Talk:Open marriage acceptance

Released July 26, 2006

I strongly object to the conclusions reached by the following quote on the religiosity of swingers:

"'...Although a little over 70% said they did not currently attend church services in a typical month, the most frequent response concerning church attendance when growing up was every week. Thus, swingers were raised in religious home but, somewhere along the path to adulthood, a majority gave up their religion.' (Jenks, 1998) [10]"

I find it irresponsible at best to equate church attendance with religious identification or "status as a religious person." Surveys of American religious identification regularly reveal large numbers of people who self-identify as religious but who do not regularly attend church. Beyond being an illogical presupposition, the statement is ignorant of religions (or religiousnesses) which exist independently of church structures.

At best, to consider the data provided by this source as encyclopedia-worthy, I expect a comparison with a control population of "marriage-normative" individuals and a demonstrable attempt to avoid sampling bias. Else, the data may appear to suggest a false conclusion: that "swingers" (whose behaviors, in yet another instance of deception (accidental or otherwise), are implied to be relevant to all forms of open marriage) are less religious than individuals in traditional marriages in the same population.

What's more, this poor logic (or worse, ignorance or bias) is treated as an acceptable and valid mode of inquiry. Immediately following the quote we find:

"It is not known whether people give up religion before considering an open marriage, whether they give up religion because they cannot reconcile it with their open marriage, or both."

I will watch this page for a few days for a response before taking appropriate action. Temptinglip 07:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Kelly 07:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The material seems inappropriate to the title. The title is about acceptance, while the entry is all about the lack of acceptance. The author is obviously arguing against the legitimacy of open marriage, rather than simply reporting data.

Dudeinhammock 10:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep to the Facts

I know the person who wrote this article very well. He is definitely not arguing against the legitimacy of open marriage. In fact, he has been involved in an open marriage for 25 years, and he has helped many couples learn to cope with issues in their own open marriages. Also, far from being ignorantly biased against swingers, he has enjoyed participating in the swinging community. He counts some swingers among his friends and knows they vary in their religiousness and spirituality. He also wrote the Wikipedia article on open marriage styles--which shows he knows swinging is not the only form of open marriage.

The author of this article is simply reporting the available evidence on the extent to which people accept open marriage (which is not much) and why. He also wrote about a study published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal that noticed a large drop in church attendance among swingers from childhood to adulthood. If you can find surveys or studies that provide evidence contrary to the main ideas expressed in this article, please feel free to modify the article accordingly. Otherwise, please stop the ad hominim and straw man attacks against the author just because you don't like what the evidence shows. 98.213.183.98 (talk) 18:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Removed Tags

A citation needed tag was added to the statement that open marriage conflicts with Christian doctrine. Why is a citation needed when the very next sentence explains the conflict with doctrine from the book of Genesis? Plus the author goes on to point out how open marriage conflicts with one of the ten commandments. I think enough people know that Christians accept Genesis in their canon of religious texts, that Christians accept the story of Adam and Eve as part of their tradition, and that Christians accept the ten commandments as part of their tradition. A citation is not needed.

Also, it is no way dubious to say sexually open mariage contradicts one of the ten commandments. In Exodus 20, one of the ten commandments says, "You shall not commit adultery." The very definition of adultry is a married person having sex with someone other than his or her spouse. Look it up in any dictionary. So how much clearer could it be? One of the ten commandments clearly says no married person is to have sex with someone other than a spouse. Yet, that is exactly what people in sexually open marriages do. They have sex with people other than their spouses. That's the very definition of open marriage. Look it up in a dictionary. So there is NOTHING dubious about saying open marriage contradicts one the ten commandments. 98.213.183.98 (talk) 18:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

POV =

I don't feel like this article represents a neutral point of view. Specific religious objections are not relevant. The statistics cited are relevant but easy to misinterpret and presented in a leading way. Also, health concerns are relevant to people who are deciding whether to participate in open marriages, but not in any way related to the social acceptance of open marriages (ie, whether society at large accepts open marriages).

The entire STD section is irrelevant. The statement "Since open marriages increase the number of sex partners by allowing extramarital relationships, open marriages increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases." is not true or NPOV: the question is, increase /relative to what/? Presumably the author is imagining this statement relative to absolute monogamy, strictly adhered to, but that is far from common practice (recall that the average number of lifetime sex partners of any person is somewhere around 5). It's not clear at all whether participants in open marriages have more /lifetime/ sexual partners than people in normative marriages or people outside of marriages. Safe sex practice and open marriage are two separate questions, and if anything, people in open marriages have a stronger incentive to observe safe sex practices than unmarried people.

• I added a POV. It's very weighted against swingers with nothing in favor. For one thing, an open marriage is not adultery, it's an open marriage. Adultery generally involves stealing another person's wife/husband. If you offer, that can't really be stealing. Also, there are several Biblical references to polygamy, but you'll probably find little support prior to the New Testament of monogamy. Bulmabriefs144 (talk) 02:13, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

--68.173.108.136 (talk) 15:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)