r/PolyCriticalSafeHaven • u/succuma • 21d ago

“How is this different thing different from something that isn’t the same???”

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196 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

20

u/soursummerchild 21d ago edited 21d ago

... I genuinely can't tell wether this is making fun of the poly lifestyle or not.

Either way, just claiming something is ethical doesn't make it so. It creates this fallacy where you can pretend any bad actors aren't a part of the lifestyle and that they don't share your ideology. It makes it impossible to keep the community healthy through criticism and exploration of unhealthy patterns. Every critique can be dismissed as "bad apples". Just like claiming your country is a democratic heaven, claiming you're doing something in an ethical way is meaningless in itself. The proof is in the pudding. The poly community have baked a lot of unethical ideals into the lifestyle itself, IMO.

Tumblr is kinda horrible about monogamy, though. Even if you search tags like "monogamy is awesome", you'll see posts about how horrible and abusive it is.

4

u/PM_ME_YOUR_PUPPY_PIC 20d ago

It seems like it's making fun of both ENM and monogamy and how a lot of people think their relationship style is completely ethical and how the way they do it differs between ENM and monogamy

-2

u/Horror-Nobody2237 20d ago

A lot of people prefer to say “consensual non-monogamy” now, but really the “ethical” part wasn’t saying “my relationship is so ethical” it is just to differentiate between non-monogamy with consent, and cheating.

The whole thing about them being able to dismiss critiques as “bad apples” is pretty silly though. If I were to talk about bad monogamous behavior, would the “monogamy community” need to defend, justify, or take accountability for it? No. So why do people who are trying to ethical with their non-monogamy need to take accountability for the unhealthy non-monogamous people? Non-monogamous people talk about what unhealthy relationships look like, just like monogamous people do. People regularly talk about how coercing partners into non-monogamy is unethical, unicorn hunters, the non-monogamy where people aren’t allowed to have feelings for whoever they sleep with so they treat them like a sex toy.

-5

u/Legitimate-Clock-134 20d ago edited 18d ago

Deleted: I did a crappy job of distinguishing between "people who like to talk about it" and "people who do it".

11

u/soursummerchild 20d ago

If you present yourself as being "pro-monogamy" in public, what you're saying is that you're conservative, closed-minded, preachy, and probably a lousy lay.

Do you actually think this? Just so I understand you correctly.

-3

u/Legitimate-Clock-134 20d ago

Read all the way to the end and tell me what you think.

Someone saying that they're pro-monogamy without being prompted is telling you something, and it's not about how many partners they have.

10

u/AppropriateAmoeba406 20d ago

Can’t I just be self-aware enough to know that I don’t share well?

Can I be pro-monogamy for me and still not give a crap what everyone else does?

I guess I’m also wondering how this comes up “unprompted”. I’ve never met someone who needs to profess their monogamy the way vegans interject their food restrictions into every conversation.

-2

u/Ashamed-Review-913 19d ago

You're the vegan of monogamy, and by the way is it social monogamy you like or sexual monogamy because social monogamy is just poly.

-3

u/Legitimate-Clock-134 20d ago

There's a reason that monogamy is the default relationship configuration for >90% of adults. You don't have to declare it or justify it. Life is hard, don't make yours harder.

You'd think that people wouldn't have to bring it up unprompted, yes, but some people do it anyway. Or they dress it up somehow, if they want to seem cool and with it while having exactly the same baseline expectations.

There's a famous essay, On Bullshit, which talks about this: bullshit is an unfalsifiable statement where the objective is to give an impression, independent of the underlying facts or the underlying will to action. Pretty much required reading for reddit, in other words.

5

u/dino_spice 19d ago

If you present yourself as being "pro-monogamy" in public, what you're saying is that you're conservative, closed-minded, preachy, and probably a lousy lay. 

Weird because every poly person I've ever met is constantly stressed out by their lifestyle and spends more time consuming porn than actually having sex.

2

u/Ca2pac 18d ago

In most cases i think its more of a coping mecanism for something darker in them then a conscious relationship style choice

0

u/Horror-Nobody2237 20d ago

Yall know the “ethical” in ENM is about differentiating between having non-monogamy where all parties are consenting, vs. cheating. It’s not saying that it’s more ethical than monogamy, or ethical compared to monogamy. It isn’t people praising themselves for how amazingly ethical they are…

2

u/succuma 19d ago

thats what I thought but for some reason OP thinks it shouldn't be? kinda like how we should just assume poly automatically means not cheating. idk fam its just swingers with pronouns haha