Is Monogamy vs Polyamory a binary?

People talk about Monogamy vs. Polyamory/Consensual Nonmonogamy like it's a binary, like you're one or the other. I reject that notion.

Any binary requires two definite observable states, like on or off. That's the metrics. But with non-monogamy vs. monogamy, what are your metrics? Is it sex? Is it love? There are a lot of people who are asexual, don't have sex, but consider themselves polyamorous. Asexual polyamory is a real thing. There are a lot of swingers, folks in "the lifestyle," for whom it's all about sex and not developing feelings.

Of course, you have to define "monogamy." Some folks define monogamy so strictly that friends of the attracted to gender are forbidden. Other folks consider themselves monogamous if they don't have sex with people other than their partner, but are okay with kissing, cuddling, etc. And then, you have to define sex...

Monoamorous is a word and is aptly used in the realm of feelings, Monoamorous vs. Polyamorous. I would add in the realm of sex, Monosexual vs. Polysexual? Can a person be Polyamorous and Monosexual? I believe so but it's seldom talked about, except maybe as an "emotional affair." But, is it an affair if it's consensual? 

Consensual Monogamy (CM)

I think we need to talk more about "CM." By that I mean Consensual Monogamy. CM is about enthusiastic consent first and another "C", communication. CM is about both parties agreeing on their definition of monogamy for their relationship and their boundaries. CM is a relationship agreement. CM requires a "hell yes!" CM is not just being the cultural normative default blah blah. CM is intentional, communicated and agreed to. It is lived energetically. For me when people talk about CNM, I want to hear monogamy spoken about the same way, enthusiastic consent first! 

Love Without Sex by Sophie Lucido Johnson, Review

I have just finished this awesome Audible Original: Love Without Sex by Sophie Lucido Johnson. It really explores the relationship of love and sex by looking at folks in both the polyamory (many+love) community and the asexual community and exploring the Venn Diagram of where those circles intersect. This raises lovely questions about love, sex, platonic relationships and friendships and the assumptions we make and how we experience and value all these beautiful human experiences. I highly recommend this!

Emotional Polyamory

In the universe of consensual non-monogamy; that polyamory is based on romantic connection is evidenced by the fact asexual polyamory is a real thing. Emotional polyamory is a real thing too, in my opinion. I believe emotional polyamory is the consensual, lovely and loving (non-sexual) equivalent of an emotional affair. Love is love.

An infinite number of buckets

I feel this essay mirrors biases and paranoias of our society. The essay seems to me to round loving someone other than our partner up to being infidelity. Why? Life is short. What's wrong with loving many people?
It defines "real" love and tells us what's "real" and what's "fake" love. Whatever doesn't fit the author's love definition is labeled fake. Maybe the author is speaking what's his truth, applied to him. But, what gives anybody the right to tell other people their feelings are fake? That's shaming! How people experience love can be very different from individual to individual.
Love is not a pizza. Love does not run out if you share it. There's not only two buckets, the friend bucket and the lover bucket. In my experience there's an infinite number of buckets. I love so many people, many sweetly, many dearly and my spouse is free to do the same.
I think love is what we should be embracing and not fleeing from. Our world needs more love, not less love.

Bobbu on Poly

Dawn Davidson has quoted Matthew Bobbu as defining polyamory this way:

“I define polyamory as ‘the belief in and/or practice of multiple loving relationships, with the full knowledge and consent of those involved.’ I don’t define the sort of relationship anyone has to have, how they have to structure their relationships, what kind of sex they can have, or what sort of love need be involved. For me, to do otherwise will strengthen the cause of a vocal minority at the expense of the quieter majority, who may not even realise that we’re fighting for their freedoms too.
Much as Martin Luther King didn’t fight for black rights, he fought for racial equality; I don’t fight for poly rights, I fight for the freedom to participate in any consensual relationship one might wish to – with the exclusion of none.”

I really like this definition! I know and respect that it may differ from many other people's definition. That's okay. This works for me.
Also, I believe the meaning of the word changes with context. It is common in the English language, for a word to have more than one meaning and it's common for people to disagree on the definition of a word. Take, for example, the word "sex." As Bill Clinton made clear, folks still have not come to a universal consensus definition on what specifically is, and what is not, sex.
I am not going there, at least not now...

Polyish

Polyish: A space between polyamory & monogamy that is intense & intimate loving "friendships." Neither poly nor mono seems to fit. This is different that what is often labeled monogamish, a term that can often mean occasional sexual nonmonogamy.

Polyish relationships tend to be medium to long term, but don't have to be. They are emotionally intense & intimate relationships with people we love, whom we are committed to being there for, spending time with, loving, being emotionally vulnerable to, supporting, and nurturing each other in a way that would be culturally inappropriate in a monogamous context. Polyish friendships are not what some poly folks would consider to be polyamory. They may choose the label friends, but seem like more than friends, tends to have have some romantic alchemy, but not what is considered partners in a sexual or poly context.

I have also called this polylite.

