Polyamory in Theory and Practice
Leslie started an interesting forum thread about polyamory. Take a look, if you haven’t already. The discussion thus far has centered around the gap between expectations and reality, particularly as it relates to finding trustworthy partners. A reader asked me what I think about women who flake out on us:
do you think [single women] flake out cos they’re flakes or do you think they flake out because they approach the situation with an idealogy but quickly get intimidated or weirded out by the reality?
To which I responded:
Expectations have something to do with it, but I think it’s mostly a matter of where these women are in life. We usually meet them when they’re on the rebound, when they’re rediscovering the pleasures of sex and reveling in the attention that comes with being back on the market. They confuse the excitement of sleeping around with polyamory. And when the bed-hopping begins to wear on them, when they realize “free-love” has its own consequences, they abandon their new ideals and return to the quest for the one. There’s a difference between being polyamorous because you’ve wrestled with your conscience, and being “polyamorous” because nothing better has come along yet.
The great thing, in theory, about polyamory is it gets us away from the notion that you either have to be everything or nothing to someone, that you can only have one meaningful relationship. In practice, though, it’s hard to master the “meaningful” part. Are you really loving more, or are you just fucking a bunch of different people? How many of your lovers would be there for you if you truly needed help? If it wasn’t all fun and games, or sex wasn’t on the menu that night? Would you be there for them?
There has to be a balance, I think, between meeting new people and taking care of the ones who are already in your life. Sometimes it’s better to say no than to acquire that nth lover. In my experience, “flakiness” correlates with this lack of balance: she’s got this guy over here, that girl over there, spread so thin there’s no time for any depth. It’s a double bind for me because, being non-monogamous myself, I’m uncomfortable making an issue of it, but at the same time I want to say, “Hey, I might put some effort into this if I didn’t feel like just another face in the crowd.”
I’m hardly holding myself up as a shining example of polyness, by the way. Sure, this is something I’d like to explore, but I’m all too easily lured by the siren’s song of easy sex: the moment a situation gets difficult I reach into the closet and pull out my orgy clothes. I’m loath to put myself out there—afraid to tell a woman how I really feel about her, afraid to tell Leslie how I feel about someone else, afraid to invest myself—because she might meet someone new and decide her experiment in polyamory is over.
Slowly, I’m opening up. But it still terrifies me to think that I could grow to care for someone and then be shut out of her life in short order.
I’m not sure yet whether I’d choose to identify myself as polyamorous. Like Communism and “Open Bar from 10 – 12,” free love sounds great in theory but its execution leaves a lot to be desired.
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Evan | Sep 16, 10:01 PM | #
It took my wife and I seven years to go from “polyamorous in theory” (while remaining in non-romantic outside sexual relationships) to polyamorous in reality, and it remains something we continue to take baby steps with. Keep taking your time and be sure the next thing you do is always the right next thing for you and Les, and whomever you partner with, to do. And have fun with it, damn it, the non-polyamory orgies are still fun too, right?Lex | Sep 17, 01:59 AM | #
Still having fun with it… just trying to get my head around these ideas, though sometimes it’s better to feel your way through these things. I guess I’m wondering (viz. Nova and others) whether I haven’t approached these situations the right way, or whether we simply haven’t come across (heh) the right people.darling maggot | Sep 17, 03:12 PM | #
that’s a great fucking post. and maybe sometimes it’s hard to identify as being “something” because of all the imperatives one has to meet before they “qualify”. maybe “non-monogamous” is a better fit for many of us who aren’t quite “poly”.i can ascribe to your hesitance when it comes to being open about your feelings with leslie when it comes to other people.
when k and i have fucked other people, i’ve always felt the need to downplay the experience for me, downplay my attraction to the other girl, downplay everything. ostensibly, i do it because i don’t want to make her feel insecure or jealous. your post, however, reminds me that i do it probably also because i don’t want to hear how attracted she is to someone else, and i’m insecure because if i tell her how great someone else was, she might go find that someone else great for her, who might turn out to be greater than me, and then i risk losing her.
feelings are funny.
Leslie | Sep 18, 01:34 PM | #
I’ve been hesitant to talk about my take on all of this on the forum or the blog because I feel that leaves room for others to misinterpret our relationship (Lex and me), as in this comment “i can ascribe to your hesitance when it comes to being open about your feelings with leslie when it comes to other people.”Aleks and I do not have more than the usual difficulty communicating that any two people that are very close might have (because of the emotional attachment, etc. etc.) We keep at it till we figure it out together. And we’ve repeated to each other the fact that as long as we’re completely honest with each other, we can get through any difficulty. I mean, we haven’t made it this far by being secretive about our feelings.
I believe Aleks did not mean to say that he has difficulty talking about his feelings for someone because he’s unable to open up to me about how he feels for them.
I understood his message (to put it a little simply) as not wanting to “jinx” it – if you say it, then you’re admitting you want it and then it might not happen, or it may not be as serious as you hoped it could be.
We’ve had some difficulty meeting women that are actually serious about investing themselves into being with us and being considerate with our feelings. Ultimately, that has made us want to proceed with caution.
