When Do You Give Up Polyamory?

I've lost it now, but someone once wrote a blog or a forum piece about the failure rate of polyamorous relationships.  This is one of my pet peeves - polyamory is held up to impossible standards of "success" by monogamists, yet those standards are not applied to monogamous relationships.  What I mean is, when a relationship ends, the Monogamous Mindset declares that relationship a "failure", whether it's poly or mono.  But when a poly relationship "fails", it's a sign that polyamory itself is doomed to failure.  Yet, when a monogamous relationship "fails", monogamy itself is not seen as inherently flawed, just that couple is seen at having failed in their relationship.  I HATE this double standard, and I also hate the bunch of assumptions that underlie the idea, including that longevity is the sole measuring stick for success in a relationship.

So, someone wrote a piece somewhere on the internet asking how many of our poly relationships have to fail before we give up clinging to the idea of polyamory and just admit that it's doomed.  Naturally, I had a few things to say about that:

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How many monogamous relationships have you witnessed that ended? How many were great for a year or two before some form of amicable split? How many went down in flames? How many people have you witnessed that got involved with a single person EVER and remained with that person until death? Personally, I know only a few, the majority of whom are in my grandparents' generation (and even my grandparents are divorced). I also know more monogamous people who remain involved with someone who tried to hit them with their own cars than monogamous people who haven't (seriously, I can give you 3 names just off the top of my head, and more if I think about it). Should I then extrapolate that monogamy is bad because so many monogamous people try to commit vehicular manslaugher on their spouses? Or is it perhaps more likely that I know a lot of dysfunctional people and it's not necessarily monogamy's fault?

Of course I'm not saying that monogamy is always bad or a "failure", or even a death sentence. But I am saying that confirmation bias is a logical fallacy. Statistical analysis requires a large sample population to be representative of the population as a whole, and a method to remove personal bias from interpreting the results. "What I've seen" does not count as representative, nor unbaised. It especially does not count when coming from counselors whose sample population is made up exclusively of their own therapy practice. They (and you) have a skewed sample popluation because of the types of people they are likely to see - in the case of the counselors, people whose relationships are already in danger, hence the reason for a trip to a therapist. People with functioning relationships don't tend to seek counseling, don't tend to make headlines, and don't tend to get noticed by friends and neighbors without intentionally sharing the details of their relationships.

Also, because of the stigma, and in some cases, legal threat, you probably know more poly people in "successful" relationships than you're aware of because a large number of poly people are still in the proverbial closet. There have been countless people who were rendered speechless upon discovering old love letters and other evidence of lives they never knew their parents had, when going through their personal effects after death: same-sex love affairs, mistresses, swinger partners, kinky sex lives, even whole other families. My paternal grandmother was completely unaware of my existence until 30 years after my birth (and to this day, she refuses to believe I'm not a charlatan trying to scam her family out of money and not really related).

If people can keep secrets this big from their spouses, children, and parents, it's ridiculous to think that your friends, neighbors, and acquaintances aren't also keeping secrets from you, let alone the cute waitress who serves you coffee at your favorite restaurant, your hunky UPS guy, the guy sitting next to you on the bus, or your kid's soccer coach, especially if you have ever exhibited the subtle and unconscious signs that you are not accepting of the idea of polyamory and are therefore not someone who is safe to confide in. You have no idea what people are doing in the privacy of their own bedrooms (or kitchens, or dungeons, or play parties) if you aren't there to witness it and you are completely unaware of what you don't know.

I'm also saying that if you hold these standards up to polyamorous relationships and suggest or imply that polyamory doesn't have the appropriate numbers to count as "successful", then you have to hold monogamous relationships up to the same standard. And, as studies have actually shown, people are NOT clamoring for the end of monogamy when shown the high "failure" rate. In fact, when we see headlines like "49% of first marriages end in divorce", the article is not usually calling for an end to monogamy, it tends to be calling for a tightening up of the standards of monogamy so that we can get that failure rate down (and even in some cases, a "redefining" of monogamy so that people can broaden what "counts" as a "successful" monogamous relationship). As for that statistic, keep in mind that it's for "first marriages" - second and third marriages have an even higher failure rate and every relationship prior to the first marriage had a 100% failure rate. Monogamy's track record for longevity is really not very good at all.

Longevity alone is not a good measuring stick for "success" in a relationship, be it polyamory or monogamy. Millions of people are stuck in loveless, even abhorrent, marriages because of pride, of religious edicts, of legal complications, of "family values", of social stigma, of emotional restrictions, and more. If those relationships last for life, should they be counted among the successes? If they were to end, would they be counted among the failures? And how would we know which relationships they are? Relationships are rarely what they appear to people on the outside.

