I guess I don’t see why someone wouldn’t come away from the post thinking that polyamory = bad.
I think the analogy here is not “all men suck and are immoral” (though I’m not even sure how much I endorse that), but like, if someone had had a bad experiences with men of a certain race, and in talking about it continually mentioned their race. I think people would rightly call that out as racist and not ok—we want to be sympathetic to victims, but if they are saying things that are harmful to others in the course of telling their experience, it’s ok to point that out. Now obviously polyamory and race aren’t exactly analogous, but I think the relevant differance is that poly people are a minority, that does face some stigma. And from my point of view, in trying to make the community less toxic for women, the poster made it more toxic for me (and other women like me).
I worry that race is a poor analogy here and may lead to more heat than light being generated in this discussion. Race has little bearing on dynamics around sex and relationships, while the mono/poly distinction does substantially impact them. I totally agree that it’s unfair to stigmatize all poly men as abusers, but I think it’s fair to consider whether the high rate of poly folks in the EA community creates unique considerations when thinking about community norms.
In terms of people coming away from the post thinking that polyamory = bad, I guess I have faith in people’s ability on this forum to separate a bad experience with a community from an entire community as a whole. (Maybe not everyone holds this same faith.)
The post was written by one person, and it was their experience, but I expect by now most EAs have run into polyamorous people in their lives (especially considering that EAs on average tend to be young, male, non-religious, privileged, and more likely to attend elite universities where polyamory/discussions about polyamory might be more common) and those experiences speak for themselves. For example, I personally have met lots of polyamorous people in my life, and I’ve seen everything from perfectly healthy, well-functioning relationships to completely toxic relationships (just like monogamous relationships). So when I engaged with the post, I was thinking, “this person had a bad experience with the poly community, and it sounds terrible. I know from my own experiences that polyamory relationships can be healthy, but unfortunately that’s not what this person experienced.”
I’m persuaded by your analogy to race, and overall I don’t want the EA community to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about any group, including polyamorous people. I think my main conflict here is I also want a world where women feel okay talking about their experiences without holding the added worry that they might not word things in exactly the right way, or that some people might push back against them when they open up (and I think you would probably agree with this).
Yeah that’s fair, I definitely don’t want people to have to watch their wording too closely when sharing their experiences, and I felt complicated about that post and my own replies/reaction to it.
None of them walked away with your conclusions. The response from within EA forum, the people who can take action from within, was a completely different distribution. You’re interpreting my post, not as it is written, but as it is implied to you. But I am only responsible for what I say, not what you think I said.
Ultimately, no action was taken on my post and EA remains unsafe, partly because of you.
Do you think that the EA community would be safer if fewer people in it were polyamorous? That was the impression I got from your post, but I’m willing to be corrected. You didn’t mention polyamory in the Twitter thread, but you did in the post (I counted about 5 times in the first paragraph). This gave me the strong impression that you think polyamory is closely linked to the predatory behaviour you witnessed.
I don’t think I’m responsible for EA being unsafe.
Do you think that the EA community would be safer if fewer people in it were polyamorous? - I am not going to give a moral lecture on what people should do with their sexual choices, it’s up to them.
The men who abused me were poly, the dynamics of poly are important for amplifying their harmful reach. They’re using polyamory to legitimize reaching a wider number of victims, and they’re piggybacking on EA’s compelling call for impact to meet and discover new victims.
If a poly man asks me out respectfully because they did not know I was mono, I say no and they accept my decision. No harm, no foul. This is not what happened.
If people are not respecting your no, that’s not acceptable, but I’m not really sure what their poly status has to do with it (any more than their nationality, their job, the fact that they play video games, or whatever). I don’t think poly ‘legitimizes’ reaching a wider number of victims—being willing to date multiple people doesn’t give you a right to cross others’ boundaries. I suspect that in communities less friendly to polyamory, these predators would just stay single, or cheat on their partners.
If a poly man asks me out respectfully because they did not know I was mono, I say no and they accept my decision. No harm, no foul. This is not what happened.
It sounds like your issue isn’t with polyamory in principle, but with people who don’t respect you / your boundaries? I think the EA community would be safer if there were fewer people who didn’t respect other people’s boundaries, irrespective of whether they were mono/poly.
I guess I don’t see why someone wouldn’t come away from the post thinking that polyamory = bad.
