Comprehensive Notes on Open Non-Monogamies in Theory, Practice, and Society

Historical Context of Open Non-Monogamies

• The study of non-monogamies has been an object of interest since the $1950s$, with a discernible subfield emerging in the $1970s$.

• The early $1970s$ reached a peak in engagement with concepts such as open marriage, open families, and swinging (O’Neil & O’Neil, $1970$; Smith & Smith, $1970$).

• Roger H. Rubin observed that while research on certain topics like same-sex relationships became mainstream after the $1960s$ and $1970s$, other forms like swinging, group marriages, and communes were largely ignored ($2001$).

• A decline in these behaviors was noted as early as the mid-$1970s$ (Fang, $1976$).

• A resurgence or confluence of interest occurred in the mid-$1980s$ (D. Dixon, $1985$; J. Dixon, $1985$; Duckworth & Levitt, $1985$; Jenks, $1985a$, $b$; Murstein et al., $1985$; Wolf, $1985$).

• A "fallow period" followed in the mid-to-late $1980s$ and $1990s$, characterized by only a few studies (Fine, $1992$; Jenks, $1992$, $1998$; Musso, $1988$).

• A significant upswing began in the mid-to-late $2000s$, driven by polyamory discourse and a revival of older concepts regarding open relationships. Examples include Jenny Block’s Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage ($2008$) and Meg Barker’s Rewriting the Rules: An Integrative Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships ($2012$).

Non-Monogamies in Counseling and Social Psychology

• Early Practitioner Research: Early work focused on the biases of therapists regarding swinging and open relationships. Themes included:     - Identifying how to better serve these populations.     - Encouraging clients to ask counselors about their own sexual histories to identify normative frames (Knapp, $1975$).     - Modeling the "swinger psyche," such as linking open marriage to ego development (Ryals & Foster, $1976$).     - Examining issues like fear of discovery, jealousy, marital conflict, and disappointment (Denfeld, $1974$).

• Recent Counseling Trends: Work in the $2000s$ and $2010s$ has explored how polyamory challenges family/relationship counseling and the standard nomenclature of "couples counseling."     - Articles discuss the mental health field’s slow response to accepting polyamory despite a general move toward sexual diversity (Weitzman, $2006$).     - Strategies have been developed for supporting polyamorous, bisexual, and generally non-monogamous clients (Anapol, $13$; Barker, $2011$; Easton, $2010$; Finn et al., $2012$; Labriola, $2013$; Zimmerman, $2012$).

• Polygamy and Health: While there is substantial work on polygamy and health (Miller & Karkazis, $2013$) and mental health (Hamdan et al., $2009$), little addresses the therapy needs of those in ongoing polygamous arrangements.     - Proposed interventions include having nurses and policy makers mediate negative effects of polygyny (Tabi et al., $2010$) and using an Islamic base to focus on improving children's experiences (Al-Krenawi et al., $1997$).

Theoretical Exploration of Extra-dyadic Romantic Love

• LGBT* and Queer Perspectives: Early research linked non-monogamy to positive experiences for bisexual men (D. Dixon, $1985$; Wolf, $1985$) and women (J. Dixon, $1985$) in open marriages, or as a compromise for married gay men (Nugent, $1983$).

• Swing Culture Modeling: Researchers have attempted to identify factors shared by swingers (Jenks, $1985a$, $b$) and reasons for leaving the lifestyle, such as emotional difficulties and disillusionment (Denfeld, $1974$).

• Bias in Research: While early work on swinging ranged from supportive (Denfeld & Gordon, $1970$) to critical (Walshok, $1971$), Biblarz & Biblarz ($1980$) suggested that positive researcher bias might have skewed some results.

• Polygamy vs. Polyamory Discourse:     - Polygamy: Research often assumes and presumes that experiences with non-dyadic love will be negative, though some explore this more actively (Elbedour et al., $2007$).     - Polyamory: Literature tends to favor positive depictions, particularly in activist texts like The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities (Easton & Hardy [Liszt], $1997$, $2009$). Haritaworn et al. ($2006$) note that most academic writing remains positive, while critical work is a more recent development.

Effects of Non-Monogamies on Women

• Polygyny and Mental Health: Research indicates compelling negative effects on women's mental health. Shepard ($2013$) cites a systematic review showing "moderate confidence" of a higher prevalence of mental health issues compared to monogamous women ($p. 47$).     - These issues include: somatization, depression, anxiety, hostility, psychoticism, psychiatric disorders, reduced marital satisfaction, low self-esteem, and problematic family functioning.

• Other Polygamy Concerns: Literature highlights sexual, physical, and psychological abuse (Elbedour et al., $2006$), misogyny (Gleditsch et al., $2011$), and various coping mechanisms (Tabi et al., $2010$).

• Agency and Context: Some work complicates these narratives by looking for women's agency within polygamous arrangements (Bennion, $1998$; Campbell, $2014$). Lori G. Beaman ($2014$) argues that criticizing polygamy as patriarchal often relies on the unproven assumption that monogamy is not patriarchal ($p. 4$).

• Polyamory and Feminism: Most authors of polyamory self-help and activist works are women. This genealogy can be traced back to lesbian feminist perspectives and the structural critique of monogamy (Munson & Stelboum, $1999$).

