#ethical non monog

[unrad-radishes]

I’m sad because I’ve been WAAAAAY too fucking busy to entertain my side love interests. I don’t even have time for friends right now 💀

[ethxrxalitys]

i dont even think its the anxiety anymore, but like… PEOPLE KEEP DOUBLE TEXTING ME WHEN IVE BARELY INTERACTED WITH THEM AND IT STRESSES ME THE FUCK OUT.

[drdemonprince]

ENM/Poly circles explicitly discourage real talk around jealousy, and practical considerations around nonmonog in ways that routinely exclude and excise POC and disabled people.

ENM/Poly expects everyone involved to act as though “love” is the reason for every relationship choice. Cliche #1: love isn’t finite. Which… sure. Maybe love isn’t finite, but attention and time sure are— and those are at a premium.

Cliche #2: Love is all you need/love is what makes a family. I am familiar with criticism of this from a family abolition, anticapitalist standpoint, but I have seen this be uncritically repeated by ENM/Poly people. It’s not true that love is what makes a relationship work or not work. It’s also about dumb shit, like geographical proximity and practicality. Good luck being ENM if you can’t regularly host because you have roommates or live at home. Good luck being the gold standard of ENM (out to everyone, including family and maybe even the workplace!) if you are any kind of marginalized. Love is simply not enough. There’s real world shit to consider.

Most ENM/Poly people are white gen x’ers and older millenials for a reason. It’s a framework that works awesome if you have abundant spare space, disposable income to blow, and free time. Plus most ENM/Poly people are heavily in therapy, and just have a fuckton of time to deal with their various baggages… or at least like to posture as though they are doing those things.

Non monog can be liberatory— disabled polycules caring for one another. QPRs! Multiparent households! But ENM/Poly is very lodged in a liberal, hyper-independent Super Good Boundaries Thank You Very Much world of its own, and so most of the “resources” like More Than 2 or Polysecure have hella flaws in that respect.

COME OFF ANON SO I CAN FOLLOW YOU! Because you just said a whole word.

I find "ethical nonmonogamy" and polyamory circles to be viscerally unpleasant and alienating to be in as a crazy, chaotic antipsych person who does not always make choices for carefully therapized, restrained reasons -- and who doesn't believe that most other people do either, no matter how much they claim to.

I don't fuck multiple people to serve some higher purpose; I do it because I'm horny, impulsive, and have a variety of niche fetishes that are really difficult to satisfy.

I didn't choose to be openly nonmonogamous because I nurtured my soul and found that it was abundant with love that I just had to give -- all my relationships already were nonmonogamous at one point or another, either because I cheated or the other person did or both, and I eventually decided to move with my feelings rather than against them, and to stop denying all that is inside me -- all of the hunger and darkness as well as the light.

And I can't say that my nonmonogamy is inherently "ethical" either -- just like my monogamy sure wasn't! I'm a human being, and a crazy one at that, I get jealous, I have emotional blowups, I lash out and fuck other people to make myself feel better or to affirm that I am desired, I make big demands of the people I date, I fail to show up for people consistently, I get hurt, and I hurt others, and I will continually have more to learn. I will also continually have wild animal emotions and triggers, and I won't always deal with them in the way my partner(s) might want me to. I try to avoid hurting other people needlessly, of course, but sometimes your own needs are incompatible with another person's, and hurt is inevitable.

When there is only so much time and attention available in our lives, it's true that somebody's often going to come up short. And ultimately the person that I choose above all others is me. And so, no, I can't say I'm always doing nonmonogamy in some caring yet dispassionate way, or that love is the solution to all problems -- I am driven by passion and need, and sometimes being alive in those ways means getting hurt, or hurting in turn.

I would echo essentially all that you've said. We need time and resources and spaces to enjoy privacy with other people, and if you're not some rich work-from-homer, that shit's all in short supply. I hate the sheen of calm positivity that "ENM" and polyamory folks tend to place on everything -- as if no choices they make are fueled ever by bitterness, dislike, resentment, or hell, fucking white hot irrational DESIRE. With how fair and measured so many of them make their polyamory sound, I don't even see what's fun about any of it.

Sometimes you want to upend your whole life because you're so down bad for a person. Sometimes you hate the shit out of your partner's partners and you say and do little manipulative shitty things to convey those feelings, or to try and blow the relationship up. Sometimes the hours just don't add up and somebody gets shafted. Sometimes you make a promise and then you can't follow through, or just don't WANT to anymore because you have changed.

