artattemptswriting:

Okay I gotta have this rant now, because my poly heart is in pain and I haven’t felt like this for a long time.

I just finished reading All Inclusive and while my issue isn’t related to the book (I really enjoyed it) I found it on a list of books that were supposed to have polyamorus relationships. All Inclusive is about swingers, and at no point does a healthy, happy polyam relationship take centre stage. The MC is a swinger. I’m so fed up.

And people tell me “Go read fanfic if you want polyam ships”, which. Doesn’t help. Because yes, fanfic will provide what I’m after, it also doesn’t. It’s mainly written by people who are well-meaning, but often monogamous and young. While neither of those things are inherently bad, they can’t give me the window to representation that I want to see. They are, in essence, fan service. OT3s are wonderful and I love reading them, but they’re usually routes by which authors can write highly sexual threesomes (which isn’t really a look into the polyam life) or they’re answers to the perceived problem of a love triangle in the world of ships.

So what do I want? I want romantic subplots. I want tender explorations of polyam love in the same way monogamous love gets treated. I want to see love treated as it deserves. I want triads and open relationships and every configuration of polyam relationship that can be conceived, not just in high fantasy where the otherworldliness makes polyamory look like another fantasy feature, but in our world. Our time. Our lives. I want teenagers experimenting, learning maturity through tentative journeys into polyamory; I want adults discovering something that they had never thought possible; people realising that they’re not broken or perverse for loving romantically and wholly more than one person.

I can write it myself, sure. But that only goes so far. Polyamory isn’t some kind of fetish or ‘special relationship’ or whatever else – it’s an identity, a way of life, and a way that people love. Just. For the love of words, write polyam relationships as you would your other queer ones. Help generations see it in a normalised light. Please.