A relationship is successful if it meets the goals set by the participants. For some, longevity may be the only or most important goal, and in that case, simply ending *would* be considered a failure. But for others, the happiness of the participants may trump that. Some may be to raise a family. Some may be for financial incentive. Some may be for companionship.  Some may be a combination of goals.  Personally, since you asked for personal stories, my goals tend to be about intent, rather than longevity. I intend for my relationships to emphasize communication, for the participants to actively contribute to (but not try to be responsible for) each others' happiness, to find compromises and common paths, to support each other in our endeavors including personal growth and discovery, to be compassionate, to learn from my mistakes, to grow as a person through the influences of my partners & metamours, and I intend to be ethical and considerate in my breakups should the relationship no longer be a source of happiness to all the participants.

My relationships almost never end because of polyamory. They end for the same reasons that monogamous relationships do - compatibility. They end because we eventually figured out we are not romantically compatible in some way, just like how most monogamous relationships end. They end when we want different things from our relationship, or when we have different goals, or when we have personality conflicts that just can't be overcome. So many people want to blame polyamory for the ending of a poly relationship even when the polyamory part wasn't the problem, but when a monogamous relationship ends, it's not the fault of monogamy.

A relationship can also be "successful" when it has a successful transition from one form to another, and sometimes that means transitioning from a romantic relationship to a platonic one. As a line in a movie once said, I don't tend to think of breaking up as a relationship ending, I tend to think of it as two friends getting back together.

People change over time and sometimes they just don't change in the same way or at the same rate as the people with whom they are in relationships, and sometimes the relationship cannot remain in the same state when the people have changed in certain ways. That doesn't necessarily indicate a failure of the relationship. It indicates the luxury our society has of demanding such an enormous amount of responsibility from a romantic relationship. Insisting that marriages include love is a relatively recent addition to the structure, and with the almost-equality between the genders regarding income and independence in our society, we can now have the luxury of requiring higher demands of our relationships than ever before in our history, and the luxury of ending a relationship when it doesn't meet all the demands we place on it.

The "failure" rate of relationships is not a sign of degrading family values, as some would like to think. On the contrary, it's a symptom of HIGHER family values, demanding even more from relationships than ever before and not settling for less. Relationships are no longer simply about property and alliances. Now our partners are expected to be our best friends, confidantes, lovers, and co-parents in addition to securing property for our offspring and allying our families. Because of all that monogamous relationships have to live up to, monogamy itself has a very high "failure" rate.

One of the advantages to polyamorous relationships is that they do not need to live up to this high standard of a single person being everything to someone else, much like past relationships did not need to - with family, friends, church, and lovers taking up the slack for emotional intimacy and child-rearing since the spouse was not supposed to fulfill all those roles. Poly relationships have a lot of flexibility and they can look like a lot of different things without being a "failure" or coming up short in comparison to some Happily Ever After relationship that has been pre-charted for us in fairy tales and romantic comedies. A poly relationship can look like whatever it wants to look like, and if it doesn't look like someone else's relationship, or if it ends without one of the partners dying, if the participants think it was successful, then it was and no one else has to agree or approve of it.

If I fall in love with someone who is not compatible with me as a live-in partner, I can enjoy that relationship as it is without ever having to cohabitate. Since monogamous culture has a prescribed path for relationships (first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage), a loving relationship that doesn't have the goal of marriage and cohabitation might seem like a failure. But in polyamory, it doesn't have to be if we are happy with the arrangement.  And if a cohabitation situation is still desired, continuing to enjoy this fulfilling but non-living-together relationship does not prohibit a cohabitation situation with someone else who might be more compatible in that role. Rather than being disappointed at the relationship for not living up to its enormous expectations, I can enjoy the experience for what it *does* provide, which is usually fulfilling in its own right if not constantly being compared to a fairy tale.

This is fundamentally different from "settling", by the way.  "Settling" is "taking what you can get", it's accepting something you are not completely happy with because the alternative, which is to go without, is worse.  I'm talking about liking my roasted chicken because I like roasted chicken, and not being disappointed in my chicken just because it doesn't taste like grilled salmon.  Settling is more like eating a rice cake because you're hungry and don't want to go without *something* but you're on a diet and you'd really rather have a chocolate cake instead, so you munch the crispy rice as a diversion just to shut your stomach up so you won't keep thinking about chocolate cake when you know you can't have it anyway.

