20 Years of Polyamory: The Introduction
| April 3, 2011 | Posted by Issa under Relationships |
Table of contents for 20 Years of Polyamory
It’s now been right at 20 years that I’ve been polyamorous. For the first 6 years or so, I didn’t know the word polyamory, but once I heard it, that clearly described what I was trying to do. In that 20 years, I’ve been a teenager trying (and failing) to date polyamorously, been single, been married (and then divorced). I’ve had moments where I felt pretty smug about my poly experiences and then I’ve had moments where I felt like I was utterly failing at poly. I’ve had times where I was dating several different people at once and times where I wasn’t interested in other people at all. I’ve been in the middle of jealousy expressed violently, and I’ve seen compersion at its most wonderful.
Through it all, polyamory has never been far from the center of my identity. The last time I tried to have a monogamous relationship, I was 16. Polyamory is part of me – a non-negotiable part – and I wouldn’t dream of going without it. Most of my friends are poly. My ideals about poly seep into my decisions about seemingly unrelated topics. Poly permeates my life.
20 years sounds like a nice, big, round number, so I thought I’d celebrate by looking back at my polyamorous experience and my thoughts on poly in general. Let’s start at the beginning!
Definitions
Just in case you’re brand new to the topic, how about a definition or two of polyamory?
Wikipedia calls polyamory “the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved”. That definition works for me. The “intimate relationship” part is important – having friends isn’t necessarily poly. Typically, romance or sexuality are required to veer into poly territory. The “knowledge of everyone involved” part is important, too. Cheating isn’t poly.
My personal definition of polyamory is somewhat narrower and broader at the same time. I like to say that polyamory for me is an openness to letting each individual one-on-one relationship develop however the two participants want it to. This means that if you’re open to the possibility yet never actually do fall in love with or fall into bed with another person, it may still be poly. It also means that people in closed relationships that contain more than two people are not what I think of as poly.
Lots of people have other slighly different definitions, and I don’t often desire to quibble over them. Polyamory is an umbrella term, and since it describes something outside the norm, I’m happy to get as many people under the umbrella as want to hang out there.
Lightbulb Moments
A lot of people come to poly hesitantly. Maybe they’re always cheating in monogamous relationships and want to try being open instead. Maybe they’re part of a community with a high poly demographic (Paganism or BDSM, for example), and they decide to give it a try, too. Many people come to poly kicking and screaming: their partner decides to be poly, and they kind of get dragged along.
For me, becoming polyamorous involved two lightbulb moments.
The first was when I was 14 years old. I’m white, and I was dating a black guy in a small, conservative, hateful little town. Since neither of our parents approved of our relationship (nor did many of our friends), the only times we could really “date” were stolen moments where we’d sneak out of somewhere together. One day, he suggested to me that since we couldn’t really see each other all that often, we might as well be seeing other people the rest of the time. I agreed, and we did.
It was such a small little conversation, you wouldn’t think it would be all that momentous. But it was a revelation for me. I remember exactly where I was standing when the lightbulb went off. It was so obvious. Why wouldn’t I do whatever I wanted to do in the times we weren’t together? Why would being with him mean I couldn’t be with other people? Why would dating him mean only him? And while the force that kept us apart was specifically race in this case, weren’t there all kinds of ways in which we were different people who should be going about different things? Wasn’t there more me than just who I was when I was with him? And shouldn’t I explore all that, too?
I wouldn’t have put it into so many words at the time, but this was the beginning of the idea that people in relationships can have separate interests and that a romantic partner can’t be (and shouldn’t be) all things at all times. After that one tiny conversation, I never again wanted to be in a sexually/romantically exclusive relationship.
After he and I broke up (he went off to college), I tried and failed to have non-exclusive relationships with other guys. I just couldn’t talk anyone else into it. I had a lot of dates that ended at the first date when I tried to explain what I wanted. At age 16, I started a relationship that would last for two years where I agreed to be monogamous. In terms of monogamy, this was a huge failure. There were a handful of guys I really wanted to have sex with that I managed not to with great effort. One was while I was off on a tour of Europe – what better time to sleep with other people than when you’re off cavorting in another country! But, no, I didn’t. Then, finally, I fell madly in love with another guy at school. And when I say madly in love, I really mean falling off the deep end – he, Preston, would eventually become my husband.
But during high school, this was tragic. I loved my boyfriend – he was the first guy I really loved, the first I considered a “future” with, and the first guy I had sex with. But I also loved Preston, my second lover, and every moment we had together was wonderful for the love and attraction yet terrible for the cheating.
Somewhere in there was my second lightbulb moment. This one was less about logic and more about feeling. I could feel my intense, consuming love and desire for Preston, and at the same time could feel that it in no way diminished my love for my boyfriend. I had an intense, visceral understanding that it was possible (wonderful, even!) to be truly devoted to two different people. It followed that it made no sense to deny any of this love. Ever.
Eventually, I fessed up to my boyfriend and attempted to have an open relationship with both him and Preston. This was a losing proposition. The idea was too strange, and my boyfriend and I struggled and fought over it bitterly. We broke up, and I vowed to never again be in a relationship that asked me to deny something wonderful.
With the exception of that one relationship, all of my serious relationships have been poly, and all of my adult relationships have been poly. Preston and I were in 100% agreement that we had no desire to be monogamous. I never had to struggle to “make” myself poly. After Preston and I moved to Atlanta in 1998, almost everyone we met (through Paganism) was poly. So I never again had to try to convince a lover to be poly, either. I realize that this is a somewhat unusual occurrence, and makes my story a bit easier. From that first light bulb moment, then reinforced by the second, polyamory has been a downhill ride for me. When I hear of other people’s struggles with poly, I am sometimes unsympathetic. I’m not uncaring, I’m just coming from a different place. For me, polyamory is the clear, obvious, uncontested right thing to do.
