Consensual Extramarital sex ok, but don't let them move in!

Great Debates
1

Repeatedly the question of what is cheating has been asked and answered. General consensus is that cheating starts when your spouse/partner would be hurt, and if everyone knowingly consents it is not cheating. Oh, there are a few that steadfastly believe that all extramarital sex is wrong no matter who said yes to what, but those are even rarer that people who claim abortion should not be allowed in cases of rape or incest oor to save the life of the mother.

OTOH, a great many here will speak out against polygamy. My impression is that many more think that being married to one person and having another or others live with you both and maintain a steady relationship with the knowing consent of all involved is wrong, more wrong if any have children.

Why is just having sex for a while ok to some but actually maintaining that relationship and moving in together wrong?

2

I wasn’t aware that this was generally the case; I think I’d be right in saying that the huge majority of married persons wouold consider it a bad thing for their spouse to be having sex with another person, even if it happens somewhere else.

3

I would think that your balance is not quite correct; in my experience most of those who are okay with consensual (meaning, every adult person involved has given their consent including the spouse) extramarital sex are also okay with setting up a secondary relationship within the house.

Unless the spouse and the other person(s) involved can’t stand each other. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Some three-adult relationships are Vs, with One person having Two relationships which could be potentially of equal weight. Others are triangles, where all three are in some way involved with each other.

YMMV, of course.

4

I believe that what ever goes on between consenting adults is ok, as long as nobody gets hurt. It’s not “wrong”; it’s just outside societal norms.

But children are a different story. First of all, they are not adults, and they can’t legally consent to anything, meaning it’s fine and dandy that you adults like to swing, etc., but the kids have no choice but to be exposed on some level to it, especially if the extra lover(s) are live-in.

Regardless of whether you or I think that’s ok, that’s some really heavy stuff to be laying on a kid, and it could give them serious conflicts. Maybe not, but the risk is real, and most parents try to avoid risk when it comes to their children’s emotional well-being.

Most kids also need a certain amount of structure and order to their lives, and extremely complicated and confusing (to them)relationships among the adults in their lives may not be conducive to that.

5

What if the child is born into a household with 3 adults in a relationship? The children I am speaking of are children of the marriage, of one or two of the partners and in no way having sex with anyone!

People on this board more often vehemently oppose polygamy than consensual (to all parties) extramarital sex. I want to know why.

6

Well, the fact is that our society (in the US) is not set up to handle polygamy, and most of us are a good 2,000 years removed from any practice of it. It requires a radically different family structure than is usual in the US, one that, at present, most people are not equipped to handle, whether they are in said multiple marriage or outside looking in (i.e., that child who has to explain to his friends what mommy and mommy and daddy are doing).

One could argue that this is not far different from the current upheavals over divorced/remarried families, same-sex couples, etc. Fair enough–but those situations are fraught with problems.

I think consenting adults should be allowed to try it out, kids or no, just as they’re currently allowed to marry or divorce or live together. But they should be aware that, most likely, they have not been equipped to deal with what situations will arise, and there will be few people for them to turn to with their problems.

Hell, it’s hard enough being married to one other person, even with all of your family, friends, and the rest of society urging you to make your marriage work. It’s got to be a lot harder (as it is with any undertaking) when everyone is opposed to it.

7

I wasn’t very clear in my previous post. I wasn’t implying the children being involved in THAT way, but they are most certainly involved. Children are incredibly perceptive and pick up on a lot more than we sometimes realize, but processing what they see/hear/are exposed to can be problematic.

I have no beef with polyamory; just not my cuppa. I do have a problem with parents subjecting their kids to a lifestyle choice they are unlikely to understand or gain from.

8

Boy, I’m clear as mud today!:o

I didn’t mean to sound like kids can’t thrive in non-traditional families. What I meant to mean was that kids aren’t really benefitted by a primarily sexual, consensual-between-adults lifestyle. That stuff just isn’t part of their world yet.

9

I’d think that a child would benefit from another involved adult in their life. I also think that polyamory is easier for children to understand than divorce and remarriage.

And then there are children that would not be but for polyamory.

10

I think kids are most concerned with having a happy and stable home life. ISTM that the number (and sexual orientation) of the parents, assuming the happy and stable home life, is nobody’s business but the people involved.

A kid growing up in a polyamous family, like a kid growing up with a same-sex couple for parents, would probably not realize that there was a ‘problem’ until someone pointed it out to them. The ‘problem’ lies not with the family in question, but with the person who thinks that the child’s happy and stable home life is less important than their own prejudices.

11

There are folks who feel anything but the traditional family unit is just plain wrong, and should be explicitly outlawed.

I’m not one of those people.

Thing is, after that, anything goes really. The only rules are “do no harm.” That’s a tall order. I’ve been in a situation where I was dating someone in one city, while rekindling a long-dead romance in another.

I should have been in hog heaven, but actually in a very short period of time I found the whole situation very distressing, even when I knew all parties were aware of the hanky panky and voiced no strong opposition. I guess, in the end, I was after a monogomous relationship, and indeed, that’s what I wound up with. Strangely enough, it was the less convenient option (the long-distance romance) I chose, since that’s where the deeper emotions lay.

