There’s a polyamorous account on Instagram that’s quite popular (@remodeledlove) run by a person named Jessica Levity.
She is a mother, a character, and totally shuns the idea of the nuclear family.
She doesn’t believe two people alone in a house is a viable form of raising children. Parents need more support.
Her polycule is made up of her husband, who is now her non-sexual partner, and her husband’s partner, who has come to live with them and be part of their family including helping to care for their children. And she has other friends/lovers/partners connected to them that they don’t live with.
The setup she has is in the direction of what I imagine for myself. A close-knit cluster of people, sharing the responsibilities and joys of day-to-day life.
Yet I wonder, can I have this without being polyamorous?
I ended last week’s email with a declaration that the best thing about polyamory is the idea of community, the concept of a polycule. And even if I’m not polyamorous, I can have that for myself.
But now I’m questioning the validity of that statement.
Is this really possible, or am I full of shit?
Can you have a polycule without being polyamorous?
My rock
When I got covid for the second time this past Friday, after a few days, I began feeling isolated and f*cking bored out of my mind.
As I sat at my desk with my face in my hands one morning, I thought, this is getting bad. Let me text Flo.
“I’m struggling,” I wrote. He called me not long after that. And I was so glad he did. Simply his presence on the other end of the line was enough to soothe me.
What’s my point here? Well, as I was having this mini-meltdown, I didn’t really even think to text anyone else.
With my partner Flo, I’m easily vulnerable. I would never hesitate to reach out when I’m feeling down or just need some empathy. Besides maybe my mom, I don’t feel that way toward anyone else in my life.
Sure I have close friends. There are several people I know could call for help if I needed and they would be there for me. And they have been.
But I still might hesitate to call them, like in the middle of the day, when they’re probably busy. I would at least wait until the evening. And I wouldn’t do it as often.
We wouldn’t expect to be each other’s rocks, at least not the way I do with Flo.
And so my question is this: Is being partners what actually makes all the difference here?
Can I really be someone else’s rock or let them be mine if we don’t have this type of romantic and/or sexual relationship?
So far in my life, despite how close I’ve been with friends, crying on their shoulders during a breakup, loving each other in so many ways, it still hasn’t reached this extreme level of closeness I’ve shared with my boyfriends.
And if that’s the case for me, is there a level of closeness I won’t get to in my version of community, the way polycules can? Because I’m not actually partners with anyone else in my orbit?
And is being romantic with someone (and maybe “rubbing fronts” as they say in Big Mouth) what actually allows me to get super close to them in the first place?
The importance of sex
In the book Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá posit that the evolutionary reason for sex is not just reproduction, but bonding. We also fuck because it brings us closer to each other.
That said, I know that people do have platonic partnerships, extremely close relationships with people that they are either not romantic with or not sexual with or both.
Just like “normal couples,” they may dream of a shared future, share finances, and text throughout the day.
It’s 100% possible to have that with someone you’re not with in a more heteronormative way.
But I don’t and I never have.
When it comes down to it, day-to-day, my life right now is not really so different from that of someone in a very traditional relationship structure. I don’t have a polycule. I don’t have other partners and my partner doesn’t have other partners.
But maybe also I’m not totally full of shit.
Even if I don’t become tied to someone else the way I am tied to Flo, I know that I can still build community.
And I think especially if/when I have kids, that will become more of a priority. Sharing in childcare alone feels like a great motivation to team up with other loving friends.
In conclusion, maybe building a tribe is easier with polyamory.
But there is a way to do it without it.
So I think it’s best to try not to overthink it, and focus on what I know I want, what’s clearly in view.
And that’s trying to get knocked up.
Flo, where you at?
I have friends that I text throughout the day. My best platonic friend is someone who I fantasise about living in a commune with. He has his boyfriend, I have my partner, and we aren't romantically involved at all. But we are what we call, sensates. Sensates comes from the Netflix show Sense8 by the Wachowskis, about 8 people around the world who become psychically linked. Some are romantic some are not. So I think it's possible to have that kind of community, that's not necessarily a polycule, but definitely "chosen family".
My dream is to create an intentional community where we all live on little houses on the same large piece of land, where we can hang out all the time, but also be alone and independent when we want to be.
I wrote a long ass comment and got lost because I didn’t have an account 😩
It’s hard to build a polycule like that. I haven’t really found people who are interested in helping with the kids. Max someone can do is maybe stay one night at our place while baby is in bed so my fiancé and I can go out for a day. My new partner (someone we have been knowing for almost 2 years but just started being serious) would help with his wife and my little girl actually loves him but they love 200 miles away from us 😢
It’s not easy!