Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage (7 page)

adultery that’s prohibited (after all, politicians have been doing it for centuries and everyone knows it), it’s public acknowledgment that the system [marriage] needs propping up with these secret forms of enjoyment.”
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This situation is not dissimilar from the fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” We walk around, pretending like everything’s okay, because we don’t want to call attention to this glaringly obvious thing that so many people are doing. We’re collectively engaged in promoting the practice of cheating because we are too scared of more viable, healthy, and honest alternatives. Wouldn’t it be better to live in a society based on honest open marriages, rather than deceptive traditional ones? I am well aware that some people will be waiting in the wings to declare how preposterous this suggestion is. For all of our talk about the importance of telling the truth and living honestly, hypocrisy in our society is more commonplace than dealing with the consequences of telling the truth. For me, the bottom line is clear: It’s only cheating if it demands secrecy. Otherwise, it’s simply being open.

Of course, for as closed as we seem to be, we do idolize some people who have embraced an open lifestyle wholly. Take Hugh Hefner, for example, and his lifetime of open relationships. He and his three girlfriends even have a wildly popular reality television show,
The Girls Next Door,
which chronicles life at the Playboy mansion. Rashes of people live vicariously through Hefner. Even more live secretly and or

deceptively like him. But people still proclaim to be ardently opposed to that kind of lifestyle.

I’m not necessarily making a case for Hefner’s particular style of open relationship. Kendra, at twenty-two, seems awfully young and naive. But Holly and Bridget, who are twenty-eight and thirty-four, respectively, seem well aware of the choice they have made, as well as what that choice means for them and how others may perceive it. Of course, despite their protests to the contrary, it is hard to believe that the perks (the money, the fame, the “opportunities”) do not play a large part in their choice to be involved with Hefner. But aren’t there all kinds of relationships in which such benefits factor into our decision to be with someone? How many people wouldn’t like to “marry up”? And have you ever heard a woman say, “He doesn’t have a job or any interest in working, but who cares”? Please. And if you watch enough episodes of
The Girls Next Door,
it’s clear that there are some genuine feelings between Hefner and his girls. Regardless, they’re making a personal choice, and they’re living openly in a relationship that, at least for now and despite anyone else’s reservations, is working for them. “With open relationships, people don’t have to be repressed, and the people in the relationship don’t have to disrespect one another by lying,” Liza opines. Exactly. It’s the difference between lying to ourselves and being honest about who we are and what the relationships we’re in are like.

my own early dalliances in openness

eventually ended. Clark and I broke up. Some of my girl- friends held an intervention and told me that my wanting to be with other guys could mean only one thing—that I didn’t really want to be with Clark. I didn’t wholly concur with their opinion, but I did listen to them. How could I not have? How could they and the television and the movies and the books and everything I’d been hearing my whole life be wrong? I needed everyone else to be okay with my choices, and I felt certain that if my friends saw a problem, there must be something wrong with me and what I was doing. So I broke up with him, crushing his heart and my own. And, when it comes right down to it, I did it because I wanted to sleep with other people.

After the breakup, I felt completely lost and wondered what on earth I was going to do, and who on earth I would date. The relationship left me questioning what I wanted. Did I want to marry a Mr. Straight-and-Narrow? Did I not want to get married at all, but instead buck the trend and have a string of lovers? I was already starting to contemplate the picture of what an open relationship might entail, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. I didn’t know how to find someone who would be receptive to the idea, and I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure such a thing was possible outside of having some sort of “fringe” lifestyle, which I definitely wasn’t interested in. All I knew was that I had always been looking

for something, and that that something didn’t fit the mold of what other people wanted for me. But, for the first time in my life, I was starting to question what
I
really wanted.

Pursuing the answer to that question, I made my first foray into “girl world.” I had never given much thought to dating or sleeping with women, but I was never actively opposed to it, either. I’d just never found myself in a position to explore—that is, until I met Sophie Anne. Shortly after Clark and I broke up, I went on tour as an actress with a children’s theater company, and she and I instantly became the best of friends. How we also became lovers after that was a natural unfolding that felt like the craziest, but also the most logical, thing ever. It still feels that way even now, actually, more than ten years later.

I admitted to Sophie Anne that I had started to wonder what it would be like to kiss her. To my surprise and relief, she told me that she had wondered the same thing. My feelings that day, which are still vivid in my memory, were echoed recently in an article I read by Jennifer Baumgardner, author of
Look Both Ways,
in which she describes her first experience kissing a girl: “Then, because I couldn’t stand not to, I kissed her.”
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My sentiments exactly. At that moment, it wasn’t about what I should do, or even wanted to do. It was what I
had
to do, so I did it.

Sophie Anne and I began sleeping together and dated for about six months. We were never “out,” however. We told a few close friends, but we were never girlfriends. Still,

being together somehow felt sensible. We loved each other already. We were attracted to each other. We weren’t hung up on sexual orientation. We just did what felt good to us for as long as it felt right. And when we were both ready to go back to being just friends, we did so fairly seamlessly.

Being with Sophie Anne was another step, another piece in the puzzle I was trying to solve, in my ongoing exploration of love, sex, and relationships. It was my first time with a woman, and it was short term and closeted at that. So I didn’t know if I had simply fallen in love with her specifically, or whether I might be bisexual. If the latter was true, the idea of being in a working monogamous relationship seemed even more improbable than it already felt. How could I reconcile bisexuality with such an arrangement? Could I fall in love with just one person of either sex and give up the things that attracted me to the other sex? Did gender matter? Maybe I was looking for Cinderella, not Prince Charming—or maybe I was looking for them both.

