Some non monogamy styles + terms
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Hello, I thought I would do installment umber two on non-monogamy and talk about some of the like terms and like words that are used in non monogamy commonly that you may or may not know about. So, here we go. So non-monogamy os like, obviously is like not monogamy. So let’s start off by saying, what monogamy is… monogamy, is what most of society expects of relationships that are romantic and/or sexual. So, monogamy is like, two people get together and they’re together and they don’t see anybody else, and it’s just them basically, in the relationship. This is like a very watered-down like, basic bones version. So, there’s, a term for the expectation of what monogamous relationships should be in terms of like the trajectory of the relationship. So, there’s this thing called the relationship escalator, which is… you’re probably familiar with it, you should know there’s a term, which is when two people maybe they have a crush on each other, and then they start dating, and then they move in together and get married and have babies and buy a house and live together, forever, and die together forever, you know, so it’s like that’s the relationship escalator. That’s like the Milestone goal post. The things that you’re expected to do in a traditional monogamous relationship, that’s called the relationship escalator.
I took the escalator all the way to the top minus the kids and buying a house and I realized, I don’t like this shit actually at all. So I stepped off of it. So non-monogamy is where your relationships are not necessarily following that script. Non-monogamy has many different ways that people can have relationships. And I’m not going to go over every single one because I have a limited experience with all of them. Like not, I don’t have experience being like in a Triad or something, so I’m not going to… but how do I go over this? Non monogamy is like the broad overall thing. If you think of it as an umbrella, non monogamy is like the top big broad umbrella and then underneath that there’s a lot of different kinds of non monogamy. There’s like swinging which you’ve probably heard of, I don’t have experience with that. There’s polyamory which you’ve probably heard of, which is poly means many and amory is love like amore. So polyamory is Many Loves, so you’re in multiple committed relationships. There’s solo polyamory, which is more along the lines of what I would consider myself which is where your primary, like, your main relationship is with yourself and then you also have relationships with other people, but you don’t put other people above yourself. Obviously, there’s like… if an emergency situations, I’m going to go help somebody but I don’t like prioritize any single person in my life other than myself and the Earth because I’m ecosexual. If you don’t know what that is and you’re like new here. I have a whole series of videos on ecosexuality in my YouTube I’ll put the link below if you’re curious, but that doesn’t really… ecosexuality is not really a part of this video conversation right now. So I’m just going to link to it if you’re curious and want to like dive into that.
(CLICK HERE FOR MY ECOSEXUALITY VIDEO PLAYLIST)
There’s also under the big non-monogamy umbrella, is relationship anarchy, which is the best way to describe the way that I do relationships, which relationship anarchy is where, basically, you tailor all of your relationships to people that are in them. So… and you also don’t like there’s no real hierarchy in terms of like… romantic and sexual relationships are more important than like platonic friendships and that kind of stuff, like there’s no… I don’t I don’t prioritize any relationship over another. They’re all equally important to me, whether I’m having sex or like, romantic with someone or it’s just platonic friends and we hang out like everybody’s equally important. And you just like… you build relationships based on what works for the people that are in them and to me, that’s, that’s perfect!
So relationship anarchy has this beautiful, wonderful, awesome thing called the relationship anarchy smorgasbord. And it’s basically there’s like a little chart thing. I’ll see if I can find it and put it in this caption below because it’s like, you pretend you’re at a buffet and there is like a whole bunch of different dishes that you can like, put on your plate and the plate is like your relationship with the whatever person you’re building the plate with… the relationship and you get to choose. Like, do I want romance? Do I want physical intimacy? Do I want sex? Do I want friendship? Do I want a collaborator? Do I want somebody that’s going to be kinky with me? Do I want to have somebody that I live with? Do I want somebody that I want to help like with caretaking? Like there’s all these different ways we can be in relationships with each other and we get to choose which pieces of the pie we want to put on our plate. So I super love that. I share the smorgasbord with a lot of people to see, like, are we compatible? Do you want the same things that I do? Like, what of these things are you looking for? and let’s build this relationship together.
What other kinds of non-monogamy are there? Those, I would say those are the main ones that I want to talk about because there’s a lot of like you can get into like detail things with a lot of this but I personally have only really have experience with relationship anarchy, solo polyamory and just like general non-monogamy.
If you’re curious, I will get personal with you, my current relationships… I have two people that I see on a regular or semi-regular basis and then I have three… three people that I see, like, occasionally, I would call those comets. This is another non monogamy term. A comet person or partner is, you know, how, like a comet you can see it only every once in a while, like it goes past us occasionally. a comet partner or comment like person in your life, a comet relationship is basically like when you see each other you’re together, and it’s… you connect and it’s great, but when you’re not near each other when you’re not together, it’s not necessarily like you’re keeping in touch all the time and all of that.
So it’s like when it’s possible then that’s great, but also there’s no expectation of like texting you everyday or seeing each other every week or things like that. Like I have there’s a comet in Illinois. Like I have a comet in Illinois. I have a comet in another part of North Carolina. Like I don’t really call them that, to them. It’s just the easiest way to describe it in polyamory terms because it’s not like a person that’s regularly in my life. It’s just a person that’s in my life when circumstances allow us to be in each other’s lives if that makes sense.
So, yeah, I have several people that are important to me. And then I have like a whole ton of friends that I super love a whole lot. And yeah, I so I guess, okay, here I am kind of sort of like putting a hierarchy in relationships, but I don’t think it’s hierarchy. I think it’s me trying to describe things to you in a way that you would understand. So the way that I’m talking, saying I have two people that I see on a regular semi-regular basis, and then I have like 3ish people that I see occasionally. I’m talking about like romantically romantically sexually like intimately and I’m not counting like the very many number of friends that I have that are platonic friends and that can be seen as like I’m prioritizing my like sexual romantic relationships, but I don’t see it that way.
I just see it as like, I feel like y’all would be curious about… I imagine most of you are monogamous or like mostly monogamous. So I imagine you would be curious about like the in terms of the depth of relationships that I have. And that’s the way that I can describe it to you because if I was going to like, count all of my friends, it would take a long time and be like. I’m forgetting people and I have like this huge list. So it’s just me the easiest way for me to be like, I have a few people in my life that I see intimately that are more than just friends. And I do also have a whole lot of friends that are like, equally important to me as the people that I see in a more intimate way. But friendships can be so intimate and like, not even require physical anything, or even like being in the same place. I don’t… relationships are hard to describe and name and I am not sure it’s really important to even have a label for everything because some things are just fine to be what they are without needing to label it, if that makes sense. That’s how I feel.
Relationships are great, people are great. I love making new friends, and I love not being monogamous because monogamy, feels like oppressive to me. It feels like as trying to shove me in this tiny box that I don’t fit in and trying to shove my relationships in a tiny box and I don’t fit in like, there’s no way that one singular person can fulfill all of my needs, and I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on another person to be that person. And I also don’t want that pressure to be put on me because I have done that before… putting that pressure on another person and had that pressure put on me when I was married, and it doesn’t work for me. It’s too much pressure and it’s like, yeah to me it’s no, that’s not how my relationships work. When they work for me they’re not like that.
Okay, I think I think that’s good enough. Like that’s that’s a, you know, we talked about photography and non-monogamy and comets and relationship anarchy and solo polyamory, and the relationship escalator. So you have like at least six different terms of things that we talked about today. So I want to make this video too long.
Yeah, non monogamy is great. If you have any questions, comment, and I will try to either reply in a comment, or maybe I’ll make a video to answer your question. Let me know! I love you!
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