LIFESTYLE/POLYAMORY TERMINOLOGY

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Anchor partner: A term used to describe a primary or significant partner in a polyamorous relationship who may hold a central role in someone's life or provide stability and support.

Aromantic: A romantic orientation characterized by a lack of romantic attraction to others. 

Asexual: A sexual orientation characterized by a lack of sexual attraction to others. 

Boundaries: Guidelines or limits set by individuals in a relationship to establish what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior within that relationship. 

Bisexual: A sexual orientation characterized by attraction to people of two or more genders. 

Bi-curious: A term used to describe someone who is curious or exploring their attraction to people of more than one gender. 

Comet: A term used to describe a person who moves in and out of someone's life in a polyamorous relationship, similar to a comet passing by. 

Compersion: Compersion is a word created from the words “compassion” and “conversion.” It is used to describe the positive feeling a person experiences when something good happens to someone they love. It is most often used to describe being happy when your partner is in a positive relationship with someone else and is usually used in contrast to jealousy or as an antonym to it.

Ethical non-monogamy: A term used to describe consensual, honest, and transparent non-monogamous relationship practices. 

Demisexual: A sexual orientation characterized by experiencing sexual attraction only after forming a strong emotional connection with someone. 

Fluid bonding: Refers to the practice of having unprotected sex with a partner or partners within a polyamorous relationship while taking into consideration STI risks. 

Hinge: A person in a polyamorous relationship who is dating or involved with multiple partners who may not be romantically or sexually involved with each other. 

Hierarchical relationships: A relationship structure in polyamory where certain partners are given priority or have a higher level of commitment compared to others. 

Metamour: A metamour is a person who is your partner's partner but with whom you don't directly share a loving or sexual relationship. For example, if person A and B are dating and person B is also dating person C then A and C would be metamours to each other.

New Relationship Energy (NRE): NRE is the term to describe the surge of emotional and sexual feelings that result from forming a new relationship. This term is useful for understanding why a person may seem to temporarily feel more intensely about a new partner than an established one. A good understanding of NRE can help in making better decisions about your own relationships and understanding the feelings of your partner when they begin dating someone new.

Non-hierarchical relationships: A relationship structure in polyamory where all partners are considered equal without any hierarchy. 

One penis policy: A problematic rule in some polyamorous relationships that restricts female partners from having other male partners while allowing male partners to have multiple female partners. 

Open polycule: A network of interconnected polyamorous relationships that are open to new connections and  new partners.

Open Relationship: Generally, an open relationship refers specifically to the members' ability to have sex outside of that relationship. This terms overlaps with polyamory but does not mean the same thing. While an open relationship specifically refers to sexual freedom, polyamory also includes the freedom to develop meaningful and committed relationships. Not all poly relationships are open (e.g., a polyfidelitous group relationship) and not all open relationships are poly (e.g., a monogamous couple who practices swinging).

Pansexual: A sexual orientation characterized by attraction to people regardless of their gender identity or expression. 

Polycule: A term used to describe the interconnected web of relationships and connections within a polyamorous network or community. 

Polyfidelity: Polyfidelity is a term to describe a relationship between more than two people (such as a triad or quad) in which the members may have romantic and sexual relationships with each other but have agreed not to date outside of the group.

Polysexual: A sexual orientation characterized by attraction to multiple genders, similar to bisexuality but may include attraction to non-binary individuals. 

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, etc: These terms are most often used to describe the seriousness of a relationship in regards to involvement, commitment, and/or priority. It is not uncommon for a person to have multiple primary relationships or multiple secondary relationships, and so on. There is no exact distinction between these categories, although a general guideline would be as follows: a primary partner is like a spouse, in terms of sharing finances, living together, raising children, etc. A secondary partner can still be very serious and long-term but might have fewer of those aspects. Tertiary is more rarely used but would describe a more casual relationship. Some polyamorous people prefer not to use the terms primary, secondary, etc., since they imply an arbitrary limit on certain relationships and don't allow the freedom for each one to grow in its own way.

Quad: A quad is a relationship between four people. The relationship is not necessarily sexual in nature between all members. In fact, many quads have certain members who are never sexual with each other, although this is not always the case. A quad can even consist of two overlapping triads, where two of the members are not romantically involved with each other but are involved with the other two. Occasionally, letters are used to attempt to describe the shape of the relationships in a quad. For example, "U," "Z," and "N" are often used, although there are many quad relationships that don't easily correlate to a letter shape.

Solo polyamory: A relationship style in which individuals prioritize their independence and autonomy while engaging in multiple relationships without seeking a primary partner. 

Swinging: Swinging is a term used specifically to describe a couple that has given each other permission to have sexual relations with other people. Often, but not always, swingers will have specific rules preventing them from creating any emotional connections with their outside sexual partners or other rules to limit the people they can sleep with (e.g., only sleeping with approved mutual friends). Polyamory, on the other hand, is focused on creating emotional bonds and relationships, and these are not necessarily sexual at first (or at all, in some cases).

Throuple: A relationship involving three people who are romantically or sexually involved with each other. 

Triad: A triad is a term for a relationship between three people. This relationship is not necessarily sexual in nature between all members. Triads generally fall into two categories, described as a triangle or a "V." A triangle is a triad where all three members have a roughly equal relationship with each other sexually and romantically. A "V" is a triad where two of the members don't have a romantic or sexual relationship with each other but instead have a relationship because of their connection to the third member (who is sometimes referred to as the “hinge” or “pivot”).

Unicorn: A term used in the polyamorous community to describe a single bisexual woman who is sought after to join an existing couple's relationship.