I look at the polyamorous and think: bless 'em, it looks like a whole lotta fun. In practice, I couldn’t get my head around it, even when one of the parties was three hundred miles away. I think there’s something in human nature that tends to make us most comfortable with coupling. For those lucky few who can sustain a sasifying polyamorous life long term, I can only say, hats off to you; you have my deepest envy.

Me, I just can’t do it.

Comfort level, lee, is the likely culprit to explain your question. It’s just easier to deal with when the sex is out of sight (and hence out of mind). For some it might be a good middle-ground between our simultaneous need to make intimate bonds, and our sometimes overmastering desire to fuck as many people as our horny little selves can manage to. Sex with the same person for… the …rest…of…your…freakin’…LIFE…it’s a sobering prospect indeed. But having my wife and my lover in the same house all the time…eyahhh! I’d lose my mind. But a spouse who says “hey, go have your fun if you must, but I don’t wanna see it, I don’t wanna know it, I don’t wanna even smell it,” is something many Europeans have been doing for ages. It’s how they keep their marriages together, it seems. Generally, it’s a triangle (or a pair of triangles) consisting of your spouse and best friend, plus a fun little fuck partner on the side who, if you are extremely lucky, you don’t fall in love with.

12

That’s quite true. When I posted, I was thinking in terms of just that situation. Of course, if a child has a happy, stable home environment, that’s the most important thing, and it doesn’t matter what the family consists of. But there comes a time when the child will face prejudiced people and their children. It is inevitable, and it is usually very hard on the child when that happens. It can color their very existence. I don’t assert that poly is wrong, just that there are very serious considerations regarding children. That’s all.

Indeed divorce and remarriage can be very difficult on children, but that’s apples v. oranges, and I didn’t think this particular debate was about divorce/remarriage. Perhaps children have a better “understanding” of polyamory than divorce, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a level of understanding sufficient to avoid being conflicted.

Geez, all these words, and all I’m trying to say is “won’t somebody think of the children”…:o

13

Polyamory, polyamous, and polyamorous aren’t in either the OED or MW that I can find. Anybody know what’s up with that word?

As for the OP, I don’t think it’s wrong. It’s just wrong for me. But living with any sort of mate is wrong for me. ::shrug::

14

Well, according to Wikipedia, it’s a neologism of fairly recent origin.
Here’s a link

Which makes me wonder what it used to be called. I reckon people misapplied the term polygamy or something.

15

Thanks An Arky. Judging from that and the definition of polygamy, the main difference seems to be marriage. Polygamy requires marriage, whereas polyamory does not (necessarily).

16

presidebt is right. Polyamory is just a simple smoosh of a word from poly - “multiple” and amor - “love”

Thus, simply “multiple love” which is similar to but not quite like poly - gamy.

17

The term “polyamory” was invented to get away from all the prejudical baggage that goes with the term “polygamy”, and, to a lesser degree, to avoid the legal entanglements that come with claiming to be multiply married. It also makes it legal to talk about the subject in Michigan, where it is unlawful to advocate that polygamy is a morally acceptable choice.

18

So not only is it a neologism, it’s a euphemism, too! Two for the price of one!

19

Actually group marriages – unlike, say, communal living / intentional communities / hippie communes – may be more widely practiced than you’d think, and by more traditional people than you might be inclined to postulate. I’ve not been really close friends with any such, but was a classmate and casual acquaintance of a woman who was part of a “marriage of two marriages”, a stable foursome.

The situation of the kidlings would vary from GM to GM but I don’t see anything structural in them that would be bad for kids. The kids in the one I was familiar with got a lot of adult attention and care. They knew which specific adults were their bio Mom and Dad but had two other adults around as well. I don’t know the fine points of how they worked out parental authority and whatnot.

I would say that any tendency to visualize group marriage as “sex-centered swinging lifestyle” is a misconception, though. I doubt foursomes or threesomes or sevensomes or whatever are any more inclined than couples to be “only about sex”. All that I’ve read about them indicates that they are about property, somewhat more formal connectednesses, and commitments often more specific and overt than those between conventional M-F couples.

Of course, being illegal, it is probably somewhat more unstable for children, but you can’t use that as an argument for why they should remain illegal.

20

The more people added to a relationship-paradigm, the more inherently unstable that paradigm becomes.

I personally have an aversion to “swingers” or anyone who isn’t mature enough to carry on a monogomous relationship, especially when there are children involved.

I don’t want to make it illegal. I don’t want to control people’s sex lives but I can’t help feeling a certain disrespect for those who would place a desire for empty sexual dalliances with strangers above providing a safe, stable comforting home for children.

I also believe that the “swinging” lifestyle is mostly driven by horny, selfish men and that women go along with it out of a misguided desire to keep what they can of the relationships.

Most women are not insatiable horndogs who can have emotionless sex with strangers time and again unless they were molested as children or something.

I’m sure I’m going to get flamed for this and I’m going to get innundated with testimonies from women who love to swing. Let me say in advance that I don’t believe you. For most of the women involved in that lifestyle I believe that if the man wanted to stop today, they’d be perfectly fine with it.

For swingers with children, I say grow the fuck up and be a goddamn parent instead a frat boy. Your kids are more important than you are.

Flame away, I’ve got my sunglasses on. :cool: