I put myself to the test with a thought experiment. Let’s say my girlfriend was in Miami for a bachelorette party, and she ran into R&B superstar/actor Tyrese Gibson (Fast and the Furious franchise, Baby Boy). And for some reason they hit it off, and she ended up hooking up with Tyrese. It was a one-night thing. She wasn’t in love with Tyrese. She wasn’t trying to be with Tyrese. She wasn’t trying to get invited to dinner at GibsiHana, the custom restaurant Tyrese had built in his backyard to mimic a Benihana Japanese steak house.*
If that were the case, I think I would be okay with it—if I didn’t know about it.
I posited this hypothetical situation to my girlfriend and reversed the roles, with it being me who took another partner. She didn’t feel the same way. She saw no reason for us to stray from our monogamy and felt that doing so would be a violation of the trust in our relationship. She said if I got drunk and something like that did happen, she would be understanding, but it would be a big deal and she’d want to know about it. However, she also said there was a big difference between me being really drunk and making a mistake and actively pursuing a sexual tryst outside our relationship, hitting bars and texting women to have a quick fling.
Also, probably best if I had this whole conversation at home in private, as opposed to a bar, where I definitely got looks from people who seemed to be curious as to why I was discussing my girlfriend hypothetically cheating on me with Tyrese.
Savage believes that cheating is tempting for just about everyone and that for some people it’s simply too hard to resist. Rather than succumbing to urges we all have, cheating behind our partner’s back, getting caught, and destroying the relationship, Savage thinks we’d be better off acknowledging that we have these desires and deciding how to deal with them—as a couple.
“If you have children together, if you have a history together, if you have property together, if you melded two extended families together, all of that has to weigh more than one blow job you got on a business trip,” he said.
Savage isn’t opposed to monogamy. He recognizes its advantages for those who can sustain it and produce successful relationships. The problem, he says, is that today far too many people are making commitments that they cannot realistically honor.
The idea of trying to maintain a committed relationship while also satisfying our urges for sexual novelty has led to a lot of experimentation over the years with “open relationship”–type arrangements. Couples have tried everything from open marriages to being “swingers” to maintaining “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies.
Just how many people have experimented with these arrangements? The latest survey data show that 26 percent of American men and 18 percent of American women report having engaged in “an open sexual relationship.” Surprisingly, young adults between the ages of twenty-one and thirty are the least likely to have tried this, at only 19 percent, whereas it is most prevalent among those in their forties, at 26 percent. And seniors? Twenty-two percent of them have tried an open sexual relationship. Damn!
“Open relationships? Is that where you fuck other people? Yeah, we do that sometimes.”*
Savage coined the term “monogamish” to describe his own open relationship with his partner. The gist of it is that the couple is deeply committed to each other, but there is room for outside sexual activity.
“Monogamish” is not a one-size-fits-all concept. Each couple works out their own terms and agrees beforehand to what sexual activity outside the relationship will be tolerated. Some demand complete honesty from their partner, while others may prefer a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Some restrict how close the outside person must be—at least a friend of a friend, at least a friend of a friend of a friend, a stranger neither of you will ever see again, someone who lives in a different state, or it can only be Michigan State University provost June Pierce Youatt. (All right, the last one not as much.)
In our interviews and on our subreddit, we met several couples who had set up arrangements in the vein of what Savage discussed. Some of the people were incredibly enthusiastic about their experiences. On the subreddit one woman wrote:
I’ve been in open relationships for the last ten years now, and have been with my husband for 8 years. I chose to be in one when I realized that every boyfriend I ever had cheated on me, and I cheated on every one of them. I finally decided that maybe I need variety, and that I was attracted to sexually adventurous men.
Being in an open relationship is such a relief—no more lies, no more horrible break ups, no more guilt. My husband and I have rules we follow, like he can only see someone else once a week, and if I don’t like the girl he picks I can make him stop seeing her.