The Rules/Foundations of Poly

I see what you mean. I see my husband as more "open" than "poly". He is the same in other aspects, for instance when I turned vegetarian he didn't, but he had to adapt to the fact I wasn't eating animals anymore (just like I had to "adapt" to the fact that he still would, so while I wasn't eating meat, it would still be around the house).
To me, it's important in making relationships work. How much you're willing to compromise when your partner is different. Many vegetarian/non-vegetarian couples just wouldn't work because one partner would try to change the other, for instance, or just say it shouldn't affect them what the other does, and leaving when it does.

But communication and strong ties and complicity help a couple overcome their differences, sometimes one partner has to compromise more, sometimes it's more even. When one partner compromises more, it's important that the other recognises it. At the same time, it's important that the first one realises that while the other isn't compromising as much, they still are.

About the idea that one person might be poly on the emotional stage but without sex, I do believe it's possible. Actually, the way I see it, polyamory focuses on love and feelings and relationships, and swinging focuses on sex. While they overlap, sex without feeling would be swinging and not polyamory, and feelings without sex would be polyamory and not swinging.
Sex with a friend could be either/both, I think.

So I think that's the main difference, a difference of focus, and that by definition polyamory focuses more on feelings than on sex. That doesn't mean there can't be both, since there usually IS sex as well, but that does mean, in my opinion, that there can be feelings without want/need sex and that would still qualify as polyamory.
I guess that would mean you are either not a very sexual person, or exclusive for lovemaking but not love, or perhaps in some cases you might think your feelings are wrong and prefer thinking of the other person while having sex with your "real" partner...

Either way, in my opinion that still sounds like polyamory, while cheating or swinging without feelings doesn't "count" as polyamory to me (although that's not monogamy either).
 
I wonder if that may be the real difference between "mono" and "poly": "Real" monogamists can't stand sex being linked with love outside the relationship at all. ;)

Actually a "real" monogamous person can stand that. How do I know..because I am one. People who adhere to the ideal of socially defined monogamy couldn't but I am not one of those. I am a monogamous person internally, not one who simply acts monogamous based on exteranl conditionaing and influences.

BTW, if you had an affair, you aren't completely monogamous either. "Monogamous, but not fanatically" sounds a lot like "virgin, but not fanatically" to me ;)

Having an affair doesn't mean you "love" two people the same way. It implies I had sex with two people. Full stop. One I loved as a lover, the other I no longer did. I loved her as the mother of my child and friend but not as a lover.

"Intimately loving" someone includes having sex for me. Sex is inherently tied to love for me but it took me 37 years to figure that out.
I associate Poly with sexual intent. For me personally, poly includes sexual energy although maybe not actually having sex due to certain reasons. I define poly very specifically for myself. Poly love is the kind of love that creates sexual attraction.

I do not "poly" love Redpepper's son and husband but I do love them.

As far as poly love towards multiple children and parents, I do not associate that type of love with these people. The multiple child love argument is one of the least well recieved by my mono friends and myself....you don't fuck your kids. No one has to agree with that but that is how I define it. For me and many other people the kind of love that includes sex is far different than any other kind of love. I understand that for others it is not.

I am accepting of the many different ways that people define polyamory and monogamy for themselves. I give no credence to anyone who claims to have the definitive answers to the ideas of "love" beyond thier own heart and soul.

I think someone who is monogamous is wired for one "lover" type of emotional connexion at a time. They can have more than one of the others, but only one at a time of this one. .

Perfectly put in my opinion :)

love - check
ability to love multiple - check
trust/honesty - check
communication - check
my poly is not your poly - check

Beautiful :)
 
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To me, accepting your orientation makes your husband appear a lot less monogamous than he had been hadn't he accepted it. And while not questioning the sexual part at all, an approach along the lines of general exploration of the aspects of love might uncover, for example, that he is not that "mono" oriented in general, just emotionally and sexually. We have had this kind of dialogues at home, and they have been quite fruitful.

