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13 Poly Terms You NTK No Matter What You're Into

What is a metamour? And what does ethical non-monogamy mean?

Polyamory. You've probably heard of it but how much do you actually know about the ins and outs (ahem) of it?

No matter whether you're into polyamory or monogamy, here's a few poly terms you should definitely know because one-person love just isn't for everyone.

'Everything you NTK about open relationships with Courtney Act...'

Non-monogamy

An unbrella term that includes any relationship - be that romantic and/or sexual - that isn't based upon a single partner. A few examples of these types of relationships includepolyamory, open relationships and swingers.

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Ethical Non-Monogamy

Put it this way: unethical non-monogamy is cheating on someone you're in a relationship with, so ethical non-monogamy is any form of non-monogamous relationship where all parties are aware and have consented to the multiple sexual and/or romantic relationships occurring.

Polyamory

'Poly' means many and 'amory' means love, so put simply it just means manyloves. In relationship terms, polyamory refers to people who are engaging in multiple romantic relationships. It's a form of ethical non-monogamy because all parties are aware and consenting to this relationship structure. Really polyamory is about love, so the focus is more on loving, romantic relationships than being purely sexual. The sexual element may (or may not)be part of these relationships, but it's not the core of it.

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Polygamy vs. Bigamy

Polygamy is where someone has multiple spouses (that's people they are married or legally tied to). Usually it's a term more keyed into heterosexual relationships, where someone (let's face it, most usually a man)will be married to multiple partners (again, most commonly women). Usually this is closely tied to religion, is consented to and is different to bigamy, which is where someone (illegally) marries more than one person, usually without their partnersbeing aware of their multiple marriages. Awks.

Mono/Poly

This is the phraseused to describe a relationship between a monogamous and apolyamorous person.

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Metamour

This is the term used to describe the partners of your partner.

Triad vs. Vee

A triad is a relationship when all three people are intimately involved. A vee, however, is a three person relationship where one person is intimately involved with two people. In this type of relationship, the person who connects the two others (so the central person in the V shape) is often referred to as the hinge. The other two people in a vee relationship are often emotionally and socially involved, just not sexually or romantically.

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Quad

Similar to a triad, thisis a polyamorous relationship involving four partners.

Hierarchical relationships

In some poly relationships, people may have a primary partner and a secondary/tertiary etc partner - and these relationships are referred to as hierarchical poly relationships. For some people there is a partner who holds more importance,so for examplein some cases a wife or husband, while asecondary partner might beyour girlfriend or boyfriend.

In other hierarchical relationships this is used more to describe levels of commitment and should not be confused with the idea that you love someone more. A common example in this caseis that a primary partner may be someone you share children with, therefore someone youhave more of a commitment to in that respect, whileyour secondary partner may just be someone you enjoy a more social and sexual relationship without so many commitments to.

This concept is fairlysimilar tonon-hierarchical relationships, where no relationship is valued above another.

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Closed relationship

This is a term for a monogamous relationship, but in poly terms can also describe a poly-fidelitous relationship, which is basically a relationship that involves three or more people, but which is closed to anyone outside of those three.

Monogamish

Couples use the term monogamish to express that while they are in a committed relationship that's socially speaking pair-bonded, they might also have an agreement that one or both of them engage in some level of sexual activity with other people.

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Don't Ask Don't Tell

Don't Ask Don't Tell or DADT is a form of ethical non-monogamy. It means people have most likley agreed to open their relationship, but don't necessarily want to know details of their partner's other sexual interactions.

Compersion

People outside of the poly community often ask how jealousy factors into polyamory. However, the fundamental idea of polyamory is the idea that love enriches life, so the more of it the better.The word compersion is a term that explains the joy you havewhen your partner in finding enjoyment and love from another partner or metamour. It's essentially the opposite of jealousy and is finding pleasure in other people's pleasure even when it is not directly related to your own actions.

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