(Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part feature on open relationships).
Boy meets boy. Boys like boys.
For the first time in a while, the boy feels that feeling, that connection, that radiance with the boy.
One day, the boy had dinner with another boy. The boy's smile and laughter are equal parts sincerity and excitement. The boy wonders, Is this it? Has it finally happened after a long time?
The boy takes the boy home. The boys hug each other. The boys kiss. Boys have great sex. And in the aftermath of the perfect night's glow, the boy finds a ring that goes unnoticed.
“What is that?” the boy asks.
“My wedding ring,” replies the other. “I thought you knew.”
When I returned to Washington DC in 2016, I was immediately lectured on why open relationships were the future of queer love. Almost eight years later, they have not only budded within the gay scene, but taken it by storm. At the same time, what had become a dream for a vacillating couple degenerated into a hopeless romantic's nightmare.
That's not such a bad thing considering what it entails. Especially lots of sex with sexy girls who were previously off-limits. But along with that sex comes a minefield of rules and regulations that open couples create but aroused singles must follow. One wrong move and you become the bad guy.
Truth be told, I've had soirées with open couples before, both separately and together. At worst, things get awkward, especially between me and my other partner. On a positive note, you might go home happy, but the moment you jump on the couch to watch reruns on TV, you realize you're back where you started: alone.
If you're like me and haven't yet had an open relationship, it can be easy to feel like a fish out of water. Queer social outings sometimes become Swinging '70s girlfriend Redux, passed around like gay food at a potluck by her partners. Next up is the butt, and a lot of it.
This leads to another problem. In scenes with many open couples, casual sex is not just accepted, it's often expected. The moment you bring emotional attachment into the equation, you lose. Now even single people are trained to run away. Because your attachment may prevent them from hopping or hopping on to the next person in line. And I can't even get upset, because I was that guy before.
For all of these reasons, I wanted to dig deeper into the rise of open relationships. All I needed was someone in an open relationship who was willing to talk about this issue.
“That's easy,” my colleague Chad joked. “Please open Grindr.”
Chad and I worked at a pub and met under similar circumstances. A few months after I lost my job, he lost his day job. We quickly found solace in our common circumstances, and now he and I hang out in the kitchens of gay bars, divulging the details of our sex lives, desperate to meet the man of our dreams.
And Chad wasn't wrong. Grindr these days is full of profiles of open relationships looking to play. But at that moment, our colleague Scott jumped up and down, and I knew I didn't need a grindle.
There are no words to describe Scott better. They are bundles of positivity and joy. Oddly enough, I didn't meet Scott at a bar, but at a coffee shop in Petworth in 2018, where they were my go-to baristas. Little did I know that six months later, we would be working together. That kind of life is interesting.
Outside of the bar, Scott is an actor who appears in various DMV productions. Naturally, they were the biggest inspiration for me to abandon a career in art. After a bar shift last summer, we talked about it while smoking blunts. They taught me to tune out the noise and follow my heart.
Together, Chad and Scott became my new support system. In a sense, we are like the Three Musketeers. Just as gay, but more working class.
Of course, as soon as Scott walked in, I had to ask, “Are you and your partner open?”
Scott smiled sheepishly. “Oh, sure, honey.”
As fate would have it, here in the kitchen of a gay bar I ended up representing both ends of the open/closed spectrum. Chad, on the other hand, is a self-proclaimed romantic who seeks monogamy. The other is Scott at full throttle.
While there was a lot to take away from our conversation on this issue, I distilled six truths from the debate between open and closed relationships. But please take these things with a grain of salt. At the end of the day, I'm just a barback.
- Monogamy is rooted in tradition.
For many of us, whether we're gay or straight, finding something uniquely our own has been a dream of our youth. My role was supposed to be Colby Donaldson on Season 2 of the hit TV show Survivor, but life had other plans.
However, many people do not reveal where this desire originates. Our culture is full of stories of princesses rescued by princes and true love's kiss setting us free. It's like there's a script we have to follow, and if we don't, we don't have to worry. God only banishes us to hell.
This is a common starting point for both monogamists and open connoisseurs. When I asked Chad what drew him to monogamy, he replied: I didn't have any non-traditional role models. ”
Meanwhile, Scott's past reservations about an open relationship were due to similar reasons. “When I was younger, I wasn't a fan of open relationships,” they told me. “I didn't understand the complexity of it. I didn't understand the nuances. I also grew up in a very conservative Catholic family.”
Both responses touch on important arguments in the pro-openness narrative. In other words, closed relationships often reflect traditions, from folklore to religion, that have kept queer people together for centuries. If being queer means destroying these traditions, then monogamy is simply obsolete. Or so they say.
- The desire to be open is biological.
Over time, Scott's perspective on being open has changed. “As I grew older and my queerness increased, I saw friends with alternative lifestyles and realized this was something I was interested in,” they began.
In their relationship with Scott, this led to an understanding of their and their partner's core needs. “I knew my partner's sex drive was higher than mine. For me, it came from a desire for my partner to experience things that I couldn't fully satisfy. For me personally, my partner It's great to know that we can go out, meet people, make connections, and ultimately be each other's first priority and be human beings.”
Scott's mention of libido made me wonder. Are open relationships becoming more prevalent throughout the LGBTQ community, especially among sex-obsessed gay men? Realizing that this conversation should probably be more comprehensive, I made the arduous journey east, about 150 feet, to the front door.
Kelsey is a hot thug who works as a doorman at a bar. She's stylish and eyeless like me, and I once told Chad that I thought she looked great with her capital F. That's when I realized I was getting gayer by the minute.
Kelsey is currently in a closeted relationship, but she told me about the situation between lesbians. “It's 50-50 with people I know,” she answered. She was honestly surprised by this. Because she mainly thought men were cheating.
Kelsey has had open relationships before, but she's not completely closed off to that route again. “I don't think people are made for one person for the rest of their lives,” she added. This also echoes what Scott shared, “Human bodies crave sex to varying degrees, and that intensity increases or decreases as we age.”
To me, both statements highlight that the desire to be with another person sexually is natural for many people, so locking up that desire can feel constricting. . As queer people, we can all relate to that.
next week: Part 2 looks at finding good reasons to pursue an open relationship.
jake stewart I'm a DC-based writer and barback.