I don't believe it changes his monogamy to be accepting of poly or open relationships.

Relate this to religion and it kind of becomes absurd, am I less atheist (I am agnostic, just using this for arguments sake) if I can accept others peoples Christianity. To be a "good" atheist...do I need to vehemently deny everyone their choice?

I still think the foundation needs to be left somewhat vague, ideally,

love - check
ability to love multiple - check
trust/honesty - check
communication - check
my poly is not your poly - check

You can't have relationship status in there, you can't have any religious leanings, ritualistic love ins etc. Those are the pure basics. To add any other pieces to the foundation of poly, you begin to eliminate people. My poly is really not your poly...that could be the last foundation I suppose

Most of the other things listed here could be chapters on "how to", or "what to possibly expect" or "methods of dealing with"...but as a pure foundation. No.
 
love - check
ability to love multiple - check
trust/honesty - check
communication - check
my poly is not your poly - check

And a sexually and emotionally monogamous person could check all the way here. That was my point. It just depends on which notion of love you apply.

Polyamory is not a belief system, so the eventual (non)significance of attitude can't be inferred by analogy to belief systems.

I would add equality/equivalence/equity/balance/symmetry - whatever we call it - to the list to make it complete.
 
I would add equality/equivalence/equity/balance/symmetry - whatever we call it - to the list to make it complete.

Why?...symmetry doesn't apply to everyones poly. There are poly relationships that do work without symmetry...I think its a bit of a utopia to have that, it can happen, but doesn't always.

And a sexually and emotionally monogamous person could check all the way here. That was my point. It just depends on which notion of love you apply.

I still don't get what you mean by this. I think you are complicating it to much. You either love someone, or don't. (I may simply be misunderstanding your point)

I can have sex with someone and not love them
I can love someone and not have sex with them
I can have sex with someone and love someone

2 of the 3 are poly. Separating it into its tiny loving parts begins to separate those people that have the happy hippy feeling of poly, in loving everyone, or separates those swingers who have fallen in love with someone they have were just trying to have sex with.
 
I am a monogamous person internally, not one who simply acts monogamous based on exteranl conditionaing and influences.

So you are emotionally monogamous. (Maybe sexually too, I didn't quite get that from your descrition of affair.) Does that exclude you from being polyamorous? That's the question here. With a somewhat less specialized notion of love than your "love without sex is friendship", I think you would check all the way on Ariakas' list, wouldn't you?
 
ok...I should say...MY poly is romantic. Just like I can't be monogamous with my cousin, I can't relate poly to that either. Some peoples poly can be all encompassing...thats just doesn't feel right to me. I am poly because I was romantically involved and in love and sexual with someone else. I can't relate poly to my non intimate, non sexual, friends who I love.

That where this foundation thing gets "funny"...because even at its root it is different for everyone...
 
ok...I should say...MY poly is romantic. Just like I can't be monogamous with my cousin, I can't relate poly to that either. Some peoples poly can be all encompassing...thats just doesn't feel right to me. I am poly because I was romantically involved and in love and sexual with someone else. I can't relate poly to my non intimate, non sexual, friends who I love.
That where this foundation thing gets "funny"...because even at its root it is different for everyone...

Would you say that you are more "situational poly" rather than "fundementally poly" Because I do see friends as potential future lovers. I see potential future lovers everywhere. But in actuallity, very few of the people I have dated in the last 5 years have become lovers. So- I am not neccesarily situational poly, but poly by nature and just waiting for the right people to show up.
 
So you are emotionally monogamous. (Maybe sexually too, I didn't quite get that from your descrition of affair.) Does that exclude you from being polyamorous? That's the question here. With a somewhat less specialized notion of love than your "love without sex is friendship", I think you would check all the way on Ariakas' list, wouldn't you?

Nope, I couldn't check two of them.

