Polyamory: homophobic?

Ravenscroft

Banned
Okay, so maybe I've been blinded by my well-known sunny optimism ;) but this article (posted today) really bugs me, because who knew that polyfolk have been crowding gay men & lesbian women out of the clubhouse?

Why So Few Lesbians and Gays in Mainstream Poly Community?

Sheff's #1 answer? HOMOPHOBIA.
... poly communities value female bisexuality and same-sex contact among women far more than same-sex interaction among men.

Gay men usually do not enjoy dealing with homophobia in their social environments, so it is no surprise that they are rare in mainstream poly circles.
I mean... wow. :eek: A triple-jump from "straight men are obsessed with girl-girl sex" (not that this is a pseudo-feminist sexist trope!!) to "...therefore so are their wimmenfolk" to "gay men are a weak class & need protection from such crassness" to "& by 'gay men' I mean lesbians too" -- neatly throwing bisexuals under the bus as fundamentally just variant hets.

By the end of the article, Sheff deftly reattaches bisexuals to the "real" queerfolk & magically makes 'em a unified community again.

My head hurts now. Anyone care to enlighten my dimness?
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It reminds me of how Melita Noel declared polyamory to be racist (2006) because so many of us are caucasian.

I suggested we could start a program of kidnapping & brainwashing.

She wasn't amused... but she has never offered a better solution, merely the morally superiorist lectures.
 
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I actually don't see much wrong with that article. It matches my experience with the poly community quite accurately. Whether you want to attribute it to homophobia or simply some kind of natural sorting effect is another thing, however.

Lesbians absolutely DO get hit on by men who assume they are at least somewhat interested in their penises because they are at a poly event, and that does make folk uncomfortable. I don't see those lesbians hitting on all women in return - they tend to wait to find out what a person's sexual preference is and whether they are interested first, which is standard when you are a minority used to dealing with that. I guess it feels like some heterosexual poly folk take their experience of being in a sexual majority and apply it unthinkingly across the community, assuming that any gender that they are personally interested in is going to be receptive to their attentions. I would label this ignorance, more than homophobia, but the net result is the same - gay poly folk feel like they constantly have to be on high alert and policing their boundaries. It gets tiresome.

Lest you think I am being unfair to the straight people out there, I also think bisexual women can be guilty of this over-exuberance too - given that there are more self-identified bi-women in the poly community, they can be just as prone to 'kid in a candy store' thinking, and I've heard of several straight women who've been made to feel uncomfortable by bi women aggressively pursuing them. This tends to happen more with women who are just starting to explore their attraction to women, and these women often also have a long-term male partner in tow. Even if that's coincidental, it can feel like even attention directed at women by women is somehow being closely observed by their male companion. Of course, on one level that's totally normal. The metamour relationship is an odd beast, and it can be hard to get the right level of closeness and distance. I know of some gay women who find metamour relationships with straight men to be so much hard work that they are put off dating their partners entirely. Part of this might be down to the different ways in which men and women can sometimes process insecurity and jealousy, and part of it might just be regular personality differences. Whatever the cause, the effect is that not a single one of my lesbian friends now has anything to do with the poly community. I feel a bit bad about this, as sometimes I have personally vouched for how inclusive the poly group is, or introduced women to people I thought would be a good match, only for things to go downhill quickly.

I also see fewer gay and bisexual men represented as a whole in the community, and the article's explanation of that (CNM is more accepted in mainstream gay communities so it makes no sense to join this other community that has a much higher proportion of straight/uninterested men in it) seems pretty logical to me.
 
When I was exploring my local swingers' community (we don't have a poly community) I quickly gathered male-male sex is discouraged and ridiculed, while female-female sex is encouraged, as long as men get to watch or be involved. This is one of the things that grossed me out about the swingers' scene here, the homophobia against gay men and the harnessing of women's sexuality for male pleasure.

My very lesbian girlfriend says the idea of a man even imagining her and me together for his pleasure makes her feel violated....so I can imagine she would have no desire to be part of a community where men were even dreaming of that sort of thing. She'd be in hog-heaven if there were some sort of women-only poly community/organization.

In my experience, gay men are widely, to use Dan Savage's term "monogamish." I've been besties with so many gay men, and lots of them have sex outside the primary relationship, openly. Perhaps many gay men already feel they are supported in having multiple relationships within their own community and don't need to get involved with poly community.
 
The swinger scene here... It's kind of guilty as charged, I think. I have no interest in it. The price structure alone presents women as the commodity and men as the consumers.

Men pay $50. Women pay $5. Couples pay $45, which means that a man gets a small discount to bring a woman for other men to play with, or watch him play with, or whatever. Although no one is ever under any pressure to do anything.

