Life Under Polyamory Ideology

There’s a lot of… dialogue about monogamy vs polyamory these days, in our cosmopolitan little bubble. No one wants to tell others which lifestyle you should choose so I wouldn’t call it a debate, but there’s a great deal of defending “how your lifestyle works, and why you’re happy with it” that can’t save itself from becoming discourse about the two main options.

This happens enough that we fail to recognize that no, polyamory just won. We all live in its world now.

Or more accurately, we all live free of monogamous ideology now.

Case in point. I have a friend, and she’s monogamously committed to her boyfriend. Sure, she hangs out with a lot of other boys. She even visits them by herself, and crashes in their bed. She’s generous with hugs and other mild displays of physical affection to men. And she kind of pines after some specific men, wishing for greater emotional attachment. This isn’t even hidden, it’s all openly acknowledged. But, this is the definition of monogamy she and her SO have worked out.

The reaction of people from her social circle, the people from our general social bubble is “fine. Whatever works for the two of you. If that’s what you call monogamy, I have no reason to disagree with you.” There’s no call for us to try to strictly define what monogamy should mean for them.

Let me assure you, this is not how it would work under monogamous ideology. In a society where monogamy was the reigning lifestyle choice, it includes a specific definition of monogamy, and “being too touchy with other men” would definitely violate that. Even with her partner’s consent, she would be found guilty of breaking social taboos. (Which is basically how her non-cosmopolitan co-workers react.)

But none of us (which I assume includes most of my readers) give a fuck. Call yourself polyamorous, monogamish, what the fuck ever. As long as you both are happy what business is it of mine? And that is the true spirit of polyamory - anarchism towards society wide definitions of romantic relationships.

You might individually choose to snuggle with just one person, and hopefully can get that special person to agree. But it’s very different when that’s a private agreement between two people (one which can be altered at any time they want), than when it’s an arrangement coded and enforced by the whole social world. And we just don’t have that in liberal cosmopolitania any more.

After all, one of the main benefits of monogamy was that you don’t have to negotiate shit. You’re together, you’re just dating each other, these are the default rules, and for people who don’t want to process and explicitly lay out their preferences, this is a lot easier. But that’s gone now - any couple does have to figure out whether they are poly or mono, and even if they are mono, where they feel those boundaries lie, because ain’t no one else doing that regulating for them.

***

The point is not “be monogamous or be polyamorous.”

The point is that ideology is a society wide phenomenon, and it is not located solely in the individual.

Under monogamous ideology, not only were most people monogamous (at least publicly), but what monogamy meant and enforcement of following this code was a public matter.

If you live in a bubble where polyamory is accepted now, then you also live in a bubble where no one is defining monogamy for you. You can make up the definition of monogamy to fit your relationship. It can include “cuddling other people is ok but no sex”, or hell, it can include “having sex with other people is okay but we still call it monogamy because we want to” and no one is really going to criticize you for that.

Guess what. This freedom is new. It’s a result of living under polyamory, which exists outside just the individual.

(It’s also a burden. It means when you start dating someone, you need to clarify whether your relationship is poly or mono, and if it’s mono what those boundaries are. You can no longer just assume the default rules. Some people understandably loathe this.)

Transitioning from “the rules of my romantic relationship are defined by the social structure around me” to “I get to / must choose the rules” is a big step. But it’s a culture-wide step, and can’t exist solely on the individual level, anymore than “I decide to have private property” is a decision solely by the individual. Both need the social structures that support them.

There’s no escaping this. It’s not saying “polyamory is an ideology yay”, but rather “your society is going to have an ideology about how much freedom people can expect in defining their relationships.” This has always been true, and will be true in the future.

You can say “FUCK OFF I’M NOT POLY” all you want, but I bet if your partner cheats on you none of your friends are going to immediately tell you (at least, as compared to how likely they were to under monogamy), because that’s now your business and not theirs to enforce. This is the anarchy I am talking about.

(And obviously, the current polyamory acceptance only exists in a few very specific bubbles, and monogamous ideology holds sway in most of America and the world still.)

***

WW: Partners were already non-monogamous unless that was specifically defended, the difference is now everyone knows about it.

Obviously.

One of the key things about ideology is that it’s a public performance. With any of these beliefs - monogamy, social justice, Trumpism, rationalism - everyone says in private “oh, I don’t believe all that stuff. I don’t go that far, I’m just reasonable about it. It’s other zealots who actually take this seriously.”

A communist experiences himself as simply an instrument whose function is to actualise a historical necessity. The people, the mythic people - whose instrument the totalitarian leader is - are never simply the actually existing individuals, groups of people and so on. It's some kind of imagined idealised point of reference which works even when, for example in rebellions against the communist rule like in Hungary '56, when the large majority of actually resisting people raises up, is opposed to the regime. They can still say: "No, these are just individuals, "they are not the true people. " When you are accused of: "My God, "how could you have been doing all of these horrible things?" You could have said, and this is the standard Stalinist excuse: "Of course my heart bleeds for all the poor victims, "I am not fully responsible for it. "I was only acting on behalf of the 'Big Other'". "As for myself, I like cats, "small children", whatever - this is always part of the iconography of a Stalinist leader.  

- Zizek, Pervert’s Guide to Ideology

So yeah, in private lots of people have been functionally polyamorous. But they still had to present the public face of monogamy, and would effectively enforce this. This is like the dozen Republican leaders who decided to try Bill Clinton on impeachment, when privately every single one of them was engaging in adultery or worse.


(This does not obviate that many people are not fucking around, and still have and have always had one partner. It’s just the transition from a system where society codifies and enforces that one-partnerhood for you, to one where you must manage it all yourself, is a big and real step that has happened.)