Living outside the box - consensual non-monogamies, intimacies and communities: Notes on Research and Terminology

‘Consensual Non-monogamy is an umbrella term for any relationship type in which people are not monogamous’, explains the sociologist Elisabeth Sheff (Sheff, 2016). As we will show in the course of this chapter, Consensual Non-Monogamy (CNM) comes in many different shapes, which is why we also use the term in plural. In many contemporary societies, Consensual Non-Monogamies (CNMs) present a paradoxical phenomenon: they have become more visible and many are intrigued by alternatives to the dominant ideal of emotionally and/or sexually- exclusive couple bonding. At the same time, (most) CNMs are frowned upon, seen to lack respectability and are socially rebuffed and legally discouraged, if not criminalized.
In this chapter, we will provide an overview of key terms, concepts and current debates on CNMs through an engagement with relevant research in the field. Our goal is to provide a grounding for the more specific and focused chapters that follow by describing and evaluating major social, cultural, and political trends that impact on CNM lives. We hope this will contribute to an appreciation of the complexity and diversity of CNM lives, and the various conditions under which they exist. One of the key arguments of this chapter is that different forms of CNM are framed and positioned differently within the public sphere. Different CNM practitioners, too, experience different forms of marginalisation and misrepresentation and may have different access to tools of creating counter-discourses or forms of pushing back against mainstream ideas about relationships.