Peppermint, On The Strange Credibility of Polyamory

Polyamory has a certain credibility these days. Media outlets interview poly people and actually present with a positive spin. Talk show audiences are incredibly hostile to poly guests, but the talk show hosts are usually on our side.

The idea of polyamory seems to be hitting a cultural tipping point, where people are expected to know the word and the ideas behind it, with zero explanation.  There is a certain legitimacy there, the legitimacy of being recognized by the culture at large.

[This essay, by Peppermint, is reprinted with permission of the author from Freaksexual. I couldn't resist the title, and found it gave me a lot of food for thought... I'll weigh in on the comments, below. More of Peppermint's essays on  poly and bisexual questions can be  found at Pepperminty.]

The current credibility of polyamory is odd. We live in a culture that is still puritanical, where mere positive mention of masturbation is enough to have you removed from the Surgeon General's office, where infidelity is grounds for impeachment, where polygamy is  mentioned in the same breath asbestiality, where virginity is prized ahead of sexuality, and same-gender sexuality is still unrecognized.

The poly movement is a straight-out refutation of monogamy. Polyamory upends notions of what a proper relationship should be, obviating the need for the large and growing adultery-advice industry, reforming jealousy from a green-eyed monster into a tame housepet. It jettisons possessiveness and its attendant insecurity, and redefines words like fidelity, commitment, and marriage.

If you listen to the radical conservatives, sexual monogamy is the bedrock of our culture, right up there with the sanctity of (heterosexual) marriage. While I disagree with their conclusions, they're correct that monogamy is central to the current structure of relationships.

Since polyamory is a basic rethinking of some primary structures in relationships and culture, you wouldn't think it'd be so readily accepted. We should be be getting more flak, more backlash, more hostility, more attempts to make us invisible. The fairly rapid spread of polyamorous ideology, and the relatively positive media and cultural responses to polyamory, are surprising to me.

To make the strange credibility of polyamory more clear, I wish to compare it to two similar movements, namely the swinger and BDSM movements. 

Both are good candidates for comparison: both movements are mixed-gender and aren't located primarily, or exclusively, in the queer world. Both have achieved a measure of mainstream recognition. All three movements share enough common goals that they can form political alliance. However, polyamory somehow seems to be ahead in terms of credibility, despite probably being smaller in terms of numbers.

Polyamory fares better in the media. A quick scan down the Polyamory in the Media blog shows that most feature articles on polyamory give it a positive slant. The last negative article capitalized on a murder stemming from jealousy in a three-person arrangement.
Amazingly, the story did not seem to travel outside of poly channels, despite its tabloid appeal and the fact that it is the second death of a poly person in the media in as many years.

More typical are website or magazine articles that focus on subjects as diverse as poly parenting, a queer poly triad, Southern Baptist polyamorists, and a poly network in Florida. All of these articles are positive. 

Even ABC News has run a poly-positive story.When articles do have a partially negative slant— like this one— they do it by quoting therapists or other self-proclaimed "experts" that polyamory cannot work, right next to happy tales of polyamory working, delivered by perky nonmonogamists. We come out pretty well in such comparisons. 

Sometimes an article will sensationalize polyamory, but doing so only makes us seem sexier and more hip than we actually are. In short, despite the occasional talk-show hatchet job or similar setback, polyamory is doing well in the media.

BDSM and swinging are not doing so well. They're most often addressed in a legal or authoritarian framework, in articles dealing with busts, zoning, and court cases. For example, we see BDSM included in articles on subjects like an art gallery forced to close, strip club licensing woes, dominatrices in court, a leather festival angering members of a community, and Catholics attacking the Folsum St. Fair.

Even worse, the media jumps all over any story that brings together BDSM and death, in articles such as these.

Media coverage of swinging is no better. Swinging is compared to stripping, is heartily denied, is zoned out of existence, triggers violence, or is fodder for blackmail schemes.

