Terminology Twister

Recently, when I asked my audience what they wanted to know about non-monogamy, an interesting question came up: why do I use the term consensual non-monogamy (CNM), when many people use ethical non-monogamy (ENM) instead?

ENM and CNM mean essentially the same thing. They’re both umbrella terms that describe any relationship where partners agree, with informed consent, to have multiple romantic and/or sexual relationships. A huge range of relationship styles fit under this umbrella — everything from swinging, monogamish relationships, and open relationships that don’t involve romance to relationship anarchy, solo polyamory, and more. 

Whether you use ENM or CNM, nobody is really going to be confused. If you don’t want to geek out on details of the language, you don’t have to, and I won’t argue with anyone who wants to use a different term than I choose. That said, there are subtle differences between the two terms, and contextual reasons why you might want to use one or the other. 

Many clinicians, researchers, and scholars use CNM, whereas much of the public in open relationships use ENM. That makes sense to me, because the choice of which to use depends on context. Consider this: Consent (in this case, whether all parties know the relationship is open and have, at a minimum, willingness for that condition) is an objective and behaviorally identifiable fact. You can define it pretty clearly: Did all involved parties know and opt in? This makes consensual non-monogamy easy to describe and define, which is useful if you’re trying to do research or produce scholarly work. 

It also makes sense that many people would want to use ethical non-monogamy to describe their own relationships. Most of us hope our relationships, whether open or not, have a lot more than consent going on: values-based decision-making, follow-through, enthusiastic endorsement, joyful participation, relational skill, and generous consideration of others. The term ethical non-monogamy implies an aspiration towards those values, which is a good thing. 

At the same time, the very word “ethical” raises some questions. Whose definition of ethics are we using? What counts, and what doesn’t? Who gets to define whether any particular relationship counts as ethical? If my relationship doesn’t fit someone’s definition, is it then unethical? As a clinician, and as a person who trains clinicians, I’m not personally comfortable using terminology that implies that kind of judgement. “Ethical” is hard to define and subjective, especially when applied to a diverse group of folks.

It’s very common for people to worry that they are doing non-monogamy “wrong” by some set of outside standards, or to feel judged by others for having a different approach. Some things might fall outside of “ethical” for some people, but work just fine for others. As a relationship therapist, I can tell you that there’s no right or wrong way to do any relationship. Some things work better than others for most people, but there’s a wide range in terms of what’s possible. 

For instance, imagine a setup in which one participant is willing to have a non-monogamous relationship, but not enthusiastic about it. Some might find that falls short of their sense of what’s ethical. For myself, I can certainly see some potential pitfalls with that setup, but it’s far from doomed. Even if the willingness is wobbly, at least everyone involved has the information they need to make decisions for themselves. I much prefer that to secret-keeping or gaslighting. 

I’ve seen plenty of clearly unethical behavior in monogamous relationships, and I’ll bet you have too! I don’t believe that open relationships are more likely to be problematic than monogamy, and as a person in a polyamorous relationship myself, it’s important to me not to reinforce that idea. The truth is, when I’m training therapists, we’re usually discussing how to help when a relationship is struggling. We work with real human beings, in real (and sometimes messy) situations. That’s the nature of our work: What people aspire to isn’t always where they start. 

As a trainer, my goal is to help fellow therapists work more effectively with relationships, whatever their starting point may be, and without making broad assumptions about how it must look in order to function well or be “good.” As a therapist, my goal is to help people build their relational skills, clarify and act in accordance with their values, and create relationships that are respectful, flexible, responsive to differences between individuals, and meaningful to the people within them. I do that for my clients no matter what label they use to describe their relationships. 

 Originally published on Psychology Today.