Survey on gay monogamy

Survey on gay monogamy

Victoria University psychologist Dr Warwick Hosking is conducting research to discover if gay men’s relationships are different from heterosexual ones.

Funded by the university, the study will look at the way gay men’s sexual relationships are negotiated and the different forms they take.
You could assume in the heterosexual world, the model is monogamy. That’s the default setting for relationships between a man and a woman, but in the gay world, there’s not necessarily an established norm of monogamy, Hosking said.
I’m interested to find out the different kind of arrangements men have in their relationships and how they function.
Respondents must be over 18, identify as gay (not bisexual) and have been in a relationship for at least six months.
I’m asking people not only what are the rules of your relationship but how strictly do you stick to them and if they’re broken, what has the impact been on your relationship as well as safe sex practices.
Hosking said research conducted overseas showed a difference in relationships for gay men.
Even though on the heterosexual side of things, marriage is not necessarily seen as a given anymore, I would argue that predominantly monogamy is still seen as the norm … there’s the agreement we won’t get married but we’ll still be exclusive to each other in the relationship.
This is not to say that in straight relationships there aren’t arrangements about openness, because I wouldn’t assume that at all, but I have a suspicion… there is a greater diversity of rules about monogamy or non-monogamy in gay men’s relationships.
Hosking said he believes, whatever the survey’s outcomes, the results will shed light on a little-known area.

It’s not so much that I expect the research to show that men who aren’t in sexually monogamous relationships can’t hang onto their relationships. It’s more about the arrangements that are set up in any particular relationship, whatever they happen to be, and whether men stick to those, he said.

I’m [not] trying to make a social statement about the nature of gay relationships in general, but really to get a better understanding of how they function and what impacts that has for individuals within those relationships.

The VU study measures relationship satisfaction and well-being. Hosking said in the small amount of overseas research into the area, data indicated men in non-monogamous relationships were as committed to their partner emotionally and psychologically as those in monogamous relationships.

Dr Hosking said he expects the survey results to provide a basis for education around the emotional and sexual health specifics of  gay relationships in Australia.

One of the practical implications is education. If it seems that many in non-monogamous relationships are not being honest with each other about their behaviours then that has a clear sexual health implication.

info: To complete the online survey go to, questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=1171670

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19 responses to “Survey on gay monogamy”

  1. hmmm some food for thought. I am in agreeance with having a study done. I think it would be a great study and its excellent to see studies going on in our community (ie gay community). I myself (a male), would like to marry, have commitment ceremony (whatever word you like) my partner and think i should be able to freely.i feel i should do and do have the same rights as straight couples. As far as same gender relationships go,- i am not sure that theres a huge difference. i like to think that the elements and foundations are the same, however i just see gay relationships as a different persective. Straights are vertical, gays are lateral – somthing like that.
    Everyday effort and work in our same gender relationship is no different from staight ones. I think from my experience being in a gay relationship (not just the 1 yr kind), i can say that it works similarly to hetero ones. The only thing i have seen amongst gay men (as oppose to gay woman), is that men appear to have trouble with monogamy. Somewhere in their relationship, it seems there comes a time to try ‘exploration’ (whether its a 3some or open relationship). i dont judge, and maybe its not ‘all’ gay men that want this. i certainly didnt in my 12 yr relationship (with the 1 man). so i had to ask whether i was the odd one that didnt conform. And why is it that girls dont seem to play around as much as men in our community. Gender certainly impacts this study.

  2. Theres too much sleeping around and using one another in the Gay community. Theres nothing wrong with two men in a long term relationship. Though men out there constantly live promiscuously to somehow prove they are homosexual.

  3. I’m intrigued by the notion that this survey, which relies on anonymous, freely given information from self-identiyfying gay men, might be construed as discriminatory or anti-gay.

    One of its stated aims is to assist with evidence-based initiatives in sexual health education, public health messages, counselling and other health and welfare services.

    Sexual health workers believe that those gay couples who break arrangements, or those who don’t make them in the first place, tend to contract STIs and to sero-convert to HIV at a higher rate. If this study identifies ways to improve public health messages to gay couples, I’m all for it.

  4. Merlot, didn’t say there were as many of them, just that they’ve been doing it as long as we have.

  5. The chicken or the egg- the same arguements were used to “prove” that black negros were different & inferior. They suffered government sponsored discrimination, then were studied & looked down apon as to why they were less intelligent & more promiscuous.

  6. What just makes this fume and add fuel to the fire for anti gays anti homosexuals is the lexcion of ‘rights of gays and rights stemming from being married.
    Males of any species are hunters and do go looking for sex in most instances. Exceptions in Nature do exist. Darwin noted this. As a gay guy within a 17 yr relationship we both have had sex with others;not a poblem with us.I was a sex-worker for 3yrs;not a problem. It is sex not love.
    We love each other just so much for who we are and what we have to share with eachother.

    We both maintain as many of our close friends do, we are entitled to equal married rights at Law.
    Ex High Court Judge, Chief Justice Kirby’s greatest speech to a great throng of World Gays was in Sydney at the Gay Olympics.
    His insight on Human Rights is stunning as is his understanding for the need that gays need rights under the Law. If we do not push for it, it will not just be given to us as we are a minority.
    Lobby your Members and Local Councilors for our rights. Push them as we are paying them as well as the hetro married couple next door: who ‘may have a very swinging door’ but they do have rights. It is not magic nor a faith based entity that holds power here, it is humanity.
    Rembember there is a black man sitting in the Oval Office now…things DO CHANGE..for the better.

