Polyaffectivity and Innovations in Chosen Kinship

1. Polyaffectivity and Innovations in Chosen Kinship Elisabeth Sheff Georgia State University

2. Polyamory • Openly conducted non-monogamous relationships • Focused on emotional intimacy, communication, negotiation • Generally include a romantic or sexual element

3. Chosen Kinship • Evolved from fictive kin (Levi-Strauss) • Most broadly non-biolegal, emotionally and/or romantically • Weston’s (1990) foundational study of chosen families among lesbians and gay men set the stage for LGBTQIP... family studies

4. Polyaffectivity • A form of chosen kinship • Non-sexual relationships among members of a poly grouping • Characterized by emotional intimacy, companionship, and reciprocal support • Differs from “regular” friendship in the level of devotion and primacy of import

5. Types of Polyaffective Relationships Between adults • Most commonly develop between people who share a lover in common but are not lovers themselves • Siblingesque • Co-spousal, spice • Can also be ex-lovers, co-parents

6. Types Continued Between children and adults • Most often develop among children and their parents’ partners • Commonly characterized as aunt/uncle, older sibling, non-residential • Less commonly parental figure, then often co-residential

7. Research • Longitudinal ethnographic study of self-identified polyamorists (1996 – present) • Three waves of data collection with 81 (6 children) interview participants and 600 participants observed • Sample mostly white, middle-class, highly educated, heterosexual men, hetero and bisexual women

8. Findings • These relationships take on familial level significance for adults and kids • Some polyaffective relationships outlast the associated romantic relationships • In some cases provide a more lasting connection than the potentially more dramatic romantic liasons

9. Implications Gender • Provides men with a unique opportunity to bond cooperatively with other men Families • Provides adults with additional resources, co-parents, and assistance • Provides children with additional adult confidants and support

10. Theoretical Implications • Polyaffectivityis ultimately the dethroning of sexual connection as the arbiter of relational import. If sex is not the singular, sacrosanct privilege of the nuclear couple and instead becomes one option among many of ways in which people can relate to each other, then it is no longer the determining force in deciding if a non-consanguine relationship is important or valid. As a consequence, polyaffective relationships that do not include sex can still be endowed with the same degree of importance as those that do include sex; if the spouse is not the sole lover, neither is that spouse necessarily the sole emotional or practical significant other.

11. Policy Implications • These relationships are functionally important to children and adults • Legal recognition provides access to benefits • Policy suggestions • Multiple parent adoption • Same-sex and multiple-partner marriage • Expand domestic partnership