One of the problems with adopting a label like “polyamorous” is that there's some kind of social consensus on what the term means, but any individual person may or may not be on board with that social consensus. Further exacerbating matters: without recourse to survey results from a nationally representative sample, is it even possible to determine what the consensus is?
I think I know what polyamory is, and how it differs from other forms of non-monogamy. You might think you know what it is. Agatha Average might think she knows what it is. And we might all disagree with one another on some key points. Terms that are used to describe whole groups of people are notoriously slippery.
To illustrate what I mean, let's look at another shape-shifting term: hippie. We all know what a hippie is, right? Maybe not.
The other day, Travis jokingly referred to me as a hippie. “I'm not a hippie,” I said, kind of indignantly. First of all, I wasn't even alive in the '60's. I don't have dreadlocks, I don't smoke pot, and I don't particularly like Bob Dylan or Joan Baez. I'm an omnivore and a food snob. I have a thing for high heels, and I regularly paint my toenails. Hippie?
Travis's response: “You live in a commune, you don't have a job, and you believe in Free Love. Of course you're a hippie!”
Okay. So maybe he has a point. Never mind that co-housing is NOT the same thing as a commune, and that being self-employed is NOT the same thing as being unemployed, and that there are ALL KINDS of differences between the hippie ideal of Free Love and my practice of not-totally-constrained love.
So, I'm going to explain, to the best of my ability, what I think polyamory is, and how it differs from other forms of nonmonogamy. Then, if you're not on the same page with me, it won't be because I have failed to tell you what page I'm on, capice?
I count 6 different types of non-mongamy: Playing, Cheating, Swinging, Open Marriage, Polygamy (including Polygyny & Polyandry), and Polyamory.
Playing is when a person is single and dating and/or having sexual relations with multiple people simultaneously. The player has no serious romantic commitment to another person, and while he or she might or might not be forthcoming about just what exactly is going on in his or her dating life, it's usually pretty obvious to others that they're dealing with a player.
Cheating is when someone who is supposedly in a monogamous relationship is actually having an affair, or is sleeping around on the sly. The cheater lives a double life, keeping one life a secret from at least one of his or her partners: he or she is pretending, to someone, to be monogamous.
Swinging is when a couple has decided to explore sex with people outside their marriage, and they do most of this exploring together. In other words, swingers generally come in 2's: husband and wife. The couple may decide to engage in “wife swapping” with another couple, or they may invite someone, male or female, to join the two of them for sex play. In any case, the emphasis in the swinging community is generally on recreational sex, rather than on developing multiple relationships that might end up affecting the primary pair bond.
Open Marriage is when a married couple has an agreement – tacit or overt – that they do not expect one another to be monogamous. In some cultures, it is pretty much expected that, if you marry, your partner will have the occasional affair, or even maintain a mistress or have a long-term lover. It may be considered “bad form” to parade your extra-marital relationships in front of your spouse and family, though, so people in an open marriage are often at pains to be discreet about what they're doing. They may, or may not, choose to tell their spouse details about their other liaisons – but in any case, each person in an open marriage pursues extra-marital relationships as an individual rather than as part of a couple.
Polygamy literally means “marriage to many.” There are two forms of polygamy: polygyny (many women/wives) and polyandry (many men/husbands). In traditional societies practicing polygamy, something like 98% of them practice polygyny, whereas only 2% practice polyandry. (Interestingly, in cultures where women can take multiple husbands, a woman usually marries several brothers from the same family.) In our culture, polygamists are generally religious fundamentalists of one stripe or another; whatever their ideological differences, they share a hierarchical structure that privileges men. In other words, almost all polygamists are patriarchal.
Polyamory means “many loves” – it's kind of an umbrella term, in that it encompasses people of all different sexual orientations and relationship configurations, but it's generally understood to be a form of non-monogamy that differs from cheating in that ethical treatment of one's partners (i.e., honesty) is an essential component, and from playing and swinging in that there's the desire and the capacity to form lasting bonds with more than one intimate partner, and from polygamy in its emphasis on gender equality. The distinction between polyamory and open marriage is a little harder to articulate, and sometimes I'm not even sure whether it would be more accurate to say that I'm polyamorous or that I have an open marriage. However, it seems to me that there's more frequently a “don't ask, don't tell” arrangement in an open marriage, whereas you're more likely to find polyfolk clusterfucking in each other's beeswax, to put it crudely.
So, there you have it. My answer to Poly FAQ #4: No.
It's true that I will be attending my friend Georgia's Swing Dance party tomorrow evening, and that I will be accompanied by both Travis and Parker, but I don't think that makes us swingers.
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