Playboy: "Are Some People Just Slapping the 'Poly' Label on Their Cheating?"

Playboy is still around (who knew?), and a writer for it weighs in against what I've long thought is the greatest threat to the future of our movement: the misappropriation of our big idea's defining word.

I think the threat is receding. The actual precepts of modern polyamory — ethical, honest, equal, and respectful toward everyone involved — are becoming widely recognized in society. Stories like this, which address the problem head-on, are part of why.

Are Some People Just Slapping the "Poly" Label on Their Cheating?

Drekhann

By Sophie Saint Thomas

“I had been spending time intimately with someone on multiple occasions when I learned he had a girlfriend,” says Melissa Vitale, a New York City-based publicist. He said that his relationship was open and that he was “ethically non-monogamous.” As it turned out, Vitale’s lover’s girlfriend was not aware that he was sleeping with others under the false label of ethical non-monogamy. “I later found out that he was full of shit. He's just a small man who cheats on his beautiful girlfriend,” Vitale says.

New York magazine reported in 2017 that 20 percent of Americans had practiced polyamory at some point in their lives. As a side effect of the normalization, are more people not only misusing the term, but using it as an excuse for bad behavior — therefore stigmatizing non-traditional relationships and stomping on the hard work advocates have done to help normalize such relationships in the first place?

Anyone who has spent time on a dating app recently has likely noticed a rise in people identifying as ethically non-monogamous and polyamorous. The Latin translation of polyamory is “many loves,” and polyamorous people don’t just have sex with, but date and love more than one person. Polyamory is a form of ethical non-monogamy, but the two words are not interchangeable. Ethical non-monogamy is an umbrella term for open relationships formed on consent, trust, and honesty, and includes polyamory, swinging, and relationships in which a couple is emotionally exclusive but occasionally sleeps with others.

Historically, such communities are marginalized compared to the monogamous norm. While monogamy still reigns supreme, in recent years, ethical non-monogamy and polyamory have become more normalized and even trendy, thanks to books such as The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, More Than Two by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert, and Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. All of the above titles should be required reading for anyone entering an ethically non-monogamous set-up.

The increasing acceptance of polyamory is great news for those who have long had to keep their relationship structure in the shadows. “What is better than having more love in your life? One thing we lack in society is love,” says sex therapist David Ortmann on the pros of the rise of polyamory. However, open relationships are not for everyone. Depending on your attachment patterns, monogamy may be the best option for you. “With polyamory becoming trendy, people are putting it on their dating profiles, without any sense that it’s more than just fucking a lot of people. It requires a tremendous amount of communication and empathy, compassion and honesty,” Ortmann says.

We’re reaching a point culturally where there are enough people being non-monogamous that folks are starting to use that label inappropriately, and that’s going to happen with any label.

We see non-monogamy within “monogamous” relationships in the common practice known as cheating. Some people who cheat get off on the secrecy and sneaking that accompanies seeing someone behind their partner’s back. “Sometimes people get off on lying, that is their fetish,” says sex therapist Dr. Denise Renye. If you’re in an open relationship and wish to integrate secrecy into your sexual encounters, you can consensually negotiate that with your partner. “Most things are possible as long as consent is present. If the consent is not present, this completely clashes with the principles of ethical non-monogamy,” Dr. Renye says.

However, some folks seem to have attended Burning Man once, learned the word “polyamory,” stuck it on their Tinder bio, yet continued to date in a manner that involves non-consensual lies and secrecy. When they’re called out, they throw up their hands and say, I told you that I was poly! “They are attempting to sugarcoat their cheating styles. I do not necessarily think that people always know what they are talking about,” says sex educator Jimanekia Eborn.

Some folks, such as Vitale’s lover, may use words like “ethically non-monogamous” to cover up bad behavior. Others may simply be brand new to the poly lifestyle and in need of an education. “Do you even know who you are? Or do you know what kind of relationships actually work for you? You can also be hurting yourself in the process,” Eborn says. ...

Zachary Zane, a New York City-based writer, dated a woman who identified as poly, but did not live by its principles. “She would start dating someone new and completely forget about her previous partners. While all of us in the poly world cut a partner some slack when they start dating someone new and are in the midst of NRE [a poly expression for new relationship energy, or the giddy rush of joy you experience when you first start seeing someone], she never seemed to get over the NRE — until she found someone new and then forgot about her previous partner(s) altogether,” Zane says.

...You can avoid such misunderstandings by taking the time to think about what you’re truly looking for: one partner, multiple partners, or just multiple partners until you fall in love? ...

“A lot of us have been trained from the mainstream model to not ask tough questions about what realistically are you looking for, what are you available for, and what does your model for this kind of relationship look like?” says sex-positive psychologist Dr. Liz Powell. If you’re in a period of your life in which you want to be poly, but feel you may end up in a monogamous set-up one day, one argument is that it’s better to just identify as single. ...

The plus side to identifying as open or poly, even if you may not always be that way, is the transparency. If you tell multiple partners that yes, there are others, and no, it won’t just be you right now, you don’t have to worry about hurting feelings with false pretenses. However, if you’re dating other poly people, you do have a responsibility to talk about what that word means to you. While it can be flexible to you, it may be a lifelong lifestyle to another, and vice-versa. ...

“We’re reaching a point culturally where there are enough people being non-monogamous that folks are starting to use that label inappropriately, and that’s going to happen with any label,” Dr. Powell says. There’s a term known as “poly preaching,” which refers to poly people taking on an enlightened attitude that they date the way that humans are meant to — that it’s more intelligent than monogamy. While that is true for some, it doesn’t mean that poly people don’t mess up. And they should be allowed to.

