Considering the Options

There's an interesting blog from heathertrahan7, a second-year doctoral student in the Rhetoric and Writing Program in the Department of English at Bowling Green State University. She's a polyamorist who doesn't like the term "nonmonogamy" because she isn't against monogamy.

What I am for is this: options. For the space for people to think, to reflect, to choose. In our U.S. culture, these spaces do not seem to exist as often as they could. When people hear the word marriage, they often think that, of course, the terms “sexual fidelity” and “sexual exclusivity” are synonymous with marriage. So then they go with that, they live their lives that way, without stopping to ask “Is this what I actually want?” However, there are those who don’t go with that. There are those who stop to ask. It might seen odd, but I consider the monogamous people—but those in that group who have stopped to reflect and critically choose that life—to be, in a way, polyamorous. Because, for me, being poly means being open enough to ask the hard and often seemingly weird questions. I guess, at the core, being poly means, for me, stopping to say: “Let’s talk.”

At the core of it, this is what I want my dissertation to inspire: talk. The not-so-simple asking and answering. The questions. And, if the answer is, for a person: “I’d like to compose my relationship style as monogamous”—then, awesome! I don’t pretend that polyamory as a relationship orientation would benefit everyone.

 I like this attitude.