Annalisa and I spent the last week in San Francisco. In part, we wanted to have a nice vacation: I had never been west of Chicago and we had not traveled together for any real length of time for a while. But one of the major reasons for going was also to attend OpenSF, a conference on nonmonogamy, open relationships, and polyamory organized by Pepper Mint. The conference (and related events) lasted from Friday until Sunday, and I’d like to take a bit of time to talk about some of the interesting panels I attended and some of the people I met in and around the conference itself.
Friday
Friday was essentially a welcome/orientation day. Pepper gave an opening address and initiated an interesting icebreaker activity, for which I am thankful because it forced me to meet some new people right off the bat. One of my goals for the conference was to socialize, but walking into a room of strangers, almost all of whom live in the San Francisco Bay area, was daunting for me. I learned an important lesson this weekend: I am extremely bad at approaching people I don’t know, even for casual, “low stakes” chat/interactions. Once I’ve been introduced to people, or compelled to interact with them, I think I’m actually a fairly gregarious person. But the initial awkwardness of “how do I approach that person, and what do I say?” is a huge anxiety trigger for me.
Luckily, the icebreaker required us to move from table to table, each time beginning with a new group of people and a “prompt” question that we were all asked to answer in front of the group (if we chose to answer: enthusiastic consent was a theme of the con, so anyone could opt out of any activity without judgment). Pepper provided excellent questions (“What do you hope to get out of the con,” “What is one of your wildest or most unusual poly moments,” etc.), and I felt mostly at ease meeting 20-30 new people in 15 minutes or so. It was a fun activity, and I might adapt it for use in the classroom.
After the welcome address, many con guests left to attend an off-site lecture/dance/play party. Sadly, I was unable to register in time for the sold-out event, but a group of other event castaways organized a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity, to which I was graciously invited. There I met Dylan of the Life on the Swingset podcast–who had brought a large contingent to the con–and several other people I would see throughout the weekend.
Saturday
Saturday was a day of panels, beginning with Charlie Glickman’s talk, “Sex, Shame, and Love.” For me, this was a highlight of the convention. Glickman discusses shame as a “tent” or “cloud” of emotions, any of which can disconnect us from people with whom we have relationships. One of his most important points, though, and one on which he disagrees with many writers on the subject (and some of his own psychologist colleagues), is that shame is not always detrimental. For Glickman, feeling shame is an important indicator that we’ve broken a communication/relationship “bridge”–yes, he used a lot of analogies–and need to mend it. Awareness of our feelings of shame is the first step in repairing the relationship (I should probably note here that one of the key relationships we can damage with shame is our relationship with ourself). Glickman elaborates on these concepts here, here, and here (among other places).
Most people in romantic/sexual minorities face shame at some point in their lives, often daily. I found it refreshing to hear someone talk about shame’s adaptive value and about avoiding a shame “spiral” (i.e. being ashamed of feeling shame, which only leads to more shame). As an anxiety disorder sufferer, I found in Glickman’s philosophy some useful coping mechanisms.
One other session of note on Saturday (they weren’t all gems, though I can’t say I thought any one was particularly terrible) was on “Poly Theory.” Joy Brooke Fairfield, a Stanford graduate student, gave a staggeringly expansive and eloquent talk about establishing a branch of cultural studies called poly theory (in the vein of feminist theory, queer theory, etc.). She also expanded on Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphor of a rhizome to describe polyamorous relationships. Contrasting her conception with the traditional linear (or arboreal) relationship model–we can see the arboreal model in family trees, corporate organizational flow charts, etc.–Joy argued that our relationships more resembled the root system of rhizomes. Rhizomes lack a central or ultimate root but rather expand from node to node in many directions. If we imagine ourselves each as nodes, we can see how we connect to other nodes, and those nodes to still others, in a complex but interconnected system. It is an elegant, non-hierarchical way to look at groups of linked relationships, polyamorous or otherwise.
After Saturday’s sessions, I got to try Poly Speed Dating. It was a lot of fun, if chaotic. I wonder if something like this would work in our area?
After speed dating was a dance party at Love Triangle dance club, a poly-friendly club in San Francisco’s Mission District. I was heartened to learn that the Mission has not one but several clubs that cater to nonmonogamous folks. Again, I wish our city/region did a better job of providing safe spaces for nonmogamous people to gather to socialize. My overriding feeling all weekend long was that this was one of the first times in my life that I’d found a group of people with whom I fit in totally. Even though I met theists, omnivores, and even (gasp!) political moderates, I felt a deep, almost instant common bond. We’d all wrested loose the shackles of monogamy, and that’s a remarkable thing.
Sunday
The fatigue of late Friday and Saturday parties began to show for most con guests (and even some of the presenters) Sunday, but the day did bring a few highlights.
Tristan Taormino‘s keynote speech was an enthusiastic call to arms. She made several important points, one or two of which I will write about in more depth another time. Briefly, though, she called on the LBGT community not to throw polys under the proverbial bus in their fight for marriage equality. Conceding our opponents’ post hoc and slippery slope arguments hurts both our causes.
In addition, Taormino called on those of us who have the privilege to be “out” as nonmonogamous to live our lives as openly as possible. One of the things that prompted me to start writing for this blog was that I realized that I am fortunate enough to have a job for which I will not be fired for being polyamorous, a supportive and loving family, economic and emotional security, etc. I really must live my life openly, if only to show other people that people like us not only exist but are happy, healthy, and thriving.
I liked a few of the early Sunday panels, but I was really impressed with Cunning Minx‘s afternoon session on creating a non-threatening, attractive online dating profile (i.e. how not to be creepy guy). While her advice was useful, even for those of us who already consider ourselves non-threatening/non-creepy, I was particularly struck by her polished, stimulating, and well-organized presentation. You would be amazed at how many presenters were not particularly well-organized. We’re lucky to have Minx as an advocate/representative/colleague/peer, and I was glad to have met her.
I was also able to meet Dossie Easton, whose inscription in my copy of “The Ethical Slut” left me smiling with fanboy glee.
Monday and Beyond
I’m still processing the experience of OpenSF–and I expect I’ll share some of the fruits of that processing with you in the weeks and months to come–but right now I feel overjoyed to have spent three days among fabulous, non-judgmental, like-minded people. I increased my polyamory vocabulary, something I wasn’t sure was possible nearly four years into my own poly life. And I left San Francisco, and return home, eager to be more of an activist and particularly to advocate for more sex-positive events and safe spaces in our own city. I think we can do it, but I’ll probably need a bit of help. Who’s with me?
I used to be monogamous. Ok, more precisely, I used to try to be monogamous. I sort of slipped and fell a couple of times, to find that my penis had landed in vaginas that were not attached to my girlfriend.
