I am naughty by nature, but I’m actually not down with OPP.
Surprised? Well, OPP has a different meaning to me. OPP means this: A
bisexual female/heterosexual male couple are discussing polyamory, but
he doesn’t like the idea of her fucking other guys. So he says,
“Okay, you can sleep with women—but no other men.” Sometimes
they’ll just leave it at that: She’ll get him plus her girlfriends, but
he’ll remain monogamous. Often, however, the next sentence out of his
mouth is “And if you get to sleep with other women, then so do I.” This
is what polyamorous people refer to, disparagingly, as the One-Penis
Policy.

Why disparagingly? On the surface, the OPP sounds equitable: Both
partners get to do exactly the same thing. Only it’s not. It’s
about as fair and balanced as Fox News. Under the OPP, the straight man
is free to pursue any woman he wishes, while his bisexual partner must
limit her choices because of his fears.

And fear is the reason for an OPP. Fears like: If another man
fucks “my” woman, he’ll steal her away. Only by isolating her can I
keep her. Men who fuck lots of women are studs, but women who fuck more
than one man are dirty whores; my partner cannot be a dirty
whore! (Sex with other women, though—that’s different. If
there’s no penis, then it’s not real sex, merely foreplay for
me.)

Fear of the woman getting an STD from a new male partner is often
mentioned as additional justification—which conveniently ignores
the fact that straight men can get STDs from women, and thus the One
Penis is also capable of bringing one home. Also implied is that a
vicious, Highlander-esque competition for status and
dominance is biologically inherent to men. They can’t help it; it’s
just their nature. A good, loving woman restricts her sexuality so she
doesn’t tarnish her man’s image and rouse his inner beast.

Women in this position often reluctantly accept the OPP as a
stepping-stone. In time, she thinks, he’ll relax the rule and let me
have sex with other men, too. But it’s a rare individual who willingly
gives up an arrangement where he gets everything he wants and
nothing he doesn’t. If you want the freedom to have sex with other men,
then work out the jealousy issues in some other fashion. But don’t
adopt the OPP, because it builds resentment and the temptation to
lie.

Male practitioners of the OPP say, “It’s not unfair! She doesn’t
want to fuck other men.” If she doesn’t want to, obviously she
doesn’t have to. But why have a rule forbidding it? Lift the
gender ban and let her choose as freely as you do. Or stay monogamous
and let OPP stand for One-Pussy as well as One-Penis. recommended

53 replies on “Control Tower”

  1. The whole one-penis (or at least, one penis per woman) standard goes all the way back to the original concept of marriage.

    Before DNA testing, the only way to prove paternity was to restrict women to have sex with only one man. Note that I say “women” (plural) and “man” (singular). Men could have multiple wives, concubines, etc., as long as the women remained monogamous, since, when a child is born, who his/her mother may be is never in question.

    Women who had sex with more than one man bore children whose paternity couldn’t be proven, and so these children were bastards and their mothers, whores.

    This concept is so ingrained in our culture that, even though medical science has provided us with the means to prove paternity, there is still a presumed restriction on female sex lives. Females are expected to be monogamous, even if their male partner is not. Lesbian relations are often acceptable because there is no chance of conception taking place, but women are still expected to stay monogamous to one penis.

  2. Actually in more primative times property and wealth was passed on thru the woman. Because she knew who HER children were. A male would copulate with as many females as possible hoping that some of the tribes offspring would be his. This is why dominant males became dominant. They had first dibs (so to speak) on the most fertile and ‘productive’ females. The female would raise HER children regardless of who the father was. But in this circumstance the males were highly motivated to keep the whole tribe going as best as possible. The child you protect from that sabre toothed tiger may be your own. It was only after society began to shift towards monogamy, and paternal inheritance, did the one penis rule come into effect. “I’m not going to expend my energy and resources so that the offspring of some other member of the tribe gets all of my stuff when I die.”

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