A Primary Says...

[Piroska]

Nope. In fact in regards to relationships, anyone who is connected to a person would have to agree to it (so if Tighearn wanted a new relationship that either I or ancilla wasn't comfortable with he would not pull the dom card to make it work). We practice a family style semi-polyfi structure in our relationships so any additional ones would have to be ones that would fit with the family.
...
So just as I would speak with Woodsmith and Tighearn before going on a date with someone (and each have different levels; Woodsmith only cares when I first want to date someone and when sex first gets put up, Tighearn is also wanting to know if emotions are forming) both of them would do the same for me (and ancilla in Tighearn's case). Also all of us would have to meet the person ultimately in order to determine if they would fit in with the family (other wise they may still be able to have a bit of dating time but sex and talks of long term plans would be off the table for all members involved).

So it sounds like it's egalitarian inside of the established relationships - that each of you have some measure of control regarding each others' dating and so on - but in some ways it sounds a lot like a 'couple privilege' - only more like 'family privilege'.

If one of your existing partners could say 'well, this person you're interested in dating doesn't fit in with the family, therefore no sex or long term relationship with them' how is that different from what nycindie was describing, where a wife could say 'I'm not comfortable with the woman you're dating, you can't have sex with her anymore'?

 

[CattivaGattina]

I guess the thing that makes it a difference is that it would need to be more than one person stating that.

Right now N8 and ancilla are dating a couple who we all like but they don't necessarily want to have the idea of the whole family set up or things like that. Which means that at the end point it's likely that it becomes a more distant relationship because things would go different ways. So the reason sex is off the table (more so for ancilla than N8) is because of the fact none of us are really good at seperating sex from a deepening romantic connection. But if end goals are different it's generally advised (yes things can eventually change in regards to the sex thing with conversation) that sex and trying to form those deep connections aren't okay.