The unethical Jealousy

As polyamory gains more and more momentum in our society, it naturally gains more coverage in the press and media. A new TV show started in the UK recently, titled “Wanderlust”, and tells the story of a married couple who lose interest in Sex with each other, and then discover the pleasures of extra-marital sex together.

In one scene in the show, the husband says to his wife incredulously “You’re actually suggesting we both CHEAT on each other???”, which shows us a common myth about open relationships. However, an open relationship does not mean cheating…quite the opposite…it’s SHARING. Cheating is to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, but people who are in open relationships do so honestly and ethically. If that person has a spouse or other type of partner (fiancé, girlfriend, boyfriend etc.), they would engage in romantic or sexual relationships only with the knowledge and approval of the other, and they would make sure whoever they are having said relationship with is aware that they have other partners.

Naturally, there are people who identify themselves as in open-relationships and still cheat…but they are simply wrong. Perhaps they are misinformed about what “open” mean, or perhaps they are lying to themselves or others to defer or avoid the guilt of what they are doing. The Polyamory community, in general, doesn’t judge people who do cheat, and so even unethical people would usually still be accepted and loved, but make no mistake…cheating is lying, and it is lying to someone you have specifically vowed to be honest-with (as in…worse than just lying to the clerk at the grocery store or another random person).

One thing that keeps bugging me with regards to polyamory and ethics is the fact that our society so heavily stresses and focuses on the positive value of sharing, but is so hard-core against sharing PEOPLE. If you talk to most people, you would find that they would accept and even encourage anger and violence against someone who even thinks of extra-marital sex. How many times have you heard of someone yelling, hitting or even kicking out their partner because said partner looked at another man or woman randomly? The below image is a stock-photo, but most of us have either experienced this, or heard a friend or family member express their anger at the notion of their partner being attracted to someone else. Would we also be so harsh on someone is asking to borrow our car, or on an employee who is interviewing for another company? How can we tell our kids to always share things like food and earthly possessions, but then tell them that sharing the love of a person is a horrible sin? How can we tell them that parents can love multiple children, and that children can love multiple parents, but not multiple boyfriends/girlfriends?

There are discussions and disagreements in the scientific community about whether personal possessiveness is an evolved trait that mankind developed, or whether it’s purely cultural, but either way, in a world with birth control and advanced STD medicine, there’s no reason for anyone to impose limits on their partners. The reality is that trying to control someone’s emotions usually doesn’t work, and makes a lot of people unhappy. Research has shown that in over half of marriages (some research show this to actually be as high as 76%), one or both partners admit to cheating, and other surveys show that over 20% of Americans practice open relationships. This means that approximately 70% of Americans engage in romantic or sexual relationships with multiple partners, and out of the other 30%, many cheat without admitting it, and many others desire to have extra-marital relationships, but avoid it due to fear, inability (*) or pure fidelity. I estimate that if more people would have permission and ability, at least 90% would, and most of the rest may not initiate, but would participate if “hit” on by someone attractive.

* This could be due to being old, disabled, sick, isolated, introverted, antisocial, awkward or simply too repulsive to be able to
form a romantic relationship

The bottom line is that it’s hard to deny that we are a species that has evolved to have multiple partners, and monogamy is nothing more than an old-fashioned social practice that is useless, irrelevant and does nothing more than make people unhappy in this day and age. Hopefully, with the growth of Polyamory, we will soon reach a point where we can repeal the laws that restrict love (anti polygamy laws) and that the repressive cultural and media bias against open relationships will find its place with other shameful things like homophobia, xenophobia and antisemitism.