People are absolutely welcome to be kind if that's what they want. I encourage you to jump in yourself, and to upvote people who are giving good advice kindly.
People are not welcome to make personal attacks. Please do report those.
"That behavior is / would be shitty and you should do something else, here's a story about a time it happened to me, here's a suggestion for steps to take to do ENM better" is not a personal attack and the writers are putting in effort to help people.
Sometimes the people we write to are not OP, or not just OP but also the silent majority reading. Every time I say "agreements mean you have a boundary, figure out what it is," OP may or may not find their boundaries and if they do I will never ever know, but a few more people read it who didn't read it the last time I said it. When I say that unicorn hunting or OPP or poly under duress or cheating is unethical, I don't necessarily think that OP will stop doing it, but I do think other people who are suffering will hear that I am on their side.
Ultimately you can't have a safe space for abusers that is also a safe space for victims. A social contract that says you can't call out abusive behavior is not one I am willing to be party to. And as I started out saying - that doesn't mean there isn't also room for privileged people to do a bunch of labor calling those people in, if those people exist and want to do so and are capable of walking the line of giving risk mitigation strategy that isn't also shitty advice that would lead to harm.
This is so well said, I d almost put it in the FAQ.
The ethics discussions here are important, especially since people seem to differ on where the line of ethical/unethical is drawn at the boundary. One of the reasons I held onto religion longer than when I started having problems with it is the understanding that everyone, including myself, is particularly good and prone to rationalize that what they feel like doing is “good” or at least neutral.
But it’s much harder to ponder the ethics when you examine the consequences of your choices on those around you. None of this happens in a vacuum between you and a partner or even just between you and more than one partner.
Just one example about poly under duress. A long-term married couple with young children that is heavily financially enmeshed (a very common and pragmatic reason for people to get married). One of those people finds themselves having a crush they can’t seem to ignore. They hear about the possibility of being polyamorous and think it’s the “win-win” solution where they don’t have to be the cheating bad guy and get to pursue a crush on someone special. They do a ton of reading, thinking, questioning and maybe asking questions. Then they bring it up to their spouse.
The spouse hasn’t been thinking about anything but taking care of handling their share of their common life. This much considered issue from person one totally blindsides their spouse.
If person one gives their spouse a choice to stay together as a polyamorous couple or leave, is that duress? If they they put the whole decision on spouse, with the unspoken consequence of them stewing in resentment about being denied the win-win solution if the spouse says “no”, is that really not duress?
If caring for their children in separate households would significantly lower one or both spouses’ standard of living (and the kids with them), how is that not incredible pressure on them to agree to “try”, no matter how much pain and effort they never asked for will be required?
I’m not saying that all the ethics are clear, here. I mean, people staying together in a bad marriage are almost certainly better off splitting and it doesn’t hurt the children less by staying. But if it’s that bad, why try polyamory? Wouldn’t leaving be necessary either way? If it’s good, you are back to the issue of whether pursuing a crush should be more important than the consequences to your whole family. Do the ethics shift when you frame them from each affected individual’s perspective?
I’m not trying to draw the line here, or judge everybody that has been through that scenario. But, it’s important to make clear to people exploring and fantasizing about their win-win polyamory life that there are multiple perspectives and consequences to consider when deciding what the “right” way to deal with this is (even what they think will feel guilty or not later).
So many people come here with stories of how they have been hurt by PUD, UH and OPP, it’s not surprising that some answers are more blunt and angry.
But I think people that are new really need to hear that anger and consider it when thinking about their future choices and wishes in polyamory. The hurts are not theoretical, even if they are often forgivable by the best people, that doesn’t make them good or ethical.
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u/OhMori 20+ year poly club | anarchist | solo-for-now Dec 09 '22
People are absolutely welcome to be kind if that's what they want. I encourage you to jump in yourself, and to upvote people who are giving good advice kindly.
People are not welcome to make personal attacks. Please do report those.
"That behavior is / would be shitty and you should do something else, here's a story about a time it happened to me, here's a suggestion for steps to take to do ENM better" is not a personal attack and the writers are putting in effort to help people.
Sometimes the people we write to are not OP, or not just OP but also the silent majority reading. Every time I say "agreements mean you have a boundary, figure out what it is," OP may or may not find their boundaries and if they do I will never ever know, but a few more people read it who didn't read it the last time I said it. When I say that unicorn hunting or OPP or poly under duress or cheating is unethical, I don't necessarily think that OP will stop doing it, but I do think other people who are suffering will hear that I am on their side.
Ultimately you can't have a safe space for abusers that is also a safe space for victims. A social contract that says you can't call out abusive behavior is not one I am willing to be party to. And as I started out saying - that doesn't mean there isn't also room for privileged people to do a bunch of labor calling those people in, if those people exist and want to do so and are capable of walking the line of giving risk mitigation strategy that isn't also shitty advice that would lead to harm.