Modern Sexuality: How To Get Your Feelings Hurt Big Time

Okay, I'll sound VERY conventional here, but c'mon, all this open relationship sex and monogamy with benefits stuff seems to be just the best way in the world to end up with your feelings hurt and a marriage that's biodegradable. Marriage is just too good at dissolving all on its own, why help it along?

For much of human history, monogamy (or, at least, presumed monogamy) has been the default setting for long-term love. Hack the system, goes the theory, refuse to forsake all others, open the door even a crack—and the whole relationship will crash. Any dissenters have been pathologized as delusional idealists or worse. But now a new generation of couples is employing a kind of homeopathic hypothesis: that a tiny injection of adventure will ward off the urge to stray further—as long as it’s all on the table and up for discussion. (And just as with homeopathy, a healthy percentage of the population considers this premise bunk.)

For more, read the New York Magazine piece from their cover article a few weeks back.