These are real human realities whether we like it or not, and I find it terribly unrealistic AND unsexy to refuse to acknowledge all the darkness and frustration that comes out in any relationship. I think a lot of the ENM/poly crowd that is white and middle class and heavily therapized is so averse to naming anything edgy or prickly in themselves that they make their spaces actively hostile to anybody who openly expresses negative feelings. That means Black & brown people get tone-policed a ton, "mad" people like me get no-true-scotsmanned out of "ethical" nonmonogamy for ever doing anything messily, and all the romance and sexiness of relationships gets sanded down into a Canva-graphic beige blandness of weekly polycule meetings and processing sessions.

In this world of self-optimization, even fucking and loving other people has to be cast as therapuetic -- our desires must justify themselves by somehow making us better, more capable, more controlled people, But fuck that. Sometimes sex or love is worth exploding your whole life over. The ENM/poly crowd says their way of loving makes them more even-keeled but it seems like a kind of death to me.

[nerdyqueerandjewish]

when I first started dipping my toes in polyamory, I was really young. the framework we used was just "if cheating is when you break the rules... then what are our rules?" and we built upon it from there. Some rules changed with time as we changed.

I started practicing monogamy later because I didn't have the energy to keep up with multiple partners. Now I feel like if I tried to get back to it, despite having years under my belt, I would be completely confused.

Yeah it is interesting how like, yeah, the community agrees people should be customizing their relationships to suite them - but then there’s also a group that’s like “oh here are handouts with the right way to customize” and people going “oh good, let’s take this person’s rules and switch them out for society’s rules” like what?

Also I feel you - I’ve always been some form of non-monogamous even before I knew there was a word for it, but right now I’m happy having one partner and not looking for more, except for maybe in kink contexts. Still consider myself non-monog though because it’s just how my brain works and my partner having another partner is not an issue for me. When/if I date again I’m not looking forward for someone to be like “oh I only practice dual hierarchy-neutral relationship astro-libertarianism and I think incorporating ethical shimpledooping is inherently problematic for people with comets.” and I’m going to be like. What.

[louisisalarrie]

i was in love with a really close friend for 3 or more years and never told them

until we had to have the most awk conversation where he told me he knew i had feeling for him but didnt see me as anything past a friend

im telling you- harrys advice he gave to that fan once about telling people how you feel is SO true.

looking back i regret not getting it off my chest and moving on so much

ooooo im so sorry to hear that pal. that’s a really hard thing to go through, and also a bit why im spooked haha

it’s a tricky situation because he’s in an ethical non monog relationship, so he’s committed to her obvs but they both casually date outside of their relationship. the thing is like… at this stage, because my feelings for him extend further than just sex, if I tell him it’s not really like anything will change? You get me?

Makes it tricky, because technically it’d be fine if we ended up hooking up one night but my feelings are further than that so it feels a bit futile.

But Harry gives excellent advice and I should just say it but like I know that it prob won’t change anything except make our friendship different and like UGH it’s tricky and im stuck but im also just the most ridiculous hopeless romantic and I LOVE love but this just doesn’t feel attainable so ugh I prob have to move past it but it’s so hard

[lowfatwordsalad]

switching my hinge dating prefs to non binary ppl only and having to turn it back to everyone immediately since literally every single nb has “ethically non monog :)” or “poly and partnered” on their bio

[stigmatacunnilingus]

Oh no I found myself on polyamory shaming tiktok

[dota2wiki]

tony and carmela soprano are ethical non-monog

[sluggotron]

Hm cringe ethical non monog posting.

Had my first and hopefully last slip up last weekend where i drunkenly hooked up w a mutual friend. Wife is not angry or upset at all since we talked abt it before it happened and she didnt realize she wouldnt like it till after, but i still felt bad bc we like called her in the morning and were going on abt the deets!!! Hrrg, but no issue came of it this was like a very specific instance w a specific person- id still like to make it up to my wife tho bc damn.

Dating like this is new to me and i keep running into experiences that sooth over my previous hesitances towards non monogamy. For example at first it kinda felt weird that the wife would tell me abt her crush on another girl, but i just went to a show w a new friend and realized im probably crushing on her! >///< and,, i dunno i like telling the love of my life abt it! I like hearing her perception and advice. It feels really different and more secure to pursue intimacy w others while also having a partner you love and trust. It makes me realize how in love i am w her when i still feel just as strongly abt ONLY her. Overall idk i feel more confident w the ladies than ever, im rly whoreing it up!!!

[nobloodneeded]

I’ve said it before, but I think Batman and Catwoman should be ethically non-monogamous (not to project). They’re each other’s primaries, but they have the freedom to be with others should the opportunity arise. That way DC can still have the whole “Batman can’t be tied down” BS, but it doesn’t diminish his relationship with Selina in the least. When they’re together, they’re together; when they’re not, they’re not.

