Bringing a new meaning to sharing
By Maxine Frith
April 12, 2005
RD010207

They have turned their backs on monogamy and rejected traditional mores in their love lives - and now a group of "polyamorous'' lovers have decided they need a new set of words to describe their lifestyle.

Polyamorous people live in open relationships where they may have several partners of either sex who are also in other relationships.

The movement began in California in the 1990s but has burgeoned in recent years, thanks, in part, to the Internet and the publication of studies describing the phenomenon.

They see themselves as returning to a more natural state of living, where people do not have secret affairs behind their partners' backs and reject what they see as an artificial Western insistence on fidelity for life with one partner.

The polyamorous community's so-called handbook is a 1997 book called The Ethical Slut that describes living with and loving multiple partners. The American author of the book urged women to reclaim the word slut as a positive term to describe the possibility of having simultaneous relationships.

Since then internet chat rooms, mailing lists and other sites focusing on polyamory have sprung up across the world, particularly in the US and the UK. A UK mailing list currently has more than 200 members.

Meg Barker, a psychologist who also lives a polyamorous lifestyle, has researched the issue. She presented a paper at the British Psychological Society Conference in Manchester last week, at which she described how the movement was evolving an entirely new dictionary of words to describe the way in which its followers lived.

"The problem is that in Western culture a lot of the words we have to describe emotions are based on the concept of monogamous relationships."

"We have words like jealousy, which in polyamorous relationships you don't really get, but there is not a word to describe the warm feeling that a polyamorous person will get when they see one of their partners getting on with another of their partners."

"It is kind of the opposite of jealousy. A lot of importance is placed on being able to describe the emotions that we have and this is why the poly community has started to come up with its own words which are now rapidly being adopted."

The polyamorous community in America has evolved its own lexicon, but British adherents are now coming up with their own words, Ms Barker said.

These include "frubble'' - to describe the feeling of warmth and happiness when seeing one of your partners getting on well with either one of your partners or one of their lovers.

Barker says: "Some cultures, for instance, traditional Hawaiian cultures, have always had words like this because they have practised polygamy and have always been used to the idea.

"A lot of our words have been started on Internet discussion sites where people have been frustrated that they can't express themselves and the way they live."

She added: "Some people can be very judgmental but when you look at the figures of the number of people who have affairs and who are desperately unhappy in monogamous relationships it seems a bit strange." She estimates that at least 2 000 people in Britain may be living polyamorous lifestyles, although many may be reluctant to admit it.

Barker lives part of the week with her girlfriend, Annie, and the rest with her boyfriend, Erich, and has two other lovers - a man and a woman.

She says the main problem is finding time to spend with all her lovers. "Of course, I do get jealous sometimes, especially when one of my partners has started a new relationship and you can see they are very excited about it, but (it) quickly passes when I realise they are not going to replace me in my partner's affections."