"Polyamory Works for Us"

Fairlady (South Africa)

A mainstream glossy women's magazine in South Africa presents a "My Story" article by one of the country's poly spokespeople, who goes by the name Princess Anie.

Polyamory Works for Us

My husband and I left 'forsaking all others' out of our wedding vows — and we're happier for it.

...Shortly after our wedding, a new friend mentioned his past relationship with a man and a woman at the same time. When he described how they were all in love and happy together, it was a light bulb moment for us. He told us that this life style was called 'polyamory', and that night we spent hours on Google looking at all the information available. The more we read, the more it resonated with us....

...Even though that first relationship failed, David and I learnt so much about ourselves and each other that we decided to try it again. It became easier after David's first relationship, because he was dating a polyamorous woman with lots of experience in the lifestyle. She was very open to discussing and compromising, and brought with her experience and advice from her past and present relationships.

...It takes a fortune of thought and time to practice polyamory without hurting people, and because I see lying as one of the main ways to hurt people, I refuse to lie, ever. If there is something bothering me, no matter how small, I talk about it. I don't let it fester. And I expect the same from my loved ones.

Boundaries and agreements are also very important....

If you think safer-sex precautions are a serious deal in North America, consider that southern Africa has the highest HIV-infection rate in the world (more than 20 times the rate in the U.S.):

...Even if all this [testing] comes out clean, we still use condoms, femidoms, latex gloves, dental dams and we don't swap any sexual fluids.

Here's the whole article (April 2010). Someone has also put up images of the two magazine pages: first page, second page (you'll need access to Yahoo Groups).

South Africa's small but active poly community has a website and the busy ZaPoly Yahoo Group for discussion. The group's moderator, Andrea (Green Fizzpops), scours the web for noteworthy poly articles. If you enjoy Polyamory in the News, you'll enjoy browsing the essays, blog posts, first-person stories, and insights that have caught her attention; look through the ZaPoly Yahoo Group's backlist.

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