If my relationship does not follow the love-marriage-baby path, if we do not cohabitate, if it ends before one of us dies, but we are all happy at the time and we do not regret it when it ends, why should that be considered a failure? And if you're going to hold us to that standard and declare "success" or "failure" on other people's relationships and an entire relationship style, that standard ought to be held up to your own chosen style.

So, I ask you, when do you call monogamy a personal failure and move on? Do you just keep trying? Or redefine and create relationships of a different type?

The Love Doctor Is In

I often have people asking me sex advice. Not all from poly people either, but many non-polys ask me sex advice because, as I have been told by these seekers of sex-truth, my willingness to discuss the topic plus the demands that multi-partnering places on me to be self-critical, honest, explicit, and generally knowledgeable about sex equals someone that they feel comfortable discussing deeply personal and intimate subjects with and trusting that they will get a fact-based answer while simultaneously maintaining discretion. Boy, that was a mouthful of a run-on sentence!

Anyway, I get questions about sex. I get a lot of very similar questions from people in wildly different locations, backgrounds, and outlooks. Which leads me to believe that some of these questions and concerns are common, perhaps even endemic of our society. Of course, I don't have a true, scientific, sample population to make an unbiased judgement, but clearly, lots of different kinds of people have very similar kinds of fears.

This email is so incredibly typical in its content, that I feel I should make my answer public. Apparently, many men are still afraid their penis isn't big enough, and many women are still afraid of sex.

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I have a new girlfriend and she married her high school sweetheart so she's only been with that one other person, and apparently he was "abnormally large." She is a small girl so she says it was always an issue, and that we "fit together" better. She says she enjoys everything with me and we've had a great time together, but in the back of my mind I keep thinking that since she's used to him being "abnormally large" that I just don't measure up... So, I guess my first question is the stupidest guy question there is: Does size matter?

My second question is actually more important- She also said that she doesn't/can't orgasm from intercourse, and due to other issues is not comfortable being touched/rubbed whatever... I'm not even allowed to go down on her. Is there a position or something that works better, or do you have any other suggestions??? She's against getting toys or anything so really it's all on me.

No, size really isn't important all by itself. It really is more important how you use it than how big or small it is, although how big or small it is might affect how you use it.

There are a few women who really are size queens, but for most women, size doesn't matter. Keep in mind that at some point the larger sizes cease to feel comfortable even if it's physically possible to fit it in. Anyway, the vast majority of women really DON'T like them big, and this whole big-dick thing is all in you guys' heads, and coming from other guys, not the girls. So, really, your size doesn't matter except in the inverse - that bigger is not only not always better, but is often much worse.

As for her orgasm, yes, it's totally normal that she can't orgasm during penetration. Many women can't. Most of the nerve endings are on the outside, not the inside, so many women can't orgasm during penetration alone, although many of us enjoy the feeling of being filled even without the orgasm. If a woman does orgasm during penetration, it's often because there was some friction on her clit too. Some women do have G-spot orgasms, but it's actually relatively rare, in spite of the magazine recommendations that all women should or can have them. It's also really uncomfortable to LEARN how to have a G-spot orgasm, because it involves pressure on the bladder, so even if more women are physically able to have a G-spot orgasm, many can't get past that feeling of needing to pee while being penetrated, so many just avoid G-spot stimulation because it's too much work for too small of a chance that it will pay off.

However, the key to good sex and to more orgasms is being comfortable and familiar with your own body. This means that if she wants to have more orgasms, the work is all on HER, not you. She needs to relax and do some exploration. If you can't give her oral sex, you can't use your hands, and you can't use toys, there's nothing else you can do except find positions that don't actively cause pain (and every woman is different for which positions she likes). The clit is really where the attention needs to be paid, and she isn't letting you give it any attention at all (and I say "the clit is where the attention is needed" because I'm assuming you understand that attention should not be paid *exclusively* to the clit while you forget everything else). Being afraid to let you pay her some attention is something SHE needs to get over. She will never have orgasms with the mindset that it's bad to look at, touch, and taste the genital area, even if you do manage to find the G-spot or some other kink or erogenous zone with her. She has a mental block against it because she views sex as something negative. Even if she tells you she enjoys it, she views it as something negative (people can think of something as bad while still enjoying it, like holiday junk food ... let's thank the Catholic church and the like for that).

Without speaking to her directly, I can't get into specifically what's going on with her or how to fix it, but it really is all in her own head. You can try to encourage her to loosen up and relax and experiment more, but that will be a fine line to walk, because too much nudging may make her feel pressured and may trigger her own insecurities about her performance in bed. But, really, there's nothing much you can do because she doesn't want to enjoy sex, for some reason. Whatever she does enjoy, she enjoys it IN SPITE of her issues, and that may even make her feel more guilty or shameful about it, which could actually be causing a spiral effect.

