Page 298 - ILIAS ATHANASIADIS AKA RO1

The study, funded by the Rural Center for Aids/STD Prevention at Indiana

University, had multiple aims. “We wanted to see how these relationships form
and evolve over time, and examine the perceived relationship quality.

Relationship satisfaction, and potential risk for HIV/STI infection,” says Stults,

who finished coding the interviews this week at NYU and hopes to have the study
published early next year.

So far, Stults says his finding is that non-monogamous relationships can lead to a

happier, more fulfilling relationship.

“My impression so far is that they don’t seem less satisfied, and it may even be
that their communication is better than among monogamous couples because

they’ve had to negotiate specific details,” Stults says.

And open relationships “don’t seem to put gay men at disproportionate risk for
HIV and other STDs,” Stults says. “To my knowledge, no one contracted HIV

and only one couple contracted an STD.”

But despite Stults’s findings, there’s stigma associated with these kinds of
relationships.

In 2012, four studies from the University of Michigan found that participants’

perception of monogamous relationships were “overwhelmingly more favorable”
than of open relationships.

“Gay men have always engaged more often in consensual non-monogamous
relationships, and society has consistently stigmatized their decision to do so,”

says Michael Bronski, a professor in the department of women, gender and
sexuality at Harvard.

McIntyre and Allen say they’ve experienced the stigma themselves but that an

open relationship is the most honest way for them to be together.

“We’ve run into gay and straight people who have assumed our relationship is
‘lesser than’ because we’re not monogamous. I think that’s offensive and

ridiculous,” McIntyre says.