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I identify as poly, and have done for a long time, even if it doesn't always affect my relationships. I'm much more wary of new connections than I was when I was younger, so I like to have discussions early on in relationships about the boundaries involved, and it's not always easy to get that when you first know someone; and then so often they aren't happy to live like you want to, or, being as I'm not in an area particularly rich in interesting people, there simply isn't anybody else I'm interested in anyway. So. Not obviously poly, but poly nonetheless.
To me it's a structure that makes it possible to discuss different ways of loving people, a framework that's useful to talk in. It links in to how I can love my family, without romance or sexual desire, and call it love, and love my friends, without romance or sexual desire or blood links, and still call it love, and love my partners, with or without romance and long-term plans and whatever else society expects us to have, and love each and every one of those individuals differently and well.
It means still loving the man I was with in my teens, and being happy to see him doing well, and being glad of our time together despite people thinking our age difference made him unsuitable and despite our having split up.
It means still thinking fondly of the musician I dated long-distance, who broke it off over the phone and whose whereabouts and activities I know nothing of, and wishing him well all the same.
It means that loving the ex out in Afghan and sleeping with (or getting involved romantically with) other people, should I choose to do so, are not mutually exclusive. It seems unlikely at this moment, but that isn't the point. The point is having the option.
And it's caused me (us) problems, and it's not clear-cut, and it's changeable, and that's okay. Just having the concept in my life makes it better. Knowing that I can love, in my own way, and who I want, makes life better.
To me it's a structure that makes it possible to discuss different ways of loving people, a framework that's useful to talk in. It links in to how I can love my family, without romance or sexual desire, and call it love, and love my friends, without romance or sexual desire or blood links, and still call it love, and love my partners, with or without romance and long-term plans and whatever else society expects us to have, and love each and every one of those individuals differently and well.
It means still loving the man I was with in my teens, and being happy to see him doing well, and being glad of our time together despite people thinking our age difference made him unsuitable and despite our having split up.
It means still thinking fondly of the musician I dated long-distance, who broke it off over the phone and whose whereabouts and activities I know nothing of, and wishing him well all the same.
It means that loving the ex out in Afghan and sleeping with (or getting involved romantically with) other people, should I choose to do so, are not mutually exclusive. It seems unlikely at this moment, but that isn't the point. The point is having the option.
And it's caused me (us) problems, and it's not clear-cut, and it's changeable, and that's okay. Just having the concept in my life makes it better. Knowing that I can love, in my own way, and who I want, makes life better.
can has cookie?
I mostly view it through the same prism as you, it's an acknowledgement that the options are varied, and that the whole list of rules walling off friends and lovers and exes etc are ridiculous.
I basically follow the "Is everyone involved getting their needs met?" standard.
I sometimes joke that I'm multiphilic, but that's such an insider-geek joke that it usually isn't worth making. :)
can has cookie?
can has cookie?
can has cookie?
On the flip side of that, I also identify as Bi because I am sick of explaining sapiosexual...
can has cookie?
LOL. I still remember a guy I knew not understanding why I wouldn't cover for him when he was cheating on his girlfriend because, "Dude, you have three girls you're boning, what the fuck?"
because if I don't stick my head above the parapet then I can hardly complain if people haven't heard of my way of doing things.
Of course. I don't shy away from pointing out I'm fine with consensual non-monogamy, I just don't identify as Poly, because there's lots of aspects of that philosophy I don't think apply to me, I don't like the whole tendency of Poly to position itself as the default "good non-monogamists", and I don't define my current or preferred relationship status as an important part of my identity.
I have nothing against people identifying as Poly, and I certainly will sometimes use poly as a descriptor of the current state of my relationships when appropriate.
On the flip side of that, I also identify as Bi because I am sick of explaining sapiosexual...
I haven't heard "sapiosexual" in years! Is it still used as shorthand for "I am attracted to brains, the body is largely irrelevant?"
can has cookie?
can has cookie?
cookie :)
For me, poly(amorous) meaning, love is synergistic and permitted. Poly(sexual) or open, meaning one's sexual choices are not possessed by anyone but oneself, and sex is permitted.
In both cases, for *most* people I know (there's at least one notable exception), to make either or both of these work one needs to have extremely rigorous communications systems in place so as to ensure no-one feels anything's been hidden from them. That way lies the Llama of Doom.
Fortunately for me, myself and my people are all both, which helps.
Good post :)
Re: cookie :)
Re: cookie :)
Also, my way of looking at this is pretty unusual in that I'm male, cis, butch, straight and still not jealous. There are very few people in my category around; the vast majority of the poly scene, ime, is gender-queer and much of it is bi. And a lot of it is female.
Equally ime, though this is in large part because I first encountered poly on the London goth scene, most straight, male, cis guys who self-define as poly are actually cheating bastards who're seizing on a label to try and cover their chronic inability to be honest.
That has inevitably affected my philosophy of poly; I had the fortune to be able to figure out what I thought about it, rather than having to react to a bunch of intersectional prejudices. What I came up with is in some ways unexpectedly Heinleinian, hence my tending to summarize it in two of his famous acronyms. For an old white guy from the Bible Belt writing in the 50s, Heinlein's self-portrayal as Lazarus Long carries a remarkably enlightened philosophy of sexuality and its associated human constructs.