How can you love someone and force them to be monogamous?

We crossed streams a bit in our last posts :-)

I'll just point out two sentences I feel are a bit weird in your last post. In the first sentence, you equate not being sexually exclusive with not being "loyal." How do you make this leap? If a couple voluntarily agrees to follow monogamy then not being exclusive is breaking the loyalty. Its a matter of principle and what the couple agrees to. If you on the other hand enter a poly-amorous agreement and have sex with others its not disloyal. I'm not calling your action disloyal because you're being upfront with your partners when the subject of exclusivity comes up. I'm not against your way of thinking at all and can understand this lifestyle. Its just not for me.

I can think of no connection between having sex with someone exclusively and being loyal to that person. If this is fine with your partner, then yes you can be loyal and still have other partners. You can be loyal because you're being honest and they agree with what you do. Not only is it possible to be loyal and still have sex with other people, but it is also possible to not be loyal and yet remain sexually exclusive with the person. Loyalty and sexual exclusivity have no relationship as far as I can tell. I agree with that, but if a couple does agree to monogamy and then cheats....that not loyal. If its an open relationship, its not cheating and not disloyal.

It seems you default to talking about why you want to be sexually exclusive yourself, not why you want your partner to be. I can understand why someone would want to be sexually exclusive. That's not what I'm trying to discover. What I don't understand is why someone would expect their partner to be as a condition of the relationship.

I met my husband when I was 18 ....married at 25 and after 30 yrs he decided to marry another religiously speaking and cut me off in the physical department. We had a deal and he agreed to monogamy....he did want it and I didn't impose it on him. I didn't force him but he tried to force me to tolerate this and not be with anyone else. If I'm monogamous, I have the choice to find a partner who also wants the same - he did want the same and went back on the agreement. I can't be attracted to a man who has sex with other women therefore I stopped loving him. I wouldn't force anyone to be monogamous - its has to be natural and a choice.

It's kind of funny that when I talk to people in person about this, I often get monogamists coming back at me with "Yeah of course you want to sleep with other women, but what would you do if your girlfriend was sleeping with another man? huh?" and thinking they have somehow refuted my position. I tell them "I would ask her to be safe about it and to let me know where she is going to be in case she runs into any problems." These people are usually dumbfounded because they're just not able to conceive of a situation in which someone could be fine with that. They usually conclude that I'm just lying.

It sounds to me as though in this case, he just stopped being committed to you. Because of the acceptance of polygamy in his religion, he saw an "easy" way out... This is completely different than being in a committed relationship where the odd sexual encounter outside the relationship is permitted.

Polygamy is a different things entirely because it entails additional commitments, not just a commitment but allowing sex with other people. While there is no reason people shouldn't be allowed to engage in polygamy, it has a lot more issues and is more complicated than what I'm bringing up here which is merely the issue of requiring sexual exclusivity within a committed relationship.

Don't you agree it makes sense to partner with people who believe the same as you. Open people should pick others like them and monogamous people should pick others who voluntarily believe the same as them.

Yes, I do agree with this. I've said it before in this thread and I think it's worth repeating that I am in favor of people making their own choices and not trying to convince anyone that their choice of monogamy is wrong or that they should make different choices. I just want to understand why people want monogamy. I understand that many people want a monogamous partner, and it makes sense that those people find a partner who is monogamous. I just want to know why people want that.

I mean, I'm attracted to women with dark hair. However, if I found an awesome woman who was blond, it wouldn't be a deal breaker. I'm not attracted to religious people, but if I found an otherwise awesome person who was religious, I would deal with it.

I guess what I don't understand is the deal breaker aspect of sexual exclusivity. To many monogamists, if they were to find someone who was perfect in every way except that they wanted to have sex with other people, they'd call the whole thing off over that one thing, and they'd do it without a second thought. It seems to me (often when reading posts on this forum) that there are two things that are 100% deal breakers in many people's minds: being abusive and having sex with another person. The first one makes perfect sense. The second one doesn't.

I conclude you're lying and I don't think you're fine with it, because this scenario has your partner informing you of her whereabouts, ostensibly "in case she runs into any problems" but it feels to me like you need to retain control of her actions by at least knowing about them. Safety is just an excuse. I wouldn't care for having to report my every move to you like this. You're all talk and I am getting no action!!

