I'm curious with "POLY" being the newish thing ...

[Kumquatqueen]

I've yet to see any examples being cited here that would describe actual polyamory in the form that is currently practiced in some of the more progressive areas in the West.

All that has been brought up so far were either just plain ol' group sex w/o the manifold webs of emotional relationships; or polygamous harems, usually without much of a consent from the women. As far as I understand, these are all quite different things to contemporary polyamory.

That's sounding rather like a 'no true Scotsman' argument.

Just like monogamous relationships where there's fuzzy boundaries between going on multiple dates with the same person or having sex with them multiple times, and a committed relationship with them, there's huge overlap between swinging, casual sex with friends, and polyamory.

I met a woman once from a swinging club who said she'd never have sex with anyone she wasn't good friends with; if she'd started with a different social circle, she'd have called herself polyamorous with exactly the same behaviour. What is an 'emotional relationship' if it's not a friend you happen to have sex with?

FWIW London house prices mean many poly relationships end up with a couple per household and connections with other people who visit, simply because a house with enough bedrooms is prohibitively expensive. Around 2000 we considered it - my spouse was seeing my boyfriend's girlfriend at the time - but it would have meant finding a 7-bedroom house right in central London, and none of us had £10 million or more to spare.

No idea about prehistoric times, though 'ethical non-monogamy' does rather require actually respecting women as people, so unlikely much there would qualify as poly. But certainly the 'Bohemian' crowds of the early 1900s had relationships which would be called poly nowadays - eg the Bloomsbury Group. Then various people in the 60s counter-culture movements - 'free love' often involved love as well as sex. It's amazing how many biographies of uni professors in my alumni magazines mention having had a 'wife' in England and one in another country, with the guy spending months at a time with each in turn, and then retiring with both of them somewhere together.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There are differences between polyamorous relationships, trouples, group sex, threesomes, and swingers or open relationships. The differences are mainly about whether it's about the physical act of sex or is it about the emotional connection of love.

I'd agree with this but I'll also say that there's a fair bit of "grey area" in there. Sexual arrangements sometimes get complicated by people getting feelings - this may or may not be a welcome development - and vice versa.

There's also a bit of respectability politics at play, where some poly folk want to separate themselves from swinging because they think they're more likely to be accepted by mainstream society that way. (Lol no.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's sounding rather like a 'no true Scotsman' argument.

Just like monogamous relationships where there's fuzzy boundaries between going on multiple dates with the same person or having sex with them multiple times, and a committed relationship with them, there's huge overlap between swinging, casual sex with friends, and polyamory.

I'd actually say that polyamory is more prone to fuzzy boundaries.

If I were monogamous, trying to do right by a partner who expected monogamy of me, then I need to classify every other relationship in my life into Relationship [i.e. cheating] or Not Relationship [friendship]. I'd need to look at my long-distance fella - we haven't been together in ten years but we say "I love you" and I'd be open to sleeping with them if they visited - and figure out what to call that situation.

Polyamory means I don't have to fit that into a binary Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby classification. It can just be its own unique thing without a name on it.

Not to say there are no boundaries - we draw the lines on stuff that does matter to us, like safe sex. But they're more about specific actions or behaviours than about trying to pigeonhole the whole relationship.

 

[Bramblethorn]

is there really anything new to report in the bedroom? Like Poly, society is becoming more open to various things. From what I've read in books, I can't imagine a family having dinner in 1950 talking about poly, trans, bi ... this or that

People didn't talk about it as openly, but it was around. Read up on Elizabeth Marston, William Marston, and Olive Byrne, for instance. (William died in 1947, but close enough - and the other two stayed together until death did them part in the 1980s.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

Is this true? That's interesting. Is it because board gamers are more naturally attuned to playing different roles? More imaginative? Why would this be? What sorts of board games are we talking about? I can imagine why D&D lovers might be more apt to be poly, but I can't see why Risk gamers would be.

Good question. I don't have the whole answer but I can think of some things that might be at play (har har).

I think there's a significant overlap between the poly/bi/board-game categories @Kumquatqueen mentioned, and the category of "big nerds"; autism/neurospicy not mandatory but it sure helps. People who probably aren't strongly invested in traditional religion, people who are prone to querying social conventions, people who are online a lot (because that's where many of us learned about polyamory and found community without having to out ourselves to all and sundry), people who enjoy focussing on something and tinkering with it to customise to their own needs.

(It's a bit like the difference between walking into a computer shop and buying a standard model off the shelf, and assembling your own computer from parts. Or figuring out a strategy for a new board game...)

Also economic factors: it's easier to be poly when one can afford babysitters and spare bedrooms and so forth, and board games aren't cheap these days.

