Skeptical about Polyamory
Lives of someone like me and of, you know, “the people” rarely cross and saying that I “know them” is about as arrogant as bragging about (well, “checking”) your privilege that you don't understand “their” problems. Up until recently I had been annoyed by many polyamory discourses because I was thinking that people with existential problems don't really have time for this. But then … no, I realized it's not entirely true. Let me explain.
Many years ago, I worked with with a woman from a very different social class who at that time had two and a half jobs, a son, a husband with depressions, and a lover. This situation was stable at least for a few years over which I was meeting her regularly at work. Back then, I had been already for some time living my soap opera life: dramatically falling in love, not being happy, meeting someone new, dramatic break-up, and everything over again. Years later I discovered the concept of “open relationship” which seemed to have solved my problems: if you are honest, if you talk everything through, you can have it all – a stable relationship and casual sex. The only two things you need is honesty and an informed and enthusiastic consent, right? Right?? No. Let me explain.
People like me have been used to not discriminate on grounds of gender identity, sexual orientation, skin color, physical and mental abilities, and social class. If everyone is like me, it works perfectly: if I meet a person who is like me except for, say, a skin color and/or gender identity, there is no problem. I would never be a person who would discriminate someone just because they're black. But how tolerant are we towards intolerance? How much of a progressive approach is it still reasonable to ask from a person of the working class? I am going to wrap it up, don't worry.
My point is that the concepts of honesty and the “informed and enthusiastic consent” are bourgeois and if there is something I got from Foucault (I know that he is rather overestimated), it's that this idea of constantly throwing up your mental and emotional intestine is nothing “natural” or “moral” per se. “Gesetzt, wir wollen Wahrheit: warum nicht lieber Unwahrheit?” In polyamorous communities I have been following on various social networks, there is mostly zero tolerance towards what they call cheating which is (unsurprisingly) the situation of having more than one sexual or romantic partners without them knowing about it (and cheerfully consenting to it). My coworker in my old past was a very brave woman, who was providing for her family, taking care of her son and husband whom she didn't leave despite him being ill and factually disabled. She at the same time found emotional support in another person and not only do I think that it was not “too bad”, but I would even suggest that all considered, the way she was solving her situation was the best possible.
To conclude this, I think that polyamory is “a thing” even for people outside of the “super progressive liberal youngish middle class”. They just might not be exactly following the rules polyamorous communities have formulated for themselves. Was my coworker cheating on her husband? I think it's a wrong question.
Many years ago, I worked with with a woman from a very different social class who at that time had two and a half jobs, a son, a husband with depressions, and a lover. This situation was stable at least for a few years over which I was meeting her regularly at work. Back then, I had been already for some time living my soap opera life: dramatically falling in love, not being happy, meeting someone new, dramatic break-up, and everything over again. Years later I discovered the concept of “open relationship” which seemed to have solved my problems: if you are honest, if you talk everything through, you can have it all – a stable relationship and casual sex. The only two things you need is honesty and an informed and enthusiastic consent, right? Right?? No. Let me explain.
People like me have been used to not discriminate on grounds of gender identity, sexual orientation, skin color, physical and mental abilities, and social class. If everyone is like me, it works perfectly: if I meet a person who is like me except for, say, a skin color and/or gender identity, there is no problem. I would never be a person who would discriminate someone just because they're black. But how tolerant are we towards intolerance? How much of a progressive approach is it still reasonable to ask from a person of the working class? I am going to wrap it up, don't worry.
My point is that the concepts of honesty and the “informed and enthusiastic consent” are bourgeois and if there is something I got from Foucault (I know that he is rather overestimated), it's that this idea of constantly throwing up your mental and emotional intestine is nothing “natural” or “moral” per se. “Gesetzt, wir wollen Wahrheit: warum nicht lieber Unwahrheit?” In polyamorous communities I have been following on various social networks, there is mostly zero tolerance towards what they call cheating which is (unsurprisingly) the situation of having more than one sexual or romantic partners without them knowing about it (and cheerfully consenting to it). My coworker in my old past was a very brave woman, who was providing for her family, taking care of her son and husband whom she didn't leave despite him being ill and factually disabled. She at the same time found emotional support in another person and not only do I think that it was not “too bad”, but I would even suggest that all considered, the way she was solving her situation was the best possible.
To conclude this, I think that polyamory is “a thing” even for people outside of the “super progressive liberal youngish middle class”. They just might not be exactly following the rules polyamorous communities have formulated for themselves. Was my coworker cheating on her husband? I think it's a wrong question.
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