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I discovered polyamory because of my bisexuality. My husband initially offered the usual “you can have girls, but I get to watch or join” mentality. Eventually, though, we found a woman with whom we both fell in love. And she loved us, too. We merged our families – talk about weirdos! We had 3 adults and 3 children in our household. Much as poly means loving (and being loved by) multiple people, I couldn’t see how MORE people to love my own child could be a bad thing.
My wife fulfilled an emptiness in my life. And there were other men I dated as well. Ultimately, the relationship fell apart, but that was mostly because of issues between my husband and I – and not much at all to do with the poly dynamic.
We were also involved in the local BDSM scene, btw – good call. My husband, my wife and I even did a presentation on polyamory for our local club.
I am currently in a monogamous relationship with the same “you can have girls” attitude and have no real desire to branch out at this point. I’ve been kind of burned. I try to keep an open mind, though. Never say never. Ever.
You’re the first hippie mom in the blogosphere I’ve seen that was poly. Thanks for sharing and congrats on your easier-than-most journey and making it 20 years (so far)!
I would like to read more about how polyamory effects your parenting.
Thanks! I’ve been waiting for this series for a while now :). How wonderful that you knew what was right for you from such a young age. The way you describe your poly experiences, they seem complicated (just like any human relationship) but much less so than monogamous relationships (including your own!).
I’ve been feeling for a long time, that total acceptance of the other is the only way to have a fulfilling relationship for all sides. In my case, I am a bit of an introvert and need plenty of time to myself, to do my own thing. Particularly, I like my evenings to myself, and my freedom. A relationship in which the other would understand that, and not get into living together or taking away freedom would be wonderful. Sadly, I think such things are exceedingly rare – which means I’m just solo, which is fine with me too.
I mean, is it really fair to “shove someone aside” when you feel you need time to yourself? Not if that other is particularly in need of company at that time. I also don’t feel like complicating my parenting by bringing in others, male or female.
Mama Jorje, nice to see you here! I do think many men feel less “threatened” with poly relationships that include only women. Don’t know what to think about that.
I’m interested in the same thing as Mama Jorje, plus the questions I asked earlier.
I mean, is it really fair to “shove someone aside” when you feel you need time to yourself? Not if that other is particularly in need of company at that time.
I think that an important distinction needs to be made between doing for one’s self vs. doing to another. I think that respect for autonomy is one basis for healthy human relationships. What that means to me is that I am allowed to choose for myself, and you are allowed to choose for yourself. If I want to be alone one night, then I have the right to choose that. Framing it as, “shoving you aside” makes it into something I am doing to you–a violation of your autonomy–as opposed to something I am choosing for myself–an expression of my autonomy.
When we frame things others do as violations of our own autonomy, then naturally we take offense. When those things are framed as expressions of the person’s own autonomy, well, it can still hurt, and it doesn’t mean we like it, but it’s not offensive in the same way. This is significant because autonomy–the ability to choose for one’s self–is a primal human value, and people express it all the time. If we view that as offensive, it leads to being offended quite a lot, and usually by those we are closest to, since they are the ones whose autonomy we bump up against the most, and who matter the most.
We’re in agreement, yet I’m very certain that many people who need a lot of time to themselves have trouble finding a partner who feels the same way.
By the way, if you ever find it, please read Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s book “What is to be done?”. It deals both with poly (in 18th century Russia), couples organizing their lives to respect each other’s autonomy, and feminism. It’s an extremely thought-provoking read but also unfortunately very hard to get your hands on.
Dating dynamics in Poly
Do you feel that first date or early dating experience are different if poly is already out there vs. the expectation of mono? I guess where I am going with this is picture the first dates you seen in the movies (yes I know nothing is really like in the movies, but it is station for my train of thought to depart) and picture poly dates.
I have found that dates with other poly people don’t live up to my expectations, and dates with people interested in poly but not poly, are just a question and answer session.
So, the questions: Do you think this is true? If so, can you think of any reasons for this?
I can post some experiences if you need more info from my point of view on how I felt poly dating is weird and less pleasant.
I think that poly dating is more casual than mono dating, because there’s less pressure on either person to be anything in particular.
Wow, how encouraging to hear from someone who’s been doing poly for so long. I loved your narrower/broader definition of poly:
“I like to say that polyamory for me is an openness to letting each individual one-on-one relationship develop however the two participants want it to. This means that if you’re open to the possibility yet never actually do fall in love with or fall into bed with another person, it may still be poly. It also means that people in closed relationships that contain more than two people are not what I think of as poly.”
It resonated a lot with the way I think about poly, and the way I distinguish “open” and “polyamorous,” as explained here: http://www.cuntext.com/relationships/poly/quick-definition-open-vs-poly/
I will check it out (probably later tonight), and, from the looks of it, I may have to spend some time reading the rest of your blog, too! :-)
[...] 20 Years of Polyamory It’s now been right at 20 years that I’ve been polyamorous. For the first 6 years or so, I didn’t know the word polyamory, but once I heard it, that clearly described what I was trying to do. In that 20 years, I’ve been a teenager trying (and failing) to date polyamorously, been single, been married (and then divorced). I’ve had moments where I felt pretty smug about my poly experiences and then I’ve had moments where I felt like I was utterly failing at poly. I’ve had times where I was dating several different people at once and times where I wasn’t interested in other people at all. I’ve been in the middle of jealousy expressed violently, and I’ve seen compersion at its most wonderful. [MORE] [...]
I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to a) find another poly parent! and b) read that you have been doing poly for over twenty years! This is so inspiring. Thank you, thank you!
At the time of this post I wasn’t yet a polyamorous parent, but I have been one now for 3 months! :-)