Polyamory

[Laurence Horn]

>POLYAMORY--518,000 Google hits.
>...
>"Polyamory" is not in the OED. It's in today's New York Post.
>...
>...
>_http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/entertainment.htm_
>(http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/entertainment.htm)
>_http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/29658.htm_
>(http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/29658.htm)
>October 19, 2005 -- TODAY'S a  special day for John and Nan Wise - it's the
>31st anniversary of their first  date. As with most special events, John, a
>bankruptcy attorney, and Nan, a  psychotherapist, will share the occasion with
>their extended family: her  boyfriend, Julio, and his girlfriend, Amy.
>The Wises, who've been married for 24 years, are "polyamorists" - people who
>reject monogamy in favor of maintaining relationships with more than one
>person  at a time.
>...
>(...)
>POLYAMORY TERMS
>POLY: A person who practices polyamory.
>TRIAD: A relationship between three people.
>TRIANGLE: A triad where each person is involved with the other two.
>VEE: A triad that revolves around a single person who's involved with two
>others--i.e., the "hinge."
>PRIMARY: A polyamorist's central relationship--sometimes a spouse. Others are
>  "secondaries."
>COMPERSION: Getting pleasure from someone's relationship with another person;
>  the opposite of jealousy.

Interesting.  "polyamory" is well known, of course, and "primary",
but "vee" and "compersion" were new to me.  The last of these strikes
me as a bit opaque, as opposed to the transparency of "vee" (or
"wye", for that matter...or "em"...or...).

L