Journal of Contemporary

Ethnography
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Situational Sexual Behaviors: The Ideological Work of Moving

toward Polyamory in Communal Living Groups
Jade Aguilar
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 2013 42: 104 originally published online 7
November 2012
DOI: 10.1177/0891241612464886
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DOI: 10.1177/0891241612464886
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Situational Sexual
Behaviors: The
Ideological Work of
Moving toward Polyamory
in Communal Living
Groups
Jade Aguilar1

Abstract
Drawing on interviews and participant observation, I analyze two communal
living groups where members are encouraged to participate in the practice of polyamory. Through examining the ideological work these members
perform as they transition from monogamous relationships to polyamorous
practice, I reveal how circumstances shape sexual behavior. More specifically,
I demonstrate how members practice and sometimes embrace a nonmonogamous relationship model because of links between structural and cultural factors in the communities and because of the ideological connection
members draw between feminism and polyamory.
Keywords
polyamory, situational sexuality, ideological work, intentional communities

Introduction
A number of nineteenth- and twentieth-century communal living groups,
such as the Oneidas, viewed monogamous relationships as problematic and
1

Willamette University, Salem, OR, USA

Corresponding Author:
Jade Aguilar, Department of Sociology and Womens and Gender Studies, Willamette
University, Salem, OR 303-847-8363, USA.
Email: aguilarj@willamette.edu

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undesirable, particularly because they distracted members energy and commitment for the group (Metcalf 1996; Oved 1988). Some of these communities also believed that heterosexual monogamy reflected the patriarchal
ownership of women, which they actively resisted. In this article, I examine
contemporary communal groups who face a similar concern to their nineteenth- and twentieth-century predecessors regarding the role of monogamy.
Like their predecessors, these communities provide a unique microcosm of
society where alternative sexualities can thrive because many of the societal
structures that encourage monogamy are replaced by communal structures
that promote nonmonogamy.
While living in these groups, community members experience less exposure to the pressures to be monogamous that exist in the dominant culture,
thus giving them more freedom to openly adopt nonmonogamous sexual
practices. First, members encounter idealized representations of monogamy
in mainstream media less often because of limited access in the community.
Second, the economic benefits of monogamy, such as tax incentives for
marriage or the higher costs of single living, are absent in the community.
Third, members understanding of the theory of social constructionism distances them from essentialist notions of monogamy as natural, a common
belief in the dominant culture. Finally, community members tend to be
young, well educated, white, able bodied, and from middle- to uppermiddle-class backgrounds, confirming that those who have access to status
and power more actively resist dominant cultural constructions of sexuality
and have the least to lose by doing so (Nol 2006; Sheff and Hammers
2011; Wilkins 2004).
These communal living sites, however, are still influenced by mainstream
cultural influences, social expectations, and sexual scripts. All members in
this study moved to the communities as adults, and thus have deeply ingrained
dominant cultural notions of gender, sexuality, intimacy, and relationships.
They have regular meetings about how to challenge what they call the dominant culture hangover, referring to the patriarchal and capitalist ideologies
they learned to embrace as they were socialized. Thus, the processes whereby
members of these intentional communities shift from having exclusively
monogamous relationships to open, nonmonogamous relationships merits
investigation precisely because this shift highlights how social structures
powerfully (re)shape sexual beliefs and behaviors.
My analysis highlights (1) how the communities cultures and policies
influence their members choice of relationship models and (2) the ideological process members undergo to make sense of these new relationships.
Through examining these themes, my research bridges the situational

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sexuality and polyamory literatures. More specifically, it contributes to both

by revealing how members sexual acts are bound to a certain social location
and exist outside of an identitarian understanding of sexuality.
In this article, I define an intentional community as a group of people who
live together with a common purpose and share income and resources. I also
define polyamory as a form of relationship in which people openly court
multiple romantic, sexual, and/or affective partners (Sheff and Hammers
2011, 201). Haslam (2008) lists the characteristics that practitioners of polyamory use as guiding principles for their living: nonexclusivity in both love
and sex; autonomy of persons; transparency and honesty in dealing with each
other; and valuing intimacy, caring, equality, and communication. A large
overlap exists between the values promoted by practitioners of polyamory
and by members of intentional communities in this study because both groups
deeply emphasize honesty, personal growth, equality, communication, nonpossessiveness, and intimacy. In this article, I refer to all openly nonmonogamous relationships as polyamory because that corresponds with how the
community members label it, even when complete honesty, equality, and full
communication are not attained.
I begin by reviewing the literature on monogamy to establish how monogamy maintains its position as a dominant ideology. I also briefly explain the
concept of ideological work, particularly in relationship to challenging dominant ideologies. I then examine the literature on the relationship between
feminism and polyamory to establish polyamory as a feminist discourse.
Finally, I introduce the brief literature on situational sexuality, highlighting
the gaps in that discourse this paper seeks to fill.
In the analysis section, I examine the power relationships negotiated
around the practice of polyamory and the community discourse that works to
normalize and idealize it. The community members who adopt polyamory do
so by finding an overlap between their new community-based ideology and a
pre-existing ideology. In this case, they link polyamory to the tenets of feminism, a philosophy which many of them already embrace. Through examining how this process of ideological work (Berger 1981) unfolds, we can
gain a unique glimpse into how people acquire and accept new ideologies
that significantly challenge their commonly held beliefs.

