Milwaukee Poly Group FAQ

• What are the socials and discussion meetings like?
• The socials are the first Friday of every month at a different bar or restaurant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They are open to the public and the community is notified about the details a week or two in advance on Facebook or the meetup.com/MilwaukeePoly site.
• The discussion group is the third Wednesday of every month at the Tool Shed: An Erotic Boutique from 8 to 9 p.m. There is a different topic every meeting that is posted on the Facebook and MeetUp group prior to the discussion date.

• What are past discussion topics?
• Communication
• Jealousy and envy
• swinging
• poly and family/ kids
• Time management
• poly during the holidays
• terminology in the poly Community
• consent
• breaking up
• how to date ethically
• poly in the media
• The stigmatization of non-monogamy

• Can I attend by myself or do I have to be with a partner?
• The group is open to the public and we try to be welcoming and inclusive to everyone. People can be single and polyamorous, so single people will always be welcomed in the community. Anyone interested in ethical non-monogamy is welcome to join us for a meeting no matter how they identify.

• Can I go just to meet people to date?
• We discourage people using the community like a meat market, but people absolutely meet people in the community at events and getting know them, and sometimes that evolves into friendships or romantic connections. Like any social group, we don't police our members from forming connections, but if your sole motivation for joining the group is to get a date, and not get educated about issues in the community, this is probably not the group for you.

• How do you deal with jealousy?
• Everyone deals with jealousy differently. It is a natural occurring emotion and what truly matters is not that you experience it or not but how you deal with it when/if it comes up.

• What's the difference between polyamory, swinging, and kink?
• To put very simply polyamory is more focused on romantic, loving connection, swinging is more about sexual engagement, and kink is an umbrella term for many alternative/ “deviant” sexual and romantic relationships or dynamics. None of these are mutually exclusive, you can be all or none at the same time and none of them actually contradict each other. There are poly people who swing occasionally (using swinging as a verb) and there are swingers who date openly (using poly as a verb), both can be a verb and an identity. And literally anyone in any relationship dynamic can be kinky.

• Who attend the meetings (as far as age range, gender, orientations, single or coupled, race, etc)?
• The group is open to the public and we strive to be as  diverse as possible. We have members ranging from 18 years of age to 65 (the average age tends to be around 30 years old). We have a lot of couples in the group, but there are many single folks, triads, quads, and other configurations that join us at meetings. I have never felt that there tends to be more of one gender than any other, we tend to be pretty mixed. Though most polyamory communities all over America tend to have more white folks, we make great efforts to be welcoming to people of color and I hope that shows in our diverse community. Our group is very queer-friendly and our membership is predominantly queer identified. Every meeting is populated with different individuals, so we don't have hard and fast data or numbers based on our members.

• What are some good resources for new people?
• The podcasts: “Polyamory Weekly,” “Multiamory,” and “Life on the Swingset”
• Websites: “More Than Two” and “Poly in the Media”
• Books: “Opening Up” by Tristan Taormino, “More Than Two” by Veaux and Rickert, and “The Smart Girl’s Guide to Polyamory” by Dedeker Winston