This is lovely, and I really DEEPLY want the Linsey Corner house for my 'cule. I do have one slight quibble (not with you, with a character who seems to have the wrong idea) about this stanza: >>Okay, yes, the whole point to the orientation was to have all the sex, but this was something else.<<
Poly is way less about having all the sex (although that's a lovely side benefit for those of us who like sex) and more about having all the love, which is often misunderstood by mono-normative culture. It can be really frustrating to have someone who's otherwise an ally (like an architect who designs homes for Party Size Families) take this attitude towards polyamory. It just hurts worse if you can't shrug it off as the sound of a fart, since it isn't coming from an asshole. Hopefully Lloyd figures it out eventually, especially with exposure to Bagira, for whom sex doesn't seem to be a draw.
That said, he's right that we're agglutinative AF. At one point the entire poly community of Topeka Kansas sat down to do a relationship map and we figured out that between all 50 or so people there, we had only two distinct polycules, due to all the chains of relationships. And we're also generally not opposed to folding in people outside of the usual sexual/romantic relationships people think of in "family". (The two people at the DnD table that aren't actually dating anyone in the 'cule? Yep, family. The couple we double date with but who aren't dating us? Oh yeah, they're family. The guy who runs the poly-friendly tavern in town? I think you mean Uncle Ed and he's definitely family.) We run an awful lot on the general principal of adopting anyone who doesn't tell us not to. If Lloyd can get over his misconception about how sex-centric poly is, he may look up one day to realize the polywogs (aka the children raised by the 'cule) are acting like he's another dad and Irma is another mom. Honestly, they're not far from that. Custom cookies for visits are a HUGE signal that the Reef considers them family.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2021-08-04 07:57 pm (UTC)>>Okay, yes, the whole point
to the orientation was
to have all the sex, but
this was something else.<<
Poly is way less about having all the sex (although that's a lovely side benefit for those of us who like sex) and more about having all the love, which is often misunderstood by mono-normative culture. It can be really frustrating to have someone who's otherwise an ally (like an architect who designs homes for Party Size Families) take this attitude towards polyamory. It just hurts worse if you can't shrug it off as the sound of a fart, since it isn't coming from an asshole. Hopefully Lloyd figures it out eventually, especially with exposure to Bagira, for whom sex doesn't seem to be a draw.
That said, he's right that we're agglutinative AF. At one point the entire poly community of Topeka Kansas sat down to do a relationship map and we figured out that between all 50 or so people there, we had only two distinct polycules, due to all the chains of relationships. And we're also generally not opposed to folding in people outside of the usual sexual/romantic relationships people think of in "family". (The two people at the DnD table that aren't actually dating anyone in the 'cule? Yep, family. The couple we double date with but who aren't dating us? Oh yeah, they're family. The guy who runs the poly-friendly tavern in town? I think you mean Uncle Ed and he's definitely family.) We run an awful lot on the general principal of adopting anyone who doesn't tell us not to. If Lloyd can get over his misconception about how sex-centric poly is, he may look up one day to realize the polywogs (aka the children raised by the 'cule) are acting like he's another dad and Irma is another mom. Honestly, they're not far from that. Custom cookies for visits are a HUGE signal that the Reef considers them family.