Polyamory Is Deviant – But Not for the Reasons You May Think

ABSTRACT

This article identifies types of consensual non-monogamies (CNM) and contrasts them with cheating. When people realize that some people negotiate multiple partner relationships and monogamy is not the only option, they have encountered the polyamorous possibility and might have one of three common reactions. These reactions are embedded in a culture shaped by compulsory monogamy, within which CNM does not fit. Under the relational panopticism of compulsory monogamy, conventional society attributes significant stigma to polyamorous relationships. Two of the ostensible reasons for this attribution of deviance include the fact that polyamorous people have sex for pleasure and maintain multiple partners. Because these are common in other relationships as well, these apparent reasons are not the actual reasons for the stigma and deviance. Rather, there are at least three real reasons for this deviance assigned to polyamory, including honesty, women negotiating access to multiple partners, and the challenge it poses to heterosexual nuclear families.

Notes

¹ Polyandry, marriage between one wife and multiple husbands, is comparatively rare and most common when there is limited land, the population is geographically isolated, or there is a significant imbalance in the population; see Zeitzen, 2008.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elisabeth Sheff

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff is a researcher, expert witness, coach, speaker, and educational consultant. With a PhD in Sociology (University of Colorado, Boulder, 2005) and certification as a Sexuality Educator from the AASECT (the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, 2012), Dr. Sheff specializes in gender and sexual minority families, consensual non-monogamy, and kink/BDSM. Sheff is the foremost academic expert on polyamorous families with children, and her 25-year Polyamorous Family Study is the only longitudinal study of poly families with children to date. Currently lecturing at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, Sheff has also taught at the University of Colorado, the University of Montana, Georgia State University, Oglethorpe, Emory, and the University of Zurich. Sheff co-chairs the Consensual Non-Monogamies Legal Issues Team for the American Psychological Association, Division 44.