by Shaun Mcgonigal

Created on: April 09, 2009

What is polyamory? What would it mean to become polyamorous? Polyamory is much more prevalent than you may think.

Earlier in its history, polyamory was often called non-monogamy. It was a reaction to the social norm of monogamous coupling, which to many seemed artificial and arbitrary. People began to notice that the underpinnings of so-called normal society, where people are supposed to get married and remain with only that person for the rest of their lives. This is what is expected by most, as anything else will threaten the very nature of relationships and possibly society.

Really?

Since that time, polyamory has had time to mature into a community that advocates more than just mere non-monogamy. We are a group of people that understand that relationships of all kinds already exist in our lives. When we are able to share our lives with many different people in many different ways, then we benefit greatly as a result. We have learned to share our lives in ways that eschew the assumed normality of sexual monogamy. That, and only that, is the difference between polyamory and what people think of as normal. In order to live a polyamorous lifestyle, all you have to do is to not accept the automatic assumption of monogamy as the goal of any romantic or sexual relationship.

Non-monogamy is already a part of the normal world. It's just that the apparent distinct difference of this radical idea from what we are used to, because of its association with polygamist cults and other groups that genuinely manipulate people into non-monogamous situations, make us uncomfortable with the idea before we even know what it is. That is, we distance ourselves from non-monogamy because it seems radical and fringe. It isn't.

The fact is that we already do this in society. We have friends who fulfill roles for us that our significant other cannot or does not. And over the years, in most relationships, there will be times when we act on our sexual desires in ways that eschew the monogamous lives that we try to pursue. I'm sure that you, my dear reader, can imagine a plethora of examples where this could happen and yet its occurrence does nothing to make you love your partner any less, but would only add to the depth of your life. If we as a society understood this, then we would not assume monogamy as the automatic value and goal of a relationship, and polyamory would feel as natural as it actually is.

Often, when faced with situations where we find ourselves drawn to someone else sexually,

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