Non-primary partners tell: How to treat us well | SoloPoly. SPECIAL NOTE: This blog post touches on one of many themes I’ll be covering in my forthcoming crowdsourced book on unconventional intimate relationships: Off the Relationship Escalator. Please subscribe to updates about this project. Recently a poly friend observed, “There are no secondary people. Be careful how you treat everyone in relationships.” …Fine, but how do you actually pull that off? Where’s the list of what to do? I decided to take on this challenge, with help from SoloPoly readers and many others in the poly/open community.
Here’s why: I’M WRITING A BOOK about non-standard approaches to relationships.Want to help? There’s a huge gray area between hookups and marriage-style life partnership (society’s standard relationship escalator model). (By the way, here’s why I say “non-primary,” not “secondary.”) This blind spot afflicts all types of intimate relationships, but it’s especially troublesome for people who have more than one partner at a time. Yeah, that sucks. 1. 2. 3. 4. I Grew Up in a Polyamorous Household. Few cultural symbols have as much heft as the "traditional" nuclear family. You know the one: two heterosexual parents, two kids, one dog, two tablespoons of white picket fence, whisk gently.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that—it's just not how I was raised. My parents are polyamorous, a Greek/Latin mishmash word meaning romantic non-monogamy with the consent of everyone involved. As a kid, I lived with my dad, my mom, my mom's partner, and for a while, my mom's partner's partner. Mom might have up to four partners at a time. Dad had partners too. I was raised by an interconnected network of grownups whose relationships weren't exclusive but remained committed for years, even decades. They first explained it to me when I was about eight. "Because I love him," Mom said, matter-of-factly. "Well, that's good," my brother replied, "because I love him too.
" It was never really any more complicated than that. I never resented my parents for hanging out with their partners. Queer Women's Sex Survey: Monogamy vs. Not. Autostraddle The lesbian online magazine Autostraddle continues to publish results from its massive queer women's sex survey. The sample was very large, with "over 8,566 complete responses," but it doesn't represent lesbians generally: it was self-selected toward Autostraddle's perhaps edgy readers and their contacts, and toward internet users interested enough to fill out a long survey.
One obvious bias appears: 89% of of the respondents were between ages 18 and 36. With that caveat, the results are interesting. Yesterday Autostraddle analysed the monogamy-nonmonogamy dimension of the survey, with numerous crosstabs. My quick takeaway: the survey seems to confirm the conventional assumption that queer women are much more monogamous than gay men in both orientation and practice.
But among the survey's self-selected sample at least, nonstandard relationship structures seem less rare than among heteros. From the summary at the start: Read on (June 9, 2015). [Permalink] Love the one you’re with — and the one they’re with, too :: Blogs :: Let's Get It On :: Philadelphia City Paper. "Polyamory Weekly" podcaster Cunning Minx. In our culture, romantic love all too often is equated with "one true love.
" Society's dominant messages strongly push us to believe that one person will complete us, a la Jerry Maguire. But open relationships also have wonderful ways of showing love, both sexual and platonic, in a way that is equally fulfilling. To explore this more, I asked several polyamorous people about their relationships with their metamours (essentially, the partners of their partner or partners). I'll use Cunning Minx, "Polyamory Weekly" podcaster and author of Eight Things I Wish I'd Known About Polyamory: Before I Tried It and Frakked It Up, as an example. So in Minx, LustyGuy and L's case, they've all gone on vacation together. There are no one-size-fits-all rules for how much contact to have with a metamour. It's not always love — or friendship — at first sight.
Not everyone wants a buddy-buddy relationship with their metamours. More Than Two: Examining the Myths and Facts of Polyamory. Riding the relationship escalator (or not) | SoloPoly. “Is this relationship going anywhere?” If you’ve heard this cliché (or perhaps thought or said it yourself): welcome to the relationship escalator.
Relationship escalator: The default set of societal expectations for the proper conduct of intimate relationships. Progressive steps with clearly visible markers and a presumed structural goal of permanently monogamous (sexually and romantically exclusive), cohabitating marriage — legally sanctioned if possible. The social standard by which most people gauge whether a developing intimate relationship is significant, “serious,” good, healthy, committed or worth pursuing or continuing. The steps in the relationship escalator vary by culture and subculture, and they shift a bit over time.
There can be some variation in these steps, but generally not much. Riding the relationship escalator. To be fair, despite its restrictiveness the relationship escalator often does work well enough. What can off-the-escalator relationships look like? Like this: How Do I Love Thee? Experts Count 8 Ways. Credit: DreamstimeWhile the rest of us trade pink teddy bears and chocolate hearts, some scientists are putting love under the microscope – and the magnetic resonance imaging machine. But what is it they are studying, anyway? For this Valentine's Day, LiveScience decided to ask the experts a question once left to early-'90s chart-topping dance hits: What is love?
Here's what they said. Author Bio Stephanie Pappas Stephanie interned as a science writer at Stanford University Medical School, and also interned at ScienceNow magazine and The Santa Cruz Sentinel. Stephanie Pappas on. New Sexual Revolution: Polyamory May Be Good for You. On Valentine's Day, images of couples are everywhere. They're buying each other diamond rings, making eyes over expensive restaurant meals and canoodling over chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne. But two-by-two isn't the only way to go through life.
In fact, an estimated 4 to 5 percent of Americans are looking outside their relationship for love and sex — with their partner's full permission. These consensually nonmonogamous relationships, as they're called, don't conform to the cultural norm of a handholding couple in love for life. "People in these relationships really communicate. "They are potentially doing quite a lot of things that could turn out to be things that if people who are practicing monogamy did more of, their relationships would actually be better off," Holmes said. [6 Scientific Tips for a Successful Marriage] Examining nonmonogamy The study of consensual nonmonogamy is a relatively new field. Jealousy & love Take jealousy. Safe sex. 6 Scientific Tips for a Successful Marriage | Advice for a Happy Marriage | Relationships. 5 Myths About Polyamory Debunked. By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | February 14, 2013 10:11am ET Credit: William Perugini, Shutterstock Researchers estimate that as many as 5 percent of Americans are currently in relationships involving consensual nonmonogamy — that is, permission to go outside the couple looking for love or sex.
The boundaries in these relationships are remarkably varied, with some couples negotiating one-off "swinging" or partner-swapping experiences. and others forming stable bonds among three, four or five partners simultaneously. The latter is a version of polyamory, relationships in which people have multiple partnerships at once with the full knowledge of all involved. Polyamorous people have largely flown under the radar, but that's beginning to change as psychologists become intrigued by this unusual group. Author Bio Stephanie Pappas Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science. Stephanie Pappas on.