There is the occasional human-interest story, but it's swamped by the negative publicity. The law-and-order focus of BDSM and swinger coverage is sending a not-so-subtle message that the only acceptable response to such practices is authoritarian and repressive, or alternatively, that kink and swinging always end badly.

In contrast, polyamory seems to show up as friendly human-interest stories. Even when it is linked to murder, the story does not have tabloid appeal and is quickly dropped.  Polyamory is treated in the media as something that the readers might be interested in doing, unlike BDSM and swinging. Polyamory seems to have a certain cachet on the political left as well. 

Polyamory is mentioned positively on well-known feminist blogs, and is generally met with curiosity and tolerance on these blogs, even when the writers do not practice it themselves. Swinging is rarely mentioned on these same blogs, perhaps because it is seen as largely neutral to the question of gendered power, or perhaps because it flies under the radar. 

BDSM faces real obstacles to acceptance in feminist circles. This positive attitude seems to be replicated in most left-wing discussions of polyamory, for example among Unitarians, in Pagan circles, and in queer communities (though BDSM is also generally accepted in the LGBT world, presumably due to its descent from the queer leather movement).

Why is polyamory doing as well as it is?  Can we expect this trend to continue?  What political strategies should we follow to keep this winning streak going?

1) Polyamory is theoretically disconnected from sex. 

This is true both of the word itself, which focuses on the love ("amory"), and in the community, where the focus tends to be on relationship conceptualizations instead of sexual freedom. In the mainstream, there is a heavily trafficked sex/love dichotomy. However, this duality is on the face of it problematic: sex and love are supposed to be different, but at the same time love is always supposed to include sex. 

Phrases like "making love" do little to clarify this, referring simultaneously to the sexual act and the act of love.  What is really happening here is that we tend to use this sex/love duality to separate out sexual relating into two separate categories, one which is loving and valued, and one which is somehow carnal and unworthy, exemplified in the phrase "just sex".

But of course, there is no easy way to distinguish between the two, allowing the culture to judge sexual relationships positively or negatively in a fairly arbitrary manner. A variety of expressions of sexuality are cast as false, transient, dirty, deviant, or sinful, while a narrow set of expressions are reserved as being somehow above reproach or examination (those that get to be "loving"). 

For example, queer relationships have for the last century had trouble being recognized as "loving" instead of some sort of deviant sexual expression. The polyamory community has apparently managed to use this sex/love dichotomy to our advantage. Poly people tend to distinguish between sex and love, and point out that polyamory is specifically the pursuit of multiple love relationships, not "just" multiple sex relationships.

Most polyamory books (The Ethical Slut being the counterexample) steer away from the sexual realities of polyamory and instead focus on relationship dynamics. We work hard against the tendency of the media to sexualize anything we say by fielding representatives who carefully steer the conversation back to love.

In public, we downplay the racier aspects of polyamory, like our heavy overlap with the tantra and BDSM communities, or the fact that many poly folks regularly attend play parties, or that possible access to sexual threesomes is a nice side effect of living polyamorously. This "it's all about the love" strategy works to some extent. 

Downplaying the sex in our love lives removes its taint and disassociates us from the mainstream stereotype of out-of-control hedonism (which is presumably what you get as soon as people depart from a straight monogamous lifestyle). This puts us on footing where we can be taken seriously by the mainstream media, and more generally by people with mainstream attitudes. 

The focus on love in polyamory is an end run around the culture's censure of deviant sexualities. There is some legitimacy to downplaying our sexuality. Polyamory is about much more than just sexual nonmonogamy, and so resisting the mainstream tendency to focus on our sexuality ("does everyone sleep in the same bed?") is important. 

Also, multiple relationship dynamics are central to polyamory, and so a focus on relationships is entirely appropriate. Playing mainstream sex-negativity games makes it more likely that one is taken seriously when discussing polyamory. At the same time, we need to be aware that sex-negativity is a poison pill, one that may cost us more than it buys us.

