The Sacred Slut Series
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The Sacred Slut Series
The Lexicon · JstJenni
III🜁 The “Ships” ☿ ♀
Situationship, FWB, throuple, open relationship, LDR, ENM. Every label for the modern forms, patterns, and structures of how people actually relate. Because "it's complicated" deserves a better vocabulary.
Committed Structures
An exclusive romantic and sexual relationship between two people. The dominant cultural default in most Western societies — which says more about social conditioning than about human nature. Can be consciously chosen or simply assumed as the only option. That distinction matters more than most people realize.
An umbrella term for any relationship structure that is not exclusively monogamous — where all parties are fully aware, informed, and consenting. The word "ethical" is load-bearing: it means everyone knows and has genuinely agreed. ENM includes polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy, and more. The opposite of ENM is not monogamy. It's cheating.
The practice of engaging in multiple consensual, ethical, emotionally intimate romantic relationships simultaneously — with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Polyamory is fundamentally about love, not just sex. It can include long-term commitments, shared households, and deeply intertwined lives across multiple relationships.
Hierarchical Poly: Relationships are ranked — primary, secondary — with the primary taking priority in time and decisions.
Solo Poly: The individual prioritizes their own autonomy. They may have multiple partners but deliberately do not seek to merge lives. They are their own primary.
Polyfidelity: A closed polyamorous structure — three or more people committed exclusively to each other.
A committed partnership where both people agree to allow sexual — but typically not deeply romantic — connections with others, with negotiated rules and boundaries. The primary emotional relationship is protected; the physical is opened up.
A form of consensual non-monogamy where established couples engage in sexual activities with other couples or singles — usually as a recreational or social activity rather than a deeply romantic one. Often practiced within a community called "The Lifestyle."
Soft Swap: Play that includes kissing, oral, and touching but stops short of penetrative intercourse.
Full Swap: Play that includes penetrative sex with outside partners.
Same Room / Separate Room: Whether couples engage in the same physical space or privately.
A philosophy that rejects hierarchical ranking of relationships and the social scripts that dictate what relationships "should" look like. All connections — romantic, platonic, sexual — are treated as equally valid. Each relationship is designed from scratch based on what the actual people in it want. RA challenges the assumption that romantic love is inherently more important than friendship, or that commitment must mean escalation toward marriage.
A romantic and sexual relationship involving three people who are all connected to each other. A triad means everyone dates everyone — not just two people dating one shared person. Can be closed (polyfidelitous) or open to outside partners.
Coined by Dan Savage for couples who are generally committed to each other but allow occasional outside sexual experiences — negotiated privately, without it threatening the primary bond. More than monogamy. Not quite open. The rules are their own.
A Hotwife is a married or partnered woman who has sexual relationships outside her primary relationship with her partner's full consent and encouragement — often with the partner's active participation through watching, directing, or being told afterward. The Cuckold dynamic specifically includes erotic arousal from the partner's outside sexual activity, often mixed with elements of humiliation or compersion.
The relationship structure doesn't determine the love. How you show up for each other does.
Modern Undefined Relationships
A relationship that is more than a hookup but less than a defined, committed partnership. It lives in a deliberate or accidental grey area — emotional intimacy exists, physical intimacy exists, but labels, expectations, and agreements don't. Often born when one or both people avoid the DTR conversation. The absence of a label doesn't mean the absence of feelings. That's exactly why situationships are so messy.
A friendship where two people also engage in casual sexual activity without romantic commitment or expectations. The friendship is the container; the sex is the added element. Works best when both people genuinely mean it and are honest when it changes — which it often does.
The initial phase of getting to know someone romantically — texting, flirting, early chemistry testing — before officially dating. Involves social media surveillance, "playing it cool," and navigating early ambiguity. May lead somewhere. Often doesn't.
The conversation — often dreaded, always necessary — where two people establish the actual status and expectations of their connection. Are we exclusive? Are we dating? Are we just hooking up? The DTR is what turns a situationship into something with real structure. Most people wait too long to have it.
A committed relationship between people who are geographically separated — different cities, states, or countries. LDRs require intentional communication, scheduled connection, and a shared vision for eventually closing the distance (or not). They can be extraordinarily deep or extraordinarily painful. Sometimes both.
A relationship that exceeds typical friendship boundaries with deep emotional bonds — potentially including cuddling, kissing, or cohabitation — but without romantic attraction in the traditional sense. Common in asexual and aromantic communities. A QPR acknowledges that the most important relationship in someone's life doesn't have to be romantic. The partner in a QPR is sometimes called a zucchini — an inside joke that became earnest shorthand in ace communities.
Someone you meet up with casually and secretly — kept low-profile and off social media. The secrecy may be mutual, or only one person's preference. Either way, if you're someone's sneaky link and you're okay with that, fine. If you're not okay with it, that's important information about what's actually happening.
Having multiple people you're casually talking to, dating, or keeping in rotation simultaneously — to keep options open. The roster approach is common in early dating; it becomes ethically complicated when the people on it don't know they're on it.
Jealousy tells you something needs attention. Compersion tells you love doesn't have a limit. Both are real. Neither cancels the other out.
Poly Vocabulary
The partner of your partner — someone you share no direct romantic relationship with but who is intimately connected to your relationship landscape. How you relate to your metamour(s) shapes the entire dynamic of a polyamorous network.
The intoxicating, obsessive infatuation that floods the start of a new relationship — heightened passion, fascination, emotional intensity. In polyamory, NRE is specifically discussed because it can cause someone to unconsciously neglect existing partners while riding the high of a new one. Naming it helps manage it.
The feeling of joy or happiness you experience when seeing your partner find pleasure, love, or deep connection with someone else. Often called the opposite of jealousy. Compersion doesn't mean the absence of jealousy — both can coexist. It's a feeling you cultivate, not a prerequisite.
A non-hierarchical term for the partner you live with — used in polyamorous communities to describe shared domestic life without implying that relationship ranks above others. Replaces the loaded term "primary" for those who reject hierarchical structures.
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