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This is a bad post. Polyamory is NOT about sex and it’s NOT a fetish.
It can work extremely well and be extremely loving if done correctly. The problem is, it’s not as easy as people often think it is when trying to idealize it.
Communication is extremely important in every relationship and that only multiplies when you have more than one partner.
If you have a feeling of jealousy… Talk about it…
If you don’t think your partner is spending enough time with you… Talk about it…
If you aren’t enjoying sex with your partner… TALK ABOUT IT!
I’ve been with my fiancé for almost 4 years, my bf and I are celebrating our 1 year next month, and I have a new first date next Wednesday. My fiancé has even been with their nesting partner (who is monogamous) for 8 years now.
This all happened because we have clear ground rules and boundaries as well as active communication.
I’ve never felt more loved than when my fiancé helped me pick out my outfit for my first date with my bf.
I love them both so tremendously and it pisses me off when people tell me that isn’t possible or that all I care about is sex.
I posed it as a question for a reason. I can say every poly relationship I have known has ended in flames, but I’m open to all opinions.
But there is no question some people should just get divorced.
I can say every poly relationship I have known has ended in flames
I strongly dislike this trope. Most monogamous relationships also end badly. Relationships are hard.
Well they have is all I can say. Two of them ended particularly badly when the person in them who encouraged the poly relationship up and left the person they invited to be poly. My one friend ended up suddenly homeless when her poly couple threw her out after she had moved across country to be with them, and another who had been encouraged by his wife to practice being poly ended up having said wife vacate the premises while he was away for a weekend and empty their bank account and change her number and vanish. Like it was pretty bad.
Right, but you surely have also seen many monogamous relationships also end badly.
Both of those examples could easily have happened with monogamy.
I could rattle off a bunch of poly relationships that have gone well. I know some folks that are raising a kid. They both have other partners. They’re all pretty happy. Been so for years
Another couple has also been together for years. The one of them has had other relationships for years while the other focused on her career. For the last year or two she’s got more time and is exploring dating. She’s having a blast. They’re all very happy.
There’s a friend I’ve known for years that’s done poly the whole time. He’s had some breakups over the years, but that’s just normal relationship stuff. None of them were to my knowledge catastrophic.
I can also rattle off monogamous relationships that went badly.
It’s absurd to be like “monogamous relationships sometimes end badly. Poly relationships sometimes end badly. The poly ones are due to poly.”
What if I wanna talk and they don’t?
As with any relationship, you can either decide it’s not worth it to keep bringing up… Or if it matters a lot to you, you can break up.
Sometimes, even with a lot of communication, the relationship just doesn’t work. Not everyone is meant to be. Sometimes your needs are very different from your partner(s) needs and separation is the best way to make you both happier in the long run.
Maybe. If you don’t want to fuck anyone you should probably get depression treatment before a divorce. If you want to fuck someone new and not your wife then divorce. If you want both, nonmonogamy may be for you, but polyamory involves far less sex than you hope.
Hmm that’s interesting. I thought it was mostly sexual.
for a lot of people in long term polyamory, it’s about intimacy, which sex is part of. even if you have relationships that are primarily about fun sexy times, you’re probably going to do a lot of scheduling to maintain those relationships, or find new ones.
The old saw is that its mostly scheduling and deconflicting
There are people like that. You hear about their new partners all the time and see them constantly looking for new partners. That’s not because poly is like that, but because these are the same people who would be serially monogamous if they wanted monogamy.
For me, monogamy just felt too restrictive. My wife and I both broke up with people who wanted monogamy not long before meeting and have always been poly. As a 22 year old I loved the idea of sex, but nearing 30 I love that I can have multiple happy and long term relationships. I love the fact that I could fall in love with someone new without risking losing my wife who I love dearly and cherish. And yeah I’ve been in two happy relationships for about 5 years now. And both my partners like each other and I like my girlfriend’s husband
Well at least you’re the girlfriend’s boyfriend, not her husband, lol.
Don’t worry it’s just like when furries say it’s not sexual
Like OK we’ll nod and smile and maybe they’re the golden case but everyone else is sex obsessed - poly community drama is always about sex.
This is such a wild statement. Guess I have news to the ace poly people I know.
Don’t worry they know, they’ll give you the official sanitized lines of course but they’ll be thinking ‘yep it do be like that’
You have no clue what you’re talking about
Sure, if that makes you feel better…
It’s not mostly sexual, it’s entirely sexual. As in, sex is the entire point of being in any kind of non-monogamous relationship.
