welcome!
Polyamory is the capability or desire to be in a relationship with and/or love more than one person at once. The word 'polyamorous' can be used both as a description of a relationship with more than two people and as description of people who desire such relationships.
Polyamory is not considered cheating, because all parties are aware & consenting of all other parties involvement. Polyamory can look like open relationships or 3+ people who are all in a relationship w/ each other. Polyam isn't a sexuality on its own, but more of a queer description on how one can experience attraction - therefore being polyam doesn't automatically make one lgbtq+ & poly people can have any sexuality.
Polyamory can involve marriage but it does not always involving polygamy (marrying multiple people) which is illegal in most western countries including the u.s
Ideally, polyamory/polyamorous is shortened to polyam, not poly (to avoid confusion with a shortening for Polynesian or polysexual). Polyamory should also not be confused with polysexuality.
There's lots of debate surrounding the polyamorous flag. The original (pictured above), donning red, blue, black and a pi symbol is (for the most part) disliked because it makes the beautiful capacity to love polyams feel seem like a cold, calculated experience. It's also.. really fucking ugly. However, luckily, there are multiple variations of the flag!
☆ click here!
DNI!
★ racist
☆ ur ALM
☆ u reclaim any racial slurs that arent urs
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★ transphobic
☆ u exclude nbys
☆ u dont respect xenogenders
☆ u dont respect neopronouns
☆ u reclaim the t slur but arent trans
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★ homophobic
☆ lesbophobic
☆ biphobic
☆ panphobic
☆ queerphobic
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☆ support bi/pan/straight lesbians
☆ u reclaim the f slur but arent mlm/transfem or u reclaim the d slur but arent lesbian
BYF!
★ i'm black, latino, nd, mentally ill, transmlm and ofc polyamorous!
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☆ my pronouns are :
he / him / his / his / himself ,
love / loved / loves / lovelys / loveself ,
sun / sun / suns / suns / sunself ,
pup / pup / pups / pups / pupself ,
hug / hug / hugs / hugs / hugself ,
hap / happy / happys / happys / happyself
and a lot more
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☆ i reclaim the n slur but no latin slurs bc though i'm jamaican and colombian - im darkskin & feel more connected to black culture.
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★ i reclaim the f slur, t slur and r slur!
cr: Jim Evans, 1995
The polyamorous pride flag was first introduced in by Evans. It had a total of 3 stripes with a gold Greek lowercase letter 'pi' - the math constant π is an irrantional # with infinite decimal places - for the first letter of “polyamory” and as a play on polyamorous people "having infinite love."
• red represents love & passion.
• blue , openness & honesty among all partners.
• black is solidarity w/ those who must hide their polyamorous relationships from the outside world
• gold , the value that we place on the emotional attachment to others.
cr: ? however: voted in as the new Polyamorous Pride Flag by a group of queer activists based in Texas.
All the colors retain the same meaning, even though they're slightly softer with the only difference being the meaning for black:
͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ ͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏͏ • "Black represents solidarity w/ those who must hide their polyamorous relationships from the outside world, and those more likely to receive backlash for their polyamorous relationships, like poc, those with disabilities, and other minority groups"
cr: Monroe of RatLab Art, August 2016.
Monroe said that he "redesigned the polyamory flag bc the old one seems a little jarring to me. I like the original meaning behind the colors, though." He also said he might prefer a brighter gold rather than tan, keeping the original's symbolism that went with the gold color for the pi symbol.
• again, more muted colors than the original.
• infinity heart centered
cr: Emma @HECKSCAPER, created September 2019.
Emma tweeted that the Evans flag left her "so visually offended that I had to make my own version using the infinity heart instead, while maintaining the general meaning of the chosen colors."
• the colors are lighter and less severe
• the central disk is bold, happy and airy.
this one seems to be catching on (its one of my favorites and what i based the layered flag on)
cr: (myself) raien, @RILEYT0WN, october 2020
Based off the brighter, airy flag by Emma in 2019. It felt like the best representation of the experience polyam ppl have of such pure and valid attraction! It's layered so as to not look out of place in context with the other multi-lined pride flags.
• there's no infinity heart emblem in this ver. (a stylistic choice, not bc i believe the symbol shouldn't be included)
cr: yefrem, @tsaytgayst, march 5th 2021
On his first attempt at a polyamorous flag, 22 year old Yefrem, managed to hit a home run and the tweet was quite well received by the community. He stated, that he "..didn't really spend a lot of time pondering, but I wanted the pink stripes to represent love and warmth, but included the white to represent friendship/platonic love/queerplatonic relationships."
• He made versions with three linking hearts, the infinity heart & the blank flag.