The Dominant Ideology of Monogamy

Monogamy remains a dominant ideology (Abercrombie and Turner 1978) in
mainstream Western culture. This belief considers monogamy not simply the
most successful model for intimate relationships but the only relationship

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model. Several social factors sustain the ideology of monogamy, but two
factors are particularly strong: its institutionalization in the form of marriage,
and the construction of monogamy as a natural component of human biology
and evolution. As Duggan and Hunter (1995, 108) point out, the state conflates both of these factors by codifying monogamy into law through marriage while also asserting its naturalness for heterosexual couples.
Together, beliefs that marriage represents a normal part of the life course
and that people are naturally monogamous serve to reproduce monogamy as
a hegemonic discourse and practice. The emotion of jealousy, which many
people experience at the thought that their lover might stray, reinforces the
idea that monogamy is biological, making jealousy appear to be an innate
proof of love and commitment. Other powerful cultural and structural norms
supporting monogamy include idealized constructions of the nuclear family
and the idolization of monogamous romance and love. Dominant cultural
scripts suggest that weddings, a celebration of lifelong monogamy, should be
the happiest day of peoples lives. The media are also saturated with messages about ones soul mate or one true love (Ingraham 2008; Otnes and
Pleck 2003).
As illustrated by Schmookler and Bursiks (2007, 819) study, although
women and men both value monogamy, women place greater importance on
both emotional and sexual monogamy. Schmookler and Bursik propose
that this gender difference occurs because monogamy involves relating
emotionally to another person, allowing the self to be dependent on
another, and sexual restraint, all behaviors that society positively reinforces in women (832). Men, on the other hand, learn to demonstrate independence, self-sufficiency, and hypersexuality with multiple partners,
characteristics that are not as relevant for sustaining monogamous relationships (Schmookler and Bursik 2007, 833). These social constructs of gender
affect the differences in value men and women place on monogamy.
Women experience particularly severe repercussions for rejecting monogamy. Less-severe consequences include being labeled as promiscuous and
having their morality called into question; more-severe consequences may
include losing their children, family, friends, jobs, and/or their reputations.
These repercussions go far beyond mere social disapproval of a deviant
behavior. As Emenss (2004, 13) study of legal briefs shows, lawmakers legally
codify monogamy in a wide range of contexts with proscriptions against promiscuity, against adultery, against bigamy, against singlehood, and against
deviations from what we might call simple monogamy, the idea of one partner
at a time. Given the social and legal ramifications, very few people, and especially few women, dare to [overtly] challenge this entrenched ideology.

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Given monogamys dominant status in U.S. society and the many social
factors working to maintain its dominance, an individuals deliberate
rejection of it would take a great deal of ideological work. Berger (1981,
114) coined the term ideological work to explain how a person or group
makes sense of the dissonance between their actual behavior and stated
values.
Among the communards, disjuncture occurs when members join an intentional community where polyamory is practiced and encouraged, and their
deeply held beliefs about monogamy are challenged. In order to reconcile
their belief system with their newly adopted sexual practices, individuals
must engage in ideological work to find a common ground between their new
understandings of the philosophies of polyamory and their long-standing
knowledge of feminism.

The Rise of Polyamory as a Feminist Discourse

Discourse on polyamory in the 1990s emerged at the intersection of several
progressive social movements, including several waves of feminism challenging institutionalized heterosexual monogamy as the dominant relationship model (Haritaworn, Lin, and Klesse 2006; Nol 2006). Feminist
scholars studying sex and gender have linked institutionalized heterosexual
monogamy with patriarchy for decades. The feminist critique against
monogamy, and against the institution of marriage emphasizes (1) the
implied ownership of women by men as akin to slavery (Dixon 1977;
Morgan 1970); (2) the institutionalization of rape and domestic violence
against women (Dworkin 1976); and (3) the perpetuation of patriarchy at the
household level. Robinson (1997, 144), for instance, writes that institutionalized monogamy privileges the interests of both men and capitalism, operating as it does through the mechanisms of exclusivity, possessiveness and
jealousy, all filtered through the rose-tinted lens of romance. Jackson and
Scott (2002) summarize the feminist arguments:
Monogamy was questioned as a cornerstone of patriarchal privilege,
enshrining mens rights over womens bodies, and as central to an
ideology of romantic love through which womens compliance was
secured. More radically, it was seen as antithetical to egalitarian sexual
relations: it reduced human beings to property, promoted destructive
emotions such as jealousy and emotional dependency as positive
proofs of love and impoverished our wider social relations.

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Feminists opposing institutionalized monogamy argue that non-monogamy

enables a radical reworking of gendered power relationships that allow us
to respond imaginatively to changing social trends and rethink social
arrangements (Robinson 1997, 144). The idea that nonmonogamy frees
women was integral to the ideology of womens sexual liberation, and
profoundly shaped cultural practices and political debates in many social
movements (Haritaworn, Lin, and Klesse 2006). Wouters (1998, 227) writes
that the sexual revolution was a breakthrough in the emancipation of female
sexuality because it took womens sexual pleasure seriously, and both men
and women learned to work toward and appreciate female sexual pleasure.
Despite this increased awareness, the sexual revolution did not address the
still-unequal balance of power that existed between men and women.
New ways of thinking about sexual relationships and intimacy arose from
feminist critiques of monogamy, the sexual revolution, and the gay and lesbian rights movements. In the 1990s, third-wave feminists continued challenging dominant constructions of gender and sexuality by taking a defiantly
pro-sex stance. They resurrected the connection between sexual agency and
womens liberation, a focal point of the second-wave feminist movement
(Wilkins 2004), by calling for a new model of female sexual subjectivity, by
reclaiming femininity through a revaluing of the markers of girly-ness, and
by a mass re-appropriation of historically woman-negative words (Attwood
2007). In particular, they reclaimed the word slut to show pride for sexual
agency as supported by the 1990s version of girl power, which endorsed an
image of a strong, sexual, and independent woman who did not need a man,
but might desire one or several (Forrest 2002).
Similarly, the polyamorous discourse, which emerged around the same
time as third-wave feminism (and may have emerged out of third-wave feminism; Bernhardt 2009), emphasizes that having multiple lovers does not
mean sleeping around but instead represents engagement in several caring,
intimate, honest, equal, and nonexclusive relationships. Easton and Liszt,
authors of The Ethical Slut, long considered an authoritative source on polyamory, write that as proud sluts, we believe that sex and sexual love are
fundamental forces for good, activities with the potential to strengthen intimate bonds, enhance lives, open spiritual awareness, even change the world
(2009, 4).
Feminism and the tenets of polyamory overlap significantly in that both
connect monogamy and patriarchal ownership of women, and both emphasize womens sexual agency and liberation. In Barker and Richies (2007)
study of polyamorous women, All participants but one identified as feminists and many linked this explicitly to their polyamory (150). The

