Love Without Limits
Couple Privilege and the Ecology of Intimate Relationships
What happens when one form of relationship squashes diversity?
It's not that there is anything wrong with people coupling up, for however long they desire it, either monogamously or in some type of consensual non-monogamy. It's just that when being in a couple is valued above the true needs and desires of everyone impacted by this relationship, there is a heavy price to pay. And when the couple relationship is seen as the only important or valuable relationship, the larger web of relationships needed for sustainability begins to erode.
With same-sex marriage becoming increasingly recognized as a legitimate and government sanctioned option, and with the mass media increasingly coming out in favor of polyamory, it might appear that our cultural obsession with coupling is breaking down. In reality, I see both of these shifts primarily as last ditch efforts to preserve the primacy of the couple model by attaching a few bells and whistles.
Recently, I’m seeing more and more people discussing couple privilege. This is how one blogger defines couple privilege: “The presumption that socially sanctioned pair-bond relationships involving only two people (such as marriage, long-term boyfriend/girlfriend, or other forms of conventional intimate/life partnerships) are inherently more important, “real” and valid than other types of intimate, romantic or sexual relationships. Such primary couples (or partnerships that are clearly riding society’s standard relationship escalator toward that goal) are widely presumed — even within many nonmonogamous communities — to warrant more recognition and support than other types of intimate relationships.” http://solopoly.net/2013/02/05/couple-privilege-having-it-doesnt-necessarily-make-you-an-asshole-but-it-can/
If you have spent most of your life in and around couples, and have internalized the expectations of the culture that people should be coupled, you may be completely unaware of couple privilege, just as males are often unaware of the very real impacts of sexism and whites are often unaware of the more subtle dimensions of racism. However, you have only to turn your attention to the pervasive assumptions of the culture that coupled is better and that if you are not coupled there is something wrong with you, to notice how this belief influences us all.
What I want to address here, is not so much whether couple privilege exists, but how and why couple privilege negatively impacts individuals, whether or not they are coupled up, whether or not they are polyamorous, and whether or not they are happy with the choices they (or their family members and friends) have made.
One negative impact of couple privilege is that our culture’s insistence on bonded dyads, aka married couples, has damaged our social ecology. That is, by supporting the couple with social and legal privileges, including social status, marital and domestic partnership benefits, religious sanctions, and cradle to grave conditioning, we have discouraged other forms of relationship and other lifestyles. Not everyone is suited to dyadic partnership, and not everyone has access to a desirable dyadic partner, whether gay or straight, monogamous or non-monogamous. Recognizing same sex marriage supports diversity in one dimension, while undermining it in another. Really what society is saying is that the gender of the partners is less important than whether they are pair bonded.
As I discussed in my book, Polyamory in the 21st Century, discouraging relationship forms other than coupling, is analogous to mono-cropping in agriculture. Healthy ecosystems are characterized by a diversity of habitats and species which interact in a multitude of ways which may not be obvious to the casual observer. When factory farms plant thousands of acres with just one crop, it may be profitable in the short term, but in the long term it’s disastrous for the land and for the local ecosystem, as well as economically. Dependence on petroleum based fertilizers and toxic pesticides create an addictive cycle. Government subsidies become more lucrative than the fruits of the land and political pressure becomes essential for the continued survival of the corporate farm. In the end, it’s so expensive and difficult to return the land to it’s natural, fertile condition that it’s often considered impossible.
Many people, even those who are drawn to open relationship, are no longer able to conceive of relationships outside of the primary couple paradigm. And those who desire to be in an open couple or a triad are often faced with the issue of secondary partners who feel wounded and resentful about their second class status outside of the recognized couple, even if they have no desire to take the place of one of the primary partners.
The reality is that polyamory can take many forms. Some of those forms, such as the “intimate network” can accommodate a fluid combination of singles, couples, and moresomes in a circle of sexualoving friends. For examples of what this looks like and how it works, see my latest book, Polyamory in the 21st Century. After experimenting with all possible forms of polyamory, the intimate network has been my personal choice for over two decades. Nevertheless, intimate networks continue to be marginalized by media and domestic pioneers alike in the rush to stay within the paradigm of couples, marriage, and family.
10 Habits of Happy Couples . . . Just Listen
What does it take to be happy in a relationship?
What does it take to be happy in a relationship? If you’re working to improve your marriage, here are the 10 habits of happy couples.
1. Go to bed at the same time
Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times. They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps. And when their skins touch it still causes each of them to tingle and unless one or both are completely exhausted to feel sexually excited.
2. Cultivate common interests
After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have few interests in common. But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them. At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own; this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.
3. Walk hand in hand or side by side
Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand in hand or side by side. They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.
4. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode
If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.
5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong
If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.
6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work
Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused) and “no touch” (neglected). Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the “good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.
7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning
This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.
8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel
This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.
9. Do a “weather” check during the day
Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.
10. Be proud to be seen with your partner
Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck. They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.
Happy couples have different habits than unhappy couples. A habit is a discrete behavior that you do automatically and that takes little effort to maintain. It takes 21 days of daily repetition of a new a behavior to become a habit. So select one of the behaviors in the list above to do for 21 days and voila, it will become a habit…and make you happier as a couple. And if you fall off the wagon, don’t despair, just apologize to your partner, ask their forgiveness and recommit yourself to getting back in the habit.
If there was one key to happiness in love and life and possibly even success it would be to go into each conversation you have with this commandment to yourself front and foremost in your mind
I collaborated with colleagues from Good in Bed in partnership with Pure Romance, Men's Health, and Women's Health to conduct a survey and collect data from over 4,800 men and women on a variety of "what if's" regarding sex and relationships. When I was analyzing this data, I quickly began to notice a theme in the results; both men and women were really willing to go the extra mile for their sex lives to flourish.
