Polyamory is a topic I haven’t been exploring in writing much so far, but Bill really wanted to talk to me about it. You can listen to the episode or read it all below.
Bill Simpson: Hi, and welcome to the Men on the Path to Love podcast. Bonus episode: polyamory and ethical nonmonogamy in relationships, with Dr Simon Fokt. I’m Bill, your host. I coach men who want to stop suffering in relationship and who want a deeper sense of love and connection. I coach them how to do it and how to be the best version of themselves and live the life they love. In this bonus episode, I talked with Scholar, Educator, Philosopher, and Writer, Dr Simon Fokt, who has been on the show before. He shares his thoughts and experiences with polyamory and ethical nonmonogamy. We talk about what it is, the pros and cons, the social impact and so much more. Simon, welcome back to Men on the Path to Love.
Simon Fokt: Thank you for having me back, Bill. It’s great to be here again with you.
Bill: Well, the reason why I asked you back is when we talked previously, you touched briefly on open relationships, polyamorous relationship. That’s something that I’ve been wanting to discuss on the podcast for some time, and I appreciate you agreeing to address the topic. First of all, just for our listeners, can you explain what is polyamory?
Simon: Of course. Polyamory broadly comes under the umbrella of ethical non monogamy, which is sometimes abbreviated as ENM. What people mean by this is that, well, you are not being monogamous, so you are not tying yourself exclusively to a single partner. Instead, you’re exploring emotional collections or sexual collections with many people.
Now here’s the important part: you are doing it in an ethical way. Ethical means that, well, first of all, there is no deception involved. You’re not in any way, shape, or form deceiving your partner about what is going on. That you even have other people that you’re with or maybe what are you doing with those other people, or to what extent, what kind of things are okay, what kind of things are not okay. All of this should be negotiated and fully consensual with all the parties involved.
We hear about so many people having those situations where they would have lovers, mistresses, or somebody else. And, you know, they are non-monogamous. They are definitely having multiple relationships or multiple sexual relationships with people at the same time, but these people don’t know about each other. Oh, maybe they know that there’s somebody there, but they think friend rather than a sex partner, for example, and things like this. And that means that those people’s consent is being violated.
They are not treated as Immanuel Kant would have it, as ends in themselves. They are rather treated as means to an end. So, basically, they’re not treated as fully human people who have their autonomy who have the right to decide: are they okay with this? Or are they not okay with this? Obviously, if people don’t know about certain things, they cannot make reasonable decisions: am I comfortable with this? Am I ready for this? Or anything like this.
Ethical non-monogamy is trying to avoid any of that and instead be absolutely open about everything to everyone, so that everyone can autonomously make their own decisions about what they want or do not want to engage with.
Then, there are very different forms of ethical non monogamy. You mentioned polyamory. So, polyamory is the situation in which people will have multiple loving relationships. Rather than just, for example, sexual relationships or close friendships or something like this. And in this situation, people can have more than 1 partner whom they are potentially living with together, potentially, I don’t know, having children with together, but potentially being in a loving relationship but actually not living together or anything like this, and only having somebody who’s, appearing in their life more or less regularly.
There can also be different forms of this sort of relationship. Sometimes people want everything to be exactly equal. Say, for example, there are three people who are in a polyamorous relationship, and they are all treating each other as equally important in this relationship.
But sometimes people prefer to say, like, one of those relationships is primary, and the other ones are secondary and must sometimes give way to the main relationship. It happens because, for example, people in the main relationship have children together. They want to have other relationships as well but they recognize that this kind of core relationship takes priority because they need to take care of the children.
That’s polyamory, but there’s a lot of other types of non-monogamy. Sometimes people are only in an open relationship, which means that they only have one loving, emotionally attached relationship, but they also have sex with other people. It might be they just have one night stands with other people or maybe they have regular ongoing sexual partners. But those are not loving relationships.
Sometimes people just go swinging, which typically means that they don’t have any ongoing relationships. Maybe they sleep with other people, but only do it together at a party or something like this, and never anything else. But what unites all of those options is this part of, well, like I said, ethical non monogamy. You’re not monogamous. But you’re being fully open, consensual, and ethical about it.
Bill: Yeah. And that makes all the difference, I would think, because it takes out that whole deception and being covert and all those things that, could, potentially harm your relationship.
Simon: Absolutely. We’ve got research that shows that people who call themselves monogamous are actually cheating on their partners in astonishing numbers. We know that humans are, well, very bad at being monogamous. Frankly, people who have decided to practice ethical non monogamy kind of, you know, take this into account and say: okay, maybe if we are doing it anyway, might as well do it properly. If you or the listeners are interested, there is an excellent book on this topic called Sex at Dawn.
