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its the new slang for swapping partners and living with the decision to be so socially "above" others in their new wave concept....which isn't new by any means. Its just more exposed and thereby weaving its way into the current generations mindsets...as being acceptable. Most are not goal oriented to having a "family" of little ones. Its more about their desires to come off as uniquely "open minded" with their life style .....
I think you need to look up swinging and polyamory. Your definition is a bit skewed to say the least, if I had to guess I would assume that you don't believe that gay people shouldn't adopt or would be fit parents.
When they see mom kissing daddy and papa, that is exposing them to mixed messages as to who is their father. What are the sleeping arrangements? If one chooses to be designated as the natural father then why is mom kissing that other guy. What is love, commitment, trust? That is a lot for a developing kid to comprehend, and would be setting them up to be bullied.
I come from a large family and our upbringing was as normal as could be but we still have conflict without any added BS like poly.
Why do I need to be positive? I'm not involved in their life, aside from the fact that we are "friends of the family" (their family, and mine, are all friends--we do cookouts and all the normal things people do when families are friends with each other.) Why would I need to be positive as opposed to pretty sure what the teachers of their children are told? How is that even any of my business?
When they see mom kissing daddy and papa, they know that mom loves daddy and mom loves papa. Of the four kids from the original couple, two of them are old enough to remember a time before papa came along and they know who their natural father is, the other two are so small they don't care, they're just happy to have adults paying attention to them and giving them care and structure like good parents do. The boy from the second man's prior relationship is also old enough to know who his natural parents are. Babies are babies. Older kids know what they need to know. And kids by nature are pretty self-centered. They care most about the things that affect them. Like how much broccoli they have to eat before they can have dessert matters a LOT more to a kid, than why their mommy has two partners instead of just one.
It isn't setting the kids up to be bullied. Nowadays kids have gay parents, divorced and remarried parents...hell I'd say a kid whose parents divorce, who then has to deal with step-parents, and then has to try and live part time among groups of adults who hate one another, has a far more confusing path than the kid who has three parents who all love one another and all of the children, and who are committed to the keeping of a happy, functional home. It's nothing but one more adult relative, as far as they are concerned.
Their sleeping arrangements are also none of my business. Do you think I ask my friends who are married, if they sleep together or apart, and whether their schedule allows for lots of sex, and how good is the sex, and other personal questions? That's the thing I keep trying to get across here, a committed and familial relationship among consenting adults isn't really very different when there are more than two of them, inconceivable as it must seem to most monogamous people.
The other reason this is funny to me, is that my ex husband assumed, when I got out of our relationship and was being polyamorous for a while, that I must be having orgies all the time and crazy wild group sex and lots of it. After all, why else would I have four relationships? Hm...maybe because I found four people I loved a great deal, all for different reasons and in different ways. I was actually getting less sex when I was poly, than I am in my monogamous relationship. The "quad" was rarely about sex. More often we would sit in the couple's hot tub talking politics until 4am or get together for meals. Felt more like good friends with occasional benefits, than relationships rooted in sex and romance. Maybe that's why I ended up being monogamous, in the long run, with the man I was having much more sex with? *shrug*
My own sons didn't really care too much about it when I was poly. They knew the shape of my relationships. They mostly cared about the parts that affected them, such as whether one of my boyfriends might teach one of my sons to play guitar, or how another of them knew a famous Youtuber and that was cool. My kids didn't want to know about my sex life, so while I told them I was in relationships with these people, neither of them asked, "So are you having sex? Who do you have sex with? What's it like?" No kid wants to hear that! A monogamous couple wouldn't tell the kids that stuff, and neither do poly people. Did your parents tell you all about their sex life? Did you need or want to know?
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The only concerns I have with actual and equitable polyamory (3 men + 3 women, 5 men + 5 women, etc) are:
1. Groups can get only so big before there's a lot of conflict and "political" social manipulation
2. Greatly enhanced potential for STDs.
Polyamory requires an extremely controlled set of circumstances for it to remain stable, not to mention all partners having extremely similar personality types and attractiveness levels (in intensity, if not kind).
The only concerns I have with actual and equitable polyamory (3 men + 3 women, 5 men + 5 women, etc) are:
1. Groups can get only so big before there's a lot of conflict and "political" social manipulation
2. Greatly enhanced potential for STDs.
Polyamory requires an extremely controlled set of circumstances for it to remain stable, not to mention all partners having extremely similar personality types and attractiveness levels (in intensity, if not kind).
