New rules, no rules, old rules or our rules : women designing mixed-orientation relationships with bisexual men

This chapter draws from an Australian semi-structured interview project with seventy-eight culturally, sexually and geographically diverse women, aged nineteen to sixty-five, who were in monogamous, open and polyamorous marital and de facto relationships with bisexual men, abbreviated as MOREs (mixed-orientation relationships).<br />For the purposes of this chapter, I will provide an overview of the shifting subjectivities, agency and resistance of those women and their male partners who stated that, without coercion or repression, they undertook processes of ‘designing’ their long-term MOREs. <br />I wiIl explore what every woman stated as being an essential component of consensually and creatively entering or being in a relationship with a bisexual man: designing, negotiating and maintaining some “ground rules” and “boundaries”. <br />There appear to be three overall groups of ‘rules’ within which specific ‘designs’ are created: <br />1. ‘Old Rules’: Monogamy is considered the only workable or desirable rule, and a partner’s inability to adhere to monogamy would mean the end of the relationship.<br />2. ‘New Rules’: A range of negotiations and design-specifications establish non-monogamous boundaries and operational strategies.<br />3. ‘Our Rules or His and Her Rules’: Decisions are made regarding to what extent the rules will be equitable to both, or there are separate regulations for each partner. <br /><br /> <br />