Bill: Say that title again. Of course. It’s called Sex at Dawn, Sex at Dawn.
Simon: Yes. Exactly. The ‘dawn’ in there is the dawn of humanity. What the authors are exploring is whether humans are kind of naturally monogamous or how did sex look like for prehistoric humans. Obviously, we have very little indication of what it was like because, well, prehistoric people did not leave a history, so we don’t really know. The main hypothesis of the book is that prehistoric humans were more likely to be polygamous than monogamous, and that the main reason why humans have started being monogamous was the invention of agriculture. And the reason is that, before that humans basically didn’t really own property. They would live in nomadic tribes and move from place to place. It would be very often the case that a child in the tribe is like everyone’s child. You know, it takes a village to raise a child.
And so basically what they are arguing is that men did not have this incentive to confirm their paternity. Because it’s not like they were investing any more resources into this child than absolutely everyone else in the tribe anyway.
Whereas what happens with the invention of agriculture is that people start owning property. And once you start owning property, a question arises: who inherits your property?
And this is the point, they argue, in which monogamy as a way of ensuring paternity, has taken primacy. And this is why they think that monogamy has been the most popular way of organizing relationships in human history because, well, humans own and inherit property.
Bill: So it was a whole economic thing.
Simon: It’s a historical economic explanation. And, you know, I’m quoting from the book. I’m not necessarily trying to say in here that they are right. They’re giving some convincing arguments, you and the listeners can have a look and decide yourselves. The reason why I bring it up is because of this context of, well, so many people cheat. Right? And they take it also as this evidence that, well, maybe humans were never really meant to be monogamous in the first place. If it was natural to us to be monogamous, we would find it easy. But we don’t. If we found it easier, then nobody would have any need to cheat in the first place.
Bill: Yeah. And then I would think there’s the Mhmm. The religious part.
Simon: Yeah. Of course. Depending obviously on your views on religion. People see religion as developing from cultural needs of humans. Religion is kind of codifying what humans thought was right. It’s doing it in a spiritual way, but it’s, you know, it’s basically conveying what the humans of the time thought was the right thing to do. And that would be partially also economically motivated.
Bill: Yeah. It’s the right thing to do, quote, unquote, yet it’s really hard. You know, it’s a high bar, I think, for a lot of folks. I have to be transparent here because my work at the health clinic as a mind-body educator and an integrative therapy practitioner, the people that come to me, polyamorous or in open relationships. When they come to me, some of them are traumatized. Some of them had really bad experiences. And I don’t wanna color my opinion or judgment of it because that’s just one side. Tell me first, some of the challenges that can happen because I’ve certainly heard my share. And I wanna hear, you know, the other side of it, the benefit.
Simon: Absolutely. I think that it will not be difficult at all to find people who are in non-monogamous relationships who have experienced problems or various sorts. But, I mean, it will equally not be very difficult to find people in monogamous relationships who have a lot of problems. As far as I know, there is no research that specifically shows that people in non monogamous relationships have more problems, so I don’t think it’s particularly different.
But what is definitely the case, is that non monogamous relationships carry with them a larger risk. When you are deciding to be in this sort of relationship, you are taking into account the fact that the kind of security that you have in a monogamous relationship which comes from just the institution of monogamous relationship, is just not there. Right? It might be that your partner will meet somebody else whom they are more attracted to or who is at this point in life better for them or whatever, and that they would prefer to move on with that person.
And this is a risk that you just need to take. This is something that is very difficult for many people, and this is probably why non monogamy is not a perfect choice for everyone. And I would, by no means, encourage people who do not feel like they can take this sort of risk to do this.
But it also opens the opportunity to create safety and the kind of reassurance that, yes, we’re going to stay together and be together, not through the institutional structure of the relationship but rather through, well, just being securely attached to each other, being, you know, being the person that the other one actually wants to be with and creating this bond, this strong personal bond.
That’s not an institutional bond, but a personal bond which ensures that you are going to stay together. Realistically speaking, even with this sort of bond, non-monogamous relationships tend to have a higher potential for just being a bit more precarious because that’s just how humans work. If you never meet anyone you might also have a relationship with, then you will not do that. The chances of you meeting somebody increase massively when you’re in a non-monogamous relationship.
That’s even if it is an open relationship rather than a polyamorous relationship. So, when you’re only exploring the sexual side of it rather than emotional side. Well, sex is a great way to develop emotions. So, there is always this danger that you will fall in love with the person you were initially only seeing for some bedroom fun. Again, it’s a risk that you’re taking.
