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Polyamory, visibility, and public perception
Any poly folks struggling with judgement from family, friends, or strangers? I'm openly bisexual and polyamorous to my friends and some family, and I've been steadily trying to let the veil down more lately. However, I've been feeling resented and mistrusted by folks -- some online and in person. These experiences aren't exclusive to conservative regions, either. A lot of the online hate I've received has been in Greater Boston community spaces, one of the cities with the most non-monogamous folks. I suppose I'm just feeling bad and isolated about it all. Would love to hear about experiences (good and bad) y'all have had!
In short, yes, in the same way that I get judgement for my various queer identities. It's nothing new, and the judgement really depends on the person. I live in one of the most poly-friendly places on earth (San Francisco bay area), but we're still absolutely the minority, and some of the dating circles I operate within are not super poly friendly (Lesbians are way more monogamous than bisexual folks in this area, for example). Navigating non-monogamous spaces can be the trickiest, but around here people tend to keep their thoughts to themselves outside of the occasional phobic comments which fall in the same line of biphobia (oh wow you have so many more options; I bet you're a slut!). I've also learned to avoid talking in too much depth about my polycule at work as well because I find that the cis het folks are a bit less understanding or make inappropriate comments upon my love life.
With that being said, I do strongly feel that I'm living in a space where I have many more positive experiences involving being poly than negative. There's a rather large dating pool of poly and ambiamorous folks. This also means that many folks are open to the idea but lack experience, unfortunately, but I'd rather have that then folks openly get upset if they learn I'm poly. A lot of monogamous folks are directly open about their desire for monogamy as well, which makes dating on apps a bit easier.
I appreciate your comparison to biphobia. That makes a lot of sense to me and is something I hadn't thought much about. Both feel and present similarly, and I've encountered both in queer circles. Finding out I'm poly tends to amplify the insecurities non-bisexual partners have about my bisexuality (and vice versa) -- "you might leave me for a <other gender>", "I won't be enough because I don't have <x, y, z attribute>", etc.
I have friends with partners nervous or resentful about them spending time with me too! They're afraid I'll steal them away or encourage them to cheat, even though I would never do something like that. As a result, it sometimes feels like being openly poly makes it harder for me to meet new friends.
And I absolutely agree, though, that I've had more positive experiences than negative. Especially with polyamory becoming more known (and with many of the apps adopting non-monogamous banners/tags), it is becoming easier to have that discussion early. Before the tags, I encountered people far more frequently that didn't read my bio and missed that I am poly. That often led to rude conversations and/or ghosting.
I live in the Bay Area, and while I don't talk about it much, when it comes up in conversation it's rarely much of a thing beyond some side-eye on occasion. I'll just mention "my wife" or "my girlfriend" as appropriate to who I'm talking about, and let the ambiguity sit. I'll explain when asked, but these days I mostly only do disclosure to the people to whom it's relevant, i.e. people I want to date. To everyone else, it feels odd, yeah? It's like walking up to someone and announcing my sexual orientation. In almost all of my relationships, announcing who I am interested romantically or sexually is at best irrelevant and at worst a distraction. There's a few friends who I'll talk about sexuality with, and my partners, but mostly it's not a topic I care to actively bring up.
Note that this isn't "how it should be" or anything, it's just the balance I've personally found. When polyamory was newer for me and I identified it more strongly as a locus of my personality, I wanted to talk about it more. Now I'm still polyamorous, but talking about it is mostly retreading the same ground of discussion, and that's just a bore.
Honestly though, I think there are a lot of otherwise progressive places where making your sexual orientation clear is a lot more accepted than making it clear you're in a polyamorous relationship. At my last job I personally felt super comfortable being out as a lesbian (I was a huge "wife guy," so it came up naturally) and experienced nothing but acceptance when I came out as non-binary. But when my wife's polymour came to visit us, I felt the need to obfuscate it as "a friend of ours is visiting" during small talk.
It's possible that the difference in experience is that I'm straight? In said progressive spaces, announcing straightness feels tantamount to a rejection of the other ways of being. Letting people know I was gay would be putting myself into the club. Saying I'm straight feels both unnecessary and overbearing.
Saying you're straight feels unnecessary and overbearing because being straight is still seen as the default even in progressive spaces, so it's emphasizing something that everyone would expect/assume of you anyway.
Yeah, exactly.
Life has limited my ability to date outside my current relationship (which also has caretaker aspects) and so I don't get any shit/feedback at the moment. But I just wanted you to know I see you and have been there in the past.
