Quote Originally Posted by cyberian11 View Post
In considering whether I could be content in a poly household, I had been getting my information from largely vanilla sources. True, pansexual is pansexual, but the 'original' poly relationship seems to be patterned on the communes of the hippie era. Everyone in that kind of poly relationship seems to have long, unkempt hair; wears homemade clothing and eats organic foods. And heaven forbid that a family member should spank another's deserving tushie for forgetting to compost that banana peel. (Save the flames; tongue is firmly in cheek.)

From observation & book larnin', it seems that polyamory in BDSM is quite a different beast than the rainbow household which originated in the Woodstock era. In a vanilla poly home, everyone has equal say, everyone takes turns, everyone is entitled to have the same amount of sex with everyone that every other person has. In theory. In a BDSM poly house, each person has a clearly defined role, a pecking order. Different levels of authority, different responsibilities, and different rights to sexual relations.

Thinking about this gave me a renewed interest in poly. I could certainly prosper in a poly household based on BDSM, even one which included another dominant, as long as each person's role in relation to the others was spelled out. I think we all--dominant, sub and switch--just want to find our place in the world, and in our family.

Does anyone else see any differences between vanilla & BDSM poly houses? I haven't talked to all that many poly's, so I could use more input....
Actually, the word Polyamory was coined in 1990 by Morning Glory Zell in her book *A Bouquet of Lovers*. The new word sprang from the practice of Open Relationship Styles wherein people were allowed to have sex outside their Relationship(s) by Agreement with their Partner. Having an Open Relationship did not mean it was ok to Love another person, just have sex with them. Zell in her experience of Open Relationship(s) along with her Partner(s) had Love as well. And created the word Polyamory to describe this Style of Relating.

The now defunct Kerista Commune was ongoing about the same time. The link to and about them is here >

http://www.kerista.com/index.html

The Raibow Tribe came later, and were followers (some still are) of the Gratefull Dead Musician Group. Maybe this is who you are referring to when you said "but the 'original' poly relationship seems to be patterned on the communes of the hippie era. Everyone in that kind of poly relationship seems to have long, unkempt hair; wears homemade clothing and eats organic foods"? Because that describes many of them to a Tee <G>. And some very good Friends of mine as well.

These *can* All be described as Poly Groups, however different each of them are in Practice, and Belief Systems.

The Poly Community is pretty large in that it is Worldwide, and vesatile and vast in each persons Style of *what Poly is to them*. One thing Agreed across the board is that Poly is *Honest Open Multi-Partner Relating*. The configurations however vary according to the People in the connected Relationship(s). Which are reached by common Goals, and Agreements.

The BDSM Community has only been crossing over to Poly over the last 8 years or so. With the exception of Play, and rarely a more in depth Style of Poly Relating. A Poly description for this would be Poly Swing. IE Play Partner(s). I've been there seeing the struggles the crossing over to more meaningfull Poly Relating within the BDSM Community has entailed. It's been tough. But there's been a lot of progress too. As I see more and more Intentional Families form within the BDSM/Poly Communities.

In BDSM Poly Households there are differences then in Vanilla Poly Households. But more and more the practice of Poly is becomming more the same. There are many good sites out there that are BDSM Poly, where more information can be found. This is a great one. The writer has many links on this one site to His writings about various topics, Poly and BDSM Related, and even a section on Mono/Poly Relating >

http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html

AND you can even email him with questions from the site.


I Agree with you that "WE All want to find Our Place".

Respectfully~SidheWolf

BTW I have tons of links if you want some <soft smiles>.