Does the author have some valid points? ....do these conditions exist in the community at large ?
I enjoyed the article for being throughtprovoking. The tone of the article had some snark in it, since it was journal writing/opinion piece. But it had good points. Thanks for posting it, Dinged!
DingedHeart said:
Does the author have some valid points? ....do these conditions exist in the community at large ?
Let me scroll through...
I had to agree --
All relationships ARE a privilege, regardless of configuration.
- The expression of being in relationship and being safe in that expression (seen it, experienced it)
- Having the TIME to have relationships in (seen it, experienced it)
- Having the MONEY to have relationships with -- dating costs, raising kids costs, having enough food/home/clothes costs etc. (seen it, exeperienced it)
- Woman considering relationship on factors other than just love (seen it, experienced it)
- Moocher dating moneyed partners (seen it. )
- Disabled/ablesim factor (seen it.)
- Color/Race factor (seen it, experienced it.)
- Orientation (queer, bi, trans, etc) factor. (seen it, experienced it)
Appropriation -- I've seen some of that but I don't really care. Everyone has the right to run their polyship however it is they want. Culture spreads via communication/sharing so... trying to keep anything "culture pure" is silly. Esp here in the USA -- it's a mishmosh already! The country was built on mishmosh of cultures. And the culture keeps on evolving in time even in a country that isn't built on mixed peoples. Technology, knowledge - other factors change how "things are done and expressed" which is part of culture.
Empathy vs Sympathy vs fake "i feel your pain" -- the poly patriarch thing with the queer thing? No, not experienced that myself. There IS the issue of polyness, queerness, kinkyness, and more causing probs with child custody cases. There's similarities in there, I agree.
Abusers hiding easier inside polyamory -- I agree. It
is easier for abusers to hide in there. Seen it. The way it was written though... missed some bits for me.
JaneSmythe said:
The main thing that got to me was the part where they were talking about abusers. So, you are in a relationship with someone who treats other people like shit? And POLYAMORY is the problem? Why the FUCK are you in a relationship with someone who treats people like shit?!?! Because "everyone else" is okay with it? What are you, a sheep?
Jane -- No, abuse victims are messed up by the abuser. NOT polyamory. It is not that polyamory is the problem, or that BDSM is the problem.
It is that the nature of both (having many partners potential) that makes it EASIER for the abuser to hide in because s/he is harder to pin down and recognize as abusive than if there were in a monogamous (or expected monogamous) arrangement. Article could have communicated this a bit more clearly.
So it's harder to notice them/ roust them out. Esp. if the victim is gaslighted and unsure they are even being abused in a way that "counts." Not all abuse is physical leaving bruises on the body. Most people will count hitting as abusive. Some is more subtle leaving bruises on the soul where it cannot be seen. Some people will not acknowledge mental or emotional abuses even though they pain the victim just as much or more than beatings and are forms of controlling them. The article DID touch on this aspect.
When people say "Why don't they just leave?!" well... sometimes the victims are fully aware that the leaving time is the most dangerous time. Retribution from the abuser can mean death -- of the victim or the victim's kids or other loved ones. Wackadoodle is wackdoodle. Sigh. The article failed to touch on this end of it. The leaving time being dangerous time. Some people choose to be ALIVE even if dinged a lot than DEAD.
Some abusers are NOT going to let the "bad ex" off light. Some might, and just focus on their other abused honeys. But not all. And if the abuser were with ONE partner -- say married to them. If that person suddenly disappears people will look to the spouse and go hrm.... If the abuser was with MANY partners, and one disappears? The abuser can go "Oh, we broke up and they left" and not as many will look at them and go hrm as "deep"... because they still see them roughly the same. A person with many partners.
Article did not touch on that.
Veto Power / Weak Boundaries -- I have seen that. That paragraph would have been better as a bullet point its own. The way presented you can mix it up with the abuse bullet point. I can see why in the thought process it comes linked to the abuse though. It is a close cousin. It can happen on top of abuse too.
Superiority -- I have seen that. Polyamory is not more "evolved" than monoamory just as polyships are not more evolved than monoships. People like what they like for their relationship configurations. Nobody's business but the people IN the relationship.
Sugarcoating Cheating with "Polyamory" -- I have seen that. The article could have bulleted that out a bit more clearly though it touches on it.
Poly vs Swing and "vocabulary usage" calibration so everyone is talking about the same thing -- I have seen that. The article touches on it but it isn't a clear bullet point.
Really ANY one of those bullets could be a whole article in of itself!
And because of that, it could lead to interesting talks. I'm going to show it to DH. Thanks again, Dinged!
GalaGirl