For example, sex-negativity tends to alienate queer folks, and so could harm our standing in queer circles. If we remember that bisexuals make up a very large chunk of polyamory, then a sex-negative approach is potentially divisive. However, the primary problem with sex-negativity is that it strikes at the very core of what it means to be polyamorous. This becomes clear if we examine the relationship of sex to monogamy. 

Monogamy, at its core, is about sexual fidelity, or rather, sexual fidelity is the one thing you need to be monogamous.Everything else is optional, like marriage, or living together, or not living with other people, or who you share secrets with, and so on. We can also see this in the contrapositive: having more than one sexual partner is by definition nonmonogamous. 

In other words, monogamy is actually "all about the sex," or rather who you have sex with is monogamy's first and most crucial requirement. This means that polyamory's most crucial departure from monogamy is in the area of sexual fidelity. While polyamory is about many other things as well (multiple romantic attachments, economies of abundance, triad or group dynamics, rethinking the role of relationships in structuring our lives), polyamory's primary point of resistance to power is in its refusal to adhere to the cultural rules of sexual fidelity.

Bearing this in mind, the danger of sex-negativity becomes clear. The purpose of sex-negativity is basically less "dirty" sex, and the culture defines any sort of nonmonogamous sex as "dirty". So cultural sex-negativity is directly in opposition to the practice of polyamory, and we self-limit our movement (and our poly practice) to the extent that we adhere to sex-negative codes.I know this seems very vague, so let us look at the solid example of less-involved (aka "secondary") relationships. 

Less-involved relationships are crucial to polyamory, both on their own and as starting points for more-involved relationships that are simultaneous with one or more established relationships. However, admitting a sex-negative attitude can make it difficult to hold down these relationships, since they are easily dismissed as transient, as one person using another, as slutting around, as "just sex", and so on. This is not to say that we should all go have orgies on television tomorrow. 

What I am saying is that we should promote a balanced approach, one where we mix a sex-positive message with our poly-positive message. There is a place for downplaying sex (in particular, talk shows, which are purposefully created to be sexual spectacles) in our presentation.But it should be balanced with sex-positivity in other forums. The sex we have is not a liability; it is one of our primary strengths. Our primary successes will be those where we strike a balance, being pro-sex (and therefore sexy) while still including all the other powerful aspects of polyamory. 

My model for this is Cunning Minx of PolyWeekly who weekly reminds listeners that "it's not all about the sex," while incorporating erotic material alongside narratives on the tribulations of polyamory.  It is this sort of honest all-angles view that best promotes polyamory. Mistress Matisse is another good example of this.

2) Polyamory is generally queer- and women-friendly. 

While there are certainly people and social scenes within polyamory that are sexist and/or homophobic, in general polyamory is friendly to women and LGBT folks. We can see this in the various queer authors of polyamory books, which include numerous bi women, some lesbians, and a trans man.

This authorship has to date largely prevented the usual drift of mixed-gender nonmonogamous scenes towards rituals geared to the needs of straight men. We can see these rituals in other nonmonogamous movements: most (but not all) swinger scenes prohibit sex between men, the free love movement preached a doctrine of women's sexual availability, and some kinky scenes here in San Francisco (namely the Power Exchange and the Exotic Erotic Ball) seem to be more geared to the needs of men oblivious to personal space than the comfort of women.

While polyamory does have some similar problems— like too much focus on the elusive "Hot Bi Babe—" in general, poly communities do a good job of staying friendly to women and queer people. Poly relationship possibilities are often described as "any genders in any combination", and even straight poly people seem to take pride in the ability of poly structures to violate heterosexual and gender norms. 

Online poly forums sometimes end up with a heady mix of sexualities and genders, with a lot of BDSM practitioners in each group. There seems to be a base level of comfort, even when the group is mostly straight. One effect of the queer- and women-friendliness of polyamory is that polyamory has stayed flexible in terms of relationship structure.

