Gay men’s stori of monogamy and non-monogamy: change, flexibily and tensns | aidsmap

Contents:

• A GUI FOR GAY MEN ON BOTH OPEN AND MONOGAMO MARRIAGE
• GAY MEN AND MONOGAMY: DO WORK?
• GAY MEN MONOGAMO RELATNSHIPS: WHAT WORKS?
• NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?
• THAT VIRAL STUDY CLAIMG MOST YOUNG GAY MEN WANT MONOGAMY SHOULDN’T BE TSTED
• GAY MEN’S STORI OF MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY: CHANGE, FLEXIBILY AND TENSNS
• MONOGAMY ADVICE FROM GAY MEN?
• NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?
• GAY MEN’S (NON)MONOGAMY IALS AND LIVED EXPERIENCE
• GAY MONOGAMY: I LOVE YOU BUT I N'T HAVE SEX WH ONLY YOU

A GUI FOR GAY MEN ON BOTH OPEN AND MONOGAMO MARRIAGE

I had the opportuny to talk wh psychotherapist and thor Michael Dale Kimmel about his new book, The Gay Man's Gui to Open and Monogamo Marriage. MDK: I began offerg workshops for gay, bisexual, and transgenr men about eighteen years’ ago, and after a uple of years there were always a few guys who me up to me and said ( whispered ton), “You’ve got to put this stuff a book.

While there are lots of books about how to plan your gay weddg, there were virtually none that addrs what to do after the honeymoon is over (lerally and figuratively). The Gay Man’s Gui to Open and Monogamo Marriage dar to ask the qutn: is monogamy or an open relatnship (or a batn of both) the bt way to stcture your marriage? Same-sex marriage has been a long time g – a few thoand years or so - and now that ’s fally here, many gay, bisexual and transgenr men may thk that ’s a bad ia to “rock the boat” by discsg the kds of ias that this book prents.

I believe that now is the perfect time to qutn what gay marriage n, should and will be, while is still relatively new, h and malleable.

GAY MEN AND MONOGAMY: DO WORK?

While marriage wasn’t a possibily then, the qutns those workshops were basilly the same as those this book: as gay men, do we choose the monogamy of heterosexual marriage as our mol, or do we prefer an open marriage? As a psychotherapist for gay upl for many years’ now, ’s been que clear to me that “handbooks” for heterosexual marriage don’t really apply to our marriag several signifint ways: our marriag are more “signed” than “assumed.

I wrote the chapter about “refg genr rol, " bee we have an amazg opportuny as married gay men to terme who we are as two men, married to each other.

GAY MEN MONOGAMO RELATNSHIPS: WHAT WORKS?

This book enurag everyone, not jt gay men, to take a good look at that formidable stutn and beg to ask some big, meangful qutns, like:. The are not jt qutns for gay upl, they are qutns for all upl: my polyamoro straight clients are alg wh the very same stuff. I’ve seen this kd of relatnship many of the gay marriag – both open and monogamo - that I’ve had the pleasure to work wh.

NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?

Several relatnship studi have been nducted on gay male upl, and they’ve reached the same ncln: about 50% of gay male upl are monogamo the other 50% allow for sex outsi of the relatnship. A new study nducted by a gay uple of 41 years, Lanz Lowen and Blake Spears, terviewed more than a thoand gay men the US: 42% of the rponnts were sgle, 50% were monogamo relatnships, and 8% were non-monogamo relatnships. Even if you both have never been monogamo before, even if one of you jt me out, you n still create a succsful monogamo gay relatnship.

In a monogamo gay relatnship, breakg out of this pattern and munitg hontly wh your partner is ccial for your long-term succs together. Gay men have veloped their own social s, which are different om straight upl (who tend to view flirtg as the first level of fily). It don’t hurt to do some rearch onle or the lol gay paper to fd where monogamo gay upl like to meet up your neighbourhood.

THAT VIRAL STUDY CLAIMG MOST YOUNG GAY MEN WANT MONOGAMY SHOULDN’T BE TSTED

Monogamy is on the rise for gay upl, and the data now shows they are jt as stable, happy, and healthy as those upl open relatnships. There are lots of other gay men out there that want what you want – jt tak a ltle effort to get out to life and nnect wh them.

The realy, acrdg to good rearch, is that hundreds of thoands of gay men long term relatnships are enjoyg sexually satisfyg monogamo relatnships. You’ll fd them volunteerg at gay muny anizatns, fdg spiratn at gay cultural events, or buildg their skills at gay recreatnal or tnal clubs. This paper -pth terviews wh 61 Atralian gay men to explore how monogamy and non-monogamy are experienced over time, expectatns of what nstut the norms regardg gay men's relatnships and how upl experience and practic change.

Although some gay men may ialise monogamy, particularly at the begng of a relatnship, is often experienced as temporary. Non-monogamy is often seen as a likely prospect for gay relatnships owg to the social and cultural norms that operate gay muni. The fdgs shed light on how gay men approach change to the stat of 'fily' wh their relatnships, and the tensns and opportuni that change n produce for upl.

