When Alex Was Bad — Open Marriage Instruction Manual?

The other day after my tirade about the price of e-books, I got even by going out and buying Jo David’s paperback of When Alex Was Bad, and reading that instead.

Well, sort-of reading it.

I confess that half the reason I bought it was intellectual curiosity.  In her post on Romance Novel TV, Davis was very upfront about the fact that the novel dealt with a couple that moved to an open marriage in order to save their relationship.  I’ve always wondered how open marriages worked logistically and emotionally.

Saul, the man in my life, was more blunt about it, when he found the book on my nightstand.  “If you’re going to fuck other people, why the hell are you going to stay married?” he asked.  Good point.

I write about threesomes.  MMF, MFM, in romances where two or even all three of the people end up emotionally committed to each other at the end of the story.  They do have sex.  Together.

Vital difference.

In open marriages, the couple are going off and having sex with other people.  As far as I can gather (there are no Dummies guides available) the couple may or may not chose to tell each other about their various exploits.  In When Alex was Bad, Alex gets to tell his wife about seven “slips,” whether they’re with the same woman on not.  His wife gets to play around with whomever she wants and tell Alex whether she wants to or not.  No rules, on her side of the bed.

I haven’t finished the book yet, so I don’t yet know if this all works out for the best, or if there is a moral to the tale.  Unfortunately, the whole story has been twisted by a murder-suspense subplot that is killing off my enthusiasm for finishing the book (quite apart from the less than pleasant novelty of having to read a paperback once more), but my curiosity about how the open marriage arrangement plot ends will probably see me through to the last page, once I force myself to pick it up again.

But so far, the idea of an open marriage that this book leaves me with is distasteful, at best, and scary, at worst.  There’s very few people of either gender, I believe, who can continuously engage in mindless sex with multiple partners, and not have it mean anything.  Sooner or later, they’re going to meet someone, mentally mesh with them, the sex will be great, mind-blowing even, and they can’t get enough of it.  A full obsession sets in, and boom, suddenly you’ve got a relationship on your hands, not just casual sex.

What happens then?  They go home to the spouse, look sheepish, toe the dirt, and say “sorry honey, I guess I slipped?”

Is Open Marriage an oxymoron or just a bad joke?

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