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Outside the new monogamy (looking in?)
November 18, 2005
You may have read a bit about the hullabaloo around New York magazine’s sex issue, with the skinny nekkid white folks on the cover and the articles about the sex. There’s a piece in the issue called “The New Monogamy” by perennial favorites and ex-Nervers Em and Lo that I read with interest. The article focuses on The Couple, and what a more expansive view of the bonds of a monogamous relationship may be for some couples.
As I read the piece, I kept wondering - but what about the folks outside of the new monogamy relationship, the people that would be referred to as “the other woman” or “the other man” if we were talking about cheating? I understand that this article was specifically about couples and how they negotiate boundaries and come to an understanding that may include sexual and/or romantic interactions with people outside of the primary relationship (to drop a little bit of polyamorous terminology on ya). That said, what about those other people who are necessary to accomplish this feat of non-monogamy, the people who play with people in serious, long-term primary relationships.
The article painted a picture of these couples, but dropped off sharply when describing the other folks involved, their feelings and motivations. Although I am pretty sure this was not Em & Lo’s intention, this lack of treatment of the third (fourth, fifth) parties basically treats the outsiders to the relationship as accessories and playthings. It’s very likely that said outsiders view their otherwise committed play partners as accessories to their lives as well, but there are of course many variations. The concern I have is that the needs/wants/whatevers of the outsider of the relationship can sometimes be mishandled in that “you’re just a plaything” kind of way.
For example: I’ve been one of those outsiders, and it can be tricky. A few years ago, I was dating someone who had a primary partner who was a live-in girlfriend (I too had a primary partner, though we weren’t living together). My secondary (wham, another poly term) and I had been dating for maybe 3 months when we decided that it would be cool for us to meet each other’s primaries - he’d met mine at a party, and then invited me along to a group social function where his #1 lady would be present. There were some miscommunications – he was being a bit of a dick to her, and she freaked out at him and then got cold and bitchy to me, while I sat by, slack jawed at the zaniness of it all (at one point even faking a phone call to give them a moment to sort their shit out). When I came back from my breather, she gave me a bit of a death stare, and cool and collected as hell I said, “Listen, I may be a secondary partner – but I’m not a secondary human being. Don’t fucking treat me like that” (things calmed down after that).
And that’s exactly it – sure the primary partners need to be happy, but treating the outsider as less of a person is just not cool. This isn’t just a thing with poly relationships where people are romantically involved with several people on a variety of levels, its also a problem in less
Like I said, sometimes being treated like hot n sexy, highly disposable meat is awesome – especially when it’s mutual. However, when couples create a fantasy of their extraneous relations and then seek someone to fill that gap, it can be not so awesome (and also not get the couple anywhere). This is probably best illustrated by the phenomenon of the couple hunting for the mythical HBB (hot bi babe). A quick MW4W search on Craigslist casual encounters reveals the material to prove my point – impersonal personal ads looking for a hot chick to plug into a sexual scenario. Well, it really doesn’t work like that – even for a casual thing, wooing is key, and attention to things like personality and chemistry is even more essential.
I guess all I’m saying here is – yay for non-monogamy and yay for redefining the structure and boundaries of long term relationships, but no yays for constructing expectations of an outside partner with no needs and no demands.
Posted by Dacia at November 18, 2005 02:56 AM
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Comments
http://www.xeromag.com/fvsecondary.html is a good discussion on being a secondary partner in a “normal” poly relationship.
Lots of other interesting stuff on that site about being in a poly relationship too - very interesting and I found it very useful when I discovered extreme feelings for a second person as well as for my current long-term partner.
Posted by: IIB at November 18, 2005 03:38 AM
Yeah, I read the article too—and parenthetically, the cover of the magazine seems to suggest that only white folks have sex in New York—and came up with similar questions.
Reading your experience, and thinking about my own, I wonder how possible it is to negotiate the primary/secondary/tertiary and so forth partner terrain. It often feels to me like some kind of prelapsarian valhalla (to mix hagiographic metaphors) that shimmers in the distance like Oz.
I like the idea, and I really would like to get there, but exprience thus far suggests that the quest for nonmonogamy may end—like Columbus’s journey, like Cortez’s, like other doughty seeker’s—in finding something else
Posted by: chelsea girl at November 18, 2005 06:39 AM
Chelsea Girl, your florid use of vocabulary is positively sexy. Tertiary, prelapsarian, hagiographic: oh that one put me over the top. I love that word.
Posted by: Balthazar B at November 18, 2005 11:41 AM
This is so right on. I will never forget how it felt meeting A’s primary and being treated by her as something less than human (he wasn’t present, it was just she and I, one on one). Consideration of everyone’s feelings is necessary in any situation, even this one…but people can be shit heads, no doubt.
Posted by: layla at November 28, 2005 01:09 AM
