In Which Carnita Responds to a Questionnaire About Polyamory for a Fellow Redditor's Research Paper

What does it mean to be Polyamorous? (What does it mean for you?)

Polyamory is more than just a choice made out of desperation for me; it actually represents a lot about how I view the world in a more general way. I chose it quite intentionally after much consideration over many years, both because it seemed to reflect the way I experience love better than monogamy (and all the cultural constructs that surround more standard relationship dynamics) and, perhaps even more importantly, because it gives me a chance to be the change that I want to see in the world, as the famous saying goes. Here's the gist of the philosophy I ascribe to that informs my choice to self-identify as polyamorous:

I believe that love, by its nature, is bountiful and abundant. The truest experience of loving resists the "banking" model, which relies on scarcity as its fundamental operating principle. While there may only be so many natural resources in the world, for example, that we can "use up," love is not an exhaustible resource. I, like many other poly people, actually regularly experience the way loving creates more available energy for guess what? More love. And if love (and all the ways of expressing it) can multiply in this way, then we can save the fucking world and transcend a lot of this bullshit we bring upon ourselves. Polyamory is only on way that I strive to enact this principle in my day-to-day life.

Love is not jealous, and love does not seek to possess its object. We may experience jealousy over people whom we love, but we must never mistake this for love itself, just as we should never interpret homicidal rage as its own justification for killing. Jealousy is a base emotion that we would do best to work on eliminating if we want to achieve true emotional maturity and the ability to transcend the fears and insecurities and power-mongering behaviors that rule so many aspects of our interactions with one another.

People need all kinds of things from their human interactions. (Well, at least some of us do!) We are more free to individuate as humans and become more fully ourselves when we are not expected to fulfill all of any one person's interpersonal needs. Likewise, when we do not allow anyone else to force us to fulfill all of his/her/zir needs, we are liberated from the narrowing influence that so many monogamous relationships enforce upon their participants. Thus, in an ideal polyamorous world, we could all flourish and grow and change as our spirits dictate while also getting our needs for intimacy and community met.

And finally, I believe that the basic purpose of life is fulfillment and pleasure. Just take one look at most American marriages and you can probably see why I think that anything, dear god anything, other than that particular misery seems like a better way to achieve the purpose of life. So why not set to work with the infinitely creative task of figuring out, more precisely, how to love well outside that tired old framework? I guarantee that my love life feels much more like play than most people's, and even the work that I get done within my relationships is more creative and fulfilling. I look around me and see so many sad, broken people trying to validate their lives through life-long monogamous partnerships that eventually become more about difficulty and resentment than about love. I just want to shake them and scream, "There is another way! All that misery is a trick! This is not 'the way things are' unless you want it to be so!"

How old were you when you made the decision to become Polyamorous?

I had been toying with the idea since very early in my sexual development, and I had several failed trials in my twenties, but I finally committed to it when I was 26. It has been about a year now.

How is a Polyamorous relationship different than an open relationship?

This seems like a purely semantic distinction to me most of the time, but the basic difference in whether people choose to identify one way or the other seems to lie in how seriously they take it. As you can tell, I take my polyamorous self-identity fairly seriously. I am rigorous about living by a certain set of principles that guide all of my interactions with others. People who call their relationships simply "open," however, seem to think of it as more of an anomaly, or unrelated to their core beliefs. Perhaps they are simply more casual about it.

It seems to me that at any time, someone in a so-called open relationship can flee the scene and go back to monogamy. I do not see this as an option for myself, nor do I want it to be. Some people who call themselves polyamorous, however, would argue that it is only possible to be poly if one is in a serious primary partnership. By these people's definition, I would not even qualify to call myself poly because I am currently a single person with several intimate friends. Obviously, I disagree with these people.

So, as you can see, there is a lot of fuzziness surrounding these definitions, and in some ways, I believe that this uncertainty is appropriate because language is a slippery rascal.

What new insights have you gained becoming Polyamorous?
See question 1.

Why was polyamory a good thing for you?

See question 1. Basically, it makes more sense to me because I (usually) get all the intimacy I need in a setup that feels beautifully anti-authoritarian and highly evolved. The aesthetics of a life without chains appeals much more to my taste than that of a life characterized by other ideals like "duty" or "self-sacrifice."

What were your initial thoughts of being Polyamorous, before you became Polyamorous?