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participants cited polyamory as women-centered, because it values the

feminine practices of organizational skill (necessary to manage multiple
relationships) and communication. Barker and Richie also claimed that polyamorous women are less dependent on men than are heterosexually monogamous women, and they are freer to place equal value on friendships and
sexual relationships. Other researchers suggested that polyamory is feminist
because it challenges exclusivity, possessiveness and jealousy (Robinson
1997, 144), womens unpaid domestic labor on which monogamy relies
(Munson and Stelboum 1999), and the isolation some monogamous women
experience (Jackson and Scott 2004).

Situational Sexuality
Barkers (2005, 83) study showed that most polyamorous individuals viewed
their polyamorous behavior as natural, spoke of being wired this way,
and said they couldnt help their desire for multiple relationships. As
Barker notes, this prevalence of biological explanations is unsurprising given
the strong discourse in Western culture at present that things with biological
origins are somehow more real than products of socialization or cultural
construction (83). At the same time, the notion that sexual behavior necessarily leads to a construction of a sexual identity constitutes a more recent
idea. Historian Regina Kunzel writes, Most historians locate the formation
of modern Euro-American sexual identities in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Around this time, so the argument goes, sexual acts
became newly constitutive of identity: what one did, and with whom, came
to define who one was (2002, 253). This idea has been most strongly associated with gender-based sexual behaviors, such as hetero-, homo-, and
bisexual sex leading to gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities. In addition, other
people engaging in non-gender-based sexual behaviors also employ the construction of a sexual identity, such as polyamorists (Barker 2005), sadomasochists (Langdridge and Butt 2004; Newmahr 2008), and asexuals
(Scherrer 2008). Thus, polyamorists biological discourse makes sense given
their place in the history of sexuality.
From the 1940s through the 1970s, sociological texts used situational
sexuality to describe the occurrence of homosexual behavior in social settings and institutions that are predominately same-sexsuch as prisons,
military settings and boarding schools. It was used as a way of differentiating
real homosexuals from those who engaged in homosexual behavior only
when heterosexual sex was unavailable (Escoffier 2003, 531). As scholars
employed a more social-constructionist theory of sexuality, distinguishing

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real homosexuals from real heterosexuals engaging in same-sex sex fell

out of favor (Rust 2000). Katz explains, The term [situational homosexuality] is fallacious if it implies that there is some true homosexuality which is
not situated. All homosexuality is situational, influenced and given meaning
and character by its location in time and social space (Katz 1976, 11, cited
in Kunzel 2002, 254).1
In the past decade, a few scholars have reclaimed the idea of situational
homosexuality, this time replacing core/biological sexuality with a more
fully social-constructionist perspective. These scholars assert that the concept remains useful to examine particular homosexual behaviors that are specific to a social setting and distinct from homosexual identity (Escoffier
2003; Kunzel 2002), such as the sexual behaviors of heterosexually identified
actors in gay-porn films. He suggests that the reconceptualization of situational homosexuality opens up the possibilities of examining other forms of
homosexual behavior that cannot be explained by contemporary notions of
gay identity, such as men who identify primarily as heterosexual but who
have casual or opportunistic sex with men, those who are sex workers or
prisoners, and/or those who belong to same-sex cohorts of immigrants
(2003, 532).
In this article, I use situational sexuality to examine sexual behaviors
that occur outside of, and cannot be explained by, stated gender-based sexual
identities. I apply the concept of situational sexuality to understand polyamorous behaviors that take place among nonpoly-identified people in the
specific social setting of a rural commune. Like Harpers (2010, 94) study of
bisexuality among the NeoPagans, where a combination of the idealization
of female bisexuality . . . and the pressure from fellow practitioners and the
male partners in their lives led straight-identified women to practice bisexuality, I too consider the confluence of social factors that encourage communal
group members to renounce monogamous relationships for polyamorous
ones. This work builds on the previous research done on situational sexuality,
reclaiming it as a useful tool in expanding our understanding of the intersections of sexual practice and identity.

