Cheating - carrying on a romantic or sexual relationship behind the partner's back - is still a contentious issue and if discovered, the cheater will likely suffer social rejection and the loss of the relationship.
This is probably a good thing.
Agreed.
But what about openly having more than one partner at a time, with the knowledge and consent of all parties? There is a posh word for this and it's 'polyamory' - literally 'many loves'. Ask most people you meet what they think of it and they'll immediately reject it as 'cheating'. Except that it's not. Done properly, polyamory is a mutually respectful way of life. It can ease the pressure to be everything to one person. And, of course, there is a lot of fun to be had.
There sure is!
But does it work in practice? Well, it can - I myself was part of a triad relationship for a while - but the only way it can work long-term is when all parties can genuinely throw off the conditioning that says monogamy is the One True God of how to conduct your love life.
If monogamy is right for someone, good for them. If polyamory is right for someone, good for them. To each his or her own. The problem comes in when someone who is strongly polyamorous in their nature tries to force monogamy on themselves, often to avoid prejudice. It isn’t fair to anyone involved. Likewise, someone who is strongly monogamous in their nature and needs the same in a partner should not try to go along with polyamory, because that would not be fair to anyone involved. A big problem right now is that monogamists are fully free to be monogamists (at least, as long as it isn’t a same-sex relationship). In most of the world, this isn’t true for polyamorists.
![Non-Monogamy Diagram [I:FV]](http://www.obsidianfields.com/lj/nonmonogamy2.5.1.gif){kind=link}
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