Talk:Open relationship

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 8 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Eanneyrey. Peer reviewers: FranklinLu, Charris0524.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

This looked better when it was a GA
The GA version seems better. Cursory looks suggests that changes since removed useful content (ex. statistics) section, and decreased the prose quality (ex. reasons for entering has been changed from a well-referenced paragraph into a poorly referenced list ). The gutting done in 2012 by User:Scott did not, in my opinion, improve the quality of this article. While there were some errors in the old version (ex. in statistics), wholesale removal such as does not seemed justified (why was that section dubious?). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

proposed merge
The articles Open marriage, Open marriage relationship, Open marriage styles, Open marriage acceptance, Open marriage incidence, and Open marriage jealousy ought to be merged into Open relationship.

The destination article clearly encompasses the subject matter of all six articles. These are content forks, and these have in fact become interleaved and self-referential; for instance, sections have been added to Open marriage simply to justify the existence of other articles, and likewise sections have been put into the smaller articles to point back to each other.

When the merge is completed, the significant redundancies can be readily removed, leaving a single credible destination for the topic. Weeb Dingle (talk) 22:41, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

supportive evidence for merge
Set aside for a moment that most of the articles appear derivative right from the title. The fact is that most of the content is of little (perhaps no) interest to Wikipedia users.


 * Open relationship
 * page views in past 30 days: 25,246
 * number of page watchers: 76
 * number of redirects to this page: 4
 * page creator: Branddobbe


 * Open marriage
 * page views in past 30 days: 17,027
 * number of page watchers: 113
 * number of redirects to this page: 2
 * page creator: Kerada


 * Open marriage relationship
 * page views in past 30 days: 929
 * number of page watchers: <30
 * number of redirects to this page: 0
 * page creator: Kc62301


 * Open marriage styles
 * page views in past 30 days: 1,980
 * number of page watchers: <30
 * number of redirects to this page: 0
 * page creator: Kc62301 merged to Open marriage


 * Open marriage acceptance
 * page views in past 30 days: 429
 * number of page watchers: <30
 * number of redirects to this page: 0
 * page creator: Kc62301 merged to Open marriage


 * Open marriage incidence
 * page views in past 30 days: 544
 * number of page watchers: <30
 * number of redirects to this page: 0
 * page creator: Kc62301 merged to Open marriage


 * Open marriage jealousy
 * page views in past 30 days: 410
 * number of page watchers: <30
 * number of redirects to this page: 0
 * page creator: Kc62301 merged to Open marriage

Clearly, defunct editor Kc62301 was a serial forker, spawning questionable articles to support his own theories of interpersonal relating (e.g., Outline of relationships). Most of them show a tiny visitorship, most of those likely arriving from the superior articles in hopes of further enlightenment. Weeb Dingle (talk) 15:45, 1 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Seems like common sense to merge these to me! With all these sources you could possibly even get it to WP:GA without too much more work! Reywas92Talk 06:27, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

note about terminology
An "open relationship" is an interpersonal (assumedly intimate) relationship that happens to be not strictly monogamous. By comparison, an "open marriage" is treated as a subset, and problematic from the outset because (by definition) marriage is strictly monogamous, so the term is as irrational as would be "nonmonogamous monogamy."

Logically, "open marriage" is more properly a subset of "marriage" than of "open relationship." However, for encyclopedic purposes, that propriety is completely reversed: few users will look up a subject (marriage) seeking information about its apparent negation. With that in mind, "open marriage" is treated as a subset of "open relationship." Weeb Dingle (talk) 07:39, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I could try. I'm a rather new editor, but as someone in a fairly open relationship, I'm possibly in a place of knowledge on the subject. Anoraktrend (talk) 07:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I just added a bit trying to explain the difference to the main section, feel free to move it or find a source to cite for it. Anoraktrend (talk) 08:37, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

needs more even-handedness
I note there's a section entitled Reasons for avoiding an open relationship.

Until similar sections appear in other articles about relationships and sex — perhaps begin with Marriage and Homosexuality and Heterosexuality and Celibacy and Monogamy — then such comments ought be viewed askance as likely expression of petty moralizing a.k.a. original research. Some fancy use of "According to" had better be in evidence. Weeb Dingle (talk) 16:57, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

And at the other extreme, the article as it stands relies too significantly on one book, namely Taormino's Opening Up, inarguably raising the yellow flag of POV doubts, not to mention whether it might have advert or fansite bias. Since that book is a marketing brochure for open relating, rather than any sort of scholarly study, the article relies heavily on a primary source; I'd say the flag becomes red. Weeb Dingle (talk) 08:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Only now does it strike me that the "relationship" referred to throughout this article specifically refers to two people in "a committed relationship" (never defined). This seems to indicate a strong "couplist" or "monogamist" bias against stable nonmonogamist forms, that everything is about a "real" relationship with "a little something on the side," so just a gussied-up form of adultery a.k.a. cheating or affair. Unless that's intended, then correction is in order. Weeb Dingle (talk) 08:41, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

explain the concepts!
How is it possible to make clear w.t.f. "open" when nowhere is "closed" mentioned, much less defined? This is yet another article sex-related article that fails the "average reader" test. Could someone preen through here and clean it up? Weeb Dingle (talk) 19:09, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I could try. I'm a rather new editor, but as someone in a fairly open relationship, I'm possibly in a place of knowledge on the subject. Anoraktrend (talk) 07:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC) I just added a bit trying to explain the difference to the main section, feel free to move it or find a source to cite for it. Anoraktrend (talk) 08:37, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Lede wrongly (IMHO) representing polyamory
The lede states that the primary difference between open relationships and polyamory is that polyamory focusses on a primary relationship, with other -- secondary -- relationships a possibility.

I think that is a very wrong representation of polyamory. Yes, most polycules originated from a mono relationship opening up, with the original relationship remaining "primary" (just as most "open" relationships originate from a "mono" relationship opening up as well). But the main difference (IMHO) is the informed consent, and that additional relationships are meant to be meaningful and long-term. Having equal relationships does not turn polyamory into something else, "fooling around" does. I feel the lede is not informing on the closely related subject correctly. -- DevSolar2 (talk) 14:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)


 * That's fair. What would your proposed rewrite be? Historyday01 (talk) 15:28, 16 November 2023 (UTC)