millievfence:

evolution-is-just-a-theorem:

funereal-disease:

A really common poly failure mode, the kind that I’m talking about when I talk about Bad Poly, is weaponized atomization. Basically, it’s responding to any request that you consider the effects of your behavior on others with an accusation that the other person is acting like they “own you”.

(Disclaimers: I am poly and actively so. The critique is coming from inside the house, as it were. I am also decidedly uninterested in policing other people’s relationships. I object only inasmuch as certain ideals are pushed on me, personally, without my consent, or taken as representative of the poly community as a whole. I’m also not 100% sure this is coherent or ideologically consistent; I’d appreciate feedback on tightening it up.)

Keep reading

Endorsed.

I also think poly people tend to be… pretty blind to their own expectations and requirements. We’ve started to associate virtue with not having needs / not imposing on others. But of course everyone does have needs and they do impose on others (at least implicitly)*, so this leads to people either being in denial about these things, refusing to tell their partners about them, or getting annoyed with anyone who does talk about these things..

* Lots of people won’t outright say what their requirements are, but everyone has some. “Be at least this high status”, “have an IQ > x”, “be this physically attractive”, etc.  

> We’ve started to associate virtue with not having needs / not imposing on others.

This is one of those things that some people really need to hear and some people really need to hear the opposite and everything is terrible if the wrong people hear the wrong thing.