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I have been discussing this with a friend of mine for quite some time...
Open relationships
Personally I don't believe in it, if you truly love your bf/gf why do you need to go out and have sex with someone else?!?
But I do love a good debate and so I'll bring here her point of view to the best of my understanding.
Her point of view: When you fall in love with someone it usually has some element of lust in it, sometimes more sometimes less. But it is not the most important thing. The thing that lasts, what remains after years and years is the companionship not the sex. Let's say that you go out and find someone and you get along perfectly but later on you discover that you are not compatible in bed. Will you now throw away the whole relationship over this detail or will you stay with him/her but go out and have sex with other individuals. Mind you that both parties (in the relationship) know of the arrangement and agree to it.
My POV: I believe that when you love someone and enter a relationship with him/her it means something. You are not just bf/gf you are part of something special that only you two share. A connection that goes beyond plain friendship. Love takes work and I view this opeen relationship as taking the easy way out of a difficult relationship. If you are not compatible in bed try and understand each other and sometimes you might have to do things you don't enjoy as much, but your partner does. Isn't that just as important. Personally I think love conquers and overcomes all.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas about our two opinions here, maybe you have a totally new POV. Please share 
Gil
Searching for the light at the end of the bed...
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smith
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On fire! |
Registered: January 1970
Messages: 1095
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I really do have a thought. I know...I know.....how can smith have a thought about sex and love with a partner when he is a dopey kid who hasn't ever had either?
Those of you in relationships though...after the first big WOW! is over; when you can see straight and you don't think about the other person 24/7.........isn't the feeling still there? That feeling of warmth and tenderness and total acceptance that you can only have with that person because you have shared so many things, good and bad. The love may be different; the sex quieter and sweeter but isn't that the point? To get to that place?
I'm going out on a huge limb here and you're probably gonna snicker at me for my rose colored glasses but is it sex or affection that keeps 2 people together? I know sex is a pivotal point but if you love someone, do you sleep with other people? I would like to think that I belonged to the person I loved.
Excuse my ramblings....but gay/straight....if you love someone, don't you always hold onto their hand?
::blushing in naive embarrassment::
eimaj
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Darren
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Likes it here |
Registered: January 1970
Messages: 190
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I have had this discussion with my wife (before I told her I was gay), and I think it has application in non-communal relationships. For a couple that have shared and share a significant amount of time together, having an "open relationship" to me is an act of infidlity, which tends to be a real killer in most relationships if not stopped.
However, let's say the relationship is not so serious. The couple enjoy spending time togther and have a lot of fun, but the sex is not great. For whatever reason, it is difficult to make the sex what it should be (e.g. couple is boy-girl, but one likes boy-boy, girl-girl or whatever etc...). In this case, I can see this working for some if they are not the jeoulous types. It would not be possible for me, but I can at least see it.
Just a thought...
Darren
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Steve
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Really getting into it |
Location: London, England
Registered: November 2006
Messages: 465
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Sex is not the only expression or indicator of love. Often it is a false expression and false indicator. If sex were the only true indicator, people who were outwardly completely incompatible would never get together into a successful and meaningful union. And it does happen, and it's good when it happens. Often square pegs fit very comfortably and snugly into round holes. (Will you drag your prurient minds out of the gutter for just a short while, please! That's not what I meant!) Love means a positive emotional attachment where the good of the other is as important to the one as his own good - and even greater. When you feel erotically good and warm and comfortable in someone's arms - that can be enough. When just being in their company can give you an inexplicable erotic satisfaction and pleasure - that can be enough. Under such circumstances if there is also just a modicum of pleasurable sex it can make a good relationship even better. Just my two pennyworth.
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Steve
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Really getting into it |
Location: London, England
Registered: November 2006
Messages: 465
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An "open relationship" is good for those whose only desire is sex. If you want a loving relationship - close it!
