Poly or Not Poly? The existential question of kink | Reflections on 2021
“I don’t know that I believe in monogamy,” I said to my massage therapist, naked under their hands. This was unusual for me, not the sentiment that I was expressing, it was something I had given a lot of thought and research to, but the fact that I was talking at all during a massage.
Touch is hard for me (until it’s not), but something I’ve learned all humans need, including me. I preferred silence in those moments, but my husband and I had been seeing this very talented therapist for a while, though separately, and he shared that they had talked to each other all through his massages with them. “Huh,” I thought as my husband shared that. “I didn’t even know talking during a massage was an option.”
And that’s how, after a fight with the male best friend I loved but he didn’t “feel that way about me”, and also, I was married and monogamous, that’s how I found myself sharing my belief that gender is a spectrum and perhaps monogamy wasn’t real.
“My wife and I are polyamorous,” they shared. “We identify as lesbians and she has relationships with people of all genders, though I am pansexual to people who identify as women.”
“Pansexual?” I thought. Another term I would go on to also identify with, but at that moment there was so much I didn’t know.
And I was only focused on their next question to me, as they were finished but before they left the room. “Would it be ok if I asked you out sometime?”
“Um…” Cue butterflies - the good kind. “Yeah, I will have to talk to my husband, but I would really welcome that.”
And thus began my journey into polyamory.
Now this conversation was in February 2020, right before I turned 40, but also right before the US shut down for COVID.
That relationship, and due to the fact that they were 10 years younger with no children and a completely different risk profile, didn’t proceed beyond kissing before the lockdown and didn’t survive the first months of the pandemic. But I learned a lot about poly, different kinds of sexual identities, and about the existence of kink in a real way.
When the world slowly started to open up a year later in 2021, I was ready for actual poly experiences armed with a plethora of book learning. I was eager to tell anyone that I had covered all my intellectual bases and I was ready to be POLY!
I wasn’t leaving my husband, but we hadn’t been sexual in a long time - many years - but we had a child to raise and a life that had sustained us through the pandemic. We were partners and co-parents in my eyes. There had to be a way to get our needs met without destroying all of that.
This is a story I would go on to tell my poly partners in 2021 - but it’s interesting to look back on it with hindsight. I thought poly the magical solution, and I was determined to do my life differently. What I didn’t account for was the level of self-awareness needed to navigate non-traditional ways without injury to oneself.
I am fortunate that I did find good people along the way, but I activated a few landmines - in myself and others - and ultimately still can’t answer the question: poly or not?
But I can answer that I’ve seen the worst parts of monogamy reiterated. And regardless of what my personal future holds in relationships, I never want to go back to the false sense of security and obligation monogamy feels it provides without constant conscious communication.
For that feels like nothing but more anxious or avoidant tendencies without the communication skills to navigate it. Polyamoury - specifically ethical non-monogamy - forces the conversation that requires good communication. Communication skills, it would turn out, I didn’t have yet.
In January 2021, I went to Feeld. I met a lot of men. I had a lot of fascinating conversations. “I am POLY!” I exclaimed over and over. “I want to try new things sexually, but also I have trauma, so still looking for one sexual partner to start.”
I virtually “dated” probably close to 100 humans that identified on the masculine spectrum within the Boston-NYC corridor where I live.
I finally, after vaccines, in March 2021, met one in real life. The venn diagrams of our lives were very similar, yin-yang, except he was divorced and looking for “casual” poly - beyond me of course - because I was self-aware enough to know I couldn’t do anything casually. And I was married and that was the reason I was poly.
But oh the sex. I did things I never had, and loved it. And the convos. But this was my first time out of the gate. I didn’t believe I could get that lucky at first. “I'm getting shaky about the thought of you sleeping with other people.” I would nervously murmur into his side.
“I know, me too. I don’t want to hurt you, but it’s who I am,” he replied, and we distracted each other in other ways, avoiding the topic over and over.
It ended, not as predicted with other people, but because my little inner child stood up and screamed before that could happen, the first time I could recognize it as such, though she would do it again to other people in this poly journey. He took the opportunity and ran.
And the ensuing attachment rupture sent me reeling.
I can be grateful for the lessons now. But at the time it felt like pure chaos and confusion. Our last day in the moment was on the summer solstice at the end of June, and I was so happy. Naked with a collar in the late evening sunlight. I couldn’t imagine it ending at all, much less me being the one to do it. The fall was long and deep.
But as survivors do, I picked up and (eventually) moved on. I faced some demons from my past. Maybe even healed them? At least I could finally be aware they existed.
He found someone who could (as seen from afar) satisfy his need for casual poly, and I understood that while he made me happy, perhaps I truly wasn’t what he was looking for, and that had to be ok.
“I am poly!” I stubbornly clung to this mantra, even though I didn’t know if my marriage would survive that summer. I let go of all the outcomes and just focused on healing.
I found a rope studio that would become a home, a refuge. A way to make art from kink, an activity that combined a lot of existing passions. I found like-minded people. And I dated.
Poly men who were single, and then one who was married. I got this! I thought as I loved my friendship with his wife. I loved our group communication and the extended polycule, even spending a Friendsgiving with them all. A family - a chosen group of misfits. This was what I had seen in those extended family dreams of the future.
Except. It still wasn’t right. Time was shortened with each other because of other responsibilities, and the care I need in sex, because trauma, well it wasn’t there. And therefore, wasn’t safe. We had to remind each other to not talk of our experiences with our spouses when we were naked with each other. Spouses that we would return home to. One to sleep in the same bed with, and one to sleep separately.
