“Do Polyamorous Relationships Work?”: Why Not Rip Out the Questioner’s Tongue?

This article was originally published at ‘The Lor of Rose’, 16th October 2012. To sign a petition for poly rights, please click here.

“Do Polyamorous Relationships Work?”

When the media focuses on polyamory, this is the central question. But the question itself makes no sense. It makes no sense because polyamorous is something I am,not something I do. Instead of asking ‘Do polyamorous relationships work?’ they would have to ask ‘Do polyamorous people work?’ – a question which is impossible to answer. We simply exist.

For most of us, polyamory is not a choice. It is something we are. All this is obvious to the polyamorous – in the very least, we have to ‘come out’ of the poly closet to friends, family, and potential lovers. Many of us have tried monogamy time and time again, only to find that it doesn’t work for us. As a result we face discrimination, legal and social, but we stick with it because it is who we are. I can never enter into a monogamous relationship because I am not a monogamous person. I love my poly identity, and it’s as much a part of who I am as the fact that I am queer.

I bring this up because the issue over polyamory has the obvious historical parallel of homosexuality. Prior to the eighteenth century, homosexuality was not an identity but an act (one of the many acts covered under the umbrella label of ‘sodomy’) and slowly, over the next 300 years, became a visible, recognized  and later politically active social group. If male-male and female-female sex was something anyone could do – such as theft or adultery – then it could be penalized with impunity. The key to social acceptance and the attainment of civil rights was in this shift in recognition from act to identity.

The polyamorous community faces a similar dilemma. The discussion around nonmonogamy invariably focuses on acts rather than identity – as such, polyamory is something anyone can do, and as a result something anyone can avoid. The issue of civil rights fades into the background, as polyamory is seen as a choice. And if wechoose to not have monogamous relationships, then any loss of legal recognition is our own damn fault. Few in the mainstream media kick up a fuss if poly people lose their children – but can you imagine someone losing their child in 2012 because they were homosexual?

My hopes for polyamory are the same my hopes for LGBT/Q rights – that someday we might have the same legal recognition of our love as everyone else: that we can visit our partners in hospital, that we can keep custody of our children, that we are covered for insurance and inheritance, and any of many rights afforded to married monogamous individuals.

It will take a long time. But it will only happen if we make this one thing very clear: this is not what we do. This is who we are. And we’re not going anywhere.

- Redfern

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