On May 7, 2015, Sex and Psychology published a column on how common consensual non-monogamy is. The figure, the sample, and the exact question stay on that page. This article does not repeat a percentage, and it does not borrow an answer from the later column about how many people have ever had a consensually non-monogamous relationship. Those are different asks. Consensual non-monogamy means people have agreed that sex, romance, or both may involve more than one person. "How common" only means what the 2015 column measured. If you do not have that page open, you do not know which meaning you are using.
Keep this question separate
- The May 7, 2015 column is its own article about how common consensual non-monogamy is. The rate stays there.
- Do not merge it with the May 30, 2016 column about who has ever had such a relationship.
- Do not invent a percentage when you cannot point at the page you mean.
- A common pattern in a study is not a common pattern in every dungeon, club, or marriage.
- Commonness is not consent, and it is not permission to skip an ask.
Why two columns cannot share one number
Writers often use "how common" as a loose phrase. Researchers cannot. One study may ask what people are doing now. Another may ask what they have ever done. Another may ask what they want, or what they would be willing to try, or what word they use for themselves. Each wording produces a different kind of answer. Sex and Psychology's May 7, 2015 column takes up how common consensual non-monogamy is. The May 30, 2016 column takes up how many people have ever had a consensually non-monogamous relationship. If you remember a single striking figure, you still have to check which question it answered.
Merging them feels efficient and makes you wrong in a way that is hard to unwind. You might tell a partner that "a lot of people do this" when the page in your head was about lifetime experience, or the reverse. You might prepare a workshop slide that cites one date and a result from the other date. The audience cannot see the swap. You can prevent it with a simple habit. One claim, one date, one page. If you are speaking about the 2015 column, say May 7, 2015, and send people there for the figure. If you are speaking about lifetime experience, close this article and open the other one. Do not build a hybrid.
What this page will not pretend to know
This page will not tell you the percentage. It will not tell you whether the 2015 column counted current relationships, identities, behaviors, or some other definition. Those details are the column's, and they matter. Guessing the definition is how people "correct" a study into the study they wish they had read. If a detail changes your decision, you need the source, not a paraphrase from an events site.
You also should not import outside numbers you half remember from a book, a class, or a different year. Consensual non-monogamy research did not freeze in 2015. Later work can ask better questions or different ones. Later work does not edit the 2015 column by osmosis. When you talk about that column, you are talking about that column. When you talk about a newer paper, name the newer paper. Stacking sources without names is not being well read. It is hiding the trail.
Common in a dataset is not common in the room
Even a solid answer to "how common" describes the people who were reached by that project. A kink event is not that project. Ticket buyers are not a random slice of a country. A leather weekend, a swing-friendly hotel takeover, and a quiet munch draw different crowds. Some guests are monogamous and kinky. Some are non-monogamous and not there to play. Some are curious and have no agreement yet. A prevalence figure cannot sort them at the coat check.
Hosts should resist the urge to put a statistic on a flyer. "Studies show this is common" is a weak welcome and a sloppy citation. A better welcome says adults of many relationship styles are expected to follow the same consent rules. That sentence does not rise or fall with a 2015 result. It is a house rule. If you want educational context on a resource table, print the link to the May 7, 2015 column and the link to the separate lifetime column, with the dates visible, and do not type a number you might mix up at midnight.
Do not aim commonness at a partner
People use "it's common" as a soft push. The push says a closed preference is outdated because a column found the practice to be widespread, or found it not to be. Both uses fail for the same reason. Your partner is not obligated to match a frequency. If they want monogamy, the commonness of other people's agreements is trivia. If they want non-monogamy, a low or high rate in a study does not make their request silly or urgent. Frequency is not a moral argument.
Say the personal thing instead. You want to stay closed. You want to talk about opening. You are scared. You are curious and not ready. Those sentences can be answered. "The 2015 column says this is common, so we should try it" cannot be answered fairly, because it drags a study into a job it did not accept. If you have not checked the page this month, you may also be misstating the study. That should embarrass you more than a simple "I want."
Interest, identity, and behavior stay apart
A later column, dated June 29, 2016, discusses American interest in consensual non-monogamy and describes that interest as rising. Interest is not the 2015 commonness question. Wanting something, doing something, and having ever done something are three different measurements. This article will not summarize the rise. It will only warn you not to staple the interest piece to the 2015 piece and call the result "how common it is." A person can be interested and monogamous. A person can be non-monogamous and tired of talking about trends.
Identity adds another split. Some people do non-monogamous things under agreements and never use a community label. Some people use a label during a season when they are not dating. If you need to know how the 2015 column handled words like that, read the column. Do not ask this page to settle a definition the source already had to settle in its own way. Sloppy definitions are how two honest people fight about a number neither of them has in front of them.
What to do at the event anyway
Assume nothing about the couple, the solo guest, or the presenter. Ask before you flirt if the setting calls for it, and ask before you touch in every setting. A play party yes is specific. Read consent at an orgy or play party if you are about to treat a theme night as a group arrangement. Relationship commonness does not appear in that guidance because it does not change the guidance.
If your own agreement is unclear, do not use a statistic as a delay tactic. Unclear agreements are a reason to stay out of play, not a reason to give a speech about prevalence. Go back to the hotel room or the group chat and finish the sentence you skipped. Who may do what, with whom, and what is off the table. If you need help finding people who already want non-monogamy, use how to find a non-monogamous partner. Do not hunt for converts inside a monogamous relationship by citing how common the alternative is.
Jealousy and myths deserve their own reading, still without a transplanted percentage. Polyamory and jealousy and polyamory myths are practical. They will not tell you whether the 2015 column and the 2016 column agree, because agreement is the wrong hope. The columns can both be worth reading while answering different questions. Let them.
A small citation habit
If you mention this research out loud, use one template. "On May 7, 2015, Sex and Psychology wrote about how common consensual non-monogamy is. I am not going to quote the figure from memory. It is on their page, and it is not the same article as their May 30, 2016 piece on who has ever had this kind of relationship." You will sound less slick than the person who blurts a percentage. You will be harder to catch in a mash-up, because you refused the mash-up.
Students, presenters, and group moderators should be stricter than party conversation. Put the URL on the handout. Put the date in the sentence. If a slide has a number, the number must be copied from the matching page in the same sitting, then checked by a second person. This events article is not that source. If your slide cites us for a rate, the slide is wrong.
Common enough to respect, not enough to assume
If you are comparing notes with a friend who read only one of the columns, slow the conversation down. Ask which date they mean before you agree with their summary. A nod is how merged questions spread. You can say you will not discuss a rate you have not opened this week. That refusal is not anti-intellectual. It is how you keep May 7, 2015 from being rewritten by a different headline you half remember. Friends can send links. They do not need to pass numbers across a loud room.
You do not need a percentage to behave well. Consensual non-monogamy is a real agreement style that belongs in adult education without being turned into a quota. Monogamy is also a real agreement style and does not need to be defended against a trend line. The May 7, 2015 column can inform your sense of scale if you read it. It cannot choose your relationship, stock your event, or merge with a different year's question. Ask the people in front of you what they practice now. Then believe the answer they give you, not the answer a blended memory prefers.