Re: [UUPoly-L] Too many circles, lines, triangles.....

["Earth Father" <earthfather@cfnc.us>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Ullman

> Your posts have made me think it is useful to make the following
> distinctions:
> 
> 1. The practice of poly, swinging, etc. 

In my experience, there is more and more overlap between polyfolk and swingers.
My perception is that they came from different backgrounds and historical
contexts, but that as swingers come into contact with polyfolk, the distinction
becomes more of what someone is doing that evening, rather than what
overarching lifestyle and value structure they have chosen.

One of my poly lovers was a swinger for nearly 20 years before she heard about
polyamory.  She still considers herself a swinger, attends swing parties, but
also has several very clearly long-term responsibly managed loving
relationships.

Her most common form of swinging is with the same dozen or so folks that she
has been with for more than a decade.  They swing together, they vacation
together, they are godparents for each other's children, etc.; they look like
polyfolk to me, but they consider themselves swingers, and she knows lots of
other long-term swing groups that are constituted much the same.  When I asked
her about swingers who *only* have sex with each other, and avoid other
connections, she said, "Oh, you mean the aerobics crowd...".  <grin>

The crowd she swings with are all professionals, with at least a master's
degree or higher, and are all quite liberal.

I can't help but feel that some of this attempt to label various ways of having
sex is just a residue of sex-negativity; that somehow *my* polysexuality is OK,
because it isn't like *her* polysexuality, because mine is more
intimate/responsible/relational/long-term/???  [pick one or more].  

IMO, a more sex-positive approach is one I learned from my teen-aged kids &
their friends:  they don't use labels at all, and (for instance) when asked if
they are heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, they reply "I'm sexual".  

One of our long-term UU folks here had a .sig that I love, that goes something
like this:

"We have these relationships, and *then* we try to put labels on them."


> 2. Practioners of poly, etc. I think it is both vastly oversimplified
> and promotes poor critical thinking to talk about polys and swingers
> as if they were both homogenous groups and mutually exclusive. Any
> accurate description of people who consider themselves poly and or
> swinger would, as your post suggests, have to look at the diversity
> of motivation, personal style, rules, found among the group members
> and the plain fact that the same person could do both practices.

And that over time, people may well move back and forth, or in between, or
somewhere else entirely.  I would want to raise the question explicitly:  What
is the point of making this distinction?  I think a lot of the reason that the
poly vs. swinger discussion takes on so much intensity is that people are
strongly triggered by the distinction, but they haven't examined why the
distinction matters to them.  

> 3. The culture associated with or imagined with the practice. Some of
> us associate various cultural trappings with "polys", and I think
> this needs to be looked at objectively. It may be true that people
> who are science fiction fans, pagans, liberals, UU's, etc are often
> found in the poly community, but all these cultural attributes are
> not definitive of or necessary to the practice of polyamory. It is
> formally possible that someone could practice polyamory, ie have poly
> relationships and also be an adulterer, rapist, or even a Republican.

Here in the DC area, the main poly group includes people with a wide range of
political and personal perspectives, including many who could be described as
"right-wing conservative" or "right-wing libertarian"; it's not a particularly
liberal or pagan or sci-fi group (though there are a number of UU's).

Michael Rios