Poly Learning
I recently joined a polycule and it's been weird! So, to understand my place in things, I read a book, zine, and a few articles about it. I started out with The Ethical Slut. It's super canon, along with the Poly-suffix books. I liked it! Especially the history bit. I knew about Kinsey, but I didn't know that him and his polycule were forebears in polyamory. William Reich said that in authoritarian societies, sexuality must be repressed in order to prevent people from developing a sense of right and wrong, and people have attempted in response to create sexual utopias. There's the Oneida Community and Rajneeshpuram. My exposure to historical polyamory stopped at Mormonism, so this was refreshing to learn about! Below are some relevant quotes from various sources on polyamory, with my occasional commentary or breakdown.
"The people we interviewed said things like this:
- “I get relief from pressure—I don’t have to fulfill every single thing my partner needs or wants, which means I don’t have to try to be somebody I'm not.
- “People have different ways of knowing and understanding things, so intimacy with various people expands my appreciation of the universe.”
- “I can have hot erotic experiences without genital sex and without compromising my emotional monogamy.”
- “My lifestyle gives me personal freedom, independence, and responsibility in a way that being in an exclusive couple does not.”
- “I don’t believe that humans are designed to be monogamous. Monogamy goes against my instincts.”
- “I never feel that the grass might be greener on the other side of the fence— I’ve been there.”
- “Outside partners are an infusion of sexual juice into my primary relationship.”
Mentioned relationship styles include:
There's also a brief analysis into the sexual behavior of different genders.
Similarly, there's the quote:
"Eventually, though, this situation must be dealt with: once the subject of opening a relationship is on the table, it cannot be shut away in a drawer again. One way or another, you must find a way to cope with what's been handed to you and begin considering what may happen next.
It is unfair, of course, that you're being asked to do hard emotional work that you never chose to do. Is there any reason why you should have to work so hard? Is there anything in it for you? Well, quite possibly there is. Perhaps this work will make you stronger. Perhaps you will make an unexpected journey into your own capacities: maybe you too have the ability to love more than one person. Perhaps it will improve your communication skills and deepen your relationship. Perhaps learning that your beloved will still come home to you after an adventure will end up making you feel more secure. Perhaps it will free you from traditional views of relationship as ownership, opening new horizons for connecting."
Polyamory isn't a thing you do solely because it sounds nice; it's a mode of engaging with the world. It's more work. But there are things in it for you, even if you don't have more than one partner yourself. It's important to keep the "what's in it for me?" in mind as you proceed, to prevent resentment. Fix current relationships before adding others as well.
"Similarly, it's vital to be able to give reassurance and support, both in response to a request and on your own. If you can't tell your partners you love them or give them a heartfelt compliment or tell them what you think is so wonderful about them, it may be optimistic to assume that they'll be able to remain secure enough to accommodate your other relationships. Put some thought into how you can let your partners know how important they are to you. We recommend lots of hugging, touching, verbal affection, sincere flattery, little "love ya" gifts, and whatever else helps everyone feel secure and connected."
"If you have one or more primary relationships, take a look at what you can do to reinforce their primacy."
The two above quotes make me think that it's important to make each person feel like an individual, with specific things to contribute. Even if that's non-hierarchical. Tom Robbins says that, "“The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being." People need to know that they have a place. Along those lines are the idea of keeping roles and terms distinct.
"Most successful relationships, from casual acquaintanceship through lifetime monogamy, are based on assumptions that are really unstated agreements about behavior: you don't kiss your mailman, you don't tip your mother. These are the unspoken rules we learn very early in our lives from our parents, our playmates, and our cultures. People who break these unspoken rules are often considered odd, sometimes even crazy, because the values and judgments behind the social agreements about how we relate to one another are so deeply ingrained that we are usually not even aware that we have made any agreement at all.
In many day-to-day relationships, like your relationships with neighbors and coworkers, it's probably fine to rely on those implicit, built-in agreements. But when you’re trying something as complicated and unprecedented as ethical sluthood, we think it’s very important to take nothing for granted."
"Ethical sluts do not make promises they can't keep. If attracted to someone who is looking for a life partnership and what you want is a lighthearted affair (or vice versa), you need to be honest about that, even if that means saying, "No, thank you" to sex until your feelings for each other are more on a par. Mistakes can easily be made-sometimes accidentally and sometimes when we should have predicted that someone would get hurt. We have both made such mistakes.
Now, your older and wiser authors have discovered a couple of limits of our own: we do not share sex with anyone that we're not at least potentially interested in sharing sex with again, and we believe that anything worth doing is worth waiting for until the time is right."