It's still just kind of icky to me. Honestly I feel that if I'm going to mess around sexually with a dude, he had better be just as much of a commodity and an asset in bed, as I am. It's an even exchange. I'm not giving him something, he has just as much right to be selective in partners and to consent or not, and I have just as much of a right to enjoy sex and place value on getting sex from my partner.

As to gay, bi, nonbinary, trans, etc in the poly community...I think that here, they are present, but not as a majority. Sometimes I think that the lower numbers and therefore smaller dating pool (comparatively) in a city of this size makes it more likely for them to pair up in mono configurations than to attempt poly. Although I do know some lesbians, gays, and transfolk who may or may not also ID as queer, in the BDSM community who are also poly.

I think that due to me being more involved in the BDSM scene than the swinger scene (and from what I hear, they're very separate in most places) I see a different side of poly, too. We've got plenty of poly groups. But people seem to approach each other in the scene with a little bit of restraint and a lot of respect. There is such a zero tolerance policy for harassment, and I've noticed that single men in particular live in fear of seeming "creepy"...so you just don't see guys approaching lesbians in the hope that they can play, too. But then again, I've seen lesbians deliver beatings to men, and it's not all about sex in the dungeon. So the lines are blurred somewhat. And friendship is almost always on the table. It's a relationship anarchist's paradise.
 
I think the article is mostly true, but I think it also depends on the locale. For instance, one of the main organizers for the poly community locally is a gay guy in a ...quad, I think, now? (He hangs out here occasionally, too, though mostly for organizing things.)
 
I personally know a triad made up of 3 gay males, but I don't really know how active they are on the swinger scene. They're poly and 2 of them are married, but I have no idea if they are polyfi or not. I believe they are monogamish.

I guess I am in the minority because when I dabbled in the swinger scene, none of the events I attended charged men anything extra, there was just a flat fee (usually $10) for the hosts to cover alcohol/food costs. I never felt like bi women were pressuring me, and the guys were all chill and not pushy at all. Course, the people hosting had a zero tolerance policy, and everyone was REALLY good at getting consent for everything. That said, I never saw any guy on guy action, though I did go to an event with a bi-guy, but he had sex with me there and didn't meet anyone new.
 
Don't know if this is on-topic, but I've noticed on this site at least that there's a lot of poly newbies who are M/F couples (usually married) where the male is hetero and the female is bi, and they are looking for a second bi female to "complete" them. Yes I am talking about typical unicorn hunters, but we get a lot of them here. Check out the dating/friendships boards, you'll see there's quite a few.

Once in awhile we get an M/M couple that is looking for a third male. But not very often. And is the "poly community" mostly caucasian? Yes. Yes it is.
 
Hmmm... nah, still having problems.

Firstly, the article is primarily phrased as "what polyfolk are doing (consciously or not) to EXCLUDE homosexuals."

Secondly, there's "queer friendly," & then there's "kissing up." :eek: I mean, seriously, gay men invented consensual nonmonogamy... only to backpedal to, "well, they DO it a lot & that's the same thing."

There's glib use of terms like "the mainstream poly scene." Ummm... I've been actively poly since ~1980, "out of the closet" almost as long, lived in Minneapolis until 2000, & I have yet to figure out the WTF about any "mainstream." It's almost as clear as, say, "mainstream Wicca," which I cannot even BEGIN to wrap my mind around.

Scheff could more easily have stayed with, "well, GLs don't see any big need to join another club" & that woulda made a world of sense to me -- even though it's hugely overreaching, because is there any such thing as a "mainstream homosexual"? Oh, wait:
Some in the mainstream gay and lesbian power structures...
Wait -- when did you guys get power structures?? :p Do you have to be 100% gay (& a registered member for how long) before you get one?
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I have nothing against swinging, swingers, swing clubs, wife-swappers, &c, & in fact have close friends amongst 'em. However, swinging is still an outgrowth of heterosexual monogamy, & as such heterocentrist & couplist. IME, swingers have always been upfront about this.

Though some of us "cross borders," they are two distinct groups on the ol' Venn diagramme, & I -- as a poly bisexual -- see no problem with that. I find it demeaning to BOTH groups when they are conflated as "kinda the same thing" by anyone.
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Okay, here's my prejudices.

Being inclusive is a VERY good thing -- belonging to a snooty club has never been much of a draw for me. (If we're gonna sit around & blow smoochies at each other for being so groovy, then let's just start a club for THAT purpose & be clear from Step One.)

So long as a group doesn't put itself in danger of losing its core purpose, then a wide range of experience & viewpoint is nothing but GOOD.

Because of that wide range, there's GONNA be misunderstandings & disagreements. And learning how to deal with that stuff & LISTEN to each other is nothing but GOOD.

Simply quashing disagreement is NOT good.

At huge risk of being an objectifier (for which I will accept suitable punishment like a mensch), it is the loss of "the poly community" to not have more input from Kinsey 6, 100% homosexuals. (Ugh, now I feel gross, but someone has to say it.)