The benefit, on the other hand, is just like with so many things in life. It’s a kind of high risk — high return game. If you decide to take lesser risks, you will get something out of it as well. It’s not like some sort of economic exchange type thing, but you know what I’m what I’m getting. You take greater risks because there is something in it that you actually really want.
The obvious thing that you get to have, is a lot more variety. You get to experience some things that you would not be able to experience otherwise. It’s a big driving force for people who have, more of a need for adventure in life, or need for variety. This might be sexual variety, but it also might be a variety of just types of relationships. I’ll give you an example of this.
We use the concept of ‘relationship ladder’: there are certain steps that people take towards a relationship, and it’s kind of predefined how it goes. You go on a 1st date, and then you have your first kiss. And then maybe you you’re going on a holiday together. Or then maybe you have sex, then maybe you decide to move in together, then maybe you get married. And those steps can come in different order or depend on the culture you’re in, maybe you want to wait with sex until after marriage if that’s your thing, but the point is that there’s a ladder of escalation.
And it very often feels to people that unless you get to the next step, there is no point taking the earlier steps. This is why so many guys hate getting friend-zoned. Right? Because it’s like: I was on this ladder, I was almost getting to the next step that I really wanted, but I didn’t and we stopped. And that’s seen as a bad thing.
What I really like about how I started approaching relationships is that you can actually embrace the idea of stopping at a certain level of the ladder and just, like, really enjoying this connection for what it is. And I think this is a great gain that you get from being non-monogamous.
So I’ll give you an example. I have this friend, I think we met at a certain party. We really connected, fancy each other, and decided to go on a date. But at the time, she was just out of another relationship and said that she wasn’t really ready to develop it further, start having sex, or any kind of more involved relationship.
So instead, what we did is just cuddled for a bit, chatted, and that’s it. Since then, this kind of relationship has continued for about a year now. I’ve been having the best conversations with her. I’ve been staying over for the night, we would cuddle, but I never even kissed her.
Now, I feel this really nice connection with a person that I’m kind of physically intimate with because we cuddle a lot. When we’re together, we would embrace and watch a film together or something like that. But there is nothing more. And it’s kind of fantastic. No urge to get to the next step of the ladder. I really like it.
Very often people think about non-monogamy that you just want to have sex with a lot of people. No. Well, I mean, yes. But also, you can embrace so many other types and levels of connection that you don’t normally even really think about. And it opens this new world for you. That’s a great benefit of it.
Bill: And when I hear you say that in the friendship you have with this woman, that’s like true intimacy. It’s not just sex. It’s deeper than that. It’s just a level that, I think we all need for that connection.
Simon: Absolutely. Yeah. It kind of feels like almost skipping the step of not having a sexual relationship and then just having this kind of close intimate friendship.
Bill: Well, and it makes me think of my college days and kind of being conditioned to conquer and, you know, the whole thing was to have sex and then the next day, I’m like, oh god. You know? And I remember one particular incident where I was lying in the bed with this woman, and I’m like Mhmm. I know this doesn’t sound like how I’m supposed to be conditioned, but It’d been nice to have just cuddled with her and just hold each other and just relax and enjoy that intimacy. And I just was too terrified to be that vulnerable. It was like all the expectations. I just had to do what I had to do and then regretted it at the end because that true intimacy would have just been to chill. You know?
Simon: Absolutely. I’ve written about this as well. I think we probably touched on this in the previous episode as well. Men are so often socialized to only ever receive intimacy and validation through sex. Feeling like we are worth something. It’s a great shame because there’s so many other ways in which we can do that. Touch or kind words or spending time together. Sometimes it’s what we would actually prefer, but we’re not socialized to do that because it’s, like you say, it’s too vulnerable or it’s unmanly or something like this.
I think it’s a separate topic because that applies regardless if you’re in a poly or, or open or, or a monogamous relationship. But it’s definitely something that you get to explore much more if you’re in a non-monogamous relationship.
Bill: Talking about societal norms, their challenges with both monogamous or non-monogamous, what do you see as the challenges with non-monogamous relationships?
Simon: It’s kind of like both a curse and a blessing, both a challenge and also something… You know, that’s what challenges are. Challenges make you grow. If life had no challenges, you would never become a better human. And I think that one of the greater challenges of ENM relationships is the fact that, well, you’re not playing from the script. You’re not ensuring the security of your relationship just doing things the way they are ‘meant to be done’, whatever that means.
