If you’ve spent any time on any dating app recently, it’s a safe bet you’ve seen more and more profiles with people professing to be “non-monogamous.” On the surface, that might make you think they just want to play the field and see other people while they’re seeing you. It’s not as simple as that anymore, though. Here are some of the many variants that can fall under the non-monogamous category.
- Polyamory – Acknowledges a human being’s capability to “love more than one person deeply and meaningfully at the same time.”
- Swinging – Refers to couples who “change partners with other couples but can also involve groups and singles.”
- Hierarchical Polyamory – An “arrangement where some relationships are prioritized over others.” For example, they might seek out a third, but the couple remains the “priority.”
- Polyfidelity – A group of people who remain “faithful” to that group.
- Mono-Poly Relationship – One partner might be doing the “poly thing,” and the other isn’t…but they’re all in the loop and OK with it.
- Cuckolding – The woman controls the “sexual dynamic” in the relationship and is the one allowed to have relations outside the relationship. In some instances, she might even “force him” to watch, or tell him about it later.
- Vee – Bob and Lisa are partners. Lisa and Diane are partners. Bob and Diane can be friends, but they can’t be partners.
- Monogamish Relationship – It’s close to monogamy but agreed upon rules for outside activity are established. Like visiting a sex worker might be permissible to some, or hooking up on business trips, or making out is acceptable, but nothing more.
- Solo Polyamory – They don’t want to be part of a traditional couple or throuple, and emphasize their own “autonomy and flexibility.”
- Relationship Anarchy – “Freedom is prioritized,” and “no relationship ought be centered or restricted in any way.” In short, there may be no differentiation between romantic and non-romantic relationships.
Got all that?
Source: Ask Men