Someone on another list recently asked for a description of how someone "who actively and openly participates in the Poly lifestyle" experiences intimacy.

My reply follows.

I don't participate in any "lifestyle". I simply live my life. There's no membership card nor administration council.

I also don't have "primaries" and "secondaries" as to me, that's too rigid, too linear, too much like exclusivity. The place I first heard that language, (primaries/secondaries), was from "Love Without Limits" by Deborah Anapol and her definition included sharing living space, money, children, etc, which I don't currently share with any of my partners. Her definition of primary doesn't include making primary an exclusive position but rather includes the possibility of a group household.

Me, I'm autistic. A group household would pretty much be my definition of hell, even if I loved everyone involved dearly. I need my time and space alone and apart to recharge. Group and social experiences are always challenging for me and are often far more like work than they are like fun. Experiences with one other person, occasionally two, work ok for me. The smaller the group, the more we know each other in context, the stronger our defined roles, the easier it is for me. While the idea of a poly family isn't totally out of the question for me, it's also not something I seek. Nor do I seek polyfidelity, (groups which exclusivity rules), nor N-way relationships, (triads, quads, etc). I'm simply me. I date. I have relationships. And the people I date also date other people and have other relationships. Sometimes we know the other people involved and sometimes we don't depending on a number of factors including geography, which communities we might share, who knew whom before relationships formed, individual strategies for dealing with jealousy/insecurity, etc. I tend to refer to my form of poly as "network" poly in the sense that I'm part of a network of relationships that extends pretty much infinitely in all directions.

Over the 20 years that I've been practicing poly, I've had a number of longer term relationships including one that's going on 10 years, and a half dozen or so in the 3 - 4 year range. Those are relationships that have been more or less consistent, where we meet, talk, play, etc, on at least a monthly basis, usually weekly. I also have more relationships than I can count which are more or less ongoing, but which aren't scheduled nor do they have any particular period. They're more like off and on relationships, or relationships that are slightly more distant. Some of the 3 - 4 year relationships have faded into the latter category and if we include the latter category, then I have probably another half dozen relationships that are in the 10 year old range. And if we add tantric lovers, or playmates, then the number of relationships expands again.

What I do with these people varies. Most are intimate friends and we talk and write and often share online forums where we do more of that. Some are lovers in the sexual sense. Some are SM playmates where we play at parties but don't generally have sex in particular. Others are social partners and we go out together and spend time in other communities, bdsm, swingers, tantra, or other special interest groups. A few have been or continue to be d/s partners in the sense that our relationship has at some time or another been based on a d/s dynamic.

Poly is, IME, easier than monogamy for a number of reasons. It's not easier in the sense of being emotionally easier - it's isn't emotionally easier. Emotionally it's possible to check out of a monogamous relationship for decades, even a life time and to live in that sort of absentee relationship indefinitely. I think that many long term monogamous relationships go through periods of that sort of absenteeism and that many simply check out after the first few years.

It's also possible to hold a monogamous d/s relationship together for at least a couple years based solely on romance, fantasy, and projection about who we think our partners are rather than who they really are. Poly doesn't prevent this, but it does make these sorts of fantasies significantly more difficult to maintain for any length of time unless everyone involved "drinks the kool-aid" and then what you end up with is something more akin to a cult than a family.

The trick to poly is exactly the same as the trick to SM. The skills in one directly transfer to the other. And yes, I'm making a clear distinction here between SM and d/s. While the two overlap, there are some significant distinctions and this is one of them. While it's possible to check out of an SM scene too, experienced players don't let that happen without some clear context. We call that dissociation and a dissociated partner is not, at the time, expressing consent. What happens when one person has dissociated fades from mutually consensual into the gray area between mutually consensual and abuse/assault/rape.

In d/s, it's easy to believe that the gray areas are the point and to live entire relationships in the gray - this is exactly what happens in most domestic abuse situations. However, it's much more difficult to live in the gray area when the gray area physically hurts as with SM. Frontier exploration in consensual SM requires active concentration and clear intention. If either of those falter, the experience changes rapidly from one of wonder and ecstacy into one of horror and simple pain, (not that the two can' be mutual exclusive :).

The "trick" to SM is to learn to talk with your partner clearly - to express needs and desires, boundaries and limits, and to do so while playing as well as before and after play. That same skill, the ability to ask for what you need, be it reassurance, information, hand holding, and to state and defend your own limits is precisely the skill that is necessary to maintain and navigate poly relationships. Both SM and poly relationships are also supported by strong communities and by adopting some of the community values. For instance, both SM and poly require periodic self examination - harsh self examination which requires learning to come to terms with truth about yourself that you might rather never see. Doing so is a spiritual act and an ongoing process which is vital and necessary to the ongoing practice of either of these. People who balk, who can't look at themselves or who look at themselves but can't accept what they find tend to break relationships and cause "drama" in the community. Sometimes that's ok, that's part of what the community support network exists to support. But at the same time, it's necessary for everyone involved to appreciate the goal of self development and the evolution of self awareness that allows for greater intimacy.

Tantra, too, has these characteristics. However, with western tantra it's possible to become stalled in the process without necessarily causing grief for anyone else. In both poly and SM, there are other people involved who will demand one's growth. Failing to participate in such growth will often lead to losing relationships and/or community which can be a heavy blow indeed. That's often a considerable motivator. In contrast, d/s virtually requires that some elements of self remain hidden in order for the romance of d/s to continue to have that magic that people crave an adore.

