Poly's Among Us - Open, Poly, or Swinger?

I read an article on poly's, Polyamory: When Three Isn't a Crowd on CNN.com and it got me to thinking about this whole poly thing. The definitions as I see them are: “Open” - you are married or committed to someone yet are allowed to date others, “Poly” - More than a couple live together or have a close emotional relationship, and “Swinger” - Where you and your spouse or partner have sex with others and little emotional ties (friends with benefits).



If you have an interest in learning more about polyamory, the CNN article is pretty good and there is not a lot of 'gag me with a spoon' crap from straights in it.

While I don't practice polyamory, I don't bash it and can certainly accept it. Most people involved in one of the non-traditional lifestyles such as swinging are, in my opinion, usually a little more open to things like this. In our circle of friends there are swingers, gays, lesbian, bi-sexual, and even straight people but no poly's that I'm aware of.

One of the things you have to do in our lifestyle is have groups of friends who don't know about each other. Certainly we know couples who are open swingers and everyone knows about it but by and large, most swingers don't advertise their lifestyle to outsiders or “straights” as we call them. It is unfortunate that a lot of people feel that if you are not one of them then you must be against them, so to avoid illogical reactions from your neighbors, you don't broadcast your kinks.

I've read a couple of blog postings recently where Swingers and Poly's were grouped together and that's about as illogical as you can get. Probably about the only common thread is that we have sex outside our committed partnership without repercussions.

While I've never tried a poly or open relationship, my biggest concern is that it would be hard to control jealousy if you are living with more than one person or going out on dates with someone. Certainly we have had others share our bed for varying periods but it has always been for sex and not actual romantic/personal involvement.

Anyway I just wanted to share the link to the CNN article on poly's as I thought it was pretty good.