By all means, the door should be left open, & if someone wants to join the melee & maybe kick butt to educate the unwashed, then I say WELCOME.

But the idea of luring people in who do not have a DESIRE, a NEED to walk through that door is ludicrous.
 
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So, is there something we should be doing to welcome gay/lesbian people into our poly midst, or is there just something we could/should be aware of about ourselves? or even, do we need to do anything at all?
 
There is a relatively huge poly community in Seattle. It is very accepting of all sexualities and genders. At our get togethers we have name tags with little dots to let others know who/what we are into. That being said, there are subgroups and the LGBTQ people do stick to themselves a bit. I'd even go so far as to say some are "heterophobic".
 
Fact is...a community can be as inclusive and welcoming as they like, but (*nod to Ravenscroft*) if the minorities one wishes to welcome prefer to exclude themselves, there has to come a point where the main group just isn't guilty of discrimination at all.

I'm imagining a line of logic, in a sort of discourse with a gay person:
"I don't feel welcome in the poly community."
"Why not?"
"Because there aren't that many absolutely gay people already there."
"Why?"
"I guess we're not welcome."
"Did anyone ever tell you, that you weren't welcome?"
"No. I just assumed. Because we don't hang out there."

???

When I lived in Cincinnati, I used to walk through a neighborhood called Over the Rhine sometimes. After a while, people saw me there, got to know my face, I went about my business with a purpose and didn't act like I was afraid of people. I shed my own awkwardness and so no awkwardness got directed my way. That neighborhood is mostly black, it's very low income, very high crime. I was 18 and had no fear of anything, at the time. But no one threatened me. No one menaced me. I stayed alert and situationally aware of my surroundings, but I felt more or less safe.

Most white people in the Cincinnati area that I know, stay away from OTR. They wouldn't dream of walking through there, they wouldn't even DRIVE through there with their car doors locked. They ASSUME that they would be assaulted for the color of their skin. They exclude themselves.

They have the right to do that, if they want. What they do not have the right to do, is complain about the inconvenience of driving the long way round that area, because other people MADE THEM DO IT. No, they didn't. You were just making assumptions and being afraid.

But honestly, I think that kink, BDSM, swinger, and probably poly communities can be an intimidating place for anyone to step into at first. It's easy to make the assumption that it would be awkward and you wouldn't be welcome. I already mentioned how many straight men I've talked to (LOTS) who are terrified to come into the community without a girlfriend on their arm, because "people will think I'm creepy." No they won't! Not in my scene! Not if you act respectful. But I get it. My big fear that had me paralyzed in my car for half an hour at my first munch, was that as a newcomer, the established people would turn a cold shoulder to me and no one would want to make friends and talk, and it would be socially awkward. That fear was silly and false, but I felt it as a very real thing that day.

It's funny, that very human thing of being scared that anyone who is somehow "not like me" is going to offer nothing but social rejection or some other kind of undesired interaction. In my experience, people usually aren't monsters. People are, actually, mostly nice. (This is why I call hundreds of people "friend." I love humans.)
 
a short sprint through the Sociology degrees...

vinsanity0 -- my experience is pretty much the same from Minneapolis... sorta. The non-straight grouping was in no way monolithic (another of Scheff's leaps, & dithery at that).

With us, the "LBGTQetc" thing woulda been approaching 100% of any given party or meetup. ;) Dead-on Kinsey 0 never-kissed-a-boy straights were rare.

And the prevalence of bisexuals seemed to make us more welcoming to the transfolk.

The only Kinsey 6 that I can think of -- it's not like we ran around with color-coded nametags or anything :p -- is part of a unique vee, a beautiful green-eyed redhead, & we were beer-drinking buddies & would flirt outrageously which managed to make just about everyone jealous. :D
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Spork, you set off some great thoughts. I'm gonna sketch a bit in, but you'll get a glimpse of why I need an entire seminar to even begin discussing the notion of "communication." :eek:

For years I've been thinking about the neophobe/neophile continuum that Robert Anton Wilson brought to my attention. In brief (& my emphases):
The opposite of a neophile is a neophobe: a person with an aversion to novelty and change.

Wilson observes that neophobes tend to regard neophiles, especially extreme ones, with fear and contempt, and to brand them with titles such as "witch," "satanist," "heretic," etc. He also speculates in his Prometheus Rising series of books that the Industrial Revolution (and related Enlightenment) represents one of the first periods of history in which neophiles were a dominant force in society.

Neophiles accelerate change because they like it that way.
It's too easy to come off as picking on neophobes -- especially for those of us with a neophilic bent -- so please drop a grain of salt. ;)

I've tried to live my life without fear & anxiety. I've many times said, "Skulking dogs get kicked. It's a reflex." If you don't want people to suspect you, then don't look suspicious.