You know what you call a relationship that doesn’t have sex? A platonic friendship. If it really wasn’t about the sex, then they would call them friends.
EDIT: I see I’ve gotten the polysexual people angry with pointing out their bullshit. :D
Do you think monogamous relationships are all about sex? I think you think that love is all about sex, and you’re wrong in thinking that is a general truth. In actuality I honestly find your point of view disturbing.
A power outage killed my response as I was writing, so I’m going to try to remember the salient points. There’s a lot to unpack here.
Do you think monogamous relationships are all [emphasis added] about sex?
All about sex? No. BUT sex–and specifically the lack of sex with other people–is the single defining characteristic of a monogamous relationship. If there is neither sex, nor is there a limitation on having sex with other people, then it’s not a monogamous relationship. Love is hopefully a component of a monogamous relationship, but it’s not necessary to love your partner to be in a monogamous relationship.
I think you think that love is all about sex
I love my parents. I’m not in a polysexual relationship with them. (…Thank fuck, ew.)
I love my friend Jeff like the brother I wish I had. I’m not in a multiamorous relationship with him.
I love my spouse. I am in a monogamous relationship with them.
Being in a monogamous relationship with my spouse does not mean that I can not love other people. Being monogamous with my spouse doesn’t mean that I can’t still love my parents, or Jeff. It doesn’t even mean that I can’t be physically or sexually attracted to other people. It does mean that I can’t have sex with any other people, and it means that engaging in activities with other people that are sexual or are otherwise linked to erotic–romantic–love would put me on very, very thin ice. A private dance that I paid for at a club? Probably okay, but very questionable. Getting (consensually) fingered by a dancer? Definitely not okay. Getting a private dance from someone that I also have a deep personal friendship with? That’s several flyover states away from okay.
So, then, if sex is not a defining characteristic, a necessary prerequisite, of a multiamorous relationship, then how does it differ from the love that I feel for my parents, or for my closest friends? I said, “[…] sex is the entire point of being in any kind of non-monogamous relationship.” I stand by this, because once you remove all of the sexual elements, it is no longer any different from a platonic love. It is the sexual element that makes it a different kind of relationship entirely. The only things that you cannot do with a platonic friend, and have the relationship remain platonic, is anything erotic.
Deeply intimate relationships can be entirely platonic; my friendship with Jeff is frequently very intimate, because we can both discuss deeply person, painful things with the other without fear of judgement or loss of that intimacy. My spouse has been developing very intimate relationships with some of the people that they work with; that does not affect our monogamy. Citing intimacy as a primary driver for polysexual relationships simply isn’t plausible. If intimacy is what they want, then, again, why does the relationship need to be non-monogamous, since monogamy goes not exclude other emotionally intimate relationships? If you can have non-sexual cuddling–which I’m told is a thing, and–as an autistic person–sounds like absolute hell–then what, exactly, do you gain from being multiamorous other than the ability to choose to have sex with more than one person?
Exactly what do you suppose is the difference between multiple deeply intimate platonic friendships and a multiamorous relationship?
Revisiting
I think you think that love is all about sex
and connecting that to the original point of the meme, I do think that if your partner makes a unilateral choice to discontinue all sexual activity, that no person should be expected to be bound to their original agreement to be monogamous. If your spouse is no longer willing to have sex with you (and I don’t mean at any particular time, I mean in general), then they also lose any right to have any say in who you do have sex with.
So yeah it’s pretty clear your polyphobic and do conflate romantic relationships with being sexual.
Ask other people about their views on monogamy and I think you can find some that would call your emotional dependence on friends cheating. Clearly a red flag for most and abusive, but your post is a big red flag for me as well.
I have some questions for you,
Is going on a date with a friend ok? Is kissing someone romantically ok? Is cuddling and holding hands ok? Is emotional dependence ok? Is flirting ok? Is going on a vacation with them ok?
Exactly what do you suppose is the difference between multiple deeply intimate platonic friendships and a multiamorous relationship?
Romance and sex
I won’t deny that for me personally as a sexual person there is also a sexual element, but one of my partners is ace so for her it’s all romantic.
you can find some that would call your emotional dependence on friends cheating.
…Wut? How am I emotionally dependent on them? It’s an intimate relationship, not a co-dependent one. Taking the view that a close and deep friendship is emotional dependence is a rather grim view, don’t you think?
Is going on a date with a friend ok? Is kissing someone romantically ok? Is cuddling and holding hands ok? Is emotional dependence ok? Is flirting ok? Is going on a vacation with them ok?
