Rise of ‘ethical non-monogamy’ – the latest sexual trend that advocates say can reignite passion… but would YOUR relationship survive it?

The idea of your partner having sex with a stranger is enough to make most people’s blood run cold—but for one couple, it was exactly what they needed to bring the passion back.

Jem, 45, and Daz Jones, 42, from the Midlands, are the UK’s most recognisable advocates for ethical non-monogamy—a relationship style where couples agree, openly and honestly, to explore sex or romance with other people.

The pair shot to fame on Channel 4’s Open House: The Great Sex Experiment, where they served as the show’s resident couple, guiding others through threesomes, swinging, and open relationship dynamics.

Now, they’ve turned their lifestyle into a platform—sharing their experiences on social media and adult sites, and offering relationship coaching to couples looking to break out of the ‘monogamy or bust’ mindset.

Jem and Daz have been practising ENM since 2022, after realising their own relationship had lost its spark—and say it hasn’t just improved their sex life, but made their bond stronger than ever.

‘It wasn’t that the sex was bad—when we had it, it was still good,’ said Jem. ‘It had just gone off a bit.’

She was the one who first raised the idea of sleeping with other people—a suggestion Daz initially struggled with.

‘He took it a bit personally at first,’ she said. ‘He thought it was because of something he’d done, or that he wasn’t satisfying me.’

But the couple say the decision to open their marriage gave them a deeper physical and emotional connection.

‘People have been conditioned to think that monogamy is the only way,’ Jem added. ‘Anything outside of that is seen as disgusting or shameful. But people are starting to say it’s okay to have these desires—and you can explore them together, as a couple.’

Despite Daz’s early reservations, the couple—who met on Tinder in 2015—quickly began exploring the lifestyle.

‘We sat down and spoke about it and decided to go and explore this lifestyle together,’ said Daz. ‘We didn’t have the intention of sleeping with anyone else. We just agreed to go on a journey of discovery, go to some swinging events and see how it made us feel.

‘I was deeply in love with Jemma, but admittedly, we’d reached that point in a relationship where we’d got past the early relationship high. You start to settle into more of a normal relationship, all about work and family, and neglect a really important part of our relationship, which is the sexual side of things.

‘So when Jem brought it up, instantly for me, it’s a failure on my part. I’m suddenly realising, oh, I’ve dropped the ball on this and now she just wants to go and have sex with other people.’

They began attending swinger events as observers, before gradually gaining the confidence to introduce others into the bedroom.

Now, the couple describe themselves as ‘swingamorous’ — somewhere between swingers and polyamorous — and are currently exploring life as a throuple with another woman, although they say they have no plans to live as a trio full-time.

Swinging and polyamory are both forms of ethical non-monogamy—but where swinging usually happens at events, polyamory involves forming ongoing romantic or sexual relationships with multiple partners.

Daz believes the biggest misconception about ENM is that it’s just an excuse to cheat.

‘It’s not because you want to run off and find someone else, or test drive people before you make a decision about who you will commit to. You want to do something to enhance your relationship.

‘These misconceptions are 100 per cent the reason people are so scared to have this discussion around non-monogamy. They are terrified of losing their partner.’

But for Jem and Daz, any outside sexual experience must be something they do together — and emotional connection is a non-negotiable.

‘I don’t want to go off and do things without their partner — that was never something that I wanted to do,’ said Jem. ‘Still to this day, I don’t want that to ever change. I don’t think it will.

‘Part of this journey is that we do everything together, because that makes it more exciting and it brings us closer together.’

The couple emphasise that strong communication and clear boundaries are what make their relationship work.

Daz explained: ‘Now we’ve explored non-monogamy, we’ve realised that we’re not monogamous people. 

‘We want that interaction with more than just our partner, but also want a deep monogamous relationship with each other, so we separate the two.

‘There’s social monogamy, which would be your relationship status. We are essentially a married couple with children. We live together, we live a perfectly normal relationship for all intents and purposes.

‘Then we separate sexual monogamy, which is that we don’t see that we need to be exclusive with each other, provided we follow the boundaries that we put in place.

‘Anything outside of the boundaries we’ve set would then be considered cheating. We’ve just moved the goal posts a bit for ourselves.’

Interest in ethical non-monogamy is rising. Recent data shows that around 20 per cent of people in the US have tried it, while up to 14 per cent of Brits say they’d be open to giving it a go.

Jem believes the real numbers are even higher.

‘I think secretly, there’s a lot more people than there actually is shown in statistics,’ she said. ‘I don’t think people are still completely comfortable talking about it.

Daz said: ‘Now we’ve explored non-monogamy, we’ve realised that we’re not monogamous people.

‘We want that interaction with more than just our partner, but also want a deep monogamous relationship with each other, so we separate the two.

‘There’s social monogamy, which would be your relationship status. We are essentially a married couple with children.

‘We live together, we live a perfectly normal relationship for all intents and purposes.

‘Then we separate sexual monogamy, which is that we don’t see that we need to be exclusive with each other, provided we follow the boundaries that we put in place.

‘Anything outside of the boundaries we’ve set would then be considered cheating. We’ve just moved the goal posts a bit for ourselves.’

With an increasing interest in ethical non-monogamy (ENM)—new data suggests 20% of people in the US have tried it, while up to 14% of the UK want to give it a try—the couple are now acting as online coaches for other couples interested in opening up their relationships.

Jem added: ‘I think secretly, there’s a lot more people than there actually is shown in statistics.

‘We’ve got to stop sex being seen as a taboo subject. There’s so many relationships where people have lost that communication and we’re just trying to get it back.’

With their open approach to sex and relationships, it’s no surprise the couple have also built a following on adult subscription platform OnlyFans.

‘We’ve always used OnlyFans as a platform, which at first was just kind of, ‘Hey, you want to see a real couple, this is what it’s like,’ said Daz. ‘We were really trying to counter the made-up porn version of what couple sex is, and it’s turned more into coaching and being there for people.’

Jem added: ‘The content we put out is always authentic. It’s us in real situations: a real couple in love having sex, and sometimes that might be with other people.

‘We’re very much saying the porn you see with Bonnie Blue isn’t real, and it’s a concern the younger generation are growing up seeing this, and that there are young girls that want to be like her.’

Their success on Open House has translated into real-world impact, with the couple now working as relationship coaches — helping others navigate ethical non-monogamy, and showing that lifelong love doesn’t have to mean lifelong exclusivity.

‘There’s so many couples that they’ve just lost that spark and connection,’ said Jem. ‘And when you believe in something so much, you just want to help people, and you want to talk about it. So it snowballed from there.’

Daz added: ‘They want to know how to approach women, how to build confidence, how to be better in the bedroom, all of these kinds of things. At the end of the day, we’re a couple in our 40s, so we’ve got life experience.’