Adultery and Open relationships...Thoughts?

And hell i do think George Clooney is hot and Johnny Depp too. But no one is "the best looking" . Sorry :-) Originally Posted by ninasastri

The one I'm bopping at the time is the best thing since sliced bread!

Did you know that couples that think their partner the best looking even after they have gotten plump are the happiest and most likely to stay together happily ever after?

If I can find you the link, will you lick it

I guess this depends on what one needs or wants. Some hold to the idea that there is at least one "the other" out there with whom it is possible to achieve a "one-ness." Others believe that it requires more than one additional "other" to achieve self fulfillment, that there is less stress or pressure on everyone to be all things to one another and this allows each to concentrate on their strengths.

If one breaks it down thoroughly, seriously working the poly plan (especially with children involved) is very hard in that it runs counter to every ideal and convention American society has woven through it and is further complicated in that there is not an extensive amount of reinforcement available as there is with more traditional relationships (yep, even SO with something on the side). We have all been bombarded with this throughout our entire lives in ways we are not even aware of and all of that ingrained cultural background is hard to overcome. Old habits or ideas die hard and have this inconvenient way of popping up at the most "interesting" times.

A total commitment to good communication coupled with a thick skin (and psyche, no doubt) gives one a shot. Now, all one has to do is find however many "others" with the same level of tolerance and commitment......

I suppose that I'm not very optimistic because I believe the odds are slim and that this comes under the heading of the "Good Luck with That" dept. Not that the same can't be said of traditional monogamy at this point in our society, too...LOL!

If one breaks it down thoroughly, seriously working the poly plan (especially with children involved) is very hard in that it runs counter to every ideal and convention American society has woven through it and is further complicated in that there is not an extensive amount of reinforcement available as there is with more traditional relationships (yep, even SO with something on the side). We have all been bombarded with this throughout our entire lives in ways we are not even aware of and all of that ingrained cultural background is hard to overcome. Old habits or ideas die hard and have this inconvenient way of popping up at the most "interesting" times.
Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

you are right! The lack of reinforcement is not good. Ask any mono that wants to go poly how his enviroment reacts. without changing significant things in your life (the way you live, talk, bond with others, friends) this is NEVER going to work. and that takes a lot of spine! Most people who have been mono for a long time and reaped the benefits from that lifestyle go back again because the road is just too slippery.

Many polys are married themselves (although the idea of marriage is not exactly poly) and are therefor reinforcing heteronormative ideals. These worlds are intertwined, and you have to make consensus. So there is not the poly out there that is not touched by heteronormative ideals in a way. You cannot live completely "outside" of society , its not possible. But i try to do my best to raise awareness -

and that starts with words ! Ok admittedly....i am an aggressive discusser and not sugarcoated. But at least i get my point across and people are interested! Worst is being boring and no one talks to you.. I rather take the heat (and the crap) and learn something! And hope to be able to teach something too.

The one I'm bopping at the time is the best thing since sliced bread! Originally Posted by WTF

sarcasm mode on: "that`s because you haven`t met me yet I am better!! wiiihaaaahaaaa :-)"

that is funny

http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/soulmate/

I know that. Most monos do. and i know you do not mean to judge. But that is the same with boyfriends. Some monos classify all their boyfriends with the same language of "most and more" . and when the relationship is done they do the same with the follower. Its a "use" but i am highly critical of its approach - because it lacks individuality. Either we are all individuals and all special. Or no one is. Stating someone is "The best" or "the most attractive" makes them state at the same time others are not good enough or beautiful enough. Such use of vocabulary tends to cause jealousy and is the reason why poly/mono does not work so much in combination. So if you have two lovers you have to find different ways to appreciate them than the comparative approach or hierarchies. Imagine i tell one of my lovers he is "the best" and "the most beautiful" or "he fucks me the best way". My god..... I could file for divorce right now...

But i just do not like hierarchies and classifications and all that. After all i am a political activist trained to make everyone feel special . And hierarchies are a dangerous thing. It makes people replacable like goods. Because what if you are not the hottest shit on this planet? you must constantly worry about finding your match ?

I think everyone is beautiful and everyone is special. Or no one. But to think because you love someone he is "the best" is ..hm...not realistic. But people do that, because usually they are in search for the "one and only" by dumping one after the other after the other after the other.....serial monogamy....

Or being the best is also a dangerous approach since most gents here buy escorts. They don`t do so because their wive "lacks" qualities which most wives tend to think when they find out their hubbys betray them . Then they suddenly think they are not "the best" anymore, because if they were, why would it happen? So a more egalitarian approach when judging or validating people is better because then you can embrace the different qualities different people and different relationships can offer.

