My mother will kill me for writing this article. She doesn’t get why my partner and I would want to have sex with other people; why, God why, would we want to question a structure as sacred and, let’s face it, successful as monogamy? As she said, when I first mentioned I’d been on a date with someone who wasn’t my long-term partner, “Well, what if he finds someone better than you?” Brutal. Mothers really know how to find your deepest insecurity before wringing it – and you – out like a dishcloth.
She wasn’t wrong, though. What if he does find someone better than me? That was, admittedly, the first question I had when my partner and I decided to sleep with other people a year ago. Not only that, we decided it would be fine if we went on dates with other people, too: one, two, 10 – as long as we kept, as every pop psychologist whose bestseller I’ve never read will tell you, communication streams open.