I remember what is was like being a 20-something guy with a girlfriend, having frineds with girlfriends/boyfriends and doing group activities like going out for drinks, grilling at someone’s house, or sitting around playing games and such on a Saturday. The room would tend to be full of young, attractive, sexually hungry people who flirt with each other.
I might find myself having a conversation with a girl who my friend just met recently, and it was obvious that there was some chemistry between us. And the fact that I was “taken” made it safer to make flirty jokes (see what I did there? dirty+flirt=flirty!). It was all just in good fun, and almost always led nowhere.
And then we all get to go home, paired off, and allow the sexual tension that we built up with such interactions with out monogamous partner. Well, except monogamous people don’t tend to admit that this type of flirting contributed to our interest in sex those nights.
That would prove that we are not attracted to our partners anymore, or enough, or even that we never were, right? Anyone with a very insecure partner in their past can tell you stories about those partners, after such evenings, would comment about how they saw you checking that other person out, and how they bet you’d like to ‘hit that’ (or whatever the kids say these days).
So, how often in such situations do couples talk and say things like “hey, so I saw you talking to ____ tonight. Ze is totes into you. I think their significant other is pretty attractive. We should all go out together and, like, fuck each other or something!”
Ok, if THAT conversation happens on the part of both couples, they might be ok. But more likely a less transparent conversation happens after everyone is drunk, one or two people seem really eager about the idea, and everyone else laughs nervously.
I mean, such things like partner swapping does happen. It usually includes alcohol, of course. Often, in such cases, it ends up ugly even if it starts out great. It often does not happen again. Those people later remember their younger, rebellious days where they tried swinging, polyamory, etc and all they really remember is how badly it went.
Then those people talk to me or read a blog post here or elsewhere (although why would anyole want to do that?) and think that its quite adorable how naive I am, or whatever, and go on with their life.
Except, well, they did it wrong.
Because there are more ways to do non-monogamy wrong than to do it right. Doing relationships well is hard, sometimes very hard, and the more people involved the more complicated it gets.
I would like to see a world where 20-somethings could be less monogamous. I would like to think that such people could be honest with their partners enough to not only admit the desire, but mature enough to hear it as well.
It would lower rates of infidelity in such relationships, as well as bring to the surface emotional issues which need to be exercised by people in order to be successful partners.
Will all of them end up polyamorous? No, probably not. Will people get hurt? Yes, probably. Will it fix already weak relationships? Eh, perhaps in some cases, but probably not in most.
Will it be more honest of people, considering what they really want to do? I think that it might. It might teach all sorts of lessons about what we desire, what we can handle, as well as give people invaluable sexual experience which goes far in terms of teaching us about relationships and desires.
And yes, I am aware that many younger people are not taking monogamy as strictly as generations before did, but I still want to see more of it exist transparently.
And I would like to see more people after their 20s keep their relationships from slipping into the default monogamy, especially when those old fires spark up.
—–
This post is not completely fueled by the fact that some monogamous couples I know are totally doable.
But seriously, people, stop being so sexy and monogamous!
I have been following a blog about polyamory for a little while now called polytical. I try and keep up with a few poly blogs, twitter feeds, etc in order to keep my finger on the pulse of the community. I am not really a part of that community, even less than I am an insider the atheist community, but I have been listening for some time and know a fair bit about the issues, people, etc.
So, earlier today this post went up on polytical entitled I’m Poly ‘Cause I’m Better (which was a follow-up and partial change in views from a previous post entitled I’m Better ‘Cause I’m Poly). I had not read the earlier post previously (it went up before I started following the blog), but read it today for further context. I will say that I pretty much agreed with the older post. I have some reservations about the one from today.
Let’s just say I have some questions. Concerns even.
Lola O starts by saying how ze, after more presence in the poly community, has started to see the smugness of some polyamorous people; smugness about polyamory being better than monogamy and so forth. I have seen a little bit of that myself. I think that some of that smugness, that arrogance, can be justified. Not all of it, surely, but some of it. I’ll get to that.
So, let’s start with where Lola thinks the problem originates.
I feel it’s important to address this. Not because I enjoy being a naysayer, but I can see why the community alienates people. The smugness comes in two forms – a lack of acknowledgement of intersectional issues, and unchecked blatant privilege.
Oh boy, have we skeptics and atheists been over this ground in the last year! The debacle that was Elevatorgate, The ‘Amazing’ Atheist, and even Penn Jillette will remind us skeptics (the rest of you can use your Google machine) of what I am referring to (and of course there are many more examples). Alienating people, especially women and non-white people, from meetups, conventions, etc has been a huge issue in the skeptical/atheist world in recent years, and it exploded last year in a way that educated many people, including myself.
I still have not had a chance to thank Rebecca Watson, personally, for much of that unfortunately.
Once again, there are a lot of things that the polyamory community has to learn from the skeptic community, as well as the other way around. I know there is some overlap, but I don’t see a tremendous amount of discussion that deals with the intersection and how their trajectories might resemble one-another. Except, of course, for here at polyskeptic.com!
In any case, let’s get back to Lola. Ze thinks that there are two issues that are at the foundation of the problem in the poly community.
Intersectionality is a relatively new idea to me, although I certainly sympathize with the phenomenon as an atheist, polyamorous, skeptic. Privilege…well, that is not as new to me, but the debacles listed above must have increased the Google hits for that term by a significant degree last year, and I wrote a bit about it myself. But I don’t want to deal with these issues naked, I want to allow Lola to dress them up, give them shape, so that we can follow her reasoning.
People who say they’re polyamorous and critical of the assumption that we’re biologically suited to monogamy do not seem to bat an eyelash at gender stereotypes, and are more than willing to glue themselves to biological imperatives of the way “males” and “females” behave.
Yep, I’ve seen this. The nature of privilege (or am I getting ahead of myself) is that you don’t see it when you have it. I am in agreement with this statement, although I don’t know how common this actually is, having seen it rarely myself. As a point of comparison, I’ll add this; having seen how many atheists, who tend to be good at seeing past religious privilege, are blind to their own privileges has taught me that suffering the blunt end of privilege does not imply that you are incapable of having another form of privilege.
Lola continues:
I find myself (and I’m not exaggerating) constantly having to remind fellow poly people that not only do intersex and gender variant people exist, but sometimes even that bisexual individuals exist. And when I bring up how sexism probably impacts the way people interact with others; the way people find partners; how comfortable, for example, those who identify as female may feel in situations where being poly means they are sexually available, I’m told that I’m pissing in everyone’s Cheerios or being too negative.
