By Maria Padhila
Most people know the ‘one black friend’ or the ‘one gay friend’ phenomenon. That’s what happens to a lot of folks who are black or gay and have some friends from outside that group. The friend from outside suddenly encounters another black person or gay person at work, or in a social group, or because one of their straight friends also has a One Gay Friend, and decides that this new person would be “just perfect for so-and-so!”
Not because they both love grits, True Blood and traveling to dressage competitions in their spare time. Not even because they’re the same age or have the same taste in novels. But because they’re both black. Or because they’re both gay. Because all of ‘you people’ get along automatically, right? You all like each other right away, right? You have this certain vibratory frequency that just, like, harmonizes, so any date with another gay person will be a smashing success and you’ll end up getting ‘gay married’ someday!
It’s pretty hilarious (or disheartening) that this still happens nowadays, and even among people who you’d think are not so provincial. Back when I was young, and I was the One White Friend, it once or twice even happened to me, or to my parents, who were thrown together at table pretty often with people they had nothing in common with — maybe they didn’t even speak the same language. This is also a hazard with trying to fix up your One Black Friend (the French teacher from Mississippi may not even be able to communicate with your friend’s One Black Friend from Bahia, sorry to tell you).
It’s silly and hurtful because it reduces an individual to a single characteristic. If you’d like some further elucidation on this one — or if you just want to fall out laughing (and maybe crying) for about a half hour, check out yoisthisrascist.com, a blog that ‘splains it all.
Now nothing of that kind of consequence or offensiveness has happened to me as a result of being poly. I’m not comparing what goes on with us to the vicious level of racism or gay hate. But am I saying that I think it’s offensive if a friend tried to fix me up with someone? Yes, if it reveals that this friend sees me only as a representative of a certain characteristic, and not as a whole person. At the same time, you don’t want other people to ignore this part of you — it’s part of who you are.
So this is where the friend comes in with, “I’m not supposed to acknowledge it by fixing you up with someone and I’m not supposed to ignore it — head exploding — what am I SUPPOSED TO DOooooo???”
I should really make a flow chart for this one, because if the ‘friend’ goes on to say something about how “you people are always sticking the way you’re gay/black/poly/bi in people’s faces and expecting special treatment anyway; if you want to be treated the same as normal people you should act that way” sort of shit, you need to start identifying that ‘friend’ by a different term, like ‘bigot’. And it’s not of much use to talk about it any more than that.
Then there are others who, hearing a person is poly, go immediately to the “slut/immature/I feel sorry for you/you’re destroying the chillllldrennnnn!!!” default, and there’s no dealing with them, either.
I’m talking here about people who really are friends, or want to be, or are just other individuals who maybe don’t have much experience with poly people. So they go to certain comfortable stereotypes and assumptions.
Granted, sometimes poly people make this easy to do. I see trends among polys that are annoying as hell. Just as everyone at Burning Man events starts out expressing themselves in a wildly individual way and ends up looking kind of, um, exactly the same, with a regulation-issue uniform of fuzzy coat, goggles, pasties, kilt and platform boots, groups of poly people do sometimes tend to fall into certain predictable looks and habits — and these can, yes, include looking like we’re on our way to a Jethro Tull jam circa 1973. But there will always be polys in business suits, nurses, mothers, firefighters, city government administrative assistants, vet techs, logistics and supply chain management executives, cowboys — yep, the whole damn Village People rainbow.
Eric actually pointed to one of these assumptions in the comments in this column last week. How on Earth is it that a poly person would actually live alone? Or be without a relationship? Because poly people are about all sex, all the time, right?
Not if you’re doing it ethically. If every time you have a date with someone new, you tell them about yourself and they freak out because they can’t handle someone like that, then yes, you can spend a lot of time alone. It takes a while to find the right person, ever, for anyone. Narrow the field, and it’s that much harder.
Here are a few more myths. Lots of them sound very close to the ones that get tossed around about pagans and burners. Coincidence?
- Young poly women are all charmingly geeky, perky goth, and steampunk.
- Older poly women are all earth mothery and blousy and Chico’s.
- All poly women are bisexual.
- Older poly men look like something out of The Hobbit, and have similar values and large pewter figurine collections.
- All poly people work in IT.
- All poly people work as massage therapists.
- Young poly women are strippers or in the porn or sex industries.
- Poly people just want drama.
- Older poly couples are just pervs looking to prey on young women. (I’m getting kind of ticked about the “ewww, old people being sexual, ewww, gross, perverted” trope that goes around, even among young polys, who should fucking well know better! Please go away and deal with whatever psychological issues you have with your parents, aging, and death and come back when you’ve grown up and are ready to live like a human.)
- Young poly men are straight and looking for more than one woman.
- Among poly groups, all the lovers of one person are automatically the lovers of every other person.
- You can decide for one of your lovers whether you want to share them with someone, that is, pass them around like a bowl of guac at the party.
- People in a poly group all live together.
- People in a poly group all sleep in the same bed.
