We debate these profound matters of sexuality and the wider culture is … well just google “pull your pants up” to find out where it’s at with the new pull your pants up movement.

“But while Swedish society has become more tolerant, there is also an increasing expectation that homosexuals live in monogamous couple relationships.
Anonymous sex in public parks is not something that the general public finds appropriate, and legislation certainly reflects this attitude. This “normalization” of the gay and lesbian life style is deplored by many queer activists, arguing that multiple sexual relations and unorthodox sexual behavior are part of the queer culture.”

Well, that does it. Monogamy for me. Because apparently, non-monogamy is only being done just for the sake of differentiate themselves from the crowd.

For sodomy, I think people just misread nature to one-size fits all. I mean, sodomy is obviously natural if you’re gay.

normal:
regular, safe, average, conforming to expectations, upstanding, familiar, moral, HEALTHY, wholesome, GOOD.

abnormal:
rebellious, FREAKISH, foreign, unpredictable, dangerous, unreliable, dishonest, unhealthy, deformed, BAD

It’s all subjective, of course. Not being normal doesn’t bother me, but being called “abnormal” does, as it implies there’s something wrong.

I think “natural” is good for describing things that happen of their own accord, without human intervention — homosexuality is one of them, after all. But “natural” doesn’t always mean good. Weather is natural, and much of it can maim or kill you. Open heart surgery is unnatural, but I think most people would agree it’s a good thing.

What makes something good or bad isn’t whether it’s natural or even normal, those are simply details that are really irrelevant to the “goodness” of something. What matters is it’s affect, it’s result. Cancer is bad because it kills you(even though it’s natural). It’s normal to feel hurt when betrayed, and normal to have violent thoughts of retribution, but it would be bad to to act on those perfectly normal feelings and thoughts.

…off-topic, i know. i’m sorry.

Homophobes have used their concepts of what a ‘normal’ relationship means to them, to disenfranchise LGBT relationships as ‘unnatural’.

Everybody has, and is entitled to, their own opinion on what a ‘normal’ or an ‘abnormal’ relationship means to them. But to stretch that opinion on what is normal or abnormal, however dominant it may be… to extrapolate it into defining relationships as ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’… I find that quite disenfranchising.

If I were in an inter-racial, cross-generational, non-monogamous relationship, and someone questioned me about whether such a relationship is normal… I’d understand that ‘normal’ differs from person to person and that ‘normal’ in one community may not be ‘normal’ in another… it’s subjective and takes into account different worldviews. I would find such a question less disenfranchising and less offensive than being questioned about whether such a relationship is ‘natural’.

In a world where people use strap-on dildos, I still find it difficult to understand how human beings can be involved in ‘unnatural’ relationships, but much easier to understand that certain types of human relationships can be seen as ‘abnormal’ or ‘atypical’ in different people’s opinions.

That’s just my baggaged opinion.

Some of them do appear to be quite attached to their “primary partner” (for years) and prepared to make certain sacrifices. After all, they got partnered in the first place, when they didn’t have to.

I don’t have a good grasp of all the reasons, in proportion, of why people choose non-monogamy. In fact, McWirter and Mattison suggest that _some_ couples who do make such an agreement end up being monogamous for long periods in practice, anyway.

Without that, it doesn’t make much sense for one to offer a defeat of your perspective (i.e. typical stuff, the sacrifices that you are noting are not the ones that define “depth” and so on..).

But one thing I do believe, is that monogamy is hard, and non-monogamy is easy.

I want to put some pressure on this.

This is not true as a general statement. For some, either choice is not hard. For some monogamists, anything different just ‘never entered their mind’. For some non-monogamists, monogamy is ‘absurd’ from the outset.

Then, after those two groupings, of whatever size, there appears a big gray area.

The somewhat alluring proposition that non-monogamy is like having your cake and eating it too is belied a bit from empirics.

McWhirter and Mattison, for instance, report:

“Although most of the couples [in their study] have some degree of sexual nonexclusivity, they have not reached these arrangements by the same routes, nor has it been easy for them. In fact, more than 85 percent of the couples report that their greatest relationship problems center on outside relationships, sexual and nonsexual.” p. 256

The wonderful world of ‘free love’ is never as ideal as it seems.

Take this hypothetical:

Harvey is the ‘sensitive side’ of the relationship, but has trained himself to accept that his partner wants ‘freedom’ and he doesn’t want to be ‘a possessive’. One day, at the Piggly Wiggly, he comes past Steve, who his partner has been seeing on and off. Enthusiastically, he says “hello” and blurts out, “My husband says you’re fantastic.” Whether he said it the wrong way or whether Steve was just in an ugly mood that day, he quips, “He’s more my husband than yours, these days.” Stunned, Harvey bolts the PW in tears…