The Nine Lamest Things About Polyamory

‘There’s this trendy new ‘multiple partners’ relationship model called polyamory that in many ways actually sucks. When you hear us ‘open relationship’ types smugly describing our supposedly enlightened lifestyle, there is all manner of high-maintenance bullshit that we are not telling you about. So let’s expose this high-maintenance bullshit for what it is with a series of GIFs, memes and Internet ephemera describing the lame side of polyamory.

You Fuck a Lot of People Who are Lame in Bed

The dirty little secret of human sexuality is that most people are fundamentally terrible at it. If you’re polyamorous, your number of shitty, lame, pointless, unfulfilling sexual encounters increases at least fivefold.

“The least favorite aspect of polyamory is doing it with people who have too little skills and experience,” says Fuzzy Phillippe, co-founder of the popular play party Club Exotica. “Polyamory is much more than a choice: it is a practice of developing and integrating various abilities and qualities which takes time and effort and conversations.”

A person being ‘polyamorous’ is no guarantee that they’re better in bed. It might just mean that they having the same crappy, low-grade sex on a more frequent basis.

More ‘Processing’ than Actual Sex

Oh, polyamorous people love to talk, process and correct your behavior. I think they like pointing out relationship protocol flaws more than they like the actual sex itself. When exploring polyamory, be ready for a litany of picky-oony conversations detailing everything you “do wrong”, be it your choice of words, your inadequate trigger warnings or your improper citations of Kate Bornstein’s work.

Running Into an Ex Constantly

Isn’t it awkward when you run into a disliked ex-lover? Polyamorous people run into a disliked ex-lover three times daily before it’s even lunch.

“My current biggest gripe about polyamory is finding a sex party to go to that isn’t filled with my lovers other lovers, casual sex partners, or exes,” says queer porn star and writer Kitty Stryker. “As much as I like to be friends with my metamours, I don’t necessarily need that friendship to include detailed, intimate knowledge of how they like to have their genitals played with or how big of a toy they can stick up their ass!”

Your Partners Have Awful Taste In Other Partners

Inevitably, you cannot stand some of the people your partner is sleeping with. You just have to put up with this, sometimes enduring threesomes with people whose guts you kind of hate.

The Constant Jealousy

These people whose guts you kind of hate will often appear to be get the sweeter arrangement in terms of your lover’s attention, affection, admiration and sexual indulgence. You just have to accept that jealousy is like vomiting, everyone has an occasional bout with it.

Taking Care of Other People’s Kids

The people you are fucking often cannot provide childcare for their own children because of their “busy dating schedule”. So you get roped in on the basis of that one time you got oral three weeks ago. And they don’t even pay you the market rate that a common 17-year-old gets on the contemporary babysitting circuit.

Holidays Require Way Too Many Gifts

If you have multiple partners your, holiday shopping list becomes all the more unreasonable. You will have multiple goddamned overpriced birthday dinners you are obliged to attend. And the number of phone calls you have to make on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day will completely nuke an otherwise nice, lazy Sunday.

PG&E Does Not Understand Your ‘Arrangement’

“I also hate that the marriage laws, family law, etc., are so prejudiced toward two-person monogamous unions,” says legendary adult film star Nina Hartley. “As the laws about marriage, children, sex work, etc., are based on the sexism of the Abrahamic faith tradition, it’s oppressive to me, who doesn’t believe those things about marriage, property, etc., and it annoys the crap out of me.”

Exceedingly Clinical Terminology

Polyamorous people are extremely averse to cute and simple terms like ‘boyfriend’, ‘girlfriend’ and ‘crush’. Instead, they prefer terms like ‘secondary, ‘unit, ‘fluid-bonded’ or ‘handfasted’ that ensure no human warmth creeps into their relationship vernacular. This kind of misses the point.

“Non-monogamous people say that poly is more evolved than monogamy,” says sex and relationship expert Reid Mihalko. “What is evolved is people giving themselves permission to love and relate in ways that make them happiest, and then dating their species — dating people for whom their particular way of loving makes them happiest, too.”

And I kid, being polyamorous has made me more exceedingly happy and well-adjusted person than I ever used to be. And those threesomes with people whose guts I cannot stand? They also have made me a better cross-coupling co-primary polyculist.