On September 28, 2018, Sex and Psychology posted a course announcement titled around a practical question: monogamous, monogamish, or polyamorous. That page belongs to that course. This page is not the course, does not enroll anyone, and does not tell you which word fits your life. It only defines the three words in plain language. A choice among them is an agreement between people, not a quiz result. If you want the course itself, use the September 28, 2018 announcement. If you want to know what to say at a kink event this weekend, stay here and then talk to the people who would have to live with your answer.
Three words, none of them a score
- Monogamous means a closed agreement: sex and romance stay inside the relationship unless you have explicitly said otherwise.
- Monogamish means mostly closed, with narrow exceptions you still have to name out loud.
- Polyamorous means more than one romantic relationship can exist, under rules the people involved actually set.
- None of these words is a ticket type, a kink identity, or a result you get from a questionnaire.
- This article does not sign you up for the 2018 course and cannot complete it for you.
Monogamous, in plain words
Monogamous means you and your partner have agreed to one romantic and sexual bond with each other. Other people are not romantic partners and are not sexual partners. Flirting, play at a party, dating apps, and "it did not mean anything" are not secret clauses. If those things are off the table, say so. If you think monogamy is obvious and therefore does not need words, you will eventually meet someone who thought the opposite was obvious. Obvious is not an agreement. Spoken limits are.
Monogamy is compatible with kink. A couple can tie, spank, or role-play only with each other in a crowded room and still be monogamous. A single person can be monogamous in intention while dating and not be offering a group arrangement. Do not hear "we are monogamous" as "we are boring" or as "we are judging you." Hear it as a boundary. You can be friends with that boundary in the room. You cannot negotiate it away because a workshop sounded modern.
At events, monogamous guests still need consent practices. A closed agreement does not tell a stranger what you will do with your own partner in public, and it does not give your partner blanket access to you for the whole weekend. Scene limits and relationship limits are different layers. BDSM consent practices cover the scene layer. Your monogamy covers who is allowed into your sexual and romantic life. Keep both.
Monogamish, in plain words
Monogamish is a loose public word for a mostly monogamous agreement with narrow exceptions. People use it to signal that they are not fully closed and not fully polyamorous. The word itself does not list the exceptions. One household means "we may kiss other people when we are both present and we do not date." Another means "a rare swing night, no repeat partners, no feelings." Another means something they have not defined, which means they do not have an agreement yet. If someone tells you they are monogamish, your next sentence is a question, not a reach for their collar.
The word showed up in public writing as a way to describe a little room around monogamy without taking on a non-monogamous identity. That history does not standardize the exceptions. There is no event form that says what monogamish includes. There is no quiz on this website that assigns you the label. If you want the exceptions to be real, write them down: who, what acts, whether romance is included, whether a party changes the rules, what you tell each other afterward, and what ends the exception. A label without that list is a mood.
Do not use monogamish to spring a party on a partner. "We are a little monogamish" in the elevator is not informed consent. Say the specific plan at home, with time to refuse. If your partner thinks you are monogamous, you are monogamous until you both change that. A clever word does not update a relationship in secret.
Polyamorous, in plain words
Polyamorous means the people involved agree that more than one romantic relationship can exist at the same time. Sex may be part of those relationships or may be negotiated separately. Polyamory is not the same as swinging, and it is not a synonym for every open agreement. Some polyamorous people are sexually exclusive with each partner and romantically connected to more than one. Some have sex outside romance. The word does not pick that for you. The people do.
Polyamory does not mean everyone sleeps with everyone. It does not mean jealousy is gone. It does not mean a person is available to the room. A polyamorous guest can attend a party to see one partner and decline everyone else. A polyamorous guest can be saturated, meaning they do not have room for another relationship, and still be polyamorous. Saturated is a full answer. Do not treat it as a puzzle to solve.
If you want this structure, you need people who want it too. Read how to find a non-monogamous partner instead of sorting a monogamous partner into a quiz outcome. Read polyamory myths before you repeat cartoons, and polyamory and jealousy before you promise you will never feel jealous. Those pages are practical. They are not the 2018 course.
This page is not that course
The September 28, 2018 Sex and Psychology post invites readers to a course about figuring out which relationship type fits. Enrolling, paying, attending, and finishing are all between you and that course. Nothing you read here registers you. Nothing here grants credit, a certificate, or a personal recommendation. If a facilitator at an event says this article "counts as" that class, they are mistaken. Send people to the announcement if they want the class. Use this article only for definitions.
Courses can ask "which type is right for you" as a teaching frame. That frame is easy to misuse. Right for you is not a private score that binds other people. If a quiz, a worksheet, or a late-night conversation hands you a word, you still have to take that word to anyone who would be affected. A course can help you think. It cannot sign your partner's name. It cannot tell a metamour what they agreed to. It cannot convert a maybe into a house rule at a dungeon.
Choice is an agreement, not a quiz result
Quizzes feel decisive because they end with a label. Relationships do not end when the label appears. They continue through calendars, sex, money, health, and hurt feelings. An agreement is a set of sentences the relevant people accept. "We are monogamous." "We may play with others only when we are both there and we will not date them." "We each may have romantic partners, and we will discuss sexual health before new sex." Those sentences can be revised. A quiz result cannot be revised by the person who was not in the room when you clicked the answers.
If you and a partner land on different words, you do not average them. Monogamous plus polyamorous does not equal monogamish. Averaging is how people hide a no. Sit with the mismatch. One of you may change your mind after real information, not after being worn down. One of you may decide the relationship cannot hold the difference. Both outcomes are adult. A printout that says you are "mostly poly" is not a tie-breaker.
Do not take a quiz at a vendor table and then announce the result to your partner in front of strangers. That is an ambush. Take the questions home. Answer them separately if you want, then compare answers without an audience. If you want a facilitator, choose a kink-aware clinician or an educator who will not declare a winner. Finding a kink-aware therapist is a starting point when the stakes are a shared life, not a party anecdote.
What the words do not decide at the door
A door volunteer may ask about experience, references, or whether you have read the rules. They should not ask you to pick monogamous, monogamish, or polyamorous as a price of entry. Do not offer the answer as a pass to touch people. Relationship style is not a pass. Say what you are there to do. Watch, socialize, play only with my partner, or play with others under a stated agreement. Those plans can be checked against the code of conduct. A relationship label cannot.
Shared sexual space still has its own consent rules. Consent at an orgy or play party applies whether you are monogamous with the partner you came with or polyamorous with three partners at home. Presence is not a yes. A label is not a yes. If you are monogamish only for this one night, the people you approach deserve that specificity, and your partner deserves to have agreed before you left the room.
How to pick a word without outsourcing the pick
Write a draft alone. List what you want to keep exclusive and what you are actually willing to share. Then ask, in private, whether the other person wants the same draft. Expect edits. Expect a no. If you both want help thinking, you may look at the September 28, 2018 course announcement and decide whether that course is for you. Do not tell people this events article enrolled you or tested you. It did neither.
After you choose, use the word lightly and the rules heavily. "We are monogamous" should be followed, when it matters, by the behaviors you mean. "We are monogamish" should be followed by the exception. "We are polyamorous" should be followed by whether you have room for another connection and what a new person should expect. The word opens the talk. The rules finish it. A quiz result finishes nothing, because the people who did not take the quiz are still part of the life you are describing.