This is similar to the quasiplatonic (aka queerplatonic) except that quasiplatonic tends not to have any or much romantic alchemy.

Thoughts on privacy

I think privacy is dead, that closets are going to be a thing of the past soon. Data is going to be increasingly insecure. We have seen it already, remember the Ashley-Madison hack as well as Clinton's emails?

I think we are all going to have our secrets dragged out into the open or stop using technology. Technology is going to force us to choose between transparency and convenience or isolation. Since technology is how we connect with one another, there really will not be a choice.

We are building an insecure, interconnected big-data society where people's habits, gender identity, sexual and relationship orientations, fantasies, fetishes and choice of partners will be laid bare. Since everyone will be revealed to be different the novelty of being different will be gone. We'll be just accepted as who we are. Everybody will be living in glass houses. We already are in fact, we just haven't embraced it.

I think the inability to hide or lie, and not get caught, is REALLY going to change how we view things like non-monogamy & sex work. I think people will have to be more honest & that is already happening & it is a really good thing.

This is bad for cheaters but great for polyamory. As cheating becomes more difficult, then impossible, I think polyamory will become the default model for non-monogamy.

How many marriages would be open?

I have no evidence to back this up, but I believe that if there was not the cultural stigma against non-monogamy that 75% of all marriages would be open emotionally and/or physically in our society. I think this is our natural emotional state and that our bodies are made not to be monogamous. In fact I believe that holding back love is a disease our culture has inflicted upon itself.

I feel so lucky that I and my spouse are free to romantically love other people.

"What use am I ... if I'm living against my own grain?” ― Carol Aird, in the novel The Price of Salt (Carol) by Patricia Highsmith

Imagine

Imagine seeing the beauty and virtues of a beloved and letting go of how their strengths might meet our needs or how their beauty might make us look better.

Imagine seeing another in a clean light of love, without enumerating the ways in which that person does and does not match up to the fantasy we carry around of our perfect mate or dream lover.

Imagine meeting another person in the freedom and innocence of childhood and playing together, without plotting how to make this person give us the kind of love we wish we could have gotten in our actual childhood.

-- The Ethical Slut

Thank you Multiamory for posting this to Facebook.

My reply: This is wonderful. It's been a long time since I read this book and I had forgotten this. Sometimes it's so heartbreaking being poly. Sometimes I can't believe how lucky we are to be able to love people like this.

Compersion and Jealousy

When I heard GracieX talk about compersion last Saturday I thought about my first wife Cindy and my own experiences with compersion decades ago. I thought about the first time I saw Cindy have sex with another man.

Besides finding it erotic I felt honored to be able to experience her enjoying sex from an angle I never could have, had it been she and I performing the act. I felt joy for Cindy and her sex partner and felt joy for myself for having that moment. To me that was a big deal. When I say honor I mean, our sexuality is a real human experience - like seeing a baby be born or seeing a person die. Human experiences can be joyous or tragic, but they are human experiences. To me, human experiences are something to be honored.

Jealousy for me has always been something else, totally something else. Jealousy for me has been this mysterious stew of emotions that usually defy logic and for me have root in my wounded child. It's not one thing or the other. It's not a spectrum for me with jealousy at one end and compersion at the other.

Why poly matters

I think polyamory is most important because it provides a framework for people who are not monogamous by nature, to live an ethical life. Before polyamory the only way non-monogamous people, I am talking especially about people who are emotionally non-monogamous by nature, could live ethically was to deny their/our feelings. There was no way they/we could ethically be themselves/ourselves.

We would have to lie to ourselves, and to others, even when we were ethically physically monogamous. It's possible when you have romantic feelings for multiple people to not act on those feelings. But, that does not make those feelings not real and does not change who you are by nature. Not acting on feelings does not mean the feelings don't exist and does not mean you are not non-monogamous by nature.

Being married to Cindy did not keep me from falling in love with Mary, for example. Even had Mary and I never acted on that, we still would have felt it; I know I would have.

Folks will openly and ethically be who they are

Ever wonder what our culture will look like when polyamory becomes part of what is considered "normal" & people aren't expected to be mono? I like to think someday people will be able to introduce their spouses and other lovers to people they meet and not have a single eyebrow be raised. I like to think someday asking someone who's married out on a date will not be taboo, that the answer might be yes or no; without any backlash. I like to think someday being married, or in a relationship will not equate ownership. I like to think someday our culture will drop it's hypocrisy, that being nonmonogamous will be an option and not be a flaw; or a reason for shame. I like to think someday folks will be free to openly and ethically be who they are. I believe our culture will change for the better.

A poly fiction genre?

We recently saw the great movie Carol, based on the 1952 romance novel by Patricia Highsmith, first published under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan". The Price of Salt was a mold breaker in the genres lesbian literature and gay fiction.

I know there are some great poly memoirs out like The Game Changer by Franklin Veaux and Gracie X's great book Wide Open. There is even the fantastic young adult book Love You Two by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli.

