Screencap from Ask a Polyamorous Person YouTube video by Buzzfeed tackling the question, shown in the screencap, Is It Always an Orgy?Heina Dadabhoy has written a good article about the Preachy Polyamorist trope: Why Are Those Polyamorists So Damn Preachy?, which is enhanced by some of their earlier observations in When the Monogamous Bait Poly Smugness. I recommend reading both. I pretty much agree. And their latest has inspired me to write my own thoughts down, which expand on theirs, but also at points diverge from theirs.

Before I proceed, though, a trigger warning: I’m going to get all preachy about polyamory. In fact, I’m going to be a counter-example to Dadabhoy’s otherwise valid generalization, and become one of those “rather smug-seeming polyamorous people” who might leave you “feeling judged.” If you want to stop your ears against that, depart now. You were warned.

I would also suggest, that you first read my response to Christians against polyamory, “Christians Freaking Out Over Freedom: Polyamory Edition,” if you haven’t already. Because it summarizes what poly is and many of my views on why it should be the prevalent norm and won’t destroy the world.

The One Caveat

In their earlier article, Dadabhoy caveats that “much is made of the smug polyamorists who declare themselves to be more skilled at communicating, better at relationships, and overall more evolved than their monogamous counterparts,” and they agree with that criticism at least, since poly folk can suck at relationships, too, and “being poly is no guarantee against any kind of hurt or pain.”

I agree poly folk can suck, and poly is no guarantee. But I disagree if we turn this into a generalization. Because I do in fact find monogamy more commonly harmful to relationships than polyamory. For example, I see polyamory most commonly improving communication and honesty between partners (rarely the reverse; though I do say rarely, not never), while I see monogamy most commonly impels things the other way (rarely the reverse; and likewise).

For instance.

To defend the monogamy narrative and protect their partner’s bubble of insecurities and possessiveness, one can rarely be fully honest. Because one is almost always punished by their partner for telling the truth about their sexual and romantic desires—even in general, but especially toward other people. This inevitably “trains” you to just shut up and keep it to yourself. I have seen this dynamic over and over and over and over again. So much so, that it appears a common one in monogamous relationships. Not so in poly ones.

There is not one good thing about this. Yet how can one break free of that awful effect of the monogamy dynamic if your partner can’t get over their hostility to knowing you love or want to have sex with other people? And not just that you do, but also why, and how—and all the things that deeply reflect who you really are, and what you really think and feel and wish for. Most typically, they just don’t. Nor do you. Because why do what you are always punished for? Don’t rock the boat. Maintain the easy ruts to roll in. And in result the two of you barely know the real you or them, and almost certainly never will.

Yet if they can get over their hostility—and thus escape their insecurities, and abandon their possessiveness, and love rather than fear your autonomy—then they wouldn’t have much reason left to remain monogamous. And indeed, that is a common narrative I have observed: many a monogamous couple I know went through that route…and ended up poly. Rarely do you find monogamous couples who have gotten over their fears and insecurities and can honestly talk and know about all that (and I mean all of it) not just without punishment, but with respect and admiration. Because once they get there, they start to ask why they are even bothering being monogamous at all. And soon they stop. Hello polyamory.

This is just one example, mind you. I have been observing a number of respects in which I don’t think monogamy is healthy to a relationship. Even as a historian I well know now it’s an old sexist institution that was invented by men to subjugate women (and then religion got ahold of it to oppress everyone), and now that its original function is no longer cool, in just the last half century or so people have been trying to reappropriate it and figure out how to use it in some sort of egalitarian way, but more and more (with but few exceptions) this looks like forcing a square peg to fit in a round hole.

As statistics for infidelity show, people for whom monogamy actually works are not as abundant as usually assumed. And those numbers are certainly a gross undercount, since most people lack the opportunities or are adequately cowed by sexual policing as not to cheat, even though they would if they had permission and opportunity. And I suspect (though without adequate studies being done I can’t yet know) the people for whom monogamy can legitimately be said to be a good model for them are predominantly asexual or low libido or something equivalent, provided they bond with same.

