NEW YORK – An online dating website has added a new feature for polyamorous relationships, allowing users who are already married or in relationships to search for additional partners.
OkCupid is a free matchmaking website that finds dates for users based on surveys and algorithms. The site is visited by millions of people each year, making it one of the most-used dating websites in the country.
In 2014, OkCupid generated some media attention for expanding its selection of sexual orientation options users can select to describe themselves. The site now offers a dozen sexual orientation options, including “asexual,” “demisexual,” “heteroflexible,” “homoflexible,” “pansexual,” and “sapiosexual.” (A user can select up to five to describe his or her orientation.)
Furthermore, the site reportedly offers 22 gender options, including but not limited to “androgynous,” “genderfluid,” “intersex,” “pangender,” “two spirit,” and “other.”
Then, on Friday, the dating website rolled out a new feature for polyamorous people who may already be married but want to find another partner.
“Monogamy ain’t for everyone,” said a Friday Tweet from the site. “Now people in polyamorous relationships can link their OkCupid accounts.”
The new feature is called “Couples Linking,” and it allows people who identify as “married,” “seeing someone,” or “in an open relationship” to find new individuals with whom to have relationships.
“We saw a need coming from current users in non-monogamous relationships and we identified that there was a trend towards more openness, and even curiosity, regarding non-monogamous and open relationships,” said Jimena Almendares, OKCupid’s chief product officer, according to “Time” magazine.
OkCupid decided to add the new feature after noticing that 24 percent of their users said they are “seriously interested” in group sex, while 42 percent said they would consider dating someone already in a relationship.
“It seems that now people are more open to polyamory as a concept,” Almendares said, according to “The Atlantic.”
“Finding your partner is very important,” she added. “You should have the option to express specifically and exactly who you are and what you need.”
Many Christian leaders have warned of the culture’s endorsements of deviant sexual behaviors and predicted that the homosexual “marriage” movement would eventually give rise to other sinful lifestyles, including polygamy.
“For years I’ve been saying that once you open the door to redefine marriage, where do you stop?” wrote Answers in Genesis CEO Ken Ham in September.
“After all, if ‘love wins,’ as gay ‘marriage’ activists say, then by this line of thinking why shouldn’t ‘love win’ in cases of polygamy, bestiality, and pedophilia?” Ham continued. “As soon as you get rid of an absolute standard—God’s Word—anything and everything goes with regard to marriage. It’s just like Scripture says, ‘everyone did what was right in his own eyes’ (Judges 21:25).”
No matter what dating websites introduce, the Bible’s standards on marriage do not change. Polygamy is wrong, says Ham.
“Polygamy—and other perversions of marriage—are wrong, and we as Christians can say so because we have the authoritative word from the Creator of marriage,” he wrote. “You see, Genesis describes the creation of marriage. It is not something that evolved or that society or a government invented. It’s an institution created by God.”