Polyamory survey

Fantasme

New member
While exploring extra-marital sexuality in an ethical and respectful way, we had our ups and down, our glories and losses. Belonging to a community where people choose to address this issue in the same manner always gave us much support.

Paradoxically, in the world where cheating is more a norm than an exception, “lifestyle”, while being morally superior to deception, is often perceived as wrong and perverted by general community. I believe this perception is rooted in the lack of knowledge and understanding and general lack of good quality scientific research on the subject.

My husband and I are active in lifestyle for several years and we are happy that we chose this bumpy road. As a psychologist my academic research focuses on the motivation to choose “consensual non-monogamy” arrangements over the traditional ones. Better understanding will help us, lifestyle participants, to navigate our relationships better.

With this post I kindly ask you to participate in my survey that studies motivation to engage in consensual non-monogamy. The survey is completely anonymous and it will not ask any personal information that may reveal your identity.

Through this focused study I hope to uncover how motivations to engage in sexual activity differ between people in different types of relationships, including consensual non-monogamy. Gathering this information will give us a better understanding of ourselves and also acceptance by general community.

If you are willing to devote about 10 minutes to take this survey, please hit this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SexualityResearch
 
I stopped taking your survery when you asked how long my "commited" relationship is. I have TWO long committed relationships with two life partners. You do not have the option of multiple answers. BOTH my husbands are important to me.

The survery is very couple privileged aka hierarchical. I do not practice hierarchical relationships so I quit because my answers would be swayed to meet a narrow view of polyarmory
 
I enjoyed this survey. It was fun,

I liked the question how often "I had sex for utilitarian reasons (such as burning calories, hoping to get rid of a headache or keeping warm)."

Duhhh .. Never

And the one that asked how often I thought about sex with strangers I saw. The maximum answer was "daily". Why wasn't there a choice for "every 6 minutes". :)
 
And the one that asked how often I thought about sex with strangers I saw. The maximum answer was "daily". Why wasn't there a choice for "every 6 minutes". :)

Survey clearly was not written by a man.

OP, I'd urge you to leave out wording like "morally superior." A psychologist conducting academic research would get highly skewed results posing questions that assume one behavior is more elevated than another. Many of your questions are written from your very particular point of view. They do not include or apply to the many and varied people who have experience with polyamory. Even calling polyamory a "lifestyle" assumes much with which some of us would not agree.
 
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Judging by the wording of the OP and the responses above, I don't think I will take this survey.

Like Dagferi, I am in *two*, equally committed relationships with my co-primary partners.

I also do not consider myself involved in any particular "lifestyle", nor do I believe polyamory is my natural orientation - I just happened to fall in love with two people around the same time and we are trying our best to make our particular situation work.
 
I took the survey, but I found the reasons for having sex to be a little weird.

I like sex. I like having sex with people I like. And that's that.
 
Hello Fantasme,

I have finished taking the survey, it took me about 45 minutes. Some questions didn't have answers which applied to me. In those cases I just estimated which answer would come the closest.

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
While exploring extra-marital sexuality in an ethical and respectful way, we had our ups and down, our glories and losses. Belonging to a community where people choose to address this issue in the same manner always gave us much support.

Paradoxically, in the world where cheating is more a norm than an exception, “lifestyle”, while being morally superior to deception, is often perceived as wrong and perverted by general community. I believe this perception is rooted in the lack of knowledge and understanding and general lack of good quality scientific research on the subject.

Our board is not for a "lifestyle." Ugh. I think you are confusing us with swingers, who seem to like to use that code word term. Polyamory is not swinging, or a lifestyle. Swinging and polyamory are both under the non-monogamy umbrella, but differ in many ways.

Are you assuming this community is made of married MF couples, as you seem to be part of a married MF couple? Some of us are married in MF couples, but some of us are unmarried in MF couples, some of us are in FF couples (married or not), some of us are in MM couples (married or not), some of us are single polys, some of us are transgender, gender non-conforming, or non-binary. Some of us are monogamous, married or partnered with poly people (of any gender). Some of us are married to two people, one marriage being legal, the other being outside of the realm of legal applicability.

Swinging is "couple-centric." Married or committed partners (almost always MF, quite often the woman is bisexual, the male is [ostensibly] straight) go have sex with other MF couples, or in larger groups, orgies, and the like. The men are not supposed to touch each other sexually, but only in passing.

Emotions (falling in love) are discouraged, in swinging. We do have swingers come here often, very confused and hurt when one of them falls in love with a sex partner. They seem to consider that cheating on agreements and it causes all kinds of upset, jealousy and strife.

In polyamory, we recognize the natural tendency to fall in love with a person you are attracted to and fucking. We do nothing to prevent it (we date, we kiss, we look in each others' eyes, we cuddle without having sex, etc.).

We also have bisexual and/or pansexual men in polyamory, as well as transgender, non binary and non-gender conforming people. We have asexual people. We are not homophobic towards any gender (in general, ideally). I have heard horrible stories of homophobia (towards gay or bi men, never women) in swinging circles.

My husband and I are active in lifestyle for several years and we are happy that we chose this bumpy road. As a psychologist my academic research focuses on the motivation to choose “consensual non-monogamy” arrangements over the traditional ones. Better understanding will help us, lifestyle participants, to navigate our relationships better.

Again, this isn't a board for "The Lifestyle."

With this post I kindly ask you to participate in my survey that studies motivation to engage in consensual non-monogamy. The survey is completely anonymous and it will not ask any personal information that may reveal your identity.

Through this focused study I hope to uncover how motivations to engage in sexual activity differ between people in different types of relationships, including consensual non-monogamy. Gathering this information will give us a better understanding of ourselves and also acceptance by general community.

If you are willing to devote about 10 minutes to take this survey, please hit this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SexualityResearch

You might be in the wrong place, and asking the wrong questions.

By the way, you say the survey takes 10 minutes, but on the survey itself it says it takes 30 minutes! What the heck?
 
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I took the survey but I am not going to submit it because it has several issues. Here are a few, but not all, of them.

It assumes I have a primary partner.

It assumes I currently have "another" partner (rather ungrammatically, I might add).

It assumes sex means "intercourse," therefore showing homophobic bias.

It assumes polyamorous relationships can have only one "committed" dyad.

It assumes that you either "love" a partner or are having casual sex, instead of allowing for a range of human emotions.
 
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What is the duration of your current committed relationship?

Um, I have more than one committed relationship.

I abandoned the survey as well.
 
I agree with the anti-queer bias, it was definitely writen from a het/cis perspective. As well as a distinctive focus on heigheracy.

To be fair tho it just asks about the lenght of the longest of your current commited relationships not which is more commited.
 
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