Pretty Polyamory

Pretty Poly Image: Dano172

What makes a successful relationship? It's up to the people involved, obviously, right? Yeah, right, as if that wouldn't put thousands of columnists and commentators out of a job. And I mean I had nothing to write about right now. So let's talk about sex, baby (and all the good things...). The Guardian wanted to celebrate valentine's day by asking if equality kills sex. There's some compelling stuff there - it would certainly seem that (heterosexual) couples who have a more equal distribution of labour have sex less often. But it also sounds from everything cited as if the people in these arrangements are generally happy with them. That having sex one time less a week is a decent tradeoff for spending your life with someone you actually like and not growing to hate them for never putting the damn rubbish out or putting the kids to bed.

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There's also a lot of talk about sexual difference. And how that can lead to sparks, for same ­sex as well as different sex couples. But when we talk about how women may be more attracted to certain masculine traits, I feel like maybe we should also be talking about the way the society we live in constructs ideas of gender and gender difference and feeds fantasies about certain roles.

Elsewhere, the Independent wants you to know that you might stay married longer if you 'outsource' certain parts of the marriage. Like sex. 

They're not even talking about cheating – the research quoted here talks about "an openly consensual non­monogamous relationship". Well yes, we have words and phrases to describe that along with thousands (millions?) of people actually practising various forms of non-­monogamous relationships.

I'm not here to advocate for any particular lifestyle, or to tell you that if you're happily monogamous (or anything else) you're somehow doing it wrong. I AM glad to see an increasing number of articles about different ways of living in the mainstream press. People are increasingly writing and talking about non­monogamous  set ups. Too often these are still centred around the love lives of middle­class white folk (or assumed to be); and there's still a lot of focus on polyamorous relationships that are heterosexual or have a heterosexual couple at the centre of the story. 

There's very little, if any, mainstream discussion of how disabilities or financial constraints might affect people who want to pursue different relationship options but are hemmed in by factors that limit their options on top of a society that assumes those options either don't exist, or shouldn't exist for you. But hey, it's a start.

Sometimes I feel like I should make flags and tshirts saying 'polyamory for successful living!' 

Sometimes I feel like I should make flags and tshirts saying 'polyamory for successful living!' Except of course it's not that simple, and "defining the relationships you want whether those are monogamous, polyamorous, sexual or asexual or some combination of the above - and communicating clearly with the people you love for sometimes satisfying, sometimes frustrating but hopefully fulfilling living. Sometimes" doesn't fit as easily on printed materials.

But let's keep this conversation going. Let's talk about different ways of living. Let's talk about whether you have to shag someone to love them, and vice versa. Maybe the whole way we've set up everything to do with love - marriage - sex - expectations around relationships - maybe it's all beyond fucked up. Maybe it works for a few people and for others it is horribly constricting and unhappy­making. Perhaps we should try on some new perspectives. Maybe.

Squeamish Louise