I have not seen this much myself. From my non-scientific sample, from my experience, this is pretty rare. Of course, most of my experience with the poly community IRL comes from being in Philadelphia; a very LGBTQ, intersex, etc friendly area of the world. I also attended an extremely liberal school where most of my friends were also extremely liberal. Just another privilege of mine.
It may be that the level of awareness, comfort, and overlap between the polyamorous community and the intersex/gender variant community varies from region to region or even group to group within a region, and Lola and I live in different parts of the world and may travel in different kinds of circles. Perhaps if I traveled around more I would find similar experiences as Lola did in recent months.
At one poly event, when a friend of mine brought up the struggles of women & gender variant individuals, and how – as poly activists, we need to mention and address these issues, she was condescended to by a fellow “poly activist” who told her that those people need to fight their own battles while we need to focus on poly struggles and poly issues.
I am in complete disagreement with this “poly activist” which Lola paraphrases here. This type of statement is another example of where the poly community needs to learn lessons from the gay community. I learned it through the atheist community, in a talk given by Greta Christina, where she talks about how the atheist community needs to learn from the mistakes of the gay community. (watch it, but perhaps after reading):
This larger fight for rights, recognition, etc for all of us weird, and even the not-so-wierd, people is the same fight. I stand for gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, cis, feminist, men’s (but no so much MRAs), atheist, Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Hindu, Pastafarian, polyamorous, monogamous, asexual, etc rights. I stand for human rights. Anyone who thinks that we are all fighting separate fights doesn’t see the larger picture, and ends up segregating and tribalizing us all.
Lola then addresses the issue of whether polyamory should be included in with the “Queer” umbrella, and even whether we should add a “P” to the LGBTQ “alphabet soup.” In some ways, I think that there are good arguments for this addition, but only because I have seen good overlap between the LGBT community and polyamory. But if what Lola is identifying here is true, then I think that the following is very well said.
And when I voice my concerns as a queer person, that adding “P” to an acronym built on backs and blood of beaten, raped, tortured, and slain individuals is insulting when, while polyamory is misunderstood, it has yet to be a death sentence – I’m told by individuals who have no concept of being queer that I’m being divisive and discriminatory. What sort of welcoming do queer people find in a community that tells them to keep their issues to themselves, unless of course heterosexuals want to co-opt their struggle?
This is a fantastic point. I don’t know the extent of the real distance between the poly community as a whole from the LGBTQ struggles, but if it tends towards being as far as Lola is claiming here, even if not everywhere, then I think that the poly community should back off trying to add a “P” here, at least until this issue is rectified.
—
So, thus far in the post I am in agreement with Lola. I think that ze has some wonderful things to say about some problems in the poly community, and while I hope her experiences are the rare exceptions, my more cynical nature doubts that it is. We poly people have work to do, surely.
So I keep reading. When Lola turns to race relations, I don’t expect to find this sentence;
To put it bluntly, being polyamorous may cause one to endure all manner of ignorant comments and may even threaten the custody or family lives of a few, but practicing polyamory is overwhelmingly a privilege.
Upon reading this, something pops in my brain. ‘huh?’ my inner-voice says. ‘did I just read that correctly?’ it continues. Now, I have never thought of polyamory as a position of privilege. To me, it seems that monogamy has the position of privilege, and polyamory is struggling against that privilege. But being aware that privileged people are blind, I keep reading.
Loving more than one person is a capability I believe all human beings have. But having the time, energy, and resources for more than one relationship is, without doubt, a privilege.
Ah! I see. This makes a bit of sense. I see where the argument is headed. The immediate point following this, then, is not surprising.
I see a lot of poly people online and offline wax poetic about polyamory being the next stage of human evolution, degrade and devalue monogamous people for their silly triflings; all the while ignoring that a working single mother barely has enough time for herself, let alone dating.
This is an interesting point. And no doubt the observation is largely true, but consider this. A common response to polyamory, from monogamous people, is that they simply don’t have the time or energy for another relationship. This is basically the same point, and I think it falls apart for similar reasons. Let me address it in two ways.
First, what I think is overlooked here is that some ways to approach polyamory may actually help this problem, rather than exacerbate it. I think the assumption here may be that the single mother (or father) may not have time for two relationships, let alone one. Sure, this is a problem. But what if that single mother/father found an existing couple, family, etc? What if they found themselves a support network which could make the work of raising a child a bit easier? That is one of the major strengths of polyamory, IMO.
Granted, this is an idealized solution to a tough situation, and the logistical problems in finding said support group is a challenge in itself. I was raised by a single mother, until I was eight or so, myself. And while my mother didn’t find a poly tribe, she found a support structure despite the hardship. Finding a poly support structure, if that is what she had been after, may not have been impossible or even very difficult (especially now that the internet exists) for a single mother.
The second point is that this argument is no more a problem for polyamory than it is for relationships in general. It’s like my mother (who apparently has a lot to do with this post) talking to me about why I, as a poly person, should not get married. All of her arguments turn into arguments against marriage itself, rather than arguments against me getting married while polyamorous.
The essential point here is that when one argues that polyamory is a privilege because doing it is hard, one might as well be arguing against having relationships at all. Having a tough life does not stop people from finding what they need and want, so if they are open to and prefer polyamory, they can find that as well as any monogamous single parent could.
These discussions about how advanced polyamory is and how much better we are at relationships and life come off to me as incredibly ignorant of the realities many face. There’s a difference between being happy in and of ourselves for what we have, and being arrogant and ignorant. I have the economic privilege and free time to date more than one person, but I haven’t always had that. And people who have to spend most of their time working to keep their head economically above the water may have little time for conventions and long discussions about compersion. Love is infinite. Time is not.
When I met my soon-to-be wife, I was unemployed, nearly homeless, recently abandoned in a city I barely knew (Atlanta), and emotionally wrecked. I was already pre-disposed to polyamory due to previous experiences, introspection, etc. My being polyamorous was not about going out on nice dates, spending tons of time with many people with whom I had long-term relationships, or even actually having any partners at all.
My being polyamorous was about not creating arbitrary and absurd rules, when starting or solidifying relationships, about being exclusive. It was merely about recognizing that my ability to love is not limited, and that anyone who will love me has to know that about me because I will not lie to myself by artificially being exclusive for the sake of some silly fears and insecurities. Being polyamorous is about being authentic to my actual desires and tendencies, not living la vita loca with wining and dining potential partners.
It was a declaration of true maturity, skepticism, and self-knowledge, not a declaration of wealth of time and money to do the dating game with two or more people.
