Polyamory
So as to not take over the other thread.
I do have emotional relationships. If something happened and I or my partner wasn't able to have sex, I could work around that. If our emotional/intellectual relationship diminished, it'd be over. For me, the "connection" is the most important thing. Sex is important to me, but it isn't defining - although bad sex will end a budding relationship. I can usually tell by kissing styles. I tend to work on the "connection" with people who I think will be good sex partners, so it goes hand-in-hand. In a relationship, for me, what makes us "us" is the overall bond.
I avoid casual sex. There's a high probability of first-time sex being bad because partners aren't in tune with what the other person likes. I'm likely to be sexually monogamous, because for sex to be good (for me) it takes a few times with the same person and that wanders into emotional monogamy space. However, I don't feel necessarily tied to either casual sex or monogamy.
I dunno why I don't have a problem with open-ish relationships. If people continue this dicussion, it may help me put it in words.
I am a big fan of polyamory and polygamy in principle. Romantic and sexual relationships between consenting adults are a basic human right, and marriage should simply be a voluntary contract between individuals without the government dictating the gender and quantity of the people that may be involved.
Polygamy makes economic sense for a number of reasons, especially in past societies where a lot of men died in war but in a modern society as well. Men are statistically more likely to be homosexual or to be uninterested in committed relationships for a greater fraction of their adult lives, which means at any time a society is likely to have too many family-oriented women chasing after too few family-oriented men. (This also means too many men seeking commitment-free sexual relations from too few women, which is why prostitution should be legalized as well.) People who are capable of attracting more than one marriage partner at a time should be free to do so - government prohibition of that right is nothing short of reproductive socialism.
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