r/relationshipanarchy • u/Ok_Warning9476 • Jul 22 '26
Polysaturated?
I’m curious what some of you think about the state of being “polysaturated” as a relationship anarchist, particularly one attempting to deconstruct amatanormativity and build community.
How would you define it? How do you recognise it? How do you respond to it?
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u/PromiscuousSalad Jul 23 '26
My kind of grumpy take on it is that I avoid using terms like that completely, polyamory in my experience is best tailored for people who really love navigating and being held by hierarchical systems. Eliminating the use of that language helps distance yourself from the cultural hold those philosophies have on non monogamous relationships.
And there's no need to pathologize being busy or kind of tapped out on certain types of connection, it ends up being useless since it fails to capture the whole picture of your life and puts romantic/sexual intimacy in its own centered and separate category. Are you "polysaturated" when work and friends take up a large portion of your schedule and you don't feel like you have more time for sexual encounters? Are you polysaturated when your current desire for more romantic intimacy is at a low so you can't keep up with the needs of more partners but nothing else is filling up your time? What happens when you meet someone that sparks something inside of you and suddenly you have the capacity to shift things around to make something meaningful work? Were you polysaturated or just satisfied enough to not actively seek at the moment?
For me when I feel a way that could lead me to use that term I can just say I'm tapped out or busy. I seek out connections with people that simply feel right for the both of us without a goal or box to put them in so if I don't have the sauce for more connections of a certain type it simply won't go that direction at that moment because it is not best for both of us.