What I Find Exciting About Polyamory

Recently Crabmommy commented on Miriam Axel-Lute's excellent essay, And Baby Makes Four, in which Miriam talks about the benefits of poly parenting. Several of us responded with information about polyamory in general as questions by other commenters were posted. We polyfolk were focusing on the practical benefits of polyamory, but Crabmommy wanted to hear about the exciting stuff, stating that calendars and scheduling sounded very boring and like a lot of work. And of course, we polyfolk had intentionally not focused on sex when explaining our relationships.

Since Crabmommy was so respectful and seemed so sincere in her interest, here's how I responded.

It's exciting to be loved by more than one person. It's amazing to have the ardor of more than one, have more than one who is happy to kiss you hello, happy to cuddle with you, and yes, happy to make love with you. It's very validating. And it helps a lot in that we don't end up in the rut many find themselves in in long term monogamous relationships, no matter how committed and generally satisfied we are with that partnership.

Especially when we are getting involved with someone new, we have all the same falling in love excitement (we call that new relationship energy). That excitement follows us home to our existing relationships and often recharges them as well. We are grateful to our existing partners for their generosity of spirit in being willing to share us, and that enhances the existing relationship even more.

And yes, making love with and being pleasured by two people creates a lot more sexual energy and powerful loving feelings than we experience with one. This is not to put that down, one-on-one sex has it's own charm and intensity and is plenty gratifying for plenty of people, myself included. Most poly people still have sex the majority of the time with only one person at a time. Some never have sex with more than one at a time and conduct their relationships separately. That's certainly true for me and my partner these days.

It's exciting to be in relationship with someone who doesn't want to own you and who doesn't have excessive expectations about your meeting all their needs all the time, someone with the confidence to give you the gift of freedom to love others without being threatened. It's not always easy, but those who succeed at this eventually get to that point, and it's a powerful bonding experience when they do.

After having been cheated on in a former marriage, it is also exciting to me to know that the trade off for sharing my partner with others is that he's never going to cheat on me and I don't have to worry about going through that kind of betrayal and heartbreak again. There's no reason for him to.

For some it's exciting to have an extended family, a "bouquet of lovers" as Morning Glory Zell, the person who coined the term "polyamory", referred to it in her excellent essay of that title, penned in 1990. We and our partners gather with their partners for holidays, birthdays, commitment ceremonies, and so forth. It's sort of an instant group with whom to party and celebrate.