Research on Polyamory

Hue

Tribal Elder
Tribal Elder
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Sep 21, 2016
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https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/07/17/polyamory-offers-a-unique-opportunity-to-enjoy-prolonged-passion-and-closeness-in-romantic-relationships/

Interesting study on polyamory vs monogomy.

They completed questionnaires that asked about levels of nurturance (to what extent they felt a strong sense of security, love, warmth, etc) and eroticism (including their felt levels of desire and lust, and sexual excitement) in each relationship, how close they felt to each partner, and also their levels of sexual satisfaction.

As the researchers had predicted, the polyamorists enjoyed more nurturance from their primary than from their secondary, partners, on average, and gave higher eroticism ratings to their secondary relationships. Overall, their eroticism ratings were higher than for the monogamists. More surprisingly, their nurturance ratings for their primary relationship were higher than those reported by the monogamists. These differences held even when the researchers controlled for the differences in relationship length between the two groups.

There were also some differences in sexual satisfaction and closeness. Among the monogamous participants, eroticism and nurturance were both positively associated with sexual satisfaction and closeness. For the polyamorists, nurturance was similarly linked to feelings of closeness in both their relationships, but eroticism was only associated with sexual satisfaction and closeness in their secondary relationships,

Basically, polyamorists engage in more intimate, lovey dovey relationships with their primary partners and more hot, sexual relationships with their secondaries. Monogamists have a tendency to lose some of that fiery lust with their primary partners (on average), whereas polyamorists have other accesses to those feelings - and more intense feelings of it. It's not impossible to get both sexual satisfaction and a feeling of closeness in monogamy with eroticism and nurturance, but polygamy more likely allows people to get different things from different partners.

Glad to see that research is coming out that simply frames polyamory as an option, rather than a fringe practice. Both options can work, but polyamory might be more fun with the right expectations in place (;


Hue
 

JacobPalmer

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
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Jun 24, 2019
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375
Cool post Hue, that was interesting. And also something I'm considering for myself right now. Thanks!
 
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