Open Relationships vs. Monogamy

Is it just me, or are there some fundamental problems with strict monogamy? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not by any means saying we should bed every person we meet, or swap partners with all of our coupled friends - just that strict monogamy seems to do more damage than good.

Monogamy carries with it:

• an unhealthy obsession with having one person to meet the majority of our needs,
• a condemnation to a lack of sexual fulfillment if a person’s partner can’t perform adequately or loses their ability to do so,
• a lack of variety in sexual partners possibly resulting in lost sex drive over time, and
• it makes life after the first person passes away incredibly difficult for the remaining partner.

On a greater level, it condemns a possibly great new gene to extinction if the person that carries it couples with someone who has a terminal genetic issue, and it reduces the speed at which evolution occurs as there are less genetic combinations being formed... and that is just off the top of my head!

Given this pretty ugly overview of monogamy, the question then becomes why it is that just about everyone is doing it?

The first thought that comes to mind has to be tradition - but without logical reasoning, tradition does not mean much. We have many traditions due to the mental conditioning of people; an example is the stoning of people in some parts of the world who would dare insult "God" by working on the Sabbath.

The second thought has more to do with biology, together with length of infancy and development for our species. Although very few species mate for life, there are many species that mate for the duration in which their offspring are developing only, if even that. Since we take a while to "grow up" or develop, a child with more then one parent has a better chance of surviving to its own propagation than a child with only one. But the same argument is stronger for open relationships if we were to embrace each other more freely as a "herd".

The third thought is love and wanting to be together. Although love is truly a beautiful thing that most (if not all) of us could use more of, let’s discuss for a moment what type of love it is that we are experiencing in most relationships... Is it love of thy partner, or love of thy self?

Here’s an easy question to figure that one out. Let's say you are with someone who makes you happier than anyone else you’ve ever been with. After some time, you call the feeling towards them love. Some time later you meet someone of your gender that you know 100% for sure would make a better monogamous mate for your partner than you. You have the ability to introduce them, so that the person you love could find higher levels of happiness… or do you not hook them up so that you can continue getting what you want?

Since very few of the people I have polled have answered that they would sacrifice themselves, I would go so far as to say that true love is very different from this selfish concoction that most think it is!

With the exception of the very valid concern about STD transmission, the only real challenges to 'Open Relationships' are people's internal demons (greed and jealousy), and recreating the social infrastructure so that we are not so easily divided and conquered. It seems pretty simple to me that this is the way we should be going, but obviously it's a lot easier said then done; but man can move mountains, even if its one stone at a time.