Stop Flapping Your Gums About Polyamory

Unless you are living it or are a subject matter expert, be quiet and learn

I wouldn’t dream about writing a story about what it’s like to be a gay man. Neither would I dare to write about what it’s like to be an Orthodox Jew. Although I do actually know a little bit about both of those things from listening to people who have that as their lived experience, I still wouldn’t presume to tell a gay man or an Orthodox Jew what their relationships and experiences are really like.

And yet, there are all kinds of people who know little to nothing about polyamory who have no problem writing about it or even telling others who are actually polyamorous what it’s really all about. To those people, I say, “Please just stop! You don’t know what you are talking about and you’re making an ass out of yourself as well as completely misrepresenting this relationship style.”

For starters, if you don’t know the difference between polygamy and polyamory, you have no business speaking about either. Polygamy is plural marriage, most often between one man, and two or more women. The man is the head of the family and the women are all subservient to him. It’s what radical Mormons and some Muslim cultures do, and it’s about as different from polyamory as fast food is from fine dining.