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ien
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Toe is in the water |
Location: Netherlands
Registered: April 2002
Messages: 81
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Well.......... I believe that when a person wants something bad enough they can make up all kinds of arguments to get what they want. Having said that, I don't believe it's a concious decision. I'm so terrible at explaining myself!
Lets say I'm in a marriage that isn't particularly satisfying but it's not bad enough to end it, it just kinda i dunno IS I guess. I decide that maybe it would be good for me to have a sexual relationship outside my marriage but I don't want to loose my husband and I am not the type to go behind his back.............. I'm stuck then aren't I?? So I start making up excuses to give it a go anyway, you see what I mean? It's not concious cause *I* *THINK* I really need this to happen so I try to convince my husband (or wife) The mind is an amazing thing, it can cook up all sorts of conclusions and be absolutely sure its the truth, and then I a way it is for THAT person. Hehehe this probably makes no sense at all
Oh and I'm not saying the person thinking this way is bad or anything, I just think they think what they need to think for what ever reason, chances are if you find the real reason behind it, sex outside the marriage might not even be what they're really looking for.
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mt
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 93
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I agree with what Steve said completely (well said Steve). I’m speaking from personal experience; love can exist without sex. Sure! You will need sex and you’ll want it badly but if you’re really in love then you won’t be able to do it with another. Also sure that people change and there’s no fixed rule regarding this.
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Yup, that's me. Hopeless romantic at heart...
This is as much a cultural thing as preferential thing I believe. For me personally, there will be only one, COULD only be one. Had I grown up in another part of the world however, where it is common for a man to take several wives for example, maybe I'd reason differently, who can say.
I like to picture it like love is the building blocks of a relationship, while lust is the mortar that glues them together. If either is weak, it's not going to be a stable structure.
However, if at least the love is strong enough, the lust can be compensated for. If one prefers one style of sex but the other does not, the one will adjust himself to the other; not the other way around. That, is love.
-Lenny
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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Good thoughts here, folks! And smith, stop blushing! Your thoughts on this are just as valid as those of us who have been (ummm) more active...
I agree with Steve. I also have met couples (both "professionally" as a counsellor and personally as friends) who do have successful rules about how and when sex with other people can occur. It takes a long time for EACH partnet to fully and wholly agree to the rules, and that's usually the problem if it breaks down...one or the other doesn't REALLY agree.
I've seen couples who only are allowed to "do it" with others once. Or on holiday. Or only when the other knows in advance. Or only if the other never has to hear about it. I even knew a relationship that was a TRIPLE and not a COUPLE. They were really interesting, and had been together a long time. Those three people never had sex outside their...what would you call it, a triangle?
My Thai partner and I have been together a very long time. We are happy together in all respects, including sexually. Another anniversary coming up at Christmas.
Our rule is monogamy, except for the few occasions (I can count them on one hand after 10 years) when we have agreed to together share a one-time experience with another person who doesn't mind that. (Gasp... sex can also be recreational sometimes.) It can add a nice little charge between the two of us when we look at some hunk and think "Hmmm...maybe this one?" It's always as much fun for the two of us even if we decide not to. And it has always ended up being more fun for my partner and I than the third wheel, I think.
It takes all kinds to make the world go around, huh?
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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First off: I think everyone has the right to have whatever kind of relationship they prefer. As long as there is consent (out of free will, and all that) from all participating individuals (and all are of acceptable (what ever that is) age etc.), it's not my business what goes on, nor do I have any right to judge it.
Personally, I don't think I could or would like to live in an open relationship. When I fall in love with someone, I don't see why would I want to have sex with someone else. Should we like different things, that's something to work with, not just give up and seek other sexual partners.
I also agree with Steve, sex ins't everything. And Ien, you make quite a lot of sense, to me anyway. But in the end, I think it's David who says it best: It really does take all kinds to make the world go around...
Setras
PS. Of course, all of this is still to be tested in reality, on my part anyway...
That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.
-Master Li in Neil Gaiman's Sandman
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My friend posed a new situation, a difficult one...
