An approach to relationships in which everyone involved knowingly agrees to consensual openness, meaning partners may have multiple romantic or sexual connections while being honest about it. Ethical non-monogamy, often shortened to ENM, is an umbrella term rather than a single structure.
People come to ENM for many reasons, including wanting room for multiple meaningful connections, mismatched desires between partners, or simply a worldview that treats exclusivity as one option among several. What draws most people in is not the number of partners but the emphasis on transparency, negotiation, and ongoing consent as relationships change.
Worth knowing: The consent and care work lives in the doing: clear agreements about what everyone is actually opting into, honest disclosure when situations change, attention to sexual health, and regular check-ins that treat jealousy and discomfort as things to talk through rather than failures.
Also called: ENM, consensual non-monogamy (CNM), polyamory, open relationship, swinging, relationship anarchy, solo poly, hierarchy and non-hierarchy