Methods
Research Setting
I used participant observation, content analysis, and in-depth interviews to
investigate two egalitarian intentional communities from 2006 to 2007.
Both were rural and depended on operating several small businesses to meet

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their economic needs. At the time of my visits, the larger community, Red
River, had approximately hundred members, while Applewood included
about twenty-three members. I received Institutional Review Board (IRB)
approval from the University of Colorado at Boulder and followed their
protocols, including changing the names of the communities and the interview participants to protect members identities and having participants sign
consent forms.
Both communities belonged to the Federation of Egalitarian Communities,
which is a union of communities which have joined together in a common
struggle to create a lifestyle based on equality, cooperation, and harmony
with the earth. They also both identified as feminist communities, and one
was part of a loosely organized group of feminist eco-villages who claimed
to hold feminism as a core value.2

Data Collection
During my stay at each community, I was a noncovert researcher with
peripheral membership in the community (Adler and Adler 1994). I lived,
ate, worked, and attended community meetings and social functions alongside the members of the community, but I did not participate in group decisions or advocate any of my own positions. During the several months that I
stayed at each community and the years I retained contact with the groups, I
slowly became what Naples (2003) calls a conditional insider, a term that
reflects the shifting insideroutsider dichotomy and the continued negotiation of insider status in fieldwork. This status allowed access that was
unavailable in the beginning, giving me a deeper understanding of the role
polyamory plays in members lives.
To recruit interview participants, I posted a page on the main bulletin
board of each community that explained the purpose of the study. These communities valued social research, were open to researchers visits, and encouraged members to participate by allowing them to count time spent interviewing
toward their weekly labor quota of thirty-five to forty-five hours. I paid the
community eight dollars per interview hour to compensate for their lost labor.
Each interview lasted approximately two hours. Follow-up questions were
very informal because I was living at the community while conducting interviews. I digitally recorded interviews unless the participant opted for me to
take hand-written notes instead (n = 2). I kept all audio files and transcriptions in a secure location, locked via password.
While polyamory was not the sole research focus, members talked about it
eagerly and often. It may be, however, that those members who readily spoke

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about polyamory in the interviews were most strongly affected by it, either
positively or negatively. About half of the members of each community (and a
significantly larger percentage of those under age thirty-five) had engaged in
polyamory at some point. Those without personal experience with polyamory
shared their opinions about polyamory and its role in the community.

Demographics of the Interview Participants

Members of egalitarian intentional communities tend to be younger adults.
My sample reflected this, as twenty-three of my thirty-two interview participants were under thirty years old, and 9 participants were forty years or older
at the time of the interview. The communities maintained a deliberate gender
balance, meaning that they only accepted new female members if, for
instance, the community became more than 60 percent male. I interviewed
an equal number of men (n = 16) and women (n = 16). No one identified as
transgender when interviewed, although there had been trans-identified community members in the past. Interviewees considered their sexuality fluid,
often with a preference for one gender and a willingness to experiment with
others as opportunities arose. Most of them self-identified as mostly heterosexual, or heteroflexible; some claimed to be pan-sexual, and several
refused to sexually label themselves. Members mainly identified as white
and middle-class, as in past research in similar communities (Miller 1999).

Analysis
I gathered field notes, interview transcripts, and community documents using
inductive data-gathering methods (Lofland and Lofland 1995). I categorized
the data into emergent themes throughout the data collection and analysis
process using constant comparative methods (Glaser and Strauss 1967). I
added questions about polyamory to interviews based on data I obtained while
observing participants and based on themes that emerged in the first interviews. I recognized that saturation had been reached when subsequent interviews yielded no additional information. Using axial coding, I systematically
identified relationships between concepts that revealed causal conditions,
contextual factors, actions and interactions taken in response to the phenomenon, intervening conditions that assisted or hindered actions and interactions,
and consequences of actions and interactions (Berg 1995; Neuman 2003;
Strauss and Corbin 1990). During the writing/analytical processes, I revisited
the data many times to cross-check or verify my conclusions.

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Analysis and Discussion

The Pathway to Poly Behaviors
Community conditions create an environment in which polyamory thrives.
First, communities that openly practice polyamory are often geographically
isolated. This isolation protects them from the stigma of engaging in deviant
sexuality, similar to how isolation protects other subcultures (such as the
Goth subculture studied by Wilkins 2004). Second, the communities acceptance and encouragement of an alternative lifestyle, along with their commitment to feminist politics, provide room to explore sexuality and nontraditional
relationship models.
Although polyamory was common, no member I interviewed cited polyamory as a reason for joining the community, and only two members had
practiced consensual nonmonogamy prior to joining. Reasons for joining
varied, but most members cited the egalitarian economic arrangement of full
income sharing or to counter the social isolation they felt in mainstream society. During the informational sessions for new members, current members
introduced polyamory as an optional but highly regarded practice. I met open
couples, poly families (including one with a child), and some singles who
appreciated the practice of open sexuality. Monogamy was never outwardly
maligned but was presented as one option among many, and a few members
remained committed to it.
When I questioned participants about polyamory, a large majority of the
newer members (of six months or less), and particularly the newer women,
expressed disinterest in open relationships, often stating that they could never
overcome the jealousy they would feel if they shared their lovers. As Falicia,
twenty-five, explained, I dont think its a relationship model that would
work for me. I require to be adored! (laughs) . . . and I need a lot of attention
(laughs) and I think it would take a lot of work for me to feel emotionally
fulfilled in that kind of relationship model, and so I dont want to do that.
Conversely, many members with a year or more of membership supported
polyamory, often explaining why they decided to try it or why, even if not
currently practicing polyamory, it is still a good idea. Like the newer members, several long-termers claimed that they too had said not for me when
introduced to the idea of polyamory. As the long-termers explained, the idealization of monogamy is deeply entrenched, and new members struggle to
imagine polyamory as something desirable. Most of those who practiced
polyamory did not claim it as a sexual identity, instead viewing it as simply a
behavioral practice.

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Thus, newly joined members indicated reluctance to practice polyamory

because of a deeply socialized desire for monogamy, their fears of jealousy,
and their equation of exclusivity with love; yet, many longer-term members
who were otherwise like the newcomers engaged in polyamorous behaviors.
Three factors fostered this transition: the encouragement of intimate physical
contact, the challenge of maintaining a monogamous relationship, and access
to sexual/romantic partners.

