Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: question
From: woodhous@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Joe P Woodhouse)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 06:35:05 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

anonymus+1542@godiva.nectar.cs.cmu.edu (Lisa) writes:
>Just wanted to say that I was really glad to read Joe's post on his defintion
>of his polyamoury -- cause it fits in better with how I feel.

   [sigh of relief]

   I have always felt very much out on a limb whenever I've said that here...


>I don't go for
>the 'primary, secondary' partner bit -- I really can't see myself defining any
>of my 'important' relationships as the most primary -- with people that I love
>or really really care about, trying to classify who is most important is really
>not a good thing for me.

   Not to mention, perhaps simply being impossible? 8->

   What sometimes annoys me is that people assume I *do* have a primary.
Well, OK, I can see how it could maybe look like that, since I only at this
moment live with 1 of 6 loves (well, they're the only one in the same
country as me! 8->), and that partner *is* the one I've been with the
longest...but they're no more a primary than any of the others.

   I explained it like this recently - sure, my most recent r'ship (for
example) doesn't have the same amount of history as my r'ship with the 
love I live with...we don't have as extensive a private language yet,
and we're still fitting into each other and getting comfy. But so what?
I feel as strongly for both of them, and all the others.


>And it feels harder to figure out how to let potential partners know what my
>situation is, 'cause I'm not automatically assuming that my current
>relationship is 'primary' and my SO doesn't have veto power.

   Hmmm. I've just tended to explain that I see my r'ships as being basically
independent of each other...I don't see all my loves competing for some
finite central register of love-units, for example.

   Many of my loves were poly before they met me, which certainly helps a
lot! 8->


>He wants to know who it is 
>that I'm getting involved with, and we would certainly discuss it if he really
>didn't like somebody, but he doesn't get to make the decision for me and to me
>having veto power is making the decision for me.

   Bravo! A good way of putting it...I've always been *very* nervous saying
that I don't like veto arrangements - people have sometimes heard that to
mean I don't care about my partners' feelings. Which is not the case at all.

   [out on a limb again] I think I just can't get away from seeing veto as
being an expression of control, a limitation one partner puts on another.
And as those are the things I object to most in monogamy, bringing them into
the way I'm Poly just seems to be attempting to make a non-monoganmous
situation function monogamously. 

   Um, that might not have come out right. Specifically, I'm *not*
condemning these sorts of arrangements in others...just explaining why
they don't seem to work for *me*.

Joe.

  / Joe Woodhouse        / I'm just a sweet bisexual...   / Hello, there.
 / Latrobe University   /    (think - Rocky Horror)      / Threesomes are fun.
/ Melbourne, Australia / Music. Magic. Mathematics. Me. / I like cats! (miaow!)
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