“Polyamory” and the Internet

Posted by on March 7, 2008 
Filed Under Class discussion, In the news

Last week we learned that polygamy, or plural marriage, exists in many societies around the world. This week we discussed how changes in technology alter the experience and expression of sexuality. Those two themes come together in a recent commentary from Wired, which suggests that polyamorous relationships are on the rise in America, in part due to social networking outlets on the Internet that offer new ways of interacting with similarly minded people. From the Wired piece:

While having multiple committed partners is not a new concept, many polyamorists have told me they felt lost, guilty, alone or freakish until they came across the word polyamory on the internet and for the first time had a context for the way they felt about love.

“You can argue that before the internet, the poly community didn’t exist,” says Franklin Veaux, author of What, Like, Two Girlfriends?, a respected polyamory FAQ. “There’s no question that the rise of the internet and the rise of polyamory coincided, although poly does predate the net by 6,000 years or so.”

Polyamory may not be a new practice, but the concept is probably new to most Americans, and relatively few research papers have been published on the subject. What do you see as the benefits and difficulties of a polyamorous lifestyle? If you could have two partners consent to such an arrangement, would you be interested? What moral or ethical issues does polyamory raise for you?

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