Polyamory is not about doing what the hetero-normative, middle class, educated world does, but just more of it transparently. It’s about recognizing that we actually do love more than one person, and this happens whether we are dirt poor, middle class, or of the 1%. For me, it is a part of a larger project to be a better person than I was, than most people are, and who I would be if I hadn’t challenged myself to be better.
I am not better because I am polyamorous, but rather I am polyamorous, like Lola said, ’cause I’m better. Not better in the sense of having more money, time, or people in my life, but because I have done the real, hard, tedious work of improving my ability to be a better person, including when I didn’t have the privileged economic means, and for me that means being polyamorous.
In my view, polyamory is actually better, unless you accidentally become monogamous, than what the world tends to do with relationships. Am I smug? Damned right! Am I arrogant? I don’t think this pride is unwarranted, I think it’s earned.
And no, not everyone will be polyamorous, nor will all people have the capability to be so. Also, not everyone will be a skeptic, an atheist, a PhD, an expert, or even famous. This does not mean that we do not respect, fight for, and care for those who cannot climb such mountains, but it means that in some way we have achieved something that others cannot, or have not yet, achieved. We can encourage others to follow, but will not expect all to do so.
My privileges (and I have many; I’m white, educated, middle class in a very wealthy country, male, and certainly some others that I’m not thinking of right now) are not what make it possible for me to be polyamorous, but they do allow me to do polyamory in a more privileged way. This is the distinction that, I think, Lola is missing. It’s not that polyamory is a privilege, but doing polyamory in a certain way is a privilege.
But this privileged way of doing polyamory is no different than doing any type of relationship in a privileged way. Again, this line of reasoning does not point exclusively to polyamory, but also to any type of relationship which exists in a privileged world. There is a logical error of confusing a privileged way of doing polyamory with polyamory per se. Polyamory does not require a privilege to mount, it only requires an open and honest mind about how we love people, what we want, and how we communicate between those two things.
—
Finally, I want to deal with what Lola talks about near the end of the post. The discussion here is things like mental health, ableism, etc. Lola says:
Discussions that centre around shaming jealousy, or the assumption that security is a realistic goal for all, or that you need it in order to be “good at poly,” create an environment that encourages people with mental illness (and people without) to not only misjudge red flags and pangs they experience as jealousy but also encourage them to ignore those feelings for fear of being the “green eyed monster”. There’s little to no discussion around these assumptions unless it’s pointed out that insecurity could stem from mental illness, and no advice or acknowledgement on how exactly folks with mental illnesses are supposed to navigate poly situations.
I struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder. If there are any MH issues which would be problematic with emotions, including jealousy and insecurity, BPD would be among the toughest to deal with.
I acknowledge that many people may not be able to do poly, for reasons of trauma, mental health issues, etc. Where “jealousy-shaming” actually exists, it needs to be confronted and eliminated. Jealousy is not something to be ashamed of, it is something to work through because it is unhealthy. We must be up-front with our personal struggles, and not be ashamed of them.
I think that Lola might be missing the distinction between shame and the frustration that comes with having to deal with something unwanted and pernicious, like jealousy (or faith, credulity, etc), which can cause emotional reactions such as shame. I have not seen much “jealousy-shaming,” but I have seen people bluntly proclaim that jealousy is an unhealthy attribute which we need to confront towards the goal of managing it maturely, honestly, and with aplomb. This is not shaming; this is asking people to deal with a difficult problem with things like maturity, courage, and lots of communication.
The experience of shame in response to such things is part of the problem, and it makes me wonder if the intent of people is always to shame, or if many times it is the interpretation of people who struggle with jealousy and are confronted about this. Shame, a Christian concept if ever there were one, is anti-human and festers beneath the psyche of many of us in the West due to the perpetuation of theologies which feed off of such unpleasant experiences. We need to be aware of that.
Jealousy, like faith, needs to be outgrown by our species for us to thrive in a future where we transcend the teenage years of our history. Not through shame, but by compassion, patience, and very good listening skills will we achieve such goals. We need to allow the love (the ‘-amory) to massage jealousy away a day, a word, or a touch at a time and encourage the best scientific methods to deal with the exacerbation of that problem for those with particular mental health struggles, just as people do in the monogamous world.
We don’t, after all, say that since many people struggle with violent tendencies we should, therefore, not confront and try to deal with people who have mental health issues which exacerbate those impulses because it causes shame. I know, from personal experience, that causing physical harm to people through violence brings shame, but that this response was mostly my responsibility.
I’m glad I realized that it was not shame, but motivation to be more healthy, was the intention of those confronting me. Otherwise, I might still be ashamed, rather than more healthy.
Near the end, Lola begins to sum up thoughts:
So, I have found the smug poly people. But it’s more than smugness. To me, smugness implies at the very least that there is something to be proud of, and you’re going the extra mile beyond being proud to being boastfully arrogant. This isn’t boastful arrogance, this is unchecked ignorance – and that is nothing, as a community, to be proud of. I see this problem in many communities, and I’m hoping that this is something that will change.
Well, maybe the community does not have anything to be proud of. Frankly, the community I have seen is small, unorganized, and struggles with all sorts of issues that differ from group to group. But this statement above goes further than I am willing to go. This, above, sounds like an attempt to shame.
I do hope that the polyamory community will continue to grow, evolve, and improve. But I think that many poly people have much to be proud of. I am proud of my accomplishments as a poly person, of our little group, and the thoughts that we have collected here at polyskeptic (we’re still quite young as a blogging group).
To sum up my own thoughts here which have gone long and long), I agree that issues with intersectionality need to be dealt with where they are a problem. I believe that education about what it means and how it affects us all are part of that solution. But I don’t agree that polyamory is privileged any more than any relationship is potentially privileged. I believe that Lola has committed a logical fallacy in arguing that poly is privileged because to do it in a privileged way is not possible for everyone. There are non-privileged ways to do polyamory, and many people are doing just that.
I have been actively polyamorous for a while now. As a result of this I see the world of sex and relationships in a different way than most. I see the world with polyamorous eyes.
And while I remember being monogamous earlier in my life, I’m not sure if I can exactly remember how I saw the world differently. I must have seen it differently to some degree, right? Perhaps not, but I’m no longer sure. Perhaps I was always saw a lot of what I now see, just not as clearly. Again, I’m not sure.
If there has been any perspective shift, it is one of a heightened one; a view from above. It is the result of a consciousness-raising, where I can see many of the assumptions and behavior patterns of relationships.
It is not unlike how I see religion, faith, and unskeptical thinking in other avenues (such as politics). It is a view from the outside, being able to see much of what happens within and feeling some sympathy for the experience.
