Blake Spears and Lanz Lowen have been together for over 34 years. They told me that they still have great sex, contradicting the common belief that sexual interest inevitably wanes in a long-term relationship. How do they do it? “One reason,” Lanz said, “is that we’ve been in an open relationship from the very beginning. If we hadn’t been open, we wouldn’t have been able to grow individually or as a couple.” But, they write, this was a journey they took “without a roadmap… Information about how couples navigate this terrain is surprisingly lacking. We were curious about the experience of others and assumed many long-term couples might offer valuable perspectives and hard-earned lessons.”

So, a few years back, they decided to use their combined training and experience in research and psychology to do an independent, in-depth study of other long-term open gay male relationships. ....

The study includes a summary of previous research on non-monogamy, in which the authors report that “Most research shows that approximately two-thirds of long-term male couples who have been together for five years or more are honestly non-monogamous,” and that “Multiple studies have found no differences in relationship quality or satisfaction between samples of sexually exclusive and non-exclusive male couples.”

Despite those findings, they had a hard time recruiting participants. They had no trouble finding non-monogamous couples, but relatively few who wanted to talk about it. One man who chose to participate said “Having an open relationship feels like a funny way of being in the closet again. Family and friends expect that we’re monogamous, and we don’t tell them we’re not. It’s like a secret….In our community and society, it feels like something huge isn’t being talked about or studied or understood.”

Labels: culture, gay couples, men, open relationships

posted by Eve at 6:59 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

When Rio and Ray married in 2008, the Bay Area women omitted two words from their wedding vows: fidelity and monogamy.

“I take it as a gift that someone will be that open and honest and sharing with me,” said Rio, using the word “open” to describe their marriage.

Love brought the middle-age couple together — they wed during California’s brief legal window for same-sex marriage. But they knew from the beginning that their bond would be forged on their own terms, including what they call “play” with other women.

As the trial phase of the constitutional battle to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that, according to groundbreaking new research.

A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.

New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.

That consent is key. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” said Colleen Hoff, the study’s principal investigator, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.”

The study also found open gay couples just as happy in their relationships as pairs in sexually exclusive unions, Dr. Hoff said. A different study, published in 1985, concluded that open gay relationships actually lasted longer.

None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.

Labels: culture, gay marriage, gay/straight differences, open relationships

posted by Eve at 12:38 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...As it turns out, desire is exactly what's at issue here. Human beings desire variety. We desire multiple partners. It's a simple fact that's built into our biology. And while some choose monogamy simply because it feels right, I think many more of us choose it because we think it's what we're supposed to do. You don't want to end up an old maid or a lonely bachelor, do you?

Monogamy just isn't always realistic. There's nothing wrong with admitting that. It simply doesn't work for some. And just as people choose different religions, eating habits, and places to call home, I believe we should be able to choose different ways to live out our relationships.

Several years after my affair, my husband and I jointly decided that monogamy just wasn't for us. We love each other and want to be together, but monogamy is not the cornerstone of our partnership—trust is. So we decided to open up our relationship to other people.

First we both dated the same woman. Then my husband dated her and I saw other people. And then they broke up and I dabbled until I met a woman who, like my husband, I cannot imagine being without. And so now it's her and me and him and me, and we are all fabulous friends. Everyone gets their needs met. No one feels left out or guilty, and the only time any of us questions our lifestyle is when we let those Disney movies come creeping back into our heads.

Let me be very clear here: I have no problem with monogamy. I think conscious, honest, true monogamy can be a wonderful thing. What should not be tolerated is hypocrisy—and that's where Tiger’s vow of marriage got him into trouble. If you want to be monogamous, great—but don't think you can claim it while you sleep around. It's not fair and, quite frankly, it's exhausting.

Labels: adultery, Jenny Block, Marriage, open relationships, polyamory

posted by Eve at 11:20 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

So, the truth of Veronica Lario's marriage to Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, is finally coming out. "I cannot be his babysitter," she writes in her book, Tendenza Veronica, published last week. But the surprise is not that the usually private and silent Veronica is now very publicly complaining about her husband, but more importantly: what took her so long?

For 19 years, Veronica Lario not only tolerated her spouse's wayward behaviour – alleged hair transplants, affairs – but concealed it from the world. Then, in April, she snapped. Her husband was photographed with an 18-year-old model at a party; Veronica thought he was on business in Naples. "It was the latest lie. Better, then, to try to seek a last way to respect myself, better to divorce," Veronica said. "I'm done."

What changed? "He broke the open rules," says Maria Princeton, 51, a businesswoman. "She knew he had an independent private life, knew he had affairs, but what he is doing is dissing her and dissing the kids, and that is out of bounds." ...

"Everybody assumes in those [Mediterranean] cultures that a prominent man will have one if not two mistresses," says Maria, who is half Italian and herself the daughter of a high-profile philandering father and a devout mother (who put up and shut up). "In fact, in Spain, you don't have as much status if you're not into that." But the controlling force behind it all is the family. "The Italians understand that it is not good for children or for the wife to divorce, because divorce means there will be another family."

"Veronica Lario kept her mouth shut for years because of her family," echoes Accettura. (Berlusconi has two children from his first wife; three children from Veronica.) "She did her best to protect her three children, because how do you divide the assets when there are five children?"

But what of the emotional cost? Does living separate lives really work? The actress Tilda Swinton certainly thinks so. She lives with John Byrne, the artist and writer and father of her two children, but also turned up at the Baftas last year with her boyfriend, Sandro Kopp.

"It's really, really straightforward," she has said. "Very, very often, people have children with people they are no longer sweethearts with… and then they have a relationship with someone new, right? What rarely happens is that they are still completely good friends and continue to live in the same house. But that's all it is." She said they would never separate. "We have a really lovely life bringing up the children together."

Labels: Europe, Italy, Marriage, open relationships

posted by Eve at 5:45 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...But I digress. This is about gay sex in particular. And the fact that gay men, like it or not, are being asked - implicitly or explicitly - to shut up about sex while the GMM forges on. Even as gay sexual life, such as it is, continues on its way. I hear from a friend that several single gay men found themselves being hit on by gay couples looking for threesomes - at a gay marriage convention. I know, from the constant swinging of the doors of my neighbourhood bathhouse, and from my conversations with friends, that there's plenty of gay sex going on all around me.

I'm sad about how much of gay sexual culture is being made to go away while the adults play at respectability in order to win the marriage game. I wonder: After gay marriage is won, will we talk more openly about what married gay men actually do with and to each other? Or will we have completely forgotten how to have those conversations?

Labels: culture, gay marriage, gay/straight differences, gender differences, open relationships, sex

posted by Eve at 1:40 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT