There are a lot of different types of poly relationship structures and different names for them. The base unit of relationship is a standard couple where 2 people are together. Add another person in and they can either be in a relationship with only one of those people and form a “hinge” aka “V” or be in a relationship with both of those people and form a “triad” aka “throuple”. As many people as those involved consent to can be added this way.
Most of the time it’s one person who is in a relationship with multiple people who are each in relationships with multiple people. This forms a “polycule”. Where you have the people you’re in relationships with aka your “paramours” and they have the people they’re in relationships with aka your “metamours”. This group of relationships can take many forms and can be drawn out into a cool diagram like a molecule, hence the name polycule.
The people you’re in a relationship with can break up with you like in any other relationship and vice versa. It’s more complicated when you add in housing situations if you’re all living together, multiple people are all dating each other, or if two people are married.
Using one of my breakups as an example:
I’ve been in a triad where one person broke up with the other. I was then put in the middle of their breakup drama. I set a boundary of not wanting to deal with their drama/shit talking of the other. One of them kept breaking that boundary, so I broke up with that person while still being in a relationship with the other. Luckily I was living with the person I stayed with or that would’ve been way more complicated.Man I can’t even form a diatomic bond and y’all mfs getting polysaccharides and shit
I dated a free radical once. Nothing but broken bonds left in her wake.
I thought myself noble, a gas at social gatherings. But, always ended up alone. As if I had a shell that kept people out.
if only STI’s weren’t a thing, polycules would be great….
but, i’d rather be single than have to deal with pustules on my genitals for life….
….
i bet they’d all be cured by now if idiots didn’t see it as some divine retribution….Yeah, anyone practicing safely can avoid that issue.
Yep, this is exactly it. Practice safe sex, get on PrEP for HIV prevention, talk about testing and status with any potential sexual partners in or out of the polycule, and get tested every 3-6 months.
Yeah. My polycule is small but my friend is in a big multinational one. They have a google doc spreadsheet with STD results and sexual relationship tracking (fluid bonded, barriers, etc).
Yup! And if that’s too much of an ask, interrelationship dynamics are probably too much of a ask as well!
yes because you can absolutely trust and guarantee safety amongst everyone in your polycule, and because you can totally be safe from STI’s that are transmitted by skin contact….
you can be safer, but not safe
Yeah it’s better to just be alone forever. Isolation smisolation
nothing is completely safe… walking down the street isn’t completely safe….
acknowledging risks isn’t the same as saying don’t take any risks….
chump.Lol. Obviously. You said polycules can’t be great, not me.
i said no such thing
You know we can test for those things now, right? As long as everyone remains faithful to their partners its not an issue.
If 300 people all get tested and are clean, they can all get together every night for a massive orgy and there is zero STI risk. As long as none of them sleep with anyone outside of the group that hasn’t been tested.
you can’t just test for these things without symptoms.
most of these diseases have dormant phases and active phases… like a cold sore….I don’t know how healthcare works where you live, but here you can. Its free, no questions asked. Get the results a couple of weeks later.
they don’t test for every single disease… it’s not where i live, it’s medical technology….
show me a screening test that tests for every single SDI or STFU….repeating yourself is pointless. gimme proof or i do not care about the words you’re typing on here.
show me… any country, any price, show me your comprehensive, 100% accurate screening of every possible STI… or even something close to that… i’ll hold my breath.
Chlamydia, syphilis, HIV, gonorrhoea. Sure you could have herpes and that isn’t tested for there but it has pretty obvious symptoms. Its generally a good enough test for the general population and if you need something more specific you can just list your symptoms.
lol… 4 is not a screen for **all STI’**s… and your dismissal of any other risk is insane.
if herpes was that simple to stop, then nobody would have herpes… and that’s just one of the many that aren’t tested for.
once you have symptoms, it’s usually too late.
i’ll hold my breath
Please do. The gene pool could use some bleach.
they responded with “it tests for 3 diseases “.
which is a lot different than screening for all of them.
you come across as someone that misrepresents and lies about the reality of risks in order to get their partner to agree to something they otherwise wouldn’t….
also, weak ass popsicle stick insult.
Er? You absolutely can do an STI screen without symptoms. Some of the most common STIs don’t even usually have symptoms.
not how that works, virgin
LOL. I know that’s how it works because I’ve done it several times.
lol, and how many STI’s does that screen test for? HIV and Hepatitis only?
I am unsure if that is completely true as my past experience in the lifestyle was that everyone was very on top of regular STI (think you meant this not SDI) testing and safe sex practices to protect all involved, whereas normal dating there is a lot less of that plus secret polycules you are not even aware you are in (cheating). Not seen a study on this but this was my observation at least.
Yeah my fluid bonded girlfriend had a condom break with her other boyfriend. So she just told me and we switched to condoms until she could get retested. No big deal.
If we hadn’t been poly it would either have been a I cheated on you conversation or worse she exposed my to possible STD without my consent.
STI… but the problems with people cheating are present in polycules or any other relationship…
people lie and cheat….i’m not saying they’re completely bad and nobody should ever do it (sorry downvoters, you have my blessings), it’s just the kind of thing that concerns me in these scenarios….
afaik, people tend to do things like get herpes, not tell anyone, and tell people it’s not even worth tripping over… just a lil herpes…
and as long as your polycule isn’t a closed loop, it’s essentially infinitely large….
