For centuries, the image of a happy relationship involved two people. But over the past decade, non-monogamy has become more mainstream, opening our eyes to different types of partnerships and 'rules' around love and sex.
With that has grown a (much needed, especially for women) understanding of the importance of sexual satisfaction – and now people in open relationships are often seen as more liberated and pleased with their sex lives compared to vanilla monogamy.
But new research shows that monogamous and open relationships have similar levels of happiness – including sexual satisfaction. The paper, from the Journal of Sex Research, found that people in all types of non-monagmous relationships (including polyamory, open relationships, swinging and non-monogam-ish) were as equally satisfied with their sex lives compared with monogamous individuals.
That flips the now-common trait that people who find sex and love outside of their main partnership are more satisfied, adventurous or happy with their bedroom activities. But while the presentation of non-monogamous relationships may be one of wild and pleasing sex, there is still a 'monogamy superiority-myth', write the researchers of the report. Common perceptions 'proport non-monogamous relationships to be less satisfying and generally as being inferior to monogamous relationships,' they say.
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So, as well as looking at sexual satisfaction, they looked at overall relationship happiness – and found no difference between the types of relationship setups.
'Interestingly, these satisfaction levels are equal despite individuals who are in non-monogamous relation-ships facing higher levels of discrimination (and having to consistently navigate disclosure),' say the researchers from the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society.
They added that the ability to have 'a wide variety of needs met (often by different partners),' may help counter the psychological impact of this discrimination. 'Another theme in the research suggests that non-monogamy enables individual growth, autonomy, and development and in turn this growth may lead to an increase in relationship and sexual satisfaction [...] to counteract the effects of stigma,' added researchers.
All that's to say, there's no one 'right' way to do love and sex. You can have a happy and fulfilling relationship with one person or with many – and it's up to you to define what that looks like.
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