Clarification

So, lots of busy with this career change thing, not so much time for explicit self-analysis. I've also been spending more time fitting my environment to my self and less time fitting my self to my environment ... maybe? Because I have also been spending time in environments that are unfamiliar to me and learning my way around them. Anyhow, nothing I've been writing about.

So when I saw http://polynotes.tumblr.com/post/106718311036/28-day-nonmonogamy-challenge I figured I'd bite, particularly because some of that needs explicating for my current relationships anyhow.

I figure it's time to put a steel skin on and be activisty in the sense that I'll do it on Facebook, but given my total lack of ability to do something every single day I'll answer here and copy and paste.

So.

1. What type of non-monogamous relationships do you have?

2. When did you first realize you were non-monogamous?

3. What have been the best and worst experiences you’ve had coming out as non-monogamous?

4. How do you feel about your non-monogamy?

5. How did your family react to you being non-monogamous?

6. What does marriage mean to you?

7. What do you think about hierarchical non-monogamy?

8. What’s a favorite picture you associate with non-monogamy?

9. What’s your view on group sex?

10. What involvement have you had with non-monogamy groups or organizations?

11. What’s the stupidest argument or comment you’ve heard about non-monogamy?

12. What’s your favorite blog or site related to non-monogamy?

13. What would you like to say to people?

14. What do you want to end this series of questions on?

15. How do you feel about jealousy?

16. How do you feel about compersion?

17. How do you experience love?

18. Do you think non-monogamy is more natural than monogamy?

19. Are you currently looking for any more relationships?

20. What would your ideal relationships be?

21. Do you want to live with one or more of your partners?

22. How do your desires about having children fit with your non-monogamy?

23. Are you out about being non-monogamous?

24. What’s your favorite book about non-monogamy?

25. How do you feel about the portrayal of non-monogamy in the media?

26. What’s been the most rewarding thing about non-monogamy?

27. What’s been the most challenging thing about non-monogamy?

28. What do you think is important for a successful non-monogamous relationship?

Poly challenge #1

1. What type of non-monogamous relationships do you have?

All my relationships are non-monogamous.

I currently have what I would consider a full partnership where we're very emotionally intimate and we spend a lot of time (3 or 4/7 days per week) together. We are seek each other's advice frequently but not permission, even for big changes like moving across the country. This hasn't been decided to be a permanent relationship; to do that we'd need to sort out the career/long distance/living/children situation and neither of us has been inclined to do that yet.

I also have a wide range of people who fall in the 'close friends and/or I love them and sexual intimacy is not off the table'. In practice this means I cycle into and out of closer contact with them, into and out of sexual relationships, into and out of frequent contact.

In the past I've enjoyed relatively stable arrangements with one domestic(live in) partner and one dating (2-3 days per week) partner but I'm too busy for that right now.

2. When did you first realize you were non-monogamous?

It's been difficult for me to accept that I'm nonmonogamous. I have been practicing nonmonogamy since I was fifteen or sixteen, but because of internalised biases against it and the difficulty of swimming against that current I have often needed to re-realise that this is an immutable orientation for me. I think I may have finally learned my lesson three or four years ago for good?

3. What have been the best and worst experiences you’ve had coming out as non-monogamous?

The best experience lies in being able to accept and present myself as I am, to feel like I'm authentically interacting with the world. I know this is maybe supposed to be asking about other people's responses to me, but it's my own response to granting myself freedom to speak about who I am and my experiences that really make me happy here.

The worst experiences, without a doubt, are when people tell me I don't really love my partners, when my partners tell me I don't really love them, or when I'm told it's just a phase. My ability to love is pretty deep in my identity and takes up a lot of my time and attention; having all that brushed off or ignored is the worst form of not being seen.

4. How do you feel about your non-monogamy?

This is a dangerous question. I mostly don't feel anything particular about it, I just accept it. Sometimes I find it very frustrating and painful, especially when it is a source of incompatibility in a relationship or when it leads me to feel excluded from casual conversations about my life. In actual practice, when I'm actually experiencing my people, I feel free and secure and comfortable and happy. A lot of the time I think it would be more convenient to be monogamous, it would give me a bigger dating pool and less need to sort quite so many internalised messages out and there would be less scheduling and less social and legal discrimination. The dangerous part is that I'm not monogamous, and when I try to act as though I am there are negative consequences, so thinking about the inconvenience doesn't benefit me.

5. How did your family react to you being non-monogamous?

Very neutrally.

6. What does marriage mean to you?

7. What do you think about hierarchical non-monogamy?

8. What’s a favorite picture you associate with non-monogamy?

9. What’s your view on group sex?

I'm not sure what aspect of group sex this is supposed to address. Interpersonal logistics on group sex can be complicated; I've had some that was lovely and some that felt uncomfy and coerced. Easiest for me is pre-existing groups/couples having sex in parallel in the same space.

10. What involvement have you had with non-monogamy groups or organizations?

11. What’s the stupidest argument or comment you’ve heard about non-monogamy?

12. What’s your favorite blog or site related to non-monogamy?

I more-or-less stopped reading poly sites several years ago. When I started I went to VanPoly, read a mailing list, was on the livejournal poly community and the lj poly snark community.


13. What would you like to say to people?

14. What do you want to end this series of questions on?

15. How do you feel about jealousy?

16. How do you feel about compersion?

17. How do you experience love?

18. Do you think non-monogamy is more natural than monogamy?

The word natural gets such a big side-eye from me. Too many weird assumptions. I think people often will see and like shiny new folks. What they do with that will vary.

19. Are you currently looking for any more relationships?

20. What would your ideal relationships be?

21. Do you want to live with one or more of your partners?

22. How do your desires about having children fit with your non-monogamy?

23. Are you out about being non-monogamous?

24. What’s your favorite book about non-monogamy?

25. How do you feel about the portrayal of non-monogamy in the media?

26. What’s been the most rewarding thing about non-monogamy?

27. What’s been the most challenging thing about non-monogamy?

28. What do you think is important for a successful non-monogamous relationship?