I hear that, thank you for the solidarity!
Until very recently, I was also on a hiatus with new partners. How are you feeling about those limitations? Are they self-imposed? Don't feel obligated to open up or elaborate about it, but I'm happy to lend an ear if you need one.
All good, it's a "I don't have the energy and time" plus some depression thing. My last "secondary" (i don't love the term but like, i'm gonna go with it right now) relationship ended during COVID and since then my current partner (been with for quite a long time and was polyamorous before as well) has become a paraplegic and I'm his primary caretaker. I do miss having a sex life as much as I miss flirting and dating folks, but I don't miss the "polytraining" I often ended up doing because I'd stupidly end up someone's first poly relationship, repeatedly.
But at the same time, I'm still tired, a lot, and I don't feel boxed in or unable to date if I wanted to, I just don't have the "Want" at the moment. Eh. Someday maybe.
I'm sorry to hear that. Surely it's been a massive and challenging adjustment for you both. "Polytraining" can definitely be tedious, especially when you're already low on bandwidth.
Oh i'm probably done being a polytrainer these days, even if i get my groove back. But yeah, it is what it is. I'm in the midwest, in a small town outside a small city amidst corn fields so it's not a huge community here either.
For what it's worth, even in SF I end up doing a lot of polytraining. I keep thinking to myself I need to view this as more of a red flag than a yellow flag, as it's the folks newest to polyamory that tend to hurt me the most, but a part of me also always resists that urge because I think it's a silly reason to rule someone out - we all have to start somewhere.
Oh that's very fair, I can't say if it's worse here than there but it could also be just a personality thing too - I like sharing and educating and yeah that turns into finding newbies. I agree with you about the struggles between the philosophy of sharing knowledge/staring somewhere and also I'm too damn tired
I’m in the same boat, at least with these vibes.
Technically I still don’t yet know if I’m poly myself, because although my partner has had a few other partners come and go over the years, I haven’t yet had the energy or time to spin up a new relationship along side my current one. Just the idea of dating feels pretty exhausting, let alone balancing that without damaging what I already have.
From everything I’ve seen and heard, it sounds super rewarding, so I’m looking forward to having the opportunity, but yeah... not yet. Maybe someday.
There are pros and cons - more opportunities for love and connection inherently come with more opportunities for heartbreak and hurt. But in many ways I think it's how I'm wired.
That said, time and energy are often the limiting factors, I know I'm overwhelmed and depressed and using a lot of my energy on caretaking and that leaves me less than what is ideal for my personal life. It'll come back up in therapy eventually.
As a first generation immigrant that hid the fact I was dating someone outside of my race until I was 25, I suppose I'm simply inured at this point to the reality that my very religious family will never know (and is happier not knowing) the whole of me.
I tend to extend this blasé lens to acquaintences and even some friends - most don't need to know or aren't interested in knowing every gory detail of my life. I also use the gender-neutral term "partner", so references or anecdotes usually fly under the radar.
For those who've picked things up from context clues (or seen me bring both partners to events), I've yet to really feel any overt judgment (just the usual internal social anxiety over being liked). That being said, I live in a very liberal west coast metro that's essentially poly on easy mode, so I'm probably just very lucky there.
I will say I've had one friend (in a very mono marriage) make a drunken text pass one time, but I shut that shit down real quick and distanced myself. And that kind of thing happens to non-poly folks as well, so yeah, just people being people, I think.
Cheers man. I'm not poly myself, but I have friends who are. Love'em all. Hope this Random Internet Stranger wave of support helps, at least. :)
So, while I am now functionally monogamous, I was poly for much of my romantically active life, and I suppose I still am in a philosophical sense even if no longer in a practical sense. The 'functionally monogamous' part came as a direct response to COVID, given my primary partner is immunocompromised.
I can't say I've directly experienced judgement about the subject, but certainly there has been some indirect social stigma and discomfort from my partners family (all rather... vocally Christian). They don't know about me being poly or the non-standard details of our relationship, but they do know we aren't married and tend to poke at and apply unappreciated social pressure to my partner, with the 1950's-ish view of 'why aren't you married yet?' 'a woman is worthless if she isn't married' 'why aren't you contributing to growing the family by marriage' types of sentiments, perhaps not said quite so bluntly, but heavily implied and talked around at times.
So, not exactly social judgement about being poly per se, but kind of judgement due to secondary related effects. From their perspective it's probably just being judgmental about not being married.