Open Relationships In India Might Not Be As Rare As We Think

In recent years, conversations around relationships in India have begun to sound different. Terms like openness, consent, and emotional honesty are appearing more frequently in public discourse, challenging the traditional assumption that monogamy is the only respectable form of intimacy.

According to a survey carried by the dating platform Gleeden, 69% of Indian respondents believe that social acceptance of open relationships is increasing.

Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities show similar levels of acceptance, subverting expectations around commitment and fidelity.

For queer people, whose relationships have historically existed outside social recognition, this moment invites both cautious possibility and necessary skepticism.

On the surface, this suggests a country becoming more open-minded about how relationships are structured. But for queer lives, the implications of such data are far from straightforward.

Queer relationships in India have long operated in a context shaped by invisibility, silence, and negotiation. For decades, many queer people built intimacy without legal, familial, or social legitimacy.

This exclusion forced the creation of alternative relationship models that prioritized discretion, flexibility, and chosen family. Furthermore, a society that stresses the institution of marriage and children, monogamy functions as just another extension of heteronormativity. 

It supresses entire parts of identity and sexuality for all those who might be attracted to more than one gender. In this sense, non-monogamy is not new to queer communities. What is new is the possibility of speaking about relationships more openly without immediate moral condemnation.

Non-monogamy or Cheating?

At the same time, it is important to interrogate what exactly surveys like this are measuring. The survey does not clearly distinguish between cheating and ethical polygamy, which means open relationships grounded in consent.

The people responding to the survey may not share a common understanding of these terms, nor a nuanced grasp of consent, power, or communication. As a result, the findings cannot be treated as empirical evidence. 

This ambiguity matters deeply for queer people. Ethical polygamy is built on explicit consent, transparency, and mutual negotiation. Cheating, by contrast, relies on secrecy and deception.

When these distinctions blur in public conversation, queer relationships risk being further misunderstood or unfairly stigmatized.

Historically, queerness itself has been framed as excess, instability, or moral looseness. Conflating ethical openness with infidelity reinforces harmful stereotypes. 

Still, these conversations emerging around relationships, however ambiguous, signal something worth paying attention to.

For queer people, whose emotional lives have often been denied legitimacy, the growing acceptance of non-monogamous relationships is significant. It gestures toward a time where intimacy is not automatically measured against heteronormative benchmarks.

Views expressed by the author are their own.