So you’ve read some fanfiction in which the love triangles are resolved with everyone being together but otherwise you don’t know a ton about polyam people. Let’s talk about some common misconceptions that arise if fanfics are your polyamory introduction.
1. I like polyam fanfics so I’m an ally! No. You read polyam fanfictions for yourself, not for us. You can also be an ally, but reading about nonmonogamous romances doesn’t mean you know how to support this community for real or that you understand it. We’re glad you want to be an ally but you have some research to do before you can really understand what’s going on here.
2. Polyamory is when you’re all dating each other. Not necessarily. Yes, closed groups in which every person dates every other person are a thing. This is refereed to as polyfidelity if nobody dates outside of the group. However a lot of the time, polyam people aren’t dating everyone that their partners are dating. Often you’re dating several people and each of those people are dating several people. Neither version is better polyamory, or cuter, or more real, they’re just different.
3. Polyamorous people have threesomes all the time. Whether people have threesomes or not is dependent on their relationship. The more people there are in a relationship the more likely it is that someone is not in the mood. Taking turns is much more common than you think.
4. In triads or quads everyone goes on every date together. Not necessarily. Yes sometimes everyone does a date together, however people are busy. Again, taking turns going on dates in groups of two or three is not uncommon.
5. Polyamorous people can only date other polyamorous people. This is more of a preference thing. Some polyamorous people do not date monogamous people and some monogamous people do not date polyamorous people. However they’re not incompatible. Some polyam people can be in monogamous relationships and be happy. Some monogamous people do not mind if their one partner has other partners. People are more easy going than you know.
6. All polyam people are gay. Nope. You do not need to experience same gender attraction to be polyamorous. It is not uncommon for heterosexuals to be nonmonogamous. Your girlfriend can have another boyfriend, your boyfriend can have another girlfriend, none of you need to be gay for that to work.
7. Cheaters are often polyamorous or want to be polyamorous. No! Most people who cheat are not polyamorous. They only feel romantic attraction to a single person at a time. Sexual attraction however is different, and almost everyone experiences sexual attraction to more than one person at a time, polyamorous or not.
8. Polaym relationships start with love triangles. Not usually. Usually some number of people are dating and then people fall in love with more people. Yes sometimes a group of single people will fall in love and decide to be in a polyamorous relationship however, more common is that some relationship already exists and more people are incorporated into it. Again, remember that a lot of the time you don’t date the same people as your partner, therefore its often just that someone falls in love.
9. Polyamorous people don’t experience jealousy. I mean most people experience jealousy sometimes. However most polyamorous people don’t get jealous about the same things monogamous people do. If a partner comes home gushing about meeting someone cute and wanting to date them or someone flirts with our partner, we’re unlikely to become jealous. Having your partner flirt with others while we’re around makes some people jealous but not others. Jealousy happens most often when a partner gets a new partner and we feel forgotten and in these cases jealousy isn’t usually volatile or spiteful so much as sad and lonely. It can result in withdrawal and feelings of neglect, but its unlikely to result in dramatic explosions.
10. Polyamorous people think of themselves as free spirits, enlightened, or not into commitment. Usually no. Some polyam people do consider themselves free spirits or enlightened but this isn’t the primary experience of the community. Most people don’t think of themselves as special or better at romance, just different. As far as not into commitment that is generally not something experienced by the community at all. We think of ourselves as committed to our partners. It often feels like more commitment because we’ve got more partners we’re committed to. Real polyam people are unlikely to consider themselves not into commitment unless they’re just coming out, don’t know what they’re doing, and are kind of an idiot.
I hope this helps clear up some misunderstandings.
Tag: love is love
“Queerness, to me, is about far more than homosexual attraction. It’s about a willingness to see all other taboos broken down. Sure, many of us start on this path when we first feel “same sex” or “same gender” attraction (though what is sex? And what is gender? And does anyone really have the same sex or gender as anyone else?). But queerness doesn’t stop there.
This is a somewhat controversial stance, but to me queer means something completely different than “gay” or “lesbian” or “bisexual.” A queer person is usually someone who has come to a non-binary view of gender, who recognizes the validity of all trans identities, and who, given this understanding of infinite gender possibilities, finds it hard to define their sexuality any longer in a gender-based way. Queer people understand and support non-monogamy even if they do not engage in it themselves. They can grok being asexual or aromantic. (What does sex have to do with love, or love with sex, necessarily?) A queer can view promiscuous (protected) public bathhouse sex with strangers and complete abstinence as equally healthy.