I do agree that it can be difficult insofar as "politics" are concerned. Poly folks talk about how in, for instance, a triad, it isn't just one relationship with three people. A and B have a relationship, B and C have a relationship, and A and C have a relationship, and then there is the A, B, and C dynamic. So it's really more like four relationships, than just one. There are challenges, and as I've said before, it's never going to be for everybody and that's fine! No polyamorist I've ever known thinks that poly is, or should be, for everybody.
However, the STD thing is simply incorrect. The reason, is that most people are serial monogamists. Most people who are monogamous do not have just one partner in their lifetime. There is not greater risk if you have two partners at once, compared to one, and then another a year later. Most poly people have more open discussion about health, and insist on testing, have rules about protection, and if they're willing to go without barriers, they require fidelity agreements. And because a person's desire to add a partner is not seen as automatically this huge blowup and betrayal and making them a horrible person, there is a much higher chance that instead of just cheating on the sly (and exposing an existing partner to whatever, without their knowledge or consent) a poly person would open up discussions about it, to include what precautions are going to be involved.
I have known SO many monogamous people who cheated on their partners. So, so many. Yet somehow they figure that's "normal" but doing essentially what they did with more honestly and communication is weird.
Again, most poly people I know are far more on top of their sexual health matters, getting testing more often and being more honest in disclosing any issues, and using protection, because they are WELL AWARE that they have others to protect, that they care about.
Believe it or not some people today still have a quaint little thing called "morals' - it keeps you out of a lot of hassle, drama, and heartache -
And - I do not believe most people are bi sexual - I dont know why you would think that.
Whoa Nelly!
1) I've seen plenty of straight married "quaint moral couples" ending in firery divorces!
I'm reminded of the county clerk In Kentucky who refused to obey the law and sign marriage licenses for gay couples. She stated she "obeyed God's laws". Hmph. Seems SHE was on her FIFTH marriage. Apparently any guy married to her had "lots of hassle, drama and heartache".
2) oh, there are WAY more bi and gay couples than are "publicly known". Just travel in their circles and YOU might be shocked just how many "closet" bi and gay people there are. Many publicly married to opposite sex person but on the "DL" ( Down Low {meaning in secret}) are engaging in same sex relationships. Perhaps you should try "hanging with them".
Now, for my take:
It's all in how you think or look at things. I don't care who sleeps with whom unless they are sleeping with me. I will admit something I've never admitted here before, I've had my share of open relationships and bi experiences.
Before I done got myself hitched. Not even going to say one way or the other what my married life is like, as it's really not your business. It might be open it might be closed it might be polyamorous. It might not be.
Does it MATTER at all to you that I have? NO. WHY? Because it was NOT you I was er, um, ah "involved with".
Right? Wrong? Moral? Immoral? Good? Bad? God's hatred? God's blessings? Is there a God? Or Gods?
WHO amongst us can judge? Only the participants need answer, and answer only for themselves.
As long as safe practices are taken to avoid diseases ( I didn't get to my age being disease free and childless by choice by being stupid) and no "unnecessary children" happen, who are you, or who is anyone but the participants to care,?
There are all kinds of successful relationships. Some are sanctioned by law, others not so much.
Some are double standards. Like two platonic straight women can dance or share a bed to simply catch some shut eye ( the theme of many more straight man's fantasies, I'll tell you), but two men dance or share a bed? OMG! They MUST be soooo gay!!!! No straight man would do that!!!
Just like dancing has no sex, some HIGHLY "intimate" non sexual relationships exist, your closest dearest friend and support and confidant can be just as "intimate" as a sexual partner.
There is the phrase " politics makes many strange bedfellows" originating from when they travelled and stumped for their elections, and would share a bed with another guy simply to save costs on lodging, not because they were bi or gay. Charges were per person in the bed back then, not per room, so the costs were split to save money in the days before super PACs, and secret service.
I explored all options, tried many avenues, decided what I did and did not like, and think I am a far more "richer" person for my past experiences. I can see both sides of most arguments, for example, can be an impartial judge in most if life's things due to a wide variety of reasons.
Many people are actually too narrow minded and judgemental, and don't realize it.
I'm not saying poly anything or bi or gay anything is for everyone, but it works for those who are into it.
As I said I've plenty of "morally straight" couples deteriorate into separation or divorce, for reasons of many things NOT associated with sex, and some because of sex, or lack thereof.
"Don't judge lest ye be judged" is what that often misquoted book says.
Who knows my post here may even get modified or cut due to the candor of my response.
The only concerns I have with actual and equitable polyamory (3 men + 3 women, 5 men + 5 women, etc) are:
1. Groups can get only so big before there's a lot of conflict and "political" social manipulation
2. Greatly enhanced potential for STDs.
I've never heard of people having more then 3 in a poly relationship myself.