Poly has been easier for me for a number of reasons. First, as with many autistic people, I greatly favor direct communications. I don't necessarily recognize hints nor do other people generally recognize my hints when I use them. Tantra, SM, and poly are all greatly improved by this sort of communications and the communities around them teach this. Romance, however, and the strains of d/s which are predicated on romance are all greatly damaged by this sort of direct communication. While tantra/SM/poly all teach that romance qualifies as fantasy play and that direct communications is the only way to increase true intimacy, the magic of romance, and of d/s based on romance, is based on some things, some key things, being specifically and intentionally out of conscious awareness.

For me that's very hard. While I do enjoy romance and fantasy, I also need to be able to talk about them and talk about them directly. I don't necessarily know what people will need to keep hidden so it needs to be socially acceptable for me to ask questions about things people deny. I'm going to do it anyway because I don't know when it will or won't be socially acceptable so I may as well find a social environment that values the fact that I do so. Tantra, SM, poly, and many paths of self development all value this trait of mine so working in those worlds becomes easier for me.

Similarly, I don't learn social rules or social behavior the way most people do. Rather, I need to have them spelled out directly and explicitly. I have training in NLP and hypnosis, so I've learned how to ask some of the questions in ways that are extremely subtle sometimes, but I still need explicit directions in many cases or I won't understand what social behavior is expected.

In poly and in SM, and to some degree, in tantra, what matters more than social behavior is how we behave with our partners. No where else in my life has it been more blatantly obvious that different people want different things and that no single formula will make everyone happy than in these areas. Also, no two people are alike. While the patterns, feelings and behavior all repeat, they don't repeat in the same ways from one person to the next. It has been easy for me to learn to ask my partner for what they want as the way for me to learn my interpersonal cues. It's obvious to me that my partner is the most authoritative source of that info and I can generally ask for as much detail as I need. Contrast with, say, d/s where people tend to bring preconceived notions about their roles into a d/s relationship and if their partner doesn't match their expectation, would often prefer to find a partner who did match than discuss the situation to adjust. As many d/s players have told me during potential SM negotiations, "If I have to talk about it, then it won't really be d/s. It won't have that magic - that romance."

Well, sure. But at the same time, I also have no idea what that person might want. They're suggesting that I mind read or that we might just "get lucky" and randomly happen to want the same things. However, I'm extremely weird. I'm not normal. And I promise you that it's extremely rare that someone else and I want the same things, although we frequently want compatible or complementary things.

Poly works the same way for me. I can talk to my partner about what they want, what I want, how we feel, what we would need in some situations, what has meaning and therefor needs to be tread carefully for one of us or another, or what doesn't, and therefor needs little or no caution around it. In the monogamous world, people frequently become offended by those questions. It's like the question of prenuptial agreements - is it simply prudent? or does it presage an expectation of failure to the relationship? Everyone is simply supposed to "just know" what qualifies as monogamy and what violates it. But frankly, anything "everyone knows", I don't know. The word for that "not knowing" is autism but nonetheless, I don't know.

Can I go to a movie with a female friend? Or would that be violating my monogamy agreement? Can I kiss her? What about oral sex? (Cause "everyone knows" and our president said that oral sex isnt' real sex.) What if I'm bisexual? Can I go to a movie with a male friend? Can I kiss him? If all of these things violate a monogamous agreement, then does that mean I simply have to stay home with my monogamous partner forever? And if my partner interprets my even asking these questions as tantamount to breaking up, then does that mean I simply have to risk my entire relationship each time? Or that I have to stay home and never do anything with anyone else?

I never did figure these things out when I was practicing monogamy. And while I'm practicing poly, I don't have to because discussing them is expected and nearly required, which is much easier for me.

Also, relationships don't come easy to me. They're hard to find because finding them means being social which is something which is considerably challenging for me. My relationships mean a lot to me and I'll bend considerably in order to retain one.

When I was practicing monogamy, I didn't even realize how far I could bend or was bending. I didn't notice when a relationship became so restricting that it wasn't fun, enjoyable, or supportive any more. I was particularly susceptible to all of the traps people fall into - where emotionality, even negative emotionality can stand in for intimacy, where mutual fear stands in for security, where security stands in for excitement, where excitement stands in for intimacy, etc. I simply had a difficult time evaluating any of my relationships because a) I didn't have anyone other than my partner to talk to about them, and these aren't questions for one's partner in general and b) I had no context against which to compare.

These days, I examine my relationships more frequently - poly has a way of forcing that to happen periodically whether you're up for it or not. I do compare my relationships. If one has a problem and another does not, then I look to the one which does not have the problem in order to find solutions. If several relationships all have a similar problem, that's a pretty good clue to me that there's something about myself I need to either come to terms with or change. Similarly if one of my partners has a similar problem in several of their relationships. Also, I have other relationship partners to talk to. If I'm having trouble in one relationship, who better to talk to about it aside from that partner than my other intimate partners - my friends, my lovers, the people who care about me and who are, albeit indirectly, affected by how that relationship is running?

In summary, poly isn't emotionally easier. It's hard. There's emotional and spiritual work involved. Like SM and tantra, you can't really be successful at it if you aren't willing to do that work. Although it works in reverse too - if you're willing to do that work, poly, tantra, and SM will help you locate the work to be done and will help you process it as well. IME, monogamy and d/s don't require that work. It's available to some degree if you and your partner both want to pursue it, but it's also anathema to the romance to a large degree.

I had no trouble sticking with one sexual partner when I was practicing monogamy. I never cheated. (Extreme honesty and integrity is another autistic trait). However, where I am now in my life, which includes interests in sex magic, SM, d/s, tantra, relationships, intimacy, ecstasy, shamanism, movies, computer games, entheogens, etc, I find it extremely difficult to find any single partner who is interested in all of those things as would be required by a commitment to monogamy. Poly simply makes more sense to me for my life at the moment and for the foreseeable future. It simply works for me and creates both more intimacy and more concrete spiritual paths through self development than monogamy ever did.