Types of Open Relationships
There are several different styles of open relationships. These include:
- Multi-partner relationships, between three or more partners where a sexual relationship does not occur between all of the parties involved.
- Hybrid relationships, when one partner is non-monogamous and the other is monogamous.
- Swinging, in which singles or partners in a committed relationship engage in sexual activities with others as a recreational or social activity.
To a large degree, open relationships are a generalization of the concept of a relationship beyond monogamous relationships. A form of open relationship is the open marriage, in which the participants in a marriage have an open relationship.
Open relationships may be further classified into open groups and closed groups. In open groups, multiple partners may change at any time and tend to contain three types of participants: core members, associated members, and affiliated members. Core members are those participants who have been sexually intimate with several others; associated members are those who are involved sexually with at least two members of the group, and affiliated members, are those people who believe in a similar philosophy accepted by others and are seen as members of the group even though they are only involved with their mate, the core member. In a closed group, all participants are core members.
While the concept of an open relationship has been recognized since the 1970s, formal examinations of the concept have been scarce.
The term open relationship is sometimes used interchangeably with the closely related term polyamory, but the two concepts are not identical.
Read more about this topic: Open Relationship
Famous quotes containing the words types of, types and/or open:
“Our children evaluate themselves based on the opinions we have of them. When we use harsh words, biting comments, and a sarcastic tone of voice, we plant the seeds of self-doubt in their developing minds.... Children who receive a steady diet of these types of messages end up feeling powerless, inadequate, and unimportant. They start to believe that they are bad, and that they can never do enough.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)
“Our children evaluate themselves based on the opinions we have of them. When we use harsh words, biting comments, and a sarcastic tone of voice, we plant the seeds of self-doubt in their developing minds.... Children who receive a steady diet of these types of messages end up feeling powerless, inadequate, and unimportant. They start to believe that they are bad, and that they can never do enough.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)
“The poorest children in a community now find the beneficent kindergarten open to them from the age of two-and-a-half to six years. Too young heretofore to be eligible to any public school, they have acquired in their babyhood the vicious tendencies of their own depraved neighborhoods; and to their environment at that tender age had been due the loss of decency and self-respect that no after example of education has been able to restore to them.”
—Virginia Thrall Smith (1836–1903)