"A special case: you may find yourself in a relationship with someone whose life partnership is no longer very sexual, whether from the normal cooling of passion as relationships mature or through illness or disability. When you are dating such a person, do remember to approach their partner with an added measure of care and respect. Such people may be happy that you are keeping their partner happy but still somewhat sorrowful at not being able to fulfill that role themselves. It helps to recognize and honor the valuable contributions that person does make.
ROLE-CONSTRAINED RELATIONSHIPS
Sometimes your relationship may be defined by the roles you play together, roles that a person's other partners may not want or enjoy. Your connection could be as simple as a love of watching football on or, perhaps more complicated, being the same-sex partner to some- one in an opposite-sex marriage. Your shared roles might be about TV or, perhaps more complicated, being the same-sex partner to someone in an opposite-sex marriage. Your shared roles might be about BDSM, erotic role-playing, exploration of gender, spiritual journeying, or any other sharing that the partnership doesn’t provide. Your shared role makes you part of a family’s ecology, part of what makes it run smoothly, and is both a joy and a responsibility not to be taken lightly."
The idea of relationships as a series of agreements is mind-blowing. I also think it's key to irreplaceability. Every person has a place. Some people can be backups, but being the backup is also an individual role. I've been the backup lover, and it didn't bother me, because I knew that was my role at the beginning.
"Veto power says, 'If you propose a partner I don't feel comfortable with, I can tell you so, and you'll abandon your relationship with that person.' But what happens if the proposing partner decides nevertheless to pursue their relationship with the vetoed person? Well, we guess the vetoer has two choices: they can either suck it up and keep going (usually after some very painful conflict) or walk away from the relationship.
Which-surprise!-is exactly the same choice everyone faces when an outside partner comes into a relationship, whether or not it's by mutual agreement. For that matter, this is the fundamental choice at stake when any kind of relationship conflict arises: the decision of whether to do the hard work of sticking around or the equally hard (although different) work of leaving. So what is your veto power actually giving you that you don't already have?
If agreeing to veto power increases your sense of security during the early days of opening your relationships, that's fine. But we suspect that if you I decide to drop the formal veto power and move toward a more fluid process of accepting outside partners, you'll notice very little difference in the way your relationship actually works-unless, of course, it actually works better."
This quote kept me from invoking veto power, but upon rereading, I think it's a little uncharitable. There is a continuum between "I'm seeing this person, therefore we must break up" and "I'm not staying with this person, therefore we'll stay together." You can ask that that person see their new lover less, or only in a specific capacity.
"Sexual time is connected with intimate time for most of us; we come to depend on our partners for various kinds of emotional support. So we can get into this pattern where we share all our hard emotional unsexy needs—all the work of living together, the sickness and health, richer and poorer stuff—with our life partner, and we're on our best behavior with our other partners. However, while being in a long-term relationship may involve trading away some of the juicy excitement of a brand-new unknown partner, the intimacy you get in return is valuable too, and you can't have that with a person you met two weeks ago.
The trick is to find a way to manifest both possibilities—the intimacy of sharing and the heat of novelty—in your own life.
Remember, please, that fantasy is not reality, and enjoy your fantasies while also maintaining your commitments. When you expect a crush to be a brief, if wonderful, experience, you and your partner can live through one with relative equanimity and without destroying your long-term stability and love for each other."
Another useful concept is the idea of balancing novelty and intimacy. I lean toward intimacy. In fact, I didn't understand novelty's appeal until I got on testosterone. I therefore also understand being on my best behavior for new partners. I think this is a consequence of trusting older partners more, too. I don't really know what to do about it, besides prioritizing intimacy more--but I already do that, so shrug emoji.
"We have deliberately suggested some extremely easy adventures to start with— like looking at ads or talking about all the cuties dancing at the club. These are very safe ways to take a tiny risk. Pay attention to what feelings come up and talk about them. Remember that feelings like to flow. Please don’t assume that how you feel today is how you will always feel: the whole purpose of this endeavor is to open up your options about your feelings.
You may be surprised by what’s difficult or by what’s easy. Give yourself a gold star for what’s easy—that’s a strength you already have. Give yourself another gold star for even thinking about something that’s hard—this is the work you are setting out to do."
The authors also add to set aside time for the partners you already have, as only from a secure foundation can this work begin. Some good ideas! Less intimidating than the full wife's boyfriend routine on day 1. I intend to try this approach at some point to deal with my own envy/jealousy.
Dealing with consent violations does not mean permanently exiling someone. It does not mean trying to find the truth. This isn't court. I would add from (I think) another Kai Cheng Thom article: justice is not healing. Two different processes. This is healing. Ask questions like:
There's also legal considerations in polyamory. Many places outlaw it outright, so it never hurts to ask one's lawyer how they feel about ENM and build support networks that are generally accepting of it. Nolo Press has DIY legal books on the matter.
For the counterbalance to the Ethical Slut is Love Without Emergency. I have beef with much of what Clementine Morrigan says, but there's a reason this is her most popular zine.
"We talked about the scarcity of decent dudes (for those of us who date/are into dudes/masculine folks), how there are so few guys who do not have serious issues with being misogynist and fucked up towards feminine people, and there is an overflowing abundance of cute, rad, babely, smart feminine people. And we, as feminine people, are expected to compete with each other for the attention of the few masc people who are decent. And then there's this pressure, that if we are less than perfect in any way, we can easily and readily be replaced. We called this phenomenon the 'cuteness matrix' in a half joking way. It was amazing to hear another person saying out loud the feelings I have had."
I think this concept can be expanded outward towards those who are perceived as more replaceable or less desirable. Transmasculine people often feel this way. We're the deliberate destroyers of our own feminine beauty and therefore less desirable. Many of us can't or don't fulfill our reproductive capacity, so we're more replaceable under capital.
"The polyamory literature I have read does not address this shit at all. It does not address transmisogyny, racism, ableism and how these things affect the politics of desirability either.
Mainstream polyamory lit just acts like we're all on the same playing field, that we have to 'own' our own feelings because they are ours alone. But actually, no."
I don't know enough polyamory literature to form an opinion on the truthfulness of this. The Ethical Slut doesn't go into it, but that seems more a function of giving a general overview of polyamory rather than something more in-depth. However, this was healing for me to read. Not everyone is on the same playing field.
"Those of us who grew up with child abuse and neglect know all too well that love can be a very limited resource."
Also very healing to read. How can a feeling be limited? I'd argue that while the feeling of love is not limited, the verb of loving is. Attention, brainspace, gifts, etc. It's possible to channel love's infinity inside the mind while not lifting a finger for them outside of it. This also plays into the concept of real-world limits vs. starvation economies in The Ethical Slut. There are real-world limits on expressions of love/loving as a verb, but no limits on the internal feeling. Perhaps the infinite nature of love is meant to keep us loving-as-a-verb throughout our life.
Tara Knight gets the same disclaimer as Clementine Morrigan and then a little more.
"Compersion is the demand that she perform pleasure at her partner’s sexual contact with another woman, where the underlying condition is a sexual economy that has trained her since adolescence to read her own value through whether she is currently being chosen. The instruction to feel compersion in that economy is the instruction to surrender her last armor while everything that produced the armor goes on operating around her"
"Nobody is making you be poly, they say. You chose this. You’re with someone who’s poly, you said yes to that arrangement, you knew the deal when you signed on, this is your relationship structure and you are inside it freely. A quiet voice asks: chose under what. Chose with what behind her. Chose knowing the social cost of being read as the jealous one, the possessive one, the unevolved one, the still-recovering one, the one who has not yet decolonized her desire. Chose with rent due, with limited community options, with the knowledge that the milieu enforces its norms through soft exclusion, with no other queer space within driving distance, with the loneliness of transition still loud in her chest. Chose with the alternative being the cold room outside. A forced move dressed in the language of freedom."
"It would force the discourse to admit that many relationship structures are only as ethical as their exit routes. It would force the poly educator to explain what happens when the person “choosing” the arrangement cannot afford to leave the apartment. It would force the therapist to ask who is on the lease before asking who is anxiously attached. It would force the friend group to consider that the doll’s “avoidance” may be a survival strategy in a household where every conversation becomes a courtroom and every courtroom is also her living room."
This follows along with Morrigan's piece--that we ought to consider the playing field everyone's on before starting a relationship. People can make their own decisions, but there has to be more decisions available.
"Indeed, I accepted many other conditions unrelated to polyamory as well — like alcoholism, disrespect and deprioritization. I suppose I hoped that if made my needs smaller, then my partners would finally be able to meet them."
Here solely for relateability.
"Examples of individual terms of relationship include (but are not limited to): how much time we want to spend with our partners, how we handle conflict, and the frequency and type of intimacy we engage in, like sex, cuddling or going out on dates.
Couple’s therapists sometimes call this the “relationship contract,” and it exists between all romantic/sexual partners, regardless of whether they discuss it (and many couples don’t, or only do so cursorily)."
This is supported in the Ethical Slut, too. Establishing terms and roles explicitly doesn't seem to ever be a bad idea.
"What I do know is that often, when we stay in relationships that are not really serving us — when we try to shrink our hearts down so that we can be satisfied with something that is not enough — that can hurt us just as much or more than being alone."