I had a lot of confused thoughts about it, but these were mostly attributable to the fact that I was not yet ready to fully say "fuck you" to a lot of the nasty voices in my head that try to enforce my culture's value system on me. These are the same voices that say things like, "You aren't a valid woman unless you can find a man to complete you! You aren't attractive/skinny/interesting/creative enough! You're weird and unnatural for not wanting children! You'll never be truly successful until you can buy a lot of stuff!" And so on. Once I realized how much of my life was controlled by all these messages, I felt I had no choice but to slice the little demons to bits and start over. Polyamory was one of the things that I discovered soon afterwards as a way to express my resistance.

I hung on for a long time, though, trying to convince myself that there must be a Very Good Reason why most people believe what they believe about love and relationships, but the longer this went on, the more I had to acknowledge how false it felt. I had to finally recognize something to the effect of that old cliché: just because everyone else is jumping off a certain bridge doesn't mean that I should. And in fact, my conscience would not let me do so. I don't know who or what I have to thank for the strength of that conscience, but I am grateful.

After becoming PA, Did you tell your parents?

I have told my mother, and she is still very uncomfortable with it, but the conversation is starting to open up. I don't think I need to bother trying to explain it to my father yet; I love him and want to share my life with him, but he is a very simple and throughly brainwashed guy. Eventually, I may feel like I need to tell him.

If yes, what were their reactions and how did they feel about this?

See above.

How do you feel society views Polyamorous people?

I may have a distorted view in some ways because 1.) I live in a town where there are plenty of weirdos, and 2.) I have a strong and confident personality, and people with less solid opinions don't tend to argue with me. I have actually had many people become very interested in finding out more when I've told them I was poly, and several couples I've spoken to about my lovestyle have ended up making the transition themselves.

Nevertheless, we are a poorly understood and feared sexual minority. I think that many people view us as deluded idealists who just want a way to justify our inability to fit in and/or our addiction to sex. I don't feel at all threatened by that analysis, but I realize that people's assumptions can and probably will affect my life negatively. I am sure, for instance, that if too many of the wrong people around my workplace found out about me, I could easily lose my job. (I am a community college teacher.) No such thing would happen to someone who is openly gay, for instance. I doubt it would even happen to someone who was discovered in a cheating-type affair with a student.

Is the community bigger than one might think?

Yes, perhaps, depending on what one thinks. There are also plenty of people who may not yet know that they are on a path to eventually pursue polyamory...like, for instance, many of my lovers. =)

Have there been/have you noticed/ what are (if any) consequences of a Polyamorous relationship. In other words, do you feel you have sacrificed anything becoming Polyamorous?

I have given up the ability to use simple terms that people can easily compute to describe my relationships. I have given up a fundamental ability to "pass" as normal. Luckily, those were never things I was terribly interested in.

Another thing I've sacrificed is a wide dating pool. Most people aren't interested in getting very involved with someone who won't even feign the intent of promising them monogamy, and it is totally unethical for me to pretend that things are otherwise in order to snag a monogamous person I may be crushing on. So, I get rejected a lot, and I have to make the executive decision not to pursue others whom I know don't "get it," even if they are otherwise totally delicious and interesting. Fortunately, I am pretty skilled at coping with rejection in healthy ways.

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VS. Monogamy
Are there different focus areas of the relationship when being polyamorous?

Highly developed communication skills are absolutely vital for the success of poly relationships. These take a lot of practice to master. I am by no means at a place of mastery, and even if I were, the people I meet are all at different levels in their development of these skills. Effective communication requires a lot more than words and gestures; it also demands that we learn to understand our own emotions in ways that society does not teach us or even encourage us to.

We also have to maintain a willingness to make mistakes and forgive ourselves and one another for the inevitable occurrence of crossing each other's boundaries in ways that bring up uncomfortable feelings. After all, we are in uncharted territory and we're making it all up as we go along. Monogamous relationships, in my experience, tend to come along with ready-made scripts, but the parameters of poly relationships are always changing and adjusting to the needs of the people involved in them.

In terms of maintaining an intimate relationship with each other, how would you compare the intimacy of monogamy  vs the intimacy of polyamory?

Forced intimacy isn't as intimate. Therefore, the intimacy I've experienced in poly relationships, where choice and intention are paramount, has generally been of a much higher quality than most things I experienced in monogamous relationships. My connections to my partners have attained depths that were difficult to achieve when I felt the context of monogamous restriction rising up around me. My choice to be with whichever partner I am sharing my time and space with often feels more significant or meaningful these days, rather than some necessary "next step" in an inexorable process that is constantly striving towards pair-bonding.