Why are you asking retarded questions is my question... Probably a resident flamer,

If I found out my bf didn't want sexual exclusivity, he wouldn't be my bf anymore. Simple.

To make light of your previous example:

Jake: "Babe I'm going over to Sally's to hump her brains out, have dinner ready"

Sarah: "If you have sex with Sally I'm outta here Jake I mean it dammit!"

Somewhere along the line we learn about eachother's values, principles and expectations.
...
people should be pairing up with like-minded people. If they don't, they were either unfortunately mislead like my dear friend Lynn, or its their own damn fault for not knowing the person they're getting involved with, or choosing to be with the person despite such huge differences.

How can a polygamist force a monogamist into an open relationship and claim to love them?

Either way, when you get an ultimatum like this a CHOICE is presented before you, not force. You feeling forced is your own damn problem.

There's simply no force, unless they handcuffed you and kept you prisoner until you finally escaped.

If you don't want your belief criticized then why criticize ours.

If a persons in an open relationship, naturally it doesn't hurt to find out the other is having sex. It does hurt if one of the monogamous partners has sex....because there's deceit going on.

All it takes is for one condom to break... a bunch of stuff about sexual health and risk...

Naturally if we don't know something we're oblivious to the reality, which again is a deceit factor. If one assumes the other is exclusive, that persons not living in reality. Just because one is lying and the other doesn't know....doesn't mean we're disconnected in our beliefs..

I have never stated that I don't want my belief criticized. I welcome criticism on any of my beliefs if there are any criticisms to be brought. In fact, if you felt I held a belief wrongly and did not level criticism against it, I would consider it to be an insult. Withholding criticism is the way people treat children and idiots. To not criticize my beliefs if you thought they were wrong would be patronizing, condescending, and offensive to me.

I already stated I don't judge poly-amorous, polygamy or open relationships as long as all are consenting and aware. Its not for me though. I have no idea why you're defending your belief when I've been the most reasonable person on this thread. At this point I feel you're nit-picking. I don't think I should have to defend my own beliefs.

This is an argument I hear often, but I don't buy it. I don't buy it because if your partner lied to you about something you didn't care about very much, you likely wouldn't be very upset by it. If you partner told you his great grandmother was named Gertrude but then you found out that his great grandmother was actually named Esther and he knew this all along but simply lied about her name, would you end the relationship over this? Would you be very upset about it at all. Maybe, maybe you might be slightly annoyed by the intentional deceit. I suspect that most people, however, just simply wouldn't care at all about this lie. The argument that it is wrong because it's deceit doesn't hold water. In order to be upset about the deceit, you have to care about the act in the first place. Then you can be upset about the deceit to hide the act on top of that. But you are not primarily upset about the deceit. You are primarily upset about the act.

Telling white lies is nothing compared to sleeping with another person. Women especially connect emotionally with sex. If I assume my partners faithful and he's not - that's a big deceit. I'd be upset about the deceit and the act.

This is an after-the-fact reason to rationalize sexual exclusivity. If you can honestly tell me that you wouldn't mind having an open relationship if all STD's were cured and your partner was sterile, then we can talk about this, but it's a pointless conversation unless you can do that because it's not the real reason.

Well that's my opinion.

The only reason I can think of that something would be bad or wrong is if it hurts someone else. things that actually hurt you do so regardless of whether or not you know they are happening. If your partner poisons your food a little each day, but you don't suspect it, then you are still being harmed regardless of your knowledge or lack of knowledge. If your partner steals money from you but you never find out, you were still harmed regardless of the fact that you never find out. These things are actually harmful. It has nothing to do with "living in reality" or not. Things that are actually harmful to you are things that you need to find out about in order to stop being harmed. "Cheating" however is something that doesn't harm you at all unless you find out about it. Indeed the most wrong thing the cheater could do is tell you about the cheating because that actually harms you. you don't see anything fishy about a belief that something is wrong when it doesn't actually harm you unless you know about it?

Ok... then by all means don't tell me. I don't mind that much, I guess. I just think if you're a woman hooking up with some random guy, it might be nice if someone knew where you were. That's all.