The Encouragement of Intimate Physical Contact

Within these communities, physical contact with friends in the form of cuddling, sleeping next to someone, or hugging all become normalized and frequent occurrences, unlike mainstream culture in which individuals mostly
limit physical contact to close family members or intimate partners. Friends
(male, female, or coed) cuddled together in hammocks, beds, or on picnic
blankets reading or talking. This kind of personal contact is one reason
people frequently cited for joining an intentional community in the first
place. Some members said that living far from family or without a romantic
relationship left them literally craving physical touch with other people,
and finding a community that encouraged this was wonderful. However,
cuddling and sharing a bed still held symbolic meaning for new members as actions they did only with intimates, and when practiced with friends,
feelings of attraction and intimacy emerged. Similarly, the open practice of
nudity at the communities also triggered unanticipated sexual/romantic feelings for some. Cuddling or spending time with others in the nude, some
claimed, led to romantic emotional and sexual connections with several
members at the same time.
Beyond platonic touch that sometimes led to sexual touch, the communities sometimes hosted make-out parties where members engaged in nonpenetrative sexual acts in a group setting. One of the communities held such
a party while I was researching the community. The party organizers were
clear that guests had to be willing to participate to be welcome; onlookers
were discouraged. Several members spent the day hard at work preparing
food, arranging the party rooms pillows and blankets, and getting the right
music ready. The group was excitedly nervous. When the party started, most
members dressed up and went to the other house to engage in sexual play. I,
and a few of the newer, older, and more reluctant members stayed in the main
living area to talk and play board games. Within an hour, two of the newer
members overcame their shyness and headed over to the party. The next day,
one of the organizers, Theresa, twenty-four, told me:

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I think about some of the parties that we have here sometimes and how
open they are, how much people have freedom of expression. You
know, theres a level of intimacy, and openness, and connection, and
welcoming that I think we offer here in our social scene that I havent
experienced in many other places, and my take on why that is, is
because were living so closely and theres a lot of shit that we deal
with, with each other, and the shit we deal with is painful, it sucks a lot
at times, its frustrating, and theres a lot of things that people dont like
about each other, and things that happen, and the fact that on some
level, were dealing with it, even if badly, does still allow us a level of
openness and intimacy and self-expression that is pretty amazing.
The reimagining of sexual contact from something you do only with a partner to something done for fun and communion with friends normalizes such
contact, easing the transition to having multiple partners, yet by keeping the
make-out party optional, members conform to the community rhetoric that
all sexual preferences are accepted, embraced, and celebrated.

The Challenge of Maintaining Monogamous Relationships

The communities implicit and explicit support for poly behaviors challenged the relationships of newly joined monogamous couples. Several
members who desired to remain monogamous with their partners felt threatened and apprehensive that another sexually available person who did not
value the exclusiveness of their relationship would seduce their partner.
Emily, twenty-nine, a Red River member who joined with her boyfriend,
spoke about the pressure their relationship faced when confronted with the
possibility of multiple sexual partners:
During my visitor period here, [polyamory] was definitely a concern
for me, and part of the reason my relationship broke up is because my
then partner had said that if he had his ideal relationship, he would be
polyamorous and I said no, but because of that difference between the
two of us, I was really insecure and I was really worried about moving
to some place where it was a polyamorous haven and that he would
start meeting all these people . . . and when I moved here as a new
member, suddenly it seemed like everyone was polyamorous. I
thought, Who isnt? and Oh my God, what am I doing here? There
are so many potential threats here, so many people who would potentially steal my boyfriend, and it was rough; it was really hard. And the

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fact that I was so insecure contributed to our breaking up. And he

wasnt good about calming my fears.
Their relationship, like several others I studied, fell apart under the pressure
that new couples experienced about whether to remain exclusive or to open
up to new partners. At this early stage of membership, most couples viewed
polyamory as a threat to their exclusive relationship and not as an opportunity for sexual liberation or as a way to live out a feminist belief system.
Rich, twenty-one, who had spent time at both communities in this study,
explained:
There is pattern at both Applewood and Red River of people arriving
as a couple and then one of them develops an interest in someone else
and the other one ends up leaving because they cant stand sharing
their lover or constantly living with this person who they have so much
hurt associated with. It is definitely a problem that not everyone finds
an amicable solution to.
Richs observation that members hurt by their lovers interest in another
person ended up leaving the community suggests that those individuals who
remain accept open relationships, leading to a more like-minded community.
Relationships that did not dissolve under the pressure sometimes opened
up to new lovers. In the case of heterosexual couples, this opening was often
at the mans suggestion.
Community members did not censor male members for their desire for sex
with multiple women, even though men in these communities typically distanced themselves from other aspects of hegemonic masculinity such as
aggression and competition. As Sheff (2006, 62526) noted in her work on
poly-hegemonic masculinity, polyamory offers men the possibility of access
to sex with multiple women, which affirms hegemonic masculinitys reliance
on hypersexuality and the fantasy of the iconic triadic relationship. Similar
to Harpers (2010, 99) findings among NeoPagan men, where male partners
seemed to be the driving force behind their female partners sexual escapades, males in my study encouraged their female partners to have multiple
sexual relationships so that they too could do the same. John, twenty-six, for
instance, encouraged his wife to initiate a romance with another man by
explaining to her that he could not fulfill all of her needs. My spouse spent
a good deal of time hanging out with [another man]. He was a very different
person from me. He provided something for her that she wasnt getting from
me. I encouraged it; I think it was a good thing to encourage. He highlighted

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for his wife that each partnership contains different qualities depending on
the partners unique physical, emotional, or intellectual connections. The following year, when I asked John what happened between his wife, Meghan,
thirty-one, and the other man, he said:
Well, I got more jealous as time went on, because a serious relationship
developed between them, and, although we were initially monogamous,
were in a community that encourages polyamorous relationships. And
that was really hard. It got messy, really messy. It was hard, it put a lot
of strain on our relationship, it was really painful, and Meghan now
believes that there is a part of her that isnt necessarily monogamous.
At the time of the second interview, the man with whom Meghan had developed a relationship had recently left the community, and John was forming
a new secondary relationship with a recently arrived female member. John
and Meghan still considered themselves in a committed relationship with
each other that involved co-raising their young son. Like John and Meghans
situation, most women who practiced polyamory said that their male partner
first suggested it. It is possible that women and men were equally open to
initiating a polyamorous relationship, but women hesitated to disclose this
to me out of fear of being judged as promiscuous, a label with more serious
consequences for women than men. Even though John encouraged the relationship between the other man and his wife, he still struggled with the
transition from a monogamous to an open relationship. Like other couples
at the communities, John and Meghans initial excitement about multiple
partners partially obscured the obstacles they faced in adjusting to this new
relationship model.
Members like John and Meghan transitioning into polyamory must engage
in a great deal of emotional work because of the complexity of and their inexperience with feelings of jealousy. Both the communities offered emotional
care for the transition to polyamory in the form of support groups and counseling. Community members willingly did the work, because personal growth
was highly valued and rewarded. A beginners pamphlet on managing polyamorous relationships, Open Hands, was available (Adelova-Calta 1996).
This text stresses the benefits of nonpossessiveness, personal growth, and
rebelling against the dominant cultures limited definition of relationships:
Why bother with open relationships? In part it challenges part of our
socialization: societys standard is monogamy, a possessive contract
which implies love is scarce, like CD players or hair driers, and once

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youve got it, you better grab it and hold it, because you dont want
to be without it. I think we can be more creative than this about our
feelings.
The idea behind open relationships is that each relationship is free
to determine the best way to communicate. If it includes sex, thats
fine. Because we have not escaped our socialization, we have to work
with our lovers in order to accept other sex partners. But it is useful
work, in helping us to understand our desires and insecure feelings and
if we succeed, we set our lovers free, to come back to us out of true
desire.
This passage of the pamphlet exhorts community members to challenge their
dominant cultural socialization and resolve jealous feelings. Jealousy,
instead of being viewed as a natural/biological emotion to be overcome,
represented a cultural byproduct of monogamy reinforced by the dominant
society. As they worked to overcome jealousy, members began to see other
emotions and social institutions as socially constructed. In other words,
members felt that if they could actively overcome the powerful emotion of
jealousy, then questioning and reassessing other powerfully dominant ideologies presented to them as natural also became possible. This engagement
with social constructionism promised members a transformed worldview and
was, according to several members, empowering.
Members often cited a broad commitment to personal growth and development on many levels as a key reason for joining an intentional community.
Polyamorous relationships required intense emotional work, and members
viewed this work as progress toward their personal development goals. Red
River offered weekly formal group meetings on both polyamory and radical
honesty, and Applewood held weekly meetings to discuss members emotional needs, with the conversation often revolving around polyamorous
relationships in the community. In these meetings, members reaffirmed that
no one person can fulfill all your needs and putting all your eggs in one
basket can lead to emotional dependency and a loss of self-esteem. They
asserted that polyamory keeps women from rivaling each other for male
attention and allows for honesty and openness to emerge. Another passage
from the Open Hands handbook provided evidence for the benefits associated with overcoming jealousy:
At the point when you are able to overcome your jealous feelings,
when you can be happy that your lover is enjoying being with someone
else, there is a tremendous liberation that occurs. You stop holding

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tight, and love with open hands; this makes you much more attractive
to your lovers, who will feel both free and secure. This starts a positive
cycleyou feel better about yourself, and make lovers and friends
happier, too.
This text states that by working to overcome their jealous feelings, members
will become more liberated, be more attractive to their lovers, feel better
about themselves, and make themselves and others happier.
Members emphasized the emotional labor required to maintain these
enormously complex and emotionally demanding relationships. Petrella
(2007, as cited in Haritaworn, Lin, and Klesse 2006, 521) suggests that polyamorists borrow from the Protestant ethic by presenting themselves as morally superior to those merely engaging in sex as a carnal pleasure, because
polyamorists engage in spiritual and emotional growth. The emotional labor
polyamorous community members performed came with the benefit of not
only personal growth but also validation from the community as someone
who wanted to become better, as was evidenced by this statement from
Martin, twenty-two:
[Being a member] has also changed my ideas about monogamy and
how relationships should be. Its kind of opened my eyes, and I kind
of got rid of the notion of jealousy for the most part. I still see it sometimes in myself, probably in other members of the community as well.
Im better for [the change].

Access to Sexual/Romantic Partners

Finally, some members joined an open relationship not at the insistence of
a current partner but strictly because finding a monogamous partner proved
difficult, or the particular person to whom they were romantically attracted
was not interested in an exclusive relationship. For instance, Katy, thirtytwo, told me that she will have to [become polyamorous], mostly because
it makes it easier to find someone. If youre only looking for a monogamous
relationship, your chances of finding someone are less. Likewise, Kris,
nineteen, remarked that in terms of being able to jump in [to the dating
scene], theres who youre willing to share. If youre interested in someone,
it cant bother you that they would also be with someone else. You have to
learn to embrace a new perspective of how to be intimate with people.
Community members adjusted their sexual preferences to accommodate
partner availability. One member called herself polyconvenient to express

