Hello and welcome back to The Overthinker’s Guide To Sex, a sex and relationships newsletter by journalist Franki Cookney.
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Non-monogamy these days
Over the weekend, I read Cassie Werber’s piece in The Guardian about what she’s learnt from eight years in an open marriage. I’ve been fairly dismissive of non-monogamy discourse lately. I have been writing about sex and relationships for over a decade now, and I’ve been non-monogamous for about the same amount of time so obviously the narrative is familiar to me. “My husband is my co-parent, friend and lover – but he isn’t the only person I have sex with,” the headline reads and I’m like… yeah, that’s literally my life. I reckon I read about 80 (maybe?) percent of the articles that get published about non-monogamy and after a while they all start to look the same. So when my husband sent this latest one to me, I admit, I wasn’t particularly interested.
“It’s just the same story I’ve heard a million times,” I complained when he asked me what I thought. “And it’s so couple-centric. I get that it feels radical when you first open up a relationship but really you’re still elevating this one relationship above all others, you’re still adhering to state-sanctioned models of partnership.” (Yes, this is how I talk at the breakfast table).
“I hear you,” he said, “But the fact is most people do come to non-monogamy through the opening up of an existing relationship and so they need articles on that subject and I thought this was a good, nuanced piece. I think that for anyone at the start of that journey, this would be a really useful, constructive thing to read that talks about the need for freedom, but also doesn’t shy away from some of the more difficult feelings.”
He’s right, of course. It is a good piece (although I think it’s too long). And what he says about people needing content that not only reflects their personal experiences, but which has been published contemporaneously, is also true. Yes, you can read The Ethical Slut, but it is 25 years old now and Janet Hardy herself has acknowledged that, back when she was writing it, the only kinds of people interested in alternative relationship styles were all “old hippies or screaming geeks.”