See your whole polycule on one map

Polyamory is not a list of pairs. It is a network: your partners, their partners, the people you share a household or a weekend with. Until this week, HOTPOLY stored those links but only showed them as a flat list. Now it draws them.

The map

Open Profile › Polycule and tap Manage Polycule & Referrals. You are in the middle. Your partners sit in a ring around you. Their partners, your metamours, sit a ring further out. Each link is coloured by its type: partner, marriage, nesting partner, anchor partner, play partner, comet or queerplatonic. Tap anyone to open their profile.

On the web the map is a plain drawing you can read at a glance. In the Android app you can drag it around and pinch to zoom, so a large polycule still fits on a phone.

Who shows up, and who doesn't

Nothing about the map is automatic. A link exists only when both people agreed to it, so you appear on someone's map only through an invite you accepted, and you can remove a link at any time. Metamours appear because your partner linked to them, and the map only goes two steps out: your partners and their partners. Nobody is placed on your map by guessing. The map itself is yours alone; other members still see only what they saw before, the partners listed on your profile.

Invite a partner who isn't on HOTPOLY yet

Every partner link now comes with a share link. Send it to a partner who hasn't joined, and the moment they sign up they are linked to you as the relationship type you chose. No code to type, no second step.

That link is also a referral. If your invited partner starts Premium, you each get a month free, the same as any invite. You can earn up to six free months this way.

If you use the Android app, the share link still works. Open it in a browser to sign up, or redeem the code under Profile › Polycule › Redeem Code.

Invite a partner who is already a member

Invite links now work for existing members too. If your partner already has an account and opens your link, they sign in and see a page that says you want to add them to your polycule, with two buttons: Join and No thanks. Nothing changes until they say yes.

Saying yes also counts them as invited by you. If they start Premium you each get a month free, as long as they are not Premium already and were not invited by someone else first.

I appreciate my early adopters, and it wouldn't be fair to you if only new people were able to take advantage of signing up from a referral. If you joined before invite links existed, you can still be invited by a partner and still get the free month.

You'll know when a link is accepted

When someone accepts your link, you get an alert, the same way you hear about a new match. It follows your Matches notification setting, so if you have those turned off you won't be pinged.

Why I built it this way

The big apps treat a couple as the largest unit that can exist. A paired profile is as far as they go. That is not how my relationships work, and I don't think it is how yours work either. The map makes the shape of your polycule visible on the app, and every link is also the easiest way to bring the people you love onto HOTPOLY.

The map is live now on the web and on Android. The app updates itself the next time you open it. If something looks wrong on your map, or you want a link type that isn't on the list, write to feedback@hotpoly.org and tell me.