I think the analogy here is not “all men suck and are immoral” (though I’m not even sure how much I endorse that), but like, if someone had had a bad experiences with men of a certain race, and in talking about it continually mentioned their race. I think people would rightly call that out as racist and not ok—we want to be sympathetic to victims, but if they are saying things that are harmful to others in the course of telling their experience, it’s ok to point that out. Now obviously polyamory and race aren’t exactly analogous, but I think the relevant differance is that poly people are a minority, that does face some stigma. And from my point of view, in trying to make the community less toxic for women, the poster made it more toxic for me (and other women like me).
I worry that race is a poor analogy here and may lead to more heat than light being generated in this discussion. Race has little bearing on dynamics around sex and relationships, while the mono/poly distinction does substantially impact them. I totally agree that it’s unfair to stigmatize all poly men as abusers, but I think it’s fair to consider whether the high rate of poly folks in the EA community creates unique considerations when thinking about community norms.
In terms of people coming away from the post thinking that polyamory = bad, I guess I have faith in people’s ability on this forum to separate a bad experience with a community from an entire community as a whole. (Maybe not everyone holds this same faith.)
The post was written by one person, and it was their experience, but I expect by now most EAs have run into polyamorous people in their lives (especially considering that EAs on average tend to be young, male, non-religious, privileged, and more likely to attend elite universities where polyamory/discussions about polyamory might be more common) and those experiences speak for themselves. For example, I personally have met lots of polyamorous people in my life, and I’ve seen everything from perfectly healthy, well-functioning relationships to completely toxic relationships (just like monogamous relationships). So when I engaged with the post, I was thinking, “this person had a bad experience with the poly community, and it sounds terrible. I know from my own experiences that polyamory relationships can be healthy, but unfortunately that’s not what this person experienced.”
I’m persuaded by your analogy to race, and overall I don’t want the EA community to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about any group, including polyamorous people. I think my main conflict here is I also want a world where women feel okay talking about their experiences without holding the added worry that they might not word things in exactly the right way, or that some people might push back against them when they open up (and I think you would probably agree with this).
Yeah that’s fair, I definitely don’t want people to have to watch their wording too closely when sharing their experiences, and I felt complicated about that post and my own replies/reaction to it.
Amber, I also shared this on twitter and this is the response I got: https://twitter.com/keerthanpg/status/1591515890109255680?s=20&t=WobT4rLWtpPRSOryCTlDxw
None of them walked away with your conclusions. The response from within EA forum, the people who can take action from within, was a completely different distribution. You’re interpreting my post, not as it is written, but as it is implied to you. But I am only responsible for what I say, not what you think I said.
Ultimately, no action was taken on my post and EA remains unsafe, partly because of you.
Do you think that the EA community would be safer if fewer people in it were polyamorous? That was the impression I got from your post, but I’m willing to be corrected. You didn’t mention polyamory in the Twitter thread, but you did in the post (I counted about 5 times in the first paragraph). This gave me the strong impression that you think polyamory is closely linked to the predatory behaviour you witnessed.
I don’t think I’m responsible for EA being unsafe.
Do you think that the EA community would be safer if fewer people in it were polyamorous? - I am not going to give a moral lecture on what people should do with their sexual choices, it’s up to them.
The men who abused me were poly, the dynamics of poly are important for amplifying their harmful reach. They’re using polyamory to legitimize reaching a wider number of victims, and they’re piggybacking on EA’s compelling call for impact to meet and discover new victims.
If a poly man asks me out respectfully because they did not know I was mono, I say no and they accept my decision. No harm, no foul. This is not what happened.
If people are not respecting your no, that’s not acceptable, but I’m not really sure what their poly status has to do with it (any more than their nationality, their job, the fact that they play video games, or whatever). I don’t think poly ‘legitimizes’ reaching a wider number of victims—being willing to date multiple people doesn’t give you a right to cross others’ boundaries. I suspect that in communities less friendly to polyamory, these predators would just stay single, or cheat on their partners.
It sounds like your issue isn’t with polyamory in principle, but with people who don’t respect you / your boundaries? I think the EA community would be safer if there were fewer people who didn’t respect other people’s boundaries, irrespective of whether they were mono/poly.
Correct. I had mentioned in my post it was not a criticism of polyamory that is practiced consensually and without conflicts of interest.