For example, full triads (everyone involved with everyone else) can generally only exist if they contain at least one queer member. Also, poly people tend to stay away from the possessiveness and power imbalances that are standard in heteronormative relationships. A further effect is that polyamory has kept its shiny radical glow.

It is hard for a sexuality/relationship movement to appear revolutionary these days if it reproduces regressive sexist and homophobic attitudes. (Though notably this apparently does not apply to racism, and poly communities are not necessarily friendly to people of color).

The relatively progressive ideology of polyamory has endeared it to left-wing folks, making polyamory a largely unproblematic choice in these circles. Also, this progressive aspect has helped define polyamory as distinct from more conservative nonmonogamous movements (most notably traditional polygamy), making it hard for our right-wing critics to conflate the two.

3) Polyamory is the opposite of monogamy. 

Nonmonogamy is anything that is not monogamy, but polyamory seems to have taken up residence at the other end of the spectrum. Polyamory forms a kind of conceptual bookend, the farthest you can get when traveling away from monogamy. We see this in the usage of the word polyamory as a catch-all phrase for nonmonogamy or a general analogy.

This ideological opposition to monogamy has produced an actual opposition to monogamy in polyamorous practice. Any particular monogamous constraint, rule, or power dynamic is potentially overcome by at least some polyamorous people. Sexual monogamy is of course first among these, but the social practice of monogamy also becomes optional in polyamory: poly people come out and they insist on fully integrating multiple lovers into their social (friends, family, work) lives. 

Ownership, possessiveness, and jealousy in relationships become liabilities and are jettisoned or managed, or are transferred to BDSM practice. People raise children with more than two parents, or with one live-in parent combined with the support of a network of lovers. Hierarchy among relationships is sometimes disavowed. Of course, monogamy is embedded in the culture, and the actual work of divesting monogamy tends to be done in small chunks. 

While polyamorous ideals sit at one of the spectrum, poly practice often includes monogamous elements, such as closeting, jealousy, strong hierarchy among one's relationships, assumptions about living arrangements, and so on. Each decade the nonmonogamous movements break through a new set of barriers. In the last couple rounds, we have added open networks and incorporated sex radical play parties and some amount of BDSM nonmonogamy (including D/S nonmonogamy). 

At the same time, very few triads and quads manage to stay stable, and we seem unable to get away from primary/secondary hierarchy and coupled living arrangements. Similarly, we are generally unable to maintain large but workable communal living situations, a dream that has existed since the sexual revolution but has only been practiced in fits and starts.

Perhaps the next round (not necessarily the next generation, since older generations will be involved) will bring solutions to these problems. Or perhaps nonmonogamy will veer off in some new direction, like loose-knit tribes. Presumably it will surprise us. 

Will the next round still be called polyamory, and will it retain the built poly community?  Hard to say.  We think of polyamory as the anti-monogamy, but that is a bit of a conceit, given the limitations we are still working with.  The next round may retain the polyamory label, or it may need to jettison polyamorous ideology in favor of something new.

 (c) Peppermint

Photos:

2005 San Francisco GayDay parade, Basetree

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Caketopper from Salon's story on Polyamory

Ladybugs from MicroEcos

The notorious triad from Cabaret

Candy Hearts from American Sexuality magazine

Peppermint in the flesh!

Comments

[Kiki]

Thank you so much for posting this essay! As a polyamorous, bisexual, kinky, sex-positive writer I applaud the demystification of sex and relationship choices which reflect our true selves. There are so many ways to be normal, healthy and happy while being respectful of and loving others.

[YogaMan]

The front page of the L.A. Times today is screaming the news of the Mitchell Report and the biggest scandal since the Black Sox in 1919. After my initial reaction, I began to have fantasies of Larry Flynt offering $1,000,000,000 for evidence of any "dirt" on the owners, front office, George Mitchell and Bud Selig.

What does this have to do with polyamory? My feeling is that as a whole, a witchhunt mentality is still going on. It is very easy to take the side of the sanctimonious. I did on reading the headlines, until the images of Mitchell and Selig upset me enough to make me realize that they looked like priests.