And not everybody is a board gamer. There's nerd-flavoured polyamory and kink-flavoured polyamory and political-flavoured polyamory and spiritual-flavoured polyamory, with overlaps between those groups. I think most of the poly people you'd find on a board like this are nerd and/or kink-flavoured, and the board games thing is probably bigger with the nerds than with those other types.

The other doesn't make much money but he serves the wife's romantic needs. One can conceive of a situation where each of those men in some way benefits from the other's role as well. Maybe Man A and Woman A are attracted to each other for their intellects, and love to share thoughts about books and art, but there's no physical spark. Man B serves Woman A's physical and romantic needs, and Man B's presence in the relationship effectively keeps Man A and Woman A together. Maybe Man B is lazy, though, so he benefits from Man A's income.

That kind of complementary relationship is often a factor. Poly as a response to mismatched sex drives is a pretty common story. I recall one guy who was big into astrology and wanted to have a boyfriend covering each of earth, air, fire and water.

But it's not always about covering relationship deficits. Nobody says "you already have a friend, why do you want a second friend?" Sometimes it's just "I'm attracted to this person...and this person too."

 

[SimonDoom]

That kind of complementary relationship is often a factor. Poly as a response to mismatched sex drives is a pretty common story. I recall one guy who was big into astrology and wanted to have a boyfriend covering each of earth, air, fire and water.

Thanks. Now I've learned my new thing for the day. I was going to say, "I can't imagine," but I know better than to do that with you around.

 

[TheLobster]

I recall one guy who was big into astrology and wanted to have a boyfriend covering each of earth, air, fire and water.

Makes perfect sense. He clearly had a big heart and wanted to summon Captain Planet.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The plural of ‘spouse’ is ‘spice’.

 

[ShamBaLa]

The poly vs recreational threesome seems to have been addressed above.

What's in it for her? The successful MFM I've experienced the pay off for the woman as been erotic attention of 4 hands and two mouths and two cocks. One described it later a "luxurious " feeling of being attended to. "Loved on." Happily enjoying a cock in both mouth and vagina. Or watching one of us stroking while the other went down. In the successful encounters the women loved the sensory overload.

Depends on the woman's needs and the skills of her lovers. Your results may vary.

 

[Nynah]

The plural of ‘spouse’ is ‘spice’.

This will make my re-read of Dune a little bit more interesting.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks. Now I've learned my new thing for the day. I was going to say, "I can't imagine," but I know better than to do that with you around.

It got a raised eyebrow out of me!

 

[Lifestyle66]

The poly vs recreational threesome seems to have been addressed above.

What's in it for her? The successful MFM I've experienced the pay off for the woman as been erotic attention of 4 hands and two mouths and two cocks. One described it later a "luxurious " feeling of being attended to. "Loved on." Happily enjoying a cock in both mouth and vagina. Or watching one of us stroking while the other went down. In the successful encounters the women loved the sensory overload.

Depends on the woman's needs and the skills of her lovers. Your results may vary.

I know one woman who is into the feeling of her taking, using, enjoying, pleasing, and the power she feels after flirting and monopolizing two guys at the same time. For her, it's disappointing if the guys don't finish in her at a house party, because they can find other women. She wants to OWN them and deplete them until they're of no use to other women.

She LOVES being a woman who can go on and on, until SHE is done with the men around her! She knows that no one man can keep up with her.

 

[Britva415]

I'd actually say that polyamory is more prone to fuzzy boundaries.

It probably is, because it subverts socially-conditioned models, and it also is more prone to the participants actively unfuzzying the boundaries so that stuff doesn't hit the fan, because they know what a danger fuzzy boundaries are to relationship integrity, and have developed the skills to avoid those problems, unlike many monogamous couples.

It is FAR easier to unintentionally allow important things to go unsaid in a normative type of relationship than a subversive and non-culturally-conditioned type of relationship, and far easier to wind up not on the same page as a result of letting them go unsaid.

I think it can strongly be argued that letting things go unsaid AND not even having boundaries are both part of the cultural conditioning around mononormative relationships, while being transparent, vulnerable and clear about everything, especially boundaries, is part of the cultural conditioning around all types of nonmonogamous relationships. Hang around poly people for a minute and you're bound to hear someone humorously referring to over-communication - and I don't mean in that "TMI, ew" kind of way. More like, just, really trying to make sure stuff is out in the open and not assumed to be understood.

 

[Lifestyle66]

It probably is, because it subverts socially-conditioned models, and it also is more prone to the participants actively unfuzzying the boundaries so that stuff doesn't hit the fan, because they know what a danger fuzzy boundaries are to relationship integrity, and have developed the skills to avoid those problems, unlike many monogamous couples.

It is FAR easier to unintentionally allow important things to go unsaid in a normative type of relationship than a subversive and non-culturally-conditioned type of relationship, and far easier to wind up not on the same page as a result of letting them go unsaid.

