An Overview of Polyamory
So Someone Told You They’re Polyamorous
Welcome! So, someone you know told you they’re polyamorous and gave you a link to this page. This page attempts to explain to you what that means so that you can be understanding (and hopefully supportive) of them. Our goal is to provide some basic information and maybe answer a few common questions.
What is polyamory?
Polyamory is a romantic relationship style. For starters, polyamory rejects the idea that someone must have a single, exclusive romantic partner in order to have deep, committed, long-term loving relationships. Polyamorous relationships take many forms, but these are the characteristics that are typical of polyamorous relationships:
- Each person may have more than one other partner with whom they are romantically, emotionally, and/or sexually intimate;
- Each person is aware of and consenting to their partners’ other relationships;
- People involved in these relationships are communicating and working together for the emotional health and satisfaction of everyone involved.
What polyamory is not
- Cheating: Many people’s first thought when they hear about polyamory is, “So you’re cheating?” But cheating is breaking the rules of a relationship. If you and your partner agreed to be monogamous, then dating someone else is cheating. But if the rules of your relationship allow you to date someone else, then doing that isn’t cheating, by definition.
- Swinging: If you’re aware of the swinger community, you know that it’s a different sort of ethical non-monogamy in which people, usually couples, trade partners specifically for sex. While many swingers do develop intimate friendships with other swingers, swinging is primarily about sex. You could say the opposite about polyamory: while many polyamorous folks have sex with their partners, polyamory is primarily about relationships.
- Immoral: Polyamorists value communication, honesty, and respect for everyone they’re involved with, and they generally strive to love and respect their partners. Of course, if your moral code strictly requires monogamy, we’ll have to agree to disagree, but there is nothing about polyamory that prevents someone from being a moral and ethical person, just as there is nothing about monogamy that makes someone inherently more moral or ethical.
- The only kind of ethical non-monogamy : There are lots of other ways to be both non-monogamous and ethical, including swinging, which we mentioned above.
Definitions
Like so many things, polyamory comes with its own jargon. And like with most jargon, not everyone agrees completely on the meanings. That said, here are a few terms that may come up when talking about polyamory.
- poly or polyam: Common shortenings of “polyamorous”: “I’m poly”, “I met some polyam people”, “This is a poly meetup group.” (Recently there has been a movement to use “polyam” over “poly”, in order to reserve “poly” for use by people from a particular subregion of Oceania, so you may hear both.^1)
- metamour: The partner of a partner. If I am married to A and am dating B, A and B are metamours.
- polycule: From poly- and molecule, a polycule is a network of interconnected relationships. If A is dating B and C, and B is dating D, and C is dating E and F, then A, B, C, D, E, and F form a polycule. Sometimes also called a constellation.
- compersion: Compersion is that positive feeling you get when you see someone you love being happy with someone else. It is often contrasted with jealousy, though it is its own distinct emotion.
- new relationship energy (NRE): The giddy emotional high that often accompanies the start of a new relationship. It’s likely powered by oxytocin and vasopressin, and it can help strengthen emotional bonding. (It may also lead to occasional poor decision making.)
- old relationship energy/established relationship energy (ORE/ERE): The feeling of comfort and security in an established, well-understood relationship. Often contrasted with NRE, each type of relationship energy is valuable in its own way.
- vee: A vee (like the letter V) is a relationship configuration where one person (the pivot or hinge) is separately dating two other people (each of whom might have additional partners). This is a pretty common relationship configuration, so if you spend much time with polyamorists, you’ll likely encounter it.
- triad: A triad is a relationship configuration where all three people involved are in a relationship together. This is distinct from a vee, where the two wings of the vee don’t have a direct shared relationship. Under no circumstances should a triad be called a “throuple”, please.
Answers to common questions
How can you love more than one person? There are generally two models of romantic love. The first, which is common in Western culture, is that romantic love is scarce. If I love A and then fall in love with B, I must no longer love A or I am splitting my love between them and each of them is getting less than my full love. If you believe in this model, it feels like a great injustice to A.
The second model says that romantic love is abundant. If I love A and then fall in love with B, I am sharing my love with both of them and my love for one does not diminish my love for the other. (In fact, sharing love might even create more total love than hoarding it.) In this model, the limitation on my relationships is my time and energy, not my love.
Interestingly, people commonly assume that romantic love is scarce but parental love is abundant. When was the last time you heard someone say, “You’re having another child? But how can you love more than one?”
But why can’t you just commit? Who said we can’t commit? If commitment is dedication to a person and a relationship, many polyamorists are more committed than monogamists because they are dedicated to more people. Commitment should not be confused with exclusivity.
How do I know who is sleeping with whom? You don’t. And it’s none of your business.
What about the children? What about them? Kids are resilient and adaptive, and they generally respond really well to love and respect. Having more adults around generally means they have more support (and can get away with less). Dr. Elisabeth Sheff’s work on non-traditional relationships suggests that health of the children of polyamorists isn’t significantly different from the health of the children of monogamous parents.
If a child asks questions (e.g., “why does person X kiss both person Y and person Z?”), let them know that adult relationships are between the people who are involved in them. Some adults show affection to different people in different ways. Some people are comfortable being affectionate with many people, and some with only a few. What matters is that everyone involved has consented to and feels good about what’s going on.
Is this a fundamentalist Mormon thing? No. Some fundamentalist Mormons have a practice called polygamy, in which one man may marry multiple women (which is technically “polygyny”). It is generally very patriarchal, with a husband as the center of power and wives as supports (at best) or servants (at worst). The only thing polyamory has in common with this is the rejection of strict monogamy. Unlike fundamentalist religious polygyny, polyamory places great emphasis on the consent and happiness of everyone involved and is accepting of whatever relationship configuration everyone agrees on.
Isn’t “poly” Greek and “amor” Latin? Yes, that’s true, and you can buy great shirts that contain jokes about that linguistic mixing. But as the saying goes, English doesn’t borrow from other languages; it follows them down dark alleys and mugs them. “Heterosexual” and “telephone” also mix Greek and Latin and no one complains about those.
Fascinating! Where can I find polyamorous people to talk to/learn from/maybe date? While it’s really great that you are interested in learning more, and maybe even exploring your own relationship to this topic, remember that people with different identities from you don’t owe you an education about what it’s like to be them. There are helpful resources for learning more linked at the bottom of this document. It is very likely that you already know some folks that are practicing this style of relationship, even if they haven’t told you. If someone you already have a prior connection to discloses that they are polyam, it is respectful to ask if they are open to answering some questions before you ask them — and be willing to accept a no.
Resources
Our goal with this page is to give you some basic information so you can be supportive and understanding of polyamorous folks in the congregation. We hope that we’ve provided enough information that you feel comfortable engaging with these folks and supporting them both directly and in conversation with other members of the congregation who might have concerns about their relationships. We certainly encourage you to learn more, though, whether because you’re curious yourself or just because you want to be even more supportive. If that’s the case, we highly recommend the following resources.
When Someone You Love Is Polyamorous is a pamphlet specifically targeted at folks looking to understand polyamory because they know someone who has come out to them. Think of it as an expanded version of this page, as this page was heavily inspired by it. We also recommend Dr. Sheff’s other books.
The Multiamory Podcast has a ton of content, but that link specifically goes to their “start here” page. Look for “The Beginner’s Guide” part way down the page to find some entry-level episodes.
This glossary from Black and Poly is one of the biggest and best glossaries we’ve found. This glossary from Ready For Polyamory is smaller but has some other terms (e.g., “anchor partner”).