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- Naming and Framing?
- What to call our partners? Our others?
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Naming and Framing
Answered By: B
B's Version: – 15 October 2003
The issue of what to call the individual members in our group is an ongoing topic for discussion. What term should we use when referring to the people in our family of choice? Partner? Significant other? "Others"? Primary/secondary? Boyfriend/girlfriend? There are merits and demerits to all of the terms, and none of them seem to capture what we feel in this relationship. An exploration of the terms and our considerations of them follows.
Partner
Prior to the formation of the PLAB group, both individual couples tended to use the term partner to describe the person to whom they are engaged. The terms fiancé/fiancée were also occasionally used. It seems too confusing to use the term partner to describe each member of the group - obviously, things would become confusing very quickly. We came to a consensus and determined that for us, "partner" means the person with whom we live and the person who we plan to marry. Unfortunately, this means that partner is not an acceptable term for the family members in the group. So we are back to square one.
Significant Other /Other Significant Other
The term significant other was quickly vetoed by the PLAB group. The phrase is too long, none of us like the abbreviation S.O., and we definitely were turned off by the term other significant other, or O.S.O., commonly used in many polyamorous circles. It didn't describe us, and we didn't identify with it, so we are uninterested in using it to describe our loved ones. Strike two.
"Others"
We do occasionally default to the term "Others" to describe the members of our group. Since this is not a commonly recognized term to describe one's romantic partners, it is somewhat problematic in practice. In most cases, it is used as something of a code word - those who are "in the know" about the PLAB group understand what we mean by the term. It seems to be a term that is best used in the plural however. Introducing a partner as my "other" appears to have a lot of potential for confusion - I could imagine many people thinking " your other what?". "Others" has served us relatively well thus far, but we are still looking for terms that work better and are more descriptive of our unique situation.
Primary/Secondary
The terms of primary/secondary have been given serious consideration by the PLAB group, and have been used as general descriptors among group members. These terms probably describe individual relationships within our group best of any considered. That being said, some members of our family of choice do not like these terms as they imply that a secondary is somehow "less" (1). Although it may be true that we seem to be functioning in primary/secondary behavioral patterns, the group prefers that all partners could be considered equals - that is, we do not want to imply that any person is in any way "less" than someone else. Hmmm - that one had potential. Oh well, onto the next option.
Girlfriend/Boyfriend
Girlfriend/Boyfriend have also been contemplated as terms used to describe various relationships in the PLAB group. When first telling people about our relationship, we often use these words so that we are easily understood. There is some potential for confusion when the female members of our family use the term "girlfriend" to describe the other female partner - the implication for romantic partnership is not the same as with the term "boyfriend". However, we can usually easily communicate the nature of our relationship using "girlfriend/boyfriend", and people understand that the people we are talking about are not our fiancé/fiancée. In general, I think most members of our group also think of our relationships somewhat in these terms. The biggest challenge with "girlfriend/boyfriend" is that we are all adults, and some of these terms may seem juvenile. They are also gender-specific, and some of us strive to use less gendered language.
So what now?
Now that we've explored all of our reasonable options, what next? What will we decide on? Concerns such as this one are still in flux for the PLAB group. If any terms are consistently used and accepted by our family of choice, we will add an update to this space. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment in our forum.
Addenda
Note 1 (by G): Our secondaries are in fact "less" everything than our primaries. Our consensus group is not, at this point, a true Group Marriage, in the anthropological sense but rather a heavily augmentented extended Family of Choice. The upshot is, that while the statement may be true in point of fact, it is impolite to point it out in such an institutionalized way.
