On February 28, 2018, Sex and Psychology posted a video asking how monogamous and consensually non-monogamous relationships compare. The video and any numbers in it stay on that page. This article will not invent a winner. A comparison is useful only if you know which practices were compared and which people were willing to answer. Your household is not required to match the average of either group.
Compare practices, not teams
- Monogamy and consensual non-monogamy are agreements about other partners. They are not personality types.
- A video comparison is not a prescription. Do not open or close a relationship to match a result.
- Honesty, time, barriers, and the freedom to leave matter in both structures.
- "Consensual" is doing the work in the phrase. Secret other partners are not the non-monogamous group in that research.
- A partner who wants the other structure can ask. They cannot cite a comparison as a duty.
What a fair comparison would have to hold still
People talk about CNM versus monogamy as a single contest. It is not a single contest. Consensual non-monogamy includes swinging, open relationships, polyamory, and arrangements that use none of those names. Monogamy includes happy exclusivity, miserable exclusivity, and exclusivity that is only a word because someone is cheating. If a study does not separate those, a single comparison will blur them. The February 2018 video is a commentary on research, not a new census you can quote from memory. If you did not watch it, do not paraphrase it. Send people to the page.
Even a careful study compares people who already selected themselves into a structure. That is not the same as assigning a structure and watching what happens. Selection means the people who hate a structure often leave it before the survey, or never enter it. The ones who remain can look more satisfied because the ones who suffered exited. That pattern can flatter either side, depending on who leaves. Do not treat a remaining group's self-report as proof that the structure would satisfy the person in your kitchen who has already said no.
Questions that compare your actual life
Ask the same questions of whatever agreement you have. Who else, if anyone, is allowed to be a sexual partner? A romantic partner? Who must be told, and when? What happens to housing, money, and children if the agreement ends? What barriers do you use, and what lie would end the sexual relationship immediately? Can either person leave without losing a job, a visa, or a place to sleep? Those questions do not require a literature review. They require a quiet hour. Write the answers. If you and a partner wrote different answers, you do not have an agreement yet. You have two hopes.
Monogamy's answers are allowed to be short. "No other sexual partners. If that changes, we talk before anyone acts. Either of us can leave." That is a complete structure. It does not become immature because a video exists about other structures. Non-monogamy's answers are allowed to be strict. "Other partners are allowed, overnight stays are not, and I will tell you before a second date." Strict is not a secret return to monogamy. It is a boundary. The person who wants fewer limits can say so. They cannot call your boundary a failure to be evolved. Biology slogans are already addressed in the article on wiring claims.
Where comparisons get used as weapons
The common weapon is a selective quote. A monogamous partner hears that non-monogamy is associated with some benefit and is told they are depriving the household. A non-monogamous partner hears a criticism of jealousy or of STI risk and is told their whole life is reckless. Risk is real and should be discussed with current information from a clinician, not with a taunt. Benefits, if a study found them, belong to that sample. Neither speech is a comparison. Both are pressure. If the pressure is tied to money, isolation, or sex you cannot refuse, use the abuse article. In the United States the hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
Jealousy is not a score in this contest. Monogamous people feel it when exclusivity is threatened. Non-monogamous people feel it when agreements are sloppy or when they are surprised. Handling it is practical and is described in the jealousy article. A structure that forbids the feeling will collect liars. A structure that allows the feeling and forbids punishment for naming it can be lived in.
Events, research, and your next month
A kink event is a poor place to decide a relationship structure for the first time. The room is full of sexual attention, alcohol is often nearby, and a new acquaintance is not your comparison group. If you are curious, say you are curious and take the conversation home, sober, on another day. The sequence for finding a willing partner is in how to find a partner who wants non-monogamy. Do not use the party as the disclosure you were afraid to make at dinner.
Give any change a review date. Thirty or sixty days. At the review, ask whether the agreement you wrote is the agreement you kept. If it is, you may continue. If it is not, stop adding people and repair the lie or end the relationship. A comparison video will still be online either way. It will not be in the room. The other adult will be. Their report of the month outranks the video.
A month-long comparison you can actually finish
Pick the structure you claim you already have. For thirty days, write four lines each week. What you promised. What you did. What the other person says you did. What you will change next week. At day thirty, read it. If the lines match, you have an agreement, whether or not it resembles a video. If the lines do not match, you have a conflict that a comparison study cannot referee. Choose one repair: a disclosure deadline, a calendar limit, a return to exclusivity, or a breakup. Do not choose "watch another video."
Include the unglamorous lines. Sleep, dishes, sick days, and who cancels work. Relationships fail those tests under every name. A consensually non-monogamous household that dumps all the logistics on one person is not winning a comparison. A monogamous household that does the same is not morally ahead. The comparison that matters is whether both adults can refuse a task and refuse a sexual act without punishment. If only one of those refusals is safe, the structure is incomplete.
When you talk to friends about the video, talk about your four lines, not about their character. Friends will take sides. Ask them to ask you whether you told the truth before you acted. If they will not ask that, they are fans of a team. You need a witness to the promise, not a fan. Keep the video link in a bookmark if you want it. Do not keep it in the argument.
Sex, health, and the comparison you owe a clinician instead
Relationship structure changes exposure. That is a health fact, not a moral score. If you add partners, you add a testing and barrier conversation before fluids are shared. If you stay exclusive, you still owe the truth about any contact that already happened. This page will not rank structures by infection risk and will not interpret a lab result. A clinician can. Bring them the actual number of partners and the actual barriers, not a video summary. Lying to a clinician because you want the monogamous box checked is the same lie as lying to a partner.
Money and housing belong in the comparison too. Who can afford a date, a hotel, a therapist, or a move-out. An agreement that looks equal on a slide can be unequal on a lease. Name the lease. If one person cannot leave without becoming homeless, their yes to a structure is under pressure. Pressure is not the consensual group the video was about. Do not call it communication. Call it a housing problem and deal with the housing, or do not change the sexual agreement until leaving is possible.
At the end of the month, tell one trusted adult what you decided, if it is safe to tell them. Secrecy about the structure is sometimes privacy. Secrecy about a broken promise is usually the broken promise continuing. Pick which one you are in. Then stop consuming comparisons until the next review date. More videos will not add information you do not already have from the four lines on the page.
If you and a partner still disagree after the month, stop looking for a study that awards the disagreement to one of you. The disagreement is the information. You can keep monogamy, keep non-monogamy, or separate. You cannot keep both people's incompatible promises and call the result a comparison. Write the ending down so nobody has to infer it from a mood. Then leave the video alone.
If friends, a podcast, or a presenter offer you a winner between monogamy and non-monogamy, ask them which behavior they think you should start or stop this week. If they cannot name a behavior, they do not have advice. They have a side. You can thank them and decline the side. The agreement you can keep is still the only comparison that will show up in your house on an ordinary Tuesday, when nobody is filming a video and somebody still has to tell the truth before they act.