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Notes -
I'm proposing that this would be the most useful way to use the term.
I think this broadly aligns with your point 3, and I'm having trouble parsing your objection to 3. But, yes, I think the point is that someone who describes themselves as poly is looking for a relationship in which both partners do the thing that Aella is quoted as saying is poly, allowing the partner lattitude.
I guess that saying 'I'm poly, I want to be in a poly relationship' sounds weird at first, but 'I'm a miner, I mine things' is not actually confusing. It's pretty standard to overload the same term as both a description of a person and a description of an activity... a surfer surfs, a bowler bowls, etc.
I mean, not in the 2 sentences that OP quoted, no.
Obviously those 2 sentences aren't going to convey her entire nuanced position here.
If you've actually read and listened to everything she's said on this topic, and know that it doesn't jibe with how I'm summarizing it here, then I concede to greater expertise and change my argument from 'I think this is a fair summary of what Aella means, and I think it's a good proposal for how to use the term' to 'This is my proposal for how to use the term.' I'm not actually invested in defending Aella or anything, I'm trying to stake a position about the object-level question.
If like me your only knowledge of Aella's position is reading OP's comment, then I don't think my interpretation is incompatible with what was quoted there, keeping in mind that short qu0tes pulled out of context never give the full picture of someone's argument and there's a lot of lattitude in what the actual position could be, reading backwards form the quote.
Other replies to my comment seem to think that yes, it's not. So it's at least a live question.
For me, I dunno, I don't see why everything has to be this precise?
If a single person says 'I'm poly', and you're thinking about dating them or setting them up with a friend, you can just ask them 'does that mean you want a mutually poly relationship where both partners can have outside partners, or that you're a cuck and only want your partner to have other partners, or that you're selfish and only want yourself to have other partners?'
And then instead of relying on identitarian labels to categorize people into warring factions that admit of no variance or humanity, you can actually, like, have a conversation with a real person and get to know them as an individual, and learn a little more about how these things are nuanced and subtle and complicated on an individual level, instead.
So basically, yeah, I don't think the fact that someone saying 'I'm poly' leaves you with, like, ONE more question you need to ask before 100% nailing down a fully detailed image of the relationship model they want, is a big drawback. I think it's kinda good even.
See here, I think it's important (very useful) to maintain a distinction between 'Exclusive romantic relationship between 2 partners plus guest-stars for sex sometimes' vs 'Open romantic relationship where people have multiple committed romantic partners.
Confusing those two things would be especially dangerous/disruptive.
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