It's Called ""Polyamory: Coming Out About Your Nonmonogamous Relationships - Softcover

Tamara Pincus, Rebecca Hiles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1944934421 ISBN 13: 9781944934422

Publisher: Thorntree Press, 2017

Synopsis

Even in progressive families and communities, people who practice nonmonogamy are susceptible to misinformation and accusations of moral and emotional failings. Facing this requires its own coming out and education process.

In this guide, Tamara Pincus and Rebecca Hiles provide a roadmap for explaining the expansive intricacies of the consensual nonmonogamy spectrum. By fusing personal experience and community research, they break down the various incarnations of polyamorous relationship structures, polyamory's intersections with race and gender, and the seemingly esoteric jargon of the lifestyle.

Topics include everything from how to explain what a "unicorn hunter" is to answering questions like, "Can poly people raise children?" and "Can they live normal, healthy lives?" Such conversations are eloquently explained and the real dangers of being out as poly in a monogamy-centered society are laid bare.

About this title

About the Authors

Tamara Pincus is a licensed clinical social worker and AASECT-certified sex therapist who runs a private practice in the Washington, DC, area. She specializes in working with kinky, polyamorous and LGBTQ clients, and she has been active in alternative sexuality communities since 1998. She has spoken around the country on issues related to ethics in sex therapy, consent culture, polyamory and BDSM. She has published articles and pamphlets including What Professionals Need to Know about BDSM and What Is Polyamory and Why Do Social Workers Need to Know About It?

Rebecca Hiles is a dating, relationships, and sexual wellness coach. She has contributed to Sexpert.com and xoJane.com, and has had her writing featured on Everyday Feminism. She was voted one of the Top 100 Sex Blogging Superheroes of 2014 and 2015.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

It's Called "Polyamory"

Coming Out About Your Nonmonogamous Relationships

By Tamara Pincus, Rebecca Hiles

Thorntree Press, LLC

Copyright © 2017 Tamara Pincus and Rebecca Hiles
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-944934-42-2

Contents

Foreword, 
Introduction, 
1 What Does It All Mean? Introducing Polyamory, 
2 What to Consider When Coming Out, 
3 Coming Out to Partners, 
4 Coming Out to Family, 
5 Coming Out to Kids, 
6 Coming Out to Friends, 
7 Coming Out at Work, 
8 Coming Out at School, 
9 After Coming Out: Being Polyamorous, 
10 Moving Forward in Polyamory, 
Glossary, 
Resources, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

What Does It All Mean? Introducing Polyamory

* * *

If you are reading this book, chances are you're not sure that monogamy works for everyone. Maybe you identify as nonmonogamous, or maybe someone has recently come out as nonmonogamous to you.

We believe that monogamy should not be expected of all people. While many people are wonderfully happy within monogamy, nonmonogamous relationship structures are a valid option for a variety of people, for a variety of reasons. We do not believe that nonmonogamy is fundamentally better than monogamy. We do not claim to be more enlightened or to have reached a higher understanding than those who are monogamous. We simply believe that nonmonogamy is a valid relationship structure, and that those who feel confined by monogamy should consider the option to explore other relationship structures.

Types of Consensual Nonmonogamy

Consensual nonmonogamy is an umbrella term for any kind of relationship among partners who consent to multiple sexual relationships, regardless of whether emotional attachments are involved. This can include polyamory, swinging, designer relationships, relationship anarchy, monogamish relationships, and many other sexual practices. It can also include polygyny, in which a man is allowed multiple wives but women are not allowed multiple husbands, or polyandry, where a woman is allowed multiple husbands but men are not allowed multiple wives. However, most mainstream consensual nonmonogamy communities extend the practice to everyone, regardless of gender.

Polyamory is a type of consensual nonmonogamy in which individuals are in or open to multiple loving, romantic, and/or sexual relationships with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. According to Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, one of the founders of the modern polyamory movement, polyamory is "the practice, state or ability of having more than one sexual loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved." Zell-Ravenheart is credited with coining the term in an article in Green Egg, the official publication of the Church of All Worlds.

Swinging describes a relationship style in which a (usually) mixed-gender couple has sex with others outside of their relationship. From clubs and parties to hotel conventions and cruises, swinging takes place in a range of public and semipublic settings. Some swing parties involve mostly soft swinging, in which couples engage in a limited range of sexual activities with others but have penetrative sex only with the partner they brought to the party. Others involve hard swinging, where couples exchange partners for a broad range of sexual activities, often including penetration.

In a designer relationship, the participants make a set of agreements about what they think will work in their relationship. This can include a variety of activities, such as swinging, dating outside the relationship, and forming emotional bonds with others. Often, people choose this label because it does not carry the same stigma as the labels of "swinger" or "polyamorous," or because it provides a greater level of choice. Theoretically, any style of open relationship can be designed with any agreements that the partners choose.