Here are just a few examples demonstrating this trend I observed in response to the survey (note: participants could choose more than one response option, so not all numbers will add up to 100%):
These findings should be taken in the context of the bias that is inherent in many sex surveys. Sure, this wasn't a representative survey, but one of our main sources of recruitment was from Men's Health and Women's Health readership, perhaps a more health-conscious bunch than the general population, but not necessarily a more sexual or sexually-liberal bunch. And our demographic characteristics were fairly wide-spread. So I think this is relevant to more than the sexually adventurous. You can check out the long list of "what if's" in the full findings of the survey located on the Good in Bed website.
Next time you begin to feel that sex is doomed for long-term relationships, think about these hopeful findings, that people are actually pretty open to going out of their way for their partner's sexual satisfaction.
God bless,
Kendra Young
God bless,
Kendra Young
Is Your Husband/Partner Good for Your Career?
http://tenstepstoclarity.
Tolerating a Healthy Relationship!
Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times. They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps. And when their skins touch it still causes each of them to tingle and unless one or both are completely exhausted to feel sexually excited.
2. Cultivate common interests
After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have few interests in common. But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them. At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own; this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.
3. Walk hand in hand or side by side
Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand in hand or side by side. They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.
4. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode
If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.
5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong
If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.
6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work
Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused) and “no touch” (neglected). Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the “good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.
7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning
This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.
8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel
This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.
9. Do a “weather” check during the day
Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.
10. Be proud to be seen with your partner
Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck. They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.
Happy couples have different habits than unhappy couples. A habit is a discrete behavior that you do automatically and that takes little effort to maintain. It takes 21 days of daily repetition of a new a behavior to become a habit. So select one of the behaviors in the list above to do for 21 days and voila, it will become a habit…and make you happier as a couple. And if you fall off the wagon, don’t despair, just apologize to your partner, ask their forgiveness and recommit yourself to getting back in the habit.
If there was one key to happiness in love and life and possibly even success it would be to go into each conversation you have with this commandment to yourself front and foremost in your mind
The Power of Pleasure
Willingness to go Extra Mile Sexually for Partner is High
New survey reports people willing to go above and beyond sexually for partners.
he statistic that CNN reported indicating over 40 million Americans were stuck in a sex
rut and more than half of Americans were dissatisfied with their sex
lives would leave one to believe that maintaining a good sex life isn't
that important to the majority. I recently analyzed some data that made
me think the opposite—maintaining a good sex life is very important to the majority.
I collaborated with colleagues from Good in Bed in partnership with Pure Romance, Men's Health, and Women's Health to conduct a survey and collect data from over 4,800 men and women on a variety of "what if's" regarding sex and relationships. When I was analyzing this data, I quickly began to notice a theme in the results; both men and women were really willing to go the extra mile for their sex lives to flourish.
Here are just a few examples demonstrating this trend I observed in response to the survey (note: participants could choose more than one response option, so not all numbers will add up to 100%):
What Would You Do If...
- Your partner wants you to try something that makes you feel sort of embarrassed in bed: More men (53.2%) than women (39.8%) would indulge their partner, and both women and men would give it a try (66.1% of men and 77.0% of women).
- You find out your partner watches porn regularly: 63.9% of men and 46.8% of women would ask to watch it with them.
- Your partner wants to watch porn with you: 75.5% of men and 69.1% of women would say go for it – that porn spices up a relationship, and 35.8% of men and 31.8% of women would want to look online for porn together.
- Your partner wants to engage in BDSM behavior: 24.2% would think about it and 54.9% would have a discussion with their partner about it.
- Your partner wants to have a threesome: Although more women (37.3%) than men (15.1%) would say “absolutely not”, the most common response from both men and women was to talk through it (41.7% of women and 48.2% of men), with thinking about it indicated by 28.0% of women and 35.8% of men.
- Your partner wants to have anal sex: Although far more men (47.9%) than women (18.2%) indicated that anal sex wasn’t a big deal and they would definitely engage in it, 51.1% of women said “okay, but let’s take it slow” and 33.6% of women said they would be willing to have a discussion about it. Only 7.5% of men and 21.5% of women indicated there was no way that would happen.
- Your partner wants to swing: More than half would be open to a discussion about it (56.4% of women and 56.6% of men).
- Both men (71.2%) and women (61.3%) were totally open to integrating a sex toy into their partnered sex lives.
- Your partner really wants to have sex but you’re not in the mood: significantly more men (42.5%) than women (32.5%) would engage in charity sex with their partner. Significantly more women (18.5%) than men (8.3%) would decline the invitation and 21.6% of women would give an excuse for why, but only 12.8% of men would do this. However, 66.0% of men and 71.2% of women would try to get in the mood for their partner.
- Your partner wants to engage in sex act you’re not overly comfortable with: 62.6% would modify the sex act in some way so that they do enjoy it.
These findings should be taken in the context of the bias that is inherent in many sex surveys. Sure, this wasn't a representative survey, but one of our main sources of recruitment was from Men's Health and Women's Health readership, perhaps a more health-conscious bunch than the general population, but not necessarily a more sexual or sexually-liberal bunch. And our demographic characteristics were fairly wide-spread. So I think this is relevant to more than the sexually adventurous. You can check out the long list of "what if's" in the full findings of the survey located on the Good in Bed website.
Next time you begin to feel that sex is doomed for long-term relationships, think about these hopeful findings, that people are actually pretty open to going out of their way for their partner's sexual satisfaction.
God bless,
Kendra Young
God bless,
Kendra Young
Is Your Husband/Partner Good for Your Career?
http://tenstepstoclarity.
Tolerating a Healthy Relationship!
10 WAYS TO EXPRESS LOVE !
http://10waystoexpressluv.
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