Month: December 2009

I have recently made clear on my twitter my belief that “polyamory” is cheap pop term invented to let closeted polygamists avoid both the stigma the government has cleverly attached to the term and the fight with the government that would ensue.

I have sympathy for them. As my readers well know my loathing for enforced monogamy knows no bounds. As my readers also know I am well aware of the consequences of pissing off the government at level as deep as this. I’ve written before about the foundational level the mate selection process is at with regard to the hierarchy Company supports.

But as justified as a person is in personally choosing their safety over their principals, the polyamorist camp has smugly tried to make the choice for everyone to justify making the choice for themselves.

Now just to be clear, I understand what is claimed and in the most strict pedantic sense I realize that polyamory and polygamy are different.

Polyamory is the practice of loving multiple people, polygamy is the practice of marrying multiple people. (not multiple wives BTW, that’s Polygyny)

In the strictest sense that makes them different things, but lets explore a few other terms.

First of all, what would you call it when 3 polyamorists get married to each other? Polygamy. So there’s that. What do you call it when a couple decides that each will only sleep with the other? Monogamy.

This is important. Polyamorists struggling to save face often tell me that polygamy is about marriage and polyamory is about love. Overlooking the saccharine and trite nature of that, I ask then from a zoological perspective what then do we call it in the animal kingdom when mates pair bond?

We apparently can’t call them monogamous anymore since the ‘gamy makes it about marriage.

Bob and Sandy are in love, they love no one else in the romantic sense, what are they called? Monogamous. Bob and Sandy fall in love with Ted, Ted loves both Bob and Sandy. What are they called?

Polyamorists say they are polyamorous until they decide to get married, at which point they would then be polygamists. A biologist would call them polygamous from the start because its not about a ritual its about intent or inclination.

Polyamory is equal in every way to polygamy by definition except in that there is again by definition a lack of desire for marriage. “Many love not many marriage.” But monogamy has no such analog. Why? Because it never needed one. Animals and people are monogamous with or without marriage. The same is true of polygamy.

Polygamy as a named term obviously predates polyamory. It seems to me there is a glaring contradiction. Since for a marriage to exist, to be “real” it must be legal. Therefor polygamy can’t exist in the United States. Indeed when a person marries more than one person legally he’s a bigamist criminal.

Polyamory just means “We’re not even TRYING to get married, we don’t even want too, really, please don’t sue or siege us.”

The activism angle, and that’s the core of the issue for me, is even more convoluted. The religious fundamentalist polygynists, who along with CNN call themselves polygamists, fight for the right for a man to marry consenting women by way of the right for consenting adults generally to get married. All polygynyists are polygamists, but not all polygamists are polygynyists. Some polyamorists make a similar claim.

Some polyamorists fight for the same right but don’t call it polygamy, still others are fighting for the effective right to get married by kicking the state out of the bedroom entirely. That is my camp.

Polyamorists by strict definition need not fight at all, since its legal to love whoever you want so long as you don’t want marital rights. THAT’S my problem. That’s the whole point of the word. Trustees in a corrupt prison system convincing themselves that a riot isn’t required. They are avoiding the water fountain issue completely saying we don’t like public water.

Marriage licenses and divorce court are as silly to me as baptism licenses and excommunication court. They need to be fought. Virtually every argument in favor of gay marriage applies to polygamy and that’s why we need marriage abolished.

But reading that, polyamorists, and even some gay marriage activists everywhere cringe because they know the reaction that would cause in the right wing crowd. The slippery slope crowd that claimed “well if we let gays marry pretty soon marriage will be destroyed.”

The gay marriage crowd got so much accomplished in part because of the implication that the status quo wont really be harmed. This is a complicated and hard fight we have coming. The American “family” is at stake. The way in which we organize our society from its most fundamental association up is being looked at here. This has repercussions across the board. Read my other essays for a glimpse.

Polyamory as a term side steps all of this. It wedges a category where there was none before, between falling in love with multiple people and marrying them. A totally superfluous category designed it seems to me to do little else but excuse those claiming it from any sort of debate or fight on the subject.

I am reminded of closeted homosexuals who argue against gay marriage rights on the grounds that they aren’t all that important. Or the don’t ask don’t tell crowd. The type that thinks its ok to be gay but asking for “special” rights is somehow, just not cool.

Polyamorists are uncle toms to me.

And now is not the time for quietly sitting in the back of the bus, no matter how many of the cool kids are there.