Is Poly The New Gay?

River

Active member
... as in, are poly folk the new super-marginalized evil-dirty people?
 
... as in, are poly folk the new super-marginalized evil-dirty people?

I have been pleasantly surprised in the few friends that I have told in that they are SOOOO supportive and are ONLY worried that I NOT get hurt.

Even my BFF who is pretty traditional, has come around and said to me yesterday, "You are less and less appealing with the MORE control measures that you put in place". At first, she said, "You will get hurt, get out now." Now she is saying, "if you want it to work, let go". WTF?

Words to live by I know.....
P2
 
Not so sure about marginalized, maybe not properly defined

Ooooooo...dirty...that sounds sexy! If that is what you mean then "hells yeah!" :p
If by dirty you mean castaway-like, then no.
Marginalized...only in the sense that most people are not self-aware, let alone aware of what a relationship takes. Yes there really are mono people and poly people- two very different mind-sets. I honestly think the term polyamory is not used enough in common language, and the media has only really scratched the surface. I was not aware of the label until 2009! I would say that a majority of people are either single because they cannot commit to one, or 50% plus marriages break up because one or both parties are not aware of their own dissatisfaction with monogamy. This is my opinion, but I think non-monogamy/poly is alot more common than successful monogamy.
 
Are you referring to the front page of the Vancouver sun Ari?!

I heard that the up coming court case is already getting some major press. End of November the poly advocacy group will be going to court to try and over turn the antipolygamy law that includes polyamory. The vancouver sun asked if this is the new gay because of the fight for the right to marry by same sex couples. Their struggle is over, marriage for all! Could it be polyamory for all?!
 
Actually I just meant "probably"...

In our world, our gov't doesn't like it but overall I see a lot of acceptance in the Vancouver area. While not perfect it is ok.

But outside of the area I can see people being against it. Gay rights attacked the gender norm, but poly is attacking the religious norm. Thats going to be a tough fight and one with lots of backlash.

So "probably"...yes, poly is likely the new "gay"

haven't seen the van sun cover yet, was that todays?

Found the article :)

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Polyamorists+want+court+declare+group+love+legal/3499029/story.html
 
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Ummm not really, but to some, maybe. I mean the most response I get from ppl who know I'm poly is "I couldn't do it, but if it works for you..." and that's that... but it seems EVERYone has an opinion on being gay, most of the negative opinions originate in church (of course)... but maybe when gays become more "acceptable" then (of course) the church will be FORCED to find another group to irrationally hate. They've already been through black people, interracial couples and gays, why not poly people next?
 
Ummm not really, but to some, maybe. I mean the most response I get from ppl who know I'm poly is "I couldn't do it, but if it works for you..." and that's that... but it seems EVERYone has an opinion on being gay, most of the negative opinions originate in church (of course)... but maybe when gays become more "acceptable" then (of course) the church will be FORCED to find another group to irrationally hate. They've already been through black people, interracial couples and gays, why not poly people next?

That is pretty much what I've gotten ... I think that many people don't actually know that poly exists and can work (with the exception of polygamy, which mainly receives negative attention).

Media and society almost seem to "preshape" people's opinions of homosexuality, but with so little awareness, I feel like poly doesn't yet have a collective opinion. And so, people default to generic good/bad statements.
 
TruckerPete said:
That is pretty much what I've gotten ... I think that many people don't actually know that poly exists and can work (with the exception of polygamy, which mainly receives negative attention).
I agree, I didn't even know this was "common," in that there are more people out there than a select few, including myself, that had these sorts of feelings and practiced upon them, nor that there were different terms and structures... Until AFTER talking to my husband about how we feel and then searching for a forum for support. And I even used an inaccurate term to describe us (polygamy) when I first got here. :D
 
There's actually alotta poly ppl who don't even know they are in polyamorous relationships, because poly is just so unpublicized. 2 of my friends were in polyamous relationships (one a male with 2 bfs/and a female with 2 men, all aware of eachother) and didn't even realize it til I came out.
Most ppl r ok with it now though, I mean we dont even have a derogatory term yet, even str8 ppl have "breeders" lol :D

Lets hope it stays that way...
 
It will be interesting to see how much this court case will change what people know or don't know about poly.

I'm interested as well
 
LOL I agree with Ari....Probably.