No. You kind of need to figure it out yourself. What you get out of this, is all this freedom and all this variety. But you need to figure out yourself how you’re going to do that. And if you need to communicate with your partner to ensure that everything is consensual and all that, well, you need to communicate with your partner.
You can’t just say: Hey, I’m doing that today. Bye.
No. There must be some communication involved. Your partner might have thoughts and feelings about this. And likely, you will need to figure out a good compromise. You will need to figure out what works or doesn’t work.
Sometimes it comes down to very simple things, like how am I spending my Saturday? Because my partner wants to do something but my other partner wants to do something else and then you need to kind of figure it out. Then it’s more complex things as well. You know, where are we going in life? Are we wanting to, I don’t know, move to the suburbs and have kids, or do we want to stay in the city and party? Who is going to determine in which direction we are moving if you’re in a polyamorous relationship involving more than two people?
If you’re in an open relationship in which you’re only having sex with other people, your partner might also have thoughts and preferences about this. Your partner might be okay with you doing some things, but some other things feel too intimate, so you might need to only reserve it for the relationship. Or maybe there are specific times or places in which they feel this can happen. Or maybe you can do whatever you want, but if we’re going on holiday, we’re going together. You’re not going on a holiday with someone else.
People are different and have very different ideas of what matters to them. And you need to figure it out. You need to negotiate it, and you need to really communicate about this. Like I say, it’s kind of both a curse and a blessing. It’s a curse because, well, you spend time on this and you can go wrong. You can make mistakes, and that’s just life. But it’s also an opportunity because what makes you better at it. As with so many other skills, how do you get better at things? You just practice the thing. Same way as you exercise your muscles, same way as you exercise your memory, your math skills or whatever else, you also exercise your communication skills by just basically doing it.
And, you know, doing it when it’s challenging and not when it’s easy. When it really takes some effort to figure it out, that’s when you get better at it. Every book about polyamory starts with a reminder that we’re all just human and we make mistakes. We screw up sometimes. Sometimes we assume that the other person knew something that we thought we told them, but they didn’t fully understand or had a different idea, or something like that. And then it doesn’t work out.
Thus, it’s so important that we approach these sorts of things with just kindness and understanding. That we assume that the other person wasn’t evil. They were just a bit stupid or something like this. And if you are the person who has caused sadness or harm to the other, also approach it from the perspective of: oh, I really don’t want to harm my partner. I need to review what I’m doing.
This kind of emotional and mental openness to negotiate everything and really kind of work it out, is a big prerequisite for sexual and relationship openness.
Bill: Open communications is the key here. You said it’s a human experience, whether it’s monogamous or non-monogamous, we’re gonna have the same issues. And, you know, I was thinking in my head, like, are there rules to follow? And then I’m like, no. I guess you make your own rules as long as you all are an agreement or at least can come to some sort of acceptance.
Simon: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that this is also why it’s a bit difficult for some people at the start because, well, it’s much easier to follow rules than to make it up as you go. Different people with different personalities will provide different things. I don’t know if you’re familiar or listeners are familiar with the big five personality traits, but openness to experience is one of those big five personality traits. People who score high on openness to experience are the kind of people who really like going on holiday to a new place every single time or trying a new meal when they go to a restaurant or going to a different kind of event or club or something like that every time. They would also be more likely to be open to reinventing things.
Whereas other people people prefer to keep things as they are because that’s what gives them comfort. And that’s totally fine. There’s no judgment, it’s just different people. They might need something different. And if they do monogamy, they would probably do it slightly differently as well.
Bill: I would think too it takes a lot of courage and and a sense of security to be in that type of relationship. Because all those feelings, you know, jealousy and envy and, you know, insecurities all can play in any kind of relationship, and especially in non-monogamy. Any words to say to a guy out here who wants to express this to his partner or spouse? How to go about talking about it and really expressing the needs, honestly. I mean, I can see you could it would be a big risk. What are your thoughts on that?
Simon: That’s a great question. It’s hard to answer because obviously every relationship is different and every reason why people might want to do this will be different. But it’s definitely very important to address the issue of jealousy, envy or some sort of insecurity.
I would very much recommend to everyone who wants to try an ENM relationship to 1st make sure that the relationship they are already in is secure. Because like I said, you are effectively signing up for a higher risk type situation. Right? You are signing up for removing the institutional security of monogamy from your relationship. So you need to get the security somewhere else.
If you want to be open because you’re actually a bit unhappy with your partner or something like this, that is not a good path because it means that, well, you are removing the little bit of security that you had and you don’t really have something else to rest on.
Bill: It sounds like a way out versus a way into a different type of relationship.
