Polyamory: Intimate practice,identity or sexual orientation?

Abstract

Polyamory means different things to different people. While some consider polyamory to be nothing more than a convenient label for their current relationship constellations or a handy tool for communicating their willingness to enter more than one relationship at a time, others claim it as one of their core identities. Essentialist identity narratives have sustained recent arguments that polyamory is best understood as a sexual orientation and is as such comparable with homosexuality, heterosexuality or bisexuality. Such a move would render polyamory intelligible within dominant political and legal frameworks of sexual diversity. The article surveys academic and activist discussions on sexual orientation and traces contradictory voices in current debates on polyamory. The author draws on poststructuralist ideas to show the shortcomings of sexual orientation discourses and highlights the losses which are likely to follow from pragmatic definitions of polyamory as sexual orientation.

Keywords

Bisexuality heterosexuality homosexuality polyamory sexual orientation

The term ‘polyamory’ emerged in debates on responsible non-monogamy within counter-cultural communities in English-speaking countries, where it came to stand for ‘the assumption that it is possible, valid and worthwhile to maintain intimate, sexual, and/or loving relationships with more than one person.’ (Haritaworn et al., 2006: 518). There is a growing body of research into polyamory across the social sciences (e.g. Barker and Langdridge, 2010, 2011). Polyamory has been interpreted as a relationship practice (Lano and Parry Lano, 1995), philosophy (Klesse, 2007), theory (Emens, 2004), lovestyle, relationship orientation (Anapol, 2010) or identity (M Barker, 2005). There have also been suggestions that polyamory could be understood as a sexual orientation. It is not uncommon for poly-identified people to refer to polyamory as a ‘hard wired’, durable disposition, which deeply informs their sense of selfhood. Recently, Tweedy (2011) has presented a legal argument for including polyamory into US workplace anti-discrimination legislation via its (re)conceptualisation as a sexual orientation. In this article, I critically discuss such framings of polyamory as a sexual orientation. In the first part of the article, I define sexual orientation and highlight its significance in debates in sexology, the social sciences, sexual politics and the law. In the second part, I draw on social constructionist, poststructuralist and queer theories to demonstrate the drawbacks of sexual orientation theories, namely their mooring in essentialist understandings of the subject. In the third part of the article, I address the ways in which polyamory has been represented through the language of sexual orientation. Here, I am particularly concerned with the suggestion that a sexual orientation agenda could effectively advance the civil rights struggles of the polyamory movement. In the concluding section, I highlight the problematic effects that such a strategy could have for a radical sexual politics around non-monogamy.

The conundrum of sexual orientation

Most sexuality research up to the 1980s was structured by dichotomous models, according to which people fall within the categories of either heterosexuality or homosexuality (manifested in desire for the ‘other’ or the ‘same’ sex respectively). This categorisation implies a binary construction of sexual difference, which casts the human population into clearly sexed (and gendered) beings: males and females (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). By defining heterosexuality and homosexuality on the grounds of sexual attraction for either one or the other sex, sexual orientation and sex/gender positions become inextricably intertwined (Butler, 1990). Transgender, transsexuality and intersexuality therefore unsettle many taken-for-granted assumptions regarding both sexual orientation and sex/gender (Nagoshi et al., 2012).

Sexual orientation is often described in terms of the sex of one’s object choice: whether that sex is the ‘same sex’ or ‘other sex’, such that, according to Janis Bohan, ‘one’s sexual orientation is defined by the sex (same or other) of the people to whom one is emotionally and sexually attracted (1996: xvi) … The ‘two sex’ model quickly converts into a model of two orientations: straight or queer, whereby ‘queer’ becomes an ‘umbrella’ term for all nonstraight and nonnormative sexualities. (Ahmed, 2006: 68)