It’s not that I see everything. It is not even that what I do see I fully understand. An analogy would be to say that I am seeing more sides, or even dimensions, to our sexual and relationship behavior than those caught in the mire of cultural normalcy. And what new sides I see makes most of our cultural and psychological tendencies just seem funny and sometimes absurd.
Watching monogamous individuals and couples deal with relationship dynamics, for me, is sort of like a comedy where you, as the audience, know something about the play that the characters do not. The absurdity of their behavior, the obvious conflict of their desires and what they do, and the oversights of simple solutions missed due to ignored needs and lack of transparency in the relationship.
And usually in the name of maintaining the ideal of monogamy. Yes, people do unhealthy relationship things, like lie about what they really want, what they really do, and what they are really comfortable having their partners want and do, in order to protect the relationship.
I cannot think of any higher ironic comedy than that. And is see it all the time, and I am convinced that most monogamous people do it all the time, and that they usually don’t even realize they are doing it.
It is, after all, part of the dating world to lie. So when people commit, either with marriage or just exclusivity, many of those lies are smuggled in. After a while, they may not even feel like lies anymore. They become self-deceptions.
So, I just finished reading Greta Christina’s new book Why Are You Atheists So Angry: 99 Things That Piss Off The Godless (Kindle version), right after having met her after the Reason Rally, and I will briefly say that I recommend it as a great resource for both believer and heathen alike. It is a great read for anyone who does not quite understand why we get so fired up about religion and faith.
I use this as a premise for talking about goals of social movements, a question that Greta addresses in her book concerning the goals of the atheist movement specifically, and what this might have to teach the polyamory community. After watching the atheist movement grow and mature over the last 10 years or so, and given that I am usually thinking about polyamory, I inevitably will ask whether there will ever be a large, organized, coherent polyamory social movement.
And if there were, what would it look like?
As Greta talks about in her book, there are fundamental problems which the larger atheist community addresses through various means. There are the basic issues of confronting stereotypes, discrimination, and hatred of atheists. Such things range from moral, legal, and to philosophical issues and are fought for by both theists and atheists. There is also the front of the atheist community which actively responds to theistic claims, both to truth and socio-political access of levers of power (in the US, this is usually through Christian privilege), with counter arguments of varying levels of intensity. On the farther end is the ultimate goal of ridding the world—through persuasion—of religion. Greta and I share that goal.
With that in mind, what types of issues could a polyamory social movement address?
are there fundamental cultural, legal, or philosophical problems which polyamory addresses?
is there any real and significant discrimination against polyamorous people in the world? If so, is it primarily cultural or legal in nature?
Would such a movement be essentially a struggle for equal rights or would it also include questions of truth, such as whether polyamory is the best model for relationships that all people should emulate? (I a thinking about that last point in terms of Sam Harris’ Moral Landscape)
I don’t have any definitive conclusions to these questions right now, nor do I think anyone does. I ask these questions to tease out some stark differences in the types of problems that the atheist community is dealing with from what the polyamory community has to deal with, whether it will become a larger social movement or not.
Will there ever be a poly equivalent to accommodationists?
In the atheist community, there are those whom like to argue that religion is worthy of respect, should not be criticized, and that there is much about religion that we should perpetuate, learn from, etc. I have addressed this question numerous times over the last few years, and will not say more than I disagree with this view. Strongly.
On the other side are people, like myself, who believe that religion is more harmful than not, untrue, and perpetuates the worst parts of our humanity; specifically faith. I will resist urge to rant about that here. Resistance is not always futile.
(In other words, urges to rant about faith can be countered with Star Trek references)
So, the question is whether this pattern holds for the polyamory community? Are there people who will argue that, for example, monogamy is more damaging than not? That monogamy cannot be a healthy relationship structure? Will people argue that polyamory is objectively better than non-polyamory? Will there, in short, be anti-monogamists? Not merely people who prefer polyamory, think it a better way to live given more options, but actually against the practice of monogamy as an irrational and delusional lifestyle? Will someone write a book called “The Monogamy Delusion”?
Again, not mere amonogamy–the lack of monogamy–but the active social activism against (through persuasion) the continuation of monogamy as a cultural practice.
(Some of you are thinking about Brave New World. Or, if you are uber-literate, you are thinking of WE.)
Now, I don’t doubt that there are a few people out there who might try to make such an argument. I’m sure that a rare poly bird out there, or a few, will argue that monogamy is fundamentally wrong, irrational, and possibly a bowing to the worst instincts of humanity; things like jealousy, social conformity, and living against one’s true desires (living inauthentically).
And on some points, I will agree with such people. I might, in fact, agree with many of the points they will make, and make some of those points myself. But despite this affinity for such arguments, I am not, at least not right now, one of those people who will make such an argument. And I want to explain why.
Theism v. monogamy
Theism is a hypothesis about the world, specifically the existence of some supernatural being commonly referred to as a deity, god, etc. It makes a specific claim which is either testable or untestable. If it is testable, it has not survived skeptical/scientific analysis so far, and does not appear as f it will ever pass such a standard. If it is not testable, it is a worthless hypothesis and should be thrown out on those merits alone. Atheism is the lack of that hypothesis, whether made out of ignorance or through informed analysis, and the arguments it makes are in response to a proposition of how the world is.
Monogamy is a relationship style based upon sexual (and usually romantic) exclusivity between two people. It is the lifestyle of having one lover, sometimes a spouse, at least at a time but possibly life-long. It is not a hypothesis about the world, but it is a…choice? (is it really always a choice, given how many people are not even aware of alternatives? A question for another post!). In any case, monogamy is a structure of one’s relationship, rather than a claim about reality.
What is the significance of this distinction? Essentially, it is the fact that polyamory is not a reaction to monogamy in the same way that atheism is a reaction to theism. A polyamorous advocate could say something like “this is a better lifestyle for my wants and needs, and it may be better for you” and not “your lifestyle is objectively unproven to be best, true, and so your lifestyle is objectively wrong and you should give it up.” Polyamory is not a reaction against a claim to objective truth, as atheism is. Polyamory has a relationship, and not always an antagonistic one, to a traditional cultural ideal of monogamy (traditional in much of the world, but certainly not all of it) that feels unnatural to many people.
To clarify the distinction between these two issues, let me ask two questions:
Is it reasonable to consider all of the arguments for and against theism and rationally come out a theist?
Is it reasonable to consider all of the arguments for and against monogamy and rationally come out monogamous?
In terms of (1), there are no good arguments for any gods’ existence, so any skeptic should become an atheist if they properly apply their skepticism to the question of gods. As for (2), there are people who will, upon honest reflection, discussion, and consideration with their partner, find that they both are actually quite happy, satisfied, and feel no desire to be with other people sexually/romantically. Those people will be what I call “accidentally monogamous.” They have seriously considered whether they would want other people in their sexual/romantic life and have concluded that they need no rule about exclusivity but will end up living a monogamous lifestyle, for all practical purposes.
