HEY!
Today, I want to talk about polyamory (click here for the Wiki page if you're unfamiliar). I've always been curious about this sort of relationship, where you can date more than one person at a time, because well.. our culture isn't used to it. We don't know how to react to it. Our society is used to the husband and wife kind of thing, ya know? Our culture can barely accept the fact that two women or two men might want to marry.. could you imagine what those opposing marriage equality would say about polyamory? This shouldn't be mistaken with polygamy, where a man has more than one wife or polyandry, where a woman has more than one husband.
So, polyamorous relationships are relationships where all members have consented and agree to the other parties having other relationships. This means that everyone knows that there could be other people, either the possibility or the existence. These aren't necessarily super committed, but they also aren't necessarily solely sexual either. And, they don't have huge orgies and whatnot. It's a way to show your sexual love to more than one person, to not.. hold it back, so to say? Polyamory gets a little confusing, doesn't it?
The Wiki page says that gays are more comfortable with the idea of polyamorous relationships than heterosexuals.. I wonder why? Isn't that interesting?
So, what do you think? A feminist thought on the subject would be that you should be allowed to do whatever makes you happy.. with consent and everything. We should have freedom to be whoever or whatever we want to be. So.. should people be allowed to do whatever they want to do? Should they have to worry about being judged for it by our culture? Do you think things would end up getting WAY too complicated? Jealousy? Wanting more? Could YOU be polyamorous?
Let me know in the comments below!
xoxo
CORTNIE
Cortnie,
ReplyDeleteI'm a pretty jealous person in relationships so I could never see myself being involved with polygamy. I also feel that people should do what makes them happy but 9 times out of the 10 it's the men who get to have more than 1 partner and not the women. In this case, it's appearing that the man in the household/relationship has ownership over all of his different "wives" or girlfriends. I would LOVE to see an example of a woman having more than one partner and the men in the relationship being okay with it. Again, if it's truly what makes the women and men happy, then go for it. But sometimes it feels that they are born into a certain culture/religion that may not give them another insight on how relationships work.
Have you ever watched Shameless? It's a show running on Showtime I believe and a couple on the show is foster caring for a 14 year old named Ethel who has a baby from her "husband" who is a polygamist. The husband was imprisoned for whatever reason causing her to be a ward of the state. I realize here we also see inter-generational sex and relationships but I don't feel that a young girl marrying a 70 year old man and becoming one of his many wives is an okay thing even if she thinks she's happy (and HELLO he got her pregnant at age 13/14.)
Peace Love & Polygamy,
Kenzie
Big Love (the HBO show) was my favorite show ever about polygamy!
DeleteBut this post was about polyamory, lots of people get them confused. No marriage is necessarily involved. And it can transfer to any genders.
It's all very confusing!
Thanks for your comments! Keep em comin!
Some Sexplorers meetings at UC were about this subject and it was really interesting conversation and hearing people's experiences of having multiple partners or being in an open relationship. Have you ever read The Ethical Slut?
ReplyDeleteI unfortunately haven't gotten to read that yet! It's going on my list!
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