Polyamory – The Truth, The Myths, Is it for You?

Polyamory, what is it? How do you go about doing it? How do you bring it up to your partner? How do you start? Where do you start? Where do you go? Who do you trust? SO many questions it’s impossible to know where to even start on the subject.

First of all. Polyamory is consensual non-monogamy. It’s not considered cheating or the taboo thing of going behind your partners back to have a tryst or an affair. With Poly couples everything is laid bare and out in the open, right there out on the table. Which in all honesty can be a very different and difficult experience for most of us considering monogamy has been the “thing to do” for many, many years.

But let’s look at monogamy for a moment, let’s dive into the history of it. There are some things that come along with monogamy that just made sense at the time it became popular, because in human history, monogamy wasn’t always the thing. In fact, it has only been around for the last 1,000 years or so.

A big part of monogamy was marriage and preserving wealth by passing it down through your offspring. In this way, you had to know the child was yours and the bloodline clean. You didn’t want to go giving your fortune and your entire estate, or any titles that belonged to you to someone else’s kid now did you? No, you wanted it to be your own flesh and blood. It was a primal thing and came about when people started to lay claim to land, estates, titles, any kind of wealth really. This is why a child born out of wedlock was called a “bastard” and got nothing, while the legitimate children from the marriage were heirs to everything and got everything.

Another thing that played a role was religion. Especially for women, it was said a women was not to have sex out of wedlock and when she did marry she should not lie with anyone other than her husband. This also played a part in the above section of heirs and such. For if the woman strayed, there would be hell to pay. Never did a man want his wife giving birth to an illegitimate child. Penalties all over the world ranged from divorce to having the woman stoned to death for such an indiscretion. So being poly back in the day was out of the question, though many men did what they wanted and took Mistresses , which of course was perfectly normal. But those women were often ruined, shamed and could not find husbands later on and were thought of as whores, relying often on what their already married counterpart would give to them, if anything.

Another factor in earlier humans was paternal protection. When the child born knew who the parents were, it had a loving mother and father to protect and nurture it, to take responsibility for it. There was no fighting about whose child it was because with monogamy, it was known whose child it was, so the survival rates were better, and for early humans this was deeply important because mortality rates in infants was so high, you were lucky to have six kids and have one or two of them survive into adulthood. Things are not like that now, with modern medicine and us being at a much different place on the food chain.

Another reason that could be more of a myth is that STDs were passed around more way back when and were killing people at a faster rate. There was no modern medicine, condemns or antibiotics so people could easily die of STDs that have simple cures nowadays. So it was said people chose to stick with one partner to avoid this nasty complication. Said, though not proven.

BUT, more recently, since the 1960s and the invention of the birth control pill and other contraceptives, free thinking, free love, the hippie days and all that fun stuff, Polyamory has made a come back. People are discovering it’s okay to love more than one person or that it’s at least okay to have sex with more than one person. There are about a billion ways you can do Polyamory and none of them are really wrong. Unless you just use the term in order to be a slut, then you’re just a slut. (haha)

But you can have two men and two women who are all in love with one another, or one woman and two men and just the woman loves the two men, or three women and one man and all three women love the one man, the possibilities are endless. You can also have side conquests once in awhile from your mostly monogamous relationship, so long as your partner knows about it. So you’re in love with one woman, but like to hook up with another woman on occasion even though you do not love her. So long as your honest and you and your partner have gone over the “rules” and such and both have agreed and no one, including the third person is getting hurt, then all is fine. And I think that is the bottom line when it comes to polyamory. Making sure no one gets hurt.

There are many ways to do it responsibly and ethically and morally right. The only issue I’ve ever had is when people use it to lie, cheat or hurt someone else. This is not being poly, this is just being an asshole.

But, before you give poly a try, there are things to consider. Like –

How much do you want to know?
Do you want to be involved in the relationship?
Are you a jealous person?
Can you handle the emotional attachment your partner will form with someone else?
Can you handle the physical aspects of being poly?
Are you ready to go out there and find someone else to be with too if it comes down to it?
What, if anything are you willing to try?
Is this going to effect your mental health?
Can you get over the stereotypes of monogamy?

It’s all going to need a carefully developed plan with someone you trust 100%, because if you don’t trust the person, there is no way it will ever work. I can tell you that right now. Trust is key. And it must be mutual. The other person has to trust that you will lay down your rules and that will be that, he or she will not come home to you screaming and freaking out because you went and did something you both agreed upon. Yes, there will be a period of adjustment, but it should be discussed maturely, not fought about in an all out war or battle.

Being poly isn’t easy.

I did it once with my ex husband and my boyfriend and it was honestly the best time of my life. If things could have stayed like that forever I would have let it, but eventually it fell apart. I haven’t been able to do it since, but as a dominant I loved having two men at my disposal. (If we’re being honest here) Though they were not allowed to stray, that was the deal. But that was our way of doing polyamory.

SO – I am curious and want to open up a discussion on this post. Tell me –

~ Are you mono or poly
~ What is your situation
~ What works for you
~ How long has it been working
~ Any extra info

Let’s chat about this!

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