I believe that sex without a relationship is, at best, incomplete, and at worst, self-destructive. I believe that having sex with someone who is not your partner without their knowledge and consent is a sign that there is something wrong in your relationship. I believe it is possible to love more than one person at a time, and to express that love physically.
I know there are couples where there is a big mismatch in libido. I know there are men who get off on having their wives fuck strangers or other women’s husbands while they watch. I have not heard of wives who want to watch their husbands fuck other women.
Why does it seem to work this way? Why can men allow—indeed, encourage—wives to be “hot wives”, but there does not seem to be a corresponding situation where the power relationship is reversed?
I think that, for most people, men and women see relationships pretty much in similar ways. However, when you get out to the tails of the distribution, you find that more men are willing to allow their wives to stray, or to stray themselves. On the other end of the distribution, I think you’ll find more women are adamantly opposed to anything but monogamy compared to men.
In other words, men are slightly more tolerant of polygamous behavior, on average, then women are. Also, men are slightly more likely to engage in polygamous behavior, on average, than women are.
In many divorces, it seems to me, women point to the infidelity of their husbands as the reason the marriage ended. This question asks us, by implication, whether an open acknowledgement—perhaps even an encouragement—of a husband’s desire to fuck other women could help reduce the likelihood of the dissolution of that marriage.
My answer is that it is possible. It represents a change in social mores that would free some couples—and not less importantly, the larger society—from being so contemptuous of infidelity. Women who have “straying” husbands are often shamed when they don’t leave those men. An arrangement like this, should it become more acceptable, would reduce some of that shame. Women might be less likely to be seen as self-loathing victims in such situations.
I would be very surprised, though, if women, in general, ever went for this idea. They almost never see sex as just sex. They believe there is a relationship between their man and the other woman, and that that relationship threatens the marriage. How could anyone agree to an outside relationship that would threaten the marriage? And by definition, all outside sexual liaisons are “relationships,” so they all threaten the marriage.
I don’t think men see it this way so much. First, I think that, on average, they are more likely to believe in “sex for sex’ sake.” Second, I think they can more easily imagine having more than one relationship. Indeed, some societies actually condone polygamy.
Given a legitimized choice to have a second or third relationship (or additional wives), I think men might do so, while still being responsible, financially and emotionally, to the first wife. But, since that’s not cool in Western society, men end up having to divorce the first wife to be allowed to cohabit with the second.
In polygamous societies, many women are unhappy with succeeding wives. Others are tolerant and some are even happy about it. Westerners believe that women in these societies are oppressed, not just because of polygamy, but because of other ways that the culture institutionalizes subordination to men. What the prevailing opinion of women in these societies is about their role is difficult to say with certainty, since no one is allowed to poll them about it.
Is there a healthy way in which men (or women) can have relationships with more than one member of the sex they are attracted to? Well sure. There are successful polyamorous relationships. However, these relationships tend to be marginalized. The people in them are not generally considered to be normal by the vast majority of the population.
And therein, I think, lies the problem. Some men want to engage in behavior that society strongly disapproves of. Very few women want to engage in the same behavior. The behavior does not necessarily have to be the end of society, since there are many societies that do allow it, albeit in a sexist way.
So the behavior that a significant amount of men want to engage in is essentially banned. In this way, it is shoved under the carpet. Men have little choice. If they want to be polygamous and stay with their wife, they have to do it in secret, because no self-respecting wife would allow her husband to do so. Thus, when these men are discovered, they are often cut loose, if not actively shoved overboard.
In another culture, this behavior might be more accepted. But here in the West, it isn’t. So the question asks us if we had more social acceptance of the practice; indeed, if we had the approval of the current wife; would such marriages be healthier? In the unfortunate language of the question—could such approval “help” the relationship?
I don’t think that the individual woman “letting” her husband sleep with someone else would help the marriage. What I think would help is overall societal approval of the practice. It isn’t the woman who might say yes or no that is really in the way. It is everyone else’s belief that this has to be bad and if she stays, she doesn’t respect herself, and there is something really wrong with the marriage.
There may well be something wrong with the marriage—it may even be likely that that is the case. But it also may be that the marriage is healthy and ready for more to be included in it. That is the case where “letting” the man sleep with another woman would be good, but it is also the case where virtually no one in society would publicly acknowledge their acceptance of the practice.
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