Recently a friend called me in a crisis. “He wants to sleep with other people,” she said. “Does that mean he doesn’t find me hot anymore?” Now what you must first know about this friend is that she’s really very attractive. Thus this proposition from her also very sexy partner of six years came as a surprise ambush. And the first thing she felt? A threat to her hotness.
I’ve been in a relationship for nine years, married for one. My relationship has been monogam-ish the whole time and officially open for three years. As a historically not-that-hot person and someone with historical(ish) jealousy issues arising from insecurity about the way I look, it didn’t seem likely that I would end up in a relationship as comfortably open as I have. Before we were open, I was jealous—unhealthily so, I’d say. If my partner checked someone out on the street while I was there, I would feel a rising lump in my throat and wonder why on earth I wasn’t enough to satisfy the entirety of his desires. And then 10 steps later, once the jealous surge subsided, I would check someone out too.
“Do you want to sleep with other people?” I asked my friend.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” she replied.
For me, this was step one in understanding how my partner could possibly want to sleep with other people—because, when I was really honest with myself, I did too. Monogamy is a beautiful thing if you can make it work for you, but it often involves an annexation of each partner’s desire. Sure, there are many people entirely satisfied with this annexation, but I would argue it’s truly impossible to genuinely desire only one person, with sustained fervor, forever. We’ve duped ourselves into thinking that it’s not only possible to want just one person forever but a necessity for a healthy, committed relationship.
Even if the sex is consistently amazing in a monogamous relationship, it’s only human to want to make out with your barista, to masturbate over your partner’s best friend’s brother, to dream of going gay, just for one night. The difference between monogamy and openness isn’t that the desire is raging in one and absent in the other. It’s about how we process that desire. Because a big part of having a successful monogamous relationship is acknowledging that you, and your partner, have desires that aren’t just about each other.
In an open marriage this acknowledgment goes one step further, into action. But the beliefs remain roughly the same. In an open marriage, I have to believe that while my partner is out sleeping with someone else, it’s me he wants to come home to. That while I am having sex with someone else that blows the thermometer because it’s so hot, I return to my partner because that’s what I want. The two things at play here—the sex I’m having and the life I’ve built—are different, enriching things. Extend this into polyamory, and the thinking is similar: Each state, each relationship, brings something different.
Indeed within each setup—monogamous or open—a certain amount of complex mental gymnastics must be performed. And when it comes to feeling like the most desirable person in your partner’s eyes always…well, there’s a handstand or two needed there too. Because the brutal truth is that at moments in your life together, you won’t always be the hottest person to your partner. When I told my friend this, she couldn’t quite believe it.
But what if that was okay? What if, for an hour, an afternoon, the length of a date, my desires were focused on someone else too? My husband and I have a more nuanced and changeable understanding of our desire for each other because of our desire for others. I understand that he needs to feel desired in ways I don’t or can’t desire him and vice versa. He needs to desire too. And so do I. And what often happens is that different or external desire actually bleeds into our relationship and sex life. A little jealousy makes me work harder, a little him having sex with someone else makes me want to remind him how good I am in bed. A little desire goes a very long way.
What’s more important than hotness, I told my friend, is a commitment to freedom, a respect for sex and how we want to have it, and an ability to communicate fairly. And that is the hottest thing possible.