Paradoxically, as religious patriarchy has loosened its moral grip on the West, the doctrine of monogamous romance has become ever more entrenched. Marriage was once understood as a practical, domestic arrangement that involved a certain degree of self-denial. Now your life partner is also supposed to answer your every intimate and practical need.
Polyamory is a response to the understanding that, for many of us, this ideal is impractical, if not an active cause of unhappiness. People have all sorts of needs through their lives – love, companionship, care and intimacy, sexual adventure and self-expression – and expecting one person to be able to meet all of them is not only unrealistic, it’s unreasonable. Women in particular, who often end up doing most of the emotional labour in conventional, monogamous, heterosexual relationships, don’t have the energy to be anyone’s everything.
I don’t expect anyone to be everything to me. I want freedom, and I want to be ethical, and I also want affection and pleasure. I guess I’m greedy. I guess I’m a woman who wants to have it all. It’s just that my version of “having it all” is different from the picture of marriage, mortgage and monogamy to which I was raised to aspire.