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The ideal of polyamory is being able to have honest romantic relationships with multiple partners at once. Persons in such relationships define themselves as polyamorous, often abbreviated to 'poly'.
Forms of polyamory include:
Some people in sexually exclusive relationships may still self-describe as polyamorous, if they have significant emotional ties to more than one other person.
Unlike the general case of swingingSwinging sometimes referred to in North America as the swinging lifestyle or simply the lifestyle includes a wide range of sexual activities conducted between three or more people. Swinging activities can include watching others have sex; having sex with, polyamorous relationships generally involve an emotional bond, though the distinctions made between swinging and polyamory are a topic open to debate and interpretation. Many people in both the swinging and polyamory communities see both practices as part of a continuum of open intimacy and sexuality.
Note that the values discussed here are ideals. As with any ideals, their adherents sometimes fall short of the mark - but major breaches of a polyamorous relationship's ideals are taken as seriously as such breaches would be in any other relationship.
Most monogamistsIn monogamy a person has only one spouse at a time (as opposed to polygamy). The practice of restricting sexual contact to a single partner (married or not) for a limited period of time, then ending that relationship before beginning another (though in pr define fidelity as committing to only one partner (at a time), and having no other sexual partners during such commitment; most polyamorists define fidelity as not lying to their partners (even by omission), and keeping the commitments they have made to them.
Most polyamorists emphasize respect for all partners. Withholding information - even a "Don't ask, don't tell" agreement - is frowned upon, because it implies that partners do not trust one another to handle the truth. A partner's partners should be accepted rather than merely tolerated.
Because there is no 'standard model' for polyamorous relationships, participants in a relationship may have differing ideas about how that relationship should work. If unaddressed, such mismatched expectations can be extremely harmful to the relationship. For this reason, many polyamorists advocate explicitly negotiating the ground rules of a relationship with all concerned. In contrast to some other forms of negotiated relationship (e.g. the prenuptial agreementA prenuptial agreement commonly abbreviated to prenup is a contract entered into by two people prior to marriage or civil union. The content of a prenuptial agreement can vary widely, but commonly includes provisions for the division of property should th) polyamorists commonly view this negotiation as an ongoing process, to be revisited throughout the lifetime of the relationship.
In more conventional relationships, participants can settle on a common set of expectations without having to consciously negotiate them, simply by following societal standards (a husband and wife are expected to support one another financially, for instance). Because polyamorous relationships cannot rely on societal standards as a starting point, much more must be negotiated instead of being taken for granted.
Polyamorists usually take a pragmatic approach to their relationships; they accept that sometimes they and their partners will make mistakes and fail to live up to these ideals. When this happens, communication is seen as an important part of repairing the damage caused by such breaches.
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