I mean, when I tell ppl that my wife is out on a date with her boyfriend, they look at me like "OMG! WTF did you just say? Doesn't that piss you off?" LOL
 
I guess every generation has something that becomes accepted that wasn't before, or something that was discriminated against and isn't anymore? I could see a case for it being black people, then gay people, then maybe poly people... But poly's such a smaller minority, it seems more like only one of many things people are still discriminating against but hopefully will get better about.

Anyway, I think they're different enough, but I guess poly might be the next group to get more rights marriage-wise, if that's the question.
 
I wonder how it would work if multiple marriages were allowed... Like, some people are married but then have a girlfriend also, so the wife wouldn't marry the girlfriend, just the husband, whereas there are people that both partners are with the same third person and all three would want to be married. Complicated!

I can see them saying "civil union" is okay before they jump to marriage. I wonder if they will end up allowing it, but make a cutoff as to how many you can have.
 
I think it would make more sense for there to be couple marriages. As in, rather than all three people getting married in one big union, have three different contracts. This way, one person can marry two later on rather than all of them needing to get married at the same time, and if someone breaks up with one person but not the other, only the relevant union would be broken.

I'm not sure if they would put a limit. It might make sense, to make sure the marriages aren't sham marriages, that they're love marriages. Could be a maximum of, say, one ceremony per year/ per two years or something, with each person being allowed to marry only up to 2 or 3 people per ceremony? I don't know how that could work but that might prevent the forced marriages or reduce their occurrence.

Or just being more careful in a second marriage, before the ceremony. To get Canadian residency I've been having to prove I have a real relationship with Ragabash, I can imagine something like that being decided.

Also I can very well imagine that any prior spouse would have to give their consent, too. They need to make sure you can't get married to several people in secret and lead a double or triple life.

I don't know how it would work for taxes, but there are lots of cases with dependents (kids, disabled relatives, etc) that work even with more than one person at a time, so it sounds like it should be doable to file taxes all together. For health insurance, I can imagine paying more if you want more people to be covered by it, although in many cases each spouse might just have their own coverage, too.

Polygamous divorces would really be the pain. What belongs to every spouse? Take my case, say I'm married to Rag and get married to Sean, and they're not married to one another. I get a divorce with one of them. What the other earned is half mine, but shouldn't be theirs at all... How do we calculate it? What about purchases made with the three of us, does the man divorcing me get a third of them?

Seems like it has potential to be messy, and then if you add kids to the mix... it's even more complicated. I assume the biological parents would be given priority, but if three people raise a child together, it seems fair to say they're all parents. If the third one, who didn't conceive the child, gets a divorce, they should get some rights over the kids, visitation rights or something.

I should probably stop here, I can see lots of issues. This being said, there are lots of complicated cases with blended families as well I assume so that shouldn't mean it's impossible.
 
I should probably stop here, I can see lots of issues. This being said, there are lots of complicated cases with blended families as well I assume so that shouldn't mean it's impossible.

I agree with you Tonberry, there are just way too many factors to make the idea of "state" supported multiple marriages very simple. I fully support the idea to have multiple marriages legal in that they are not "illegal". I do not support the idea of having multiple marriages affect the administrative procedures of government or employers....the percentage of the population, even amongst non-monogamous people, is just to small to warrant any significant reworking of the currently existing systems in my humble opinion.
 
I think I would understand having to choose one person for things like taxes and benefits and things like that (with the possibility to change who), but have it not illegal, and if things like visitation rights in the hospital and such could apply it would be great.

I would definitely understand the economic point of view, for instance. It's on the human one only that I'd be interested in rights. Right to say so and so is my spouse, and so and so also is, without it being illegal (even when it's not enforced), and being able to visit either of them in the hospital, and things like that.
I couldn't care less if I don't get special couple discounts that apply to the whole network, or tax reductions, or anything of the sort. Financially, I really don't care about the rights and benefits, and I guess I wouldn't care if I had none over any of them.

I think simply allowing the common-law spouse status would be really good. Then whatever ceremony can be a non-legal one and be symbolic. I believe so far only Saskatchewan allows something like that (you can have a common-law spouse even if you're legally married to someone else).
 
I think I would understand having to choose one person for things like taxes and benefits and things like that (with the possibility to change who), but have it not illegal, and if things like visitation rights in the hospital and such could apply it would be great.

.

You're reading my mind..careful, there are some dark chapters in that book :rolleyes:
 
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