When Someone You Love Is Polyamorous: Understanding Poly People and Relationships (Thorntree Fundamentals) - Softcover

Sheff, Dr. Elisabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0996460187 ISBN 13: 9780996460187

Verlag: Thorntree Press, LLC, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Having a friend or family member come out to you as polyamorous can be confusing and stressful. Chances are, you have a lot of questions: Is this just a phase? Won’t they settle down someday? What’s going to happen to their kids? Do I have to invite all their partners over for Thanksgiving dinner? Why can’t they just keep it in the bedroom? When Someone You Love Is Polyamorous offers answers to these and more questions, to help you better understand and support your polyamorous loved ones.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff is an educational consultant and expert witness serving sexual and gender minorities. She is the author of The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families as well as numerous academic and legal articles about polyamory, gender, families, and sexual minorities. She lives in Atlanta with her wife, their children, dog, cats, and the small wild animals the cats bring in.

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When Someone You Love is Polyamorous

Understanding Poly People and Relationships

By Elisabeth Sheff

Thorntree Press, LLC

Copyright © 2016 Elisabeth Sheff
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-9964601-8-7

CHAPTER 1

What is polyamory?

Polyamory is one form of consensual non-monogamy. Consensual non-monogamy is an umbrella term for any relationship type in which people are not monogamous. Polyamory emphasizes emotional connection between or among more than two romantic partners who know about (and might even like) each other.

You can see the glossary for a list of polyamory-related terms, but here are a few important words to get us started:

• polyamorist: a person who has polyamorous relationships

• poly:

* a short form of the word "polyamorist"

* an adjective to describe something that has polyamorous qualities (a "poly person" or a "poly relationship")

* an umbrella term for several different types of non -monogamous relationships

To better understand polyamory, it's helpful to take a look at what it is not. Polyamory is not ...

For everyone. Polyamory can be a complex and intense relationship style that takes time and devotion to maintain. Many people prefer the simplicity, security, and exclusivity of monogamy.

Cheating. In polyamorous relationships, everyone is (ideally) aware of the other partners. Relationships have been negotiated with agreements to handle issues like scheduling and safer sex.

Swinging. Swinging tends to focus on sexual variety and puts less emphasis on emotional intimacy with people outside a core couple. Some swingers forbid emotional connection, or even repeated interaction with the same "outside" lover.

Polygamy. In polygamy, people are married to more than one person. Polyamorists are not always married. Even more importantly, polygamy is almost always practiced as polygyny, or one man married to multiple women. Usually in those relationships, the women are not allowed to have other male partners, or to have sex with each other. Most polyamorous relationships, in contrast, allow people of all genders to have multiple partners.

Sex addiction. Poly people spend a lot more time communicating about their feelings than they do having sex. For someone whose primary motivation is sex, there are far easier ways to get it than becoming polyamorous.

Group sex. Most often, poly people interact sexually only in pairs.

Do people choose to be poly?

For some people, polyamory is a sexual orientation. For others, it is a lifestyle.

People who experience polyamory as a sexual orientation describe themselves as being "wired" that way. These people say that they have always been oriented toward multiple people in many ways:

• They often did not have a single best friend when they were growing up, but tended to socialize in groups.

• They find it hard to stay in monogamous relationships.

• They felt trapped in monogamous relationships, or they cheated until they stopped making agreements to be monogamous.

• They literally cannot imagine being comfortable in a monogamous relationship.

Folks who are poly by orientation will most likely be in some form of open relationship for the rest of their lives. When people with a poly orientation talk about how they feel in a monogamous relationship, they compare it to wearing shoes that are three sizes too small, or a lesbian trying to be happy in a romantic relationship with a man. They might be able to force themselves into that situation for a while, but it is not sustainable for them without a lot of pain and eventual damage.

For people who experience polyamory as a choice, there is much more flexibility for them to find fulfillment in a range of relationship styles. Some poly-as-lifestyle folks choose to be polyamorous for a portion of their lives: while they are young and do not have children; after a divorce, when they want to play the field in an open and honest way; or after their kids have moved out and they feel more freedom to experiment with their sexuality. Some people who see polyamory as a lifestyle option choose it for personal and political reasons as a permanent lifestyle, and others go in and out of it depending on what else is happening in their lives.

Traits of polyamorous people

Most people who identify as poly live in Australia, Canada, the United States, and Western Europe. Some live together, usually in groups of two to five, and others live alone, or with roommates. Many poly folks have children, some of them from previous monogamous relationships, and others born into poly households. Women in poly communities tend to be either bisexual or heterosexual, and most men are heterosexual, with a few bisexual people. Poly people tend to be politically liberal.

It is hard to tell how many people are having polyamorous relationships in the United States. First, because of the wide variety of non-monogamous styles, it's difficult to decide whom to count. Also, poly people can be hard to find, because they are often closeted, and there is no mechanism to count them (yet).

Still, a number of estimates exist. The most well-researched one comes from Kelly Cookson, an independent academic. Unfortunately, this estimate only deals with the total number of people who participate in some form of consensual non-monogamy, and there's no way to estimate how many of those identify as polyamorous. In an email to me, Cookson summarized his results:

• There are millions of sexually non-monogamous couples in the United States.

• Estimates of people who have actually tried sexual non-monogamy (rather than simply being open to it as an idea) are around 1.2 to 2.4 million.

• An estimated 9.8 million people have some kind of agreement with their partner that they can have other lovers. This does not necessarily mean that they have intimate relationships with these other lovers.

• These millions include polyamorists, swingers, and other sexually non-monogamous people.

Monogamy is far more popular in the United States today than is any form of openly conducted non-monogamy. Even among non-monogamies, swinging is far better known and appears to be much more common than polyamory. Clearly, polyamory appeals to a minority of people.

Some personality types are more suited to polyamory. Polyamory can be a good choice for people who relish social interaction, want to examine their feelings and discuss them in detail with others, like trying new things, enjoy sharing, find themselves falling in love with more than one person at a time, have a high sex drive or want sexual variety, are willing to use safer-sex techniques, and are open to the idea of honest non-monogamy.

Other common characteristics that appear to be linked to an interest in polyamory are things like being at least a little geeky, enjoying science fiction, having an interest in kink, working with technology, being economically self -sufficient (or having enough education that you could get a job if you needed to), and thinking of yourself as open-minded.

Why are people polyamorous?

People report a range of reasons they want to be polyamorous.

More love. Pretty much everyone who wants to have a polyamorous relationship is interested in love. Some other forms of consensual non-monogamy, such as swinging, allow people to have sexual variety with little to no emotional involvement, and might...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Thorntree Press, LLC
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0996460187
• ISBN 13: 9780996460187
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 48
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar