Is Polyamory a Sexual Orientation, or Is It More Like a Religious Belief?
What does it really mean to be polyamorous?
I recently read a story in the “Modern Love” section of the New York Times about a woman who is dating a man who already has two girlfriends. She understands polyamory from a logical standpoint. It makes sense to her.
But as time goes on, the author, Silva Kuusniemi, begins to fall in love, and more and more, the idea starts to make her stomach turn.
She avoids her metamours (her partner’s partners) until she can’t anymore, and they all agree to have dinner one evening. Long story short the dinner never happens, and she and her partner break up before she can ever meet them.
When she and her ex speak on the phone post-breakup, he tells her they would have never worked out because she is probably just naturally monoamorous, whereas he is naturally polyamorous. Sort of like being gay or straight.
It’s just the way the cookie crumbled.
But for Kuusniemi, it doesn’t feel that way. She goes on to say:
“My own love seemed less like something grounded in science and increasingly like a faith. It wasn’t that I couldn’t love multiple people simultaneously, but that I wouldn’t. Not because I thought it was…