In my experience,Monogamous people tend to have a problem with Polyamory because they want to "compete" to be the best . That is why poly/mono relationships do never work usually ("what does she have i do not have"? "Well for starters she is a different person?") BEcause we are all humans. So what one offers cannot be necessarily of a better quality than what another offers. Competition is degrading people to service renderers. Again. I might exagerate! I put out the worst and the extreme case scenarios by bringint that logic of "the best" to its most extreme Originally Posted by ninasastri

Oh, I'm not monogamous by any stretch. I just tend to get caught up in the moment.

Oh, I'm not monogamous by any stretch. I just tend to get caught up in the moment. Originally Posted by Natalie

+1 (lol) a real good friend of mine used to say: "The crap i said yesterday does not hold any interest for me TODAY" :-), so its all relative and a matter of attention span (and therefor its even more necessary to reflect on the use of absolutism in words IMHO)

Isabella, here is a thought on the last part of your question. I lived with my lover and her husband for 6 years, and it was great for the first five or so. He and I had very different schedules and styles, and had been friends before, so we got along fine. Everyone knew what was going on, and it was the lady's choice who she wished to sleep with each night. We did not ever have a threesome, though.

When her husband retired early and was home most of the time, it quit working immediately. I moved out shortly thereafter. His issues, not mine. She ended up moving in with me, but the relationship was never the same.

Just my experience, but hopefully helpful as a data point. Hugs!

Isabella, here is a thought on the last part of your question. I lived with my lover and her husband for 6 years, and it was great for the first five or so. He and I had very different schedules and styles, and had been friends before, so we got along fine. Everyone knew what was going on, and it was the lady's choice who she wished to sleep with each night. We did not ever have a threesome, though.

When her husband retired early and was home most of the time, it quit working immediately. I moved out shortly thereafter. His issues, not mine. She ended up moving in with me, but the relationship was never the same.

Just my experience, but hopefully helpful as a data point. Hugs! Originally Posted by topguntex

that is another great example of how it is that many relationships just work as a triangle and when that precious balance is out of shake the whole relationship with all participants involved fails.
Its a fragile set of intricacies.

If I can find you the link, will you lick it[/SIZE] Originally Posted by WTF

That and so much more where is it?

I have never really cared if my lover / husband had a one-off tryst. I think wandering, for lack of a better word, is natural for men. I do ask that they do so outside our circle of influence. I don’t want to know about it, and I don’t want those in our social / professional circle to know either. I think that’s fair. In the first place, others aren’t privy to the fact that I’m open to it. And in the second place, I don’t want them to know I’m open to it.

I don’t know how I would feel about swinging with my partner. I’ve never seen it work well for others. So I would be inclined to decline. I can see where it would work for others; I just don’t think it is my bag. For me, like I said, I’m fairly kinky and there are many, many things to explore before an open relationship.

I’ve cheated and I’ll not do it again. I just don’t want to. I’ve grown in my sexuality as I’ve matured. I will get my variety at home with my kinky lover . I don’t have a judgment one way or the other what others do. Whatever their bag is, I’m happy for them.

One thing I have noticed though that people that are very liberal or in this case sexually liberated tend to think of more conservative or more conventional people as closed-minded. I disagree. I find people on the extremes and / or the self-righteous of any idea are the more close-minded ones. I don’t have a problem per se with people outside the bell-curve, but the self-righteous bother me. Just because it’s always been that way doesn’t make it the way it should be for everyone.

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One thing I have noticed though that people that are very liberal or in this case sexually liberated tend to think of more conservative or more conventional people as closed-minded. I disagree. I find people on the extremes and / or the self-righteous of any idea are the more close-minded ones. I don’t have a problem per se with people outside the bell-curve, but the self-righteous bother me. Just because it’s always been that way doesn’t make it the way it should be for everyone. Originally Posted by OliviaHoward

Hi Olivia,

I like your lifestyle choice and its open and honest! Yay to that! I know plenty of people that think like you do. I personally would not do swinging, because i get paid as an escort why would i screw someone for free :-)....he he he.-...