Ahmed’s queer-inspired definition is advantageous over more conventional ones, because it acknowledges the multiplicity and contingency of non-heterosexual desires and identifications. Its shortcoming is that she does not consider bisexuality. Western theories of sexuality often build on constitutional references to bisexuality, even if the category remains nominally marginalised in most sexual orientation models (Angelides, 2000). Ahmed’s silence on bisexuality can be read as an integral part of the wider elimination of bisexuality from queer theoretical discourse (Young, 1997). Other discussions of sexual orientation include bisexuality as a central category. Evans (2004: 207–208) defines sexual orientation as: ‘[a] description of who and what one desires sexually, one’s object choice … It is used to refer to whether one is heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual’. Evans sees sexual orientation manifested in durable dispositions and juxtaposes it with sexual preference, ‘a term with more transitory connotations’ (2004: 208). Diamond (2008: 2) suggests that sexual orientation models assume ‘that an individual’s predisposition for the same sex or the other sex is an early-developing and stable trait that has a consistent effect on that person’s attractions, fantasies and romantic feelings over the lifespan’. Because of these connotations, sexual orientation models obstruct our perception of common experiences of erotic fluidity. The same effect applies to the contingency of gender identifications (Bornstein, 1994; Nagoshi et al., 2012).

Sexual orientation and the history of sexual knowledges

Sexual orientation is one of the chief concepts through which western culture has come to understand sexuality. In the following sections, I trace the history of the term in the fields of sexology, psychology, biology, the social sciences, sexual politics and legal studies. Notions of sexual orientation emerged from within sexology, which in the 19th century started to explore desire through the frame of ‘deviation’ (Bland and Doan, 1998). Early sexological writing was concerned with the multitude of perversions, but the debate became increasingly obsessed with the question of homosexuality (Weeks, 1990). Foucault (1990) showed how sexology effected the construction of novel subjectivities through typologisation and interiorisation. ‘Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul’ (Foucault, 1990: 43). The idea of heterosexuality emerged in the context of this burgeoning discourse on pathology and perversion and came to stand for an assumedly natural state (Katz, 1995). Theories of homosexuality in the 19th and early 20th centuries operated along the premise of gender inversion, which is exemplified in the works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld, Karl Heinrich Ulrich, Carl Westphal, Havelock Ellis and Edward Carpenter. Most theories assumed a primarily congenital (hormonal or genetic) determination, even if some writers speculated about latency, grading or acquisition. Brickel (2006) argues that an ongoing concern with liminality and fluidity sustained a sexological counter-narrative throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The thesis of congenital conditionality went hand in hand with the assumption of stark bodily differences. Sexual orientation research reported differences between homosexual and heterosexual people with regard to fat distribution, metabolism, hair texture, body height, lisping, lipid levels, posture, mental health and so on (Murphy, 1997). The scientific mythologies on queer embodiment were also shaped by racist and anti-Semitic stereotypes (Mosse, 1985; Somerville, 2000).

Psychological interventions

Freud (1994 [1905]) rejected both the gender inversion myth and its biologistic underpinnings. Taking his starting point from the assumption of a primordial bisexual disposition, Freud explains the fixation of gender-of-object choice as the result of the intra-psychic developments bound up with the resolution of the Oedipus complex. Both homosexuality and heterosexuality, therefore, were in need of theoretical explanation. The radicalism of this insight was hampered by Freud’s continuing investment in remnants of biologism, as evidenced in reliance on a theory of primordial bisexuality or an instinct model and his discussion of ‘constitutional factors’ and phylogeny.¹ Moreover, by explaining homosexuality as the failure to resolve the Oedipus complex, he framed it as deviation from heteronormative genitality. This bias laid the groundwork for later explicitly homophobic adaptations in neo-Freudian theories (Angelides, 2000). This notwithstanding, Freudian psychoanalysis grounded an alternative perspective of sexual orientation as an effect of psychological developments. This gave rise to multiple theories on identity formation within psychology and the social sciences (Sandfort, 2000). The two major approaches within sexual theories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries focused either on congenital determination or psychological development (quasi-determination). Later accounts often mixed elements from within both paradigms. ‘People become homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual because of what happens to them partly in their prenatal history and partly in their postnatal history’, argues, for example, Money (1988: 6–7).