Because we first have to exclude people who are still burdened with insecurities that they should be working to escape, or a possessiveness over people that they shouldn’t cultivate. Because those are not good or desirable states to be in regardless of whether you would be monogamous or not. If monogamy, for example, is a means by which you seek financial security, or a low cost homemaking service, at the expense of someone else’s autonomy, that is not admirable. That is dysfunctional. You should be looking for a more ethical way to get your material needs met. (Insofar as you are allowed to. I am well aware there are oppressive cultures and subcultures that don’t even give you the option. But that culture is then a problem, not a model for emulation.)

A Dangerous Thought Experiment

So though polyamory is not a panacea and does not fix everything nor guarantee anything, I don’t think it’s on a par with monogamy either. Monogamy doesn’t work more often than most people are willing to admit. It probably should not even be the norm, but simply one minority option among many. And evidence for this is a simple thought experiment that I suspect most monogamists would be terrified to enact for real:

Lead photo for the CNN.com article Polyamory: When three isn't a crowd, by Emanuella Grinberg, showing two women and two men, of one polycule, all in a group hug, looking into the camera.Imagine the entire world removed all barriers to polyamory. No cultural shaming or punishing or wheedling will ensue. No guilt has been imbued in anyone. Imagine then everyone telling their monogamous partners (and honestly meaning what they say) that they will neither punish them nor abandon them if they explore other relationships on the side, that they will still love them and respect and admire them and be there for them—as long as, let’s say, their partner gives them only the majority of them and their time and resources. If this happened, how many people do you think would abandon monogamy? Answer honestly.

You may start to realize how much monogamy is reinforced by cultural policing and other suspect socio-psychological reinforcement mechanisms. It starts to look more like sexism, homophobia, or racism: everyone thinks its normal and natural and the best and proper way for things to be; until they start to realize it’s not. If you are trapped on the wrong side of that belief divide, how will you know that you are? Countless millions of sexists, homophobes, and racists don’t know they are. They think they are right, and everyone else is wrong. How do you know monogamy isn’t just one more obsolete way of thinking just as unjustified as those other Western traditions? How do you know your certainty that it is right for you, is not the same thing as the certainty of sexists and homophobes and racists that their sexism or homophobia or racism is right?

The way monogamy so pervasively fails, and encourages dysfunction, maybe should be a clue. If you look at the infidelity rate alone, you might want to ask if perhaps monogamy is causing a considerable disproportion of unhappiness. It seems that more and more people are embracing polyamory and happier at it. Not immune to sadness or breakups or bad outcomes. But differentially happier all the same, compared to their former or prospective monogamous selves (after all, were that not the case, poly would not be a thing, nor growing).

Inductive logic would suggest, therefore, that far more people would likewise improve their lives, if only they (a) knew this was even an option and (b) were allowed to pursue it (rather than punished even for considering it, by their culture, family, and peers). The fact of the matter is, millions don’t know it’s an option, and millions aren’t encouraged to explore it, but their autonomy is oppressed instead, actively and passively. Why should anyone consider that a good thing? It looks like a fucked up thing to me.

And it is for this reason that I think poly activism is a positive human good. Not because everyone should be poly. But because a whole lot more people probably should. And the world should fully embrace them with the same respect, and not be making their lives harder.

One pro-poly article Dadabhoy links to (somewhat as disapprovingly on this one point as I do, so perhaps Dadabhoy would at least somewhat agree with me?) concludes:

[I]t’s tiresome for anyone to make their sexuality the sum of their identity, and to foist constant conversations about those sexual and romantic inclinations on everyone else. I hope you and your partner are blissful with your non-monogamy, and that you enjoy that heady joy for all it’s worth. But don’t turn into the sex equivalent of veganism and proselytize about your superior lifestyle at every opportunity. It’s fine for other people to be happily monogamous, just as it’s fine for you not to be. [From: “How To Make Your Relationship Non-Monogamous“]

I can only agree insofar as yes, hyperbolically, doing that all the time would be annoying and counter-productive. So would constantly always talking about feminism or the evils of religion. But does that mean we shouldn’t be talking about feminism a lot? No. Or the evils of religion? No. Does it mean when people get annoyed by how much they have to hear about feminism or the evils of religion (or any other effort to call attention to injustice and harm so as to combat it), we should acquiesce and stop talking about it? No. We don’t have to talk about it all the time. We don’t have to dial it up too far. We don’t have to assume we know what’s best for every specific individual. But we don’t shut up about it either.