In the 80s, in Batman 391, Selina even essentially brings this up:

I bring this up because in the latest Catwoman issue, they brought Eiko, her ex, back and while I’m not for or against them getting back together, it did remind me how well I think non-monog BatCat would do.

I can clearly see the scene addressing it, too:

Batman: You want to be with [X].

Catwoman: I love you.

Batman: That isn’t a no.

Batman: Cat…Selina, I can be with you if you’re with other people. I always could.

Batman: But I can’t be with you if you’re back with crime.

Catwoman: That’s the dealbreaker?

Batman: It’s always been.

Also in Catwoman 34, the scene where Hadley dejectedly asks how he can compete with Batman and Batman responds, “You don’t” is another reason I think non-monog BatCat would work. I don’t think jealousy would be a major problem for them. They know what they mean to each other and that no one else will compare, so it’s fine to be with others. It doesn’t diminish what they may have with other people either, but they’re both secure (perhaps even conceited) enough to be assured in this dynamic.

There’s also a scene in Catwoman v2 where Bruce spends the night and while leaving in the morning is knocked aside by Slam coming up to her apartment. He only mocks Slam’s brutishness, but doesn’t show jealousy over what potentially could transpire.

Now, i’m not saying jealousy is a complete non-factor, it’s natural and historically within both their characters (more Selina’s, but I chalk a lot of that up to how women were viewed at the time). I think there will be moments, but those moments could be talked through and even lead to saucy make-up scenes.

[sunnymegatron]

Continuing w/the #censorship theme of the week: I‘ve been scrutinizing my Insta analytics to figure out what’s been going on w/my profile. I saw this huge increase in unfollowers on a particular day which is unusual (pic 1). I realized it was 6/18 when I made Juneteenth posts & stories. Ok, huh. Wasn’t expecting that but it explains why I received random emails like the one in pic 2 (really, how much of a jerk are you to go out of your way, find someone’s email & send them a message like that!?).  I’ve had an occasional critic (thankfully not many) say, “Stop talking about politics! Just stick to s3x ed!” No. Not gonna happen. In my world, that’s impossible.  #ThePersonalIsPolitical. Our s3xual expression/identity are informed by oppressive societal systems--things like race, class, gender, socioeconomic status, ability, size, s3xual orientation, capitalism, lack of healthcare, reproductive rights, etc. And in our society all of these are politicized. Our s3xual identity is also informed by shame, much of which is tied to the aforementioned things (because on a societal level one of the primary functions of shame is to regulate social hierarchies & keep people from stepping outside of the oppressive boxes they’re in that systems of power benefit from. Purity culture & all it entails is one of MANY examples).  And if you’re LGBTQIA+ or practice non-normative forms of er0t1cism/relationships, do SW, etc. you bet your mere existence is politicised. I’m a qu33r, k1nky, ethically non-monog WoC in a SW adjacent industry. If you don’t think these themes seep into my #sexed then you’re sadly mistaken. If you don’t think these real world systems of power don’t covertly (& sometimes overtly) seep into the power I play with in the safe container of k1nk, mistaken again.   There’s an infinite variety of p1easure educators & flavor of content. I don’t expect to please everyone nor will I change to. My audience *wants* to explore these things. And if you don’t? Then you’re not my audience & can move on. There’s plenty of s3x & k1nk educators on the net that are a better fit for you.  What does this have to do w/censorship? Continued in the comments... https://www.instagram.com/p/CQwxK3lpXtX/?utm_medium=tumblr

[aspidities]

I need a lil advice, you've said your idea of a relationship would be poly(ish) ive recently gotten into an arguement with a friend who is claiming you cant love someone but have sex with others whereas ive been telling her not only is it possible but its normal and if done correctly very healthy relationship-wise. but its like talking to a brick wall coz she just cant think about other perspectives. do you have any advice to deal with it?. im not even poly myself, im monog so its hard to (1)

Looks like the second part of this got eaten, but I’ve encountered lots of folks like your friend before, and, unfortunately, peoples beliefs of poly vs monogamy tend to be very difficult to sway unless you can passionately and articulately argue on the side of love as a self-refilling commodity. Most people tend to see it as a well that runs dry, or else only has one source, and that, positive or negative, tends to shape how they see others ‘drawing from the well’, so to speak. I’m too sick and tired to go into a ton of detail, but never fear! There are books!

The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, and Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, are two of the classics when it comes to modern thought on polyamory and progressive non-monogamous relationships. These authors lay it out a lot better than I ever could.

