You're the one who started making blanket statements in this thread about what is and isn't poly. You didn't say it wasn't your kind of poly, you said it wasn't poly. Perhaps if you stopped doing that the rest of us wouldn't have to read this argument over and over again.
Another quick thing is that my poly IS your poly. I'm quite sure that what I consider poly is also under the umbrella of what you consider poly. It's
your poly that isn't
my poly. Mine's way more exclusive, while yours includes pretty much anything that means involvement with more than one person. You could have a one night stand tomorrow and the next day and the next day with three different people, and it'd probably be poly to you.
You know, the whole reason there's a term "polyamory" is to distinguish itself from casual sex and just plain open relationships. Polyamory wants people to know that it is NOT about casual sex or casual, meaningless involvements. But when you say that casual sex and meaningless involvements are okay (or are just part of the journey), you're basically making polyamory, casual sex, and open relationships all one and the same.
In other words, when the mainstream world judges the polyamorous community for being "just lewd, lascivious casual sex havers in disguise who want to euphemize their lifestyle with a word like 'polyamory'", you make what they say true by saying casual sex is part of what we have to do in order to be polyamorous; it's the way we get to polyamory.
Call it casual sex while it's casual sex, that way the outside mainstream world won't be saying polyamory is casual sex.
When you are polyamorous and act like polyamorous people, the outside mainstream world won't be able to say that you're casual sex havers because you won't be casual sex havers. You'll be people in meaningful, long-term, loving relationships with more than one person.
Here's a hint.
Think about love and deep, meaningful relationships. Are they easy to come by? Nope. Single people who are monogamous go for years without having even just one. Sometimes, if they're lucky, they'll get something loving and meaningful every 2-4 years or so. Something that can work. And I'm not talking about ugly single people. I'm talking even about attractive people.
It's hard to come by people you're in love with or have a deep, meaningful relationship with.
Poly people aren't any different. You're the same human beings with the same basic odds of finding someone you connect with and are attracted to well enough that it's considered "a loving, meaningful relationship."
If you have a main partner and get involved with four or five different people in one year (all of them short-lived), there's a fat chance that polyamory was happening, because it's very unlikely that you met that many people in ONE year who you had a loving, meaningful relationship with.
You had four or five involvements that were casual. Hence, there was no polyamory happening. Casual involvements were happening.
Truly poly people (in my opinion!!!!!!!) might not even get their second partner for a long time because they didn't fall for a person in a year or so even after they officially went poly. They might have gone on some dates, but nothing panned out. If, to you, dating around plenty and getting to dates 3-4 (where sex might happen) but then it ending soon after (and you're fine with that, and are looking for the next person to repeat the cycle with), you're just a casual sex haver.