January Journal: Polyamory
Jan. 31st, 2014 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livWow, I can't believe I've posted every day in January! Final prompt is from angelofthenorth who asked about
I come from a culture where there's a very strong expectation that serious romantic relationships should be exclusive. So strong, in fact, that it's a bit taboo even to discuss what interactions with other people exactly should be expected / permitted when one is part of a couple. Most people (I hope) would agree that it's fine for a couple to have friends other than eachother, but there are grey areas when it comes to friendships with people of genders one might be attracted to, and friendships that take up a lot of time or are very emotionally close. Most people take it as read that by default people who are coupled up don't have sex with anyone else, but there's no real room to discuss exactly what constitutes "sex" (is attraction ok? is flirting? fantasizing? cybersex?)
Partly because I'm a geek, I prefer the poly subculture's take on this. It's not so much the concept that it's ok to have "many loves"; there are plenty of monogamous people who have friends and origin families they love, and healthy relationships don't forbid this. What attracts me is the idea that when you form serious romantic connections, you negotiate about how your current and future connections with other people are going to be affected. You don't assume that there's a fixed standard that everybody knows and nobody may ever discuss, and if your interpretation of that standard is slightly different from your partner's, then that's a horrible betrayal.
So in my own relationships, I've negotiated. In some, I've come to a conclusion that looks pretty close to monogamous dyadic norms, though I've always explicitly made it clear that my dating someone doesn't mean I'm going to be any less close with my dear friends, or close off possibilities of making new close friends in future. My model for friendship is based quite a lot on Anne Shirley's kindred spirits; there's a small group of people who are unlimitedly important to me, and they're not romantic partners or blood relatives, but they're still kin.
When I had this discussion withjack, we decided that we don't really need many of the default restrictions on outside connections. We didn't decide to jettison all restrictions altogether, because we put a high priority on building and sustaining our relationship with eachother and our interactions with other people are certainly going to affect that. But mostly we take each situation on its own merits and discuss any changes that arise, rather than assuming any particular form of connection is off-limits. And I suppose we use techniques and concepts from the poly subculture to have these kinds of conversations.
In the six years we've been together, I've continued to cultivate my sustaining friendships, and continued to meet new people I've come to care about very much. I haven't had to worry if this particular connection is somehow too emotional, too romantic, too physical, because none of those things is in principle forbidden and we can discuss whether a particular connection seems to be a threat to our relationship. So far I've not needed to pull back from anything good for that reason. I have friends I'm extremely cuddly with, friends who know my most hidden self and with whom I talk about anything, friends I spend a great deal of time with, friends I could potentially be attracted to but there are various reasons not to act on it.
And one fairly long duration relationship that kind of looks like girlfriends. Kind of, because most people's default association with the term "girlfriend" doesn't include two women who have husbands. And kind of because we mostly aren't perceived socially as a couple – there's still a fair degree of stigma against anything that looks like multiple romantic relationships in parallel. And kind of because we are finding our own ways to relate to eachother, rather than trying to fit in to any preordained boxes.
So in general I admire the principles behind polyamory, though like any subculture it includes some people who are complete jerks! I am very well aware that there are plenty of monogamous relationships where both partners negotiate things from first principles and take into account eachother's emotional needs, and there are plenty of paradigms for that degree of intense relationship communication other than those espoused by poly folk. And of course poly people are entirely diverse, the whole point of the subculture is that it allows space for many different ways of doing relationships rather than assuming that one model is right and everything else is just awful.
[January Journal masterlist]
angelofthenorth who asked about polyamory.
I come from a culture where there's a very strong expectation that serious romantic relationships should be exclusive. So strong, in fact, that it's a bit taboo even to discuss what interactions with other people exactly should be expected / permitted when one is part of a couple. Most people (I hope) would agree that it's fine for a couple to have friends other than eachother, but there are grey areas when it comes to friendships with people of genders one might be attracted to, and friendships that take up a lot of time or are very emotionally close. Most people take it as read that by default people who are coupled up don't have sex with anyone else, but there's no real room to discuss exactly what constitutes "sex" (is attraction ok? is flirting? fantasizing? cybersex?)
Partly because I'm a geek, I prefer the poly subculture's take on this. It's not so much the concept that it's ok to have "many loves"; there are plenty of monogamous people who have friends and origin families they love, and healthy relationships don't forbid this. What attracts me is the idea that when you form serious romantic connections, you negotiate about how your current and future connections with other people are going to be affected. You don't assume that there's a fixed standard that everybody knows and nobody may ever discuss, and if your interpretation of that standard is slightly different from your partner's, then that's a horrible betrayal.
So in my own relationships, I've negotiated. In some, I've come to a conclusion that looks pretty close to monogamous dyadic norms, though I've always explicitly made it clear that my dating someone doesn't mean I'm going to be any less close with my dear friends, or close off possibilities of making new close friends in future. My model for friendship is based quite a lot on Anne Shirley's kindred spirits; there's a small group of people who are unlimitedly important to me, and they're not romantic partners or blood relatives, but they're still kin.
When I had this discussion with
jack, we decided that we don't really need many of the default restrictions on outside connections. We didn't decide to jettison all restrictions altogether, because we put a high priority on building and sustaining our relationship with eachother and our interactions with other people are certainly going to affect that. But mostly we take each situation on its own merits and discuss any changes that arise, rather than assuming any particular form of connection is off-limits. And I suppose we use techniques and concepts from the poly subculture to have these kinds of conversations. In the six years we've been together, I've continued to cultivate my sustaining friendships, and continued to meet new people I've come to care about very much. I haven't had to worry if this particular connection is somehow too emotional, too romantic, too physical, because none of those things is in principle forbidden and we can discuss whether a particular connection seems to be a threat to our relationship. So far I've not needed to pull back from anything good for that reason. I have friends I'm extremely cuddly with, friends who know my most hidden self and with whom I talk about anything, friends I spend a great deal of time with, friends I could potentially be attracted to but there are various reasons not to act on it.
And one fairly long duration relationship that kind of looks like girlfriends. Kind of, because most people's default association with the term "girlfriend" doesn't include two women who have husbands. And kind of because we mostly aren't perceived socially as a couple – there's still a fair degree of stigma against anything that looks like multiple romantic relationships in parallel. And kind of because we are finding our own ways to relate to eachother, rather than trying to fit in to any preordained boxes.
So in general I admire the principles behind polyamory, though like any subculture it includes some people who are complete jerks! I am very well aware that there are plenty of monogamous relationships where both partners negotiate things from first principles and take into account eachother's emotional needs, and there are plenty of paradigms for that degree of intense relationship communication other than those espoused by poly folk. And of course poly people are entirely diverse, the whole point of the subculture is that it allows space for many different ways of doing relationships rather than assuming that one model is right and everything else is just awful.
[January Journal masterlist]
