N > 2

Hmmm. If you "come out of the broom closet" when you publicly identify yourself as a pagan, what do you come out of when you publicly identify yourself as being polyamorous?

In any case, here I am. I think of relationship orientation as being similar to sexual orientation. Some people are wired for monogamy, some for polyamory, and some of us are birelational - we can go either way. I've been happily monogamous at times. I've also been happily and responsibly non-monogamous. I'm birelational.

When I refer to polyamory, I'm not talking about swinging, promiscuity, or pursuing recreational sex. I don't condemn people who are into those things, but I'm not and I never have been. I am talking about having significant loving relationships with more than one person at a time in an honest and open fashion. I am talking about making conscious, express commitments that do or do not include exclusivity, and living up to those commitments.

Polyamory is not, for me, primarily about sex. It is about connections, about community, about achieving intimacy on much more than a physical level. Sex is good, nice, lovely, and can be one kind of intimacy - but it isn't the most important part of relationship for me. To be blunt, it's easy to just get laid, but building relationships takes more work and is more rewarding in the long run as far as I'm concerned.

Sam and I are poly in theory but currently monogamous in practice. We simply don't have the time or energy at this point in our lives to have relationships of any real depth with other people. Our children are young and we're still doing significant work on our own relationship and all the issues of having a blended family. We have both been actively poly during other times in our lives - we were, in fact, actively poly when we met.

I believe that having more than two adults in a family can be a very healthy way of living for both adults and children. There are families in which three or more adults are raising children together, and those children are very well-adjusted and secure in having more than two parents.

When I am actively poly, I'm happiest when all of my Significant Others (SOs) are at least friends with each other, and I'm friends with their SOs. There have been times when some of my SOs were also in relationship with each other, so that we were actually in what Dr. Deborah Anapol calls an intimate network. Of course, finding partners who are not only compatible with yourself but also get along well with any other partner you already have adds a significant amount of complexity to starting new relationships in this kind of paradigm. Some people don't have any contact with their partner's OSOs, so I suppose that isn't much of an issue for them.

I don't know that Sam and I will open our relationship to others at any time. We might, we might not - it'll depend on each of us, our family as a whole, etc. Just finding each other seemed like a complete miracle - how likely is it that two pagan, poly, size-accepting science-fiction/fantasy fan computer geek single parents would just run into each other at church anyway? But we did, and it happened when we weren't looking for SOs at all. Because we found each other, it's obviously possible that at some point we'll meet other people like us and the timing and everything else will be right. Considering the criteria we've come up with for potential SOs, finding new loves may be even more proof that Goddess exists and is active in the world than when the two of us met!

We are involved in a local poly group, because while we aren't looking for additional partners we do enjoy the company of like-minded folks. While there's a lot of diversity within the poly community, in general I've found that it's full of people who respect, accept, and even celebrate that diversity. Poly folks tend to be fairly intelligent and creative, and obviously wouldn't be poly if they weren't willing and able to question society's default assumptions on some subjects - so they're often extraordinary in many ways.

This little piece of my web site actually exists in hopes of leading more people to question assumptions. The fact that Sam and I are a couple, that we're a man and a woman in a committed relationship, does not necessarily mean that we're monogamous. That isn't the only way to be in relationship. There are other options. Also, the fact that we're polyamorous doesn't mean that we're promiscuous.

Also, one of the assumptions I've observed is that if you are poly, you have to have more than one SO or you somehow lose your poly card. Nope. If a bisexual man currently has one lover, that doesn't mean he's suddenly heterosexual or homosexual - he's still bi. The fact that we're currently practicing monogamy doesn't mean we aren't poly anymore - but the fact that we're poly doesn't mean that we have to have other lovers, either.

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Last updated February 28, 2001