Open Fidelity

OK, I’m back. It’s great having a usable kitchen again!

In the mean time, I have in fact been busy writing for Bella magazine, who invited me to contribute to their ‘points of view’ page. The question being asked was ‘Can open relationships ever work?’ (in response, once again, to Tilda Swinton’s revelation of having two partners) and I was asked to write something for the ‘Yes’ side of the argument. The article is now out (on UK newsstands, not online). Here’s an excerpt from my bit:

An open relationship isn’t an easy option and not everyone can do it. You have to remember that you don’t own the person you love. You must listen, negotiate, keep your promises and be completely honest with your partner.

For some people, monogamy works well. But if you find monogamy difficult, an open relationship is more honest than having a secret affair.

The ‘No’ side was given by Bibi Lynch, ’sex columnist and presenter’. She says:

Of course they don’t work!… Sure, some people (and I mean philandering men, here) will bang on about how monogamy is unnatural… But I think the technical expression for that argument is ‘trying to justify our inability to keep our pants on’.

I might be biased, but her piece seemed to have been put together without much thought and certainly without much research. I appreciate that she was asked to write something specifically denying that open relationships can work, but I would have thought that with her apparent years of experience writing on sex and relationships, Bibi Lynch might have come across a few positive examples. But no, she spouts the same stuff we have all heard again and again, about ‘commitment’ making a relationship special and staying faithful to one person being what relationships are all about.

She even says that open relationships are not really relationships at all. Well, that’s a strange definition of a relationship. What about when two (or more) people love each other deeply, share their daily lives with each other, have a special bond? Does making their relationship open negate all that? Of course not.

Open relationships can, for those who go about them without much thought, be an excuse to sleep around while having a regular partner to act as a date when you need it. (See this Yahoo Answers discussion for an example.) I agree: that kind of ‘open relationship’ isn’t ideal.

But a properly thought out open relationship means considering your partner’s wish to have other lovers, not just your own. So it cannot be about ‘our inability to keep our pants on’, it is about the other partner as well. It is about giving your partner opportunities, not about selfishly wanting opportunities just for yourself.

Bibi Lynch does admit near the end of her article:

Maybe I’m an insecure fool – I did walk out of a restaurant once because my date was paying the waitress too much attention – but the thought of my boyfriend even kissing another woman makes me feel physically sick.

OK, so she is the kind of person who gets easily jealous. An open relationship is probably not the right thing for her. That doesn’t mean they aren’t great for other people.

The bias of the editorial team shows in the photo accompanying the articles (posed by models): a man and a woman smile at each other across the picture, while a stony-faced woman looks at the smiling woman and has her arms crossed and one hand on her chin, as if to say ‘hmm, what am I meant to think about this, then?’. The caption says ‘Could you trust your man with another woman?’ – again, no suggestion that the woman might be the one to benefit from opening up a relationship.

So, not an entirely balanced view, but what can we expect from a mainstream women’s magazine? It is probably the first time they have covered nonmonogamy at all, except of course for thousands of stories about infidelity. It can only be a good thing that they have presented the subject in this format, with two sides to the argument. And good for Tilda Swinton for prompting mags like this to think about ethical nonmonogamy.

I’m hoping that the intelligent readers who happen upon this article will realise that the Yes argument is carefully researched and based on facts, whereas the No argument is pure opinion. If you’re one such intelligent reader, welcome to the Open Fidelity blog and I hope you find some useful information here.

Filed under: Media