Poly, Weakly: (Not so weakly), or How Poly Slouched Toward Maturity

Have we reached a turning point in non-monogamy?  Has the weight of responsibility tipped the scales against the one-true-wayists who refuse to accept any limitations on their behavior?  

Cunning Minx, who has often inveighed against rules, instead favoring boundaries, and against hegemony of the couple in a relationship when others are involved, has come out against policing others' relationships.  Praise PolyJesus!

That is not a small thing.  Minx has, for better or worse, been an outsized influence on the poly community, lacking as it does for spokespeople.  When she jumped on the "no rules" bandwagon, that take went from being unconventional to being the baseline faster than you can say "divorce court".  When she ranted about couple privilege, that became "a thing", or at least a source of way too much Tumblr whining.  When Minx mashed social justice language into the poly world, it opened up a whole new arena at the oppression olympics and suddenly white, straight, cis Mid-Westerners were streaming to the Web to complain that they had it worse than anyone, anywhere, ever.

 But somewhere along the line, a shift occurred and Minx has decided that we shouldn't judge other peoples' relationship.  Well, I say shift, but truly it was a blog post wherein someone took down Minx's form of poly wherein you ever only date one person.  I wish it was one of ours, but that's doubtful.  No matter the source, she was hurt, and the judgement is off.  And that's a very good thing.  Maybe it represents a long overdue maturing moment in the community.

If Minx missteps anywhere in the episode, beyond going into a little bit too much detail about the kinks that disgust her and shouldn't be judged, it's that she repeatedly uses "poly" as an umbrella term for all flavors of non-monogamy.  She does it so much that is comes across as a fundamental misunderstanding as opposed to simply misspeaking.

"Life on the Swingset" is another podcast about non-monogamy that frequently looks at poly, even if the examination is often no deeper than Shira B. Katz talking about how well she does poly and the shininess of the emotional wreckage she leaves behind her.

This week, "Life on the Swingset", looked at the routes that non-monogamous relationships can take and how to get them started.  As an episode bonus, Shira B. Katz isn't on it to divert attention for long stretches to talk about herself.  Seriously.  Unfortunately, the podcast gets bogged down for way too long on a ridiculously granular debate about whether introducing non-monogamy to a relationship is like turning a cruise ship, climbing a mountain, or fucking an angry gorilla.  

At the halfway point, the Swingsetters managed to right the listing mountain gorilla ship that is the episode and start discussing the difficulties associated with various forms of non-monogamy.  Overall, the episode had some good discussion.

What these two podcasts had in common, besides coming out nearly back-to-back, is that they represent the sort of more mature, serious discussion about poly and non-monogamy is has been lacking for way too long.  It doesn't mean the emotional-bomb-throwing relationship anarchists and secondary-supremacists have been silenced, but it at least shows that the adults are still talking.