Let’s Talk Monogamy: Transcript of GB News Interview
Alex Phillips: Joining me now is Leanne, a non-monogamy educator and advocate. Leanne, picking up, I hope you heard what Katheryn was saying. She’s saying that fundamentally, biologically, we’re not monogamous! Is that welcome news to hear that from someone who’s really looked into that in depth?
I personally wouldn’t say that ALL humans aren’t monogamous. But I do think that more humans have the capacity or desire to be non-monogamous than they would like to admit. But obviously, because monogamy is the standard for society - like your previous guest said, it’s put on a pedestal - and alternatives lifestyles like swinging and polyamory and open relationships are so demonised, a lot of people don’t feel that they can express their true desires. So, a lot of them resort to being either in miserable monogamous relationships, or they resort to cheating. And obviously, that’s not great in either situation.
And basically, I started my platform to offer an ethical alternative. To say that we can preserve things like commitment, trust, communication, honesty, all these important values in relationships, but also be honest with each other that monogamy might not be the only way to achieve those things. So I’m encouraging people to have open and honest conversations with their partners about their desires.
I also think another thing that might be contributing to all this is that is I think a significant number of monogamous people - not all, but I think some - are only monogamous out of insecurity. In my time, I’ve spoken to a lot of monogamous people who desire the idea of multiple partners in theory, but then they have to deal with the flip side, which is that their partner will also be having multiple partners. So I think a lot of people really struggle with the idea that they won’t be their partner's "one and only", and so they make the tradeoff and agree to monogamy even when they actually desire something more. Or, they make the selfish decision to cheat, so that they can get all the benefits of “monogamy”, but without having to deal with the responsibility and personal growth that’s involved in overcoming jealousy and insecurity, building a strong sense of self, dealing with things like fear of abandonment, fear that you’re not good enough, and things like that. So basically I set up my platform to offer a viable alternative to monogamy that doesn’t involve doing anything unethical like cheating.
So would that be essentially going down the route of polyamory?
Polyamory is one path you could go down, but there are many types of non-monogamy. Polyamory is specifically the practice of multiple romantic relationships, but there are many non-monogamous relationships that involve one primary, romantic relationship and then multiple secondary, casual or purely sexual relationships. There are lots of different ways that people can practise this and I think it exists on a spectrum.
In fact, I would also argue that monogamy is on a spectrum. I think a lot of monogamous people have different boundaries when it comes to engaging with other people. Some people are comfortable with their partners flirting, as long as they don’t act physically on their desires. Some people aren’t comfortable with their partners meeting other people alone. Some people don’t want emotional intimacy. Some people don’t want their partners watching porn. So I think that instead of a binary thing of monogamy or non-monogamy, or monogamy or polyamory, it actually is a wider spectrum of personal boundaries of standards of what you would feel comfortable with in a relationship.
So how would you actually have that conversation with your partner? If you’re in a monogamous relationship and you’re thinking, “Err, I’m not getting everything I need to satiate me as an individual,” how on earth do you broach that topic?
Obviously, I think that‘s going to be a very tough conversation to have for many, particularly if you’ve been in a long-term monogamous relationship. I think bringing up that conversation is definitely going to be destabilising in many ways, particularly since monogamy is, like I said, the standard. I think it might bring up a lot of insecurities in your partner bringing that up with them. They might think things like, “Oh, you don’t love me anymore! You must’ve fallen in love with someone else and you don’t love me anymore!” or “I’m not enough!” or “You’re now going to leave me!” And I think with approaching this conversation with opening up a relationship with your partner, you have to be very mindful of the fears and insecurities that might come up on their end and try to address them as much as you can, whether it’s by reassuring them that they are loved, and that you won’t leave them, and that they are valued, and that they are unique and special to you as a person.
What I’m trying to say is that… Commitment, the idea of commitment and love, to me, isn’t the promise not to have sex with or not to fall in love with anyone else. Although, I accept that for other people, it can involve that. But I think a lot of people rely on the structure of a relationship to prove commitment instead of actually doing the meaningful work with them, emotionally, to be attuned to their partner. Commitment to me is trusting and communicating with someone consistently, making promises and following through on them, it’s caring about someone’s wellbeing, it’s being invested in their joy and happiness, showing up for them in times of need, celebrating their achievements…a lot of these things. And none of that actually requires monogamy.