And here is where I get to an expansion of Dadhabhoy’s point more than a divergence from it…

This Is Just Like Theists Saying Atheists Are Too Preachy

The analogy works all the way down the line. In accord with Dadabhoy’s point that monogamists complain about polyamorist preachiness far too much to have a legitimate gripe, there are at least six respects in particular where such complainers are in the wrong, and they are the same six respects theists are in the wrong when complaining about atheist preachiness…

  • 1. Atheists will be called “too preachy” merely for mentioning that they exist.

Photoshopped image of a billboard of the proposed puppies atheism ad described in the text.Remember when atheist groups tested the claim that atheist organization billboards should not be allowed anywhere because they are “too offensive” in their rhetoric, and discovered that, nope, it was the mere mention that atheists exist that was offensive? To the point that it was suggested we fund a billboard that said “Puppies Are Cute,” showed a bunch of puppies, and merely had the logo and URL for American Atheists in small print on it? Yep. That.

“Can’t you just be atheists in private? Do you have to advertise?”

This is not a legitimate complaint. If our mere existence threatens you, you have the problem. That’s something you need to sort out. You don’t get to police our existence and our basic right to the freedom of speech and assembly just because it reminds you of something uncomfortable. How do we find like minded people or make more atheists, if we don’t get to even tell anyone that it’s an option, and that they aren’t alone? Objecting to just saying we exist is policing thought and oppressing community.

Monogamists sometimes behave a bit like theists in this respect: They are threatened by the mere fact that we exist, and in result, want us to stop mentioning that we exist. Sorry, no. If this is how you feel, you need to spend a goodly measure of self-examination to figure out why the mere fact that we exist bothers you. Just saying we exist is not being “too preachy.” It’s not even being preachy. Just as it isn’t for atheists.

  • 2. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when a theist gets all preachy about god or atheism to someone they know is an atheist, and all the atheist does is respond.

When theists knowingly say ignorant and false things to an atheist about atheism or theology or the Bible, basic fairness entails the atheist gets to respond, by correcting their facts and ignorance and explaining the real reasons they are an atheist, and what that really means for their values and how they live their life. Because the theist started it. They don’t get to shut down fair play just because having their ignorance or errors exposed is embarrassing.

If you don’t want to be embarrassed by your ignorance or fallacious reasoning, learn not to be ignorant or fallacious, or stop preaching about what you don’t know. Don’t blame someone you provoked for responding to your provocation. The undesired outcome of fair play in that scenario is your fault, not theirs.

Monogamists sometimes behave a bit like theists in this respect: They will get all preachy about monogamy or non-monogamy, right to a polyamorist, obliging the polyamorist to correct their fallacious reasoning and ignorance, same as an atheist being challenged by a theist. And just like the atheist in the same scenario, you don’t get to call us too preachy, when you were the one preaching—to us—and we correct you.

If you bring up the subject, the subject gets discussed.

  • 3. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when they write a book or an article, or a rant on an atheist forum, and the theist goes out of their way to read it.

This is the most preposterous case. If you don’t want to hear what atheists have to say, don’t enter their spaces and read their books, articles, and rants. Leave the audience of their talk or panel and go chill elsewhere. We aren’t knocking on your door or forcing this stuff on you. You can just not go there, and not read it, or not listen to it. Meanwhile, atheists get to write and speak about their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values. Same as theists.

Monogamists sometimes behave a bit like theists in this respect: They go find a polyamorist article or book or comment or rant, and then accuse them of being too preachy…merely for having written or spoken about their own lives and discoveries and values, in their own space, or their own book, or their own designated talk or panel. Sorry, no. You can just not go there, and not read it. You can leave the audience of their talk or panel and go chill elsewhere. Polyamorists get to write and speak about their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values. Same as monogamists.

