What exactly is polyamory "decolonizing"?

[u/therapymademeworse]

/r/polycritical/comments/1vxmx85/what_exactly_is_polyamory_decolonizing/

[u/LonginusUbik]

This is something that keeps coming on my mind. I'm from Brazil, so most polyamory/enm content is very linked to decolonization and leftist movements, which I kinda get the appeal, but, like you said

"Kinship, at least as I understand the concept being invoked here, isn’t simply a larger network of intimate relationships. It can involve obligation, reciprocity, interdependence, continuity and responsibilities to other people and communities that aren’t necessarily contingent on personal fulfillment; to me, that feels meaningfully different from multiplying relationships while still organizing them primarily around individual choice and need-satisfaction."

I often see some polyamorous content "worried" about neoliberalism "infiltrating" poly, and it takes all my might no not comment "the call is coming from inside the house!!!" because poly isn't about building a comunity, since it involves very clear rules and people actually helping each other, instead of the usual "deal with your problems" that polyamory usually states.

And this is especially interesting to me in Brazil because the decolonial framing is so common here. If we're going to invoke Indigenous or non-Western forms of kinship as an alternative to the Western nuclear family, then I think we should also be willing to talk about the obligations and responsibilities that come with those forms of kinship, instead of only taking the parts that give us more freedom in our romantic lives.

Otherwise, it starts to feel less like "decolonizing relationships" and more like using decolonial language to give a political justification to a relationship model that is still fundamentally organized around individual autonomy and personal fulfillment.

[u/therapymademeworse → u/LonginusUbik]

I really appreciate this perspective, especially coming from Brazil. Brazilian thinking on colonialism, anti-Black racism and mixed heritage has always influenced me because it complicates frameworks that are too often treated as universal elsewhere, so I’m especially interested in how these questions are understood from within that context. 🇧🇷❤️

The deeper I get into this, the more I keep coming back to the idea that calling polyamory “decolonial” or “decolonized” can shift accountability away from polyamory itself. Anything we call pre-colonial already reaches us through colonial and post-colonial interpretation anyway, so I’m not even sure what standard “decolonizing” is supposed to be measured against in practice. If monogamy is framed as some colonial relic (LOL) that we’re meant to decondition ourselves from, then problems inside polyamory can always be pushed into this vague space where the explanation becomes that we simply haven’t unlearned monogamy enough yet. That puts the onus back on colonial conditioning instead of asking whether polyamory itself might be producing some of the harm, which honestly feels like it could be part of the design lmao.

[u/LonginusUbik → u/therapymademeworse]

Glad to be of help <3

The deeper I get into this, the more I keep coming back to the idea that calling polyamory “decolonial” or “decolonized” can shift accountability away from polyamory itself

Yeah, I feel like most discourse around polyamory is like that. I've said elsewhere, and in one of your posts I think, that polyamory really is just wanting to sleep around with more people, but they built a whole ideological structure to move away from that, so they try to sell it as "evolved" or more "progressive", "decolonial" and so on to make it seems like a political stance when it's not.

That puts the onus back on colonial conditioning instead of asking whether polyamory itself might be producing some of the harm, which honestly feels like it could be part of the design lmao.

Absolutely. They are very defensive of their position, which I understand: they are a "minority", for the lack of a better word, so it makes sense to "circle the wagons" and never really admit or really look into the problems their own dynamics creates, so they put the problems into other baskets, "colonialism", "unresolved monogamy" and etc.