Queers understand that people have different relationships to their bodies. We get what it means to be stone. We know what body dysphoria is about. We understand that not everyone likes to get touched the same way or to get touched at all. We realize that people with disabilities may have different sexual needs, and that people with survivor histories often have sexual triggers. We can negotiate safe and creative ways to be intimate with people with HIV/AIDs and other STIs.
Queers understand the range of power and sensation and the diversity of sexual dynamics. We are tops and bottoms, doms and subs, sadists and masochists and sadomasochists, versatiles and switches. We know what we like and don’t like in bed.
We embrace a wide range of relationship types. We can be partners, lovers, friends with benefits, platonic sweethearts, chosen family. We can have very different dynamics with different people, often all at once. We don’t expect one person to be able to fulfill all our diverse needs, fantasies and ideals indefinitely.
Because our views on relationships, sex, gender, love, bodies, and family are so unconventional, we are of necessity anti-assimilationist. Because under the kyriarchy we suffer, and watch the people we love suffering, we are political. Because we want to survive, we fight. We only want the freedom to be ourselves, love ourselves, love each other, and live together. Because we are routinely denied that, we are pissed.
Queer doesn’t mean “don’t label me,” it means “I am naming myself.” It means “ask me more questions if you’re curious…“”—
What Queerness Means To Me « Tranarchism (via docasaur)
I’ve chosen this as one of my first posts as it’s important to me that people understand what I’m talking about when I use the term queer.
love is real and worth it and SO important to me it’s pretty much my entire political spiritual philosophical deal………you can be critical of how romantic love is commodified and dominated by heteronormative myths for sure but ppl out there like “love is fake” aren’t doing ANYTHING interesting or subversive……love is revolutionary bc the systems that oppress us are directly opposed to all kinds of love, interpersonal love and self love etc. they’re trying to drive it out of us. love as an action love as a choice love as something u cultivate and tend to is the best thing in the world and it’s at the absolute centre of my life
grantaire-put-that-bottle-down:
hey there LGBTQ kids who are also Christian/Jewish! If you feel like you’re disobeying God, questioning your faith, or feel wrong and dirty for loving who you love, there’s this fantastic site I found today called hoperemains that accurately and thoroughly combs through scripture and its (many) mistranslations, validates your orientation, and basically let’s you know that you’re not pissing off God. It’s insanely thorough and after reading through every page on the entire site it’s super helpful. Go check it out!
No no no! Jewish LGBTQ kinderlach! Go to Keshet!
hoperemains is completely from a Christian perspective, and not pluralistic or interfaith at all.
If you reblogged the first post from me please reblog this amendment so the Jewish peeps can access this resource too!
Trans Jewish kids, you can go to TransTorah as well!
Muslim LGBTQ kids, you can go to iamnotharaam! It’s run by a mod squad of different genders and orientations, and they take submissions from everybody!
–BB
MAY ANYONE WHO REBLOGS THIS BE ELEVATED TO THE EQUIVALENT OF SAINTHOOD IN THEIR RELIGION BLESS ALL OF YOU OH MY GOD.
REBLOGGING THIS AGAIN BECAUSE IT’S SO FREAKING IMPORTANT TO ME AND ALL MY FOLLOWERS TO READ THAT DEAL WITH GRIEF AND GUILT WHILE BEING LGBTQ AND RELIGIOUS
For any religious followers 🙂
– Mod Jem
Writing good romance is so difficult because the entire plot is based on character interactions and producing chemistry. The readers need to believe in the love, whether the hero and heroine have known one another for a week or for years. We need to believe.
So often I see ppl criticize the romance in books and it comes off as them hating romance and I’m like no no no no no, a well done romance is an exquisite piece of writing. It’s not romance in general that sucks, it’s bad romance that sucks. Insta love with no chemistry. Relationships with no conflict. Badly written heroes. Those romances suck.
But romance books? Written by masters of the genre? Those are amazing.
THIS RIGHT HERE
It’s easy to write bad romance, because good romance requires a near-doctorate level understanding of human psychology and motivations.
Here’s the thing… certain emotions are easy to evoke and others are very hard to master and write.