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her situation of reluctantly engaging in polyamory so that she could be with

the man in the community to whom she was attracted but who had no interest in monogamy. Another member, Carter, twenty-two, shared his story
about a relationship he started with a woman who already had another male
partner:
During my visitor period, I met this really attractive woman here who
had a boyfriend. She said she and her boyfriend had experimented with
being monogamous for two months and it didnt turn out well, because
she really wants to be monogamous, but he doesnt want to. So she told
me, We tried this experiment where me and him sleep together for six
nights a week, (laughs) and the other night we can sleep with whomever else we want.
So basically thats what I was doing. I was dating a girl for one night
a week, which I was happy with, because she was super attractive, and
I was never really confident at home. So its like, one night a week we
can sleep together. I was happy with that. But her relationship with her
other boyfriend was very stressful on her, because he would basically
sleep with every woman that stepped foot on this farm, visitors and
guests. So I guess it was polyamory, but he sort of was pushing her
boundaries a lot. That was a lot of stress on her. And she figuredshe
really wanted to be monogamous with him, and if she couldnt get him
to be monogamous, by default she had to have other partners, because
she didnt want to be the oneyeah. So I was that other person.
According to Carter, the woman reluctantly agreed to a six-night-a-week
arrangement with her primary boyfriend to maintain her relationship with
him. Carter, too, did much the same. While he would prefer a monogamous
relationship, he too sacrificed his desire for monogamy to gain sexual access
to the person he found attractive. Also, while polyamory involves engaging
in multiple loving and caring relationships, and not sleeping with every
woman who steps foot on this farm, some community members used the
label of polyamory as a cover for casual sex.
In sum, several factors together steered community members away from
monogamy and towards polyamorous relationships. They included the normalization of close physical (and sometimes sexual) contact between members, the lack of support for monogamous relationships, and the relatively
small number of available sexual and romantic partners. Some members
agreed to engage in polyamory to maintain intimacy with partners who
required it. Some reasons for participating in polyamory appear to contradict

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the idea of polyamory as feminism in practice; however, I suggest that the

equation of polyamory with feminism was the tool members used to make
sense of their agreement to a relationship model that initially did not attract
them. Finding the ways that feminism justified their behavior helped them
reconcile their actions with their changing beliefs and feel supported in practicing polyamory.

Polyamory Is the Feminist Way

Once members moved toward a practice of polyamory, they called upon their
cultural resources to justify their decision. Members viewed themselves as
participants in a particular strain of socialist feminism that values shared
resources and no private ownership, and came to understand polyamory as a
relationship model that also embraced those ideals. The parallels between the
two ideologies created opportunities to put their feminism into practice.
People who move to an intentional community go through a period of
major cognitive and emotional readjustment as they question formerly held
beliefs and forge new social understandings. As Wolkomir (2001, 407)
explains, ideological change can be threatening and difficult, entailing periods of cognitive and emotional disruption as people relinquish old ideas and
wrestle with new ones. The community members in this study deliberately
challenged many of their previously held beliefs regarding leadership, competition, and capitalism, but monogamy may have been the most difficult
belief to discard. To reconcile their belief system with their new sexual practice, they needed to find common ground between their newly acquired
understandings of the philosophies of polyamory and their long-standing
knowledge of feminism.
Members helped each other find the parallels between feminism and
polyamory as they make the difficult and emotional ideological shift. For
instance, in the Open Hands pamphlet, monogamy was referred to as a possessive contract, linking the possessiveness of patriarchal monogamy
with the exclusivity of a lover. Rejecting monogamy was a symbolic ideological protest against this possessive and patriarchal relationship model.
For instance, Emily, twenty-nine, spoke of her conceptualization of the relationship between feminism and polyamory: I do feel that for myself and the
other [members who are] feminists, [polyamorous relationships] are a feminist thing. The non-ownership aspect is very important to us. By redefining
polyamory as a feminist practice, members felt good and proud of their
intentional decision, which might otherwise be construed as a situational
necessity.

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By contrast, monogamy did not get the same feminist stamp of approval,
particularly in heterosexual relationships, precisely because of its implied
ownership of women by men. One member wrote, in a book about her experience at the community, We arent a society that gives much respect or support to marriage or marriage-like arrangements (Kinkade 1994, 183). She
suggested that a growing interest in feminist thinking among community
members encouraged women to feel complete in [themselves] and not
dependent on a man. [The women] are urged not to arrange her life to suit her
partners, nor subordinate her other interests to the success of her relationship (1994, 183). This encouraged sexual and relational independence and
persuaded female members that monogamous long-term relationships were
not in their best interests and did not follow the feminist philosophy of the
community.
Additionally, the community treated all members as individuals, not as a
part of a couple or a family unit. This treatment was most apparent in the
assigning of living quarters. Every member, including each child, was
assigned her or his own room. Barbara, seventy-six, a founder of both of the
communities in this study, explained that:
The [original] structure is still in place, with everybody having their
private room. Male and female, they can get together. They can sleep
in each others room. But we dont house people as families. We house
people as individuals. I think that is whats led, not to the dismantling
of family, but to the encouragement of alternative families, which,
even here, there might be, you know, someone as a primary parent and
then theres maybe a secondary parent, but other parents relationships
are polyamorous.
In addition to housing people as individuals, all the rules, benefits, and costs
of membership took place between the community and the individual. Every
member received the same monthly allowance, with no additional benefits or
special privileges awarded to couples or families. These structural factors
defined the individual as the basic social unit just as the communitys support
of feminism and polyamory defined multiple lovers as the basic relationship
configuration over monogamy.

