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polyamory/nonmonogamy identity questions
Sep. 26th, 2002 11:45 amThis training that K and I are doing in October is proving a catalyst for all kinds of interesting thoughts and discussions.
Here's one identity-political thing that arose:
I was already "doing" polyamory before I had a word for it, but since I came across the word polyamory (on the net, in 1994 I think), I have used it in describing my life.
I've also used the word non-monogamy, but to mean something different - taking it literally and using it to describe any situation where someone has more than one sexual partner.
Another relevant expression (which I know but rarely use) is "responsible non-monogamy". By this I mean more or less the same as polyamory, but not exactly the same - to me, polyamory definitely includes intimate love-relationships which don't necessarily include sex, whereas non-monogamy seems to me always to imply some kind of sexual connection.
On the other hand, K identifies as "nonmonogamous", by which ze means "responsibly nonmonogamous", and explicitly doesn't identify as polyamorous.
I asked K why ze doesn't identify as polyamorous. The main reasons were:
a) being comprehensible to "the person in the street" and not having some word that most people won't understand (though ze conceded that the ideas that may pop into the head of the "person in the street" when you say "nonmonogamy" may well bear very little relation to what our lives are actually like).
b) that polyamory seems to em to refer to a particular community of which ze doesn't consider emself part.
K also brought up another reason, given to em by someone else who identifies as nonmonogamous and not as poly. This was that polyamory seemed to put emphasis on commitment and love rather than sex, and that it seemed therefore to be devaluing connections that were purely sexual.
This had never occurred to me before, but I can get the objection. But then I was thinking: I'm not sure, but I suspect that different people's definitions/ideas of "what polyamory is" might or might not include casual sex outside the context of ongoing relationships. Like, I don't feel sure that there is consensus on that.
I thought the "is polyamory a community" question was kind of interesting as well. "The polyamory community" is not an expression I seem to remember hearing, but I can get that alt.poly and alt.polycon and the UK poly e-list could be construed as manifestations of one. But when I adopted the word, I felt much more like "Here is a good word to describe something about my principles and my emotional life" than "I am joining a community".
One of my handouts from the bi-education pack is to point out the difference between bisexuality and nonmonogamy. Strictly speaking, it doesn't matter if K doesn't agree with how I put it, which ze currently doesn't; there are lots of places where we don't necessarily agree politically and we shall tell the participants so, and I am identified as the author of the bi-ed pack. But really I would like to rewrite that page, or write something different, before the training day, so that we can both align on what goes out in the handouts and so that it acknowledges people's different uses of the language. So I've got to do some thinking :-)
So here are some questions I have, for anyone who feels moved to answer:
1. Do you describe yourself as polyamorous? nonmonogamous? "responsibly nonmonogamous"?
2. Which if any of those three terms are equivalent for you, or what are the differences?
3. If you have political objections to claiming the term polyamory, what are they?
4. If someone has one primary partner, plus casual sex without ongoing relationships with others, would you count that as polyamory?
5. Do you consider yourself part of a "polyamory community"? If yes, in what sense?
Please point other people at this post as well, if you think they're gonna have interesting answers. Thanks people!
Here's one identity-political thing that arose:
I was already "doing" polyamory before I had a word for it, but since I came across the word polyamory (on the net, in 1994 I think), I have used it in describing my life.
I've also used the word non-monogamy, but to mean something different - taking it literally and using it to describe any situation where someone has more than one sexual partner.
Another relevant expression (which I know but rarely use) is "responsible non-monogamy". By this I mean more or less the same as polyamory, but not exactly the same - to me, polyamory definitely includes intimate love-relationships which don't necessarily include sex, whereas non-monogamy seems to me always to imply some kind of sexual connection.
On the other hand, K identifies as "nonmonogamous", by which ze means "responsibly nonmonogamous", and explicitly doesn't identify as polyamorous.
I asked K why ze doesn't identify as polyamorous. The main reasons were:
a) being comprehensible to "the person in the street" and not having some word that most people won't understand (though ze conceded that the ideas that may pop into the head of the "person in the street" when you say "nonmonogamy" may well bear very little relation to what our lives are actually like).
b) that polyamory seems to em to refer to a particular community of which ze doesn't consider emself part.
K also brought up another reason, given to em by someone else who identifies as nonmonogamous and not as poly. This was that polyamory seemed to put emphasis on commitment and love rather than sex, and that it seemed therefore to be devaluing connections that were purely sexual.
This had never occurred to me before, but I can get the objection. But then I was thinking: I'm not sure, but I suspect that different people's definitions/ideas of "what polyamory is" might or might not include casual sex outside the context of ongoing relationships. Like, I don't feel sure that there is consensus on that.
I thought the "is polyamory a community" question was kind of interesting as well. "The polyamory community" is not an expression I seem to remember hearing, but I can get that alt.poly and alt.polycon and the UK poly e-list could be construed as manifestations of one. But when I adopted the word, I felt much more like "Here is a good word to describe something about my principles and my emotional life" than "I am joining a community".
One of my handouts from the bi-education pack is to point out the difference between bisexuality and nonmonogamy. Strictly speaking, it doesn't matter if K doesn't agree with how I put it, which ze currently doesn't; there are lots of places where we don't necessarily agree politically and we shall tell the participants so, and I am identified as the author of the bi-ed pack. But really I would like to rewrite that page, or write something different, before the training day, so that we can both align on what goes out in the handouts and so that it acknowledges people's different uses of the language. So I've got to do some thinking :-)
So here are some questions I have, for anyone who feels moved to answer:
1. Do you describe yourself as polyamorous? nonmonogamous? "responsibly nonmonogamous"?
2. Which if any of those three terms are equivalent for you, or what are the differences?
3. If you have political objections to claiming the term polyamory, what are they?
4. If someone has one primary partner, plus casual sex without ongoing relationships with others, would you count that as polyamory?
5. Do you consider yourself part of a "polyamory community"? If yes, in what sense?
Please point other people at this post as well, if you think they're gonna have interesting answers. Thanks people!
