Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Poly Vs. Swinging thread. What is the difference? Is there a difference? Do the two discriminate against each other and why?

I'm just going to put it all on the plate. I have friends who are monogamous, polyamorous, swingers, and who work in the adult industry. The thing here I want to emphasize is that there is a lot of variety of responsibility and self respect within each group.

I know men and women in all groups who have a lot of self respect, a set code of ethics and standards, who are picky about their partners and sex acts, and who cherish and respect their loved ones.

I know men and women in all groups (even those who identify as monogamous) who do not practice safe sex and who are dishonest with their partners.

I also know people who practice both swinging and polyamoury, meaning they have two or more partners who they are committed to while they have other play partners who they do not share a long term committed relationship with, or swinging and monogamy- with monogamy meaning they have one love in their life but multiple play partners.

To me, poly is about committed relationships with more than one person. If you feel that you can have that then you are polyamorous. Swinging, to me, is about multiple play partners. Its impossible for me to imagine such a thing as "loveless" sex, so I think I have feelings for all of my partners even if I only meet them at a play party and if I don't feel comfortable with them I won't continue but I only have a committed relationship with very few because a committed relationship requires a level of compatibility that is difficult to come by.

I agree with Frostie.

While I guess that technically, swinging would sort of fall under the catagory of polyamory in the sense that it falls under non-monogamy, I consider a poly relationship to be very different from a swinging relationship. Swinging, to me, means casual sex within a committed relationship, whereas poly relationships entail ongoing emotional and romantic relationships with more than one person.

I am watching Nat Geo's "Taboo" episode on swinging.
It's worth noting that some swingers would consider real relationships with outsiders to be "emotional adultery" I guess which is something worth putting here.

I've never heard a swinger say this though. Over all the episode is very negative on swinging. They don't even mention Poly.

Well the special was on not just swinging but also on open relationships in general since they included a city in China that has no word for "marriage". I wanted to mention that but I forgot. There was a segment on swinging but it wasn't the whole episode.

I've also encountered asexual people who identify as poly and who have cuddle sessions with multiple romantic partners but no sex.

I agree with your summary of swinging and poly. I think that's a pretty good description.

With swingers, I've encountered people who won't kiss outside of their primary relationship which may have been their way of avoiding "emotional adultery".

Hmm... it is a little jumbled, but I think I get the message as there being a need for distinction between relationships intended to be longer term and those which come and go. I'll write a little in further elaboration on my original line of thought, and apparently disagree with you a little.

I honestly think that Polyamory is the wrong word to contain that need for distinction within. You may find that love should not be excluded from your view on Polyamorist relationships which you are surrounded by or have come to associate yourself with, but there still that essential flaw in that -- as educated articulate and progressive as your professed understanding of your views on what you consider Polyamory to be, they are still your views.

As you described, Polyamory is a word which simply means multiple love. Society may discuss love in terms which it has established it to be meaningful according to... but when you get down to it it's not closed and determined or put in a box, rather still argued over and analyzed and disputed according to what the word means, what its significance is, how it "should be" valued... there's nothing wrong with those values, but they aren't everyone's, and it seems questionable to try to limit all nonmonogamous relations to the views of a society which cannot fully understand nor agree upon the meanings of those values.

It all seems very similar indeed to the use of the word "Pagan" in application to a variety of spiritual backgrounds. All the word means is non-Abrahamic in context of belief, and various spiritualities and religions have all been grouped together under that word... this is significant, and to me a little alarming, as what it does is define all of these (in some cases ancient, huge, and pre-dating of Christianity) groups in context of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Similarly with Polyamory, we are grouping all views in reference to monogamy.

There is quite clearly a need for distinction between, say, Buddhism and Satanism. The only reason why they would be lumped in with Paganism would be for the familiarity of those requiring reference to the narrow comparison to Christian dominated understandings on religion. All of these religions vary greatly in understanding and reference to the concept of deity... the majority feature a patriarchal creator figure comparable to "God", yet it is clearly unacceptable to expect those involved in those spiritual lifestyles to adhere to a standardized view of God when it's clearly not universally accepted, nor needed to be.

In the case you mentioned in your post above... of the swingers who have become regular partners during their swinging, well, when they are involved their involvement would be temporary... not playing a role beyond the temporary and relatively stringless event-based nature of their relations.

In the case of the serial polyamorists, those finished involvements would simply be short relationships... but if the involvement in those relationships lasted beyond the event, like they played a strong role in each others lives on a deeper level than loose friendships or associations based around common interests, then they would serial polyamorists under my set of definitions. The involvements may not be long lasting relative to other relationships, but they were involvements which lasted beyond the events they were based around.

This seems to me to capture the essences of both groups in relation to the other... but I'm not claiming that this should be applied by all, just that it seems to make the most sense to me.

"Involvement" is just a word I picked out of the air. It seems suitably vague to work within the huge umbrella term of Polyamory without subscribing to the sort-of-almost research bias error we see popular culture falling victim to in referring to other beliefs as simply "different from the norm" and expecting them all to be considered in terms of the Christian God.

I, for one, don't think that the word Polyfidelity is used as much as it should be. I like it because it provides a distinction between simply loving more people... fidelity does seem to be an element in most popular conceptualizations of Poly relationships, and that seems to be what you are describing in your above post and in growing trends. That is, people living together or closely interacting on a regular basis, and those people having emotional and sexual attachments in various configurations... but revolving essentially around FIDELITY of some kind, rather than "just" hedonism.

Hey, just want to say Maar I am not ignoring your arguments. I just spent the last few hours writing a reply but it was lost when Gaia decided to log me out when I tried to post. So, while I would like to expand and clear up any confusion from my last post and reply to various comments you have made. I am really frustrated with the situation and tired of the subject. There may be a time when I come back and try to re-type all of what I said... but I don't want to spend another 3 hours on it right now or anytime soon. I hope you can understand.