Hmmm. If you “come out of the broom closet” when you publicly identify yourself as a pagan, what do you come out of when you publicly identify yourself as being polyamorous? At one point, I ran across someone advocating that we say we’ve come out of the parrot cage, but that image is utterly unappealing. In fact, it causes me to think of someone with guano on his feet.1Parrots are traditionally called Polly, so parrots are often used to identify poly people.
In any case, here I am. I think of relationship orientation as being similar to sexual orientation. Some people are wired for monoamory. (I am deliberately using monoamory rather than monogamy, because I am not just talking about marriages.) Some people are wired for polyamory. Some of us are birelational—we can go either way. There is a spectrum of relationship styles, from wholly monoamorous to wholly open. I’ve been happily monoamorous at times. I’ve also been happily and ethically polyamorous. I’m birelational, so I would be in the middle of our relational spectrum.
Polyamory is not the same as swinging or polygamy. Those can both be considered ethical non-monogamy, but they aren’t polyamory. I am talking about having significant loving relationships with more than one person at a time, honestly and openly. I am talking about making conscious, explicit commitments that may or may not include exclusivity and living up to those commitments. The practice of polyamory requires the informed, freely-given consent of all involved parties.2See the dictionary definition of polyamory.
Polyamory is not, for me, primarily about sex. It is about connections, community, and achieving intimacy on a more than physical level. Sex is good, nice, lovely, and can be one kind of intimacy. It isn’t the most important part of a relationship for me. To be blunt, it’s easy to just get laid, but building relationships takes more work and is more rewarding in the long run, as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve been solo poly as well as part of vees, triads, and a quad. I’ve been in completely open and polyfidelitous relationships.
My former partner Sam and I were both polyamorous and involved with other people when we met each other. Our other relationships ended naturally, after which we were monoamorous in practice for a couple of years. We didn’t have the time or energy to have relationships of any significant depth with other people while we were initially blending our families. Then we opened our relationship up to other people, with a very specific written agreement in place to protect our primary relationship3Yes, we practiced hierarchy. We didn’t know any better at the time. and our family.
I believe that having more than two adults in a family can be a very healthy way of living for both adults and children. There are families in which three or more adults are raising children together, and most of those children are very well-adjusted and secure in having more than two parents. 4See The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families by Dr. Elisabeth Sheff. My daughter, partner, and I were interviewed by Dr. Sheff when she was doing research for the book.
I’m happiest when all of my Significant Others (SOs) are at least friendly with each other and I’m friendly with their SOs. (This style of practicing polyamory is often called kitchen table poly.) There have been times when some of my SOs were also in relationship with each other. Of course, finding partners who are not only compatible with you but also get along well with any other partner you already have adds a significant amount of complexity to starting new relationships in this kind of paradigm. Some people don’t have any contact with their partner’s OSOs5Other Significant Others (parallel poly), so I suppose that isn’t much of an issue for them.
I am very cautious about bringing a new person into my life, although things are simpler now that I no longer have a minor child. When Sam and I were together and raising our three children, though, there were many factors to be considered: where each of us was emotionally at any given moment, how our family as a whole was doing, how each of our children was doing, how we were doing as a couple, who the potential new SO was, etc. Yes, we did occasionally bring new people into our lives, very carefully, but there was no revolving door into our family life. There isn’t one in my personal life now, either, nor will there ever be.
I am involved in various poly groups because, while I am not actively looking for additional partners, I do enjoy the company of like-minded folks. I’ve found that the poly community is generally full of people who respect, accept, and even celebrate diversity. Polyamorous folks tend to be fairly intelligent and creative, and obviously wouldn’t be polyamorous if they weren’t willing and able to question society’s default assumptions on some subjects. Those are the things we have in common. We’re a very diverse crowd otherwise!
This little piece of my website actually exists in hopes of leading more people to question their assumptions about relationships. The fact that Sam and I were a couple, that we were a man and a woman in a committed relationship, did not mean that we were heterosexual and monoamorous. That isn’t the only way to be in relationship. There are other options. Also, the fact that we were polyamorous didn’t mean that we were promiscuous (we were far more conservative about such things than many of our monoamorous acquaintances).
One of the disturbing assumptions I’ve observed among poly folk is that if you are polyamorous, you have to have more than one SO or you somehow lose your poly card. Nope. If a bisexual person currently has one lover, that doesn’t mean they’re suddenly heterosexual or homosexual. They are still bisexual. The fact that someone is currently involved with one or even no SOs doesn’t mean that they aren’t polyamorous anymore, just as the fact that someone is poly doesn’t mean that they have to have other lovers, either.