In the catholic high school I attended, I led a group called the Brewsters. We were a student boosters group who lived our name. We would get drunk before the men's football and basketball games and cheer our asses off. What I found happening was that the kids who weren't in the "cool" groups also joined in. We took them all in as one theme was "the more the merrier."

In my senior year, I began a push for "respectability" We began to go to the unattended events (namely girl's sports like volleyball, basketball, etc.) and cheer them on, sometimes even assisting in officiating the events. We raffled off kegs of beer and donated the money in our name to the drama club. We voted ourselves awards at the end of the year and forced the administration to allow us to give them out at the awards dinner. This put us in a lot of tension with the administration, especially with the deans if discipline. Some of us paid the price for this.

I would question the need to seek respectability or grabbing it too quickly when it is offered. Culture is a lot of "to-ing and fro-ing"

I may be misreading the article and may be completely wrong. Having said that I do feel that these changes may be an side-effect of wealth and change within humanity as a whole. Monogamy and the need to seed the species has been accomplished. This opens up a free'er sexuality and it's exploration. The GLBT numbers are expoentially more now that they were 50-100 and more years ago.

[Susie Bright]

I told my partner I was running this story and asked him why he thought "polyamory" was chic... he said, "Because it has so many rules." That made me laugh! But it echoes a bit what Pepper said above, about how it's posited as something other than "free love" and "running around fucking everybody."

I think another reason is a generation gap, and a class/education gloss. For the generation gap, you'll find me. The first time someone described me as "poly," in the early 90s, I had no idea what they were talking about, even though I'd never been in a monogamous relationship. I had used descriptions like "open relationship," nonmonogamous, etc. Very closely tied to my coming of age in the 70s. On the other hand, I would always recoil at the term "swinger," because I thought that meant someone's dopey parents-- I'm talking about my teenage self, here.

I will always associate polyamory with MIT, where I first met people who id'ed that way, and with geeks, and the Internet and slash fiction. It's like it's the "smart" way to have more than one partner... of course that's silly, but polyamory does have this sort of Mensa Society reputation.

Again, thanks Pepper, for all these oats to crunch on!

[John U]

Just a quibble about this otherwise well thought out article, but, Dr. Peppermint says: "For example, full triads (everyone involved with everyone else) can generally only exist if they contain at least one queer member."

If everyone is involved with everyone else, don't at least two members of a triad have to be queer?

:-)

John

[t'Sade]

Oh, that is a great article. My friend recommended The Ethical Slut to me and my love, mainly because of my own poly nature, and it is one of those things that has helped us wander down the path as we go.

And the ladybugs picture is adorable.

[Scorpio]

All people really need is a fairly good role model for successful polyamory, and it breaks out all over. People with religious reasons for monogamy are never happy with the polys; but facing that, as living creatures, we function better in groups, and are happier with the many things that many partners can bring, it does not surprise me that polyamory is becoming more visible.

Our current laws are based in the Catholic and Protestant Christian religions. We are mostly forced to comply with the tenets of a set of religions. This is unConstitutional whether or not the Christian majority wants to own up to its religious oppression.

[Peppermint]

Susie: Funny, the first time I heard about polyamory, it was at MIT, in '94. I was dating nonmonogamously, and my girlfriend at the time looked up what we were doing on the internet, and said it was called "polyamory". At the time I was comfortable in my nonmonogamy and thought to myself, "why would I need to call it something?". More fool me - I didn't find the poly community until 8 years later, and I really could have used some good poly advice.

[browse]

This week I've outed myself as poly to several individual cow-orkers. I've told them I have a new girl friend, and the response has been pretty uniform. First they express worry and concern about my prior relationship. I explain that relationship is still all well and good and that everyone knows everyone and is happy with the arrangement. Then they settle down, smile and offer congratulations.

Almost gives me hope for our society. Or at least my very limited peer circle.