- This confuses the children. The children never know who their ‘real parents’ are.
- The children are invariably fucked up and need years of therapy.
- Children of polys are automatically poly when they grow up. (They get a membership card.)
- If you want to buy a present for a poly person:
- Poly people love lingerie.
- Poly people love sex toys.
- We love microbrews.
- We only eat organic.
- We love crystals.
- We love comic books. I mean graphic novels.
- We love Tibetan chants and trance music, but never ever ever dubstep.
- We are all country-fried hillbillies.
- We are all skeptics.
- We are all atheists.
- We are all libertarians.
- We are all crystal-totin’, tarot-throwin’ New Agers.
- Every last one of us polys love drugs. Wake and bake, every day.
- We love dolphins!
- We love penguins!
- We all live online and are actually huge, unhealthy, socially anxious celibates.
- We’re a bunch of narcissists! Dolphin-loving narcissists! Selfish, dolphin-lovin’, tarot-throwin’, libertarian narcissists!
- We’re all survivalists.
- We couldn’t survive a day without welfare and social services.
- Somebody ought to call social services.
- Poly people are all into BDSM.
- There are no African-American (Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, Russian, Irish) polyamorists.
- All our friends are all poly too. (It’s the membership card thing again.)
- All our friends have sex with us. So do their spouses. And their cousins.
- If a poly person mentions a friend to you, it means they’re having sex with him or her. Or have least once.
- Their relationships never last. Never. It might be going great now, but just wait… five years. Or ten. Or 20. Or a few more. Eventually, someday — I’m not saying when, just… someday — it will all blow up in a horrible dramatic mess, just you wait and see! Just you… wait!
oooh, put about a sign like that on the beltway…right where “surrender dorothy” used to be, in front of the mormon temple.
if you go to one of the near-weekly poly dinners around here, you get a few hobbits but mostly civil servant-types like me. then if you go to the bar-based gatherings, you get mostly younger perky goth. and some more civil servants. 😉
hey, there’s a gathering in kingston that this band i like is playing at–bohemian carnival? band is frenchy and the punk. you all kingstonites might like!
My impression is that most poly people do look like drippy hobbits with pocket protectors who read too many books, though the kids I have met seem to be really with-it. However, I rarely see anyone who is poly outside of a conference. In my city we have a sign at the edge of town: “Welcome to Kingston. What is Polyamory?”
Then one person a year types that into google and they get one of my articles, or more lately, three of yours.
thanks, amanda–the other side of that is if everyone looks/acts the same, i feel like i miss out on some of the creative expression that people could have explored. and some people’s self-expression IS underwear or t-shirts and jeans! (like chris usually dresses like john updike about to knock back a G&T at the club. except when he wears a tutu.) at the same time, i’m sensitive to how people want to identify as part of a tribe (that tribe vs. stranger thing being my biggest “issue.”).
while a lot of this happens because others assign one a convenient, stereotypical identity, i know people can bring this on themselves–plenty out there who have reduced themselves to a single characteristic–they make sure everyone knows they’re poly/bi/gamer/burner/republican/klingon in the first few words said and won’t ever open parts of themselves anywhere off that path. again, there’s that sense of regret that there’s probably a multifaceted person there somewhere, but they’re busy covering it with a monochromatic, flat, single identity. it’s like this shield comes up that keeps saying “i’m a this! i’m a this!” deflecting all other understanding.
(and lights, yes, please. night running taught me that a long time back. don’t be a donnie darko.)
maria —
your list is *hilarious* (b/c it’s so dead-on)! the slowly-mounting amusement broke forth in a full-on gale of laughter when i hit the dolphins. holy fuck. 🙂
even before i actually got to burning man, i realized that despite the trope of “radical self-expression,” a specific “burning man aesthetic” was at play: the whole fuzzy-boot-foxtail-cutsie-neon-tutu thing (i know i’m missing elements, but those are some of the most common). it was a little frustrating to see and feel that, even before i got there — especially since i knew i had not had the time or money to stock up on all the “right” costumes.
then i said “fuck it. i have plenty of cute underwear.” and sure, there *are* people there who dress with their own personal creative flair. but it dismays me to see that just like every other subculture that rises up to be “different” from the mainstream, radical ideas become fashion trends, and then calcify into a kind of “uniform” for fitting into the counter-culture the “right” way.
reminded me of one reason why i finally stopped trying to look all “punk” and “straight-edge” back in college: i realized there was a “right” way to do it if you wanted to be accepted as legit. (plus, i realized i’m actually kind of lazy about my daily clothing choices — i’ll grab jeans and a t-shirt most days, unless i’m in the mood to dress up or have an “occasion.”)
that said, i’d still say burning man is far more free-wheeling fashion-wise, and there really is plenty of room to make your own creative clothing (or lack of clothing) statement. but it would be easy to get sucked into the “gotta look like i belong here!” feeling if you’re not careful.
oh, but the EL wire and blinky things really are a necessity. holy cow — even with the full moon we had, it’s friggin’ dark out there.