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Loving Many — The Open Relationships That Work
Move on over monogamy, because open relationships are on the rise. An estimated 4% to 5% of people in the U.S. are now in a consensual, non-monogamous relationship. And a survey of 9,000 respondents conducted in 2017 found that every fifth person has engaged in consensual non-monogamy at least once in their life. A study of Google trends found that non-monogamy is certainly piquing our interest with the number of searches for “polyamory” and “open relationships” having steadily increased between 2006 and 2015.
When a relationship is open, it means that both partners agree to have sex with others, which no doubt sounds like heaven to some and hell to others. According to new research by the University of Rochester, relationships in which partners are romantically involved with others can work under certain conditions.
Ronald Rogge, associate professor of psychology at the Rogge Lab at the University of Rochester, and his team surveyed over 1,600 people in all kinds of relationships.
This review marks the first time that nuances within different types of monogamous and non-monogamous relationships have been accounted for. These subtleties include open relationships where partners either communicate honestly or do not speak about their additional sexual encounters. The grouping ‘non-monogamous’ includes partially…
