I’ve been thinking a lot about this article lately. I find that I am running into some presumptions about the way that my relationships work due to the polynormative model discussed in this article.
These issues are important to me, because I am married and I date both married and single people. I don’t want people (and the media) assuming that I am operating in a certain way, for the same reasons that I don’t want them thinking that my marriage works a certain way, or that my perceptions of myself exist due to gender.
I’m glad that this is written the way that it is. Give it a look.
Polyamory is getting a lot of airtime in the media these days. It’s quite remarkable, really, and it represents a major shift over the last five to ten years.
The problem—and it’s hardly surprising—is that the form of poly that’s getting by far the most airtime is the one that’s as similar to traditional monogamy as possible, because that’s the least threatening to the dominant social order.
Ten years ago, I think my position was a lot more live-and-let-live. You know, different strokes for different folks. I do poly my way, you do it your way, and we’re all doing something non-monogamous so we can consider ourselves to have something in common that’s different from the norm. We share a certain kind of oppression, in that the world doesn’t appreciate or value non-monogamy. We share relationship concerns, like logistics challenges and time management and jealousy. So we’re all in this…
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