Conclusion
This research offers a processed view of ideological work that members of
two intentional communities undertook to accept polyamory as a sexual/

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relational practice. Members did not initially join the community to practice
polyamory, but once there, they encountered several mechanisms that
encouraged polyamory while discouraging monogamy. Most new members
fully embraced the idea of nonmonogamy and could easily understand it as
a feminist sexual arrangement, but the practice of nonmonogamy presented
a challenge that required a great deal of ideological and emotional work both
on their part and on the part of other members.
In previous studies of noncommunal polyamorous groups, couples or individuals engaged in multiple relationships after they had already become
interested in the theories of polyamory (McLean 2004; Nol 2006; Sheff
2005, 2006). In my study, most polyamorous members found themselves
practicing polyamory before they had fully subscribed to the philosophy.
Thus, members spent more time doing remedial ideological work (Berger
1981). They validated their actions by linking them to feminism, a parallel
philosophy to which they already subscribed. My research reaffirms Snow
and Benfords (2000, 56) views of ideology as a cultural resource used to
frame activity: a process that involves the articulation of elements of existing beliefs and values, most of which are associated with existing ideologies. For most members, the combination of the connection between
polyamory and feminism, the communities ongoing emotional and structural
support of polyamorous relationships, and the members desire for personal
growth through ideological work proved sufficient for their acceptance and
even embrace of the practice.
In addition, this research contributes to a broader understanding of situational sexuality. As Escoffier (2003, 552) points out, all sexual performance is fundamentally situational and does not always result in long-lasting
social psychological commitment to any one form of sexual activity. What
I have termed situational polyamory occurs when monogamously identified
people enter a community encouraging polyamory and marginalizing
monogamy. As described in this study, the particular features of these communities as well as the privileged social location of the members allowed
members to shift away from their former practice of sexual/relational
monogamy. Their access to financial, social, and cultural capital promoted
experimentation with nontraditional sexual and relational arrangements and
supported the time-intensive ideological work needed when rejecting dominant ideologies.
Further research should focus on how members sexual/relationship practices change after members leave the community. I suspect that members
who return to mainstream society return to monogamy, because the situational circumstances encouraging polyamory will no longer be present, and

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they will instead be replaced by factors maintaining monogamys dominance

in mainstream society. Of course, polyamorous individuals exist outside of
intentional communities, and the structures that supported polyamory in the
communities are not necessary conditions for polyamory in general. When
members leave the community, they also leave behind whatever compelled
them to join the community in the first place, such as an extended transition
to adulthood and the search for an alternative lifestyle. Many members leave
because they wish to settle down in a traditional sense by starting a career
and a family. While it is possible to be polyamorous and have a family and
career, these members may view their polyamorous behaviors as a wild part
of their youth. Even, and perhaps especially, if polyamorous practices are
short-lived, the finding that members reject monogamy while in the community reaffirms research on situational sexual behaviors by showing how sexual behavior can shift when ones environment changes. Members possible
reversion back to monogamy when leaving the community by no means
proves the naturalness of their monogamy but again points to the impact of
environment on our sexual choices, behaviors, and identities. In this case, the
culture and policies in place in the community and the connection between
polyamorous ideology and feminism provided many members with the ideal
situational framework to shift away from monogamy. These changes, even if
temporary, will likely have long-term impacts on how they view and negotiate future relationships.
This research also demonstrates that people use sexual behavior as a
means of living their values and politics. The participants in this study offered
a contemporary example of people practicing sexual relationships in a way
that paralleled their stated egalitarian, communication, and feminist values.
Members political beliefs shaped their sexual choices, and their sexual
choices became politicized, thus moving the practice of polyamory beyond
an individual choice and personal agency model often seen in mainstream
polyamorous texts (Nol 2006). Little writing exists about the politics of
sexual behavior outside of a gendered sexual orientation; however, the politicization of sexuality, and in particular the decision to change ones sexual
behaviors to more closely match ones values, has been explored before. One
example is the case of political lesbianism (Jeffreys 1990). Polyamorous relationships in intentional communities provide a unique opportunity to examine how a group commits to progressive gender politics through its
encouragement of sexual diversity.
Finally, this research sheds much-needed light on the complex relationship between sexual identity and sexual behavior. Barker (2005, 84)
notes that unlike notions of sexual orientation which center around gender

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preference as a way of organizing sexual identity (hetero-, homo-, and bisexual identities), the way in which people conduct their relationships (monogamous, polyamorous, or otherwise) seems to have a more complex
relationship to self-identity (84). Past studies of situational homosexuality
in prisons or the military suggest that ones sexual identity does not necessarily change even if sexual behavior changes (Rust 2000). The lack of
change in sexual identity was also true for community members in this
study. Members who practiced polyamory did not actively embrace the identity of a polyamorist. The members lack of claim on the identity was due
to their awareness of the situational status of their practices. It was also due
to their belief (shared by much of Western society) that sexual identities are
something one is essentially born with, not a practice in which one
engages. They did not see themselves as born with a desire for polyamory,
so community members did not claim this identity. This contrasts the polyamorist participants in Barkers (2005, 83) study who often explicitly stated
that they were naturally polyamorous and therefore claimed a polyamorist
identity. As our scholarly understandings of sexual identity move beyond
gay, lesbian and bisexual into other axes of desire and ways of relating,
empirical studies such as this one illuminate the complex intersection
between identity, desire, and behavior.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes
1. Katz later wrote The Invention of Heterosexuality (2005), showing how heterosexual behavior is also socially constructed and maintained.
2. Feminist Ecovillages, http://www.ic.org/eco/.

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Bio
Jade Aguilar is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Willamette University in Salem,
OR. Her research is centered in gender, sexualities, and Intentional Communities in the
United States. Her recent work includes research articles appearing in the Journal for the
Study of Radicalism, and Communal Societies.

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