  • 4. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when theists stumble across their mocking, or making fun of, or expressing exasperation with theists and their awful reasoning and inability to get basic facts right.

This is an extension of the former. If you don’t want to listen to our humor or venting, don’t expose yourself to it.

But there is a bigger issue here: Theists do indeed defend their beliefs with awful logic and dubious facts. And their beliefs do in fact cause them to do stupid or harmful things in the world. Which gets exasperating for the rest of us. For our own sanity, we have to vent about this. Hence making fun of it, and discovering lots of people get the joke and why it’s funny, is how we stay sane, and keep up morale, and grow community…and socially shame bad thinking into its well warranted decline.

Of course the things we joke or rant about won’t be true of all theists. But they will be true of enough of them to warrant their becoming an object of satires and rants. And if you think that’s too preachy, you can either stop listening to us and avoid this stuff, or you can stop ruining the world with your horrible thinking and injuriously godly behavior. Then we won’t make fun of you anymore.

(Or we never were, if you weren’t the one doing those things. I should also add, that not all ridicule is wise or accurate or logical, and fully warrants being criticized; here, however, and below, I’m talking about humor that punches up, and lands accurately.)

The same dynamic sometimes exists between monogamy and polyamory: Many monogamists do indeed defend monogamy with awful logic and dubious facts (polyamorists can suck at facts and logic, too, but that’s another subject). And sometimes their beliefs do in fact cause them to do stupid or harmful things, to their own relationships, and others’ (I gave one example above, I give another below, and to which we can add anti-poly prejudice, and poly shaming, and policing everyone to reinforce monogamy and limit others from discovering or exploring alternatives). Which gets exasperating for the rest of us. For our own sanity, we have to vent about this. Hence making fun of it, and discovering lots of people get the joke and why it’s funny, is how we stay sane, and keep up morale, and grow community…and socially shame bad thinking into its well warranted decline.

John Goodman cocking a pistol meme from the film The Big Lebowski, with the headline, Am I the only one here who doesn't believe that a relationship requires monopolistic possession of another human being's body?Of course the things we joke or rant about won’t be true of all monogamists. But they will be true of enough of them to warrant their becoming an object of satires and rants. And if you think that’s too preachy, you can either stop listening to us and avoid this stuff, or you can stop ruining the world with your bad thinking and injurious behavior. Then we won’t make fun of you anymore. (Or we never were, if you weren’t the one doing those things. Likewise, again, the other caveat above.)

For example, I know too many women who can’t be out as polyamorous because they will be ruthlessly slut shamed, and no longer respected or taken seriously as bosses or leaders. Guess what? That only exists because of monogamy culture. Only in a monogamy culture could slut shaming even exist as a thing. It is, to be sure, a product of the intersection of sexism and monogamy culture. But monogamy is actually a traditionally sexist institution in the first place. It was originally invented by men to control women. In a poly culture, women having many partners would be normal. Slut shaming them wouldn’t make any sense. If you tried it, everyone would look at you strangely and say, “So?” Only in a monogamy culture does this not happen. Likewise the idea of devaluing a woman’s status as an employer or leader because she has multiple sex partners. That simply wouldn’t make any sense in a pro-poly culture. It only makes sense in a pro-monogamy culture. (Or a sexist polygamous culture, which being unequal, is not polyamorous.)

So there is a reason poly folk sometimes get sick of monogamy culture and will rant about it or make fun of it. It’s actively harming them. It’s causing behaviors in the world that hobble people’s autonomy and happiness. And if you think that’s too preachy, you might want to rethink which side of history you are on.

  • 5. Atheists will be called “too preachy” when in fact they are legitimately preaching.

Finally, sometimes, you do need to preach. It’s called activism.

When you remind theists that atheists exist and are not evil and have good reasons for their beliefs and values, that is a legitimate use of something akin to culture jamming to fight against the false narratives theists are spreading, and to burst the bubble of their privilege, prejudice, and unexamined assumptions. If you wear an atheist t-shirt in public, for example, or let drop in conversation that you are an atheist—or attending an atheist event, or reading an atheist book, or any little thing—and it starts a conversation with someone, maybe a theist who has prejudices against atheists, or someone who is doubting but doesn’t know an atheist community exists, or someone not sure of the issue, and you get to tell them stuff—like what life is like as an atheist, what atheists believe and value, how they find each other, what their organizations are doing—you are helping to make the world a better place. This is what the Out Campaign is all about.

