I wasn’t talking to you, I’m speaking more in the abstract, and definitely not about your relationships which I don’t know the depths of, and I try not to speak about things I’m ignorant about. For the younger crowd, yes, a lot of my friends have closed poly dynamics and often prefer it, for safety reasons if nothing else, and this is especially important for young women who wish to see multiple partners but not be assumed to be automatically available to everyone else. In today’s world, being both open and cautious is a tedious task.

So, while my comment wasn’t meant to intend you, it does speak for a very real need for us to be represented more and for more effective distinctions. You probably aren’t meeting those people because they obviously aren’t going to be found at sex clubs (swinger clubs) if they aren’t looking for additional partners. They aren’t looking for sex, they usually aren’t looking for any additional relationship and tend to just go on about their lives, at University or work or what have you. We have no need to attend such clubs or events because we’re closed and our love isn’t a lifestyle that we need to wear, it’s a process we live every single day and keep to ourselves.

It seems to me (taking a guess, here) like you’re going to swinger clubs and poly communities, and then developing solid relationships from there, but there is a strong emphasis on sex, at least at the beginning, which is great and not something to be ashamed of…it should still be said, monogamous people don’t look for long-term relationships at sex clubs, almost invariably, unless they have some rather obscure kinks, they just go on about their lives and forge new relationships. I bring this up because doing so can provide a vastly different experience, neither of which is better or worse than the other, but each comes with different difficulties, challenges, and preferences. An untangling of these two entities (swinger clubs and polyamorous relationships) and their dynamics is necessary, because a lot of people don’t follow in your footsteps and develop lasting relationships with people, and a lot of others are sexually abused under the guise of polyamory, or their encounters are based upon sex fradulently, the rest of the relationship being an accessory.

Casual sex is perfectly okay, shallow relationships are perfectly okay, my only thing is let’s not pretend it’s the same thing as passionate, caring, deep love or falling for several people at once.

It’s kind of the premise to the piece, that when people open up their marriages, they tend to go to swinging establishments and dabble in that for a minute, and then some of them decide to build an emotional bond from there, but then again, some don’t. There seems to be a linear progression for those who are opening up which isn’t found in those who’re starting multiple concurrent relationships together. The younger generation of poly people haven’t really expressed their voice yet, something I intend to start.

Forgive me if I’ll always be both highly critical and skeptical of sex clubs, not because they offend my delicate sensibilities, but because there is just way too much flagrant abuse that takes place in such groups of people that’s honestly pretty monstrous, and I refuse to align myself with all of that because my life has never been and never will be that because my relationships (and many others like mine) aren’t predicated upon sex. Unfortunately, poly people who’ve come to poly through swinging feel like they get to speak for the rest of us and ignore these very outrageous instances of abuse conveniently, and I think it’s important that a line be drawn between the two lifestyles — we don’t necessarily need to comingle, even if you choose to do so personally. I also think that poly communities are antithetical to relationships, in a very real way and are basically just composed of mostly glorified swingers, again, not necessarily saying you’re that.

I’m frankly pretty tired of talking about the security, love, and safety of polyamory, only to have a bunch of swingers jump in and talk about the horrific instances of abusive people they met at sex clubs. If sex clubs and poly communities are the representative of polyamory itself, people might not feel like they can develop organic poly relationships without them and that’s bad, bad business for polyamory as a whole.

I hope you can understand that virtually none of this is speaking about your life, about which I know far too little to comment, but about sex clubs and relationship styles in general.