GAY MEN’S STORI OF MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY: CHANGE, FLEXIBILY AND TENSNS

Last week, several LGBTQ-foced publitns reported on a study that claims an overwhelmg majory of younger gay men sire monogamy their relatnships, wh some 86 percent of upl surveyed claimg to be monogamo and 90 percent of sgle men “seekg monogamy.

Many the gay muny have raised an eyebrow at the fdgs, given that they ntrast sharply wh personal experience and anecdotal knowledge a sexual culture where open relatnships and nonmonogamy of one sort or another are que mon. As turns out, the doubts are jtified: The study, tled “Choic: Perspectiv of Younger Gay Men on Monogamy, Non-monogamy, and Marriage, ” is riddled wh methodologil problems to such an extent that ’s sentially worthls— 2016 and now. And when discsg gay relatnships, what is at stake is not only a qutn of scientific accuracy but of the accurate munitn of muny norms and valu both externally and among ourselv.

While the potential problems wh this unprofsnal approach are too numero to discs here, one of the most troublg aspects of the study is the fact that the thors claim to have disvered a marked and surprisg shift attus toward monogamy among gay men, even though is totally unclear whether their rponnts were reprentative of the gay male populatn at large. Th, while their claims about the clatn of younger gay men toward monogamy hge largely on their headle statistic that 90 percent of sgl the study exprsed a sire for a monogamo relatnship, this figure was rived by tentnally excludg a whole segment of sgl who appear, based on their app choice, likely to be ls vted monogamy.

MONOGAMY ADVICE FROM GAY MEN?

Ined, seems jt as likely that the rults may reveal a prevalence of nflicted attus toward monogamy among younger gays as they do a strong clatn toward . Study sign asi, what’s really troublg here is the polil signifince of the thors’ terpretg the fdgs as revealg a novel or prevly obscure shift gay male attus toward love and sex.

First, they claim that “younger gay men have the optn of adoptg to the norms of the heterosexual majory and beg tegrated to the mastream” and send, that g out younger has meant that gay men are no longer relyg on an unrground culture of anonymo sex, nor are they experiencg “prolonged perds of sexual adolcence.

NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?NEGOTIATG GAY MEN'S RELATNSHIPS: HOW ARE MONOGAMY AND NON-MONOGAMY EXPERIENCED AND PRACTISED OVER TIME?

In sence, the thors have nstcted a flimsy argument for the evable triumph of assiatn to tradnal relatnship valu as a product of improved civil rights for gay people, the drag of objectivy offered by cg numbers. Beyond jt addg noise to the larger set of fdgs om better studi on monogamy trends among gay men, the study lends self, whether tentnally or not, to supportg an agenda of rpectabily polics—and the same go for the sloppy reportg on .

GAY MEN’S (NON)MONOGAMY IALS AND LIVED EXPERIENCE

In the age of marriage equaly, gay men’s relatnships to monogamy and relatnship mols may ed be evolvg, and that’s worth studyg. ”Steven Philpot says that the fdgs shed light on how gay men al wh changg expectatns of fily wh their relatnships, and the tensns and opportuni that change produc for upl. Patriarchal social norms were too strong to be flouted, and the taboos and sanctns agast homosexual activy too severe and too strictly enforced.

The ph to refe marriage to clu two persons of the same sex has relied heavily upon the perceived unfairns of nyg the legal and social stabily of marriage to mted, monogamo, same-sex example, their documentary, “Seventh-Gay Adventists, ” filmmakers Daneen Akers and Stephen Ayer follow three gay upl (cludg two male upl) through their daily activi, implyg that the upl are monogamo relatnships jt like a heterosexual married uple. Male homosexuals are very seldom monogamo; they overwhelmgly reject the type of relatnship most heterosexuals thk of when they thk of marriage: a long-term relatnship where sexual activy is strictly limed to one's marriage partner. But whereas almost all heterosexual men, perhaps after “sowg wild oats, ” settle down wh one woman, homosexual men do not settle down.

GAY MONOGAMY: I LOVE YOU BUT I N'T HAVE SEX WH ONLY YOU

A classic, large-sle study by Bell and Weberg nducted durg the 1970s and published by the Ksey Instute found that forty-three percent (43%) of whe male homosexuals had had sex wh 500 or more partners, and twenty-eight percent (28%) had had sex wh 1, 000 or more partners. [1] In 1985, Pollack found that gay men averaged “several dozen partners a year” and “some hundreds a lifetime” wh “tremendo promiscuy.

”[2] In their 1997 study of the sexual profil of 2, 583 olr homosexuals published the Journal of Sex Rearch, Pl Van Ven, et al., found that “the modal range for number of sexual partners was 101-500. One rult of the sharp differenc how men and women approach sex is that straight men do not get to have sual sex wh many partners, but gay men do.

Obvly, homosexual men uld not have hundreds or thoands of sexual partners if they spent much time monogamo, sexually exclive relatnships. Even though many male homosexuals scribe themselv as beg a mted relatnship, male homosexual relatnships tend not to last long.