Long Relationships

My post on “A New Monogamy� has received both public and private acknowledgements. Sugasm recently chosen the article for their Sugasm #52 as an interesting piece on “Thoughts on Sex & Relationships.� (Caution: There are some very sexually explicit articles on that site.) I’ve also gotten several public and private comments on the questions I posited.

Suzanne Portnoy, author of “The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker: An Erotic Memoir� writes: “I’ve been a single ‘swinger’ for a few years now and met quite a few happily married couples on the scene. Surprisingly, it’s very often the woman’s choice to ‘swing’ as she may feel sexually dissatisfied and her husband goes along with letting her play with others or encourages her to do so. I personally think that it’s very challenging to maintain a dynamic sex life with the same person over a decade or more. I think as society becomes more open, more and more couples will have open or fluid relationships where one or both partners takes a lover or has various sexual friends.�

I’m sure there are couples out there that swing because it was the woman’s idea. Swinging truly is centered on the woman in the sense that she is the one who calls the shots and decides what they’ll do (though the “rules� for the couple are given thought ahead of time), especially in party circumstances.

However, I would question the decision of a couple to swing if it stems from dissatisfaction in their primary relationship in any way. It goes against my point in the last article that what a lifestyle couple does with other individuals “strengthens� their relationship. If you’re bringing other people into your bed because something is missing in the primary relationship, you find yourself looking (even subconsciously) for that thing that is missing. And, when you find it, perhaps things won’t be as sacred in your primary relationship anymore.

A colleague pointed out an article by Jacques Attali (Monogamy: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, written in 2005). Attali makes valid points on a sociological standpoint by examining longer life expectancy, increased use of birth control, and wider breadth in individual freedoms in relation to monogamous relationships. However, I disagree that with the theory that “as society becomes more open, more and more couples will have open or fluid relationships…� I think that this discounts tremendously the power that one’s own emotional and moral convictions may have.

For example, another reader shared that “…I think I am in touch with myself well enough to know that I would be treading on dangerous ground and most likely disrupt my otherwise wonderful marriage [by swinging].� Emotionally, some couples and some relationships just shouldn’t try it. Spiritually, some couples just won’t even discuss it. Whether their thoughts wander that direction or not, it just doesn’t mesh with the spiritual lives of what is a majority of individuals.

My opinionated, uneducated prediction: It will never be for everyone, and though it may grow in its participants, it will never be the norm. But, as with all things, I advocate for the inclusion and incorporation of some of the positive things from the lifestyle in our lives. As I said before, we may not all live that type of hedonistic lifestyle, but it doesn’t mean we can’t grow from the knowledge of what others are doing.

relationships, swingers, lifestyle, New Monogamy, Attali, Suzanne Portnoy, Sugasm, sex, intimacy, sexual, marriage, monogamy