Polyamory 101: An Interview With Kate Kincaid
Tucson Weekly
I interviewed Kate Kincaid, a therapist specializing in counseling gender and sexual minorities, people in alternative relationship models, and issues such as infidelity, mistrust, and ineffective communication. Additionally, she provides poly/kink-awareness trainings and workshops for other counselors in order to improve services for members of the community.
Ally: How would you define polyamory and what are the biggest misconceptions?
Kate: I think the simplest definition is loving more than one person, but it’s so much more than that! We all love more than one person, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we are all polyamorous. The more nuanced definition is that it’s an identity and/or lifestyle choice to ethically practice being in close, intimate, romantic or sexual relationships with more than one consenting person.
A lot of people who know nothing about polyamory think it’s just an excuse to cheat or a fear of commitment. Many seem to think poly people are a bunch of oversexed heathens, which isn’t necessarily untrue, but there’s a lot more to it. In fact, ethically non-monogamous people tend to be very communicative and practice safer sex practices than the general population. Another misconception is that anything goes when in fact there are a lot of agreements and sophisticated rules of etiquette for dating within the poly community.
Ally: Not that much different than monogamous relationships if we recognize that all relationships have spoken or unspoken rules that if crossed can break the trust between partners. Basically negotiated rules and communication are the common denominator. Are you in a polyamorous relationship?
Kate: I do identify as polyamorous, and I have multiple partnerships currently. Even if I wasn’t in any romantic relationships, I would still consider myself to be poly. It’s more than a set of behaviors or relationship structures to me- its part of my identity. I’ve chosen it because I’ve always gravitated towards ideals and I believe it is the best path to personal evolution for me.
Ally: Would you compare it to a sexual orientation in that sense? For example, if someone identifies as bisexual, they are still bisexual even though they may happen to be in a same-sex relationship at that particular moment?
Kate: Exactly!!
Ally: What’s your polyamory origin story?
Kate: I’ve basically been poly since 8th grade when I started dating. I was crushing hard on my boyfriend, but I also loved my neighborhood best friend too. Before I knew of the term or anything I guess you could say I was practicing non-monogamy, but it certainly wasn’t ethical. It involved a lot of lying and didn’t feel very good for anyone involved. After like six years of cheating, my then-college boyfriend and I decided to do a “don’t ask don’t tell” type of thing, where we both knew we were sleeping with other people but we didn’t want to know details.
Ever since I’ve worked in a sex research lab, I learned that a lot of other people struggle with monogamy so it normalized it for me. I used to believe everyone was non-monogamous “by nature” and I was kind of militant about it. My views on it have evolved and I now believe that some people tend towards non-monogamy and some don’t, it works for some people and doesn’t for others, sometimes your life is set up to be conducive to it and sometimes it isn’t. It’s all very fluid. Now I’ve been practicing ethical polyamory for the past four years and it’s so much better than any alternative for me. …