Those who redefine loyalty

Leviathan Press:

If a tree falls in a forest without people, will it make a sound? What if there is someone present, but that person happens to be deaf? This classic philosophical question does not have a simple and direct answer, and most people will be hesitant.

The second question: If your partner has or is currently engaging in "cheating" that you are unaware of, can we define him or her as cheating? If you have a definite answer to this, you will inevitably be criticized for "double standards."

It is not difficult to find that many concepts in language seem to be built around us humans. To put it more extreme, they are built around you, me, and every individual. When something is related to our interests (such as the "loyalty" of our partner to us), our judgment of things will inevitably be affected. Although there is no correct answer in the world, there is still the answer you need.

“What does exclusivity mean to you?” asked Amy Hart, a contestant on the 2019 British reality show Love Island.

She knew her match, Curtis Pritchard, had been pushed to the limit. He had been kissing other girls behind her back. Pritchard shrunk back in his seat as Hart smoothly and calmly listed the problems in their relationship: from how he could have had budding feelings for two people at once to how much she needed him and how he had let her down.

Hart's questioning is based on the assumption that a romantic relationship involves only two people, and Pritchard broke the rules. But what we know about human relationships is that, historically, they were much more complex than the monogamous relationships that are now the norm in many societies. Could we return to our original non-monogamous past?

Consensual non-monogamy allows couples to freely pursue relationships with other people. This includes everything from polyamory to swinging and other forms of “open” relationships. Whatever form it takes, a defining feature of consensual non-monogamy is that the couples need to agree on the boundaries of the relationship — when and where the boundaries are.

This definition means that Pritchard's outrageous behavior would not fall into this category because Hart did not give informed consent. But non-monogamy still exists in a significant minority of people, which may explain why Pritchard took the actions he did.

Despite the prevalence of monogamy, people are still obsessed with having sex with people other than their partners. In his book Tell Me What You Want, psychologist Justin Lehmiller asked 4,000 Americans to describe their sexual fantasies. Threesomes were the most common sexual fantasy, by far. And isn't a threesome a form of consensual non-monogamy?

“If we think about all people who are in a relationship, about 5% would be defined as consensual non-monogamy,” says Amy Muise, an assistant professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. But if you include people who have tried consensual non-monogamy, that number increases. “Twenty-one percent of people are non-monogamy at some point in their lives.”

Threesomes are the most common sexual fantasy, far outstripping any other.

To put that number in perspective, it's slightly lower than the number of U.S. households that speak a language other than English (21.9%). "I wouldn't be surprised if it was more common than 21%," said Amy Moors, an assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University. "Something called social desirability explains why people tend to be slightly conservative in their responses. Social desirability might cause people to overestimate how often they eat five servings of fruit or vegetables a day, or underestimate how much alcohol they drink."

For this sizable minority, opportunities to see partners outside the home may be rare now as measures to prevent social interaction increase in countries affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. People in consensually non-monogamous relationships may find themselves spending more time with their cohabiting partners and having to get used to seeing significantly less of their other partners.

We don’t yet know how this will affect their happiness—although the research on long-distance relationships strongly suggests that they can be quite fulfilling. And, as social psychology has shown us, there are reasons to believe that, under certain circumstances, people in consensually non-monogamous relationships may experience advantages that monogamous people don’t.

The exact time at which humans began to practice monogamy is still under debate. Some anthropologists cite the strong sex differences among ancient human ancestors—different physiques and body shapes between men and women—as evidence for non-monogamy. High sex differences mean that there was strong pressure on one (or both) sexes to choose a mate.

In some species, such as gorillas, larger males are more likely to be sexually successful by using this advantage to fend off competition from other males. For example, a dominant male mountain gorilla can monopolize 70% of all mating rights, creating a polygynous society (i.e., one in which a single male mates with many females).

Sexual differences don't always work this way. Species that flaunt their physical beauty -- birds with beautiful plumage and brightly colored fish, for example -- compete for the attention of mates, not to physically outsmart rivals. The difference here is that they're usually not social species like humans, so one male or female doesn't necessarily have control over all of their potential mates in an area.

However, the fossil record of ancient humans is patchy and incomplete. Similar logic has been used to argue the exact opposite point - that our ancient relatives had the same degree of sexual differentiation as we do. This can be proven by looking at other fossils. Therefore, monogamy may have first appeared much earlier.