I guess we’re afraid to believe it could be true. Some of the women we meet aren’t always honest about their intentions (to us, maybe to themselves). Or they don’t exactly understand where we’re coming from or what we’re really looking for. Yes, of course we’ve had fun with it. Sex still feels great ;) It’s just that we’re ready to take it to another level and we haven’t yet found the person who’s truly on board with the idea.
And there’s a difference between that party mode we get into and how we feel about a woman that we’re sleeping with. We have our limits as individuals and as a couple. Just because we’re more or less in an open relationship, doesn’t mean anything goes and everything is all good always. But, we’re learning ways of expressing that more clearly.
quisling | Sep 23, 12:03 AM | #
Hey –Look I gotta jump in here. Leslie – you say you are having a hard time meeting women that want to invest in the Leslie/Lex conglomerate.
Why not put yourself is a hot single girl shoes? ( I assume that is not a stretch) You meet a couple that wants a big chunk of you – How would you feel?
A little hesitant? You bet you would – lots of pitfalls.
Geez, it’s hard enough to trust one person, let alone two.
There is no way around the fact that, when push comes to shove, the third one in is virtually always the first one out.
And the pre-existing couple always has a history that is not shared by the newbie. That will never change.
The ideal of polyamory requires complete equality – but in real life we all know every relationship belongs to the person who likes the other less. All relationships
are just fine gradations of desire.
Your realtionship with Lex is by its very nature unequal to outsiders.
Maybe if 3 people meet each other the same night and everyone was attracted to each other and was interested in pursuing a polyamory realtionship it might work. But, I have my doubts. ( I am sure you’re surprised…)
Happy Motoring!
Lex | Sep 24, 06:14 PM | #
“You meet a couple that wants a big chunk of you – How would you feel?”This presumes the third party is the only one bringing anything of value to the relationship, or giving anything up. A lopsided way of looking at things, I think.
“Geez, it’s hard enough to trust one person, let alone two.”
As the single in this situation, at least you know the people you’re involved with are capable of maintaining a relationship, which is more than you can say of people on the traditional dating circuit. I know couples who prefer to only be involved with other couples, in part because they’ve found couples to be more trustworthy and stable than singles.
“There is no way around the fact that, when push comes to shove, the third one in is virtually always the first one out.”
It’s usually the other way around. When push comes to shove (i.e. she meets a monogamous love-interest), it’s bye-bye to the couple. As in monogamy, if people value their relationships enough they’ll find ways to make them work.
“And the pre-existing couple always has a history that is not shared by the newbie. That will never change.”
No one comes into a relationship as a blank slate. People have friends, family, exes, emotional baggage, sometimes even children from a previous relationship. Our histories don’t preclude us from making history with new people.
“The ideal of polyamory requires complete equality…”
There is no such thing as complete equality in relationships. Everyone has differing capabilities, differing sexual histories, differing financial resources, etc. Polyamory is ideally about allowing multiple people to fit into your life in unique ways.
A relationship isn’t something you own, it’s something you share with another person. What you’re talking about sounds a lot more like a game which someone inevitably wins or loses.
quisling | Sep 25, 01:40 AM | #
Hey Lex –Thanks for the feedback, we certainly have differing viewpoints – but I am fairly cynical so I am pretty used to it.
Just one more point if I may:
People who do the polyamory thing always seem to dilute the definition to make it work for them.
And I suppose everybody does that with every word in the English language so they can live with themselves, but it almost seems a law of physics that we pitiful humans just have so much junk to spread around and we are too insecure to give it to more than one.
If we do try, there is always something essential withheld that is only given to the One. And I
do respect women who detect that and move on to people who can give it all to them. That’s the real issue.
Hey! And none of this “they will choose to stay if they want to..”
Of course they will, but the discussion is more why is it that so many females don’t? Or more terrifyingly, are any humans capable of being in a sustained committed romantic realtionship with more than one? I kinda sorta doubt it.
This has just been my lame attempt to give a few reasons why.
Lex | Sep 25, 04:52 PM | #
There is no fixed “definition” of polyamory… polyamorous relationships can take on innumerable forms defined by the participants themselves. This is really the whole point: to let people pursue relationship styles that work for them as individuals. Even monogamy is a fluid concept. What most people call monogamy these days isn’t pure monogamy (i.e., lifetime pair-bonding) but serial monogamy: several loves spread over time. And issues like premarital sex and cohabitation are now negotiable.History and biology suggest that humans are inclined to spread themselves around. Lifetime pair-bonding is a relatively recent invention, one with a spotty track record at that. I won’t go into all the dreary statistics concerning divorce and single parentage here, but it is interesting to note (re your point about women “moving on”) that, in the US at least, women initiate a substantial majority of divorces. And even for the couples who beat the odds on paper, you have to factor in affairs and unhappy marriages. The best you can say for monogamy is it works for some of the people some of the time.
We’re not overly concerned with longevity (after all, how much time has to pass for any relationship to be considered a “success”?). I think you’re misreading us there. It’s not about marking our territory either: one of our former lovers met her future husband through us. All we ever require are honesty, openness and mutual respect. If you’re seeing Joe or Jane Blow let us know, yo. And if you want to give monogamy another shot then go right ahead. Treat us well and we’ll buy you a nice wedding gift, or be there for you if things don’t work out. It’s never all-or-nothing in the non-monogamous world.