What if you are in a relationship for quite a while and although you both are still very much in love, the sex has tuned down a bit. Now your partner comes to you and tells you that although he still loves you deeply he feels the need to try and have sex with other people. Mind you that it's only sex not making love and it will only be one night stands. Also he says that he has not done it before and he would first like your consent.
What would you say to that? Do you love him enough to let him or do you love him too much to let him?
I have to point out that I still havn't had a real relationship yet. I don't know how to answer this...
Gil
Searching for the light at the end of the bed...
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To me, it's unfathomable. No, it's not a question of loving your partner enough to let him fool around on the side. I would never cope being downgraded to a second-rate status. Never.
It's not "just sex". Not for me anyway.
Well, it IS "just sex" up until the point of becoming love, and then it is love expressed in physical form. It can't go back, not without breaking the entire relationship.
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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I could not say it any better or agree any more whith what Setras said.
Well maybe one exception, in the Post Script, I might not test the open relationship thing. hehe
But the rest of it was perfect!
Thanks Setras, you saved me some typing, (something I stink at)
Kevin
"Be excellent to each other, and, party on dudes"!
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It would seem, that I managed to mistype my meaning (or something...)... I didn't mean that I would try a open relationship in reality. What I meant, was that my rose-colored glasses might chance their colour (hopefully not) when I fall in love (yes, for the first time) and enter a relationship (also, for the first time)...
Setras
That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.
-Master Li in Neil Gaiman's Sandman
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I was joking about that. I know you didn't mean that ... My apologies.
Just struck me as funny.
Your friend,
Kevin
"Be excellent to each other, and, party on dudes"!
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I am goong to base ths short answer on TV documentaries about Japan's attitide to sex. So I will get it wrong. I post it to illustrate cultural differences.
In Japan (I am told) sex is separated from love. Thus a sexual encounter has little meaning except gratification, and love remains to bind a partnership together.
Fortunate is the partnership that has both sex and love
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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I personally believe that in a lot of ways having sex and love seperate would make things a lot easier. For one, you would no longer need to feel guilty about things like masturbation, having an unplanned sexual encounter while drunk, or something else, it would mean adultery would be less of a problem and other such things. I do agree that sex as an expression of love is very valuable, however, sex without love would simplify things a lot, especially in my mind, where the two are often so intermingled that I get confused about how to act 
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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"Different folk need different folk for different things?"
or "A woman is for babies, a man is for pleasure"?
If so, does it also consider, especially for those of us who are married, what the lady needs?
I am not competent to answer it. Just to ask it.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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In some cultures and countries, sex and love are somewhat separated as you suggest.
In Thailand, for example (which has been home for me since 1990, although I work in Hong Kong right now) the legal definition of adultury is "...not allowing your major wife to lose face..."
There are complex rules of behaviour and legal no-no's about it. Most of them don't have to do with whether one is having sex outside the relationship.
Of course, that shouldn't make everybody flock to this "party paradise"! One very popular television series was about a selfish man who had a loving "major wife" and an equally loving "minor wife" (which is higher status than a mistress or casual affair partner).
The plot culminated with the major and minor wives joining forces and killing the husband.
As Ivana Trump was reported to have said, "Don't get even...get everything!"
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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LOL, David! Did the discussion just take a rather sinister turn there all of a sudden?
At least tell us if the two wives went on to live happily and lovingly together after offing the hubby?
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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That series was entitled (translated as closely as I can) "Waves Washing the Beach"...meaning, I guess (in this 90% Buddhist country) that everything passes...
Nope, Lenny (Hi, by the way!)...that series ended with the two partners in crime dividing the loot.
Perhaps another big factor contributing to monogamy (aside from true love...hehehe) is fear? And maybe not just fear of retribution.
Maybe fear of being alone. But that's another thread, perhaps...
Just a thought.
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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A new discussion 
How could you say something like that? 
Sorry Setras ....... 
