Monogamy, the Protective Fallacy: Sexual versus Emotional Exclusivity and the Implication for Sexual Health Risk

Abstract

The authors examined the hypothesis that many individuals define monogamy based on emotional rather than sexual fidelity. Participants, 373 heterosexual college students and 282 gay men, read three vignettes of decreasing mitigation in which they imagined committing an act of infidelity against a hypothetical partner and where half the participants were cued to their emotional attachment toward the partner. Despite the infidelity, relationships in the emotional attachment-cued vignettes were rated as monogamous to a greater degree than relationships in the vignettes where emotional attachment was not cued. In addition, over one-third of the participants in our study reported infidelity in their current self-defined monogamous relationships yet also reported feeling more protected from sexual health risks and reported less condom use than individuals who defined their relationship as nonmonogamous. The implications for monogamy as a protective fallacy are discussed.

Open Relationships, Nonconsensual Nonmonogamy, and Monogamy Among U.S. Adults: Findings from the 2012 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior

“…Yet for all these divergences, our findings also aligned with some previous work on relationship structure. The present study reinforces existing challenges to the assumption that monogamy is an effective and ideal strategy for addressing sexual risk, including but not limited to HIV/STI transmission (Conley et al, 2015; Swan & Thompson, 2016). …”

“…Provided that neither partner is HIV positive or has an STI, monogamy is substantially low risk. However, testing and safer sex practices are not irrelevant to monogamy (Conley, Matsick, Moors, Ziegler, & Rubin, 2015; Swan & Thompson, 2016). Monogamous individuals who are HIV positive and/or have STIs may or may not be aware of their status, and may or may not convey this to their partners.…”

“We Agree and Now Everything Goes My Way”: Consensual Sexual Nonmonogamy, Extradyadic Sex, and Relationship Satisfaction

“…36 This helps prevent infidelity, perceived to be a violation of commitment and trust. 18,37 When entering a new Sexual (non-)monogamy and relationship satisfaction 5 relationship, individuals become more sociosexually restricted, 38 which is associated with lesser likelihood of face-to-face and online extradyadic sex 12 and with greater relationship quality.…”

Monogamy and Nonmonogamy: Evolutionary Considerations and Treatment Challenges

“…77 Consensually nonmonogamous couples demonstrate similar rates of sexually transmitted infections as monogamous couples. 78 Although this may seem counterintuitive, couples who self-identify as monogamous are not necessarily sexually exclusive 79 and may be less likely to use safe sex practices with their primary partner. 80,81 The more common consensually nonmonogamous identities include swinging and polyamory.…”