Personally I would never be in a relationship with someone who would do that but i am pretty picky with very firm boundaries.
people i wouldn’t think would do such things end up surprising me
Yeah no one would fuck with me like that besides my family if they had a legit convo with me. Over text is kind of whatever. Its like that Tyler tweet one sec I’ll find it
STI you are correct. I realized this earlier when I was reading reading. I will fix.
STD isn’t wrong, it’s just an older term…
Watch out for those sexually dransmitted illnesses
Don’t be a grammar Elon
people really hate typos
gets voted out
slowly takes out an immunity totem i found in a charity shop.
Imagine getting broken up with by 2 people, both with non-binary haircuts. I’d probably jump into a river and become a trout
B E C O M E T R O U T
This vaguely reminds me of the song Fish Sticks by The Heligoats:
You were baptized in a river
I was thrown off a bridge
Then I landed on a crab you slept with seahorses
I started having seizures, you started having kids
You found your inner self, I found my inner fish
What’s a non-binary haircut?
IT AFFECTED THE TROUT POPULATION
Is there a poly equivalent of something like the Magna Carta?
I have heard of something called the “poly bill of rights” IIRC
Lemmy needs an out of context community
<serious> They mostly don’t. Poly people think they do, but you see far, far more relationship volatility in polyerotic relationships than you do in monogamous.
Edit: I see that I’m getting downvoted by the people that are in non-monogamous relationships. Fact is that when you talk to sex-positive sex and relationship counselors, they will almost universally say that functional polyerotic relationships are the equivalent of post-doctoral work, while most people have relationship abilities equivalent to a barely-literate middle school level. It’s not that multiamorous relationships are bad or wrong, or that the people that engage in them are wretched examples of humans (…although there are certainly more than a few of those) or anything like that, but to be functional that type of relationship requires a far greater level of self-awareness and honesty than most people are capable of. Hence the reason that they tend to be so volatile; more moving parts, more chances to fuck up.
In my personal experience I have found that most multiamorous relationships are more casual and less emotionally intimate (e.g., more shallow) than monogamous relationships. The people I have personally observed, including my own partners, have had less time to spend with any single person, and were more likely to jettison relationships rather than putting in the hard work to fix problems.
I feel like there’s too many poly relationship structures to be able to generalise them all like that.
There’s plenty of people who have open relationships, where two people have a very close relationship (sometimes married) but they aren’t sexually exclusive with each other.
I’d also wager that some poly relationship structures would be more stable for lgbt people rather than heterosexual people, solely on the idea that everyone could participate more equally.
None of what I said is restricted to any specific form of multiamorous relationship, or any sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. Most of the people trying to engage in polyerotic relationships–by which I mean the overwhelming majority–are people that have signed up for an ultramarathon before they can successfully complete a 5k fun run.
We’re really just sharing opinions though, not facts.
I haven’t found any solid evidence that poly relationships are inherently more difficult or prone to failure than monogamous relationships. Long-lasting relationships are just hard in general.
My opinion is strictly anecdotal; I’m not a professional, I can only speak to what I’ve personally seen, and that may or may not be representative.
OTOH, if sex and relationship counselors are saying that the overwhelming majority of people are doing multiamory badly, then their opinions have a lot more weight. Are they necessarily correct? No, of course not, any more than the opinion of any one doctor could be full of shit (see also: any doctor that thinks trans-ideology is a woke-mind virus, or whatever they’re saying now). But it has a lot more weight than opinions of non-professionals.
Are most relationship counselors saying that though?
Like you said, professionals can be wrong, but I’d still be interested in knowing what the general consensus is.I guess it’s hard to know without surveying them all.
I would have to look up names, but yes, all of the sex therapists and relationship counselors that I have personally heard talking about it specifically say that it’s a very advanced form of relationship, that it’s far, far more difficult than any conventional/monogamous relationship, and that most of the people doing them are doing them badly.
Is that authoritative? No. There definitely could be selection bias in that the podcasts and interviews that I choose to listen to, and the articles that I choose to read, that touch on sex, sexuality, and relationships are also ones that will confirm my opinion. (And this opinion, BTW, did not exist before I was in a multiamorous relationship for about 3, maybe 4 years.) I like to think that I’m pretty open about sex, sexuality, and relationships, that I don’t assign any particular morality to any given practice, and that I look largely at how well people find their own individual needs being met within relationships rather than whether the structure is A or B. But, at the same time, I was raised in a culture that is primarily monogamous (often serially monogamous), and normalizes that style of relationship, so I might have unconscious implicit bias.
People be down voting you, but as someone in a years long poly relationships, most people are definitely not capable of handling it. Most people can’t even handle monogamous relationships.
Sigh… Another thing I really doubt I’ll ever get- a throuple of myself, a femboy and a tattooed anarchist punk with green hair, who’s just rlly cooooool.
🙄
That is a highly specific matchup you are aiming for. Might happen if you loosen the hair colour or tatoos criteria.
Haha yeah ofc ofc. It’s just uk… a fantasy…
Basically, I have a crush on this fellow from a comic I really like.
Might happen if you loosen the hair colour or tatoos criteria.
Really? I always figured that throuples were very rare (where all partners love each other equally without there being a “main couple” dynamic). Like… How do you even go around dating for a “throuple”?
No idea. I am as basic as they come in regards to relationships.
