Newspeak comes to alternative relationships

[kitchen_kink]

I just finished a long screed in response to an article that Alan of Polyamory in the News alerted me to, in which a family therapist coins the term "new monogamy" to refer to couples who have affairs openly.

It was a little hard to figure out what was pissing me off so much about it until I got partway through the writing, but...well, you'll see.

Hope you enjoy it. Comments, there or here, very welcome.

Comments

[ivy]

That does suck; it's very "have their cake and eat it too". I am more often than most in the camp of words-mean-things, but this is particularly privilege-egregious. I know when people start doing things without awareness of other prior works, as it were, it can very much feel to them like they did the hard work of inventing it all -- they aren't aware of having had any help getting there, after all. But if they know and are just not calling it that because that's their magical special sacred word, that's pretty annoying.

That said, I do know some people who think of themselves (emphasis mine, but it's how they differentiate) as monoGAMOUS and polyAMOROUS. Or, as as ex of mine calls it, polyfuckerous.

[dot_fennel]

Fascinating. Reading part of Nelson's article, I was sort of disoriented because her treatment of the topic was less judgmental than I expected, but the total refusal to acknowledge polyamory seemed like an implicit negative judgment about all us folks.

It does sort of sound like she thinks she invented it.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Nice piece. Thanks.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I liked your article. I want to have other smart comments, but I just dug it and it felt empowering to read something that smart from someone I know in the real world. Yay!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Interesting stuff, and definitely food for thought. (Speaking of food, non-vegetarians *are* in fact the new vegetarians (or were recently), hence the terms like semi-vegetarian and part-time veg and such, which still just mean omnivore. I guess I'm a part-time faster because that's what I'm doing anytime I'm not eating, and it is in fact what I spend more time doing. But back to topic...)


I do know of a number of apparently-poly folks who willfully eschew the polyamorous label. There are various reasons though the one I hear more often is not wanting to be associated too strongly with that particular social group. I'm not sure what they think people might assume (or what people do assume?) but there ya go.

In the larger world, I can see people (especially people writing a book of their own :) not wanting their particular view of non-monogamy muddled by Anapol's "classic" (which I recall thinking was terrible when I read it, so I can't blame them for that). Why not "The New Non-Monogamy", then? I don't know. But in any case, it does make me wonder if it's just an extreme reaction (what I recall as) Anapol's view of True Poly having no hierarchies.

Relatedly, I recently had a conversation in which I shared my personal view that threesomes can still count as monogamy.

[azuzil.livejournal.com]

See if the therapist had called this, "New Marriage." I would have been ok. Or even "Monogamy without Monotony(MoWoMo?)"
I so want to see that used. "I'm John and this is my MoWoMo Sue." Never mind, it would probably just annoy me. Luvs, Josh