January 13, 2012

• I Support Polyamory

  Polyamory is the gender-neutral version of polygamy. Polygamy refers to a male having multiple wives, while polyamory refers to people (of any gender) having multiple spouses.

  Now, something I hear over and over again is "if gay marriage becomes legal, then polygamy will become legal too!" (I imagine the speaker means polyamory, so I'll treat it as such.) This is upsetting to me for a number of reasons, and the first is that gay marriage is nothing like polyamory. It is akin to saying if we can cure measles, then we'll be able to cure every other illness too. Gay marriage simply means that the genders of the two people being married is no longer a constraint. The large body of legal benefits from marriage remain unchanged. It's not any different adding another person to one's insurance plan if that person is the same or a different gender.

  Polyamory would complicate legal issues a bit. For example, an insurance plan would probably not be very happy to have unlimited spouses added to a person's plan. Let's put that aside for now. We will return to it later.

  When people say something like "if gay marriage becomes legal, then polyamory will become legal too", what do they mean? It seems to me they mean roughly the same thing as "if gay marriage becomes legal, then next we'll be marrying our dogs", that is, polyamory being legal is highly undesirable to them. Ask, why is polyamory undesirable? And you might get the answer, because it will complicate some legal structure or other.

  Is this the reason the person objects to polyamory, or is it the justification? To put it another way, will the person answer this way immediately, or will they think for a moment and then come up with this answer? If you ask an opponent of abortion why they oppose abortion, they will likely answer right away, saying that they believe the fetus is a human life, without hesitation. Chances are, that is the real reason they oppose abortion. If you ask a person why polyamory is undesirable, it's less likely that they actually care very deeply about the trouble it will cause to insurance companies.

  If fetuses were proven to not be people, would abortion opponents still oppose abortion? Probably not. If implementing polyamory were very convenient for the government and for insurance companies, would polyamory opponents still oppose polyamory? Probably.

  I believe the reason people object to polyamory is because they think it is evil. This is (I believe) a false but understandable view. Historically, polyamory was much to the detriment of women. A biblical story (Genesis 29?) tells of Jacob working seven years for Laban, being deceived into marrying Leah, and working another seven years to marry Rachel. Regardless of whether this story is true, it shows that such a thing was accepted (and probably common) at the time. Assuming a year's work to be worth $50,000 in current U.S. dollars, that places the value of a woman at around $350,000. For $350,000, one could buy and own a person.

  Even today, we hear stories from time to time of cult leaders keeping multiple wives, often adolescent girls, and impregnating them.

  However, all polyamory is not all like this. A group of people who all are of sound mind, who can all leave a union any time they wish, and who all mutually consent to the arrangement could be a very different situation entirely.

  I believe that something is bad in some way if someone is being harmed by it. Some people believe things are bad if they are against what they believe to be the intentions of their deity. However, each person has the freedom of religion. This has two major components: the freedom to believe whatever one chooses, and the protection from the beliefs of others. This means that I have a right to believe prayers must be said on Sundays, but not the right to force my neighbor to pray on Sundays. I have the right to believe homosexuality is immoral, but not the right to prevent my neighbors from marrying whomever they choose. The former part is well-known by all; the latter is overlooked by many.

  Anyone has the right to believe polyamory is immoral. The question is, do any of those reasons fall outside personal belief?

  Well, we could argue that it would complicate the legal benefits of marriage. That makes it legally inconvenient, but not immoral. Adoption is legally inconvenient, but very very moral. We could also argue that it oppresses women. But that is false if all persons involve are fully informed and make the informed choice themselves. We could argue that children raised in those families are worse off than children raised in traditional families. Such an argument would require sound evidence, and if anyone has sound evidence, I'd be happy to see it.

  As of now, I have seen no evidence that consensual, fully-informed polyamory harms anyone. People who would choose it for themselves may benefit from it. If it were legally convenient to implement, I would see that as a great thing.

  I believe everything should be permitted unless someone is harmed by it.

  This is not to say that I want every relationship to be a polyamorous one, no more than legalizing gay marriage would require every marriage to be homosexual. If one does not want to be involved in polyamory, one has every right to say that to one's significant other and refuse to be in a relationship or marriage otherwise. But it's too unfair to say, because I don't want that, it's a horribly evil thing that is the paragon of evil, and when I think something else is very bad I compare it to polyamory because it is the most evil thing I can think of.

  For certain there are legal inconveniences today that make legalizing polyamory more difficult than legalizing gay marriage, and also, public opinion is so overwhelmingly against polyamory. Are the legal issues solvable? Maybe. Perhaps each person can have a list of people whom they want to be able to visit them in hospitals, or perhaps insurance companies can set an amount for (non-children members of) a person's family. Perhaps marriage can be entirely divorced from secular law and left up to people to work out for themselves.

  I do self-identify as a polyamorist. I've tried very hard to become bisexual, and I'm still trying. I began with the same cultural background as anyone else, hearing about polyamory in unsavory contexts and seeing it as a bad thing. Polyamory, for me, unlike sexual orientation, is a choice. No amount of reasoning can make me attracted to someone I'm not attracted to, but a little bit of thinking over a few years can make me a polyamorist.

  Enough theorizing about morality and the freedoms of individuals. I personally am a polyamorist because I don't believe loving someone else means loving the first person less, and I don't believe physical involvement is a proxy for romantic feelings. Prevalent among our beliefs is this idea that sex is a proxy for romantic feeling. If one sleeps with someone else, then they must feel romantically about that person, and they must feel less strongly for their originally partner then. But I don't think this is actually the way every single person has to be. I think some people could very well love multiple people in profoundly meaningful and romantic ways.

  This does not mean that I want to have many sexual partners. This does not mean that I insist on having multiple romantic partners regardless of how Discord feels about it. It means that in any relationship I become involved in, the other person knows that they are free to date other people (of any gender) other than myself, and to do anything (safely) with them, and I will not become bothered by it. I encourage them to become involved with other people if they wish to. (I do insist that the other person be fully informed so that they can choose whether to become involved.) If I am not involved with anyone and a married person approaches me, I see no reason not to become involved with that person so long as the spouse(s) and all other partners are ok with it. If I am involved with someone, I will become open to dating other people if my significant other tells me that (s)he is fine with it.

  Declaring oneself a polyamorist doesn't give oneself the clearance to have multiple partners; it gives one's significant other(s) the clearance. One can personally not be interested in dating multiple people and still give one's significant other clearance. It's a lot like Crocker's Rules, really.

  • 12:44 am
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