Good luck! Happy reading, and I hope you find it enlightening enough to continue discourse with your friend, but if not, you do you! That’s the beauty of it. ❤️

[nerdyqueerandjewish]

Not to get discoursey because I don’t like that (at least when it comes to this stuff) but

I’m a pretty inclusive person when it comes to LGBTQ+ things and pretty lax on the “rules” because I’ve gotten to the point where even if I disagree I just don’t give a fuck but today I saw someone who is straight cis and ethically non-monog (they id as polyam but I disagreewith non LGBTQ+ people using that word) refer to themselves as gay and I’m like

Don’t?

[shammyb]

a lil rant

A coworker of mine legitimately thinks non-monogamous relationships and anyone in non-monogamous relationships are less trustworthy than those who are in monog relationships. I kind of wanted to shake her. Whether a relationship is inclusive or exclusive of other people has nothing to do with trust. Healthy communication, and a healthy discussion on boundaries/etc. is what has to do with ensuring trust in any relationship--but specifically emotionally intimate and sexual relationships. 

Since being out as poly, and specifically solo-poly, I’ve come to realize that for me, I can have the most healthy, honest communication in this style of relationship, not to mention a greater quantity of support and trust. When my coworker spoke on how she’d have a harder time trusting anyone she met who was polyamorous (when it comes to sleeping with others w/out her knowledge, and even more important, fluid exchange with unknown partners) I’d argue that being in a monog relationship with someone who may very well be non-monog at heart could have greater problems/more lack of trust, because that person is retaining a part of themselves / would not feel they could communicate their feelings/sexual feelings about someone else and rather than talking about it, hide it and sleep with others behind her back---also known as CHEATING. Polyamory specifically, but most ethical non-monog/open relationship structures emphasize communication about any arising feelings, as well as emphasize communication on BOUNDARIES a lot more than monogo-normative cultures do, since there is this unspoken agreement that both parties are only to love/share love with/think about each other and each other only. Any sort of feelings toward an ‘outside’ person in a monogamous relationship is stigmatized, which is where fear of rejection (partner leaving due to jealousy/possessiveness/etc..) can lead to unspoken feelings building up, and eventually possible secret ‘affairs’. I want to argue with my coworker that the problem in trusting a relationship isn’t lack of monogamy, but lack of communication and healthy boundary setting to allow one-another safety. The difference with boundary setting in monog and non-monog relationships is that new boundaries are created within non-monog structures because those of us who naturally feel jealous, are forced to face jealousy fore-front and dive deeper into our jealousy and our underlying fears, insecurities, etc. rather than letting it be and using it as the reason we don’t allow our partner to act in ways they may deeply desire.  I’m not saying ALL of us are non-monogamous (though sex at dawn is a good read on an anthropological perspective on human instinct to give this a thought), and there’s nothing inherently wrong with being monogamous when it works for YOU. But to label those of us who practice relationship structures outside your own as untrustworthy, is very naive. I would say since practicing being poly, my communication skills and  authenticity with other partners has been the best it ever has, and i have more love surrounding me than ever before because of it. 

[gatheringkeepsakes]

My reply was too long so I am rbing this, I hope that's okay!

There's a big debate around it because the inherent structure of Polyam relationships (3 or more) means it almost always ends up including at least one queer relationship because het relationships can only happen between two members of different genders and the moment you add another person, it no longer fits that criteria.

Some folks argue that Polyam is a part of the queer community simply because they are challenging the 'default' (read as het/monogamous) model that we're all socially conditioned is the "right way" to love. Some folks believe they are born to be non-monog and can't see themselves in any other light, but does that mean it's technically a sexuality? Example: A cis/het woman in a triad relationship with two men would still be cis/het even if both of her partner's were also seeing each other.

At the end of the day, it seems more widely agreed that polyamory, ethical non-monogamy, and relationship anarchy are all relationship models and lifestyle choices before they're anything else.

Also polyamory and polygamy are quite different. They both rely on a relationship structure that has more than two people, but polygamy often places one person in a position of control as the sole member of the group that can have multiple relationships. More often than not, that courtesy is not extended to that person's partners. Polyamory, on the other hand, is the act of having multiple romantic and/or sexual relationships with other people in which all parties are on the same page and are given equal rights and opportunities to explore their own separate relationships should they so choose.

Hm wait can someone explain this to me? I saw a post saying polyamorous people were lgbt but that doesn’t make sense to me

Isn’t polygamy just a relationship status (?) that’s not the word I’m looking for help

Like-you can be in a polyamorous relation ship and lgbt but that doesn’t make you lgbt, right?