GREY MATTERS: Embracing Sexual Freedoms
Image: Jhon Macias / Pexels
In this month’s Grey Matters column, Peter Benn discusses the nuances of sexual freedoms in the era of same-sex marriage.
Same-sex divorce is now happening. And what I hear is that it can often be about one partner desiring or having sex beyond the relationship, and that’s a deal-breaker to the other partner.
We older gay men long ago established our own rules and lived ‘open’ 20-, 30-, 40-year-long relationships without legal ties. What’s changed about open-mindedness?
I think it’s the word ‘marriage’, with all its ingrained expectations and societal beliefs about ownership, control, fidelity and ego. Same-sex marriage partners seem to have a more rigid, traditional marriage approach to staying together, or not. It’s strongly black and white. That to me has overtones of straight marriage expectations rather than the ‘freedoms of association’ that we older gay men pioneered.
In the polyamorous world, knowing that your primary loved one is openly enjoying sex and intimate friendship with others as well as with yourself, brings all parties happiness.
It’s referred to as compersion — the opposite of jealousy. It’s the belief that the more we let loved ones fly free, the more love there is in the primary relationship.
Our ‘open’ male/male relationships were partnerships without the wedding vows, and we consequently stayed together for all the practical, non-sexual reasons of love, compatibility, financial entanglement, shared dogs and friendship. Embracing sexual freedom for both partners became the oil that kept it all ticking over seamlessly.
In the embracing of marriage equality, did we lose that previously widely accepted freedom, making both men happy, free of restrictive legalities, free to move on if incompatible, free to set up a life that suited them both?
Now, it seems that without conversation and open-mindedness, divorce is inevitable, and all because of one’s additional sexual needs.
Our generation proved that male relationships, where sex outside the partnership is fully embraced and celebrated by both parties, do work. Perhaps for today’s disgruntled couples, it’s time to open the heart and talk!
