jezebel posts story on polyamory

The web news zine Jezebel posted an article with a slightly misleading title...the actual article is more about triads than poly, and the definition of triad is pretty limited.

The quote below comes from the article titled Threesome Marriages

While polyamory as a concept can encompass any number of partners, WPA is seeking legalization, at this point, only for triads. As distinct from the fraught Jules et Jim-style menage a trois of popular imagination, triads are about stability:

Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That's closer to bigamy. Instead, triads-"triangular triads," to use precise polyamorous jargon-demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other.

The article actually gets better by page two. It talks more about relationships and commitment and practical ways to run a multiperson marriage although it still devoted most of the article to triads...
As a person who is in a long term, committed marriage of five people (soon to be six) I find this to be a slightly limited point of view. We have what could be called a variation on the Heinlein line marriage. My partner and legal spouse T and I have been together for 25 years and married for almost 22 years. Our third, S, joined us in 1996 and he and T consider themselves heterosexual life partners (much like Jay and Silent Bob. The three of us married C in 2001 and M in 2003.

(T has known M since he was an undergrad and I met S and C in alt.callahans.)

A week from tomorrow, K is coming to join our crazy group...she and T were high school sweethearts.

Being poly isn't about numbers and it isn't about sex. It's about love and commitment.

Also, people who don't know much about polyamory need to remember one important thing. There are as many flavors of polyamory as there are people who practice it.