Glossary

These are words or phrases used in this blog which may be unfamiliar to some readers, and how I use them.

Allies: Those who are friendly to sexual freedom and marriage equality, especially if they identify as monogamous/heterosexual/nonconsanguinamorous.

Bigamy: Being married to two persons. Category of polygamy.

Bus Sighting: See Throw Under the Bus

Cheating: Engaging in sex, dating, or romance with someone in a way that violates a prior, existing commitment to, or condition with, another. For example, it is not cheating for a wife to take on another lover alone if her spouse has agreed to it, even if she doesn’t tell her spouse when it happens, as long as that was the agreement between the spouses.

CIAO: Consensual Adult Incest Oriented; 

Cisgender: Denoting or relating to a person whose gender identity conforms with the gender that corresponds to their biological sex or the gender assigned at birth; not transgender.

Coming out: Revealing one’s sexual, romantic, or gender identity, especially to those who are – and expect others to be - cisgender, heterosexual, monogamous, and nonconsanguinamorous. Coming out may result in rejection, abuse, loss of job, or prosecution. Ideally, it is met with acceptance and congratulations.

Consanguinamorous: In or oriented to a romantic, dating, courting, or marital relationship or engaging in sex with a close relative. Consanguineous sex can be expected between those who practice consanguinamory.

Consanguineous: Between close (blood) relatives, as in “consanguineous love.” I prefer this to “incestuous,” which has been stigmatized and often associated in the media with child abuse and rape.

Freedom to marry: The ability to marry. For example, same-gender couples have the freedom to marry in Canada and the US.

Friend of Lily: Someone who is consanguinamorous or has experienced consanguinamory or consanguineous relationships or sex.

FSA/Familial or Family Sexual Attraction: Used for consanguineous attraction when GSA does not apply. Attraction between family members.


GSA/Genetic Sexual Attraction: An intense attraction when genetic relatives who have been separated for significant amounts of time, often since birth, or have never met, are reunited or introduced during or after puberty. The attraction may or may not be mutual, but is estimated to occur within at least one person in up to 50% of reunion/introduction situations when the genders and orientations align.

GSRD: Gender, Sexuality, and Relationship Diversities. Meant to be more inclusive than LGBT, this term recognizes and includes all identities relating to gender, sexual orientation, and relationship variations.

LGBT: Used as an all-inclusive to not only include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, but also those who identify as Queer, Questioning, Curious, Intersex, Androgynous, Asexual, Non-Binary, Genderfluid, or related classifications. Might be written other ways, such as LGBTQ+.

Marriage Equality: Freedom to marry extended to all. Some use this term to describe the freedom to marry for same-gender couples. However, “equality” just for some is not equality. Marriage equality will be achieved where any consenting person can marry any consenting person or persons regardless of gender or relation.

Open: Used to describe relationships that are not closed to new participants, whether they are short term or long term participants.

PCM: An acronym for Polyamorous Consanguineous Marriage, which describes the nature of the relationship that inspired this blog.

Poly/Polyam: Abbreviation for polyamorous, polygamy, or polyfidelity depending on context.

Polyamorous: In or oriented to a romantic, dating, courting, or marital relationship or engaging in sex with more than one person (not necessarily together), under agreement by all (not cheating). Polyamory and monogamy are alternatives to each other.

Polycule: A polyamorous relationship or the diagram thereof, which may resemble a diagram for a molecule.

Polyfidelity: Fidelity with multiple partners. Often used by polyamorous people to distinguish their relationships from those that are open or not exclusive to the polycule.

Polygamy: Marriage to more than one person. May involve polygyny (having more than one wife), polyandry (having more than one husband) or groups.

Red Button, The: When one lover falsely confesses to law enforcement of assaulting their lover(s) so as to protect the lover(s) from being prosecuted for illegal sex.

Same-gender or Same-sex: May include gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even heterosexual, as long as the participants identify as the same gender. For example, same-gender marriage.

Solidarity: Showing support for others who face harassment, oppression, ostracism, discrimination, prejudice, persecution, or prosecution for their sexuality, sexual orientation, or relationships.

Spice: A poly person’s multiple spouses. (Humorous)

Swinging: When an established couple, triad, quad, etc. participates as a couple or group in encounters with other couples or groups. Can be a form of polyamory but not all polyamory involves swinging.

Throw Under the Bus: When someone/an ally of a sexuality that is or has historically been stigmatized, oppressed, or criminalized fails to express solidarity for others when they should.

Transgender: Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender roles, but combines or moves between these; or identifying as a different gender than, the gender assigned or recorded by others at birth.

For more terms, see this glossary by Franklin Veaux that is intended to be “a guide to many of the terms you might hear in the polyamorous community.”