Biological sexual orientation research

The belief that sexual orientation can be explained by clues drawn from biology has remained pervasive and powerful. Biological sexual orientation research has been driven by a concern with the aetiology of homosexuality (LeVay, 1996; Murphy, 1997). In recent decades, research activity focused on genetics, brain structure, hormones and the possible interrelation between these factors. There has been cross-fertilisation between research into sex differences and sexual orientation. Insights derived from research into mammals (namely rodents) have been applied to human sexual orientation models (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). The assumptions of biological determinism and inheritability are further sustained by theories from within socio-biology and evolutionary psychology (Stein, 1999).

Sexual orientation research published in the 1990s in the USA, which suggested the possibility of locating the causes of homosexuality in brain structure or genetic sequencing, was subject to an intense media coverage. In the early 1990s, LeVay (1991, 1993) published brain research that claimed that the size of the INAH3 region of the hypothalamus was smaller in gay men than in heterosexual men. In 1993, Hamer and his colleagues claimed to have isolated a gene sequence (a string of genes on a chromosome), which may cause male homosexuality. The sequence, called Xq28, contains hundreds of genes and is located on a small stretch of the X chromosome (Hamer and Copeland, 1994). LeVay and Hamer (1994) later synthesised their research findings by linking genetic sequences with processes of protein synthesis, prenatal hormone secretion, specific reactions in the hypothalamus and the genesis of same-sex desire. Genetic arguments received further backing from research, which compared groups of identical (monozygotic), non-identical (dizygotic) twins and adoptive siblings (Bailey and Pillard, 1991; Bailey et al., 1993).

The aforementioned studies have been criticised on various grounds. Authors stated reservations regarding pre-perceived assumptions about gender and sexual orientation (e.g. essentialism, inversion models), limited sample sizes, inconclusive sampling criteria, non-controlled variables, non-sustainable deference and so on (cf. Murphy, 1997; Stein, 1999). The research programme into the biological determination of sexual orientation has so far not produced plausible or conclusive results. The interpretation of these studies focused on biological traits only. It thereby omitted social factors (such as experience) as potential factors in shaping not only complex behaviours (such as partner choices), but also biology (e.g. neurological clustering) (Rogers, 1999). Many reject research into the causation of homosexuality on purely political grounds, because of fears that such knowledge could foster medical interventions with the aim of cure or erasure, for example, by the means of therapy or hormonal and genetic engineering (Murphy, 1997).

Social science models

Sexual orientation models have also been used in social scientific research. Researchers from within the empiricist tradition have been concerned whether and how sexual orientation can be measured and how measurement tools can be utilised in survey research (Gonsiorek and Weinrich, 1991). Kinsey et al.’s (1948) sexual orientation model places subjects on a seven-point scale ranging from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual) based on their sexual experiences and psychosexual reactions. A further category X was supposed to account for no social-sexual contacts and reactions. The so-called Kinsey scale expresses a dispositional view of sexual orientation by focussing on behaviour, desire and fantasies. It is preferable over the hypothesis of discrete sexual categories in that it assumes a continuum of interrelated experiential phenomena, which allows for representing bisexualities.

The Kinsey scale was widely deployed in survey research and was developed into more comprehensive models, such as the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG), which integrates sexual attraction, sexual behaviour, sexual fantasies, emotional preference, social preference, self-identification, lifestyle and a time factor into a multi-variable model (Klein, 1993). Critics see the bipolarity and one-dimensionality of these models as a limitation. They are primarily and exclusively concerned with gendered object choice, sex/gender positions are treated as foundational and same-sex and other-sex desires are not conceived as potentially non-correlated traits.² This obstructs adequate representation of asexuality and various modes of bisexuality (Stein, 1999). These objections notwithstanding, arguments derived from Kinsey’s categorisation have been adopted widely in lesbian, gay and bisexual social movement milieus.