Actually your response is somewhat interesting because it's a perfect example of how people take what they believe, assume everyone else believes the same way, and then interpret everything anyone else says as evidence that they do believe the same, throwing out the parts that don't fit as "just an excuse" or some other such thing.

I already stated I don't judge poly-amorous, polygamy or open relationships as long as all are consenting and aware. Its not for me though. I have no idea why you're defending your belief when I've been the most reasonable person on this thread. At this point I feel you're nit-picking.

I don't think I should have to defend my own beliefs.

Telling white lies is nothing compared to sleeping with another person. Women especially connect emotionally with sex. If I assume my partners faithful and he's not - that's a big deceit. I'd be upset about the deceit and the act.

You're basically trying to convince us that your way is best and ours is wrong.

When you're too old to have sex, which one of your partners will be there to keep you company? Do you form deep emotional connections with the women in your life? You must be one looker to have a variety of women on hand.

No, I think that's what you're doing.

I'm probably just doing someone really cute with ties to the community, as they say on Law and Order. Does it still feel good to you?

What if the other person finds someone "better" than you and then wants to be with them exclusively?

See why I call your question retarded and why lynn left?

Because you're purposefully dismissing everything we say and pretending you want a mitigating answer...

NOBODY needs to jusify any damn thing to you. A belief does NOT have to be approved by you, who died and made you king?

READ MY POST: It clearly states
MONOGAMY IS A NATURAL PROGRESSION.

you're either a robot or flamer...

...flamer...

...stupid...

...weakminded...

..[im]MATURE...

...Now I will bow out of this thread...

...flamers and trolls...

I've been thinking about this a lot, so I thought I'd ask. There is (and has for a long time been) an expectation among most people that you find the one person you love and then never ever ever have sex with anyone else ever again. This notion seems completely absurd to me. I just can't understand how you can claim to love someone and limit their options for happiness at the same time.

I used to be a believer in monogamy in my younger days, so I'll share a little bit of my personal journey to where my beliefs currently are. You grow up kind of just being taught by media, movies, TV, parents, and whatnot that monogamy is just the way things work. Therefore, I believed that, too. Committed relationships without the sexual exclusivity clause didn't cross my mind for a very long time. I got into a pretty serious relationship when I was around 20 years old. She was a lot older than me and had many sexual experiences under her belt. She was my first. As things got serious, it caused a lot of anxiety for me. At the time, being young and not very self aware, I thought I was upset with her for having been so sexually promiscuous. Now I realize that quite the opposite was the case. I was upset that if I stayed with her and got married and the things I felt one did when they loved someone that I would never get to have those sorts of sexual experiences myself. I felt trapped by the prospect of the relationship actually going well and leaving me only allowed to have sex with her forever. As it turns out the relationship did not last forever (it lasted about 2 years) but what if it had? What if it had turned out that we were actually perfect for each other and should be together forever? Then I would not have been allowed to ever have sex with anyone else for the whole rest of my life? What a terrible outcome of a situation that should be happy, finding a person you want to spend your life with!

Later in college, I became good friends with a woman who was very non-monogamous. That was really my first realization that such a life is possible. She is bi-sexual and had sex equally with men and women. When she got married, it was not a sexually monogamous marriage and both of them were allowed to have sex outside the marriage. I thought that was pretty cool. However, as far as my plans for my life were concerned, my brain was still stuck in the sexual monogamy rut. I got married and stayed married for six years without cheating very much. There was this one time during the marriage where another woman and I performed oral sex on each other... and I did have sex with another woman while geographically separated from my wife for a few months. Even on these two occasions, however, I felt that it was something I shouldn't be doing. That it was something that was bad and that I should be sexually monogamous but that there was just something wrong with me.

After my divorce, however, I felt like my eyes started to open. I stopped being able to come up with reasons why sexual monogamy should be expected or is even desirable. Nowadays, it seems to me that expecting sexual monogamy in a relationship is completely selfish and silly. While I used to think that having a woman "cheat" on me would be like the worst thing to happen ever, I now can't imagine demanding that a woman I am involved with restrict her sexual activity only to me, and I wouldn't want to be with anyone who would try to do that to me either. I do want to end up in a committed relationship with one woman, and I do want a sexual relationship with that woman. In fact, that's a pretty big requirement for me. However, I don't see why we shouldn't be permitted to have sex with other people sometimes, too.

