Is Monogamy Dead? Exclusive Interview w/ Rosie Wilby

We got the chance to speak to Rosie WIlby about her new talk “Is Monogamy Dead?”

Check out the clip below where we ask her 3 questions about monogamy and relationships. Did you know that gay men have the lowest separation rates of any group? Check out the rest below and if you want to hear more, book your tickets HERE

Check out the rest of our talks about love and relationships with this LINK!

Transcript:

Do open relationships ever really work? 

Well, if you ask people in open relationships, I know plenty who say that it works incredibly well and actually the best people of all to ask about open relationships are gay men who have historically adopted that as a fairly successful strategy and structure for many, many years.

There’s quite a history of men coupling up and having a primary partnership that is then kinda supported by secondary connections and lovers outside of that, and gay men actually have the lowest separation rates of any group in society.

If monogamy is dead, does that mean that cheating is ok?

I actually don’t think that monogamy is dead. The interesting thing is that my talk and the title of my book
which led to the talk are a question: Is Monogamy Dead? And I thought it was a question worth asking and interrogating what monogamy meant in 2018 in this modern era of conscious uncoupling and ghosting and breadcrumbing and all these new relationship behaviors that are associated with modern technology. I wondered where we are at with monogamy, but I actually think that in many ways we have become more judgmental of cheating and deceit and lies.

And certainly if you look at the way celebrities who have affairs are reported on in the media I don’t think that we see cheating as okay I think as a human society we generally find deceit an uncomfortable concept. So I don’t necessarily think that monogamy is dead but I think that there are other options that people are looking at as very legitimate options rather than just a kind of freaky sort of option of someone swinging at a party or whatever.

I think there are legitimate alternatives that are workable and now they’re sort of being less sneered at in society because people are making these alternative frameworks work for them.

What’s the best way to be happy and single?    

Well the best way to be happy and single is be happy in yourself, which is very much the
same way to be happy in a relationship. If your relationship with yourself is good, then I suppose in theory
it shouldn’t matter whether you’re single or whether you’re with somebody.

That’s the first fundamental step to get right. But I think, embrace your freedom if you’re single. To some extent, even those of us who consider ourselves monogamous, largely speaking, we behave in a slightly
more polyamorous way when we’re single because, like a couple that have an open relationship but don’t
currently have other partners, we’re open to possibilities, and that’s actually quite an exciting space
to be in, to be open.