Opinion is divided as to whether poly is an orientation or a lifestyle (something one is vs. something one does).
i.e. saying someone with no partners is practising neither mono nor poly is like saying someone with no partners is not currently engaged in homo-/bi-/hetero-sexuality. (However I would accept a claim that they were engaged in asexuality.)
I wonder if it’s worth even making the distinction between “lifestyle” and “act”. Thus, poly could be an orientation (“I’m not poly because I don’t want multiple partners”), lifestyle (“I’m not poly because I don’t have and I’m not actively seeking multiple partners”), and act (“I’m not poly because I don’t currently have multiple partners”).
I used to always use the “act” definition when discussing sexual orientation (“I don’t have one—I haven’t had sex with anyone lately”) to the confusion of all interlocutors.
Heh, in fact I started but then deleted as a derail some discussion of problems in activist and academic discussions of sexual orientation—what are we to make of someone whose claimed orientation (identification) does not match their current and past behaviour, which might in turn be different again to their stated actual preferences.
I’m not current in my academic reading of sexuality, but when I was, anyone researching from a public health perspective went with behaviour, while psychologists and sociologists were split between identification and preference.
Queer activism seems to have generally gone with identification as primary, although I’m not as current there as I used to be. The trumping argument there was actually precisely your situation, where to accept behaviour as primary meant that no virgins had any orientation, and that does not agree with our intuitions or most peoples’ personal experiences.
There’s also a bi-activism point which says that position means the only “true” bisexuals are people engaged in mixed-gender group sex. (This is intended as reductio ad absurdem but I’ve heard people use it seriously.)
Poly seems to be more complicated still, q.v. distinctions between swinging, “monogamish”, open relationships, polyfidelity and polyamory. I know multiple examples of dyadic couples who regularly have sex with other people but identify as monogamous, and of couples who aren’t currently involved with anyone else, aren’t looking, but are firm in their poly identification.
I guess my TL;DR is that I’m entirely untroubled by an apparent difference between preference and practice, and if the survey had asked similar questions about sexual orientation preference & practice, we would have seen “discrepancies” there too.
TL;DR—I think it’s not that simple.
Opinion is divided as to whether poly is an orientation or a lifestyle (something one is vs. something one does).
i.e. saying someone with no partners is practising neither mono nor poly is like saying someone with no partners is not currently engaged in homo-/bi-/hetero-sexuality. (However I would accept a claim that they were engaged in asexuality.)
This is a good point.
I wonder if it’s worth even making the distinction between “lifestyle” and “act”. Thus, poly could be an orientation (“I’m not poly because I don’t want multiple partners”), lifestyle (“I’m not poly because I don’t have and I’m not actively seeking multiple partners”), and act (“I’m not poly because I don’t currently have multiple partners”).
I used to always use the “act” definition when discussing sexual orientation (“I don’t have one—I haven’t had sex with anyone lately”) to the confusion of all interlocutors.
Heh, in fact I started but then deleted as a derail some discussion of problems in activist and academic discussions of sexual orientation—what are we to make of someone whose claimed orientation (identification) does not match their current and past behaviour, which might in turn be different again to their stated actual preferences.
I’m not current in my academic reading of sexuality, but when I was, anyone researching from a public health perspective went with behaviour, while psychologists and sociologists were split between identification and preference.
Queer activism seems to have generally gone with identification as primary, although I’m not as current there as I used to be. The trumping argument there was actually precisely your situation, where to accept behaviour as primary meant that no virgins had any orientation, and that does not agree with our intuitions or most peoples’ personal experiences.
There’s also a bi-activism point which says that position means the only “true” bisexuals are people engaged in mixed-gender group sex. (This is intended as reductio ad absurdem but I’ve heard people use it seriously.)
Poly seems to be more complicated still, q.v. distinctions between swinging, “monogamish”, open relationships, polyfidelity and polyamory. I know multiple examples of dyadic couples who regularly have sex with other people but identify as monogamous, and of couples who aren’t currently involved with anyone else, aren’t looking, but are firm in their poly identification.
I guess my TL;DR is that I’m entirely untroubled by an apparent difference between preference and practice, and if the survey had asked similar questions about sexual orientation preference & practice, we would have seen “discrepancies” there too.