[LustyLioness]

I love that you associate polyamory with geeks, Susie. I think it can be a great lifestyle for the geeky amongst us because it allows us to give almost all of our attention to our various and sundry projects from time to time. Doing all the necessary work and hand-holding that a monogamous relationship usually requires is almost impossible when one is fully immersed in a difficult project.

Now, if I could only find my pair of bi boys for my own poly situation I'd be really grateful. While I read (above) that triads don't tend to work, I think I could make it work for me. Because of issues in my past I am automatically suspicious of other women. Another woman in my poly group just wouldn't work.

[Steve]

Don't you think that even "monogamous" heterosexual couples are waking up to the fact that their relationships are often, at the very least, "serial monogamies?" And possibly, for many, recognizing that there is a lot of "closet polyamory" going on around us? It's pretty hard to miss in American culture, in my opinion.

[L.C.]

Ideas don't remain undefined forever. In defining something, we name it. Investing in a name, whether it is "polyamorous," "gay," "innocent," or "monogamous," is an attempt to define, to limit, and to belong. In some ways, people understand that belonging to one group doesn't necessarily imply not being in any other group, but sometimes we shock ourselves with how blind we were to that idea.

[Dan Gambiera]

Susie, don't sprain your arm patting yourself on the back. You have answers that may work for you. They are not for everyone, and it's not a measure of the others' maturity, sexual health, enlightenment, feminism, or any of the other things that you deify your own morals with.

I happen to be pretty boring and vanilla. So is my wife. We're happy that way, particularly with those icky patriarchal words like "trust", "fidelity", sexual exclusivity and so on. Maybe we're missing out on wonderful casual sex and entertaining romantic entanglements. So far we don't seem to have suffered much from it. We also have a relationship that we value highly the way it is. It works. It makes us happy. And we see no great need to screw with it in order to fulfill someone else's expectations.

The sun rises and sets on my wife as far as I'm concerned. I have every reason to believe that she feels the same way about me. Would this be improved if we were dating others? Is it necessary - as you said in your Betty Dodson piece - that we "evolve" towards a state where that relationship is less important and must make way for an unpredictable and ever-changing menu of sexual and romantic specials of the day? No. Not just no, but hell no.

Besides, all of that takes time and energy. What should we give up in order to conform to your standards? Writing? Carpentry? Work? Children if we're fortunate enough to have them? Martial arts? Spiritual practice? Time spent enjoying each other's company?

The poly people we're close to don't seem to be any happier. Their relationships may be more varied but don't seem to be any more rewarding. I do see a lot polyfucking masquerading as polyamory or polyfidelity. And I've seen an awful lot of drama queens drawn to it for the obvious reasons. Most often, I've seen one partner who really wanted multiple sexual or emotional partners and another one who had to be brow-beaten or emotionally blackmailed into it. The partner getting the short end of the stick was almost always a woman.

Now it may be that these women weren't sufficiently transgressively genderfuck queer souled and uplifted. Maybe. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they know what they want and what is good for them at least as well as you or I.

Maybe it's patriarchal. Maybe we're just crypto fascist Christian fundamentalists who are putting up a convincing disguise as Socialist Sufis. If that's so we're disguising it from ourselves pretty well. But do you know? I wouldn't trade what we have for anything. It might not be as exciting, but that's a tradeoff that works for us. Do what works for you. Please extend the same courtesy to the rest of us.

[Susie Bright]

(Speaking of extending courtesies, I'm sorry I didn't get to post all the comments for two days, because I was "off the grid." I have this darn "comment moderation" turned on, because otherwise the blog gets spray-painted with spam. But that means I can never "leave the baby alone." Have to figure out something about that!)

Now back to our poly discussion. Dan, my interest in these kind of subjects is never prescriptive. I think you've got me confused with someone else.

[Bitchy Jones]

I love Peppermint. I am his screaming fangirl.