So do you think there’s been a big change, a societal change, towards the sort of thing that you advocate? Have you noticed that more and more people are actually delving into the concepts of open relationships, polyamorous relationships, perhaps even polygamy?
Yes, absolutely. And I think that particularly in lockdown, a lot of people have - now that they didn’t have opportunities to keep their minds busy - a lot of people have taken a lot of time for introspection. As a result, in online forums, I’ve seen a MASSIVE uptick in people joining the non-monogamy community and saying, “You know what, after lockdown, after the pandemic, this is something I might be interested in!” And personally, I’ve been non-monogamous, actively non-monogamous, since I was 17 years old, but I started my blog, my platform, in November 2020. And it’s grown massively! In just less than 9 months, I almost have 160,000 followers! It’s clear that this is something that a lot of people are really interested in, in exploring an ethical option while maintaining meaningful relationships with their partners.
How have your family and friends reacted to your decision to break from what has been a societal expectation, really, for so long?
I think that obviously, some of it has been positive, some of it’s been negative. I’ve personally received quite a lot of backlash. But, I would rather be in a happy and honest open relationship and have to deal with all that backlash, than stay in an unfulfilling monogamous one out of principle, or pretend that I’m monogamous and cheat, and therefore violate and disrespect my partner, and not give them informed consent to be in our relationship.
I think in terms of responses that I’ve gotten, I think a lot of people say things like, “Oh, this is the same as cheating!” when obviously it’s not, because this is something that I’ve actively discussed and agreed on with my partner, and we have both enthusiastically entered into this. A lot of people bring up concerns about STIs, and in response to that, there was actually a study in 2015 that showed that there was no difference in STD infection rates between monogamous and non-monogamous people. Which might be surprising, but the reason is because non-monogamous people are much more responsible and honest about getting tested regularly, being open and honest with their partners, and having conversations about the sex they’re having. Whereas in monogamous relationships, that doesn’t happen. It was also shown that in the instances where the monogamous people cheated, they were actually less likely to have safe sex.
A lot of people have said things like me having commitment issues, but like I said, commitment, to me, doesn’t mean monogamy. That I haven’t experienced real love, or the idea that if I’m in love with someone that I’ll never look at anyone else, when the evidence demonstrates that’s just simply not true. Or that my relationship won’t last, but then obviously, divorce rates show that monogamous relationships don’t last either. So, I think it’s all about personal choice. I think that while monogamy is obviously a very valid relationship style, it is not the default. It should not be the default, and I think that other people should start recognising that.
So just finally, the relationship guru Esther Perel, she’s a Belgian psychiatrist, said that in life, when it comes to relationships, you essentially have to choose between negotiating and navigating the course of potential monotony by staying with one person, finding that person can’t necessarily meet all of your emotional, financial, sexual, economic, whatever they may be needs, or going down the route of having to navigate and negotiate jealousy.
Is that something that you have to contend with - a bit of the old green-eyed monster? Do you get this sort of upsurge in, “Am I good enough? Is he gonna leave me?” You know, an emotional reaction, when you know that your other half is spending time with someone else?
Personally, I’m in a very privileged position to say that I’m quite a secure and confident person. I recognise my value as a partner and I think that my partner and I are very well-matched for each other. So jealousy hasn’t been as much of an issue for me as it has been for other people. I think that different people have different numbers of triggers for their jealousy, and different people have different upbringings and traumas in their past that might bring up abandonment issues, or beliefs that you’re not good enough, or that someone will take your partner away from you. So I’m not saying that those insecurities don’t happen.
But in terms of the pros of an open relationship, I think that even if jealousy was an issue for me, the benefits of a non-monogamous and honest relationship far outweigh those cons. I think that non-monogamy has taught me so many new things. I’ve been able to explore things with other people and be able to bring them back to my partner and enrich our relationship in turn. I think that also, seeing my partner with other people makes me happy! I think that I’m really invested in my partner’s happiness and wellbeing, and because I know that I may not be able to fulfill all of their emotional needs, I’m happy that they are getting what they want and desire from someone else!
So yeah, I think that there are pros and cons to both monogamous and non-monogamous relationships, and it’s just about what’s more important to you and what tradeoffs you’re willing to make.
Leanne, thank you so much for joining me and having such an honest and illuminating discussion on this topic. It’s been such a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on today.
