This article explores polyamorous women’s potential to enlarge the concept of sexual subjectivity through their engagement in nontraditional relationships and their attempts to reject sexual objectification. Polyamorous people openly engage in romantic, sexual, and/or affective relationships with multiple people simultaneously. Polyamory differs from swinging with its emphasis on long-term, emotionally intimate relationships and from adultery with its focus on honesty and (ideally) full disclosure of the network of sexual relationships to all who participate in or are affected by them. Both men and women have access to additional partners in polyamorous relationships, distinguishing them from polygamy. This ethnographic analysis expands sociological understanding of women’s sexuality by investigating this previously unexamined area of sexual subjectivity. Specifically, the author analyzes some of the ways that polyamorous women expand so-called normal social roles, discusses their sexual lives and identities, and explores novel and traditional forms of power polyamorous practice engenders for these women’s relationships.

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Opponents of same-sex marriage identify multiple-partner families as the pivotal step that, were same-sex marriage legalized, would propel society down a “slippery slope” to relational chaos. Like the families of same-sex partners, polyamorous families—or those with adults in openly conducted multiple-partner relationships—demonstrate alternate forms of kinship not necessarily dependent on conventional biolegal kin, sexual connections, or even chosen kin ties as previously understood. This article extends sociological knowledge by detailing characteristics of relatively unknown family form; comparing original data on polyamorous families with published research on same-sex families instead of heterosexual families, a contrast that decenters heterosexual families as the sole measure of legitimacy while simultaneously expanding knowledge about same-sex families and explaining how polyamorous families’ differences have implications for the same-sex marriage debate and how these shifting social norms implicate changes for the field of family studies and larger society.

This article explores polyamorous men's potential to both enlarge and reinforce the concept of hegemonic masculinity through their emotional expressions and management, as well as their sexual expressions and relationships. Polyamorous people openly engage in romantic, sexual, and/or affective relationships with multiple people simultaneously. Polyamory differs from swinging with its emphasis on long-term, emotionally intimate relationships; and from adultery with its focus on honesty and (ideally) full disclosure of the network of sexual relationships to all who participate in or are affected by them. Both men and women have access to additional partners in polyamorous relationships, distinguishing them from polygynous ones. My ethnographic analysis expands sociological understandings of hegemonic masculinity by investigating this previously unexamined area of men's sexual and romantic interactions. Employing R.W. Connell's framework of hegemonic masculinity, I analyze some of the ways in which the polyamorous men in my sample are complicit with, marginalized by, subordinate to, and resistant of hegemonic codes of masculinity. I thus expand Connell's configuration of hegemonic masculinity to include active defiance to its requirements and conclude that, to varied degrees, these poly men attempt to redefine their masculinities and resist the strictures of hegemonic masculinity. Poly-Hegemonic MasculinitiesPolyamory, frequently termed simply 'poly' 1 by many practitioners, is a form of relationship in which people have multiple romantic, sexual, and/or affective partners. It differs from swinging with its emphasis on long-term, emotionally intimate relationships, and from adultery with its focus on honesty and (ideally) full disclosure of the network of sexual relationships to all who participate in or are affected by them. Both men and women have access to multiple partners in polyamorous relationships, Article Sexualities

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