If you're closeted, people WILL assume that you're up to something wicked or disgusting.

I was "out" as Wiccan / poly / bi / leather long before any of these was mentioned in Newsweek, & hung out with the tattoo / Radical Faery / swing communities. For you youngsters, let me point out that, back in the late '70s & early '80s, ANY of these things could easily have cost you your jobs, lease, marriage, kids, & there wasn't much you could do about it.

None of these things did I "pursue" because it was cool or trendy -- quite the opposite. And you would likely be stunned to know just how much one devaint subculture can despise the others: most Wiccans saw D/s as pervy & weird & maybe dangerous, & we got LOTS of witchy gossip about that & poly & bi. Swingers saw Wicca as childish play-acting & mere sublimation of sexuality. And on & on.

As Mom said, "You were raised to believe in what is right for you."

I know that my "it's no big deal" attitude cleared a path for lots of others who figured that if wonky, goofy ME could so casually risk everything, then they could certainly risk a little.

Another book to consider: Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (any edition), a MUCH easier read than you might think, & even entertaining. Rogers posits that when a population is presented with a useful & cost-effective innovation (not necessarily technological), those who adopt the upgrade will move in this order:
  • innovators
  • early adopters
  • early majority
  • late majority
  • laggards.
I've never considered myself an innovator, nor even an early adopter. Part of that is because I'm well-read & -informed, so I feel as though I'm planting tilled soil rather than breakin' turf. Just because I was hemmed-in by laggards didn't mean I was impressed with how "radical" I was.

Innovators (a very small group) include people who leap wildly at new stuff with little understanding of how the change will impact their lives & their environment. Much like the westward movement in United States history, it's the crazy, wild, & misanthropic who often open a path, "blaze trail." But it's the early adopters who build the towns, & could be called "the sane neophiles."
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So, to bring it back around: There's no good reason to force neophobes to change. I respect the satisfaction of "comfortable" people, & sometimes envy it.

As Jacques Ellul said in Propaganda, there's very little functional difference between education & propaganda & brainwashing & marketing, & the techniques are mostly interchangeable.

Comfortable people realize they don't NEED a new car every three years... so car-makers need to make 'em uncomfortable, to create the ILLUSION of a need in order to step up, be a White Knight, & offer a ready-made "solution" to that perceived gap.

At no point does Scheff ask herself the question, "why do True Gay people NEED to be MADE part of The Mainstream Poly Community??"

Over the years I have seen people who WANT to explore something new, but are so FEARFUL of being "the tall poppy," of actually innovating, that they exhort, cajole, even bully others to "join" them, which is why I have long spoken against turning polyamory into some sort of Movement. Read Eric Hoffer, The True Believer.

Rather than reducing all-round fear, Scheff stirs it up & foments dissent & disunity in order to (1) look smart, (2) look more pious than the rest of us, as Noel did with race, & be superior to "real" homosexuals & in fact to anyone LGBTQ.
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Phew! The beginnings of a foundation. :)
 
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I'm a bit of a polyactivist only in the sense that I want to put a face on the thing, I want my "normal" friends to hear about my experiences and know that you don't have to be a Mormon with a bunch of sister-wives or part of some kind of a hippie commune, to love more. That in fact it's simply a choice, and it's available to anybody who wants it.

I am only judgy of people who are so neophobic that the mere CONCEPT of something different makes them want to stamp it out before it threatens the safe, normal, ubiquitous order of things, which they believe that EVERYONE should conform to, or face consequences. I'm not driven to force new experiences on folks who don't want them...but new ideas? Yeah. For sure.

And fortunately, my approach is such that I don't wind up arguing with people over whether poly (or anything else) is good, bad, right or wrong...I usually end up with "Well, you seem very happy. Good for you." And then a few weeks later they saw some article or (god forbid) *cough* book or movie (*mumbles "damn 50 Shades" under breath*) and they come to me and mention that they thought of me.

But I'm fortunate to be in a pretty open-minded part of the country, despite this city's reputation.

But back again to the point, I don't mind people excluding themselves from something, because they want to. But if they have never tried and are making assumptions about how it would go, and preemptively turning up their noses at it because they feel they wouldn't be welcome...and then shouting that they've been discriminated against... That sucks. If one chooses to not join a group, why not just own the choice?

And I'm betting that most gays and lesbians who are not involved in poly communities wouldn't tell you it's because they're excluded or discriminated against. Most would probably say that either they aren't polyamorously inclined, or they are too busy to join another social group, or whatever. I have however known a few who seem to enjoy presenting themselves as victims of the world (humans with bad attitudes come in all varieties)...and those few might have agreed that the poly scene isn't a friendly place for them.

So, while the article's author almost gets at some interesting points, the overarching theme of the piece is, in my opinion, somewhat off-target.
 
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