“I think non-monogamous communities sometimes like to think of themselves as these like beautiful utopias full of enlightened people, who never have relationship drama. They only have relationships made completely of love and free of jealousy and fear. And that’s just not real. I’ve been non-monogamous on and off for 18 years, and I still have issues sometimes. We are all imperfect, messy humans,” Dr. Powell says. The key to being an ethical messy person, and not a harmful one, is honesty.

The original article (June 11, 2018).

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"Straight men need to stop using polyamory as an excuse to manipulate women into casual dating"

The Independent, one of the UK's major dailies, gives a Pink News reporter space to send an increasingly necessary message:

Straight men need to stop using polyamory as an excuse to manipulate women into casual dating

It’s easy to see why someone interested in dating multiple women with zero commitment might see this as the perfect excuse, but polyamory in fact requires more commitment and trust than monogamy does.

"If men have no interest in a serious relationship, and are looking to casually date multiple people, that is absolutely fair and their choice, but that is not polyamory." (iStock image)

 
By Jasmine Andersson

Something unsettling is happening in heterosexual dating.

It’s beyond the tactics of submarining, ghosting and whatever the hell you name a person’s lack of commitment when it comes to being a decent human being, but it’s in the same ballpark.

It would seem that women are experiencing a unique curveball on the dating scene, in which men who do not want to commit to a relationship are explaining away their dishonesty as “polyamory”. In the past six months alone, four men I’ve dated have used this as a way of masking their attempts to shirk commitment, and tried to pressure me into agreeing to an arrangement I had no interest in.

There is a clear difference between a polyamorous person saying they’re polyamorous on the first date, and a guy who just doesn’t want to settle down using it as a shield to hide behind.

People who identify as polyamorous sometimes argue it is a sexual orientation akin to being gay or straight, while others see it as a lifestyle choice. Either way, polyamorous relationships are typically characterised by an intense sense of commitment – both to one’s primary partner and any additional relationships. It is about constant communication and respect, which allows for the fact that there is such a thing as ethical, consensual non-monogamy.

There has definitely been a shift in the way that straight people consider monogamy. As apps such as Feeld, designed for non-monogamous people, flourish, so do the ever-increasing gender identities and relationship requests that can be listed on the likes of OkCupid.

Google searches for polyamory are on the rise, and a 2016 YouGov poll found that 31 per cent of women and 38 per cent of men believed their ideal relationship to be consensually non-monogamous, so it's easy to see why someone interested in seeing multiple women with zero commitment might see this as the perfect way to convince their partners to want the same. What casual-seekers have also failed to realise though, is that polyamory in fact requires more commitment than monogamy.

Polyamory rejects the notion that loving, committed relationship must by design feature just two people, but it’s very different to an “open relationship”, which involves committing to just one person while allowing for sexual experiences with other people. And it certainly has almost nothing in common with dating – and sleeping with – multiple people at the same time without ever really committing to anyone.

As someone who wants a monogamous relationship, I decided to chat to someone who identifies as poly. He explained: “I see cis-gendered, heterosexual men looking for an excuse for the same old cheating douchebaggery that they have always indulged in. ...

A pseudo-poly bro who tries to convince you that your thoughts, values and feelings are un-progressive, and that you just need to be a bit more “open minded”, is about as far from the values of polyamory as it’s possible to get. ...

Pseudo-poly bros need to stop exploiting an ideology that thrives on love and commitment, and single women must stand by their values and not allow themselves to be manipulated into a one-sided “relationship”. ...

Jasmine Andersson is a reporter at PinkNews.

Read the whole article (April 10, 2018). She also discusses the equalizing effect of the dating app Bumble, which "aims to empower women to make the first move when it comes to dating."


● Also, a couple days ago in a Silicon Valley episode review in the Palo Alto Daily Post:

In the low-lit atmosphere of the scene, it almost felt like Ben was about to say he practiced ethical polyamory, a romantic philosophy that has a number of Valley adherents, and that can be principled but is also a favorite cover for some garden-variety sleaze.

The more we call out such misuse of the word by predators and sleazes, the more people will see through their bullshittery and the less we will be tarred by it. A couple more examples:

● As early as six years ago, by author O. M. Grey: Successful Polyamory, or Poly vs. Amory (Nov. 7, 2012)

Although every definition I can find on polyamory emphasizes the honesty, openness, ethics, integrity, commitment, and love, my experience is that the bulk of people who identify as polyamorous are not practicing these basic principles.

The word polyamory has come to mean any type of non-monogamy, ethical or not, as I’ve learned, and this deeply saddens me. If a word has too many meanings, then it has no meaning at all.

A rose by another other name may smell as sweet, but when I say the word “rose,” you know the type of flower I’m talking about. If I say “rose” and I mean “steaming pile of dog shit,” that rose doesn’t smell as sweet, because it’s not really a rose. It’s a steaming pile of dog shit. You can throw up gorilla dust, beat your manly chest, spout spiritual-sounding words about radical inclusion, and demand that it is a rose and “your truth,” but the reality is that it’s still a steaming pile of dog shit. Even if you call it a rose.

● An advice columnist for Flagpole, the alternative weekly paper of Athens, Georgia, goes out of her way to make the point in responding to a letter titled My Manager's Girlfriend Stole My Boyfriend (Jan. 24, 2018):

Polyamory is a real relationship model that involves plenty of commitment and compromise, but your boss and her partner are terrible at it. Calling oneself “poly” isn’t an excuse to wreck homes and treat staff like a harem. Behavior like theirs is the reason people associate the polyamorous relationship model with selfishness and dishonesty. They shouldn’t use the label or involve others in their messy shit until they know how to be respectful and responsible to their potential partners.

Once again: we need to defend, loudly, the meaning of the our key word against bullshitters, pickup artists, and other fakers. Go for it, and send me the link when you do: alan7388 AT gmail.com . I hope to post a collection of your work.

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