Poly Women's Survey

[joreth]

Someone in the Tampa Poly community is  working on her M.A. in Women's Studies and she has put together a survey for her current research paper on polyamorous women and competition.  I'm all for encouraging more academic interest in polyamory, so I'm passing on the word.  If you are a female and polyamorous OR you are a female in a polyamorous relationship, or you know someone who is one or both, please send them this link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2H1q6SKm7T6_2ffyW8SNSX3A_3d_3d

Comments

[subonfire.livejournal.com]

Hi.. I friended you (saw your comments on my polyamory post). Would you like to friend me back?

[joreth]

In order to most effectively manage my time, I only "friend" people who are actual friends IRL and/or are connected to me through my poly network. I do occasionally read the journals of those I don't know who follow my journal, and sometimes I end up friending them, but mostly I use my friends list to keep up with my IRL friends' lives since most of them post their daily activities in their journal and my schedule is so sporadic that I don't keep up with them through phone calls or email.

Thank you for friending me and I'll be checking your journal out too!

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Ah, neat!
I was gonna do it, but I note that it is for women who aren't also sexually involved with the other women in the poly relationship. That ain't me, obviously, although it's worth mentioning that jealousy and other wrinkles in poly can show up regardless of everyone's various ties to one another and orientations...

[joreth]

I have been sexually involved with women in the past, but not with all women, so I answered the questions with respect to those situations, excluding the ones where I *was* involved with them.

Although you are completely correct that jealousy and other wrinkles show up regardless, I think there is a particular idea about non-sexual people who "share" a partner and what jealousy does in that situation (or should do). There is a (mis)conception that when everyone is equally involved, there will be less jealousy or a different kind.

There is also a need to simplify elements of relationships when doing the preliminary studies of an "alternative" relationship, and to that effect, studying one particular aspect at a time is not uncalled for. Jealousy when all partners equally share each other is a different, but related, aspect. One thing this person was cautioned against was collecting a truly random sample, and she was given all sorts of advice about separating out from age, location, and other census data. She made a point that this was an informal study on a very specific aspect of poly and that if she took this research paper to a doctorate level, she would be more thorough in her data gathering.

For my part, I want to make it known that "sharing" a partner with someone with whom I am not also sexually involved does not have to include jealousy or "competition", as this poll is covering. I think that's a very important concept ... not to lessen the importance of all the other concepts of poly relationships. I see too many people on the forums who are "married and looking for a third" on the idea that if they share their new partner, neither will become jealous because they both will be "equally" involved. This is a complete ignorance of how jealousy works and a desire to "manage" their jealousy by managing the triggers, rather than attacking the root cause. But, of course, no one listens to me and married couples go about blowing up their marriages when this experiment inevitably explodes as one or the other falls "more in love" with the new person or the new person has the bollocks to develop relationship feelings at unequal rates.

[sacred-harlot.livejournal.com]

Hi, I wanted to do the survey as did many poly women in my community, however and unfortunately, when following the link that you have provided there is a message to say that the survey is closed, is this a permanent thing? Is it because the author, (presumably you) have collected as much input as you need?

Please let me know, and I will pass on the information to women in my community.

Warm Regards,

Sacred Harlot.

[joreth]

I am not the one doing the survey and I have not heard about the study being closed at this time. I'll check on that.

[joreth]

Quote:

Yes, it's closed. I had 70 responses and since I had several areas
for comments and 2 essay opportunities, I need time to read them. I
didn't expect such an interest.

[imapolygirl.livejournal.com]

Dang, I waited too late to respond myself. Looks like we polywomen blew the roof off before it even got started. Cool.

[sacred-harlot.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that, I will pass it on :-)


kind regards,
Sacred Harlot.