A look at the reading list from the “Opening Up” course, including work by Terri Conley, Amy Moors, Meg Barker, Mycah and Ellen Katz, Rahil Roodsaz and Andie Nordgren
Perhaps you’ve been daydreaming about it for a while. Perhaps your partner has raised it, and you’re not sure how you feel. Or perhaps you’ve already dipped a toe in and found it more complicated than the podcasts suggested. Whatever brought you here, opening up a relationship is a big step, and it helps to know what the research actually says.
What the research says
It’s more common than you might think. Nationally representative US surveys suggest that around one in five single adults have been in a consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationship at some point. And it isn’t just a gay male thing: a study by Amy Moors and colleagues found that sexual minority women and men were equally interested in CNM.
It isn’t a sign of a failing relationship. In a major 2017 paper, Terri Conley, Jes Matsick, Amy Moors and Ali Ziegler argued that relationship research has long assumed monogamy is the gold standard, and that many questionnaires are quietly biased against CNM. In their own study, they found few differences in relationship quality between monogamous people and those in CNM relationships.
Attachment isn’t the problem it’s often assumed to be. Attachment theory has often been used to suggest people seek multiple partners because they’re avoidant of intimacy. Mycah Katz and Ellen Katz (2021) challenge this, noting that research suggests polyamorous people are predominantly securely or anxiously attached, and that the open communication polyamory requires draws on the very skills associated with secure attachment.
But it can be hard work. Rahil Roodsaz’s (2022) ethnographic study of polyamorous people in the Netherlands describes polyamory as emotionally and ethically “hard work”, with resisting stigma, balancing autonomy and commitment, and managing jealousy all shaped by gender, age, class and race.
There’s more than one way to do it. Andie Nordgren’s influential Relationship Anarchy manifesto (2006) invites people to question the idea that love is a limited resource, to avoid ranking relationships, and to build commitments that fit the people involved, rather than following a script.
A practical roadmap
Niki D’s 7-Stage Model, taught on the course, offers a helpful flow. It’s not a rigid formula, and people often loop back:
- Imagining: daydreaming with curiosity, noticing both the excitement and the fears
- Discussing: exploring your values, your “why” and, crucially, your “how”
- Contracting: agreeing flexible boundaries (not rigid rules), with a date to review them
- Experimenting: trying things out, gradually and reflectively
- Checking-in: regular conversations about how everyone is feeling
- Fine-tuning: adjusting as you learn, and as new people bring new needs
- Stabilising: enjoying calmer waters, which may include choosing to close the relationship again
A grain of glitter ✨
Most of this research comes from the US and Western Europe, and samples are often recruited online, so they may over-represent people who are happy, connected and white. Many studies are cross-sectional snapshots, which can’t tell us what happens to relationships over time. And some readings, such as manifestos and personal essays, are valuable precisely because they’re not neutral research. It’s also worth remembering that CNM isn’t “better” than monogamy, as Eleanor Wilkinson and others have pointed out: it’s simply another valid option, with its own joys and pitfalls.
Why this matters
If you’re curious about opening up, you deserve accurate information rather than either stigma or hype. A good starting point is to get clear on what you want and why, and to go at a pace that works for everyone involved. Therapy can be a safe place to do that thinking, whether alone or with your partner or partners (see “Non-Monogamy and Therapy: What to Expect and What to Ask”, and for jealousy, “‘I Couldn’t, I’m Way Too Jealous!’”).
Whether you choose one partner or several, the best relationships are the ones you design with your eyes and your heart wide open.
Further reading
- Conley, T. D., Matsick, J. L., Moors, A. C. & Ziegler, A. (2017). Investigation of consensually nonmonogamous relationships: theories, methods, and new directions. Perspectives on Psychological Science
- Katz, M. & Katz, E. (2021). Reconceptualizing attachment theory through the lens of polyamory. Sexuality & Culture
- Roodsaz, R. (2022). The “hard work” of polyamory: ethnographic accounts of intimacy and difference in the Netherlands. Journal of Gender Studies
- Berry, M. D. & Barker, M. (2014). Extraordinary interventions for extraordinary clients: existential sex therapy and open non-monogamy. Sexual and Relationship Therapy
- Moors, A. C., Rubin, J. D., Matsick, J. L., Ziegler, A. & Conley, T. D. It’s not just a gay male thing: sexual minority women and men are equally attracted to consensual non-monogamy. Journal für Psychologie
- Nordgren, A. (2006). The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy