Comments on: There is another way!

By: nickbarnes

nickbarnes — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:22:21 +0000

PS: I agree that desires can be very strong, overpoweringly strong, and attempting to ignore them is often counterproductive.
Having said that, anyone who thinks that desires should always be satisfied isn’t going to be any good in bed

By: nickbarnes

nickbarnes — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:20:29 +0000

Maybe it’s enough to say that I think our marriage was always monogamous. The opposite of mongamy is surely polygamy, which never interested either of us.
But the terminology is difficult. Possibly the cruellest lie in our divorce papers was the words “open marriage”, which means something quite different to me. It made me wonder for a while whether, despite all our communication, we hadn’t truly understood each other. In retrospect I think that it was just the easiest way to express a complex truth to the judge,.

By: AnnaS

AnnaS — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:35:03 +0000

Thanks for your comments Nick. I agree that the need for sex isn’t the same as the need for more basic needs. Nevertheless, some people say that for them it feels like a need and they find it very hard to ignore it. For them, telling them to ignore it probably won’t work.
I should point out that this post was a response to the articles in the Telegraph, which focused on people who had ‘no-strings-attached sex’ while married. For many others, I totally agree that it isn’t about sex, or at least not just about sex.
Yes, the further option you mention is a good one if you can manage it. Thanks for the confirmation that it can be done.
I’m curious about your definition of monogamy – would you like to elaborate?

By: nickbarnes

nickbarnes — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:02:10 +0000

I omitted “with this particular person” after “not having third-party sex”. There might be lots of reasons for this. For instance, the primary partner might consider this particular third-party to be a desperately unwise choice.

By: nickbarnes

nickbarnes — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:59:52 +0000

I continue to be a little uneasy about some of the terms of discourse, certainly as they relate to my own experiences. I would never use the word “need” in a context like this: I think it trivializes actual needs (e.g. nutrition, sanitation, safety) and puts one rather in the same camp as someone who “needs” the sense of power and freedom they get from driving a massive 4×4, or who “needs” a foreign holiday 3 times a year to survive the stress of their mundane office job. These aren’t needs, and neither are our sexual desires.
While I’m on terminology, we also differ on the meaning of the word “monogamy”.
Picking more holes in this post:
– open fidelity for me has never been about “more sex”. Rather the opposite: the emotional rollercoaster and sheer logistical complexity involved in open fidelity probably meant that there was a little less sex in total.
Lastly, in your list of options (splitting up, secret affair, unhappy monogamy) you don’t include “figuring out a way to be happy together while not having third-party sex”. This can and does work, but like open fidelity it requires total communication and commitment.
Enough for now. Glad to see the blog, and very happy to see you working so hard on this important subject.
[PS: I never use pseudonyms online]

By: AnnaS

AnnaS — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:12:19 +0000

Hi there! I’m adding a link to your blog now. Thanks for linking to mine.

By: May

May — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:22:00 +0000

I’m really enjoying your site and thought I would say hello!

You may like to read my site? It’s about a polyfidelitous trio trying to make a go of world domination without stepping on too many toes, or having to go too far from home. May contain humour, joy, love, anger, use of Canadian spellings and occasional bitterness.

http://paxcompoundia.blogspot.com/

Thank you for spreading the word