In the same exact way and for the same exact reason, as an activist working to make the world a better place, I “culture jam” monogamy by letting it be known that I’m poly.

Shirt that says Poly as Hell and Feelin Swell, with a heart with a pi symbol inside and two smaller hearts around the word poly, charcoal shirt, yellow lettering, from www.lookhuman.comFor example, I don’t say “my girlfriend” when I’m mentioning something she did or said or wrote or helped me with, or whatever the context warranting mentioning her. I say “one of my girlfriends.” This has frequently caused a double-take. “What do you mean ‘one of my girlfriends!?'” (I literally get asked that a lot). Well, guess what? I just burst your bubble of privilege, prejudice, and unexamined assumptions. Depending on how engaged you remain in discussing the answer, I then get to explain what polyamory is, what it’s core values are, or why I think it’s a human good.

More often than not, the reaction is unexpectedly positive. “Wait. That’s actually a thing? Holy crap! Why doesn’t everybody do that!? That would solve so many problems!” is almost verbatim what one person said to one of my girlfriends when she honestly answered the “do you have a boyfriend” question at work. I’ve started many an interesting conversation myself that way, which I can visibly see changing the way the person asking me thinks about the world, and about polyamory. (They are never an instant convert, but then neither is a theist instantly made an atheist at first contact either.)

When I get a negative reaction (which actually isn’t so common), I can tell you, every time so far, it’s because of the prejudices and fears of a monogamist who is made uncomfortable merely by the fact that we exist and dare say so. Like the theist, who is horrified that atheists exist, and are allowed to announce the fact. Because if poly is allowed to be a thing, and their partners (actual or prospective) ever find out, maybe they won’t be able to keep them or possess them anymore. And then what will they do!?

I fear that this may really be the heart of what causes monogamists to get annoyed at polyamorists. And when it isn’t that, it’s, “Look, I’m trapped by monogamy. Stop reminding me of what I can’t have.” Which only concedes the frequent social injustice of monogamy.

  • 6. The real issue is that monogamists, like theists, might actually be wrong.

Unlike theism, which is a belief about a fact, monogamy is a choice about how it will be most comfortable for you to live. But the same can be said of homophobia, for example. You might believe being gay is bad, and gays make you uncomfortable; and the thought that you might be gay, even more so. But you might be wrong. All your rationalizations for why it’s surely bad, might be factually bogus or logically fallacious. You might in fact feel much better without those feelings and beliefs. You might in fact feel much better admitting you are gay and embracing it. Yet you can still feel convinced in your heart that your hostile view is natural and normal and can’t possibly be wrong. That’s why we have so many closeted gays who become some of the most virulent anti-gay activists—or the most miserable people, who go around insisting they are the happiest ever.

How do you know this isn’t happening with monogamy? How do you know your assumption that monogamy is really best for you is correct, and not just something you’ve been enculturated to believe? How do you know all your reasons for thinking that way aren’t factually false or logically fallacious?

The way non-monogamy is punished in society (e.g. the slut shaming I mentioned above), the way it is policed, the way our dominant culture impresses and forces on you the belief that monogamy should be the norm, might all be fucking you up the same way a homophobic culture does to homophobes.

If you broke it all down and analyzed it, you might realize that, perhaps, your clinging to monogamy is really just a byproduct of an insecurity you should instead be working to overcome, or an envy you should be allowing yourself to more proactively satisfy, or a possessiveness you should recognize is a terrible defect of character you ought to be actively getting rid of.

“What are you really afraid of?” is the question you need to ask and take seriously. As seriously as you would wish a homophobe to. Or a sexist. Or a racist. Or anyone who has a firm belief on the wrong side of history. Because though there are surely a small number of people for whom monogamy would be ideal even in a wholly liberated culture, the laws of probability entail, that that is actually unlikely to be you.

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