What Polyamory Means To Me

Alison Sparks
3 min readDec 6, 2023
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

I’m still new to the polyamorous community. Or, at least I still feel new to it. Even after dating someone polyamorous at the beginning of 2022 and listening to ‘The Ethical Slut’ audiobook in December of 2021, polyamory still feels like a big jungle that I haven’t explored yet. It is even less explored than my own bisexuality.

Of course, there’s the doubt. Do I even belong to this community? I’ve never dated more than one person at a time. Yet at the same time, I’ve also never dated women, but I don’t carry this doubt of being less of a bisexual just because of it. So, that must mean that I am just as valid as anyone else in the polyamorous community. Still, I keep wondering — is it just a phase? Will I still be polyamorous in five years? What about twenty?

A part of me is convinced that this is who I was all along. There is a memory embedded in my mind about a conversation I had with a friend when I was just thirteen. I recall having a crush on two guys at the same time. My friend was passionately trying to explain to me that I must choose one of them. ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t I have both of them?’ In my young mind it just didn’t make sense to take a pick between people. I truly believed that an arrangement where everyone is happy is possible.

I’ve always felt like I have a lot of love to give. And, in this case, ‘The Ethical Slut’ agrees…

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Alison Sparks
Alison Sparks

Written by Alison Sparks

Just a writer, sharing my musings on sex, sexuality, sex work, mental health and LGBTQ+ topics.