I think it can strongly be argued that letting things go unsaid AND not even having boundaries are both part of the cultural conditioning around mononormative relationships, while being transparent, vulnerable and clear about everything, especially boundaries, is part of the cultural conditioning around all types of nonmonogamous relationships. Hang around poly people for a minute and you're bound to hear someone humorously referring to over-communication - and I don't mean in that "TMI, ew" kind of way. More like, just, really trying to make sure stuff is out in the open and not assumed to be understood.

In my opinion, "boundaries" provide those upfront definitions of "I won't go for that."

It's like a woman saying, "I'll NEVER swallow or try to deep throat you, so get over it!" Or the prospective husband telling his fiancée "I'm NEVER going to suck another guy's cock!!!"

Boundaries allow people to understand when they're crossing a line the other won't tolerate.

There's nothing wrong with monogamy, as long as both the husband and wife know and agree with that. The problems come when people change over time. And those same changes can occur with any one or two individuals in poly relationships as well.

"We're all one big happy family group of MFMFMFM eagerly swapping, until F1 tell her husband M1 that M4 has accepted a job far away and that she's going with him "for support." And M1 knows that F2 and F3 are not as eager awaiting him as he'd like."

Boundaries are not necessarily cultural conditioning. They're personal lines-in-the-sand. Those lines are not drawn by everyone the same way.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It probably is, because it subverts socially-conditioned models, and it also is more prone to the participants actively unfuzzying the boundaries so that stuff doesn't hit the fan, because they know what a danger fuzzy boundaries are to relationship integrity, and have developed the skills to avoid those problems, unlike many monogamous couples.

For clarity, the "fuzzy boundaries" I was discussing there were specifically between "in a Relationship" and "not in a Relationship". It wasn't a general statement about all the things one might have boundaries about, which I think is more what you're discussing here.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I'd actually say that polyamory is more prone to fuzzy boundaries.

If I were monogamous, trying to do right by a partner who expected monogamy of me, then I need to classify every other relationship in my life into Relationship [i.e. cheating] or Not Relationship [friendship]. I'd need to look at my long-distance fella - we haven't been together in ten years but we say "I love you" and I'd be open to sleeping with them if they visited - and figure out what to call that situation.

Polyamory means I don't have to fit that into a binary Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby classification. It can just be its own unique thing without a name on it.

Not to say there are no boundaries - we draw the lines on stuff that does matter to us, like safe sex. But they're more about specific actions or behaviours than about trying to pigeonhole the whole relationship.

While there may be "no boundaries" in a good polyamorous relationship, I would think there are some "preferences" which eventually cause tensions. Those may or may not resolve over time. But the same thing happens in monogamous relationships, when perhaps a spouse meets a new co-worker and think "Oh, yeah!" They might know in their own mind that they're monogamous. But the temptation is there.

Whether or not the original relationship is resolved or dissolved depends on the individual characters.

EDIT: Essentially, I think whether monogamous or poly, it all depends on the characters involved.

 

[Britva415]

there may be "no boundaries" in a good polyamorous relationship

First of all - Says who?
Second of all - what does that mean to you? Why would "no boundaries" be good?

I'm not going to challenge it without understanding what it is you're even saying, here, and this is probably related to how you and I seem to have different definitions of what "boundaries" even means and how they're employed, but, I don't think that "no boundaries" is good in any relationship, and it doesn't have anything to do with being poly or not.

So, could you say more?

We both seem to be on the same page about how a "boundary" means you have expressed that there is something you won't put up with, and that different people are going to have different boundaries, and that's why people need to talk about them instead of just assuming that other people are going to (A) know what our boundaries are and (B) adhere to them.

And there also seem to be parts of this where we're talking past each other - probably because of, wait for it, unstated expectations.

 

[Britva415]

Boundaries are not necessarily cultural conditioning

Not necessarily, no. But a lot of the boundaries people have absolutely are.

There are also a lot of boundaries which are rejections of cultural conditioning.

Monogamous-by-default people have a lot of these "received" boundaries. Poly-by-decision people have actively rejected a lot of them, and really thought carefully about what ones they will establish.

 

[Bramblethorn]

While there may be "no boundaries" in a good polyamorous relationship, I would think there are some "preferences" which eventually cause tensions. Those may or may not resolve over time. But the same thing happens in monogamous relationships, when perhaps a spouse meets a new co-worker and think "Oh, yeah!" They might know in their own mind that they're monogamous. But the temptation is there.

As above, I was talking about the boundary between "in a Relationship" and "not in a Relationship". I'm not suggesting that poly relationships shouldn't have boundaries.

Areas like safe sex, birth control (if applicable) and money are examples of where just about every relationship should have boundaries.