Why do men want polyamory?

The question assumes there is one male reason for wanting polyamory. The research supports something narrower and more useful: surveys of willingness do show a gender gap on average, while the studies that ask people why they chose this structure find the same handful of motives in everyone who answers. Neither kind of study can tell you why any particular man — or woman — wants what they want.

The gender gap shows up most clearly in willingness. A mixed-methods study of 549 emerging adults found that a greater proportion of men fell into the group it labelled willing to engage in consensual non-monogamy, and a greater proportion of women fell into the unwilling group, with sexual minorities more likely to be open-minded (Sizemore & Olmstead, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2018). The same researchers' earlier structural-equation study of 890 emerging adults found the paths to willingness differed by gender: for women, willingness ran through sexual identity exploration; for men, through permissive attitudes to casual sex (Sizemore & Olmstead, Journal of Sex Research, 2017). A survey of 274 heterosexual young adults found 24% of men and 8% of women reported mixed-gender threesome experience, with men reporting significantly more positive attitudes and greater interest — though overall interest was low and depended on context (Thompson & Byers, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2017).

What people say when asked why is where the picture becomes less gendered. A thematic analysis of open-ended responses from 540 people currently in consensual non-monogamous relationships sorted the motives into six interconnected themes: autonomy, beliefs and value systems, relationality, sexuality, growth and expansion, and pragmatism. The authors note that their findings contrast with the stereotype that people choose these relationships because something is wrong with them or with the relationship they are in (Wood et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2021). A later study focusing on polyamory specifically — the first to look only at polyamorous practitioners — analysed responses from 63 US adults and found four themes: values alignment, relationship factors, external triggers and sexuality (Tatum et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2024). Autonomy, values and sexuality recur; “men” does not.

That is the honest shape of the evidence. The willingness surveys measure a self-reported average, not a cause, and a person whose answer sits in the majority is not thereby explained. The motive studies are small: 540 and 63 people, drawn from people who agreed to answer a survey about their own relationships, in self-selected, non-representative samples. No study we could find identifies a motive exclusive to men, and none predicts what any individual wants. If the question behind the question is practical — one partner wants to open the relationship and the other is unsure — the useful next step is the conversation itself: the answers on bringing the subject up the first time, on setting rules together and on what to do if only one of you is interested cover that ground far better than a gender statistic can.

For completeness: wanting polyamory is not the same as being suited to it, and the evidence on outcomes is a separate question the library covers elsewhere — the answers on whether open relationships last and on whether swinging is healthy for a relationship describe what the studies do and do not show. JoinTheSwing is pre-launch: new registration remains closed until the coordinated native-app release is approved, and the public answers library and free launch list are open meanwhile.