Non-monogamy was once a fringe concept: the subject of jokes about swingers chucking car keys into bowls or bawdy scenes in teenage rom-coms.
Now, though, it seems that we're reaching a more mature understanding of the ways in which healthy relationships and sexual encounters between consenting adults can configure in non-traditional ways, with more people – including myself – openly discussing being happier outside of the constrains of your textbook romantic arrangement.
An example: Last month, a happy 'throuple' appeared on the breakfast show This Morning to announce that they had each found fulfilment within a long-term three-way relationship, comprised of two men and one woman. The Saturdays singer Una Healey, meanwhile, seems to be teasing that she is involved in a relationship with former boxer David Haye and model Sian Osborne.
Data shows a jump in interest, if not in action. Google numbers reveal a 500% uptick in searches for the term ‘polyamory’ (polyamorous people and non-monogamous people, whether single or in a relationship, have sexual or romantic relationships with multiple people – but definitions and labels vary from person to person) in the last year alone.
All of this is not to say that a whole-sale embrace of alternative relationship configurations have been accepted by our culture at large, of course. The comments under a clip of the segment I mentioned on Instagram were decidedly less wholesome than the appearance itself. But interestingly, none of the people commenting that a relationship with three equal partners was ‘against nature’ seemed to have any explanation as to why this might be the case.
When I personally questioned some of the commenters, those who opposed the idea of a throuple couldn’t explain why they thought the relationship was ‘wrong’. It just was. End of story.
Is monogamy the ‘right way’?
Thing is, these people represent the views of a lot of people. Within most modern societies, we have been conditioned to view anything outside of heteronormative monogamous life as ‘wrong’. And while it's often seen as a given that men can and will pursue sexual relations with lots of partners given the chance, the idea that women could want this, too, remains taboo in all but more progressive circles.
What if, though, desiring variety – be that exploring independently or enjoying a committed relationship with multiple people – is one very natural manifestation of female sexuality?
It's an idea supported by some data. In the past ten years a number of studies on human desire have shown that women are more attracted to sexual variety than men are. The idea that women tend to get bored in relationships is well documented, but famed Psychotherapist Esther Perel suggests that women get bored with monogamy faster than men do, not with intimate relationships in general.
The stuff of our fantasies is instructive here, too. According to multiple studies, including the famous Kinsey Institute survey by sex researcher Dr Justin Lehmiller, author of Tell Me What You Want, the number one fantasy for both men and women is group sex or a threesome.
Those in the know believe that such fantasises can translate to real life wants, if only the correct context is created. The Director of Heaven Circle, a private member’s club for the sexually adventurous – who goes by the aptly enigmatic 'The Blondie' – is in an open relationship with her long-term primary partner.
'I think the premise that men are more naturally inclined to desire multiple partners and women are more inclined to desire monogamy is outdated and flawed,' she tells me. 'When we really delve into female desire, it seems that women want just as much variety as men, if not more. [In my experience] Women also fantasise about or live lifestyles outside of "the norm" just as often.'
Indeed, in more than one study, it has been observed that women today are as likely to say 'yes' to casual sex as men are, when they are told it will be pleasurable, safe, and they will not experience harm to their reputation as a result of it.
I know my personal experience stacks with this. In the last five years there’s been a boom in the availability of multiple partner dating apps, and apps that present as more traditional are now full of couples seeking threesomes. Women of all ages, and I include myself and my friends in these demographics, are making use of these tools.
Do women desire multiple partners as much as men?
So, do women typically desire multiple partners as much as we assume men do? 'It's a ‘did the chicken or the egg come first?’ situation because men and women are considered to express desire differently, but is it because of something inherent biologically or is it because of what we've been encouraged to do?' asks Leanne Yau, a Polyamory Educator and the Founder of the Polyphilia project. She cites the abundance of women working in education around non-monogamy as an indication that the latter is the case.
Dr Wednesday Martin, a cultural critic with a PhD in anthropology and the author of Untrue: Everything We Believe About Women, Lust and Infidelity is Wrong and How The New Science Can Set Us Free, agrees. 'You will see female sexuality across species as every bit as assertive, agentic and "selfish" as male sexuality,' she argues.
'In addition, the ample data showing that women tend to have a drop of desire in years one to four in an exclusive, cohabiting relationship while men's desire tapers much more slowly strongly suggest that monogamy is a tighter shoe for women, not men.'
As someone who’s attracted to both men and women and has happily practised non monogamy for the past five years, I find myself nodding along with this. In my monogamous past I struggled with the limitations, fear of missing out and jealousy that such relationships presented me with.
It meant that I found myself asking, ‘do I have to date like this? Why is this the norm? Is there another way?' Unsurprisingly, this led me to connect with other women who had asked themselves the same question and arrived at the same answer.
So why is monogamy the norm?
