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is because it is seen as a choice. Monogamy is seen as the norm. In mainstream society, we are still at a point where nothing else is seen as "normal" or "Acceptable." Being gay, I hear the same stuff about being LGBTQ.
It implies choice, though, which I find to be offensive. Being neither gay nor poly is a "lifestyle choice" for me. Both are natural orientations, and I want them to be respected as such.
I don't know that they will be in my lifetime, but every time I am confronted with this description on EITHER issue, I make sure the person or people I am talking to understand that it is in no way a choice at all. It is as much a part of who I am as my eye color.
Further, I refuse to accept that people who use this community to heal existing relationships who are simply somehow non monogamous to "save" a marriage or relationship as truly poly. They perpetuate the idea that we are just a bunch of sex addicts with commitment issues, when nothing could be further from the truth. I will never again be band aid on problems in an existing marriage or relationship with which I had nothing to do.
And this is interesting to me. Because again, I would say that for someone who is gay but it isn't that big a deal, or monogamous, but it's not that big a deal...it's just part of their normal...they are not necessarily making a "lifestyle" of it. But I know drag queens (yes, I'm inspired by your signature) and for that matter drag kings, who absolutely do make a lifestyle of their art, whether they are gay or not.
Now if polyamory is such an absolute part of your identity that it is as immutable as being gay or straight (although I do think it's valid for a person to consciously move along some spectrum during their lifetime, and I do think that bisexuality is valid)...then that in and of itself is not a lifestyle, nor much of a choice.
Personally, I prefer to have choice. I don't want anyone to accommodate me because I was born this way or can't help it. I can choose, and I want any choice I might choose to make, to be considered valid and me free to choose it. I chose polyamory for a year. It was pretty great. But by the end of that year, I was only really satisfied with one of my four relationships, and was feeling my time stretched too thin by trying to keep up with them all.
It was a lifestyle choice, and it was not really working out for me.
Maybe one day when my life and obligations are different, it might.
For what it's worth, my monogamous marriage didn't work out either. But that isn't because I am just so damn poly by nature that my needs cannot be met by less than several lovers. It's because my husband was insane.
So. Now. For now. And for however long it works. I'm gonna do mono. It is a lifestyle choice that I have chosen. And I don't see why the fact that it WAS a choice freely made, makes it more or less valid.
And I also think that being gay could be:
a choice
genetics
hormones
brain chemistry
a reaction to abuse or trauma
just a normal variation on nature
none of the above
any or a combination of the above
...and be as valid regardless. You talk about being gay as all a matter of "born that way" and you get nutjobs talking about curing your gay genes. You talk about it being a choice and they say it's a sin or you can "pray it away" or counsel to fix it like a mental illness. How about it doesn't fucking matter, and talking about fixing something is all sorts of dumb if it's not broken to begin with. ??