On November 29, 2017, Sex and Psychology asked who is most likely to have a consensually non-monogamous relationship. The answer in that piece, including any groups it highlights, stays on that page with the sample and the method. This article will not rebuild the table. A likelihood is a statement about groups in a study. It is not a mark you can see on a person, and it is not an assignment you have to accept because you share a demographic with the group the headline mentioned.
Likelihood is not identity
- Being "more likely" in a sample does not mean you want this, and being "less likely" does not mean you are incapable of it.
- Consensual non-monogamy is an umbrella. Swinging, open relationships, and polyamory are not one likelihood.
- Cheating is not in the consensual group. Do not use the article to rename an affair.
- Ask the person. Believe an answer that disagrees with the average.
- A partner cannot quote a demographic average as a reason you should agree.
How to read a "most likely" headline
Studies of who has tried consensual non-monogamy usually find the people who will answer a survey and who recognize the term. That misses people who have the arrangement and call it something else, and it includes people who tried once and did not continue. "Has had" and "wants" and "is good at" are different questions. The November 2017 piece is about likelihood of the relationship form it defined. Do not slide the finding over to desire, to skill, or to a kink identity. Other headlines on this site answer other questions, including a 2021 piece about single adults who wanted to try polyamory. Keep them in separate boxes. The desire piece is wanting to try polyamory is not a relationship.
If the 2017 discussion says a particular age, gender, sexual orientation, or relationship history showed up more often, that sentence belongs to that method. Repeat it only with the limit, or do not repeat it. A reader who drops the limit will walk into a party and guess. Guessing is the failure this page is for. The practical substitute is a question: "Do you have agreements that allow other partners, and do those people know about me?"
What you should ask instead of guessing
Ask what is allowed, not what they are statistically expected to allow. Sexual partners, romantic partners, overnights, disclosure, barriers, and what happens if someone wants to stop. Ask whether they are married and whether the spouse knows. Ask whether you would be a full partner or a trial. The scripts for that conversation are in how to find a partner who wants non-monogamy. None of them require you to know which demographic was most likely in 2017.
If you are answering, do not hide behind the average. "People with my job do not do this" is a closet, not a finding. If you want the structure, say so. If you do not, say so. A study cannot out you, and it cannot keep you in. Your sentence can. Say it before sex, before a shared lease, and before you meet someone's children. Children are not part of the sexual network. Keep them out of kink events entirely.
Events and the imaginary typical guest
Kink weekends are not a random sample of the people in the 2017 article, and they are not free of monogamy. A leather contest, a rope class, and a hotel takeover will include exclusive couples, swingers, polyamorous networks, and single people who want one partner someday. Staff should not advertise "a CNM crowd" unless the event is actually restricted to that agreement and the listing says so. Guests should not assume the person who tied them is available for a second relationship at breakfast. A scene is a scene. The relationship question is separate and is easy to postpone until everyone has clothes on and a way to leave.
If someone uses the likelihood claim on you, ask them to restate the request without the study. "I want to date other people. Will you agree?" is a request. "Your group usually says yes" is a shove. You can refuse the shove without writing a rebuttal. If the shove continues, or if it comes with threats, isolation, or control of money, the pattern is in the abuse article. The National Domestic Violence Hotline in the United States is 1-800-799-7233. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
Keep the finding small enough to carry
The finding you can carry without the table is this: some adults have consensual agreements that allow more than one partner, the proportion is not zero and not everyone, and the proportion does not select your date. If you want a number, read the 2017 page and quote it with the sample. If you want a partner, tell the truth about your own agreement and let the wrong people leave. Likelihood is a property of a dataset. Consent is a property of a conversation. Only the conversation can put another person in your life.
Review your own answer once a year. People change. A likelihood frozen in 2017 does not describe your 2026 calendar. If you promised monogamy, that promise stands until you change it in words, before you act. If you promised disclosure, disclosure stands on the days the date went well, not only on the days it was easy to confess. The study will not check. The other person will.
If the likely group is you, and if it is not
Suppose the 2017 piece says your demographic shows up often. That is not a coming-out order. You can be in the likely group and want exclusivity. Say the exclusivity out loud so people stop recruiting you with statistics. Suppose the piece says your demographic shows up rarely. That is not a ban. You can want consensual non-monogamy and be the uncommon case. Say what you want, and expect some people to be surprised. Surprise is not a reason to hide the agreement until after sex.
Parents, disabled adults, and people who do not live in a scene-heavy city get told the structure is for someone else. The telling is usually about logistics, and logistics are real: childcare, access, safety, money, a small town where disclosure costs a job. Solve the logistics or decline the structure. Do not solve them by pretending a likelihood table proved you are unfit. Do not solve them by bringing a minor into an adult sexual space. The age rule does not bend because the dataset was thin.
If you publish, teach, or post about "who does this," include the sentence that prevents the abuse of your own post. Group rates do not choose a partner. Then include the sample limit or do not post the rate. The November 2017 page already has a method. Yours can point there. It should not grow extra numbers in the retelling.
What "has had a relationship" leaves out
A person can have had a consensually non-monogamous relationship for six weeks in college and be monogamous for twenty years after. A person can have wanted it for twenty years and never found a willing partner. The likelihood headline, whatever groups it names, collapses those histories unless the study carefully separated them. Do not. When you talk about yourself, use a tense. "I tried this once." "I do this now." "I want to try." "I will not do this." Those four sentences are more accurate than any bracket a survey built.
Partners deserve the tense before they meet your friends. A friend who introduces you as polyamorous because you were polyamorous in 2019 is outing an old fact as a current one. Correct it. A date who introduces you as monogamous because they hope you will become exclusive is rewriting you. Correct that too. The correction is not a debate about the 2017 sample. It is a sentence about the present. Say the sentence in the room where the error was spoken, if it is safe, and say it again in private if the room is not.
If you are building a class or a club around the likely group, you will accidentally screen out everyone the study undercounted. Post a wider welcome and a clear conduct rule. The conduct rule is disclosure and a no that works. The welcome is that likelihood is not a door code. People who cannot follow the conduct rule leave, regardless of how likely their demographic was. That is a fairer filter than the one in the headline.
Carry one caution into every retelling. A higher likelihood is not a yes, and a lower likelihood is not a no. The yes and the no happen in a conversation with a person who can walk away. If your sentence does not leave them that exit, it is not a finding and it is not a flirt. It is pressure. Delete it and ask the plain question again.
Do not update your personality because a headline aged into a meme. The 2017 question was about likelihood in a study, not about your worth as a partner. A good partner in any structure tells the truth, keeps the exits open, and does not spend shared money in secret. Those traits do not cluster in the group a paper called most likely. Practice them on purpose. If you will not, no demographic excuse will make the people around you safe. Drop the excuse before you ask anyone else to trust you with a relationship that depends on it. Say what you do now, in the present tense, and leave the old headline in 2017.