And before anyone thinks to point this out, I admit having argued that a true skeptic should be polyamorous, but I have also argued that monogamy is legitimately rational as a needs-securing lifestyle for at least some people. To be clear, my view is that polyamory (not having an exclusivity rule) should be the starting position for all relationships, and monogamy is subsequently only fully rational if, and only if (iff), that is what both people actually, authentically, want with each other. Which means that they would need no rule arguing for exclusivity, because doing so would be redundant because neither is actually interested in pursuing other people.
Wes would probably say that this lack of a need for an exclusivity rule is coterminous with polyamory, and I tend to agree. But I think there is room for debate here about the definition of polyamory, so I am allowing that room in my analysis here. My views may change in the future, in that I may completely adopt his definition as being sufficient for polyamory. The consequence of this would be that I might then conclude that all monogamy, unless it is reached “accidentally,” would be irrational and possibly harmful.
I’m not there right now.
Polyamourous evangelicalism?
The conclusion from all of this, as I see it, is that any movement to advance polyamory culturally, socially, or politically will probably be limited to providing information, legal and philosophical challenges, and the decreasing of any discrimination which polyamorous people experience or are legitimately worried about.
I don’t see a strong argument, parallel to atheism’s arguments against theism, religion, and faith, against monogamy. I see arguments for being polyamorous, but that is not precisely the same thing as being against all monogamy.
There will be people who want to get rid of monogamy, and I will want to hear their arguments why they think we should strive for that (as I would hope atheist accommodationists should want to actually read new/gnu atheist arguments. I’m looking at you, Julian Baggini!). But for now, I don’t see much room for a “new/gnu poly” movement. But I suppose only time will tell.
If anyone feels I am being to accommodating to monogamy, I’m open to arguments.
In my last post, I discussed how monogamy is unlikely to satisfy all of our needs. I was aware of a few issues tangential to that, but wanted to leave them aside in the interest of keeping posts shorter. So I will address two issues today; non-sexual friendships and our ability to satisfy needs and desires without relationships.
“The Greatest Love of all”
As I mentioned the other day, in order to have successful relationships, you need to start with yourself. We need to find where it is possibly, and even preferable in some cases, to find ways to make ourselves happy on our own.
Surely, there will be many circumstances where there will be overlap between this self-satisfying of desires and our relationships with other people. Our sexual needs, for example, sometimes can be answered with masturbation and sometimes will require, you know, sex with other people. Also, there will be times when an emotional challenge can be solved by some serious thinking, reflecting, and evaluation of a situation on our own. Other times we will need the perspective of others to help us, as often other people see things in us we cannot see.
We are not island nations, but sometimes our own domestic policy is sufficient for answering to issues of the day rather than appealing to other nations, (or whatever the UN would be in this analogy) for help.
But the essential point is that when it comes to our needs, simply looking within is a great way to go satisfy them. Therefore, I encourage everyone to maintain a healthy relationship with the complexity inside our own heads. I encourage self-love, without getting all hippy about it or something. Dammit, I think I might be too late….
Polyamory as a footnote to Plato?
…or at least Platonic friendship.
Many of the needs we have in our life, complex as they are, do not require finding a sexual partner at all. The needs which are not satisfied by our partner(s), which are not satisfied by them, do not necessitate finding another romantic or sexual partner necessarily. Sometimes just a Platonic partner, or friend, is sufficient.
As I have written about before, polyamory does not require sex to be polyamory. As a result of this, many people are already polyamorous even if they don’t use the term, or know the term. Friendships outside of a relationship, especially if they are very close, are so much like what polyamorous people are doing that I often use it as an example of how poly works to people who seem confused by it’s strangeness. It’s really not that strange.
If you are in a monogamous relationship, there will be things you want and need to do which your partner does not satisfy. Whether that is watching sports, going shopping, or getting some drinks on a Wednesday night, our friends fulfill many of our needs which our committed, exclusive, relationship do not.
Assuming that one partner in a coupling does not interfere with their partner’s friendships, which does happen (and, I think, is due to the same jealousy which makes most people avoid polyamory), those relationships are highly rewarding, meaningful, and important to us.
Most monogamous people have arrangements just like this, and many of them, in reading this, might be confused why this has anything to do with polyamory. “So,” the objector may say, “why would people need polyamory when we have friends, ourselves, and our one loving partner to satisfy our needs in life?” Well, if these things actually do satisfy your needs, then perhaps we don’t need to be polyamorous. Where I have the problem is that people ignore, repress, or rationalize away other needs they may have in order to maintain monogamy artificially. My problem is when monogamy is maintained for its own sake, and not for the sake of authenticity and honesty about what we want.
That is, many people pretend like monogamy+friendship=satisfaction of all needs, when in fact it does not.
What happens when a friend of ours starts to become someone you are very attracted to? What happens when you develop feelings for a person at your gym, book club, or run into an old flame? Why should we ignore this reality, just because we have a sexual/romantic partner? And if so, why?
What’s wrong with enjoying sex, safely, consensually, and transparently with other people whether we, or they, are in a relationship?
What’s wrong with wanting your cake and having it too?
Nothing.
Pursuing every desire?
Yes, there are people out there I am sexually attracted to who I don’t pursue. I don’t pursue every potential relationship I find, because I recognize that it sometimes there are complexities of desire which are more than I need or want, and so I don’t pursue every desire.
But sometimes the feelings are too strong, the desire to intense, to ignore. And depending on how much time I have in my life, I will pursue sexual/romantic partners to various degrees. Right now, my fiance and my girlfriend take up a lot of my time, so pursuing anything very involved or serious is unwise and unwanted at the moment. That said, if I really got into someone, I would probably find time, because, well, love is worth the effort.
But finding a friend with whom I can share a sexual relationship, especially if that desire is two-way, is healthy and available to me. It does not threaten my relationships to do so, and it brings some pleasure and joy to my life. Why should I not want and pursue such things?
Friendships are great, whether they are Platonic or not. We should allow ourselves to express how we feel about people without artificial censorship or repression because of some strange obsession with maintaining monogamy in our culture. So keep up your relationships with yourselves, enjoy your friends, and allow yourselves to have the relationships with the people around you as you want, and let “normal” social expectations and pressures have minimal say in how you do so.
People don’t tend to have one small set of coherent and well-understood wants and needs, easily compatible with one other person who also has their wants and needs categorized into an easily communicative format for ideal matching algorithms (not even OK Cupid’s!). No; our needs are largely unknown, fluid, and evolving and in order to satisfy them we will usually need to have multiple outlets for them which are capable of handling the inevitable evolution of those desires.
