Get ready for the big “I told you so!” from all your polyamorous, monogamish, and open-relationship friends.
The Guardian just reported on a study conducted at New York Univeristy's Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies by researcher Christopher Stults thats finds men in non-monogamous relationships seem more satisfied and closer to their partners than men in closed relationships. Stults suggests that this may be due in part to the open communication required of non-monogamous relationships. "...[I]t may even be that their communication is better than among monogamous couples because they’ve had to negotiate specific details," he said.
The study, which started in June 2015, was conducted using 45-minute interviews held from 10 gay couples, with the men in the study ranging in age from 19-43. Stults notes that these men in open relationships did not have a disproportionate risk for HIV and other STIs, but that some men in open relationships do feel as if they do face stigma for being in an open relationship.
[iframe https://giphy.com/embed/dQlfoibDakcko allowfullscreen="" class=^{{"giphy-embed"}}^ frameborder="0" height="211" width="480"]
Before going crazy over the results and/or vehemently agreeing or disagreeing with the study, it’s important to note that there are a ton of limitations, the most major one being that 10 couples is very tiny for a sample size. (Honestly, that's like a baby orgy or like interviewing a few of your friends and calling it "research.") Depending on how Stults recruited these couples, they might not be representative of the entire population. In fact, there’s no way these 10 couples can be, as there are so many dynamics that contribute to a healthy and successful relationship. Relationships depend on so many different factors, like race, background, upbringing, the city you live in, socioeconomic status, etc., so you should definitely be taking this study with a big grain of salt.
Still, Stults' study is important, because it reveals that monogamy isn’t the only option. More gay men are in open relationships than straight couples, and perhaps they’re onto something. Dan Savage has been a huge proponent of being monogamish for years, and in his podcast, Savage Love, he argues how humans were not made to be 100% monogamous. Monogamy, as a social construct, he argues, often does more harm than good!
Hopefully, this study will be built on, and there will be more hard data soon. Regardless of the methodologies, we can take away that there’s no one-size-fits-all for relationships. And for many of us, specifically gay men, being non-monogamous has the capacity to enhance our romantic relationships in ways that monogamy simply can’t.
