The primacy given to monogamous unions isn’t surprising given the historically patriarchal societies that dominate the world: An economic system predicated upon handing down property from father to son is invested in certainty about paternity and on clear family lines. [...]
The researchers also point out that in relationship surveys non-monogamy is often referred to using language that isn’t neutral: Asking people about “infidelity,” or “cheating” is directive, they say; as is referring to one person as the “offended party” or the “betrayed partner”—all terms that have appeared in academic studies.
Conley, who runs the Stigmatized Sexualities Lab at the University of Michigan, has often questioned the orthodoxies of research on sexuality in relationships, and says that she has encountered resistance from other researchers, and reviewers of the papers she has published over the past years—with some responding emotionally to her raising the very concept of exploring non-monogamy. In one study, Conley found that consensually non-monogamous couples were more likely to practice safer sex than monogamous couples who were secretly cheating on their partners. One reviewer called the paper “irresponsible.” In another case, a reviewer referred to gay relationships that “deteriorate” into non-monogamy. [...]
In a final, separate study they also looked at how people reacted to researchers when those researchers were asking about non-monogamous relationships. The researchers themselves were seen as more biased when they asked questions about polyamory than when they asked about monogamy. (This was a much smaller study of 100 people recruited through Mechanical Turk, a platform on which people are paid to answer questions, so methodologically less sound than the larger study.)
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