One of the things I've done repeatedly in the last few entries is refer to both "open and poly" relationships, and most of the things I've said apply to both. Open and Poly relationships, though, are really radically different things.
An open relationship really means nothing more than that one or more of the people involved is free to date or pursue other people - that being in one or more relationships (of any level of commitment) does not rule out pursueing other relationships. In and of itself, calling a relationship "open" does not apply any specific structure or type of structures to the underlying relationships; and it can be on top of almost any other relationship. A poly relationship can be open, if one ore more of the partners is free to pursue other people; so can an otherwise monogamous relationship, and in fact an open nature can lead from being monogamous to becoming polyamorous.
Being open also can have multiple meanings. It may mean that the open partners only pursue sex with other people - this includes swinging, generally. It may mean the open partners pursue only non-sexual behaviours with other people; dating, activities, emotional connections, but no sexual contact that may generate insecurities or health risks. This is particularly common in kinky or partially-kinky situations - a Dom or Domme married to a vanilla spouse with an exclusive sexual relationship, but having submissives or play partners on the side to indulge their non-vanilla interests, for example.
The real big distinction between open and poly, however, comes when one of those relationships itself becomes committed - and one or more of the partners finds themself in two relationships. In fact, I'm going to stick with that for my definitions:
-An open relationship is one where one or more of the partners are free to pursue other people in a non-committed manner, with whatever limitations or restrictions are agreed to between the committed partners.
-A poly relationship is where at least one member of a committed relationship is in fact in at least two committed relationships.
The line can get fuzzy sometimes in the middle; after all, not everyone has strong distinctions between "dating/non-committed" and "dating/committed". That line is incredibly subjective, and may even be seen as committed by one partner and non-committed by the other. That's fine - I'm still going to stick with those answers.
Poly relationships, on the other hand, are generally much more clearly defined; their structure depends heavily on the exact nature of the relationships involved. The most common structures are what are typically known as "vees" and "triads". A vee is three people, where one (the "pivot", as I've heard them called) has relationships with both of the others, but those others do not have a committed relationship with each other. This may be a person dating two people; may be a married couple plus a third long-term secondary partner or girlfriend/boyfriend for one of them. It's distinct from a triad in that in a vee there are two people who aren't involved with each other. Please note, this doesn't mean they don't have a relationship with each other and aren't invested in each other; it means they aren't involved with each other. In most healthy triads, those two people are friends, talk, may even be very close; they just aren't a couple.
A triad, of course, is then a group of three people who are all involved with each other - that uninvolved pair are involved - and otherwise shares a lot of features with a triad. Sometimes one pair of them will be married, sometimes not; sometimes the triad or vee act as a single married unit even though at least one of those folks will not have legal protections around their involvement.
Both vees and triads come in all sorts of combinations. Depending on their orientations and preferences, it could be three men, two men and a woman, two women and a man, or three women... The only restriction, obviously, is that a relationship involving three straight women or three straight men won't be a sexual one.
Beyond vees and triads, the next most common arrangement is a quad - four people. The arrangements of relationships inside the quad can be... Complex. It could be a single pivot with three committed partners; it could be the "swinging model", where two couples also exchange partners, creating a "square quad"; it could be a committed (married or not) pair where each of them has another partner, creating a "U"; it could be four people all involved with each other... The number of possible compositions is staggering, especially when you take into account different combinations of male/female and gay/straight/bi/pansexual.
The next major organization is what I've commonly seen referred to as a "Star"; a core group of however many (I've heard of core star groups from 2-5, but there's no reason it couldn't be more depending on the people involved), where most or all of them have additional relationships "radiating out" from the center. A "U" quad is really a very small 2-core star, but the core can be larger.
After that... I mean, if I wanted to I could go on for days about all the possible arrangements. Poly relationships can be small, tight-knit groups or sprawling interconnected tribes and everything in between; You just need to always remember that the "right" size and structure for a poly relationship is the one that works best for the people in it.
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