Is there a genre of Poly Literature, or Poly Fiction? Have there been any good intentional romance books written about relationships that work that are outside the mononormative mold?

I know there are fantastic books in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy mold like Heinlen's classic Stranger in a Strange Land.

I am especially interested in contemporary adult fiction books featuring healthy and working polyamorous relationships. Any suggestions?

I am reading Wide Open

I am reading Wide Open, My Adventures in Polyamory, Open Marriage and Loving On My Own Terms by Gracie X. This book is the compelling memoir of Gracie X. It is very, very well written.
This may be the best of many, many books I have read about polyamory, though I see it as much more than a book about poly. To me Wide Open is a book about respect. Respect in this case means to me respecting and being true about who you and others are and building a life built around consent and workability that honors that. Respect also means living that life without shame despite what the shifting winds of nomativity cultures (and/or subcultures) may cast upon us.
The introduction is by Carol Queen. That alone would have sold me on the book. I had the wonderful privilege to meet Carol at a book signing awhile back and we had a delightful conversation.
Based on what I have read so far the narrative Wide Open tells a great truth. It resonates with my own narrative and what I have found to be true in my own life of over 60 years. Thank you Gracie X for writing this book. I hope I get to meet you some day.
Poly people, we need more real life memoirs like this!

Don't Ask Don't Tell

My first wife Cindy had a lover who was the husband of a couple who were also friends of ours. His wife was also named Cindy. They had a Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) arrangement. Having a wife and a lover with the same name must have been very convenient for him.
It was so awkward for my Cindy and I though. My Cindy and he, my girlfriend Mary and I would go fun double dates.
But, it felt icky to me like we were sneaking around. His Cindy knew he was seeing someone else but not that that someone else was my Cindy. I considered his Cindy as a friend. I left it for them (he and the two Cindys) to work out and it didn't last long. We went separate ways.
I prefer to be open and for all parties to know. I do not like DADT. But, what if your metamour is in a DADT and that's fine with your partner?

Our Boundary

I met Sofia, a woman I am crazy about. I married her. Then later in life when I learned about poly and looked back on my past of living a poly lifestyle with Mary and Cindy and learning about poly more I realized being poly is something I am.

Sofia and I talked about it, explored it, she realized she is firmly monogamous. I love her so much I decided I did not want to lose her. We worked it out. I can't be monogamous with my heart but I can with my dick. And, so I am. Every day I wake up with the knowledge that it is worth it. Sofia, is worth it. But, I do love other women. Sofia knows it, so does Dana, that's our boundary and it seems to be holding.

I still self identify as poly. Sexually mono; by choice due to circumstances, romantically and emotionally poly. At least today.

And now a word for seniors

What a wonderful time it is to be alive! It's so exciting to see so many folks being able to come forward with different gender and/or relationship expressions. I know it's not easy still for many people. But, being able is an important concept, because there was a time when it was even more dangerous to do so than it is today.

Folks who were wired poly, in an ultra hetro-normative society, not only were shamed for the feelings they had by society, they self shamed. As a poly person, in an ultra hetro-normative pre-Internet society, the only options were usually repression or cheating. I am so glad that Polyamory is now a word and a rapidly expanding subculture. The challenge for many of us who discovered who we are later in life is how to respond.

We may be in long term relationships with mono partners made when that may have seemed the only option. Usually we have a history of repression, self shaming and/or cheating we have to reconcile with our now realized self identity. Now that we have a word for us, where do we go from here?

Days of innocence

It has been a long time and I do not remember all of the details. But during the almost five years from 1978 until 1982 that Mary and I were involved we would visit each other occasionally. We lived about 150 miles from each other so we tended to stay a few days. I had had a vasectomy and Mary had her tubes tied.

This was the time before AIDS, and after the sexual revolution, so basically everyone was fluid bonded with everyone else and we did not think much about it. Pregnancy seemed the most serious STI at the time.

Mary and I were fine but Cindy had to be careful and she was when she was with others. In a few years the AIDS epidemic would change everything and attitudes about sex would never be exactly the same. The days of innocence would end.

Flavors of Poly

There is always at least two sides to every story and so it is with Polyamory.

I read this on a Reddit Post on Poly and really like it. According to the poster, there is "I don't want to cheat on you poly" or "I'm just really able to love a whole lot of people poly."

In my opinion "I don't want to cheat on you poly" is circumstantial. It can be, "I am bored poly" or "I just want to see what other people are like poly." If you (or she/he) has decided you/he/she just wants to try something different there is a whole spectrum of things you can try to spice things up: including maybe trying new sex toys, maybe going to a no PDA naturist resort, maybe going to cuddle parties, maybe going to other play parties, maybe exploring "the lifestyle," all depending on both of your comfort levels and senses of adventure.

If you/he/she have/has discovered he is wired poly, then it is something both people in the relationship have to live with even if you stay together and live a mono lifestyle. This is an orientation. His/her/your emotions for others will be more than just crushes, even if you have a don't ask don't tell policy and you/he/she never acts on the emotions.