gender-sexuality-and-happiness:Polyamory Is Weird – Apparently Posted o
gender-sexuality-and-happiness: Polyamory Is Weird – Apparently Posted on: August 13, 2014 by naithpaytonWhen it comes to gay and bisexual acceptance, we’re not doing too badly. Trans stuff? We’re getting there (slowly). But non-monogamy is still one thing people find hardest to accept.I’m polyamorous – that means having multiple intimate relationships, sexual or romantic, with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved. I’ve been seeing my boyfriend for four years (exactly!), and I recently started dating my girlfriend too. They’re not dating each other, but have a great friends-who-sometimes-sleep-with-each-other relationship.For me, this is fantastic. I couldn’t imagine doing relationships any other way. I have different feelings for lots of different people, and this gives me the freedom to fully explore them. I have lots of friends who all add value to my life in varied ways, just like everyone else, and some of them I get to sleep with too.I asked around, and almost everyone said the main negative assumption they deal with is “you’re just a slut”. Slut, of course, is a slur directed at people who are viewed as having more sex than they “should”. It is most often used towards women, but other people get it sometimes too. There is no such thing as too much sex, so long as it’s all consensual, as safe as possible, and doesn’t impact negatively on other aspects of one’s life. Sex is great! For people who like sex, having lots of sex can only be a good thing. “Slut” also gets used towards asexual and celibate poly people too. I imagine because people find it a lot easier to think that it’s all about sex – multiple romantic relationships, some without any sex involved, are somehow harder to deal with.Monogamy is the default, in a way that eclipses so many other things. Heterosexuality might still be the default, but people are increasingly becoming aware that it doesn’t have to be. But we’re still fed the lie of “the one”, of “til death do us part”. The ultimate goal of romance is to find one person to be with exclusively for the rest of your life. I have never seen polyamorous relationships depicted in the media as anything other than a strange curiosity. We’re still at the stage of trying to convince people we even exist.We frequently face the assumption that we’re unable to commit, because we’re taught that commitment equals monogamy. We’re told our relationships aren’t real, or aren’t as good as monogamous ones, that we’ll “settle down” eventually with one partner, we’re untrustworthy, promiscuous and greedy. All the sorts of prejudices LGB people once faced, and often still do face. I know countless poly people in lasting, committed relationships that refute these prejudices straight away. Of course a relationship shouldn’t be judged on how long it lasts, but on the value it adds to the life of the people in it.There’s plenty of fun little microagressions too. When my boyfriend was dating another guy, I was frequently asked “are you OK with it?”, which is a pretty personal question. I’m sure they meant well, but I got very tired of having to assure other people that my relationship was just fine, thanks. I was also frequently told to “be careful”, because they knew some polyamorous people once and they broke up! Which monogamous people never ever do, right?I often wonder if people see polyamory as a threat to their own relationships. Like with so many other things, they see people living their lives in a different way, and assume it has to be wrong. Their ideas about how relationships should be, about how people should live, are being challenged. And that feels strange and wrong – it feels like a threat. Obviously poly people don’t want to force other people to be poly. Some people are monogamous, and that’s great. We just want to break down the idea that monogamy is the only choice.Source: http://naithpayton.co.uk/polyamory-is-weird-apparently/. -- source link