Impact on Children and Multiple-Partner Parenting

• Polyamory and Secrecy: There is a dearth of work on raising children in polyamorous families. Janet Hardy initially used the pseudonym Catherine A. Liszt for The Ethical Slut to protect her school-aged children. Elizabeth Sheff ($2013b$) also documented the difficulty of obtaining ethics approval for studies involving children in non-monogamous families.

• Children in Polyamorous Families (Sheff's Findings): Children are often in "amazingly good shape" ($2013a$).     - Advantages: Extra attention, more financial resources, diverse role models, help with homework/rides, honesty, and empowerment to choose their own family structure.     - Disadvantages: Stigma from peers and teachers, fear of social repercussions, the hardship of co-parents leaving the relationship, and exposure to adult drama.

• Children in Polygamous Families: Research is more common but generally negative.     - Omariba and Boyle ($2007$) found a positive correlation with child mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa.     - Kermani et al. ($2008$) found decreased social capital in Tehranian children from polygamous families.     - Gesinde ($2011$) found an increased likelihood of emotional mistreatment in Nigerian youth.

• Positive and Mixed Findings (Polygamy):     - Dreher and Hudgins ($2010$) found maternal multiplicity in rural Jamaica did not yield poorer developmental outcomes and served as an adaptation to poverty.     - Hamdan et al. ($2009$) found no differences in anxiety, depression, or competence in Bedouin adolescents compared to monogamous peers.     - Khasawneh et al. ($2011$) found that Jordanian children generally supported polygamy and saw it as a solution to spinsterhood.

Psychological Minutiae and Life Dynamics

• Shared Similarities with Monogamy: Elizabeth Sheff ($2013b$) emphasizes that polyamorists are ordinary people (bankers, teachers, etc.) who face typical life struggles like debt and parenting. Similar findings exist for polygamists (Campbell, $2014$) and swingers (Gould, $1999$).

• Unique Dynamics of Non-Monogamy:     - Negotiation practices (McLean, $2004$).     - Identity politics and the question of polyamory as a sexual orientation (Robinson, $2013$).     - Compersion (feeling pleasure in a partner's pleasure with another) (Ballard, $2013$).     - Power relationships and dynamics of jealousy (Mint, $2010$).     - Relationship termination (Sheff, $2015$).

Legal and Social Debates

• DSM-$5$ and Pathology: A major development was the rejection of pathologized multi-partner sexuality. Participation from researchers was sought for the proposed "Hypersexual Disorder" in the DSM-$5$; however, the disorder was not adopted, which prevented polyamory from being framed as a clinical obsession (Moser, $2013$; Wagner, $2010$).

• The Feminism Divide: Feminists are divided over polygamy. Some take an anti-polygamy stance (West Coast LEAF), while others argue the stance needs to be complicated (Calder & Beaman, $2014$).

• Canadian Legal Precedent: In the $2011$ Reference re: Section $293$ case, Chief Justice Bauman ruled that anti-polygamy laws did not capture non-formalized polyamorous partnerships. The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association argued that polyamory is qualitatively and constitutionally different from conventional polygamy.

• Critiques of Polyamory Activism: Critical works argue that polyamory self-help texts can create "new regimes of normativity," prioritizing individualism while ignoring structural power relations regarding race, class, and gender ($2010a$).

Implications for Academics and Students

• Interdisciplinary Contact: Academics must break disciplinary boundaries. Social sciences (sociology, law, psychology) need deeper contact with humanities (gender studies, queer studies, cultural studies).

• Integrated Conversation: Non-monogamies should be studied in tandem with infidelity and monogamy because all are part of the same societal articulations of normativity and privileged intimacy.

• Student Research Advice:     - Women/Gender Studies: Focus on agency, consent, and false consciousness.     - Law: Study precedent law and the history of sexual regulation.     - Psychology/Sociology: Explore models of non-monogamous behavior.     - Communication/Cultural Studies: Study representations in journalism, literature, or pop culture.

Glossary of Key Terminology

• LGBT: The asterisk denotes both a range of Trans identities and acts as a "wild-card" for multiple additional identities.

• Queer: Used as a separate, non-capitalized positionality representing an anti-identity identification.

• Compersion: An affect akin to reverse-jealousy; feeling joy when a partner derives pleasure from another (Ballard, $2013$).

• Frubbly: The UK cognate term for compersion (Ritchie & Barker, $2006$).

• Sisterwives: Co-wives in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) nomenclature.

• Triads: Stable three-person equilateral partnerships.

• New Relationship Energy (NRE): Excitement and energy produced by a new relationship.

• Mononormativity: The structural investment in monogamy as solely central to the organization of society (Pieper & Bauer).

• Non/monogamy: A combined discursive formation treating monogamy and non-monogamy together (Willey, $2006$).

• Polygamy (Definitional): Includes polygyny (one person with multiple wives), polyandry (one person with multiple husbands), and polygynandry (combinations of multiple husbands and wives).

• Oneida Complex Marriage: A historical commune where all men were considered married to all women and multiple pairings occurred.

• Polynormativity: Critical discourse regarding the establishment of new norms within polyamory that might privilege certain versions of the practice.