Says RT, "Right to 'free love': Activists fight for polyamory to be recognized as sexual orientation"

Here's a paste-up article of poly news bits that's interesting only for where it appeared: on the website of RT, a public-relations television project of the Russian government. RT and its news agency Ruptly try to be all over the internet making Russia look cool and with-it, while pushing Russia's version of world events and, at times, reportedly planting disruptive disinformation.

Needless to say (I hope), Russia under Vladimir Putin has become a horrible country for anything LGBT, queer, or having to do with freedom or liberalism in general.

Right to 'free love': Activists fight for polyamory to be recognized as sexual orientation

Wikimedia

The ever-growing acronym of LGBTQI might be adding a ‘P’ if polyamorous rights activists get their way and become officially recognized as a sexual orientation.

The term, which means ‘true love’ in Latin and has been described as “consensual non-monogamy,” describes those who have more than one sexual partner, but only if all those involved are aware and supportive.

The model of nuclear relationships involving cisgender men and women having a few children and settling down for life faces competition from the emergence of other orientations into the mainstream, prompting discrimination, intimidation, and violence from those threatened by the redefinition of what’s considered to be “normal.”

The polyamory community has experienced some of that backlash and, as a result, certain activists want to receive the protections offered to their gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer counterparts.

Speaking to Vice, polyamorist Melissa Marie Legge said she always knew she was different.

“Consensual non-monogamy gives me the freedom to involve people in my life on my own terms and to negotiate relationships individually and contextually without having to follow a social script,” she said. “It’s something that I value highly and that I would say is a big part of my sexual identity overall.”...

...Not all members of the LGBTQI community are comfortable with polyamory activists campaigning under their banner.

Some believe it would open the door to other kinds of sexual activities such as cosplayers or foot fetishists.

...Polyamory has not been extensively studied, but the Canadian Research Institute of Law and the Family released a study this month on the country’s perception of polyamory and dynamics of such relationships.

“The growing popularity of polyamory suggests that the meaning of ‘family’ continues to evolve in Canada,” the report says. “The traditional model of the Western nuclear family, consisting of married heterosexual parents and their legitimate offspring, has undergone enormous change in the last 200 hundred years - attaching family status to unmarried partnerships and legalizing same-sex marriage are only the most recent changes. Perhaps expectations as to exclusivity and the dyadic nature of committed relationships are next.”

The whole article (August 31, 2016).

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