In the polyamorous communities, traditionally “hierarchical polyamory” is considered a dirty phrase. The meaning attached to the term is heavily associated with a negative connotation and often during discussions or arguments, hierarchy is defined as an unethical element. One reason for that is the restrictive nature of the introduced hierarchy – it, more or less, states that “only one of the relationships may flourish without restrictions, while the other relationships have a limit on their development”.
From here we directly move towards the topic of the correctness of the terminology – since you want to have a hierarchy introduced in the relationships with your partners, you cannot call yourself polyamorous. Either you are in an open relationship, or you are in some other type of ENM, but are definitely not “poly” because polyamory is the love towards more than one partner. If you have imposed restrictions on the development of any of your relationships, then this is not exactly love – this is calculated benefit. 
What does the “hierarchy” in question mean and what are its practical expressions? In the most classic sense, hierarchy in non-monogamous relationships comes down to the following: a non-monogamous couple, which just opened their relationship, and the partners of this newly opened couple identify themselves as their “primary partner”. All their remaining partners are secondary and consecutive in order. This means that the two primary partners share their essential and most meaningful resources such as time and attention primarily between them. Whatever is left, can be distributed between their other relationships.
There is a concept where primary partners introduce rules in their relationship. Often, when talking about such rules, the example of the veto power in the “main couple” comes right away. Nowadays, rules are widely rejected as an approach in polyamorous communities as it is something outdated, restrictive, unconstructive, and unethical.
When we have a separation of primary, secondary, etc. partners, this in practice most often means more resources, rights, and investments towards the primary partner and restrictions of the same to the secondary. This is also called “couple’s privilege”. If let’s say I find myself in such a situation, the message to my secondary partner would be something like “I can devote no more than X amount of time to you on a monthly basis. I cannot go with you on holiday, because my primary partner and I have financial priorities, that do not allow me to spend the necessary budget needed for traveling with you. Sometimes you and I may have an arrangement to see each other, but it might be suddenly canceled by my nesting partner because we have agreed to have the right to veto our meetings with other partners at any time. I cannot offer you to sleep at my home, because I live there with my primary partner, and he does not agree to let other partners sleep at home. I can be emotionally invested in you only to a certain extent – let’s say to a level of sympathy, friendship, fascination, and physical contact- but I cannot be in love with you because we have agreed with my main partner that romantic love is reserved territory only for us as a couple.”
Did that sound a bit harsh to you? It did to me, yes. I think the harshness comes from, on one hand, the restrictive character of the whole message, but on the other hand, the message is negative because these restrictions not always can be followed. It’s like getting married and promising to never love/look/be attracted to another person. It is absolutely the same, but in this case, I promise it to my primary partner- my secondary will never mean the same or more to me as you do – not when I’m planning my time, nor my finances, not my feelings. When it comes to the intentional “distribution” of feelings, I just want to note that this is not something, that I am able to do, am good at, or want to do.
Actually, if the upper scenario were enacted, the secondary partner could also conclude that we together would never reach the level of cohabitation and our relationship as a whole would never escalate beyond the limits imposed by the set rules. But also, the secondary partner won’t have to babysit my children or meet my parents. They would have no responsibility to me if I were to resolve a housing problem; apparently, he won’t have to come with me to funerals, will never see in my whole splendor with rotavirus and COVID at the same time and all that jazz. If I have the mindset to split my relationship hierarchically and communicate this in a crystal-clear way to my partners and they agree, I actually see no ethical problem here. Not in the hierarchy as such. The ethical problem here is related to the promise to the future, upon which some people – like me – have no control. When I promise to the first one, that I will always love them the most, and to the other one, for example, that I would never love them more than a friend-with-benefits type of a deal, I am in fact binding myself with one shaky statement. I can hope that it will be as I imagine, but I cannot guarantee that. And life so far has already assured me a couple of times, that he has his own opinion, which sometimes is quite different than my intentions.
