Polycule
The full relationship network connecting a polyamorous person's partners, partners-of-partners, and shared relationships. Often diagrammed as a graph with nodes for each person and edges for each relationship. Polycules can be small (a triad) or large (extended community networks).
The word is a portmanteau of polyamory and molecule, and the metaphor is load-bearing: like atoms in a molecule, the people in a polycule are linked through specific bonds rather than uniformly connected to everyone else. Wikipedia's polycule entry dates the term to the early 2010s and notes that polycules are commonly diagrammed, with each person as a node and each romantic or sexual connection as an edge between them.
A handful of named structures recur often enough to have shorthand. A V is three people in which one person dates two others who are not dating each other. A triad or throuple is three people all dating one another. A quad is four people in various arrangements, most often two pre-existing couples whose members are also dating across. An N is a four-person chain. Polycules can extend much further - networks of a dozen or more interlinked partners exist - but the practical limit is set by the time and emotional bandwidth required to maintain each connection.
The polycule frame is most associated with polyamory rather than swinging, since it tracks romantic relationships rather than sexual hookups. Polyamory itself is distinguished from swinging by its central emphasis on emotional intimacy with multiple partners, not just shared sexual play. A related term, metamour, names the relationship between two people who share a partner but are not themselves dating - a polycule's most common non-romantic bond, and the focus of much polyamorous etiquette around scheduling, holidays, and household decisions. Lifestyle couples sometimes adopt the vocabulary when a regular play partnership develops a romantic dimension, blurring the historical line between the swinging and polyamory communities.
Sources: Wikipedia · Wikipedia
Related Terms
- Polyamory — The practice of maintaining multiple simultaneous romantic relationships with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Distinct from swinging in that polyamory emphasizes emotional and romantic bonds, not just sexual ones.
- Metamour — Your partner's other partner — someone with whom you share a partner but with whom you are not romantically or sexually involved yourself. The term is most common in polyamorous communities, where metamour relationships range from close friendship ("kitchen table poly") to deliberate non-contact ("parallel poly").
- Triad — A three-person committed relationship where all three are romantically and sexually involved with each other. Distinguished from a "vee" — where one person is romantically involved with two others who are not romantic with each other. Triads can be open or closed; closed triads are sometimes called polyfidelitous.