(Reposting a reply as a seperate post because the OP I was replying to turned out to be kinda terfy and that kind of people have no place on my blog. Also a lot here are not my own ideas but based on some conversations I had today, but hey, every idea ever is based on input of others, right?):
Quite often polyamorous men who date women will claim that ‘polyamory is liberating for women’ but when it comes down to it they’ve replaced ‘only I can fuck this woman’ with ‘everyone can fuck this woman but none of us actually have a responsibility to treat her any better than we did before, because she now has the liberty to chose multiple partners to fulfill all her needs so I’m off the hook and can continue to be a disappointing misogynist’, which like.. isn’t liberating at all?
Fuck that shit.
It’s just like how anarchist liberation isn’t the absence of all rules but the power to make rules together by agreeing what works best for your community so everyone’s needs are met. (Shit like ‘we all do the dishes’ and ‘we avoid this particular triggering topic in this space’, etc.) In the same way, relationships with less rules aren’t more liberating, addressing power inequalities and striving towards mutual control over the rules of a relationship so they actually fulfill our needs is liberating. Which can mean ‘monogamy isn’t our thing’ and ‘some of our needs are fulfilled by someone outside this relationship’, but it can also mean ‘we’re gonna both put effort on fulfilling each others needs instead of having yet another relationship where a woman does all the work’.
Which is also true when a couple isn’t composed of a man and a woman. There are also plenty of queer people out there who use ‘one person doesn’t need to fulfill all needs because we’re poly’ as an excuse to be shitty unsupportive partners. But it is even more common when a man is dating a woman because that kinda behavior is pre-programmed by sexism.
So, yeah, polyamory is not inherently more liberating. Men who date women and claim that polyamory ‘liberates women’ are pretty much certainly somewhat invested in getting laid more while needing to put less effort into fulfilling the needs of women (and this is extra true for trans women, whose needs always come last and who are treated as doubly disposable).
And telling women that they’re oppressing themselves when they don’t go along with that fantasy is pretty gross.
QueerAnarchism 