The diversity – or rather monogamy – of the human Y chromosome has also been used to argue that humans were polygamous until recently. Again, anthropologists dispute this evidence, but some argue that the relative similarity of male genetic data suggests that only a small number of males mated during our evolution. The recent increase in diversity suggests that more males are mating because of monogamy.

We know from archaeological evidence that ancient humans lived in small, tight-knit family groups. Computer models of hunter-gatherer societies suggest that they needed to mate with individuals outside their local group to maintain their population. Therefore, there would be a lot of mating between several hunter-gatherer communities. It would be impossible to maintain a family with a known and accurate genetic lineage.

This model suggests that hunter-gatherers were serially monogamous—couples stayed with each other for a period of time until their children were weaned, then went on to find new partners. This system proved to be more advantageous for modern men than for modern women, which may explain why men are more interested in open relationships.

In his study of sexual fantasies, Lehmiller found that men were more interested in group sex (about 26% of men and 8% of women). Similar trends can be seen in other types of "social sexual behavior", such as interest in attending sex parties or swingers clubs (17% of men and 7% of women). However, women who are interested in these sexual fantasies are more likely to realize them. For example, in the same sample, the number of men who have participated in group sex was 12% and the number of women who had participated in group sex was 6%. It seems that women have a better chance of finding the right opportunity.

What we do know is that in 85% of modern human societies around the world, some form of non-monogamy is accepted. Even in the Old Testament there are multiple references to polygamy. Yet the default state of most societies is still monogamy. It may be common now, but no matter how you look at it, humans historically did not practice monogamy the way we do today. So why is lifelong monogamy considered the default today?

“It’s hard to give a concise answer without mentioning the medium,” said Moores, who stressed that our art and culture have a big influence on us as we grow up. “For the most part, when we grow up, our parents are either married or trying to practice monogamy. In most places in the world, we have marriage.”

“Once people started to own land and call it their own, marriage emerged because it was a way to clearly control their property and pass it down to their families,” Moores said. “That’s when we started to prioritize couples and heterosexual relationships.”

Would it be better to date someone else?

Research on consensual non-monogamy has repeatedly shown that couples with different sexual interests fare better when they have multiple sexual partners. "There are often differences in interests between partners in a relationship," Muise says, "but people who have multiple partners may be more satisfied overall. If you are interested in having sex with other people, it may be beneficial to explore that."

Until now, research on consent-based non-monogamy has lacked large-scale longitudinal studies that track people who are considering open relationships for several years, even before they have their first important conversation with their partner.

However, some studies are beginning to fill this gap. One study recruited people who were interested in consensual non-monogamy and those who had never considered open relationships, and gave them a series of questionnaires about their relationship and sexual satisfaction. Before the study began, none of them had actively discussed the idea of ​​entering an open relationship with their partner. At the end of the study, they were asked again about their satisfaction with their love life, but at the same time, they had to indicate whether they were in an open relationship.

“For those who wanted to open their relationship and did so, their satisfaction increased significantly compared to when they started,” said Samantha Joel, an assistant professor of social psychology at Western University in Canada. “At the same time, for those who considered opening their relationship but didn’t, their satisfaction decreased, but the change was not significant.”

For those who wanted to open their relationship and eventually did so, their satisfaction increased significantly compared to when they started.

—Samantha Joel

Joel thinks the increased satisfaction among people who move into CNM relationships may be the result of a dragging effect: Higher-quality sex with a secondary partner can lead to higher satisfaction with the primary partner because suddenly the pressure is removed that one person has to provide all the pleasure.

“We know that when people are more satisfied with their sex lives, they tend to communicate better to some degree,” Joel says. “But people in MN report that their communication is open and honest — it’s hard to start a MN relationship without talking about relationship boundaries. In monogamous situations, those boundary discussions don’t usually happen.”

Over time, typical emotional satisfaction in a relationship—feelings of security, nurturing, and intimacy—tends to increase, while the spontaneity and excitement associated with sexual desire decreases.

“Relationships are sexy and exciting at the beginning, but then they become predictable,” says Rhonda Balzarini, a psychologist at York University. “The novelty is hard to maintain, and the excitement wears off.”

Balzarini gives the example that you might be legally married to your primary partner, living together, raising children, and having responsibilities to each other that come with monogamous living. Because it means a lot of effort and work, she says, it requires more predictability — and that's not sexy.

Your secondary partner may never share these responsibilities with you, but as a result, the passion in your relationship may not fade. Ultimately, secondary partners tend to offer more frequent sex, but less commitment.

