Polyamoury and Asexuality

So my last entry was originally going to be the end of my little Polyamoury series, but Ash asked me a question last week I decided to include... Specifically in what way - if any - does asexuality relate to or affect polyamoury? And the short answer is "frequently, very well". First, lets just say that there's no reason at all an asexual-scale person can't be in a polyamorous relationship.

The biggest place where they interact is in the area of jealousy. It's not always a positive effect or not always a negative one, but the effect is almost always there. That's because jealousy - depending on the person - can come from different sources; some people get far more jealous over emotional involvement from their partners with other people, while some people get far more jealous over physical involvement from their partners. In the latter case, an asexual partner may remove jealousy from the equation; while in the former, it may be even worse than normal because the relationship is *purely* emotional.

The second really big place where they're going to interact is that - with less or no sexual contact - some of the complications simply disappear. If there is no intercourse involved (no sex or non-intercourse sex), then there's no risk of pregnancy from that partner and significantly reduced risk of disease transmission.

This isn't a rule, of course. Let's say that Alice the asexual woman and Bob the non-asexual guy are married, and the relationship is open so that Bob can satisfy his sex drive somewhere else. If he isn't smart about it (and let's face it, how many guys act smart when sex is involved?) he can *introduce* an enormous amount of risk by being exposed to diseases or risking pregnancies that would not exist at all in a typical relationship with an asexual partner. Common sense still applies.

One discussion I had with an asexual woman from California on Fetlife about the subject brought up the idea that to her, finding a couple to bond to was actually ideal. She's asexual but not aromantic, and wants very much to be part of a partnership in the same way as all her friends - but because she can't offer the physical side of it, is afraid she'll never find what she's looking for... Afraid that any partner she has will not have their needs met and be unhealthy as a result. In that respect, a polyamorous or open relationship is the best of all worlds; the chance for an asexual person to have the attachment they may need while their partner(s) still have all their needs fulfilled.

At the end of it, though, there's the fact that for someone like me - who enjoys sexual acts sometimes, even if intercourse just isn't my thing and my sex drive is lower than most folks' - there's not a really strong difference there... Or at least, any difference is a matter of quantity and not type. My "relationships" are almost always at least partially sexual, even if that sexuality doesn't necessarily match the societal norm in most cases. Rather, my poly nature is almost more a product of my asexuality; my view of relationships (which I've gone over before) tends to remove a lot of the barriers to having multiple partners vs. a single monogamous partner.

So how does asexuality work with polyamoury? Quite well, thank you. It changes things... But no more than it changes any monogamous relationship; and in my experience, polyamoury actually makes asexual relationships easier to maintain!