Is Polyamory a Kink?

In orist, I realize that many people may see that as a contradiction in terms. Of course, swarming around this question are many issues of definition, including what is “polyamory”? What is a kink? A fetish? Vanilla? And many others. I’m sure I’ll bump into all of these definitional dilemmas sooner or later, but for now, I find myself thinking of my self-styled moniker and how to justify it.

I recently joined FetLife, the Facebook of kink, after consulting a few kinky/poly friends over whether I was simply too vanilla to join. Their consensus pointed toward two arguments in favor of my joining. First, FetLife caters to all fetishes, big and small, and so even if the traditional canon of kinks (e.g. BDSM, DOM/sub, foot fetish, etc.) did not apply to me, any minor proclivities (e.g. my 80’s rooted affinity for long-haired men) were covered. Secondly, Fetlife is used by many people within the overlapping kink and poly “scenes” in order simply to keep in touch with http://hookupdate.net/cs/sdc-recenze/ one another, Facebook-style.

A FetLife member brought up the fact that he was asked by a non-polyamorous friend how he could possibly love more than one woman

Indeed, upon joining Fetlife, I discovered two mildly surprising aspects of the site that confirmed this information. One, that “vanilla” (alongside DOM, sub, Master, slave, kinkster, fetishist, etc., etc.) is offered as a standard designation upon sign-up, and two, that the search mechanism is extremely limited. By this I mean that one cannot search FetLife users in the way of a dating site where, for example, one could search by age range or gender. One can search for keywords or location (e.g. city or state), but otherwise the best way to bump into interesting people on FetLife is through the same channels as on Facebook, friends of friends, groups, discussion, and so on. Read more