“I think in general there’s a oscillation between novelty and security, and being in a long-term, consensual, non-monogamous relationship is a way to meet both needs,” Joel said. “It’s not the only way, but it’s one way, and it works for some people.”

There are almost as many different forms of CNM as there are people in CNM relationships. Anita Cassidy, one of the interviewees in the video below (screenshot), talks about how she and her partner are managing their relationships. Cassidy lives with her two children and has relationships with multiple partners who visit her home at different times of the week. Cassidy was interviewed before the coronavirus outbreak, and social distancing or self-isolation may limit how often she sees her partner.

How do you deal with jealousy?

Muise says the benefits of informed non-monogamy are most evident when both primary partners are motivated to support each other’s happiness. “There seems to be a primal desire to see their partner being sexually satisfied, but not necessarily to be the one satisfying that person,” she says. “When they see that their primary partner is motivated by their own happiness, they’re more willing to meet their needs.”

There seems to be a primitive desire to see their partner being sexually satisfied, but they don't have to be the one to satisfy the other person.

—Amy Muse

This describes a psychological concept called compersion — the ability to experience pleasure from witnessing the pleasure of another. You may be more familiar with it outside the realm of romantic relationships. Imagine watching someone open a present, for example. But compersion has also been used to describe the joy of seeing other people’s sexual satisfaction.

So how do people in CNM relationships overcome jealousy? In a study of the "love-with-the-dog" joy of monogamous and CNM couples, Katherine Aumer, a researcher at Hawaii Pacific University, and her co-authors wrote that for men, sexual betrayal is more likely to cause jealousy than emotional betrayal. This is not surprising if—as evolutionary theory suggests—men are more motivated than women to know the identity of their children's father. It's not very difficult for women to determine the identity of their children's mother.

However, Omer goes on to write, women are more likely to feel jealous of emotional infidelity. Given the evolutionary pressure to raise children, women have a strong incentive to retain their male partner so that he can provide food and protection for them and their children while they nurse. If a man becomes emotionally invested in another woman, the mother may not be able to get her best food, protection, and shelter.

Why do people choose non-monogamy?

There is evidence that some people may be better at juggling multiple relationships than others. Attachment theory, which describes how feelings of security and insecurity shape our relationships, may explain why some people are more reluctant to share a partner.

For two decades, Chris Fraley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been collecting attachment data from participants in an online questionnaire. In total, about 200,000 people have taken the test, and many other researchers have relied on this rich data to establish paradigms for various behaviors.

Using the data, Moores said she found that people in multiple relationships had lower anxious and avoidant attachment than those in other relationships. However, she noted that this was a correlational finding. Perhaps only secure, non-anxious, non-avoidant people are attracted to the multiple relationship lifestyle.

The psychological profile of non-monogamous people may indicate that they have emotional needs that cannot be met by one person. "In general, people in polyamorous relationships may have higher needs," Balzarini said. "We found that monogamous people had a more even level of needs for care and sexual desire. But polyamorous people had very high highs and very low lows. They may be people who need both, and it's hard to get that with just one partner. A primary partner who is emotionally caring is less likely to be sexually desirable."

We already know how to maintain intimate relationships with multiple people, but are we supposed to believe that love is limited?

—Amy Moores

That said, according to Moores, there are few ways to paint a generalized portrait of the consensual non-monogamous population. She said that in her research, there was no correlation between age, income, location, education, race, ethnicity, religion or political affiliation and consensual non-monogamousness. People who identified as gay or bisexual were more likely to be consensual non-monogamous, but that was the only pattern.

For something that seems to be pervasive across the population, there’s still a persistent stigma attached to the non-monogamous lifestyle. Moores gives the example of how it’s normal to think of platonic love or familial love as infinite, yet for some reason we think of love as finite. “We’ve figured out how to have intimate relationships with multiple people,” she says, “but are we supposed to believe that love is finite? How many best friends do you have? Oh, gross, are you drunk? That’s ridiculous.”

We demand a lot from our partners. We want them to be our life mentor, our best friend, our confidant. “We don’t need it all from one person,” Moores says. Maybe it’s better to spread our needs among more than one person.

By William Park

Translated by Kushan

Proofreading/Rabbit's Light Footsteps

Original article/www.bbc.com/future/article/20200320-why-people-can-love-more-than-one-person

This article is based on the Creative Commons Agreement (BY-NC) and is published by Kushan on Leviathan

The article only reflects the author's views and does not necessarily represent the position of Leviathan