Carrie and Big open this episode with a big bout of PDA on the streets of New York. Carrie is as smug as a bug in a rug—until a couple of scenes later when she bumps into Big having dinner with another woman.
One afternoon, ignoring my to-do list like Carrie ignores red flags, I opened up YouTube and my algorithm suggested watching Louis Theroux on Hot Ones, hosted by Sean Evans.
A few minutes into the episode, Sean asks Louis: Without thinking about it too hard, is there a lifestyle or belief system outside of your own that you find yourself being most wooed by, when you’ve spent so much time in the belly of it?
Louis: I don’t know why—but my mind went to polyamory. Consensual non-monogamy. I get it. When you start to analyse it, in certain respects monogamy seems weirder. Especially if now we live—hopefully—to be 90+ years old, all being well. And now they’re talking about maybe being—I don’t know if you follow these tech bros who’re saying we’re gonna live to be 300. Can you imagine being married to the same person for like 280 years? It feels like you’d start craving something else on the menu, figuratively speaking.
Sean: So it all made sense to you?
Louis: Yeah. Except for the sexual jealousy part, which I think would make my head explode.
I closed YouTube and immediately opened BBC iPlayer to find the Love Without Limits episode in question from Louis’ 2018 documentary series Altered States, which is where we meet Heidi and her husband Jerry, who live in Portland, Oregon. Heidi is also engaged to a man named Joe—who is married to a woman named Gretchen. Jerry on the other hand, is with Heidi and only Heidi, although open to meeting someone else too, he says. When Louis asks Jerry (Heidi’s husband) how he feels about Joe (Heidi’s fiancé), Jerry says, “Joe brings about a love that I could never give to Heidi. He brings about a happiness that I can’t.”
Honestly, the man seems broken and defeated. I want to book a flight to Portland and cuddle him.
I was relaying my concerns for sweet Jerry a few days later at lunch with a friend. She goes on to tell me about Feeld, the dating app she’s on for “open minded individuals” who’re interested in casual hook ups, kinks, swinging and partial to all kinds of sexual preferences. Perfect for a generation who are interrogating monogamy, I thought. She puts her phone in the middle of the table and we have a swipe together. The profile of a light haired, blue-eyed man greets us, with ENM written in his bio. ENM stands for ethical non-monogamy. We googled it.
I told her she had to message him and ask if he’d be up for speaking to me. I’ve got this friend who thinks she’s Carrie Bradshaw, she said after they matched. And he replied with, sure, why not.
I phoned Steve (not his real name) for a chat. He told me he was a busy guy and instead of asking if that’s because he had multiple girlfriends, I thanked him for lending me some of his time and suggested we get straight into it.
Me: Let’s start simple. In one or two sentences, what are your thoughts on monogamy vs non-monogamy?
Steve: Why are full grown adults fixated on the idea that a romantic relationship is restricted to just two people? We wouldn’t expect to have just one friend and only be friends with that one person.
Me: But in a monogamous relationship, it’s really only the sex that’s restricted to one other person—we should still actively pursue friendships and platonic relationships with other people outside of our romantic ones, so is that a fair example?
Steve: Come on! We expect a lot more than just sex in a monogamous relationship.
Me: Sure. But that’s on us as individuals to ensure we’re maintaining relationships outside of our romantic ones, not leaning on our partner for absolutely everything and conserving a level of independence. I think we both agree that we shouldn’t expect or demand everything from one person. So for arguments sake, let’s just say it’s the sex and intimacy part that we differ on.
Steve: Alright, just focusing on the sex and intimacy side of things then. Why should that be restricted to just two people?
Me: Good question. For me personally, sex and intimacy equals feelings. And I think it’s having feelings for more than one person that I find conceptually hard. It’s a tricky thing to navigate. Humans are already complex, relationships involving two people are already challenging at times, so adding a third or fourth person into that equation seems bonkers to me. It feels like at least one person in the mix would start to suffer?
Steve: Great, so monogamy works for you! I personally don’t want to adhere to a certain set of rules that society has set for us, so non-monogamy works better for me.
Me: Are they rules? Or is monogamy just a structure that works successfully for most humans, hence why it’s arguably the more popular choice?
Steve: Non-monogamy’s not for everyone straight off the bat. But as long as you have open communication and an open mind—I really believe this is how humans are meant to engage in relationships and I think we’d all benefit from it.
I wanted to ask Steve what his thoughts were on this NYT article, where Carl Zimmer reports on research done by Kit Opie of University College London, suggesting that monogamy is the reason humans have excelled evolutionary:
Once a monogamous primate father starts to stick around, he has the opportunity to raise the odds that his offspring will survive. He can carry them, groom their fur and protect them from attacks.
In our own lineage, however, fathers went further. They had evolved the ability to hunt and scavenge meat, and they were supplying some of that food to their children. “They may have gone beyond what is normal for monogamous primates,” said Dr. Opie.
The extra supply of protein and calories that human children started to receive is widely considered a watershed moment in our evolution. It could explain why we have brains far bigger than other mammals.
But I knew he was clocking out and had the patience for maybe three more minutes with this annoying, monogamous stranger. So I asked him whether he thought non-monogamy was something we were able to explore because we have the luxury of time, comfort and resources to really think about and dissect our preferences in such a way.
Steve: I don’t really know how to answer that. I guess there’s truth in it? But shouldn’t we just let people live?
Dammit Steve! Exposing me and my cold heart!
For me, the thought of opening up my marriage and watching my husband fall in love with someone else—that he might send her podcast episodes he thinks she’ll like and photos of dogs on the tube and love you texts in the middle of the day, fills me with dread. I’m in a mood with him just thinking about it. I do, however, understand that monogamous relationships can often lack emotional and physical support. I’ve been there, in relationships with men, desperately wishing they were able to support me in the ways I needed. And if I were still with those men, I know for a fact that it would be a better use of my time to persevere with an open relationship, instead of pushing for an equal one.
Perhaps it’s all down to a sign of the times. Dating apps like Feeld proudly promote hookup culture—a slow but surefire way for us to avoid any flicker of commitment. Men and women on the other end of a swipe are disposable and our insatiable need for self-fulfilment has exploded like a mushroom cloud.
But, Steve was right. Let people live. As someone who loves gossiping (it’s the cornerstone of human connection), critiquing, dissecting and analysing—I try to make sure I’m regularly anchoring myself back to the question of: what do I stand for? The answer to that is almost always compassion and respect, for however people wish to live their lives. Even if—like Louis—it makes my head explode.
At the end of episode seven, Carrie meets Big in a park at three in the morning and tells him she wants to get off the merry-go-round of dating, she wants to stand still with him. He wants it too—although he doesn’t explicitly say this. He just puts his arm around her, looks up at the sky and might as well mutter for fuck’s sake.
But Carrie’s a smug bug once again. In a city of infinite options—her voiceover says—sometimes there’s no better feeling than knowing you only have one. Although I’d avoid Big like the plague, I reckon I’m with Carrie on this one.
ugh loved this. also, polygamy sounds so… idk how to say it, but the idea of finding a successful *romantic* relationship with more than one person seems so strange. is it possible? is wanting to be with one person for the rest of time so wrong? idk good for them i guess
Serial monogamy anyone?