Polyamory Fosters Sexual and Relationship Fluidity
Spring is a time for new growth, for expansion and for embracing life and love. Just a couple of days after the Vernal Equinox, my husband James and I took our ethical non-monogamy relationship to the next level when we played with our girlfriend Tamara and her pan-sexual friend Lane. It was the first opportunity for James to explore some bi-curious inclinations.
Four years ago when James and I first opened up our relationship, he agreed to my fantasy of a threesome with another man on the condition that we also find a woman to play with. We considered ourselves straight at that point, largely because we’d never had very much opportunity to be anything else and we knew we weren’t gay — and for most of our lives, those seemed like the only choices. I’ve always found some women attractive, but never enough to really seek out an opportunity to be with one. James has long been a bit curious about certain men as well. In other words, if asked if he finds men sexually attractive, he’d probably say “No, but I find that particular man attractive.”
Societal conditioning towards the binary is very strong. You’re either male or you’re female; either heterosexual or homosexual. But what James and I have come to discover is that we are both a bit sexually fluid. In general, I’m not a big fan of labels, but if I had to identify my sexual self in some way right now, that’s the term that seems to capture it best. In general, I’m more apt to be sexually and romantically interested in men, but the right woman can be the exception to that. In fact, right now James and I are both in love with the same woman — Tamara. We’ve been seeing her for about a year and a half now, and it’s progressed from fun and friendly sexual hookups to the place where we truly love each other and consider ourselves a bit of a throuple. And that’s yet another binary-buster, dismantling the idea that relationship can only be between two people at a time.
From what we’ve come to understand, sexual fluidity is pretty common in ethical non-monogamy— at least more common than in the vanilla world (which includes the part of the homosexual world that embraces monogamous pair bonding). There is no one way to go about polyamory and so there are no pre-fab roles or rules. Each relationship has to be entirely co-created by the participants. This is what makes room for all kinds of interesting and creative relationship incarnations. In addition to our love affair with Tam, I have an emotional relationship with a man whom I no longer get to see in person because we now live far apart. I consider him more than a boyfriend, along the lines of a life partner, even though I no longer have sex with him or even see him in person. When you get to make up your own parameters, all kinds of variety is possible.
Which brings me back to James and Lane. Lane identifies as pan-sexual. I’ve been with women who liked being with other women OK, but perhaps were doing it more to be edgy or to impress a guy. I imagine that there are guys out there who strongly prefer men, but who are willing to play with women. Lane was equally into both me and James and it made us both very comfortable. And it certainly made for a lot of interesting permutations of what we like to refer to as Hot Tetris.
What really struck me watching my husband kiss a man, watching them touch each other in overtly sexual ways, is that it did not come across as gay (as informed by media and social conditioning). It came across as two people kissing and having sexual contact. And that’s how I feel when I’m intimate with Tamara — like a person interacting with one of the people I love, who just happens to be a woman. I’ve never had the opportunity to be with someone who was non-binary, but I imagine it would be much the same, where that person and any potential attraction would be evaluated on an individual basis — as a person and not the representative of some category.
And I feel like I have polyamory to thank for that. After many, many years of fairly traditional monogamous marriage, opening up our relationship wasn’t without it’s bumps, but once we got through those places where our programming was running us, rather than our authentic desires, we found a place of expansion and growth for us as individuals and for us as a couple. Spring of 2015 blew the doors off of our old life, and although this Spring is not quite as dramatic, it’s another significant step into a world where who we are and what we do is informed solely by our hearts and minds, and not the relationship structures designed for us by others.