Regardless of my experiences and feelings, I still felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, demanding that I get it all sorted out—and soon. I wasn’t getting any younger, my grandmother was fond of reminding me. Anne Kingston, in her book
The Meaning of Wife,
boils down the social mandate women face to this: “Compromise, settle, tone yourself down, and do it sooner than later.”
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Those aren’t anyone’s exact words, of course, but they articulate the message I felt pressing down on me at every turn. It was time to figure out what I wanted.

Chapter 3

just pick

someone already

Then she met a nice guy whom she thought she could love. He was what she imagined she had always wanted— someone kind and smart, who would love her and take care of her. The summer they started dating, she slept with another woman, but then decided she was ready to settle down. He said “I do” and she said “I do,” and for a while they were happy. Then they had a baby and their sex life plummeted, and she soon realized that her sex drive was far greater than his. And so she had an affair. She told him about it, and they decided they’d work on their marriage. After all, what else was there to do?

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when I met Christopher, I was ready

for him. I felt like I had done all of my proverbial oat sowing, and I thought I was prepared to pick one person and get married. I figured I would be fine with it, happy, as long as I managed to choose that magical “right person.” It was what everyone else did, and I was determined to succeed. What I was actually experiencing was the social pressure to get married that so many women fall prey to, and that they follow with such blind faith, that they eventually begin mistaking it for their own desire. I mean, what was so special about me that I should end up doing anything other than exactly what everyone else was doing?

I was ready to be with someone who saw me as more than a toy, someone who loved and respected and maybe even cherished me. Surely I wasn’t going to find that in some casual relationship, and certainly not in a series of casual relationships, right? So when I met Christopher, it felt like the stars were aligning. He was
that guy
.

As it turned out, I had plans with another guy the day we met. I was all dressed up and ready to go out. I stood waiting, waiting, waiting for him to pick me up, but he never came. I decided that was it; I wasn’t going to miss the festival we’d planned on going to just because some creep had stood me up, and I wasn’t going to miss out on life because I was dating creeps. So I grabbed my bag and headed out the door.

As I walked down the street, I kept an eye out for people I knew. It wasn’t a big city, and I was sure I’d run into someone. I reached into my bag to grab my lighter, to light the cigarette that was already dangling between my fingers, when I remembered the exact spot on my coffee table where I’d left it.

“Damn,” I said, louder than I’d intended.

“Excuse me?” A tall, thin man was leaning against a nearby lamppost, surrounded by a group of guys I assumed to be his friends. They were drinking and laughing.

“I’m sorry. I just need a light, and I couldn’t find my . . . “ He held out a flame before I could even finish my sentence.

“Madame,” he said.

“Thanks.” I took a long drag and continued on my way. “Wait a minute,” he called after me, lifting his sunglasses

to rest on his forehead. “You go to law school, right?” “Uh, yeah. How do you know?”

“And you go to Cook’s Corner almost every day for lunch with your crew.”

“My crew?”

“You know, your group of brainiacs. Right?”

I nodded, unsure of exactly where this might be going. “Hello, I’m Tom and I’ll be your server.”

“Oh my god,” I said with a smile. I hadn’t recognized him without his uniform of khaki pants and a blue oxford shirt; he looked so laid-back in his T-shirt and jeans. Tom introduced me to his friends, who insisted I join them when

I told them how I’d been stood up. One of those friends was Christopher, my now husband. I liked him straightaway. Tall, blond, great smile, broad shoulders. Smart as hell, with an incredibly dry wit. We hit it off immediately and made plans to see each other again a few nights later.

After our first date, we set another and then another. We had a good time together in bed. He was sweet and attentive. He seemed to like that I could be aggressive, but he was also happy to take the lead himself. It was satisfying, happy sex, no more and no less. It felt good, and like exactly what I wanted at the time. I had no desire to be ravaged by the big bad wolf. I thought that maybe I didn’t need newness or excitement or pushing the envelope because—could it be?—I was falling in love.

Three months after we met, I had to go away for work for the whole summer, as a dancer in an outdoor theater production at the beach in Manteo, North Carolina.

“I’ll come visit you,” he said, standing at my car door, both of us tearing up. “Don’t cry, okay? I’ll call you. You’ll be back before you know it.” He leaned down and kissed me goodbye.

that summer was a lot of fun. It was

a wild place. Many of the dancers and actors had been performing in the show for years, and they had all sorts of rituals and parties. They also had a motto: “Come engaged, go home gay.” Apparently, more than a few people dabbled

in same-sex experimentation while there, and it did feel more like a commune than any summer-stock theater company I had ever experienced.

We spent our days at the beach, and our nights doing the show and then drinking and partying until way too late. The place was humming with sexual energy. Although Christopher and I hadn’t said we would be exclusive, we had been since the day we met. So when Pierce, a fellow dancer, walked me back to my apartment one night after a party, I didn’t kiss him when he leaned his body toward mine. I didn’t even want to.

“I have a boyfriend,” I told him.

“Really? That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that,” Pierce said.

It was true. I hadn’t mentioned Christopher on purpose. I was enjoying all the attention and the flirting. It was exciting to be desired by other people who weren’t my boyfriend. It was validating, too. I suppose we shouldn’t need other people’s attraction to us to prove our attractiveness or, worse, our worth. But even when we are fully aware of that fact, it can be difficult to separate ourselves from it—and so, for better or for worse, it felt damn good to be noticed.

Attraction is a natural drug. In her book
Anatomy of Love,
Helen Fisher explains a theory put forth by psychologist Michael Liebowitz that supposes that “the euphoria and energy of attraction are caused by a brain bath of naturally occurring amphetamines that pool in the emotional centers of

the brain.”
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And boy, was I feeling the effects. Being desired felt amazing—it was a natural high, not unlike the one runners describe achieving from the increased endorphins that kick in when they run. My need was biological; my hesitation to indulge, merely societal. Only a week later, I decided to change my tune.