An article has zipped around the polyamory community in the past week. An advice columnist answered a letter from a polyamorous reader. A lot of people didn’t like the answer the columnist gave. No, I’m not going to sound off about it. What I want to do today is talk a bit about my own hopes for when you in the poly community choose to make your voice heard on issues. In our culture of instant communications, we get responses quickly to almost anything we put out there. Email makes feedback easy and fast. Now, I think this is great, but I also think there’s a drawback. I mean, who hasn’t shot out an off-the-cuff email in a fit of pique that you wish you hadn’t? When you respond to people in the media about polyamory, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:
- The person is likely to know dick about polyamory.The Dan Savages of the world are the exception, not the rule. Expect your mainstream journalist to be mainstream. The mainstream is not well-educated about Polyamory.
- If you respond at all you will make a strong impression The polyamory community isn’t very big. If you respond, instead of being one of hundreds of letters, you’ll be one of dozens at most. Perhaps in time this will change, but the pool of poly people that spend a lot of time speaking up on issues is still small.
- If you want a polyamory to be seen in a positive light, you must present yourself positively. I’m sure this isn’t really necessary, but if you’re going to write someone in the media about how poly was portrayed, be a grown-up about it. No name-calling, no insults to intelligence or education. Be polite. Be well-spoken/written. Pretend you think grammar, punctuation and spelling count, even if you don’t. If you’re writing a writer, nothing will make you look like an idiot faster than a poorly-spelled, badly-punctuated vituperative block of invective. Save that kind of thing for the warm up, but let your final draft be calm, factual, kind and reasoned.
We’re in a unique and exciting position in the poly community right now. We have a lot of power to influence how poly is perceived. Isn’t that cool?
Me? I think it’ll be good for all of us if we use that power wisely.
Oh good lord yes, please !
As it happens, Kit, your LJ comment was what inspired this!
> We’re in a unique and exciting
> position in the poly community right now.
I agree, if by this you mean “There’s enough of us right now that we’re getting noticed, but few enough of us that one individual can still have a lot of influence.”
“The mainstream is not well-educated about Polyamory.”
This is definitely true. However, a quick internet search will at least bring up a few web pages that will answer a lot of questions and correct a lot of likely incorrect first impressions. It’s not hard to at least get SOME information on the point of view of the people who use the term, and I think anyone trying to write an advice column should give themselves at least fifteen minutes of education on a subject with which they are unfamiliar, before trying to give someone advice dealing with that subject. More, if possible.
Word up. Well said.
Laura,
The problem is that the word ‘should’ implies some common standard. Many in the Mono community will say that we ‘should’ just be true to that one true love. Some mainstream writers will be responsible enough to check those websites or other references before spouting off. Others will give a response from their gut, and some of those will not respond positively. We cannot control their response. We can, individually, control our responses to their writings. The onus falls on us to educate and present a positive image at the same time.
It is exciting and scary, we are indeed living a unique epoch, coining what people will perceive as poly, let´s say, in 20 years. It can even happen that we, the ones writting and reading here, hate all the rules and regulations which will issue in some years time, when poly becomes boring mainstram matter, and subject to state or community regulation..
(sorry, too “brave new world” for my own good)