I’m going to briefly interject: romance is sex without the denoument. Romance is sexual. A person that says they’re asexual can give and receive a lap dance, and yet a lap dance is still fundamentally sexual.
If you call it a date, and label it as a romantic activity? No. If you’re going out with a friend to do something you are both interested in doing? Yes. Dates are about intent.
Is kissing someone romantically okay? No, because romance is fundamentally about sexuality.
Is cuddling and holding hands okay? It depends on intent. Is it intended romantically by either person? Then no. Otherwise? Yes.
Is emotional dependence okay? No. But that’s not okay in a relationship either. No person should ever have their emotional well-being dependent on another.
Is flirting okay? No, again, that’s fundamentally about sex and sexuality. (Which should be obvious, since people of all genders mistake simply being friendly for flirting, and vice versa, all the time.)
Is going on a vacation with them ok? Of course it is, when it’s something that my partner has zero interest in.
So yeah it’s pretty clear your [sic] polyphobic
…How so, exactly? You’re more than welcome to do as you choose, and I have zero interest in stopping you. Assuming that everyone is enthusiastically consenting, it is neither my circus, nor my monkeys. Edit: My spouse is free to do as they please as well; should they choose to have multiple partners, that is there choice. I will immediately leave, but I won’t stop them.
On the other hand, I think that it’s absolutely delusional to claim that sex is not the defining factor in multiamorous relationships, and to insist that all other people accept that delusion as gospel truth. I was, for a number of years, in multiamorous relationships. I noted that, in all of my partners, and in all of the other multiamorous people I knew, people were always open–at least some degree–to the next new-shiny. Time is zero-sum; you can’t put in time with your new-shiny without also taking time away from somewhere else. That didn’t bother me for a long time, because I was the same. Then it did bother me, because I realized that what I could never find stability in that.;I could never count on being anyone’s first priority all of the time, nor could I ever reasonably promise that to anyone. (Of course, you can’t truly find that in monogamy either. But monogamy as least has that veneer, even if people don’t always live up to the ideal they claim.)
How am I emotionally dependent on them?
That wasn’t meant as an accusation or anything, nor was I claiming you had or have an unhealthy emotional dependence. There are certainly stages to intimacy, emotionally, romantic, and sexually.
And that really helps tie together what I am trying to explain here. No partnership is inherently anything, people have different needs, desires, and experience the world in vastly different ways. People have varying degrees of emotions, romanticism, and sexuality. Your responses and how you said them did appear phobic or angry/dismissive at the least so that’s why I decided I should just dismiss you as a person disrespecting of my lifestyle.
I think it is clear to me now you either had a bad experience and were traumatized by a poor partner, or simply realized you were monogamous. That is totally ok, I’m glad you realize who you are and are happy with it. Though it is certainly easier desiring a societal norm, see our discussion on what I am, where I am defending and trying to explain the vastness of experiences I and others have. You don’t ever have to defend monogamy in our society. As for your views on relationships and sexuality, I still will deny that partnerships are always ever sexual. It’s definitely possible, reading what you’ve said, you are some measure of aromantic to tie everything to being sexual in origin and meaning within a romantic gesture or close non-platonic intimacy. That’s ok too, that is how you experience the world, but that’s not how everyone is or feels about things. If that view is a response to your experiences, I’m sorry that you’ve only ever experienced things as a pretense to sex, but there is a lot more out there.
Are arranged marriages entirely about sex in your opinion? Or political marriages?
First: I notice that you’ve made no effort to refute my claim; you’ve changed the subject instead. So I’ll ask directly: if polyamorous relationships aren’t about sex, then why not simply have friendships? If sex was absolutely out of the question in any polyamorous relationship, how would they differ from any other deeply intimate friendship? (ETA - intimate friendships have changed over the centuries; things that we would consider bordering on sexual without being overtly sexual were much more normal among same-sex, nominally heterosexual friends up through the 20th C.)
Second: Yes, arranged marriages (and political marriages fall into that category) are entirely about sex. Or, to be more complete, they’re about producing children that have a specific parentage, which generally requires that the two people have sex. (Adopted children are not usually considered an acceptable substitution for blood in arranged marriages. Similarly, the children of concubines do not have rights of inheritance.) Charles was expected to marry Diana and have children with her–which absolutely meant that he was obligated to have sex with her, even though he and Camilla were very much in love with each other–in order for the royal line to continue.
No my point wasnt to refute your claim so why would I?