Relationship anarchy is a style of relating in which people reject hierarchical relationship models that put sexual relationships above other forms of relationship. Instead, relationship anarchists see each relationship as an independent entity that should be considered in its own right and not in relation to external measures of value. Relationship anarchists often dismiss conventional relationship rules and lead their lives in their own unique way. Relationship anarchy is not (usually) the same as polyamory.

In practice, this means that relationship anarchists' friendships can be as important as (or even more important than) sexual relationships and that people can construct chosen families together because they want to, not because they are obligated to do so out of legal or blood ties. Also, relationship anarchists generally do not make rules to structure their relationships. As explained by sociologists and polyamory experts Dr. Elisabeth Sheff and Megan Tesene, "In relationship anarchy, no one need give anything up or compromise in order to sustain a relationship; rather, it is better to amicably separate than to sustain an unhappy and unfulfilling relationship."

Other kinds of open relationships allow for people to have sex with others outside of their relationships with the consent of their partners, without necessarily functioning as a couple or attending parties or clubs for that purpose. Frequently, gay male communities have more room for understanding where people have emotionally fidelitous relationships while having sex outside of the relationship. These types of relationships are what relationship columnist Dan Savage describes as monogamish.

The use of these terms is complicated by the fact that they often have different definitions depending on who is using them. Some people who are swingers hook up with new people only at parties. Others have been in relationships with the same couples for years and years and are deep friends but still identify as swingers instead of polyamorists. Some people identify as swoly, which is a combination of swinging and polyamory. It's important that people feel empowered to use their own labels and be responsible for their own representation of their identity.

People who identify as polyamorous can have all different kinds of sexualities, including being asexual. In fact, asexual people often find polyamory to be an ideal relationship choice because it allows them to have emotionally intimate and possibly even romantic relationships with sexual people who are still able to get their sexual needs met in other relationships. Everyone's form of polyamory is different, even when it may seem the same. For instance, one person who identifies as polyamorous may be married and see their spouse as "primary," while someone else may practice polyamory in a way where they try to never consider one partner more important than another (nonhierarchical).

Polyamorous Relationship Structures

Polyamorous relationships take a range of forms. Some polyamorous people live together, and others maintain separate housing. Children figure prominently for some polyamorous families, and others are composed of all adults.

Size

Because relationships in the United States today take such a wide range of forms, on the surface polyamorous families look much like any other married, divorced, or blended families. In her research on polyamorous families with children, Dr. Elisabeth Sheff found that the most common polyamorous family form among her respondents was an open couple or a pair of people who live together in a marriage or marriage-like relationship, may have children and/or blended finances, and maintain sexual/romantic relationships with others. As the number of people involved in the relationship increases, there are fewer instances of those relationships (for instance, there are fewer quads than triads) and often more turnover among partners over time. Three-adult relationships can take the form of a triad, in which all members are romantically involved with each other, or a V, in which two people share the same lover but are not lovers themselves. Quads are relationships composed of four adults, and moresomes have five or more partners.

Hierarchies

Many polyamorous relationships, especially during the initial stages of defining their boundaries, establish a hierarchy of relationships in which one or more partners are designated as "primary" and others are defined as "secondary" or possibly "tertiary." Primary partners are those who maintain personal, financial, and emotional primacy, somewhat like a spouse or a "main squeeze." Some primaries are legally married, and others are bonded by depth of intimacy and time together but not legal convention. Generally, primary partners share not only sexual and emotional intimacy, but also children, finances, and/or a home. Secondary partners are usually more like girlfriends or boyfriends than spouses, probably do not live together, and most likely do not share finances or make important decisions together. Tertiary partners are generally slightly less intimate than secondary partners and considerably less intimate than primary partners, and may be in longdistance or newrelationships.

Others in polyamorous relationships reject the hierarchical model of primary/secondary/tertiary relationships. One reason long-term polyamorists are suspicious of hierarchical multiple-partner relationships is that they have experienced or witnessed a "secondary" relationship that was either stunted or unable to be contained in a secondary role. The resulting pain and drama that frequently ensues when a relationship is forced to remain secondary is legendary among long-time polyamorists, and as a result they may avoid hierarchical relationships. In some cases, these nonhierarchical polyamorists categorize their relationships as nesting (living together) and nonnesting (living separately), and sometimes they do not categorize their relationships at all but simply deal with each one on an individual basis.

Configurations

There are many variations in how polyamorous people construct, organize, and maintain their relationships. Unicorn hunters are generally female–male couples who are seeking a unicorn — a bisexual woman with no other romantic attachments who is interested in hooking up with a couple. Notoriously myopic and naive, unicorn hunters are infamous in polyamorous communities for advertising for a bisexual woman between twenty and thirty-five years old to move to the couple's isolated farm and help raise their children, clean their house, and hide in the basement when company comes over so the couple doesn't have to explain her presence. In sharp contrast, most bisexual women in the polyamorous scene already have existing relationships and are rarely eager to subsume their lives into a couple's relationship. Many couples who initially approach polyamorous dating seeking that mythical unattached bisexual woman become disillusioned when she proves to be elusive, or unwilling or unable to fit the configuration the hunters envisioned. At that point, most hunters either abandon their search or broaden it to include a much wider range of partners and relationshipconfigurations.