1) I don't have the ability to intimately love multiple partners, because I believe Ariakas is specifically using the the word love as in the type of love that can include sexual expression; the love of your children does not. There are different types of love. When I talk about it on here for the most part it is directly relationships related to adult sexual relationships.

I am sexually mongamous..when I had the affair I was essentially ill and completely without an understanding of the role sex had in my life. I got professional help to figure that out. I also explored non-loving sexual encounters and they were less than stimulating. Yes, my nature, my wiring and possibly my genetics, exclude me from being poly. But they do not exclude me from having a relationship with someone who is.

I could pop viagra and screw lots of women, but I only love one. I'm much better at sex when I am in love ;)

2) instead of saying my poly is not your poly (because I claim no ability in polyamory) I say - my monogamy respects your poly but maintains it's basic principle: I love and give myself to one. How you chose to love me has no affect on how I love you :)
 
Nope, I couldn't check two of them.

1) I don't have the ability to intimately love multiple partners, because I believe Ariakas is specifically using the the word love as in the type of love that can include sexual expression; the love of your children does not. There are different types of love. When I talk about it on here for the most part it is directly relationships related to adult sexual relationships.

I am sexually mongamous..when I had the affair I was essentially ill and completely without an understanding of the role sex had in my life. I got professional help to figure that out. I also explored non-loving sexual encounters and they were less than stimulating. Yes, my nature, my wiring and possibly my genetics, exclude me from being poly. But they do not exclude me from having a relationship with someone who is.

I could pop viagra and screw lots of women, but I only love one. I'm much better at sex when I am in love ;)

2) instead of saying my poly is not your poly (because I claim no ability in polyamory) I say - my monogamy respects your poly but maintains it's basic principle: I love and give myself to one. How you chose to love me has no affect on how I love you :)

You are insisting on the sexual component of love here. Most of us aren't, including Ariakas

I can have sex with someone and not love them
I can love someone and not have sex with them
I can have sex with someone and love someone

2 of the 3 are poly. Separating it into its tiny loving parts begins to separate those people that have the happy hippy feeling of poly, in loving everyone, or separates those swingers who have fallen in love with someone they have were just trying to have sex with.

And it is a bit odd if you, identifying as non-poly, should have a defining veto over us poly people in determining what is poly and what isn't, isn't it?

You are emotionally mono. Which is not exclusive of being poly in a more general sense, and from how you describe your own attitude towards loving, I would indeed identify you as poly. Maybe "poly without benefits" like in "friends with benefits"? ;)

The reason why I try to be precise here, even if it produces rather counter-intuitive results, is that when we poly people try to define our foundation, we end up with absolutely nothing that could not be in a general ethical foundation. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that mono is probably the special case, poly isn't.

That emotional monogamy may be in the genes of quite a few people, is to be expected from evolution. Being reliable and able to focus can surely have increased the chances of survival in many cases.. :)
 
personally I think "emotional monogamy" should just be called "monoamory", because "amory" is emotional.

I've always wondered why be put monogamy vs polyamory, when I feel they're on different scales. Monogamy means one spouse, in my opinion it means you stay with that one person and don't cheat on them regardless on whether you love them or not. I think you can be monoamorous in a poly relationship or polyamorous in a mono relationship. To me "monogamous" applies to the relationship, what applies to the people is "monoamorous".

Utlimately though I think what matters is knowing what you mean, not making sure we use a word everyone agrees with or that everyone uses the word we want them to use. Really, I prefer just shoertening it to "mono" and "poly" because that "solves" the problem or whether it's followed with "amory/amorous" (love) or "gamy/gamous" (partner).
 
Why?...symmetry doesn't apply to everyones poly. There are poly relationships that do work without symmetry...I think its a bit of a utopia to have that, it can happen, but doesn't always.



