Vogue Magazine: Is Monogamy Over?

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So began the Bhatias’ winding path into consensual non-monogamy or “CNM,” the modern umbrella term for the practice of mutually and ethically agreeing to open an exclusive relationship to other sexual experiences, and in some cases, serious romantic partners. As “conscious uncoupling” was to divorce, consensual non-monogamy—sometimes called “ethical non-monogamy”—is to open relationships. In contrast to the free love of the ’60s or suburban key-party ethos of the ’70s, consensual non-monogamy in 2022 is a thoughtfully considered, typically therapized practice, complete with tidy acronym. CNM is rooted in open relationships that aspire to be “honest, moral, and trustworthy,” says Jessica Wood, Ph.D., a sexuality and relationships researcher at the Sex Information & Education Council of Canada (SIECCAN), who has studied CNM since 2018.

The Bhatias are not alone: In a national survey conducted by data analytics firm YouGov in 2020, only 56 percent cited complete monogamy as their ideal relationship style, a 5 percent drop from 2016. An estimated 23 percent of respondents said their relationships were already non-monogamous, echoing breakthrough 2017 research published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, which found that more than one in five single Americans in their study had tried consensual non-monogamy. “You could go to the grocery store, close your eyes, point at someone, and as long as there’s at least five people in that grocery store, one of them is probably engaged in non-monogamy,” says one of the study’s authors, Amy Moors, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University and research fellow at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.
At a minimum, the CNM community is “as large as the LGBTQ population in the United States,” Kimberly Rhoten, a founding member of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, tells me.

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Nor is aspiring to monogamy any longer the societal default: When asked about their relationship ideal, from completely open to completely monogamous, the number of people who replied “I don’t know” more than doubled in the 2020 YouGov study, leaping from 5 percent in 2016 to 12 percent. “More people are starting to question,” says Zhana Vrangalova, Ph.D., an adjunct professor of human sexuality at New York University, who researches non-monogamy. “There are a couple of cultural shifts that are really making monogamy—complete, strict, lifelong monogamy—a very difficult thing to pull off.”

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