American culture reveres monogamy, holding it up as an ideal moral standard, as a kind of Holy Grail for intimacy, and as a cornerstone for establishing normative social interactions. Monogamy, as often practiced, also prescribes and reproduces binary and hierarchical gender relations. Given these interconnections, how do people in non-monogamous relationships conceptualize gender? To explore this question, this study examines how people experience two varied forms of non-monogamy—swinging and polyamory. A comparative analysis of data from in-depth interviews with 22 swingers and 23 polyamorists illustrates how discrediting varied aspects of monogamy can alter gender power dynamics and, under certain circumstances, substantially erode gender hierarchy.
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