For some, a monogamous arrangement may sufficiently satisfy both people involved. But how can we be sure that this arrangement really does satisfy the needs of both people and is not merely a capitulation to pragmatism and lack of personal challenge?
Let’s start with a basic distinction.
What is the difference between:
a couple who have seriously considered and challenged what they want and subsequently arrived, accidentally, at a monogamous relationships structure which fits with what both ideally want and need.
a couple who have ignored, compromised, or otherwise rationalized their wants and needs to fit their relationship into the expected relationship structure in our culture due to concerns about jealousies, insecurities, and fear of social stigma?
Answer: one has survived the fires of polyamory and accidentally landed in monogamy, and the other has chosen monogamy without traversing said fires.
That is, the former didn’t create a rule of romantic or sexual exclusivity nor had they assumed monogamy via cultural defaults. They are accidentally monogamous in that they simply have no desire to be with other people even if pursuing such a thing is permitted. The latter type of couple cannot be sure if they are maximally satisfied with their relationship because they have not taken the issue seriously enough. They may, in fact, be missing something potentially wonderful for the sake of pragmatism or insecurity.
In order to be sure that the monogamous arrangement is actually satisfying the wants and needs of both individuals (hence not needing to even create an exclusivity rule because neither partner is interested in straying) one has to address the issue of polyamory.
All too often, the idea of sacrifice, compromise, and repression of certain desires is chosen in place of satisfaction (or at last the attempt of such) of what we want to have. Many people convince themselves that a relationship with one person is not only a better path to take, but it is more intimate and meaningful one.
That is, quite frankly, not only a myth but it is absurd and irrational. We need to allow ourselves to explore who we are, if we care to find out, by traveling the paths that will allow us to do so best. We cannot limit ourselves, based upon social expectations, to learning slowly and inefficiently lessons which will, be invaluable to us.
Calculating the probabilities
Monogamy is logically possible as a means to satisfying all the the wants and needs of two people. In such cases where this is the case, I applaud the work that was needed and done in order to ensure that certainty, because such certainty cannot be achieved merely through assumption, cultural default relationship progression, or lack of honest communication about needs, goals, etc.
But something being logically possible does not tell us how likely it is. So, how likely is it that two people would be ideally happy with only one romantic/sexual partner?
The specific sets of desires, personalities, and capabilities which would need to exist in two people will be highly unlikely to ideally math up. This, compounded by the necessity that each person will have done the essential personal work to know what they need and want from themselves and others makes the matching up, in time, space, and single-ness, highly unlikely. Also, they need to actually meet.
How I might actually calculate such probabilities, whether with some Bayesian analysis or by some other means, is beyond my ability to do. First of all, I am not an expert in probability or statistics. Secondly, I don’t know all the relevant factors or how to weigh them against each-other. Thirdly, I don’t think that actual probabilities is necessary to make the general point; it seems highly unlikely.
And yet, monogamy is rampant. My conclusion is that the vast majority of monogamous relationships are not ideally healthy, at least from the point of view of them not satisfying all the wants and needs of the people involved. Perhaps not everyone shares the value of satisfying our wants and needs above social pragmatism, or something, but either way I think that the world has something to gain by addressing the issue of non-monogamy as a means of making our relationships better.
By putting ourselves through the difficult challenges of figuring out what we want, what others want, and allowing ourselves to find monogamy by accident rather than default, I think much can be learned and our relationships will be better, whether monogamous or polyamorous, for everyone.
Hey all! My wonderful fiancé Shaun has invited me to become an author on this blog. Anything I have to say about skepticism and polyamory I’ll post over here; for broader discussions of human sexuality and other areas of interest to me, check out my own blog.
As an introduction, I thought I’d write about how I became polyamorous. A lot of people find it perfectly natural that a man would want a relationship where he could have multiple partners, but balk at the idea of a woman’s embracing the same thing. So here’s my story.
I have the disadvantage of still being in my first poly relationship. Before I met Shaun, I just assumed I wanted a monogamous lifelong partner; the fact that it was meeting him that got me reconsidering that assumption casts suspicion on my decision to be polyamorous for a lot of people. “Ah,” they think, and some have outright said, “she knew she had to put up with this to keep him, so she went along and is making the best of it.” If I’d broken up with my first non-monogamous partner and continued to pursue non-monogamous relationships on my own, I’d have more credibility. Unfortunately, I found a terrific, loving, compatible partner the first time around. Sucks to be me.
I’d heard of polyamory before I met Shaun: my best friend dated a poly woman for a while, and we had several discussions about it, during which I concluded that, while I didn’t think there was anything wrong with honest, ethical non-monogamy, I wouldn’t want to do it myself. A truly original statement, that one.
What I meant when I said I wanted monogamy for myself was that I wanted a relationship of deep intimacy and commitment. I wanted to pour my energy, care, and devotion into my hypothetical partner, and I wanted him to do the same for me. And like many monogamous people, I just couldn’t imagine the same depth of love, intimacy, and connection happening in a non-monogamous relationship.
Being confronted with real life has a way of shattering faulty assumptions and expanding our imaginations. When I met Shaun, I knew he was attractive and interesting, and someone I wanted in my life. I also knew that I was pining, fairly hopelessly, for a boy who had been sending me mixed-but-mostly-negative signals. If that boy ever came around, I would want to jump at the chance, which I knew would be unfair to anybody new I’d started dating. In that light, meeting a cute polyamorous man was like a revelation: maybe I could have it all! As it does for many people, just the fact of being interested in two people at once made me realize several things: first, that I was very capable of wanting relationships with more than one person at a time; second, that my interest in one of them had really no impact on my interest in the other; third, that the inconveniences and challenges of polyamory might well be balanced out by the solutions it offered to other inconveniences and challenges that I had always taken for granted.
I didn’t embrace it all at once. I did a lot of reading and thinking. I remembered a lot of daydreams that I’d had as a child and suppressed as I “matured” into the realization that these didn’t fit with the pattern of adult life I’d been taught to aspire to… daydreams about having different lovers that met different needs of mine, shared different interests. I thought of how I’d always said “I could forgive being cheated on, but not being lied to”: I’ve never felt that a partner’s being intimate with someone else was in any way a betrayal of me, but it is vitally important to me that I can trust my partners to be fully, radically honest with me. I thought of how important family is to me, how I’ve always loved being part of a small, close-knit group of peers that shared life and supported each other, how I’ve wondered how to make those communities stable and permanent rather than only for a time.
