Poly versus Sluttiness

In our case, a one-night stand can be and is VERY polyamorous, because it has positive emotional implications for us as a couple, regardless of what went on with the third party. If it becomes more than just a fuck, then the polyamory extends to the third party, I guess. lol They are now engaged in a polyamorous-style relation, on some level, to be determined in time.
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IMO, that's like saying "I'm a vegetarian, but I eat chicken."

If you start defining the words the way YOU want them to mean, rather than the way the majority of the community accepts them to mean, then the words become meaningless.

You can say that a one-night stand is polyamory, but it's not.
You can say that the person you had the one-night stand with is polyamorous, but he or she is not.

All you're really doing by applying the word polyamory to something that isn't, is placing your own moral judgements on the words involved, and making it more confusing for those who don't understand the difference.
 
crisare said:
All you're really doing by applying the word "poly" to something that isn't, is placing your own moral judgements on the words involved and making it more confusing for those who don't understand the difference.
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Right. Although polyamory is a form of non-monogamy, all non-monogamy is not polyamory. Saying "poly" when one means "non-monogamy" only confuses matters.
 
I think this discussion in the thread is proof that this majority of yours isn't quite so settled on this rigid definition of yours. *shrug*

I'm with you guys, BTW. Look at the (how many now?) other threads about this very topic. I DO believe in preserving the difference of the term and its connotations. I just don't see this big majority agreement on the definition that you do.
 
SeventhCrow said:
If you tell me you're poly, I'm not going to assume that you're open for casual sex or swing. If you tell me you have an open relationship, I'm not going to assume you're poly or that you swing. If you tell me you swing, I'm not going to assume it's an open relationship or that you're poly. You tell me you're poly and I assume that you engage in more than one romantic relationship at a time--that's it.
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Oh man. Thanks, Seventhcrow. As simple as this is, I finally understand a helluva lot better.
 
i don't know how we could measure what the majority people who identify as poly would define as poly, and anyway i don't support majority-based decision-making. i work through concensus.

clearly there is no concensus about what poly means so we may have to accept that polyamorous people are diverse in their thoughts and practises.
 
I guess the part I find annoying and frustrating is this-- many words in our language have been used (and abused) to the point that even reasonably intelligent people can't communicate with one another using them, without first going over definitions, something that requires a lot of time to lay out a "language" before they can even have a productive conversation together.

Part of the reason this happens is because people choose to define words as they want to.

I don't give a damn about majority or consensus. What I do care about is that polyamory has a definition that has been accepted for years and years. Poly comes from what language before English, ye educated ones? And amory, again, is a word with a definition from a language prior to English.

When one takes a term that already has an accepted and understood definition (or two) and creates a new compound word, it is unreasonable to decide that you will redefine one or both of the base words in the compound word in order to create a new definition for the word you are creating. This is a blatant abuse of the language and is one of the primary causes of miscommunication between people.

In the polyamory world, it is said that communication is one of the most important things for us to focus on. So why would anyone who wants to claim to be polyamorous also want to intentionally make themselves part of a movement that causes miscommunication?

Feel free to either consider that question rhetorical or to start a thread on the topic.
 
many words in our language have been used (and abused) to the point that even reasonably intelligent people can't communicate with one another using them, without first going over definitions. Something that requires a lot of time to lay out a "language" before they can even have a productive conversation together.

Part of the reason this happens is because people choose to define words as they want to. So why would anyone who wants to claim to be polyamorous also want to intentionally make themselves part of a movement that causes miscommunication?
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Amen to the whole freakin' post! :D

Words are important. Language evolves over time, yes. But there is a difference between language evolving and someone taking a word with an already-established definition and saying "I've decided that I think it means X, not Y."

As I said before, it's like telling people that you're vegetarian, but you eat chicken and expecting everyone to accept that YOU define vegetarian as someone who eats chicken simply because you don't want to be tied into the "majority" definition of vegetarian.
 
crisare said:
Amen to the whole freakin' post! :D

Words are important. Language evolves over time, yes. But there is a difference between language evolving and someone taking a word with an already established definition and saying "I've decided that I think it means X, not Y."

As I said before, it's like telling people that you're vegetarian, but you eat chicken and expecting everyone to accept that YOU define vegetarian as someone who eats chicken simply because you don't want to be tied into the "majority" definition of vegetarian.
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Wouldn't that actually fit under flexitarian? I myself have been primarily a pescatarian (no eggs/dairy), working towards vegetarian, with a goal of then going vegan, to eating primarily raw foods. But yeah, it would be ridiculous for me to say I'm a vegan!
 
See, YGirl and Dakid and I (so far in this thread, lol) would agree-- "many loves" works and is accurate.

People have different definitions of "love." Several people here are insisting that "many loves" applies only to a specific definition of love.

Furthermore, some are saying that certain behavior falls under the umbrella as it applies to their respective poly relationships, and are being told they are wrong; which truly amazes me, to be honest. There's a pretty substantial amount of SOMETHING I don't like present in that kind of judgment.
 
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Several people here are insisting that "many loves" applies only to a specific definition of love. Some here are saying that certain behavior falls under the umbrella as it applies to their respective poly relationships, and are being told they are "wrong," which truly amazes me, to be honest. There's a pretty substantial amount of SOMETHING I don't like present in that kind of judgment.
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I don't think anyone is being told that they have to define "love" a certain way. But I'll go back to my analogy above: if you tell people you're vegetarian, but you eat fish and chicken, then you're not vegetarian. And you can say "that's how *I* define vegetarian" all you want, but it still doesn't make you right.

Eating meat isn't wrong. Being a vegetarian isn't wrong. But you can't claim to be one and do the other and expect people to say "ok".

No one is being told their relationships are wrong, but they are being told that saying a relationship is a polyamorous relationship doesn't necessarily make it one. That's not passing judgment on anyone's relationships. It's asking for clarity in communication and definitions of terms.
 
Everyone seemed to agree that our relationship with Anne was polyamorous. It ended disastrously, but it was, apparently, satisfactory as a polyamorous relationship.

Then I say that when Violet allows me my "playmates," or we have a fuckbuddy, we consider it poly, because of how it effects OUR relationship, regardless of the formal situation with any of the given partners, be they a formal triad with Anne, or some girl from work who booty calls me after clearing with Violet that our arrangement is, in fact, as she understands it, or something else. And I'm argued with.
 
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