It's easy to view monogamy as a sort of default, given its prevalence in our and comparable cultures. But many anthropologists posit that although humans are highly social and form strong bonds, we aren’t strictly wired to team up in pairs who never explore outside of one another forever and ever. In today’s societies high divorce rates, the likelihood of infidelity and the commonness of crises regarding faithfulness speak to this.
'The worldwide ethnographic data demonstrate that we evolved as extremely flexible social and sexual strategists,' says Dr Martin.
That's not to say that monogamy can't work – more that humans can find a groove in various romantic and sexual configurations. 'We can survive and thrive in monogamous, polyandrous, polygynous and single or asexual arrangements. Our sexuality is linked to our ecology and we currently live in an ecology where non-monogamy is more dangerous, even lethal, for women than it is for men.'
Essentially, the overriding cultural script that men are more sexual creatures who are more likely to desire multiple partners and sexual experiences may stem from it simply being safer for men to do as they please when expressing their sexuality. Which in many societies, is still the case.
Dr Martin tells me, 'in ecologies where men out-earn women, and where men have more meaningful labour force and political participation, and where there is a history of patrilocal residence and patrilineal inheritance, men have more power overall. So naturally, they have more sexual privilege. But recent research that measures female desire more accurately shows men's and women's libidos are basically equal.'
Some scientists posit that ‘socially imposed monogamy’ came about for this very reason. If it’s not safe to engage with multiple partners sexually, due to violence, cultural excommunication or the risk of multiple pregnancies, women will likely stop doing so.
But we’ve come a long way since the creation of our most ancient societies and distribution of capital and assets, power dynamics, sexual and reproductive healthcare and the guarantee of our safety and survival have changed.
If it’s perfectly normal, why is there so much stigma attached to non-monogamous women?
But the stigma attached to non monogamy is still incredibly prevalent. So much so that if ever I write a personal piece about sex, I’ll default to describing a monogamous male partner or boyfriend. I never mention more than one partner and never mention my girlfriends, situationships or my married partners or group encounters. It just feels a little too much to share in a world where any deviation from heterosexual monogamy incites moral panic.
And there’s nothing wrong with heterosexual monogamy, if that’s what you enjoy. But there should be space for other relationship styles to flourish, given that all signs point to the fact that we aren’t hardwired to desire one style alone. And of course desire varies according to familiarity within relationships, our hormones, pregnancy, childcare responsibilities, ill health, menopause, the passage of time and myriad cultural and socio-economic factors.
If you’re fantasising about a threesome on a Thursday you might not still want one by Friday, but your desire for one is still valid and real. We don’t have to identify as fully monogamous or non monogamous all the time.
'There is no one rule for everyone and there is a whole spectrum of what non monogamy entails,' says 'The Blondie'. 'I am by no means anti-monogamy. For some, it works for an entire lifetime. But the way people are settling down is changing. We have so many married couples attend our parties, as well as women, a lot of them mothers, who have always explored multiple partners for pleasure. In my view there is no doubt that living out your fantasies in a safe way with a partner can bring you closer to them.'
Is the future monogamish?
For some people, monogamy is simply safer, more pleasurable or suits their needs better. There’s certainly no danger of monogamy fading into obscurity given that it’s so widely practised. Plus, cultural conditioning runs deep.
As Dr Martin points out: 'open monogamy [a flexible form of monogamy in which a couple welcomes in new partners or explores individually] is now more in the cultural lexicon of options for certain privileged women but they still experience bias, stigma and physical and emotional danger depending on their ecology.'
'Non monogamy will never replace monogamy entirely,' says Leanne. She caveats, though, that see sees a future in which this way of being in relationships is seen as being on a par with monogamy. 'The variety, the novelty, the ability to customise your relationships and communicate more with your partner about where the boundaries are – there’s a lot more flexibility. That’s why it’s becoming more common,' she notes.
'And I think people are becoming more sexually open, becoming more honest about their desires and more importantly, when their desires don’t match up and how to meet their partner’s needs.'
'In so many monogamous relationships you see infidelity, whether it’s within new relationships or long-term marriages. And if there isn’t infidelity, there are very often moments when the desire for someone else is there. We need to be honest about our desires to build healthy relationships,' says 'The Blondie.'
'I believe female and male desire is very similar. Both men and women love to be desired, and both men and women love to be loved. Women are more confident than ever in their desires and it’s the level of confidence that has changed, not the desire.'
At the crux of this all is that: non monogamy has taught me and many other women I've spoken to that how we frame our desire, how we talk about it and how far our sexuality is used to shame us into behaving in ways that don't come organically is what’s important.
For many of us, what doesn’t seem to come naturally, is trying to operate within a rigid system that dictates how, when and why we should express our sexuality, based on biassed historical interpretations of gender that modern studies have repeatedly debunked.
From what I've learned about human beings and our history through the lens of my own sexuality, it seems that both men and women are better off when we release ourselves from any rigid beliefs about what our desires should look like – and how acceptable it is to act on them.
