For the Love of Many: Difference between revisions

You also have '''swinging''', which is the belief that you can be in a committed emotional relationship while still having sex with other people—with, of course, the consent of everyone involved. The root of swinging is the understanding that sex and love are not faces of the same coin, and that one does not have to proceed directly from the other. This is of course patently [[Truth in Television]]; regardless of what the "[[Sex Equals Love]]" trope would have you believe, it's possible to have sex with someone you don't love, and possible to love someone romantically without having sex with them. People who swing simply maintain this idea into their committed relationships: as long as they have permission from their spouse / significant other / etc and are taking all appropriate precautions, they don't see anything wrong with having some casual sex on the side. Obviously, the spouse gets the same rights and priveleges as you do.

 

 

You'll notice that none of these relationships give you the right to just go out and do whatever (or whomever) you want, without the permission or consent of your partners. Generally, that's reserved for being single. All these relationships involve being committed to somebody—sometimes more than one somebody—and if you get together with someone when your partner(s) has told you not to, then you are cheating and that's that. This is where multi-partner relationships get tricky. Say you're in a relationship with Person A and Person B, and you then want to sleep with Person C on the side. Person A is amenable... But Person B says no, and won't budge. (Maybe Person C was mean to them in high school.) It's hard enough to get permission to do anything from ''one'' spouse; imagine having to clear your actions with two! This is one of the arguments people bring up when declaring that multi-partner relationships don't work... and, to be fair, they've got a point. But just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's impossible.