also this feels kinda weird to mention, but polyphobia is.. definitely a thing? there are *stereotypes* around it & they get deployed in defence of normalised monogamy constantly. things like: poly people are inherently sexual, poly people are inherently predatory, conflating polycules with cults... - ThreadSky

thedescenters.bsky.social • 1 day ago

also this feels kinda weird to mention, but polyphobia is.. definitely a thing? there are *stereotypes* around it & they get deployed in defence of normalised monogamy constantly. things like: poly people are inherently sexual, poly people are inherently predatory, conflating polycules with cults...

Comments

quail.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think that many poly people swear by “the ethical slut” that just so many associate poly people exclusively with the type of relationships and attitude towards sex and romance that the book describes, which is not as common as people think.

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

it was the first thing i read about it but it's always been far from a perfect text. tbh it has the same energy as people who treat non-binary exclusively as a third sex. first wave stuff.

hexdrone1013.bsky.social•1 day ago

Considering when it was published it is def 1st wave stuff, but you rarely get it 100% right the first time. It is still a seminal work and was written specifically with sexual relationships in mind, addressing the existence of poly as a real thing.

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yeah absolutely. I still respect it for what it is regardless.

hexdrone1013.bsky.social•1 day ago

It was recommended to me by a friend when I, in my 20's, wound up living with 3 women in the same house. I was dating them all at the time. Sadly none of them was particularly bi so I was the hinge.
Yes, it was like living in a Harem manga.

chrismaebear.bsky.social•1 day ago

I'm an older asexual poly person in multiple loving equal relationships but I have to admit that the board game thing might be true 😅

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

lmao I do not do this

chrismaebear.bsky.social•1 day ago

Not for seeking, to be clear. I just have a board game collection at two houses and I'm not even sorry lmao

Thanks for your posts btw. I'm not really privy to what's going on, but they're insightful and important imo.

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

ehehe nah you shouldn't be. board games are fun. i just don't have any girls like that in the polycule atm. i have before. also, no worries. what's going on is only part of what they're about. it's fine not to know about it and you're probably better off. i meant them to be generally useful. :)

chrismaebear.bsky.social•1 day ago

I'm a big advocate of "it's fine not to know about it" because sometimes things are none of my business ✨

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

more people on the internet should be like this! you do not need to have an opinion on everything! 🌈

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

including close associates of a polycule as members of a polycule, acting like it's some kind of a religion, or it's fundamentally exploitive, or means you care less about individual partners if you have more of them rather than less. i know there's probably some people thinking this is trivial...

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

but the problem is, since polyamory is normalised amongst trans lesbians in a way that is unique to trans lesbians and nobody else, it's imo closely connected in the queer community with transmisogyny in general, too. it's not like monogamy is any safer or less fraught with the possibility...

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

of abuse or exploitation either. far from it! the problem is it's totally normalised and socially supported. polyamory isn't! polycules cannot get married easily or openly in any damn configuration you can think of. you can't get support earmarked for families as a polycule, even though the...

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

structures are, if you think about it reasonably, more or less the same. basically everything that people like this believe about polycules comes from two places: abuse inside of polyamorous relationships (which is a special kind of fucked and isolating especially when the polycule itself starts...

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

to pick sides internally about who's the victim and abuser in the polycule and the abuse begins to spread amongst the members of it laterally,) or total cluelessness to polyamory because they either haven't tried it, had one bad experience with someone and decided to judge everyone about it...

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

or just hate it cos it makes them insecure and they want to lash out at us & cause pain. it's fucked up! we should talk about it much more often. please consider that before you start to pass around misogynistic and queerphobic lies about whoever's circle is unlucky enough to be inside the social...

mxnectarine.bsky.social•1 day ago

There was a discussion about this/something adjacent on Swesky the other day – someone in a podcast offhandedly repeated the stereotype of “poly people are ugly” – and people with lesbian experience said that it mirrors attitudes about lesbians as well.

thedescenters.bsky.social•1 day ago

that's definitely true. although i think that one is more of a holdover prejudice from cishet polyamory which imo is usually a slightly different beast.

mxnectarine.bsky.social•1 day ago

and then the follow up talk about how the real material issues for poly people often intersect with queerness. (In the same way kink is – it’s a lot more ok if it’s straight and monogamous)

wendynights.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's not for me, but who the hell am I to say it's not for other people? Ethical love done in a matter that makes all participants happy is always right, as far as I'm concerned. I don't understand, and never will understand, people who don't like something so they want to remove it from everyone.

flynnminter.bsky.social•16 hours ago

I tried to ignore certain stereotypes but I have gotten hurt exactly because I was not critical enough of fellow polyamorous people. Those who hurt me were cis bi women and cis het men though.

thedescenters.bsky.social•16 hours ago

yeah i think i said elsewhere that t4t trans lesbian polyamory is a different, specific thing. ditto for queer bdsm compared to cis bdsm as a general rule. you can be critical of the rhetoric without giving into stereotypes about poly people and polyamory too. none of it actually contradicts.

thedescenters.bsky.social•15 hours ago

ugh, i meant het not cis for bdsm but it's been a long day.

flynnminter.bsky.social•15 hours ago

Understandable. Educating people takes energy, and by all means only do it if you are up for it.

flynnminter.bsky.social•15 hours ago

I have yet to be in a polycule with fellow trans people. I am certainly done with the part of the polyamory scene that centers cis het men and pursues bi women. What would you say that the differences between t4t polycules and queer BDSM are as opposed to the cis ones?

thedescenters.bsky.social•15 hours ago

it's complicated but it basically comes down to not replicating the hierarchies of pre-existing society as much and people finding it more easier to work with you if you want to do something different?

thedescenters.bsky.social•15 hours ago

it's also normalised for trans lesbians specifically in a way it isn't anywhere else. like most other trans lesbians i meet are polyamorous. you don't really have to ask even. monogamous ones are atypical enough that they will tell you. it's a different vibe entirely from the outset.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply