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! 

Multiamory Podcast About OPEN

Please checkout this Multiamory podcast with William Winters on a subject dear to our hearts. It's about OPEN, which stands for the organization for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. This talks a lot about the fight for civil rights for members of our polyamory and ethical non-monogamy community.

Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy

There's a new book I am looking forward to reading. It is Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy, by Rachel Krantz.

Krantz is a journalist and one of the founding editors of Bustle, where she served as senior features editor for three years. Her work has been featured on NPR, The Guardian, Vox, Vice, and many other outlets. She's the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Radio Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Peabody Award for her work as an investigative reporter with YR Media. She's got cred!

I like that Open is not a book about how to do polyamory. Open is a memoir, a story about a person's journey. Like all journeys I expect there will be mistakes, missteps and wrong turns. Open is on that too short list of contemporary polyamory literature that includes work by other great writers (mostly women) like Gracie X's Wide Open and Sophie Lucido Johnson's Many Love(s). I hope more titles become available and more stories are told in the small but important genre of contemporary polyamory literature.

In my opinion, the superpower of stories is how they build on the imagination of what's possible to be. That's why the genre of contemporary polyamory literature matters so much to me. Sometimes knowing who you are is contingent on knowing what it's possible to be. 

Lovin' Molly (1974) CNM Movie Review

 Unfortunately the list of movies and books of consensual non-monogamy (CNM) in a contemporary setting is short. In the 1970s, when I was young, that list was dismal. Paint Your Wagon was a standout but another title that deserves honorable mention is Lovin' Molly (1974).

In today's vernacular you'd call the story an MFM triad of two brothers in a polyamorous romantic and sexual relationship with one woman that was (um-mostly) consensual. It is based on Larry McMutry's lesser known 1962 second novel "Leaving Cheyenne" and the movie almost works. It has a star studded cast that includes young Anthony Perkins, Beau Bridges, Blythe Danner and Susan Sarandon. It's worth a watch even though it sadly falls short of its potential. That's kinda understandable given there was no real narrative for functional contemporary CNM at the time.

Bubbles and Buckets

 As Andie Nordgren said in The Relationship Anarchy Manifesto, "Each relationship is independent, and a relationship between autonomous individuals."

All relationships count. Sex is not a sorting hat. Love is a shapeshifter and takes many forms. We call this friendship, that romance and yet love is constantly reimagining itself. Who's to say what shape is the most valuable, at least beyond our own individual bubbles?

If you tear down the hierarchy of relationships and toss away the buckets we tend to sort relationships into a lot of the labels like "exes", "partner", and "lover" either gain new meanings or cease to have any.

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!

Polyamory as an orientation

A snippet from a recent conversation, "we live in a culture that tells us to love all our siblings, all our parents, all our children, all our pets with all our heart but also tells us loving only one person romantically is the only way you can love romantically. That's not true for many people, simply not true. It's not true for me. Nothing I can do can change that."

Choice no choice

Y'know some people think being poly is a choice and I think it is for some people. For some of us though, it's the only way to live an honest life. I am 64 and I grew up in a culture where "normal" is loving all your siblings, your kids, your pets, your friends, but only one person romantically. Anything else was broken, was sick, was sin, was something to be ashamed of. The way a person loves is not something that can be "fixed" because it's not something that is broken. It's really not.

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.

About Partners

Why is the label "partner" as applied to relationships so loaded? When people hear the word partner, as in they're a partner of mine, it's often assumed this is a sexual and/or romantic relationship. But, isn't that privileging sexual and/or romantic relationships? Where does that leave asexual and/or aromantic people? They don't get to have partners?

Isn't it enough that an awesome person is someone who is special enough to be a life partner? To me a partner is somebody I am sharing this amazing, beautiful adventure called life with. Platonic Partner is an expression that's gaining traction. But, why? Why, if I say someone is a partner then other people assume I am saying we are having sex, unless I specifically say, "no we are not" by adding the word platonic.

Ultimately whether or not I'm having sex with this person who is a fellow traveler on this journey we call life is nobody's business but this person and I (and possibly our our other partners.) Love and/or sex does not owe anyone else an explanation.

Sigh, but, I just say friends. It's just easier. Sometimes though, that doesn't feel like it's enough. I guess it's enough, though. It's enough if we know how special we are to each other.

That's all that matters I guess.

Platonic Partnership

"This isn’t just a friendship, this is a partnership."

-  Sarah Burke

I'm Poly

"I'm poly, but not because I'm looking for multiplicity, or indeed, even anyone, but because I do not limit myself.

I'm just feeling the bubbling joyous aliveness of feeling supported... I see you, I admire you, I love you, I respect the work it takes to be you, I support you, I thank you."

- Thomas Seaman‎

About Labels

We have a whole long list of labels that we attach to relationships: lover, partner, friend, family, etc. In my experience these labels are just approximations. These are all loving relationships. Each individual relationship is unique, intimate in its own way and changing over time. There's danger in drawing assumptions and creating hierarchies based solely on labels. I have found the greatest loss is not allowing yourself to love and enjoy the awesome people in your life as much as you can. No one type of relationship is better than another. It's okay to be in love with who you love, no matter what label, no matter how that love manifests. Love is love.

Many Love: A Memoir of Polyamory and Finding Love(s)

I have finished reading Many Love: A Memoir of Polyamory and Finding Love(s) by Sophie Lucido Johnson. I have yet to review it. I will have more to say. In short, I loved it. It's not just a poly book. It takes a different perspective on polyamory than many books I have read.

It's about love, infinite love. It's a book about how love (and poly) transcends sex and even romance and embraces, and fills the gaps between, other forms of loving emotionally intimate relationships even friendships.

I get that. I really get that!

My advice to new poly people

Be prepared for it to be very different than you expect it to be. Be prepared to learn things about yourself and/or your partner you never imagined you'd learn. Be prepared for the fact that anything you learn cannot be unlearned.

And, know that just as you are opening your relationship, you can close it again. But, it's almost impossible to get back to where you were before you opened in the first place. You will most likely be changed at the core level of your relationship, and as people, by the experience.

LGBTQIA vs. GSRM

I think all Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Minorities (GSRM) suffer when they are pitted against each other with some groups being excluded. The LGBTQIA acronym keeps growing but it still excludes many folks who do not identify as cultural normative. Many people (like Dan Savage) have suggested just using the term queer, but then say poly people are not queer. Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Minorities are the only minorities that have to fight for legal protection and rights one sub-group at a time. That's why I prefer GSRM over LGBTQIA. We are stronger when we stand together and inclusivity, in my opinion, builds strength and power.

As Matthew Bobbu said, "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.”

That said, there is no reason one has to choose. Different labels are appropriate for different discussions because they mean different things in different contexts.

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.