So between that last relationship ending, my little inner child standing up again and screaming after an intensive kink weekend with no safe space to dissect and connect in a way that we could move forward. Between that and now, there was an overlap. A cute boy.
He was there before and after that last breakup. “Friends,” we said. “Also maybe this is poly?” I rationalized with a shrug. “I’m not ready” I knew to be a truth of mine after that breakup. “But life is too short. All we have is now.”
For what is poly if not getting needs met? And my needs weren’t getting met despite multiple relationships. But I cared about them all - so why not add another? Is this poly? “I am poly.” I wearily stated from the ground. A far cry from my standing poly affirmation declaration at the beginning of the year.
Except he, the last he, was monogamous. And not yet officially divorced, so had not yet experienced the freedom that comes after a long time in one relationship.
“Danger,” my heart stuttered. “But maybe I’m monogamous too” I whispered back. Tired of the labels. Tired of not knowing.
“But you are married,” said he, and everyone else.
“Yes I am,” said me.
So, one day after sharing that I gave my husband a blowjob a few weeks prior, working with a sex therapist, the new he said: “Nope, can't do this. You are poly and I am monogamous. Let’s go back to being “friends”.”
And I said okay. Ok to the no, not ok to the friends, for I knew, like all the others, I couldn’t go to a friends space, even if I wanted to with all of them.
I had learned enough about my tendency to chase to not overexplain in reply at that moment. Not share this whole journey as a reason for him to “stay”. I knew I had to just accept where we both were and take him at his word.
He said NO. I heard that. I liked him, I know he liked me, but I had to hear people where they were.
We had mutual friends. Unlike that first real poly relationship, I was part of a community now. One I was already fighting to stay in because of poly breakups.
The online place connected to my beloved studio where I felt I could show my truest self was now fraught with fear. Who knows what? Who cared?
What is being said? Something or nothing? Both options hurt said my ego.
The veterans, ones who had been in kink and poly longer, said “we see this all the time.” But I hadn’t seen it before, and the married poly couple, I relied on them for guidance because of their years of experience and was told: “We can’t help you with this.”
“For he was hurt too,” said the veterans.
“But he promised!” screamed the inner little girl.
I heard myself saying “I need time & space” and that was echoed back, but all I heard was “go away”.
The new friends - meaning the ones who were new to me AND the scene - one, the new he, the new friend who couldn’t be a friend because he was monogamous, and a she, for there are a lot of she’s in this space, she was very attentive. A beautiful mirror, she and I found a lot of similarities in each other. We could see beauty in each other that perhaps we couldn’t see in ourselves. And it seemed we liked different kinds of people, even though there was a lot of overlap in who liked us. Maybe that would save our burgeoning friendship in a poly environment.
Until 2 weeks later, when I shared how proud of myself that I hadn’t chased - hadn’t sent a lengthy post of emotion to the monogamous he, but had chosen to write it out and file it away. I recognized that as progress and was sharing that accomplishment with a friend.
That is when she shared that they were now talking. Monogamously, because he didn’t like me because I wasn’t monogamous, but perhaps she was. Because she had met him first. And they had both said they were platonic friends when I went through my poly breakup. For I checked with both of them before letting the new relationship go past my boundary of what is a friend. But was I entirely guilt-free? Couldn't I see they liked each other too? “But is this poly?” I had rationalized then.
Now, they had the possibility to be monogamous. And I was left out.
“Oh,” I stilled. Heart pounding again.
“Oh.” The old wound of “cheating” boyfriends with best friends “behind my back” ripped open.
I am grateful for the courage the she, the new she, had to be honest. Instead of lying to not “hurt” me.
Not letting me choose to know the whole picture because they knew once I knew I would HAVE to leave them both or lose my integrity if I stayed - even though I loved them - the high school ones - both. Maybe we were poly then, but didn’t have the labels, the language.
This OLD wound came bubbling up and I remembered the worst of monogamy.
That “cheating” is accepted in monogamy because one doesn’t have to face the hard, but all too real, conversations of “I feel differently” or “I like this person AND you,” or the million other reasons people fall for other people, even in committed relationships. And the truth that NONE of us know how to navigate that. And life is too short.
And reminded me again that I may need one sexual partner right now to navigate the trauma I have around sexual abuse, but the thought of going back to hetronormative monogamous culture is equally as horrifying.
So, as the fog lifts on the water here on the first day of 2022, I still don’t know the answer to the poly question.
I suspect the label doesn’t matter with the right person - the right people - but I do know I have a lot of work to do on myself before I feel able to venture out and trust again.
And I can appreciate the labels - poly, pan, bi, gay, straight, kinky - for what they may be; language markers, points of conversation about semantics, a place to find connection with other humans.
In a world where we ALL speak a different language in relationships, some better at interpreting than others, but in truth NONE of us speaking the same language all the time.
So, perhaps, our only hope of communicating is with honesty and authenticity. With love for the other human and with respect and care for their boundaries and limits, and most of all trust that we can either care for ourselves or be able to be open to being cared for (depending on what side of that particular slider you may live on) and knowing that the only constant is change - especially in the dance of any two humans - any group - any set.
And ANY rigidity in those rules. “But this is the way it’s always been done” gives a false sense of security that may engender a period of calm, of rest, but is in truth the opposite of growth. A way to try to control the unknown.
And that belief that there is only one way to do any of this is the real place from which trauma is caused. From which trauma cannot be healed, but instead is held inside locked away in the body.
So, I choose to do relationships differently. Having honest, hard conversations, over and over. Bringing joy in ways I can’t even imagine yet.
After a winter's nap, perhaps.
Photo by Dainis Graveris on Unsplash