But women just do not get off on penetration alone, with the very rare exception. It's often painful without the extra pleasure hormones being released by stimulation (and that stimulation includes, in part, the foreplay and other activities, not just clit stimulation alone). Those hormones are what provide the lubrication, and what help the vaginal walls to relax and open up, and what activates all those nerve endings to receive the rubbing sensations as pleasurable instead of annoying friction. She is probably extremely embarrassed about her genitals, maybe she thinks they look weird or smell funny and is trying to keep you from finding that out. Maybe she had something actually traumatic happen to her in the past. Maybe she just buys into the idea that girls are supposed to orgasm from penetration and doing anything else means she's defective in some way.

Does she masturbate? You could encourage more of that, even if you don't participate, even if she does it at home, alone. But her masturbation is what will teach her the types of things that work for her and don't work for her and she should use that knowledge to teach her partners how to pleasure her. Different things work for different people and people's tastes will change over time. That's why we're supposed to keep experimenting.

Sometimes women have a hard time orgasming until they actually do. It's almost as if the body has to be taught that something is supposed to feel good, and once you show it that this feels good, it becomes easier to acheive orgasm that same way the next time. So if she starts masturbating & bringing herself to orgasm, it could make it easier for her to orgasm with a partner, especially if she lets him try what she was doing to herself.

The best lovers and the people who enjoy sex the most have a curious and adventurous outlook to sex. They know their own bodies and they're not afraid or ashamed of them. They're willing to try different things and they're willing to share experiences with their partners. In the end, the only changing that can happen will come from her. If she won't let you learn her body, there isn't any magic trick that you can learn, no special pelvis thrust, no perfect angle, that will give her an orgasm.

Really, the thing is that she needs to be willing to explore, because even if you do attempt other positions and specific techniques, if she's embarrassed or traumatized, it won't work because she'll have a mental block.

Keep in mind while you're searching for the perfect orgasm - sex should not be about the finish line. The harder either of you try to maker her orgasm and the more often you fail, the harder it will be for her to do it the next time. If either of you have a "goal" of orgasm, the pressure to perform makes it more difficult to do so. Sex should be about the experience - for both of you.

You ought to try having sex some time where the goal is for *neither* of you to orgasm. Pick different things to try and just see how they feel without the pressure of trying to make each other come, in fact, with strict orders NOT to come. If you keep trying for orgasm and she keeps not having one, that's gonna add to her issues and make her feel like she's failing you, and you'll start to feel like you're not good enough for her and down the spiral goes.

The goal should be exploration, not orgasm. And, possibly even building intimacy. THAT'S what will get her to orgasm, not technique or positions.

Positions that make the angle of penetration more shallow can reduce or eliminate the pain, but to cause pleasure, that's something only she can allow you to do and no magic position will do it if she's not open to it. Reverse cow-girl can sometimes help women who are embarrassed about being on top, because she can't see you looking at her but she still has all the control. Again, using toys or hands to stimulate prior to and during penetration help to relax the vaginal walls to accommodate penetration, but only her willingness to let go will allow her to orgasm.

Also, don't fall into the trap of blaming the victim - if she is willing to explore but still can't orgasm, don't let her think it's all her "fault" for not being open-minded enough. Good sex is created by openness, honesty, curiosity, and self-knowledge, not by technique or positions. First she needs the openness, then she needs the curiosity about her own body and about yours, and she also needs honesty with herself and her partner to go along with that, which will all lead to self-knowledge, and only then will orgasm be reliably achieved. It can happen without all of those elements, but without them, you'll have trouble repeating the event reliably or consistently.

But what you really need to be doing is talking to her about this. You need to express your concern about hurting her, you need to express your willingness to explore and experiment *for her sake*, and you need to ask her to work WITH you to discover what she likes and doesn't like. Ask for feedback before, during, and after sex. Get her to talk to you and get her to make suggestions. This really requires her full participation. Without that, the best you can hope for is to accidentally stumble upon things that cause less pain. To create pleasure, you need to share it, and that means she needs to share with you. She needs to know herself (which is where masturbation comes in), she needs to be honest with herself about what her body likes even if it embarrasses her, she needs to be honest with you and tell you what her body likes, and she will find all that out only if she approaches sex from a standpoint of curiosity and eagerness, not trepidation or hesitation.

You have to talk to her and get her to talk to you. But she won't have anything of value to tell you if she has all these other issues preventing her from exploring her sexuality.