oi oi,

I can start purging megabytes without end, but I ll try to keep jold of myself.

I am a portuguese who lives in Germany and is taking a short 6month break in Portugal for some heimat fresh air before probably going back to Germany for good. For the context, I ama 33 year old woman, and I am queer.

I cannot stick to theme without going a bit biographic. Point is, I just want to make clear that although I stumbled on the poly concept somewhere in the begining of the 90's, I "only" started to live actually poly in the last 6 years. Most of this, lets say, 10-14 years period I was cut off from any type of poly scene. In the begining, and this coincided also with my first experiments on the net (everything was ftp and no-frames and all comunication was in newsgroups) and I had some incipient contacts to ppl in the US and Australia. Then I gave up any poly contact because I was actually too busy living it.

Recently in Germany (I speak from "last 1-2 years") I stablished contacts with a group of lesbians who live a a very consisten poly style. In fact I havent "stablished contacts". it was more, I used to know them and suddenly we came out all to each other as poly. I have no idea about what hetero polys are up to in Germany, except for echoes I read in the poly-ch mailing list (maybe someone could develop this point *hint* *hint* *hint* gorkon?). This comunity is very active also in "visibilty", and "spreading the topic around.

Before I came to Portugal I realised I was going to have some time in my hands for some "activism" and decided to look for the actual situation so I could see what could be done and where to invest. There is a mailing list already with around 28 members. there is a very unfair geographical predominance of Lisbon ppl, which does not surprise me (being myself from Lisbon, I know that the mentality and the critical mass are in order to allow such thing in Lisbon, but maybe not in the rest of the country). I would maybe leave it to Nina, one of the moderators of this list (and member of this tribe) to complete or correct my words. All the atempts to start a local group (maybe a "stamtisch") in the North or Portugal (where I am stationed in the moment) are quite useless at least in the moment.

In other words, I have the time and energy to build and maintain a group in the North of Portugal, but ..

As far as I understood most of the ppl are quite interested in discussing a lot of topics, which is great for me because you get a lot of feedback and interaction. On a more egoistic level, I am a bit frustrated because I am needing badly to have ppl with the same (real life) experience and background (woman/queer) as me, and this I could not find so far. I guess I have to be patient.

Another pt related poly topic would be this tamera.org, but I am not the best person to discuss it, because I am dont have any special inclination for such communities..

As for most of the "non-poly" ppl I know, I am out about it with them, and they dont find it absurd. It is just something they wouldnt maybe try themselves, but I am not regarded as coming from another planet. Some others really might have a problem with that. They see it as something threatening, but cannot really put the finger on it.

comments and questions welcome

some links:
www.poliamor.pt.to/ ---> quite nice page from Nina
groups.yahoo.com/group/poly_portugal/ ----> the mailing list

best,
antidote,
www.laundrylst.blogspot.com/ ---> I post about poly here when I feel like it

I find it quite striking that in Germany and the UK people are actually doing university level poly research, while that is not the case in Denmark (I checked!).

Non-polys with whom I have discussed the subject here in Denmark all prefer to keep love and sex seperate. I say, why the bother then!

But I am lucky. At least I have a sister who is open to the idea.