Polyamory: A terrain unexplored III (Polyamory is not an open relationship)

Though polyamorous relationships involve having multiple partners, it is not an open relationship. Unlike an open relationship, with a polyamorous relationship you are committed to your partners. You are fully devoted to them and you need to give them your time equally, they are your equals and it is people you share an intimate relationship with. With open relationships you often do not have a deeper emotional and intimate connection with the people you get involved with outside your partner, you are often not committed to these people and they are, by virtue of that not in an intimate relationship with you.

With open relationships, the buck stops with just sex and sexual activities, and more often than not you’re not allowed to go back to the same person in order to avoid emotional connections. With a polyamorous relationship, parties involved share an emotional, spiritual and intimate connection that is deeper.

They either share this connection exclusively with the core, excluding others. This means that they all individual share that connection with the core. Or they share this connection inclusively with the core but also including the others. So rather than the parties involved viewing each other as people who are in a relationship with one person, they see themselves as all in a relationship with one another. They share each other among themselves and inclusively to each other.