Anger. Hate. Rage. Fear. <– negative emotions are the easiest to write because they rely on primal instinct programmed into the human brain by thousands of years of evolution. Within cultures there are certain things that will always evoke rage (and this is why not all books translate well to other cultures). Certain fears are universal.
Every bestseller every written has a Universal Fear driving at least the opening act of the book if not the whole book itself. Most bestsellers use “I fear I am worthless.” or “I fear death.” as their driving focus. Everything from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE to HARRY POTTER has used this and it’s why it sells so well.
It’s also why Romance isn’t taken seriously at times.
Romance promises as a happy romantic ending. Which means the two most common universal fears are utterly erased by the genre requirements alone. No one is going to die. The characters are going to be loved and feel worthwhile by the end of the book.
Since readers are programmed by society to instinctively fear those things some people have trouble relating to a romance story where they must latch onto something other than fear to get through a book.
Joy. Humor. Laughter. Happiness. <— positive emotions are really hard to write because they are complex emotions. There is nothing that makes people universally happy. I know, it’s shocking. Not kittens. Not puppies. Not a mother’s love. That thing you love, adore, and can’t live without? Yeah, someone hates it.
This is why writing satire or humor is so difficult. It’s why happy books are dismissed as fluffy or silly. They have a much narrower audience. The author has to reach into the reader’s head and manipulate their emotions so that they can feel soaring triumph. There isn’t a shortcut to writing happiness.
LOVE. <– Such a complex thing. Little understood. Hard to define. Ever roving about. Love, especially sexual and romantic love, are so individual that there will never be a One Size Fits All.
When an author sets out to write a romance they have to convince the reader not only to abandon fear but they have to write humans who are complex, convincing, and through storytelling explain the psychology of these individuals so the reader goes, “Yes, yes! I see it! I see why these two are perfect together and could never be with anyone else!”
It’s at once something many people have an innate talent for (hello, shippers!) and that many people don’t understand. Understanding love requires a very unselfish, un-egocentric view of the world. You have to think like someone else. And then, as the author, you have to create a way for a reader to easily step into the mind of someone else and understand this attraction without using shortcuts like “I saw her and got a boner. It’s love!” Because that isn’t.
It’s easy to write bad romance. It’s easy to use shortcuts and script the book like a film. But where films can rely on music and facial expressions to convey the complexity of emotion a writer only has words. There is no soundtrack for Chapter 7. There is no set of words in the English language that properly express the depth of feeling, the longing and desire, of seeing someone you treasure turn and smile at someone else and knowing from the depths of your soul that you would give up everything just to keep them smiling.
Writing a good romance means balancing internal and external conflict, knowing a person’s weaknesses and strengths, and pairing them with someone(s) who fill in their gaps, boost their strengths, and make them happy at the same time. And then, after all of that, you have to find readers who will understand and appreciate the characters you’ve written. You have to make the reader fall in love too.
Done well Romance is the most complex literary form.
Done poorly it’s just bad writing.
This is an excellent post, and well-worth reading.
I’d also like to add, though, that I don’t think the devaluation of the romance genre is an accident–I think it’s intrinsically connected to the fact that romance as a genre has always been coded as feminine. Without trying to erase or downplay contributions by male and non-binary romance writers, the genre has historically been seen as written by and for women. And there is some truth to that–even now, the majority of romance readers and authors are women.
And, well. It has always been “in style” for the majority-male mainstream media, politicians, and literary critics to criticize and make shameful anything coded as feminine. So when we’re talking about female-coded emotions like “love” and “parenthood”, “nurturing” and “vulnerability”, the actual brilliance of individual works and the genre as a whole get drowned out under the avalanche of retaliatory scorn.
When you add in the fact that contemporary romance centres women’s bodies, sexuality, and mutual sexual pleasure between equals … it’s no wonder the dominant patriarchal discourse writes it off as “oh, that? Total trash, no literary merit, badly written, totally unrealistic, you don’t want to read that.”
i think some people think sex positivity sees sex as some kind of vanilla-to-kinky spectrum or ladder or wtv, and that the further up that ladder you go, the “better at sex” or “more liberated” or wtv you are or are considered
but that’s not what sex positivity is, and if you identify as sex-pos and think of it like that, that’s not what sex positivity should be. i’d describe sex positivity more as seeing sex as a buffet? as in, you get to pick and choose, and you get to pick and choose completely unrelated things and to not pick the things everyone else picks, and you also get not to pick anything – it’s all good!