  7. Mihail and Andrew: – I am comfortable saying the relationship between two men is different to that of man and a woman. Not inferior. Different. That’s okay. It’s not a gay thing, it’s a gender thing.

    Andrew let’s not take refuge in arguments that there are just as many straights in non-monogamous relationships as gay men. It is patently laughable. But look at lesbian relationships…now there you’ll get monogamy.

    Why do we laugh and celebrate these things in gay culture but get all clumsily defensive when discussing relationship recognition…even in our own blog sites??

  8. Merlot the relationship between ‘man & woman A’ isn’t the same as between ‘man & man B’. Nor is the relationship between ‘man & woman A’ and ‘man & woman B’, ‘man & man B’ and ‘man & man C’ or any of the above and ‘man & man & man D’. I’ve personally known a number of heterosexuals who were in open marriages. Newsflash! straights have been having unconventional relationships just as long as we have.

    Why is it that this debate always comes back to A: stereotyping heterosexual relationships with the implication that they’re inherently imbalanced and oppressive, and B: stereotyping gay relationships as if they’re all magically equal and disfunction free.

    And of course there’s the constant implication from certain individuals that same-sex couples who want to get married are wannabe straights or gay Uncle Toms.

    You say you want state recognition and a ceremony to celebrate it? Seems like the only difference between what you want and marriage is the name. If you want it without the name then you should by all means be allowed that but lets not pretend that the simple addition of a word has the magical power to change how a couple treats each other.

  9. Merlot, I disagree profoundly with your assertion that same-sex relationships are necessarily different to opposite-sex relationships. Some people, myself included, believe that there is nothing intrinsically different about same-sex relationships, an thus that they should get completely equal recognition by the law (full marriage rights). Just because I love the same gender doesn’t mean that the dynamics or values of my relationship will be any different than if I loved a different gender.

    Other gay people may have a different take on their relationships, and there are a plethora of de-facto recognition laws to cater for those relationships and their differences. However, it is misleading to simply assert that “We are different”, as if all gay people think like you.

  10. Dr. Hosking and his cronies no doubt will extract hours of meticulous research (for their own straight titillation, yawn yawn!) based on a flawed paradigm that all gay men have relationships unworthy of straight marriage and that they are reckless with their sexual health. The good Dr. already uses loaded terms such as -˜broken,’ -˜rules,’ -˜strictly’ and of course -˜safer sex.’ I might add this research will be a love letter to conservative-religious groups who take this sort of nonsense and twist it around to their advantage portraying queers as a subnormal out -“of-control species. I would suggest that gay men have nothing to do with this as it just fuels homophobia and bias when placed in the wrong hands.

  11. David – Great excuse to be in Headquarters “the same-sex marriage ban made me do it”.

    Give me the same rights, give me recognition of my relationship, give me a ceremony to formally celebrate it, but don’t claim the relationship between two men is the same as between a man and woman.

  12. Black negros freshly released from slavery into freedom to live, work & be “allowed” to pay 1st class taxes, yet not allowed to vote or marry, were also generally found to more promiscuous that the priveliged 1st class citizens. Having the societial & emotional well being of having equal rights & not having government-sponsored extra discrimination written into law against you to make you a second class citizen does make a difference (such as samesex attracted Australians have had with the Lib/Labor 2004 marriage ban that Rudd still proudly supports to continue).
    This is really a flawed study unless it takes this all into account. Then repeat the study when we do have equal rights.
    As for the comments on civil unions- civil unions are dead, they are being replaced with equal marriage across the globe in lightening fast speeds even in the last few weeks.
    Marriage has evolved over the years to allow blacks to marry whites, to allow divorce, and to allow civil marriages at government registy offices. If you go back even further in time longer than 2,000 years ago prior to to birth of the ChristianExtremist movement, you’ll even find samegender marriages were performed in many cultures. Marriage can evolve again (and hey, it has now evolved into equality in many places very quickly, outside the hand-wringing banana republic of Christian-Extremist-Australia).

  13. Interesting point, merlot, and very clearly put. Some of us like the idea of being ‘different’, while some of us equate difference with inequality. I can see both points of view.

  14. The variety of negotiated relationships and understandings fuel my support for relationship recognition NOT involving the marriage.

    We are different – but our rights should be the same. Civil unions achieve that. Leave marriage and its long Church history to heterosexuals.

  15. What a waste of time. I can’t for the life of me see how the results of this survey will have any bearing whatsoever on “education around the emotional and sexual health aspects of gay relationships”. Individual relationships are personal and can’t be quantified.

  16. Has anyone else noticed that the only people interested in the mental and physical health of homosexuals and lesbians are organisations which to not identify as ‘Gay’ organisations.

    However, ‘Gay’ organisations will offer gay men training on how to have a good time at a beat.

    Those organisations which are interested in the physical and mental health of homosexuals and lesbians might find it helpful to investigate why we are not interested in our own physical and mental health.