Some Thoughts on Poly vs. Mono
Almost all poly people I've seen take every chance to state that there's absolutely nothing wrong with monogamy (see e.g. http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html). Mono and poly are both valid relationship models, everyone chooses the one which best fits them; both models can happily coexist in society, yada yada yada. While I'm all for mutual tolerance and happy coexistence, I don't think we should attempt to cover up the problems; rather, I believe we should approach them with open eyes.
It seems to me that the conflict of poly and mono is in a lot of ways similar to the conflict of atheism and religion:
"The mere act of shoving religion into the marketplace of ideas, and expecting it to fight it out with all the other ideas about why things are the way they are... I think people who are deeply attached to religion have every reason to be afraid of that. I think that act has more potential to eventually dismantle religious beliefs than any of the specific arguments leveled against those beliefs."
- Greta Christina
Atheism and religion are now directly competing on the open market of ideas - and obviously, neither side is too happy with the competition. Especially the side that used to be a monopoly. OK, not exact: each side would retroactively be very happy with the fact of the competition, provided that it gets an overwhelming victory :-) That's the nature of competition - while it can (and should) be civil and respectful, each side strives to win. The less atheists there are, and the more quiet they are, the better for the believers.
And it's the same thing with monogamy: until only a few years ago, monogamy never had to explain itself. It wasn't questioned. It was always taken as the "one right way". Nobody chose to be monogamous… there were simply no other valid options. And more importantly, it never had to compete with other lifestyles. Polyamory isn't just another relationship model; it is a relationship model directly competing with monogamy. That's the important thing to acknowledge: competition is a threat.
If this sounds too abstract, I'll gladly spell it out:
Suppose you're a single monogamous woman. Should you feel threatened by the existence of polyamory? Of course you should! Look at it this way: in order to have a relationship with you, a man has to confine himself to emotional and physical exclusivity with you for the rest of his life. That's a pretty steep price to pay. Sure, it may very well be worth it, but how would you feel knowing that there are more and more women around who don't demand such a price to begin with? Women who consider this price cruel and unreasonable? Women with whom he can be in a deep, intimate, long term relationship and still be able to meet and love other people - and these women will only feel happy for him? I'd say that if you feel threatened by this perspective, I don't blame you. We, polyfolk, are the competition - and we're undercutting the prices, while, at the same time, increasing the supply. What I mean is this: in a mono-mono competition someone is out of the market when he or she enters a relationship. Not so with poly people. We can be in blissfully happy long term relationships and still compete with you over the attention of a guy! [A funny thing to note is that poly people don't compete with other poly people; they only compete with mono people. And that's another thing about monogamy that I don't like: it pushes me into competing for love - a bad thing that is almost entirely avoided in polyamory].
One argument I heard against such a view is this:
If someone is willing to be in a poly relationship with me, they are polyamorous and therefore *not* available to you as a monogamist even if they are *not* dating me. Being my partner doesn't take them off the market for everyone else, being themselves takes them off the market for monogomists, even if they have *no* partners at all. It's like the argument that all the gay guys are stealing the good bachelors. They're not - if a guy is willing to date another guy, he's not available to a het female anyway, no matter who he's dating at the moment.
- joreth
But I don't think this is true. A polyamorous or monogamous lifestyle, unlike sexual orientation, is a choice; people are not born with it - they adopt it. A person can be convinced to choose one over another, or to change his mind. Most people simply never make that choice to begin with, because they don't realize that there is a choice to make; and as long as that holds, they are available on the monogamous market, because monogamy is the default option. But merely being exposed to the idea of polyamory might change the situation… and it does, more and more with each year.
Now, that was the monogamous perspective on polyamory; it shouldn't come as a surprise that things look pretty much the same from the other side. The poly perspective on monogamy is very simple: the more people will become polyamorous, the better life will become for us. I'm not sure I need to spell it out, really, but I will.
I get attracted to people occasionally; more often then not, these people are already in a relationship - not surprisingly, since, after a certain age, a really nice person is much more likely to be in a relationship then not. If the relationship is open - cool, no problem. However, a monogamous relationship means that I can't have it. Moreover, not only does it mean I cannot kiss the guy; usually it means that I won't even be able to be his friend or to spend any time with him at all. Why? Because he will avoid me. No matter how much I try to hide my affection, he will probably notice it sooner or later. Even if he doesn't, his alarm bells might go off just because he enjoys talking to me. He might wonder where this could lead to, and prefer to play it safe. Or, alternatively, he will think that this way he will avoid hurting my feelings. So, monogamy takes away not only most of my prospective lovers, but many of my prospective friends, too.
So, to sum up: monogamy and polyamory directly compete in the marketplace of ideas; many monogamous people have ethical objections to polyamory; I, for one, have ethical objections to monogamy; and even if we are both very tolerant to these ethical differences, we still must acknowledge that we compete for the hearts and minds of people.