Love, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Polyamory: A Look Under the Covers of Nonmonogamy and Its Burgeoning Civil Rights Battle

Most of the discoveries I’ve made on my path to polyamory have been transformational and uplifting. But since becoming a sex-positive activist and an outspoken advocate for the nonmonogamous community, I’ve also learned of a darker side of polyamory. No, I’m not talking about kinky sex in a dimly lit dungeon, as much as I’d like to be! I’m actually not referring to anything risqué from within the polyamorous community at all. I’m talking about the unwarranted shadow that society has cast over polyamorous people by forcing them to live in the closet.

“Forcing” may seem like a strong word. But with the recent exception of residents in the progressive city of Somerville, Massachusetts, all other polyamorous people in America currently have zero protection from being blatantly discriminated against. They can be denied housing, prevented from advancing at work, and even fired, all without any legal recourse whatsoever. Relationship structure does not yet qualify as a “protected class” like gender, religion, race, or sexual orientation do. This lack of social and legal acceptance has compelled many polyamorous people to hide their true identity from their coworkers, family, and even closest friends. The danger of living openly means that—aside from the occasional celebrity nonmonogamy reference—polyamory hasn’t found a foothold in mainstream culture, which in turn has created a cascade of confusion about it that needs to be corrected. The most pervasive misconception that thrives in this void is that polyamory is just about sex. But for most of the polyamorous individuals I’ve met, this creative and expansive way of loving is about deep connection, committed partnerships, reliable family, and supportive community—things that everyone deserves to pursue free of discrimination.

In the polyamorous tradition of clear communication, let’s start by defining some terms. “Polyamory” is the practice of having multiple romantic and often, though not always, sexual relationships at one time, with all parties aware and consenting. “Nonmonogamy” is the larger umbrella term under which polyamory falls, along with other nonexclusive relationship structures and practices like monogamish relationships or swinging. Nonmonogamy is often also referred to as “ethical nonmonogamy” (ENM) or “consensual nonmonogamy” (CNM), but I just use “nonmonogamy” because I prefer not to reinforce the idea that nonmonogamy is an inherently dirty term that requires a redeeming qualifier. It would feel more fitting to instead label all infidelity as “unethical nonmonogamy.” When I positively highlight aspects of polyamory, I’m not invalidating monogamy in any way, nor am I trying to suggest that all polyamorous people are virtuous and perfect. I simply want to illuminate a group of people who have been heretofore marginalized. As other recent social justice movements have reminded us, dominant groups—in this case, the monogamous majority—enjoy the privilege of not needing advocacy to overcome systemic oppression.

One foundational myth I’d like to dispel is that polyamory is always a choice, or a “lifestyle,” rather than a deep-seated orientation. The way many poly people light up when they talk about their multiple partners (and about their partners’ partners, also known as “metamours”) makes it clear that this way of loving is simply how they’re wired. One polyamorous person put it to me like this: “It’s just a fact about how I experience love and relationships. Being open feels like the most honest expression of what I want…. It’s so philosophically ingrained in my brain that I would have a hard time seeing myself as identifying otherwise.” Thinking of polyamory solely as a choice rather than an orientation is harmful because most of our country’s current antidiscrimination discourse revolves around fixed, immovable traits, like race, gender, or ethnicity. The idea that people shouldn’t be persecuted for aspects of themselves they cannot change is, at least theoretically, generally accepted. But even those like me, who feel more fluid regarding relationship style and may choose to practice polyamory when it feels right, deserve to do so without risking losing our jobs, children, or standing in society.

Even though it’s estimated that 4–5% of the US population practices nonmonogamy (that’s at least 13 million Americans), there are only a handful of lawyers in the whole country who specialize in helping polyamorous people fight the discrimination they face. Diana Adams (they/them), an international lawyer and activist who is openly bisexual, polyamorous, and nonbinary, is a leading legal expert on this emerging social justice frontier. Diana has directly contended with essentially every harmful myth about polyamory, but chief among them is the fallacy that polyamory is exploitative of women.

Society’s confusion about this is probably reinforced by the fact that polyamory shares a key prefix with polygamy, and even though both of these can technically be practiced consensually, it’s important to understand just how different these practices are. Polygamy, which is most often practiced as one man having many wives, is literally one-sided and has historically been seen in contexts that put women on unequal footing. Polyamory, on the other hand, is fundamentally egalitarian. In fact, Diana said that they actually consider polyamory to be an active expression of their feminism. They said, “For me as a feminist, I felt really strongly that I didn’t want somebody else to have property rights to decide what I do with my body and how I relate to other people.” In the past, when male romantic partners learned about Diana’s bisexuality, they assumed it meant they’d get to have unlimited threesomes. Diana had to explain that what they actually wanted was to have ongoing relationships with other people that were entirely their own rather than about a male partner’s sexual pleasure.