At the same time, I told Shaun I was interested in polyamory but not making any promises. I might turn out to hate it; I’ve had too many exciting ideas turn out to be unhappy realities to talk confidently about how I’d feel a few months down the road. I took it slow, but what I found as time went by was that non-monogamy felt easy, natural, comfortable and happy. There was never a moment that I said, “Okay, I’m officially polyamorous now, not just trying it out,” but as our relationship progressed and we each dated other people, it became harder and harder for me to imagine going back to monogamy.
For me, it’s not primarily about being able to have multiple partners. I like having multiple partners, and giving that up would be a sacrifice, but it’s a sacrifice I could imagine making if I had a very good reason. The things I couldn’t give up are the view of love without possessiveness, the ethic of honesty and communication, and the opportunities to develop close-knit communities where sexual or romantic interest doesn’t have to jeopardize everybody’s existing relationships. I’m a happy woman.
Some years ago, when I decided I wanted to live a polyamorous lifestyle, I discovered a local meetup groupand started to attend meetings, met some people (including a lover or two), and learned a lot. That group still exists. I don’t go to meetings anymore for a few reasons, but I will not dwell on that right now.
Instead, I want to talk about how I have become part of a small group of people who are predominantly polyamorous (and therefore there are many interlinking connections both sexual and non-sexual) who are young, intelligent, fun, and includes many atheists.
That is to say, not exactly like my experience elsewhere. Yes, they were fun, and I met people with insightful and useful things to teach me, but the general age gap was noticeable (younger people tended to come, but not to be repeat attenders), and the predominance of non-atheists was somewhat annoying.
So, how did I land among such people? Well, some luck and some causation related to he fact hat my fiance is not only a sexy, sexy lady but also quite intelligent, personable, and therefore a means towards making friend with people who like that sort of thing. And of course they know people.
So, whether it is Thursday night karaoke, the Philly Fringe festival, or Sunday night football (not my thing, but it draws people together for non-football conversations, food, and so forth), I have found myself hanging out with pretty awesome people who are poly or poly-friendly. It is a wonderful way to live, and I feel a slight twinge of pity for those normal monotonous monogamous people out there who are missing out on all the fun.
Oh well, I’m sure they are having fun too. So long as everyone is happy, right? I guess.
Well, here’s to living a full life with awesome people! Philadelphia and the surrounding area certainly has polyamorous people enjoying their lives of all ages, with different interests, and with different goals. And while there are certainly some poly people who are really bad at it, who perhaps are not mature enough to do it right, or who are using it as an excuse to act poorly in relationships which are not very transparent, honest, or healthy, I hope these are the exceptions.
So thank you, everyone, for being so awesome. You know who you are.
So, yesterday I went to New York to do some upstart talk show by a former Catholic (and present Episcopalian) priest called Father Albert. While we were prepping to go into the studio, the production staff, after asking many questions, interviewing us, and making a video introduction for the show, coached us to not use the word “polyamory” while on camera or in studio. They wanted us to use the more commonly accepted term of “open relationship.”
Now, I understand their reasons. For one, they had a guest who was formerly the 6th wife of a FLDS polygamist (who ended up having 10 wives), and people don’t understand (nor would they likely hear) a difference between the words polyamory and polygamy. If we are being strictly technical, polygamy can be a sub-set of polyamory, except in most polygamist situations their is little to no love going around. To distinguish between what Ginny and I are doing and what that women experienced in the environment of a talk show would be a herculean task. The more general reason is that the term simply is not known widely enough to not be distracting from talking about what are relationship is like.
This is somewhat frustrating from the point of view of someone who is trying to educate people about responsible non-monogamy. I agreed to not use the term because I realized that my time on the show would be short, and that I would likely be facing some hostility to the nature of my relationship with Ginny from an audience that is more likely to be conservative in their views about sex and relationships. And that turned out to be a safe assumption, as they were pretty unfriendly to us in general. I was glad to see one woman stand up and support us, even if she was likely the minority opinion there.
Father Albert himself, the host, was not supportive of us either. He just didn’t get it, he said. He talked about counseling couples towards a strong monogamous marriage, and that adding people to our relationship is only dangerous in terms of STDs (which is a real issue) and ultimately destructive to any real intimacy. My retort was that we have rules of safety about safe sex, our intimacy is enhanced by true openness and honesty about everything, and also that fact that our relationship is constructive; “what can be more constructive than adding value and quality to our lives” (or something very similar to that).
Had we more time, I would have liked to make distinctions between polygamy of the kind that one of the other guests experienced and the polyamory–the loving, open, and honest relationship–that Ginny and I have. The other people I have in my life that I am interested in pursuing some kind of romantic and/or sexual relationship (they are few, and I think they know who they are), are not being told that this is some divine command, they are not 15 years old, and I am not their superior. We are equals; adults deciding to pursue relationships which mean something to us.
The bottom line, I think, is that our culture understands what monogamy is. Even if it is serial monogamy, the idea is simple, feels comfortable, and is usually assumed by most of Americans. Our culture is becoming more familiar with what polygamy is (at least in terms of the FLDS churches). And even when they have a more positive model, say like in the show Big Love (which I have seen and like, to some extent), there are still problems such as the fact that it is always men with multiple women, and never the other way around. Even when you have a Bill Henrickson who genuinely cares for his wives (Big Love), none of them are allowed other lovers. This is an inequality borne of religious patriarchal thinking, not of genuine open-mindedness and desire to add love and joy to your life without social constraints which are ultimately based upon a relationship model borne out of a property relationship. So, in our culture non-monogamy is probably associated with male domination of women, even if we can point out the occasional (even if only sometimes fictional) loving counter-example of such.
Polyamory is about treating all adults as, well, adults. It is about deciding how you want to live your life, with whom, and being open and honest about our desires. We, as a culture, are so far from understanding the implications of this that a term like “polyamory” just does not have a mental category in which to sit for most people. Yes, if I had been given a 20 minute segment on the show to talk about polyamory, define it, and give examples and have other people, women and men, talk about the freedom, care, and rewards of living such a life then at least some people would begin to see what it is all about. But that is not what happened yesterday.
When he introduced us, it was in terms of “here is a man who may want to get married, but he will still want to date other women.” And not “here are two people who are in love, are committed to each other, have a healthy relationship, and who may have other lovers, boyfriends, and girlfriends.” The former is based upon tropes common to our culture, the latter is not.
That idea is just too far removed from talk-show America. And just like the term atheist, which is getting more press and is becoming more accepted (slowly), polyamory is a term that many think we just can’t use right now. But with time, effort, and some patience (but not too much patience) that will change.
Skepticism, Properly Applied 