![middle aged gay men making love tumblr middle aged gay men making love tumblr](https://66.media.tumblr.com/8b7d6dc3abde9b01c47e25d5e3a18f99/tumblr_plgowjteR41u08r3v_500.jpg)
![middle aged gay men making love tumblr middle aged gay men making love tumblr](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d7/c4/60/d7c460d7899d40a036839cc86bbf2d52.jpg)
Monogamy is a Conscious and Deliberate Choiceīefore we looked at our survey results, we had some notion that monogamy had become a sort of “default” choice for a lot of younger gay men. Marriage was just as common among non-monogamous couples as monogamous. Among all respondents, 62% said most of their couple friends are married or likely to marry. Among couples, 77% were either married, in domestic partnerships or planning to marry. We also heard that marriage is definitely becoming the norm. Among single respondents in our survey, 90% were actively seeking monogamous relationships. Eighty-six percent of couples described their relationships as monogamous-compared with 30-50% of couples among older generations. We did not see significant differences among these groups.Įven though we had heard anecdotally that younger men were interested in monogamy, we were surprised at how widespread this was. They included residents from both urban and rural communities, as well as East/West Coast, Midwest and Southern regions. Our respondents were of varied ethnicities. We had a good range of representation in the study.
![middle aged gay men making love tumblr middle aged gay men making love tumblr](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/ac/be/e7acbe0d8506dbd0880edecc9a1a29cf.jpg)
![middle aged gay men making love tumblr middle aged gay men making love tumblr](https://64.media.tumblr.com/140ebde13b48f40b4a8af4405e6f3a14/tumblr_pi973fQRtr1rehispo3_540.gif)
These men have found many ways to build strong, healthy and loving relationships-strategies we believe would be useful for all populations. I think this is useful information for anyone working with gay men, and for young gay men themselves. Our study also affirmed the wonderful and creative diversity found in male couples. Virtually all of our respondents believe that communicating with partners about their sexual lives is a vital part of having a successful relationship. Some are applying a practice we call “being monogamish”-not exactly monogamous, but not wide open. Younger gay men do value monogamy more than their older counterparts. We discovered a lot of interesting things. This year, we completed our Choices study, which focused on gay men ages 18-40 and explored attitudes and practices about monogamy and marriage. But we’d been hearing that younger gay men had some different perspectives. Because we were examining long-term relationships, we had, by definition, an older cohort participate in the study. We wanted to know more about the experiences of long-term non-monogamous male couples. We did a self-funded study in 2010 called Beyond Monogamy. Little research is being done on gay male couples-how they build and sustain their relationships, what they think about monogamy and marriage, what they believe about the attitudes of their peers. What are the relationships of young gay men like today? It can be surprisingly difficult to answer this question with confidence. Senior Consultant, The Mandana Group and Independent Healthcare Consultant By Lanz Lowen, MS, MA and Blake Spears, MBA | November 2, 2016