I was simply asking out of genuine curiosity. Dont be so defensive, they werent sarcastic or rhetorical questions
I have nothing against practical monogamy save for this. You must free the ones you love before they can freely choose you.
It’s why insisting on lifetime guarantees of sole-possession is the worst possible way to soothe your jealousy or fear of abandonment.
If you can’t let go of that fear long enough to put someone else’s happiness first, it doesn’t matter how many oaths, contracts or incentives you use to fortify your conquest. You will never know what real trust feels like.
(Pre-edit: this became much longer than intended. You struck a chord in me it seems.)
You’ve articulated this so very well. It’s a lesson that took me many years to learn and comes with the prerequisite of respecting yourself and respecting your partner to such a degree that the relationship comes second for both of you. Each person’s first priority should be themselves. Both parties need to respect that to the point of accepting that staying together is not a given and is contingent on both parties being fully satisfied with the direction your lives together is heading.
The funny thing is that I’ve never felt more confident in my relationship since learning that. I used to think that’s putting the relationship second to yourself is antithetical to commitment but actually it’s the other way around. The only way to fully commit to a relationship is to make sure that maintaining it is a concious choice rather than an expectation or given.
The way my dad illustrated this lesson in my youth (and I took the advice but only recently learned the full meaning of it) is like this: life is a journey down a road with many crossroads. Should you find a partner, you walk together. If you hit a crossroad and can’t agree on a direction then thank each other for the lovely journey together but let them follow their own path. Find that partner that is going to the same destination and you’ll have found happiness in love.
Shitting on Poly people seems still fashionable.
I think I understand why people hate on them. First, cheaters in monogamous relationships. What people don’t realize is that there are cheaters in Poly relationships to. It’s actually a ton of extra work making sure everyone and their wishes are respected.
Second, religious fundamentalists. People think of Mormons mostly when thinking of Poly people. Misogyny, religous indoctrination, all the worst shit you can think of. Not all Poly people are religious you know.
Polyamorus people deserve marriage equality. They deserve to love the way they want.
Hating Mormons for polyamory is like hating Hitler for being vegan.
I think a lot of people have the experience of dating someone who does not reveal they are poly until it is too “late.” I have a friend who is constantly meeting people and then learning that they already have a boyfriend, which is extremely frustrating.
My ex husband also decided that he wanted to be poly. I was okay with it (I had no interest in pursuing other relationships myself) - but then he decided to throw our marriage away so he could chase legal teens half our age…
The worst part is that you are supposed to feel “compersion” or something. It wasn’t enough to let my husband fuck teenagers, I had to be happy about it. It made me feel absolutely horrible and devastated my self esteem.
The poly lifestyle also sort of encourages you to view relationships as means to an end and disposable. You see this person for your sex needs, this person for your emotional needs and so on. It’s not a lifetime partnership.
There is a real phenomenon where many people try polyamory before they accept that their original relationship should end, then go back to just being single or start a different monogamous relationship.
This “transitional” polyamory is often looked down on but I think it’s another honest attempt to deal with the pressures and problems of expected monogamy.
And this is exactly why obsessive
polygamymonogamy is actually pretty toxic when you think about it. This kind of experience could also reasonably lead back to your partner, along with a renewed sense of dedication, if such a lapse of judgement was tolerated the way basically every other misstep in a marriage or serious relationship is tolerated.I see couples forgive way worse shit than a bit of meaningless infidelity on a routine basis.
If people want to practice polyamory I suppose that’s their business. I personally have known a lot of people who turned their lives upside down to be in polyamorous relationships and they generally always fall apart over jealousy. One person always ends up feeling left out usually.
If you want that and you can make it work though then more power to you!
I guarantee you know more monogamous people who have lost their relationships to jealousy.
This isn’t a polyamory issue
I think it’s different for bi people maybe, but I can say everyone i know who has done it has broken up.
Me and my two boyfriends are bisexual. We have been on a long distance relationship for almost 2 years and there never was a issue with jealousy between us. We are a family. We love each other and all we want is to stay with each other.
I’ve been with my wife for 5 years and have been poly from the start. My gf and I have been together for nearly as long and her and my wife get along as do I and her husband
I had a roommate who was bi and he moved like 4 states away to be in a poly relationship with like 5 other people and he moved into their house with them and everything. I saw an update from him that they had broken up and he was moving again like 3 months after that! It honestly just sounds exhausting
That’s not a poly problem, it is a possibility in any long distance relationship.
