By designing a relationship that doesn’t fit a typical married couple, Megan and Colin have joined a small but growing number of straight couples who are looking to gay male relationships as the model for long-term, nonmonogamous unions.

Anti-equality right-wingers have long insisted that allowing gays to marry will destroy the sanctity of “traditional marriage,” and, of course, the logical, liberal party-line response has long been “No, it won’t.” But what if—for once—the sanctimonious crazies are right? Could the gay male tradition of open relationships actually alter marriage as we know it? And would that be such a bad thing?

... Welcome to Queer (Roving) Eye for the Monogamous Straight Couple Lie, brought to you in part by writer Dan Savage, who coined the term monogamish to signify committed relationships in which the partners are, he explains, “mostly monogamous, but there’s a little allowance for the reality of desire for others and a variety of experiences and adventure and possibility... People primarily want stable, long-lasting partner bonds. They want safety.” They also want to [have sex with] other people, whether a relationship is open or closed.

... Sex therapist Timaree Schmit says she can understand gay couples’ desire to conform—at least outwardly—to the kind of conventional relationship that society deems “deserving” of marriage rights. “It’s been a big part of campaigning for marriage equality to repeatedly prove the ‘normalcy’ and stability of same-sex couples. People may feel pressure to make their relationship fit into a more acceptable box.”