sex is supposed to be fun and to feel good and to make you happy, and if that’s not the case you either just don’t like sex (which is completely fine!) or you’re picking the wrong things, bc of whichever kind of external or internal pressure. and if you don’t like smth you’re doing, it might, again, mean you don’t like sex in general, and it might also mean you should be doing smth else! whatever those other things are, however “vanilla” or “kinky”
genuinely, it’s all fine!!! you get to not like vaginal penetration but to love anal. you get to not like spanking but to love a good massage. you get to not like getting a blowjob but to love handjobs, or footjobs! you get to not like impact play but to love knife play. you get to prefer mutual masturbation to any other form of genital contact. you get to want to get yourself off while your partner gives you head scritches or hits you with a riding crop or talks dirty to you or whispers sweet nothings in your ear. you get to prefer wearing clothes during sex. you get to not like being touched in certain places or to not want to get off at all. you get to like 9pm missionary sex with all the lights off and to also be into cake-sitting or wtv. you get to not like oral sex and to love watersports. you get to love threesomes and group sex but only without any kind of accessories. you get to love certain kinds of pain and detest others. you get to like blindfolds but hate bondage or vice-versa. you get to be super into gentle loving oral while you’re hooked up to an electrostimulation machine but to think scratching and hickeys are a hard no. you get to love all of it, or none of it!
treating vanilla-to-kinky as a spectrum implies that if you’re into something, you’re also into anything “less kinky,” and if you’re not into something, you’re not into anything “less vanilla.” that leads to ppl feeling pressured to do certain things even when they’re not into them, or to say no to things they might actually be into. it also leads to superiority complexes on both sides, often defensive superiority complexes born from feeling like ppl look down on you for being into what you’re into, and those superiority complexes lead to looking down on others for their sexual preferences and to trying to change them, and that leads to more pressure, and it’s a harmful vicious circle that we should stop perpetuating, bc it’s the opposite of what sex should be!
it’s also just bullshit! bc what’s considered vanilla and kinky depends SO MUCH based on gender and sexuality and culture you just can’t make it into a spectrum! so just! do what you’re into! what feels good! have fun! talk to your partner(s) about what that is for them and find the common grounds! don’t be scared to experiment and to decide “never again” afterwards, or to try out smth you used to think you weren’t into at all if you do get curious! don’t be afraid to say no, and dump anyone who doesn’t respect that no, but also don’t be afraid to say yes, and dump anyone who tries to belittle you for what you ask for or agree to! the only good reason to step out of your comfort zone is if it genuinely makes you, personally, unhappy and you think you’d be happier otherwise, without any kind of external pressure. that difference is not easy to examine, but it’s worth the introspection, bc it’ll make your sex life better! (or your life better without sex!)
like obviously caveats apply – don’t be an arsehole and only do the things you’re into and none of the things your partner(s) like(s); don’t pressure people in any kind of way; don’t shame ppl either; communicate clearly about what you like and don’t like; check in with your partner if they don’t seem enthusiastic; be a bit game to try out things that are a maybe if your partner is into them, but don’t be afraid to change that maybe into a yes or a no; etc. if you can’t find any common ground, or not enough common ground for whatever you consider a satisfying sex life, that’s sexual incompatibility, and that’s a totally valid reason to break up. how you interact with sex and sexuality is a v important part of a relationship and it’s totally okay and even super healthy to only want relationships where you are actively into the way sex and sexuality are lived! boundaries and enthusiasm, y’all! that’s what it’s all about! that’s what makes it fun, that’s what makes it feel good, and that’s what sex is supposed to be!
a bunch of moms are making letters+audio recordings of affirming, validating letters to queer/trans* people who don’t get that kind of support from their moms
i would say more about it but
im kind of busy in this puddle of tears on the floor so
In case any of my followers don’t have this kind of support from home…
my mom did this and if you need an honourary mother i promise she would be happy to talk to you
Stop teaching children that there is only one person out there meant for them. Let it be easier for people to let their toxic relationships go without fear of losing “The One”.
Its so fucked up and weird that we don’t tell people that there will be multiple important people in their lives
Brides in Bowties: Wedding Fashion Gallery
Queer Fiction Writer 