Introducing a Polyamory research study

[glassgirl7]

Hi Everyone,

I am in a long term cross between a Vee and a triad, and am also finishing a Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. I live in Madison, Wisconsin. The goal of my study is to bring more accurate information about open relationships to the attention of health and mental health care providers.

If you are interested in considering participating in my study, please follow the link!

www.polyamorystudy.wordpress.com

[sage]

I would happily do this survey and I started but stopped.
It said it was open to anyone in a relationship where at least one party was polyamorous and then promptly asked the question How long have you been polyamorous? There are many of us who don't identify as polyamorous ourselves but are in relationships with polyamorous people. I did a small casual survey myself amongst others like me and discovered that we are not a very happy tribe.

I know you can't change the survey but how about the preamble to explain a way around this? If you can do this I would post your link in this other forum.
Or maybe the whole survey is too focused on the polyamorous and it just wouldn't work for us? Sorry I quit before checking the rest of the questions and then couldn't get back.

[glassgirl7]

Hi, Sage,

Thanks for your feedback. That was indeed an oversight, practically a typo, on our part. There is definitely room in this survey for anyone who is in an open relationship, whether or not they themselves have multiple partners. I'm working on repairing that question if possible or changing the intro on the blog, whichever I am able to accomplish. If you go back to the study it should let you start again (it doesn't save your results until you get through the first page). if you have trouble, let me know.

[cirrax]

Hey Glassgirl welcome to our little forums and id like to extend a hand in friendship to you as well and i am in a Open relationship with other Man seeking to find us a Poly girl to compleate our Triad if i may id be intrested in your study as well.

[glassgirl7]

Here are the actual requirements for participation:

Anyone who currently self-identifies as being in a polyamorous relationship, and is at least 18 years of age. Polyamory is defined, for the purpose of this study, as an intimate relationship in which there exists a negotiated and consensual agreement that one, some, or all partners are free to engage in additional intimate and/or sexual relationships.

Thanks for your interest!

[glassgirl7]

Hey, Sage,

I have added the following to the blog post introducing the study:

Please note: question 5 asks how long you have considered yourself to be polyamorous. If you do NOT identify as polyamorous, but are in a consensual open relationship, please feel free to put “0″ in that field.

Thanks for pointing out that we needed to do that, and feel free to tell anyone who is in a poly relationship about our study!

[cirrax]

Originally Posted by glassgirl7

Here are the actual requirements for participation:

Anyone who currently self-identifies as being in a polyamorous relationship, and is at least 18 years of age. Polyamory is defined, for the purpose of this study, as an intimate relationship in which there exists a negotiated and consensual agreement that one, some, or all partners are free to engage in additional intimate and/or sexual relationships.

Thanks for your interest!

Well Dear i do meet all of the requirements Im 45 urs old and me and my Boy friend do have a negotiated and consensual agreement that one, some, or all partners are free to engage in additional intimate and/or sexual relationships. he and I have had others in our bed in one on one and or group sex encounters.

[AutumnalTone]

Originally Posted by glassgirl7

Here are the actual requirements for participation:

Anyone who currently self-identifies as being in a polyamorous relationship, and is at least 18 years of age. Polyamory is defined, for the purpose of this study, as an intimate relationship in which there exists a negotiated and consensual agreement that one, some, or all partners are free to engage in additional intimate and/or sexual relationships.

Thanks for your interest!

So it's a study about all open relationships and not just the specifically poly relationships?

[glassgirl7]

This is a semantic question. Everyone I know has a different understanding of the definition of polyamory. For the purposes of this study, it means: an intimate relationship in which there exists a negotiated and consensual agreement that one, some, or all partners are free to engage in additional intimate and/or sexual relationships. If you fit that description, we would love for you to participate in the study!

[nycindie]

The survey seems to put great emphasis on a hierarchy. If I have two relationships I consider equally important to me, they would both be primary (although I hate using that terminology). Okay, I could work within that, but I found the survey difficult to answer regarding one of mine, because it is long-distance. I have observed that lots of poly people seem to develop LDRs where most of the relationship-building takes place online, and the actual face-to-face interactions are few and far between. Lots of the questions are about how you show love and affection, how you know when someone needs something, looks, gestures, importance and frequency of sex, etc., seem more skewed toward relationships that cohabit or at least spend lots of time together. Could there be a way to account for the LDRs that abound in polyamory, or the "Solo Poly's" like myself? I think there should at least be a box we can fill in to explain the whys and wherefores of our relationships, because poly is not so cut-and-dried. Right now it might read strangely that, for someone I count as a "primary," I neither agree nor disagree in lots of the questions because they were more addressing stuff that is done in person. Am I making sense?