Is there a “Standard” structure in polyamorous relationships (Primary and secondary partners?)

Hell no. "Standards" are the tools of the enemy, the status quo. The only standard any of us need to hold ourselves to is active care and compassion for ourselves and those we love, and we should love everyone.

As far as primary and secondary and tertiary and yadda yadda yadda goes, people can knock themselves out with naming things however they feel comfortable. They're just names. Relationships will always transcend whatever you decide to call them.

Concerning Existing Relationships
In your relationship who’s decision was it to become polyamorous? How did it come about, and what was your SO’s reactions?

This assumes that I have a "primary." I don't. I used to, and I initiated it then, but we are no longer together and I am still polyamorous.

At the time, my partner was confused and uncomfortable with the revelation that I am poly. We tried to make it work for a while, but it became clear that it was taking too much of the wrong kind of effort. He eventually realized that he wanted monogamy, so we split. I am happy that he figured out what he really wanted and realized that he wasn't going to get it with me. He was very brave to seize what he knew he needed. We are still friends.

How was the relationship after the transition? (How has it improved, or did it become more stressful… did you find a new attitude towards your partner?)

There were ways in which everything improved for me because I was finally living and loving in a way that made sense to me, but I mentioned the complications in the above question. Furthermore, we had been experiencing problems that were not solvable by any other means than going our separate ways. These problems were both related to and separate from our poly transition.

Are there any jealousy issues while a partner had spent time (sexually and emotionally) with his other partner?

I don't struggle with jealousy nearly as much as many other people seem to, especially when my partners are talented/skilled at the art of staying focused on the present moment (i.e. interacting with me) when we are together. I am very lucky to have one current lover who is a shining example of this characteristic. He has other partners as well as a busy, active life that keeps us from seeing each other very often, but when we are together, time seems to slow down for us. We have an incredible depth of connection despite its infrequency. I would find it very difficult to muster up anything like jealousy towards his other partners; I mostly feel very happy for them, as I feel for myself, for having the opportunity to share intimate space with this amazing person.

The only time I ever got jealous over my recent ex-(primary) partner was when our roommate took beautiful photos of him with his other partner. I was actually only jealous that our roommate had never been so inspired to capture us on film in this way. Nevertheless, after I got over my minor upset, I proudly hung the photos in our living room.

The only other times I can think of are very specific and isolated instances. A few months back, I had one partner whom I was falling pretty hard for, but he also turned out to be monogamous in the end. Basically, even though he had two women in his life whom he liked and who liked him (or in my case, loved him), liked one another, AND were perfectly happy to share him, he still decided to choose. I was not chosen.

I was only jealous for a minute. That feeling was quickly replaced by sadness and grief that was as simple and clear as with any other sort of loss. The bitter irony is that she didn't choose him back. Now I'm doubly sad for my loss and for his.

Once I almost got jealous at the idea of my roommates hooking up with one another, but I'm not even sexually involved with either one of them. I just had a childish thought that if they shared some secret love affair and both lied to me about it, I would feel very sad and left out.

Does any of that even count as jealousy? I'm not sure. I feel so disconnected from that emotion that I can hardly remember what it is like. I didn't act on any of these things, and in fact, I am very committed to the principle that I will never act on any jealous feelings beyond talking about them, and more generally, that I will never blame another person for the way that I feel.

What do you as couples do to find a happy medium for everybody involved?

Talk, talk, talk, and meet one another's other loves. Care for everyone. Don't neglect anyone. Pay attention. And SHOW UP!--physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally.

What have you learned about yourself, and what internal conflicts have you (and your s/o) overcame (trust, jealousy, communication, honesty) as a result of being Polyamorous?

See all of above.

Are there rules or guidelines for being in Polyamorous relationship?

Yes, and guidelines are a better term. Any more detailed guidelines fit into a few general principles: Seek consent. Do what you say you will do. Tell the truth, and live the truth. Own your own emotions. Communicate frequently. Take care of yourself. Give a shit.

Do these rules get stressed, or is it a flexible lifestyle?

We're all making it up as we go. Some people really like rules. Rules make some people feel safe. Others don't need so much to feel safe. Everyone has to decide on their own with their partners.

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