[Anarcissie]

Polyamory appeals to me theoretically, but in practice, for most people it seems very difficult to maintain a long-term romantic relationship with even one other person. I've observed a few polyamorous relationships from the outside and with one exception they didn't seem particularly happier than the monogamous ones, and that's a rather low standard. I certainly don't think it's a likely solution for people who have problems maintaining a monogamous relationship, i.e. serial monogamists (actually, serial polygamists). The same problems can be expected to arise, only in much more complicated form. Not that I want to discourage anyone from trying -- maybe we can re-learn the trick, tricky as it is.

[Chris Defendorf]

Wow, what an article...
I'm only halfway through and I'm planning on what I will write when I post this on my blog.

like how you used to have a faq about your sexuality, kind of a "what's the deal with Susie , who's she in bed with ?"

Anyways, TRUTH IS ONE, SAGES SPEAK OF IT BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY, BY MANY NAMES.

AND

the lights on the sky are stars, and the stars on the Earth are the People.
(Shuar saying)

happy Holidays, Susie, hope to see you in NYC or maybe if you want an adventure, with Pete Seeger & some Hiphoppas next fall (at a recording session in Hudson, NY)?

CJD
guiness book of world's record
longest improvised rap session (16 hours)
+
fastest rapper 795 syllables in 51 seconds.

I LOVE MY TONGUE
www.scratch.dj has videos on James Brown Day (Dec. 25)

[Lotte]

I've observed a few polyamorous relationships from the outside and with one exception they didn't seem particularly happier than the monogamous ones

But that's not the goal, Anarcissie. It's not a happiness-war between polyamorists and monogamists. I am poly because I personally am happier being nonmonogamous than I ever was being monogamous, not because poly is some universal recipe for joy.

You're exactly right, though, that poly people experience the same problems as mono people; very few problems in poly are actually poly problems.

[Kineticflow]

I think it's tricky to use long-term stability in relationships as a measure of success in polyamorous relationships. Not everyone who is polyamorous takes life-long or long-term relationships as a goal. Many do, but others like polyamory specifically because they find it enables them to view relationships of varying degrees of length and seriousness as "successful."

[Anonymous]

I just have three little words to say about "polyamory" — HA HA HA.
Or how about IT DOESN'T WORK
even if you're dealing with a high level of communication. Sex is not just the body, it's heart, mind and soul. Try playing doctor with someone you love, it can be horrendously painful.
Sorry to be a wounded bird, but thought this opinion is also of value...

[Anarcissie]

I was under the impression that what differentiated polyamory from other categories of sexual relationships with more than one other person was (1) long-term commitment to the specific combination of relationships and (2) the concomitant emotional involvement. Lots of people have casual, short-term, relatively unemotional sex with more than one other person, consecutively or concurrently == that sort of thing doesn't seem remarkable enough to get a novel five-syllable label or to cause public excitement.

[Feh]

Anyone who argues that the swinging scene is anti-female has never seriously investigated it. The focus and social power in those events is all about women - they get to choose who they want to have sex with, they are in great demand, and anyone who even slightly insults a woman is nearly lynched. The evidence cited to support the point (that male-male sex is verboten at most swinging events) makes a better case that women's needs are paramount than it could support any pro-male bias. Prohibiting bi-men doesn't diminish women, it diminishes open-minded men. Is the argument supposed to be that prohibiting men hurts women because they want to see man-man sex? Most women aren't as visual, and swing events do have a visual component but the participation element is stronger and is the primary focus.

The whole point about "rituals" was weakly supported and frankly, doesn't contribute to the rhetorical point here.

[Peppermint]

Feh:

Is the argument supposed to be that prohibiting men hurts women because they want to see man-man sex?

My argument here focuses on men. Bi women are allowed at swing events because straight men want to see women having sex with women, and to be in threesomes, and so on. Bi men are prohibited because they might make straight men nervous about their sexuality. In other words, men's desires are mostly running the show in terms of what sexualities are permitted.

