Comments on: Sex and your boyfriend

By: gerry

gerry — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:52:57 +0000

Hi Nick and Garrett and thanks for your comments which I agree on totally. It is hard to get it all down in a short article and I seem to have given the impression that open relationships don’t work when in fact they work very well when both guys agree to it. It is the envy of many straight couples how we guys have achieved this without jealousy. My comment re opening up the relationship was more in regard to threesomes. Not being perfect I did not explain this very well and I thank you for the clarification. I totally agree that for many couples sex outside the relationship with agreed rules and agreement work very well.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:01:16 +0000

find your comment that ” Contrary to popular belief few couples find this situation comfortable, someone always gets left out and the emotional issues are usually too hard to deal with in the end” hard to accept. Almost all the longer term gay couples I know have some form of comfortable agreement about sex ouitside the relationship.

By: Garrett Prestage

Garrett Prestage — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:54:28 +0000

I hope that your comment that few of these couples in open relationships find the situation ‘comfortable’ is based on some actual evidence and refers specifically to couples who are no longer sexually active with each other, seek outside sex and have not discussed the situation with each other. If you are implying that couples in open relationships more generally do not find the situation comfortable then the evidence is strongly to the contrary. In nearly 30 years of researching Australian gay men’s sexual relationships the following things have remained remarkably unchanged in every study I have ever had anything to do with or been aware of:
1. Just over half of gay men’s relationships are open relationships.
2. Gay men’s relationships tend to start out monogamous and open up over time.
3. Gay men’s relationships that are open tend to be more long-lasting than those that are monogamous.
This does not mean, of course, that gay men in relationships that are monogamous necessarily will open their relationships up or that they will necessarily be shorter in duration. But it certainly does mean that open relationships are at least as successful as monogamous relationships, and often more so. What is true, though, is that relationships where partners discuss things with each other and mutually agree on how they will manage their relationship are more likely to have a successful and lasting relationship, whether it is monogamous or open.