That stated reaction about "closed mindedness" is a defense mechanism. If you recall - when someone is outside the heteronormative values in relationships (and i do respect all the people that are inside, i have plenty of truly monogamous and truly non-escort friends who know who i am AND do respect me too) he gets bashed frequently. To me its not that i have a problem with people that are conservative per se, but i have more a problem with hypocrites, these are people that want their cake and eat it too - but are too scared to rightfully state their opinion. These are the people who also have hurt me the most in the past (aka married men /mormons ). I mean if a married man is truly monogamous then he would not feel the need to enter my private life /aka making a problem for me in the long run by telling his wife about me and then using me as a doormat for marital issues and insults that should be adressed at the married couple rather than at me (while i never made my lifestyle a problem for him) or a mormon would be a true believer if he did not have sex with me and enter a relationship (just to tell me i am not allowed to tell anyone we had sex - which means I have to LIE for him?? - how outrageous). I mean these are the kind of people who really freak me out! (I will bever make this mistake again ever to date someone who is not on the same page AND intolerant)

There are people out there who pretend to be open minded and are not. These are the ones i get real aggressive about because they do not want to have to do the hard work, live a secret life as escort/cheater AND have the guts to state that they are sex positive!! Haha. I mean i know escorts pretending to be polyamorous while in reality they are anything else than polyamorous, but they want to be cool and use words whose understanding they are not nearly capable of grasping. that is the annoying kind of self righteousness!!

I personally refrain from judging people that are who they say they are, and sometimes i am more friends with monogamous people and secret escorts who are honest about themselves then these pseudo open minded people who are (only secretely) open minded or judgmental people who have so much dirt on their stick that they have no right to judge (aka wives of married men being financially dependent so they have to tolerate their husbands screwing around because they could not have it any other way - and then crying wolf about me and my work). There is an interesting article from Veronica Monet on her blog where she writes about exactly that factor - that the women most opposed to her work (she was an escort as well) were NOT the conservatives but the ones behaving like whores but never admitting to themselves they are ones. These are the self righteous people that bother me.

So - for me everyone that is honest to themselves and buys escorts (rather than has secret lovers) is someone that i deeply and profoundly respect. But these pretentious people who love to blow smoke up their own precious behinds are the ones i get aggressive and defensive about. And rightfully so. I mean i also don`t pretend to be monogamous and reap all the benefits of being monogamous, so why should someone pretend to be sex positive and polyamorous when he is indeed not?

I think - although - that sometimes the definition of being openminded and being closed minded is about tolerance. I mean i CAN be an escort and polyamorous and still tolerate that there are people out there who are catholic nuns (one of my best female friends since school is celibate and she knows i am an escort and likes my homepage , and i talk with her frequently about her faith and respect and like her choice) .

The worst ignorants are the ones who choose a lifestyle and then think everyone else must be the same like they are and cater to the same values.
It is - although - even given the most tolerance and the most openmindedness - legally , socially, and psychologically the case that people who are escorts/gay/poly are inhabitants of a second class citizenship (that means that they have it harder to get the same benefits that heteros and plain vanilla sex people do) And this is a factor that can`t simply be ignored. The defense mechanism you stated is a reaction to all that bashing that people like me/us have to endure. Its also the cause why some/many/all of us prefer to have it as a secret that we work as escorts. I mean - hell yeah - be open about it and you all of a sudden find who are the truly judgemental people (and its not the polyamorists - believe me ;-).-....)

I tend to believe that "Once a cheater, you cannot be fully trusted" Mainly because if you were able to keep it a secret for a time period before being caught, or you fessed up to it, you may have learned how to hide it better.

Case and point, a friend of mine cheated on her 1st husband, mainly because he wanted sex 1-2 times a week, she wanted it 1-2 times a day. So she sought out some extra sessions to bring her numbers up a bit and the husband never noticed because when he wanted sex she would oblige.

There was an article on Yahoo a while back written by a 58 year old man who was on his 4th marriage.
In it he said "women cheat due to lack of attention, men cheat due to lack of sex"

Man gives woman more attention , she will give him more sex, but if she gives him more set, he will give her more attention.

Catch 22.

As technology has evolved it has become more easier for people to cheat, hide the affair etc. There was even an article about how Facebook has caused alot of divorces. Social media in general can cause issues.

The advantage women have is they can have sex, go shower up, drink some fluids etc and in 1 hour later be ready to go again and have repeat orgasms.... Men on the other hand take time to recharge. Sure they can get it hard and yeah they might be able to generate some ejaculation, but its not as much as they did 1-3 hours ago.... and that is how guys usually get caught. The wife notices that his orgasm is not a big as it used to be or it varies in quantity.

Close-mindedness is cool if you don’t extend you close-mindedness to others. It just bores me to no end to when people just assume they and their way of doing things is the “right” way. I don’t even know if they know if it is the “right” thing for them. I say, have it! Whatever it is.

