Poly is the new black.

What's that you say? Not shibari? Not some fucking machines or some other toy?

Nope.

It's the term "poly" - and it is generally colloquially used as short-hand for "polyamory" (though occasionally for "polyfuckery" - and when that's the case I have no problem with the term). Go to any freaking BDSM conference and look at the schedule of seminars - it seems that you are going to find one on polyamory. The Scene is so full of people calling themselves "poly" that to be monogamous is almost a stigma, a shame, it's almost as bad as being a Republican...

Now, I am writing this as polyamorous person, and I think that there's a large group of people in the greater Scene for whom the term is entirely applicable, and in fact the Scene has historically been non-monogamous. But the ascendency of the the term "polyamorous" as the current booty-call buzzword goes back to that most excellent of books The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt, published in 1997. Now, they quoted the Deborah M. Anapol's book The Love Without Limits which had been published in 1992 (it's now reprinted as Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits: Secrets of Sustainable Intimate Relationships) as part of their desire to build a new paradigm of sex-positive sexual discourse and behaviour. Anapol drew the term (and I've yet to find anyone who can trace it back further) from Oberon and Morning Glory Zell, a pair of pagans who coined the term to replace the awkward phrase of "responsible nonmonogamy." This was in Morning Glory's 1990 article entitled A Bouquet of Lovers.

The term means multiple loves that's the linguistic breakdown of the word (even if it is mixing Greek and Latin) and it refers to multiple relationships, often with a rather broad and inclusive vision of what a "relationship" is, but it's still a (perhaps the) key point. But what we see in the Scene for the most part recently is the use of the term to mean "I'm can have sex with more than one person." This in turn leads to such nonsensical statements as "I'm poly, but my partner isn't."

Excuse me? What in the fuck are you talking about? Is that like being a little bit pregnant? Or is it more like straight guys who suck cock, take it up the ass, and secretly enjoy LOGO but insist that they aren't gay (or even Bi)? Your partner may not have any other partners, but they are certainly non-mongamous... And that begs the question of if you aren't interested in just sex, how the hell do you plan on having a relationship with you that doesn't impact or effect their other partner?

Which gets me back around to the initial complaint. "Polyamory" and "Non-Monogamy" are not synonymous. Mostly because in our society we so often confuse the friction of body parts in a sexually lubricated scenario with either (A) Love, (B) Commitment, or (C) a Relationship. We treat sex (and love, but that's a whole different rant) like a commodity in an economy of scarcity, as well as an activity that is inappropriate to engage in merely for it's own pleasurable reward.

So perhaps I'm just a poly-snob, but I'm also an advocate and an educator - so let's get it straight.

Screw whomever you like, however you like, whenever you like. Have open, closed, fluid-bonded, or committed networks. But Polyamory is a signifier of relationships, not just casual safer ethical sex. If you like, you can look at non-monogamy as a spectrum of fidelity. On the one side you have Sport-Fucking, then Swinging, then Open-Relationships which is probably the border of a huge grey area that is simply "not-monogamy," then the realm of polyamorous networks when leads into at the opposite end of the behaviour spectrum - the group marriages, the Slavery Households, etc. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can be in a polyamorous network, with allowances for casual sex outside of the network, and even engage in some serious anonymous sport-fucking one day. Polyamory is a description of the type of relationship you have with specific partners, as well as a philosophical statement on love and sex and relationships. If you want to say, "I'm poly, but I'm not looking for anything more than a casual partner tonight..." That's fine also. Bravo! Not only are you being honest in what you are looking for, but you are making a wonderful statement on love and relationships!

So, if you want to have sex with more than one person - Have at it! But don't dress up a perfectly appropriate desire and activity in a blanket of a socially-acceptable (to one degree or another) term that means something else. In my experience what most people are really scared of is not a partner having sex with other people (save for fears of STDs), but instead the loss of the love of the partner. Why don't we work to separate the physical pleasure from the idea of emotional intimacy. The two are wonderful when combined, but there are thousands of therapists who make an excellent living helping people come to terms with the fact that they aren't the same thing. This confabulation is probably one of the things that screws up more teenagers and people in their early twenties (and later in life for that matter) as they wend their way through learning the skills of good relationships - or try to learn better skills for the relationship(s) that they are in. Sex is great, love is great, relationships are great, intimacy is great - but none of them are guaranteed to be found together.

Pax.