To stay or stray? Crimes of opportunity
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Levine believes that over the course of a life, people change, as do our circumstances. There is no other relationship — not with friends, business associates, or even our children — in which we are expected to live with one other person for years, perhaps for the rest of our lives, and not only be able to get along, but to remain intimate with only that person, no matter what life brings us. The entire enterprise is fraught with possible failure.
But our desires and the fact of change may themselves hold the keys for success. They can be opportunities for deeper intimacy.
A woman who never fantasized about the UPS guy may suddenly develop an interest in brown shirts and shorts, but be afraid to express this new tick for fear of raising questions in her lover’s mind. Being able to tell her lover opens a door onto a new way to play.
Blow believes such openness is vital. For example, he says, some couples may enjoy using porn together or separately, and the survey indicates that a minority believe using porn separately constitutes cheating. Where things get sticky is when porn use is kept secret, Blow says. "The harmful thing is secrecy."
He isn’t referring just to secrets about having sex with another person or using porn, but all kinds of secrets. We tend to accumulate secrets during a relationship. We hide our distaste for a partner’s clothes, their family, the way they behave at parties, the fact they’ve gained so much weight, or that we would really like to chuck our secure job and live on a boat. We are afraid of hurting a loved one, or just don’t want an argument. So things fester and space is driven between lovers.
Work with me, baby
"Take fantasies," Blow offers. "A guy worries 'Oh my wife might judge me, shame me, I have to keep this part of me inside. I must hide from her' instead of saying 'I am having this fantasy, work with me on it.'"
When we feel we have closed off part of ourselves, our need for intimacy can lead us to open it to another. A truly intimate relationship in which such sharing is accepted can move toward greater levels of intimacy, Blow says. "I think when you hide things, cannot talk about things, in relationships where lots of things are off the table, people become ripe for plucking."
Nothing is foolproof, of course, but being willing to defy the social, personal, or religious views we carry into a romantic relationship, by understanding how idealized — and therefore unrealistic — love and marriage have become in popular culture, it’s possible to let go of secrets "and create familiarity and intimacy and trust in an otherwise sex phobic society," Schwartz says.
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We all have fantasy lives. But couples who create taboos around those fantasies, she says, leave "no room for your psyche, and you might get it elsewhere."
You're likely to stay monogamous, she continues, "if you have a very hot relationship, with lots of friendship, if you turn each other on, go away for weekends, watch erotic movies, call her at work and say 'If you come home for lunch, I’ll make it worth your while."
Brian Alexander, a California-based freelance writer, MSNBC.com Sexploration columnist and Glamour contributing editor is working on a new book about sex for Harmony, an imprint of Crown Publishing.
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