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onymous wrote

Yay! More anti-monogamy in the world :D

My approach though is less "abolish monogamy because it's gained a privileged position above non-monogamous identities" (if that's what you're saying?) and more, "monogamy is an identity that is then given privileges (if any other identities are granted existence to reincorporate dissent) because it is useful in its abusiveness, abolish it." Or something.

The dynamics you describe are a big part of why I'm uncomfortable calling myself "polyamorous," or any identity like that, as opposed to just refusing monogamy: it's not that monogamy "isn't for me," and "live and let live," or whatever? It's that I think monogamy's gross just in itself and I want it to die. It's part of my indignation at the idea of someone having claiming that kind of control over what my relations with others I have, but not because of a personal preference or "orientation" or whatever, because I find that kind of relation abusive.

I don't want to consider myself any "alternative identity" in large part because they're designed to coexist alongside the mainstream ones and assimilate dissenters back into the citizenry, as one can see with how polyamorous arrangements often serve the same reproductive purpose as monogamous ones. (More and more so the more accessible such narratives become to reactionaries, the more they take on a pacifying respectability. Like how same-sex marriage can look so much like a patriotic couple with 2.5 well-behaved kids in the suburbs with a picket fence paying bills and getting to work on time.)

As for other writing, I think rolequeer theory has some analysis like this? I know the theorists would think it, or something like it. I can't find one essay in particular after a brief internet search, so it's possible what I'm thinking of is just that I applied those ideas to what I was already thinking about monogamy? Either way, I recommend it! While current me disagrees with some of the theorists about some things, like the desirability of holding on to identities of oppression, it has lots of fascinating and useful ideas, especially the "consent as a felt sense" idea.

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