I expand this argument here:
http://freaksexual.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/its-the-straight-men-silly/

I do understand that women are very active in the swing movement, and have a lot of power over who sleeps with whom.

However, I feel like men's desires "set the stage" in certain ways for swinging, resulting in rules like the ones around bisexuality. We see this in other ways too - I just read The Lifestyle, which repeatedly states that men are more likely to bring their women partners into swinging than vice versa, though the women quickly become enthusiastic participants. This tells us that the idea of swinging (as opposed to its actual practice) is more appealing to men, more evidence of this "setting the stage" power of men's desires.

Of course, even if you do not agree with this argument, the "no bi men" rule is pretty clearly homophobic, which is a problem all its own.

That said, not all swing scenes are the same, and I am sure there are exceptions. For example, the swing events I hear about around San Francisco usually welcome bi men, and one was recently explicitly advertising for single bi men.

In another post, I listed various measures by which a nonmonogamous scene could be evaluated for friendliness towards women. If you are in some sort of swinger scene, check your scene against this list:
http://freaksexual.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/nonmonogamy-and-the-double-standard/

[Mojave66]

No one's taking anyone to task here for being monogamous, and NO should state that polyamory is for everybody. If you're monogamous and happy, more power to you. I envy y'all. I truly do.

I'm a polyamorous lesbian who isn't all that abstractly "happy" about being polyamorous. I'd be "happier" being monogamous the same way I'd be "happier" being born perfectly heterosexual-- there's a lot less bullshit to deal with, frankly. But even in my very long-term relationship, me and my partner have had to deal with me falling in love three times, one of which sent me into a suicidal depression just dealing with the fallout.

I've done a bit of research-- about 30% of married heterosexuals- men and women- commit adultery, by their definition. What polyamory does, and I suspect this might have more to do with the burgeoning acceptance than denying sexuality, is give people an ethical set of rules for falling in love with more than one person. It happens, and it's a powerful emotional state, one very difficult to fight off if you find yourself in it. For that ~30% of the population who end up "cheating", it's a great feeling to know that there's a philosophy out there that is based on honesty and communication rather than lying and subterfuge when it comes to multiple relationships.

I've also known a lot of couples that have a monogamous partner and a polyamorous one; that's what I'm in. Note that I'm not a male and neither is my partner, and she has some serious reservations about this. She doesn't want to be poly herself, and I do respect that. She also knows that non-monogamy for me is a very difficult option, and not one I really want to embrace. What to do at that point? I figure there are three options-- be a typical cheater, become a serial monogamist (currently the most popular choice), or run far far away from other loving relationships.

To be honest I have no good answers for anyone struggling with these kind of questions, but the default assumption that people in my situation are being selfish or worse, bullying is ridiculous. I love my partner, too. But I also have to live with myself and be cognizant of my needs as well as hers, and living with a suicidal depressive isn't all that much fun, either. I'm just incredibly grateful that there is a community that believes in honesty and love where I can find tools and support.

[Melusine]

To answer those folks who think that there's no long term poly relationships, I've been involved with two other people for almost 20 years at this point, with no signs of it ending any time soon. All three of us have had other partners during this time, but we're all still committed to each other. I've known other folks who have been together for much longer, too.

For that matter, 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Just a thought.

[Rich]

I'd just disagree with the author maybe on one point. I don't think monogamy is about fidelity so much as exclusivity. Poly people have every bit as much sexual fidelity (that is, it can be a little or a lot) as monogamous people. It's just spread over their multiple relationships, not limited to one.

I only bring this up because the perceived lack of fidelity becomes a barrier to people accepting polyamory.

Likewise, I look at swingers as being either monogamous or polyamorous, depending on whether they have multiple relationships. Many swingers are monogamous but have sex outside their relationships. Their only emotional connection is with their partner. There are also many swingers who have formed poly relationships.

Fidelity is really about cheating. Cheating is frequently indulged in by people of all kinds, but almost everyone frowns on it from an emotional point of view. That's as true of poly people as it is monogamous ones.