I was recently asked if I’d consent to an interview, but the questions were pretty good and basic, so I’m posting them here:
1. What are common misconceptions you have found with polyamory?
Probably the most common is that partners are disposable or interchangeable on some level. The culture that surrounds the monogamy paradigm also has a subtext of One True Love. We see it in movies, books and what have you all the time. In this context, if you’re going to have more than one partner, those partners aren’t quite as valuable.
The thing is, people are unique individuals. Your individual relationship with any human being is unique just by virtue of that fact.
Besides which, polyamory or not, seeing a human being as disposable or a commodity is just nasty.
2. What do you gain from this lifestyle?1
I’m not poly because I necessarily hope to gain anything. I’m poly because the logic I’m usually given behind reasons for sexual exclusivity don’t scan for me. I don’t have a religion, so the religious reasons don’t make sense, I don’t believe in One True Love, so that reason makes no sense. As far as sex itself? I believe that sex is moral or immoral by the same standards that any other act is. For the life of me, I cannot separate that particular activity off as being somehow “different” than any other human activity. In that context, sexual exclusivity makes no sense.
I feel no particular responsibility to run out and have bunches of relationships to hold up the side, mind. Relationships take time and energy, and I like to have time to write, knit, swim and lift weights, too!
3. Whats the main differences between swinging and polyamory?
One activity gives a certain subset of the polyamory community an opportunity to feel smug and self-righteous!
Sorry, my snark-o-matic was left on last night. Seriously, the usual answer given is something along the lines of, “Swinging is about sex and poly is about relationships.” I don’t agree with that, entirely. It is my opinion that this debate is usually engaged in by people who feel guilty about having more than one sexual relationship and need some context where it’s okay somehow. It reminds me of the girls in my high school who would sneer at other girls having sex, but were okay with doing it themselves because they were “Really in love.”
4. Are there any other resources that you would recommend?
My blogroll and recommended reading have most of what I’d say are good. Believe it or not, the best books on relationships are usually about business relationships.
5. What do you want people to know most about polyamory?
Keep it about love. I’m not very fluffy, and Ceiling Cat knows I’m a bit on the stern side, but if it ain’t about love, you’re probably doing it wrong.
1I’m answering this as an individual because there’s just no way in the world to answer it for the whole polyamory community. I can think of a dozen answers other people might give, and maybe can work that into a column. But I wanted to give my own here.
…“Swinging is about sex and poly is about relationships.” I don’t agree with that, entirely. … It reminds me of the girls in my high school who would sneer at other girls having sex, but were okay with doing it themselves because they were “Really in love.”
\o/ Oh Great Goddess, I love you! Mind you, I am such a non-swinger that, in my first marriage, most of my friends didn’t even know I was married¹ & my current primary-SO & I have been functionally monogamous for years. However, I just can’t see drawing a line between swinging & polyamory with anything but a big, red Hypocracy Pen.
Keep it about love. I’m not very fluffy, and Ceiling Cat knows I’m a bit on the stern side, but if it ain’t about love, you’re probably doing it wrong.
*sigh* Yes, it’s love. Do you mind if I contact your friends for tips in wooing you? Would you like to visit two middleaged polyfolk & stroll the beach looking for seashells while we make calves’ eyes at you?? 😉
¹….by which I mean, most of my friends thought I was your usual geeky single-&-sexless undergrad, rather than a Worldly Married Woman.
*chuckles* I’m impressed.
You may be the first person who has ever had the guts to proposition me via this column.
Audaces fortuna iuvat.
Misconceptions: That because I’m bi and poly that I will do anyone anytime anywhere…. or that because I’ve got a husband, a boyfriend, and another couple that are FWB, that I spend all my time in bed. (All the ones I’m not married to live just far enough away to make jaunting over on a whim not practical.)
My husband and I have talked this over a lot over the years, and come to the conclusion that for us polyamory is a deeply hardwired thing, deep as our sexual orientations, and about as movable; which is to say, we could make ourselves act monogamous, just as we could make ourselves act straight. So asking what we get out of it is like asking what you get when you come out of the closet; you get yourself, and can give it to your partners. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Swinging and polyamory; I think it’s mostly semantics, really. I tend personally to put relationships that are more about grinding bits together and less about long talks about life, the universe, and everything in the realm of swinging, but that’s my prejudice.
And yeah, if it’s not about love, you’re doing it wrong.
I am married to a wonderful man and woman and the three of us make a home for out two kids. It is good to see you giving voice to our community.
Thanks
My wife and I experimented with the swinging thing and it just left me sort of empty — I want to know people more deeply than that. Seems like swingers want to keep swinging and “real life” much more separate in their lives (a bit of smugness there on my part). Not that I don’t like the idea of group sex but would much prefer that to happen with people that i can also go have coffee with or take a hike on “off” sex days. 🙂
@Ed: The issue there is that I know at least one self-identified swinger who says, “I only have sex with friends.”
So… It’s a fuzzy line at best.