Another variation on the polyamorous relationship is a male with multiple female partners who are "allowed" to have only other female partners — known among polyamorous community members as the one-penis policy (OPP). Sometimes the policy is explicit, with clearly stated rules that prohibit the women from having sexual contact with other men. In other cases, the policy is implicit, enforced through manufactured personal emergencies and jealous tantrums when a woman attempts to see a male lover but support when she is with a female lover. The one-vagina policy (OVP) does not seem to be as prevalent in the polyamorous community — there is no similar popular conception of the OVP to mirror the OPP.

Some people identify as solo polyamorists, people who are interested in multiple partners but do not want to have a primary or nesting partner. Solo polyamorists may appear to be single folks who are dating, or they may appear to be very partnered with several people, but they probably are not married to or cohabitating with any of them. Aggie Sez, a solo polyamory blogger, explains: Solo polyamorous people don't have, and may not want or seek, a relationship that involves entwining their life (i.e., sharing a home or finances) with any lover or partner or strongly identifying as part of a couple (triad, family, etc.) rather than as an individual. Polyamorous people may be solo by choice or circumstance, but if by choice, typically they prioritize autonomy — even when engaged in deeply emotionally invested or otherwise committed intimate relationships.

As with designer relationships and relationship anarchy, solo polyamorists choose individually how to structure their relationships, so it is hard to generalize about them.

Some solo polyamorists have an anchor partner to whom the solo polyamorist returns regularly and with whom the solo polyamorist spends much of their free time. Polyamory educator Cunning Minx characterizes an anchor partner as providing "support without exclusivity and a state of connectedness without implying a sexual, live-in, or hierarchical arrangement." An anchor partner is not exactly a primary partner in that the anchor does not tell their partner what to do or expect their partner to ask permission to date others. The term "anchor partner" is also used among people who do not identify as solo polyamorous. Some solo polyamorists endorse relationship anarchy aswell.

Intersectionality with Sexual Identity and Race

Sexual and cultural identities can have a great impact on the ways in which people experience life as polyamorists. For instance, in mainstream gay male culture nonmonogamy is considered a norm. In mainstream heterosexual culture, on the other hand, people are expected to remain (or at least appear to be) monogamous. Many people in consensually nonmonogamous communities covet bisexual women as partners, though bisexual men are generally not seen in the same light. Most consensually nonmonogamous community members seem to accept bi women's desire to be polyamorous because it is understood that bi women may want to have partners of more than one gender. As a result, in some ways it can be easier for bi people — and especially bisexual women — to come out as polyamorous than it is for straight people or lesbians.

Race and culture can also have an effect on the coming-out process. For a person of color, to come out as polyamorous is to take on another stigmatized identity, which can be an extra risk. The prevalence and influence of religion in African American communities often make Black polyamorous people feel less able or willing to come out for fear of judgment by their communities. There is a similarly high level of religiosity that can come into play in Latinx cultures. In some Latinx cultures it is expected that men will cheat, so if Latino men come out as polyamorous they may encounter either greater understanding because of stereotypes that Latino men are highly sexual, or greater stigma due to that perception of being highly sexual. When women come out as polyamorous, they are often judged more harshly because of religious ideas about purity and a sexual double standard.

In the United States, ideas about coming out (indeed ideas about almost everything) are shaped primarily by White people's thoughts and experiences. Current popular opinion demands that sex and gender minorities come out to gain visibility, political representation, and human rights. What these demands overlook are the experiences of people of color in their home communities, in White mainstream LGBTcommunities, and in society at large. When White people come out, they come out into a gay, lesbian, trans, polyamorous, or other kind of community that is almost certainly predominantly White and run by White people who will virtually always interact with them in what appears to be a racially neutral way. When people of color come out, they have deal with the same kinds of stigma from their families of origin (the family a person comes from, whether by birth, adoption, or choice) with which White people contend. On top of that, however, they also often deal with racism from other LGBTQ community members, possible accusations from family and friends that they are traitors to "real" people of color, and higher levels of negative judgment from society at large. In short, people of color have a lot more to lose and not nearly as much to gain by coming out, so White people need to give people of color space to come out in their own time and for their own reasons. It is a completely legitimate choice to remain closeted, to reach an understanding with family and friends by being vague without explicitly coming out, or to come out very selectively to carefully chosen confidants. This book should not be read as a mandate for all polyamorists to come out at every minute, but rather as a guide to a larger coming-out process that will vary significantly with each individual's social setting and life experiences.

History of Nonmonogamy in the United States

Casual dating, nonmonogamy, and hookup culture are not new. They also haven't changed much over the years; they simply have a title now.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from It's Called "Polyamory" by Tamara Pincus, Rebecca Hiles. Copyright © 2017 Tamara Pincus and Rebecca Hiles. Excerpted by permission of Thorntree Press, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Thorntree Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1944934421
• ISBN 13: 9781944934422
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 208