To be honest and useful in a way I will tell you how the rule “We are primary partners and are the most important to each other” quickly evolves into something different. The former rule has now transformed into an agreement and states that if it happens that one of us decides that we want to prioritize completely another partner, the discussion for that will happen first between us. This agreement is now a couple of years old, and its real purpose is not to restrict me or my primary partner – I already know that restrictions do not work. If something important requires breaking the barriers, then they will be broken, and no rules or other forces are able to stop this process. This is just an agreement that I needed at that moment to reassure myself that whatever happens, I’m not going to be the last to find out – for example after the wedding of my boyfriend and his partner.
On the contrary, if a wedding is indeed happening, I want to be the first to know, to have an official invitation and a special role in the ceremony. But this is the satiation now – back then it was different. At the moment I read the agreement I do not see any reason to revoke it because it still feels completely logical and valid. Have you heard the mono-normative joke that the cheating spouse always learns last? Well, we can look at my reached consent as the polyamorous equivalent of this joke. It keeps me from the position of the “cheated primary partner/spouse”.
Most of the polyamorous people around me define themselves as RA because they practice their polyamory in a way that they like and however, it suits them and which doesn’t necessarily have an analog that they know or an established term. And because of these reasons, most poly people that I know suddenly became anarchists. I was astonished by this realization because I associate anarchy with the rejection of authority and rules. Actually, in the polyamory context, anarchy rather means “we make our own rules in such a way, that they are convenient and meaningful to us precisely”. Since each dyad, triad, etc. is unique on its own, I see two directions for the terminology to develop – soon either each group will have its own term for the type of polyamory they practice, or they will simply define their style as RA.
There are authors who believe that hierarchy in a poly relationship exists not based on who gives what priority to whom. According to them, it is normal to prioritize your resources to one of your partners, and that’s ok, as long as it is clearly communicated among all involved. According to the same authors, we could talk about hierarchy only in the case when one of the partners has the power to choose how the relationship of their partners with third parties will develop i.e. the hierarchy is automatically present in the case when we have the right of veto or a rule which states “your relationship with X can escalate only until level Y”. Let’s give an illustrative example with these two rules: “We can see our other partners two times a week” and “We cannot verbally express love towards our other partners”. So, what we illustrate in these examples is a hierarchy. On the other hand, the sole prioritization of our resources towards one of our partners is not hierarchy, but just prioritization. Such valid examples of prioritization would be:
– First, I ask X about the distribution of my time and resources, because we are raising children together. I want to be sure that X is completely satisfied with my time, attention, and other resources so that she has the opportunity to be a full-fledged caring figure.
– I consider Y first when planning trips because they require finances, and I and Y live together and have a shared mortgage. This means that Y and I have to take care of the household, bills, and mortgage first and if there is some financial resource left, I can make the trip.
– Z has a nasty virus. I want to see my other partner tomorrow but am worried about Z getting worse, while I am outside of home. I will make an arrangement with Z on how much time exactly I will be outside and make sure he definitely calls me in case he feels worse before I get home. To my other partner, I would explain the situation upfront, because I don’t want to risk him being unpleasantly surprised in case I receive a call from Z early in the evening and have to get home right away.
Alright, so far it turns out that poly societies condemn hierarchical relationships, but prioritizing partners could be allowed. So what should we do, what should we be, so that we are not unethical, so that we are not declared as non-polyamorous, to not be anathematized, or to not hurt anybody? I carry on thinking that whatever people practice, whatever they call it, if the principles of transparency and consent on all sides are in agreement, all is fine. There are people for whom being a secondary partner of somebody is exactly the desired effect – the crème de la crème of polyamory. I am somehow one of these people because I do not desire from here on now to connect with more people on a household level. I could have a wonderful relationship with my non-nesting partner, but I have no desire to realize, for example, how fanatical exactly are they when it comes to t-shirt sorting by color (or add here any other unpleasant feature of your choice).
I do not find hierarchy for something necessarily evil or poisonous. I don’t care if it’s called hierarchy, prioritizing, or something else, as long as it follows the ENM principles to work well for everybody involved. To not limit them, but to give them stability, calmness, transparency, and clarity. As long as it could be renegotiated, when required, and brings more positives than harm to everybody involved. And what is and how to call it? Maybe RA.
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