I still don't get what you mean by this. I think you are complicating it to much. You either love someone, or don't. (I may simply be misunderstanding your point)

I can have sex with someone and not love them
I can love someone and not have sex with them
I can have sex with someone and love someone

2 of the 3 are poly. Separating it into its tiny loving parts begins to separate those people that have the happy hippy feeling of poly, in loving everyone, or separates those swingers who have fallen in love with someone they have were just trying to have sex with.

"Symmetry" surely doesn't apply to everyones' everyday poly, and it should not (BDSM for example). But here we talk about foundations, and if we exclude it from the foundations, I think we head into dangerous territory.

What I mean, is that from the foundational principles we could not say Tonberry's husband is necessarily not poly. That was my point, and no hair-splitting. People who are sexually and emotionally monogamous, may well be poly by the principles. And people who really dont want to be poly, may find themselves struggling to avoid it.. your swingers fallen in love example :)

I wonder if we may have an example of "if you are not against me, you are with me" here.
 
personally I think "emotional monogamy" should just be called "monoamory", because "amory" is emotional.

I've always wondered why be put monogamy vs polyamory, when I feel they're on different scales. Monogamy means one spouse, in my opinion it means you stay with that one person and don't cheat on them regardless on whether you love them or not. I think you can be monoamorous in a poly relationship or polyamorous in a mono relationship. To me "monogamous" applies to the relationship, what applies to the people is "monoamorous".

Utlimately though I think what matters is knowing what you mean, not making sure we use a word everyone agrees with or that everyone uses the word we want them to use. Really, I prefer just shoertening it to "mono" and "poly" because that "solves" the problem or whether it's followed with "amory/amorous" (love) or "gamy/gamous" (partner).

This makes a lot of sense to me. Only thing I wonder about is the "amory" is emotional part. If we try to clear this language hybrid of Greek and Roman and look for what "polyamory" might become in pure Greek, I think we have problems. We could use eros or agape (at least), but neither fits completely. We need both, really. And it is the agape part that does not necessarily imply that much emotionality.

So, while a very good approximation, maybe it's not quite there. But for most everyday use, clearly yes.
 
Would you say that you are more "situational poly" rather than "fundementally poly" Because I do see friends as potential future lovers. I see potential future lovers everywhere. But in actuallity, very few of the people I have dated in the last 5 years have become lovers. So- I am not neccesarily situational poly, but poly by nature and just waiting for the right people to show up.

Are you asking if I leave myself open to a friend for potential love? Yes, I believe I do. Do I love some of my friends. yes 1 or 2. hmmmm...I suppose do to my experience with friends V lovers, I am not hopeful that there is a possibility of changeover.

Like I have said on here before, I have never once had a friend turn into a lover. My partners have always been the explosive fiery kind :)
 
You are insisting on the sexual component of love here. Most of us aren't, including Ariakas

You are exactly right! This is my internal belief and perspective on the idea of intimate love. I own this within myself and although it is shared with others I know, I recognize and respect that this is not the case for others as well.

The connection between intimate love and sex is certainly is up to each individual to determine for themsleves. Freedom of thought and belief:)

The other quote in your comment was not my own but it looks like you think it was. It was Ariakas I believe and so I will not comment.

What is the difference between Polyamory and monogamy to me? First I don't care about the involvement of community and activism when I think about these concepts with respect to how people love a "lover". I don't think about them in terms of social influences or how people choose to act. I don't think about them in context of world concepts or dynamic shifts in human evolution. I deal directly with how a person loves someoen as a "lover".

Polyamory - The disposition to intimately love multiple people simultaneously. There is no need to actually be in a muiltiple partner relationship to prove it, nor is it a requirement to be able to logistically balance lives to do it successfully. Simply the ability.

Monogamy - The disposition to intimately love one person at a time. Intimate connections are not maintained with multiple partners simultaneously. Being monogamous does not require the people loved to love the same way back. It is a reflection of how one individual loves regardless of how the recipient of that love returns it.

People can act act any way they choose. But I personally believe people are predispostioned to be certain ways.
 
