For gay men, do you prefer open or closed relationships? And why?

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Interesting question! Personally I’ve never been in an open relationship. I feel that for me a relationship is caring about one person and being intimate with them and only them, and I see sex as part of that intimacy. I can’t imagine loving my partner and being OK with them sleeping with other people… But I often wonder if I’m being narrow minded and excluding myself from a relationship model that could be fulfilling for me and my partner both. Curious to see what others think.

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We were closed, then we opened after 8 years of being together. We were in a very settled, mature relationship and knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. And now we can have sex with others, too!

I don't really have a 'preference' cause both phases of the relationship were invaluable in different ways.

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Yes, there's definitely a different approach per person. But the only way to get there is to try stuff!

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Most people (straight, gay, etc.) cannot be monogamous. We need to stop pretending that they are.

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For me, connecting intimately and connecting physically are different. I'm for open relationships. Sex is just an act and asking one person to be your everything is asking too much.

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Same here. I mostly see sex as an urge, like eating/hunger, that needs to be satisfied. You can eat the same thing every single day if you want, but for me that gets boring after a while. Spending time with my SO is more important to me and something I’d mostly only want to share with them.

I wouldn’t mind my partner having sex with other people as long as we’re emotionally exclusive.

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100% monogomy. Not interested in any sort of open or poly relationship.

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Open - The biggest reason is it works for us. Our open relationship is less about hooking up with randos and more about forming FWB with people we trust - quality over quantity. There is the occasional “hookup”, but we communicate to the point other open relationship couples think we are weird; for example whenever we mess around and come back home we talk about the experience of how it went, I find it hot and also love hearing that he enjoyed himself. We have rules of course so that helps a ton.

likeuplifting

Closed

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I’m poly by nature but have generally been in monogamous relationships because it was important to my partners. They were all great relationships but I felt that it was a huge compromise on my part to be monogamous and I doubt I’ll make that compromise again. I would also like to point out that one of my exes wanted monogamy because “he is very jealous” - this is not a defensible reason because jealousy is often toxic and monogamy felt like it was his way of controlling me. My ex husband likes convention for the sake of convention and took a lot of pride in being otherwise heteronormative, which is also not at all, so monogamy for the sake of convention is also not something I, personally, think is defensible either.

All this being said, each individual and every relationship is different and if you are considering opening up your relationship, it’s probably important to have very honest and open conversations about it and perhaps establish ground rules, and try your best to be nonjudgmental.

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Bi man here. Currently in a closed relationship with a man and I think I would like to keep it that way (I know he definitely wants to keep it closed).

I don’t have very much relationship experience but my last relationship was with a woman in college. We were long distance and stayed monogamous for about 6 months. We were both fairly comfortable with the idea of polyamory and ended up trying out an open relationship. After about 2 months of being open and sleeping with a few people, I realized I wasn’t enjoying it and it was not improving our relationship. We ended up breaking up because we realized not being able to be together very much was making us both unhappy.

While I’m not sure open relationships are for me, I do think many people could be happy in one.

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Recently opened up our relationship about 6 months ago and I’ve been enjoying it. We’re both young and found each other when we weren’t “expecting” it. We are deeply committed to each other and figured that we still want to experiment with other man given a mutual understanding that it’s purely physical and not emotional. Now we both get to explore our own sexual desires on our own. It’s been great so far and agree that it’s made us more communicative.

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Haven’t been in a closed relationship since my early 20s and would absolutely never be in one again, in any circumstances.

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Couple of years?

Closed. But I wouldn’t completely rule out an open relationship (with clear boundaries) down the line after trust and mutual understanding is cemented

I just have no idea how folks have the energy for open - I have enough difficulty as a single guy just finding one other person in the first place…

Was there a moment where your partner wanted to open the relationship, but you were not ready yet?

To the person who brought up the tired point that “most people aren’t monotonous by nature” — true. But if we’re going by norms from ancient history, most of us would have died in a war with a rival tribe by our age, so our women folk (or partners) would need to sleep around and find a new father for the kids. Or maybe in a past life you were a rich Sultan with a harem of many, many beautiful sex slaves that you kept well fed, dressed in the finest silk and furs and living in your lavish palace.

All that to say, if you die in a war to protect me or want to keep me comfortable in a giant palace, you can sleep with whomever else you want. I’ll DM you my number. But if you can’t bring all that to the table, you should probably count yourself fortunate to have any one person let you slither up all on her/him.

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