Being Out of the Closet
Two terrific e-mails on being out of the closet.
The first of these emails came across the poly at polyamory.org list, and I'm reposting it here with permission (slightly edited for content). The second came across the polyfamilies list more recently, same author.
I can't have -- no, make that I am not interested in having -- close relationships with people who don't know me, or are unaware of the people who are most important to me. And I'm not interested in being put in situations in which I'm expected to conceal who I am to the people I love, or who they are to me.
If someone knows me well enough to:
* ask me what I did this weekend
* ask me to coffee
* tell me what they and their partner(s)/family did this weekend
* be a guest in my home
* have me as a guest in their home
then it's very likely they will meet or hear about my partners pretty quickly. I don't walk up to the mail carrier and tell zir "Hey, we've never met, but I'm serene and I'm poly". I often get the impression in these conversations that those of us who are completely out, or who advocate being out, are advocating outing oneself to strangers -- that's never been my position. My position is that I refuse to take more care in concealing who I love than the mono-het person in the next office at work, or the people in my family, or whoever. Why should I? What I'm doing is not wrong or shameful, and I absolutely refuse to behave as though it is."
Who I love is not about what goes on in my bedroom -- it's about who I spend my love and time on, and who I will take to family functions. It's about whose rings I wear and whose photos are on my desk at work, and whose serious illness means I will spend the night in a chair in a hospital room. Being out about being poly means that my family of origin treats my loves as family (I know that's not a given, but my family is used to adjusting to my weirdness, and I believe that my matter-of-fact outness all my life got them ready for having so many out-laws on my side). Being out about poly means I don't have to introduce the people I plan to spend the rest of my life with as my "friends" or my "roommates".
If people are offended by the fact that the people I love number four rather than one, it's not about what I do in the bedroom. It's about their intolerance. My siblings are married to one person each, and I have no idea what they do in the bedroom, [edit: Except I know whatever it is, it's netted them ten-going-on-eleven kids between them]
nor do they have any idea what I do. Still, they can say "my wife and I went to the store and bought a lamp" and people don't say "You have a WIFE? I don't want to know what you do in bed, dude!"
Anyway, being out is not about throwing anything in anyone's face, for me. It's about having the same consideration for my loves as my brothers have for their wives -- they are together and in love, and everyone knows it. Likewise with me and my partners, and I wouldn't have it any other way.