The other quote in your comment was not my own but it looks like you think it was. It was Ariakas I believe and so I will not comment.

Ya that confused me too...I thought I was being called mono :eek:...:p

I think...and I am guessing...Cap was using it as reference to further the discussion with you. Using it as a debate reference in his discussion with you...
 
"Symmetry" surely doesn't apply to everyones' everyday poly, and it should not (BDSM for example). But here we talk about foundations, and if we exclude it from the foundations, I think we head into dangerous territory.

Again...I think this is more a potential "helper" instead of a foundation...

think of it like building a house. You build your foundation...then throw up supporting beams...walls. windows etc. (I am not a builder so no one bite my head off about the ACTUAL methods :p)

Symmetry, while healthy and good, may be the south wall in a building where they don't need a south wall ;) I would not apply that to the foundation which is 100% required for a building.
 
Polyamory - The disposition to intimately love multiple people simultaneously. There is no need to actually be in a muiltiple partner relationship to prove it, nor is it a requirement to be able to logistically balance lives to do it successfully. Simply the ability.

Monogamy - The disposition to intimately love one person at a time. Intimate connections are not maintained with multiple partners simultaneously. Being monogamous does not require the people loved to love the same way back. It is a reflection of how one individual loves regardless of how the recipient of that love returns it.

When you explicitly don't identify as polyamorous yourself, I can't really understand why you keep on insisting on definitions of polyamory that quite a few polyamourous people, me including, think are plain wrong.

That "intimate loving" of yours is an option, not a necessity. Loving is a necessity for polyamory, and what that will eventually mean, is something that has to emerge in each situation. It may not always be what you expect, for many effects may come into play. As Heraclitus said: "Whatever our desire wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul."

I was citing Ariakas explicitly to show that you had misinterpreted him.
 
One of the things I have learned in my time chatting with other poly people, is just when you think you have found a set of common denominators as to "what makes it work", someone comes along that blows that out of the water.

I have known poly work between people that are horrible communicators - how? Because they were pretty much on the same page.

I started believing it was about openness - sharing, etc, but then there are those that do the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and are making it work for them.

I went around and around on how much it was about sex, and met several sex-free loving relationships that are working very well.

My conclusion? The only universal rule for being poly is that you are capable of loving more than one person at a time, and don't want to cheat on your partners.

I think that trying to come up with any universal set of rules or foundations beyond that is going to be very very difficult. There are going to be commonly-held ones (like the openness, honesty, communications and stuff like that) but there are always going to be exceptions which work well for them.

...and it doesn't really matter, in my opinion, because this whole thing is about the individual finding out what it is like to work in interdependent ways with their partners, whatever way that happens to be.

So get ideas from those doing it, but use them as fertilizer to grow your own plants, rather than trying to build your garden just like someone else's.... I think that the discussion here shows well what comes of trying to "nail it down", like jello to the wall...
 
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Again...I think this is more a potential "helper" instead of a foundation...

think of it like building a house. You build your foundation...then throw up supporting beams...walls. windows etc. (I am not a builder so no one bite my head off about the ACTUAL methods :p)

Symmetry, while healthy and good, may be the south wall in a building where they don't need a south wall ;) I would not apply that to the foundation which is 100% required for a building.

What about classical double standards, like one-dick policy? Leaving symmetry out of the foundations would allow such things to be basic forms of polyamory, rather than arrangements agreed upon by equal partners.

I guess that we both agree that two (or more) persons can only join a polyamorous relationship on equal footings. But none of your other criteria necessarily imply this. That's why I think it belongs to the foundations. And, as a prerequisite, only there - any actual relationship must reflect the needs of the individuals involved, which may differ a lot. So, while symmetry in an actual relationship may make for better dynamics, it may not be attainable. Nor desirable. And if it is not in the foundation either, it may result in permanent, non-intended skewness of the whole contruction.
 
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