Sexual monogamy no longer makes any sense to me. I see now, looking back, that my belief in sexual monogamy for so many years was a major source of stress in my life. Now that I recognize the absurdity of that world view, I'm much more at ease with sexuality and much more mature in my thoughts about relationships.

Sexual monogamy is not a natural state for humans. Just look at the statistics for how often "cheating" happens in relationships. Now realize that those statistics are even lower than reality because they only include people who admit to it or got caught. There's lots of extra-marital sex out there that never comes to light because people are smart enough not to get caught. Also, while it was previously believed that men were the primary culprits, recent studies have indicated that women have extra-marital sex a lot more than was once believed. Women just tend to be much better at planning it and hiding it, therefore not getting caught as often. It has been estimated that as many as 5% of fathers in the US are not actually the biological father of at least one of their children, unbeknownst to them.

"Cheating" happens not because someone in the relationship is a bad person. It happens because monogamy is not natural. It doesn't make sense. Wouldn't it be better if we all just accepted this and did away with unnecessary stress in our lives?

I know a lot of people on this forum are firm believers in monogamy, so I thought I would present the topic to get your thoughts.

If you believe I have dismissed anything, please let me know what and I shall address it. I have attempted to address all the important point people have brought up but admittedly may have missed something.

No you haven't. Simple, read your own thread and its clear. You only address the things you have an argument for. The rest you dismiss. Example: People have feelings, deep seated feelings are involved when people cheat, unlike lying about grandma's name...

I have not claimed to be a "king" or any other sort of authority. That's the great thing about rational discourse. No one can claim authority because all you need do if you disagree with me is provide a rational basis for your beliefs.

You clearly stated that our choices or beliefs need to be justified, to whom, you?
So yeah you implied you "are king" because we don't make sense to you, and still even now, you are demanding that we do.
^^^^Again, right there, you say I must provide you with a rational basis for MY beliefs...
WHY? Who are are you and why do I need to rationalize anything to YOU?

Why is it so hard to accept that people are individuals, with individual principles, belief systems and preferences?

We did that for you... Nobody slammed you for not being monogamous, nobody even asked you to justify it. We just accepted your choice as an individual. You are the only one seeking arguments and validation for OTHER people's choices.

I disagree with this to a certain extent. Please feel free to provide arguments or evidence for this contention and we can have a discussion about it.

NO.NO.NO.
Go do a bloody study or have a mock court case.
Nobody owes you a damn thing, again, my reference to who died and made you king?
If you still don't see why I use that phrase, then there's nothing I can do about that.

Hmm, you seem to be upset about something, but I can't imagine what. I have done nothing throughout this thread but provide arguments for my position which is that monogamy is an untenable belief system and leads to the use of unnecessary coercive force against one's romantic partners.

Yes, I'm upset that you purposely get people's back up against the wall and feign ignorance and trying to understand...

Why were you not just honest from the beginning of this thread? Why ask a retarded question claiming you are trying to understand. You could have stated that you are looking for a debate instead of understanding. That way you would have gotten the responses you wanted instead and we wouldn't have wasted time trying to help you understand.

The thread question was answered, many many posts ago. Another thing you promptly dismissed.

Yes, you argue argue argue argue, like there is a point in there somewhere. Nobody asked you to argue, you're just looking for an argument. Instead of graciously accepting the information put before you, that it is NOT unnatural for everyone.

See, you said again that monogamy leads to coercive force, instead of acknowledging that it doesn't have to. Like I pointed out more than once, re: mature adults, like minded people, blah blah. Another point you chose to dismiss more than once.

Soooo, YTF must I repeat myself? For your entertainment? I'm not a member of your personal circus.

Clearly you can read, you just choose not to, so you are not in fact retarded, I digress. You just feel like starting fires.

Calling me names doesn't really do anything to further the discussion. However, if you would like to discuss the issue at hand in a rational manner free of ad hominem attacks, I will be happy to do so.