mooretalkja

on monogamy, polygamy and the threat of the new anti-oppressive norm

http://fabianromero.tumblr.com/post/43364003643/thinking-aloud-why-i-stopped-calling-myself-poly

i was just talking to somebody about this yesterday
about the way we think about monogamy, and the fact that we only think of it as oppressive because of how it came to be a part of how we think about relationships, and because of how it has functioned for most/many people.
monogamy does not come easily for many people.
but polygamy does not come easily for some people
and we exclude monogamy from the the discussion in totality, at the risk of creating polygamy as some new kind of ‘norm’ and not allowing for people who don’t feel the same way about it.
and we all live the trouble with ‘norms’
and i don’t think it matters how a person gets to being monogamous.
if we can do away with fixed points (as most ‘radical’ thinkers have) then we will have to accept that polygamy and monogamy exist along a continuum we must respect people who inhabit all points along that continuum.
if a person has experiences that make polygamy feel unsafe or untrue to them, we must respect that too, without making them feel as if making that choice proves that they are damaged goods or that they haven’t dealt with the trauma of those experiences. and like if they just sorted through that trauma they could be poly…which is the supposed right way to be.
people choose the lives they choose, the ones that make them happy, based on their experiences. and experiences that happen in the sexual/emotional realm are a part of that. it does not make them a victim if those experiences shape their lives and their future relationships. it is still about their comfort.
so yes polygamy
and yes monogamy
when people who do the critical work to understand the roots of oppressive structures begin to hold up the alternative as doctrine they run the risk of recreating the same kind of babylonian regimes that they hope to take down.

About the author

mooretalkja

Carla Moore is a Jamaican geek, mongrel dawg lover, and general mout-a-massey from the Jamaican countryside. When she nuh inna dance a faas inna people business she can be found trying to do di people dem school work, bigging up Jamaica all over, or pon smaddy stage sumweh a nuff up harself. She fight fi wah fi fight fah and love all.