Sure, the islands of the Caribbean form a group because they are all islands in the same body of water. Dictionary definition of group: "two or more figures forming a complete unit in a composition a number of individuals assembled together or having some unifying relationship an assemblage of objects regarded as a unit." No, just having more than one of something does not make it a group. Heck, Wiktionary uses "consent" so why can't I. So I sloppily retain the word "consent" and let the reader draw their own conclusions. On one hand I want my definition to point this out, on the other hand I want to avoid an overly-cumbersome definition. This works if they're all kids, but it breaks down if you start mixing kids with adults. I think that kids can be romantically linked to each other, such as boyfriend-girlfriend, or maybe boyfriend-girlfriend-boyfriend or what have you. I find it hard to deal with the question of age of consent. It's meant to speak of consent only as confined to the persons who know each other well. There may be more than just three people in the composite chain/s, but the definition isn't meant to be that comprehensive that is, it doesn't mean to refer to all meta-metamours, meta-meta-metamours, and so on. A simple set of three people suffices for my definition. To further clarify, when I say "a set of people" in poly, I partially mean a limited number of people that is, in my definition, I don't try to refer to everyone that is linked to the composite chain/s of people. Or as well as a connected group, I'm looking for words that fit both kinds of poly. I was actually already thinking about changing "connected" to "linked." So, polyamory = "the state of being, or the ability and/or inclination to be, in a romantically-linked set of more than two persons, with the full knowledge and consent of all the persons in the set." This way you might be able to visualize an indefinite chain or chains of people, rather than a connected group. This term is not intended to apply to merely casual recreational sex, anonymous orgies, one-night stands, pick-ups, prostitution, "cheating," serial monogamy, or the definition of swinging as "mate-swapping" parties. The two essential ingredients of the concept of "polyamory" are "more than one" and "loving." That is, it is expected that the people in such relationships have a loving emotional bond, are involved in each other's lives multi-dimensionally, and care for each other. As far as we have understood, swinging specifically does not involve "cheating," and it certainly does involve having "multiple lovers"! Moreover, we understand from speaking with a few swinging activists that many swingers are closely bonded with their various lovers, as best friends and regular partners. This term was meant to be inclusive, and in that context, we have never intended to particularly exclude "swinging" per se, if practitioners thereof wished to adopt the term and include themselves. The practice, state or ability of having more than one sexual loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved.
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