I couldn’t be polygamous because I just don’t have the time or the energy to dedicate physically and more importantly emotionally to multiple partners.

Personally, I think monogamy is more a social definition than a moral or “will-I-have-sex-with-another” issue. If one is socially monogamous, then the man has socially declared he will love and support his wife and will claim, father and support her children. What we are now is serially monogamous society. I’ll be true to you until I’m not. Then the courts will make me support you (marriage settlement or alimony – Yes, I know the times are a changin’.) and the courts will dictate how I support your / our children. Is that monogamy in the traditional sense? No. I don’t think so.

Again, historically, polygamous, non-bi-sexual women caused a huge problem. Who’s the father? Whose husband is she going to take? And other such questions were real fears. The Modern Era has mitigated these fears somewhat, but the fear of unattached women still remains. And if a single woman causes a stir, imagine what a woman that knows her sexuality and herself can cause. That, I believe is the real problem those that that are poly, escort or are otherwise out side the bell-curve are chastised. They / we are chastised because the conformists (Whether they conform because they want to, because they have never considered otherwise; or because of moral, social or financial pressures is irrelevant to the equation.) don’t want us around. It upsets the apple cart.

Loved your post Olivia.

Close-mindedness is cool if you don’t extend you close-mindedness to others. It just bores me to no end to when people just assume they and their way of doing things is the “right” way. I don’t even know if they know if it is the “right” thing for them. I say, have it! Whatever it is. Originally Posted by OliviaHoward

Amen to that! There are no universal laws, people are too unique and everyone has the right to find what works well for their sanity and sense of happiness without being preached in the attempt to convert to a different idea. Live and let live.

I couldn’t be polygamous because I just don’t have the time or the energy to dedicate physically and more importantly emotionally to multiple partners. Originally Posted by OliviaHoward

There are days where it is down right exhausting. Those I know who participate in polyamory (civs included) often live alone and find themselves in need of periods of solitude for that very reason.

Personally, I think monogamy is more a social definition than a moral or “will-I-have-sex-with-another” issue. If one is socially monogamous, then the man has socially declared he will love and support his wife and will claim, father and support her children. What we are now is serially monogamous society.

I’ll be true to you until I’m not. Then the courts will make me support you (marriage settlement or alimony – Yes, I know the times are a changin’.) and the courts will dictate how I support your / our children. Is that monogamy in the traditional sense? No. I don’t think so. Originally Posted by OliviaHoward

There have been interesting sociological and anthropological studies and papers written suggesting that divorce has gone up as life expectancy has gone up. Marriage till death do you part, when you are socially and economically co-dependent and probably going to die before you ever see 60 is much easier.

I think men and women are too often angry and ashamed when they cannot make a relationship last a lifetime. Decades pass, and people change - sometimes they grow together, sometimes they grow apart. It is not always a matter of failure or someone being a bad person, just change. Punishing yourself for not having a happy relationship that lasted a life time is like punishing yourself every time your lottery ticket is a loosing one. There are very few marriages that soldier on, strong, happy and bonded, till one takes their last breath.

I do despise how often men and women use divorce settlements to abuse each other in their anger and frustration over an ending relationship.

Again, historically, polygamous, non-bi-sexual women caused a huge problem. Who’s the father? Whose husband is she going to take? And other such questions were real fears.

Indeed, before humans became consciously aware that the act of sex created children, marriage was not so important. Upon that realization, we have the institution of marriage form in order to guard the inheritance of the male - ensuring it continues onto this blood line. Often enough noblemen would only guard their wives until the first born male, and then afterwards they would both have their affairs and lead very separate lives.

However, even without property, not knowing who the father of your children is should raise concern. In a world where a woman could not raise her child alone, how was she to know who is responsible? And a bastard child had no rights according to most laws - so even knowing the father could leave her and her child completely destitute in a world where women were not equals.

They / we are chastised because the conformists (Whether they conform because they want to, because they have never considered otherwise; or because of moral, social or financial pressures is irrelevant to the equation.) don’t want us around. It upsets the apple cart.

This reminds me of a interesting experience. I was at a function where a man got a little too drunk, and started openly flirting with me in front of his wife and all the company. I did my best to politely "not notice" and avoid him without raising a huff. The wife was of course seething with rage towards him, but remained distantly polite to me.

What was interesting: after this nearly every married woman in the room became defensive of her husband talking to me. There was an air of "If that guy will flirt with you, then maybe my husband finds you attractive too."

And though I had done no wrong, I was soon painted a danger. An awkward dinner from which I excused myself at the first given opportunity.