These days you would be a fool NOT to practice safe sex. It doesn't matter if your with one person or hundred, and more often then not (like with those who practice swinging) also practice safe sex.
I've never heard of people having more then 3 in a poly relationship myself.
These days you would be a fool NOT to practice safe sex. It doesn't matter if your with one person or hundred, and more often then not (like with those who practice swinging) also practice safe sex.
I was in a quad comprised of me, boyfriend, and a married couple. I also had another boyfriend separate of that, who was not involved with the others except as an acquaintance. So I had a total of four partners at one point. My boyfriend in the quad was content with two girlfriends, and being friends with the husband. He wanted no more. The husband was occasionally down for some swinging on the side. The wife in the couple, during our time in a group relationship, dated a firefighter, a photographer long distance, and the owner of the club we frequent, as well as one of his girlfriends. I stopped doing the poly thing in July 2016 (after a year with the quad) and stayed with the man I had outside of the group. The boyfriend I had in the group ended up forming a monogamous relationship with a new woman. The husband, as far as I know, still swings sometimes but I'm not sure who he's been with since. The wife still has a thing with the club owner, but no longer sees the firefighter, the photographer, or the club owner's girlfriend, to the best of my knowledge. The married couple has a strict agreement that barrier protection will always be used, except with one another. Of course we're all well aware that this is "safer" sex, even sex with barriers such as condoms is not 100% safe. Just safer.
We all have a preference for low-drama interactions, and the shifts in these relationships, while certainly sometimes people had some feelings about what was going down and it wasn't always happy, they didn't throw tantrums about it. We all respect one another, so it was a matter of "if breaking up with us is what you need, we might be disappointed, but we respect that you're doing what you need to do." So we all could go on as friends.
This is one of the reasons I think that many people would struggle to do polyamory, because I know so many people who can't do a breakup without a freakout. When the relationships you do are part of a bigger social network and no one wants to leave it, you have to be able to evolve things to friendship without so much fuss. Not everyone can. I can, and prefer to. I like to say that I try very hard to never end a relationship, only to evolve it to something new or different, as life requires. The only relationship that is the exception to this, was my marriage before all of this happened, to a very monogamous man. He was an abusive narcissist, and while he loves to go on about "honor, loyalty and integrity" he has cheated on women before and he can justify that...but having multiple partners who know each other, is sick and weird to him. It's ok if people are lying about it, I guess? That is somehow more honorable?
My 18 year attempt at standard-issue monogamous marriage was the most damaging thing I've ever done. Polyamory on the other hand, while eventually a bit much for me in terms of time and energy, was lovely.
And the people I tried to date in between the two, who didn't want to talk about testing or protection, who seemed ready to just get down without even thinking about that, were the "normal" serial-monogamist players of the dating scene. They're the ones I'd worry about.
Old thread but new info has arrived in the form of an article in today's NY Times about a book written by a couple in NYC who have been polyamorous for a while.
Remember, this forum has its own special set of rules for posting here, and these rules are strictly enforced.
In her memoir, “More,” Molly Roden Winter recounts the highs and lows of juggling an open marriage with work and child care.
Winter is keenly aware that people may judge her for the behavior she describes in “More.” But she also said she felt compelled to write about her experience, in part because she felt that non-monogamy is so often depicted as something happening on the fringes, not as a lifestyle that married moms pursue.
“I felt like there were no stories from the mainstream about it, and I felt very closeted,” Winter said. “It often feels like mothers are not supposed to be sexual beings.”
“More,” which Doubleday will release on Jan. 16, is landing at a moment when polyamory is drifting from the margins to the mainstream. About a third of Americans surveyed in a YouGov poll in February of 2023 said they preferred some form of non-monogamy in relationships.
The rest you can read for yourself via the link.
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Younger generations will likely be more open to different kinds of relationships including polyamory.
I'm older, long married and OMG one man has been way enough let alone adding another one.
People should talk to each other about what they want and then each person can decide if they want the same things in life.
There are so few people I even want to have dinner with, let alone get into a bed with, it's not in my checklist.
I read that article. My thoughts were that open relationships would have a lot more sigh conversations on the couches hashing things out, but less fireworks when a tie eventually does get severed. I could also see where there's a lot of 95% monogamous type of relationships where the way the cookie crumbles is that the majority of the time they function as monogamous just cause people mainly like their primary partner and don't really end up connecting with other people too much, but they won't flip the table if there's some deviation occasionally.
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