Simon: I think so. So, if, you know, if you if you’re proposing an open relationship as a way to get out of the relationship, then just get out of the relationship. That’s a more honest way to do this.
Bill: I think that could be subconscious, though. You know what I mean?
Simon: Of course. And it’s easy to tell from the outside, but realistically, while you are in the relationship, things are not obvious and you might not really know what you want yourself or where you are, or you might think that things can be fixed. But, actually, maybe they couldn’t.
Bill: I think that’s a good point because you have to know what you want. Right? You can’t go into and say, hey I’m thinking about this. But I would think you would wanna be secure in yourself and what you really want and need versus kind of being iffy about it.
Simon: Absolutely. This comes back to something I think we discussed last time as well, which is that it’s so important to know yourself. It’s just something that you should do regardless. But it’s particularly important in this context. If people want to take this path, I think a good way to do that is to actually start by educating themselves and knowing themselves a little bit more. There are very helpful materials out there that can help you with this. I recently read a fantastic book by Jessica Fern called Polysecure. I highly recommend it to people.
It gives you a breakdown of what to expect from polyamorous or open relationships. It’s called Polysecure because it stresses the need for secure attachment in relationships. And what it argues for, I think, is absolutely fantastic. It argues that first of all, you need to be securely attached to each other.
But before you can do that properly, you first need to be securely attached to yourself.
There’s a pervasive narrative which is really quite stupid yet we are still doing this. Which is this whole narrative of having the other half of your apple or something like this (I wrote more about this here).
Bill: Yeah. You’re my other half. You complete me. Yeah.
Simon: Exactly. This narrative is kind of romantic and all that, but really its undertone is that without you, I am not whole.
Bill: Co dependency.
Simon: Unless you’re with me, something is missing. It seems like it’s a nice thing, but really, it’s just not healthy for people. If you’re in a relationship, you need to feel like this relationship is adding something to your life, is making it better and all that. But if this person is gone, you’ll be fine. You are secure in yourself, first of all. And I think this is very important when embarking on the journey with ethical nonmonogamy. You first ask yourself: are you actually fine just with yourself?
Why? First of all, you are taking a slightly larger risk, so it might just happen. But, also, once you are secure with yourself, it becomes so much easier to start being securely attached to other people as well, because you know a bit better what it is that creates a secure relationship. You don’t need the other person, so you don’t behave in a way that this other person may find cumbersome because you’re being needy or stuff like that.
Once it involves more than one person, you will probably be less driven purely by your emotions or your needs and more able to have those calm conversations in which you negotiate things and come to it from a point of, you know, good communication. So to anyone who is wanting to embark on this journey, I would recommend that they educate themselves.
Once they have done this, a good thing may be to just bring a book to your partner and say hey, you know, I thinking about this. Then you come to it from the perspective of, I’ve been thinking about this, I’ve done some research, and I know what I’m doing. And this is how I will make sure that this is going to be good for us and all this. It’s a very different story than when you come to your partner and go: I’m a little bit unhappy with how we’re doing so how about we sleep with other people?
Bill: Yes, you have a lot better chance doing it the other way.
Simon: Exactly. It’s also very important to acknowledge that certain feelings are there, completely regardless if the authors of Sex at Dawn say that we are naturally non-monogamous, and monogamy is only a cultural construct developed with agriculture. It doesn’t matter. It’s been millennia. We have been cultured to being monogamous. There are millennia of cultural stereotypes and whatever else that continue to shape our thinking about it. So, it’s absolutely no wonder that people would find it difficult to reach beyond monogamy. And I think it’s very important to acknowledge this.
People will have feelings of jealousy. People will feel a little bit insecure about this. I mean, how do you deal with this? Well, you deal with this with love. Frankly. You deal with this by making your partner feel like you are there for them no matter what and that all of those other things are not really threatening what you have. I find it even more beautiful and security promoting to be able to tell your partner: look, I could have all those other people, but I choose you.
Rather than: I’m in a relationship in which I couldn’t have any of those people, so I’ll stick with you.
I have this choice, but every single day, I actively choose to be with you. I think it’s a beautiful thing. When you come to it from this perspective, rather than increase feelings of jealousy, it can actually make the other person feel really loved and secure.
Bill: Yeah. That sounds like a big piece coming from that place of love and compassion and just being kind to each other. Well, Simon, I really appreciate this time today. You’ve helped me clarify a lot of things, and I’m sure my listeners as well. I wish you continued success in all that you were doing. I’ll have, your contact information, the books, all that information in my show notes. Thanks so much, and take good care.
Simon: Fantastic. Thank you again for the invitation, I had a great time. Bye!
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