean that it will happen.

But when people have relationship after relationship that they intend to last forever and then they just don't go the distance, it's not the relationships they happen to land, it's caused by something in their understanding of what a relationship is, or their skill in making it happen.

I think it takes a high degree of luck (coupled with skill) to make your first relationship last. And I'm sure you are aware that it takes two to tango and that you can be a great boyfriend, but if your boyfriend isn't all that great (which may not be apparent if it's your first or even the first few of your relationships) then things may end for reasons that are out of your control.

 

[fetaby]

I'm not saying it's less real, or less worthy, or less important, or results in less happiness for the people involved.

Uh huh...

But when people have relationship after relationship that they intend to last forever and then they just don't go the distance, it's not the relationships they happen to land, it's caused by something in their understanding of what a relationship is, or their skill in making it happen.

To paraphrase: "They're just not doing it ~right~..."