Social movement debates

Sexual orientation discourse has appealed to activists, because it helped articulate an effective equal rights agenda. If gay and lesbian people are considered to have no choice about their sexual attraction, they have to be accepted as a distinct group within humanity (LeVay, 1996). This has implications for criminal law (among others), because it appears to be unjust to punish people for something they have no choice about. Critics of this strategy argue that biological essentialism does not provide effective protection from persecution, which can be evidenced with the extermination politics of the Third Reich (Stein, 1999).

In the 1960s and 1970s, many lesbian and gay movements were inspired by the US Black civil rights movement, which reinforced the adaptation of a so-called ‘ethnic model’ of gay sexuality (Epstein, 1987). Sexual orientation models denoted sufficient biologist grounding for mobilising around a race/sexuality analogy. Black theorists have rejected this analogy as a simplification of the multi-layered experience of queer people of colour and as an obscuration of the nuanced workings of racism (Schueller, 2005). Moreover, sexual orientation had more currency among gay male activists than lesbians and bisexual women, because of the central role of choice at the heart of the figure of the woman-identified-woman in political lesbianism and female erotic autonomy in bisexual feminism (Gregory, 1983; Whisman, 1996). Yet the mainstream currents of lesbian, gay and bisexual movements embraced sexual orientation as the most suitable rallying point for equal rights campaigns (Monro, 2005).

Legal politics

Sexual orientation is nowadays thoroughly engrained in jurisdictions across the globe. After decades of refusal, sexual orientation – and gender identity – have made inroads into international human rights law in the course of the first decade of the 21st century (Waites, 2009). Sexual orientation was first mentioned in a resolution of the former UN Commission on Human Rights in 2000. The major break-through came with the 2006 Declaration of Montreal of the International Conference LGBT Human Rights and the 2006 ‘Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’ (O’Flaherty and Fisher, 2008). On 17 June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution (UN Human Rights Council, 2011a), which requested that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights draft a report on human rights violations on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity and to detail legal strategies to combat these malpractices. The report was published in December 2011 (UN Human Rights Council, 2011b).

There have also been significant developments in European Union human rights legislation. The Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) contained an anti-discrimination clause which refers to sexual orientation. The European Council Directive 2000/78/EC established the requirement of EU states to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in public and private sector employment (Beger, 2004; Waites, 2009). The EU Fundamental Charter of Rights, which came into force with the Lisbon Treaty (2009) also includes references to sexual orientation (but not gender identity) in Article 21, which prohibits discrimination (EU, 2010).

The ‘Yogyakarta Principles’ were proposed by a group of internationally distinguished human rights experts who met in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) in 2006 to define global standards regarding the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity (Corrêa and Muntarbhorn, 2007). Although the principles advanced the awareness of human rights in these areas, both issues remain contested among state representatives and law and policy makers within the global public sphere. Transgender rights have been marginalised even more strongly than sexual orientation in UN debates on human rights. The ‘International Bill of Gender Rights’, agreed upon in 1996, was followed by the inclusion of ‘gender identity’ into the Yogyakarta principles only in 2006. Procedures, treaty bodies and states previously either ignored gender identity altogether or collapsed it into the categories ‘sexual minorities’ or ‘sexual orientation’ (O’Flaherty and Fisher, 2008). While the Yogyakarta principles certainly contribute to greater conceptual clarity and consistency in the legal arena, both core concepts (gender identity and sexual orientation) have been subject to criticism, because they mobilise essentialist interpretations of gender and desire. Some transgender activists would have preferred the term ‘gender expression’, which would have been more suitable for the representation of blurred or shifting identifications (Currah et al., 2006; Waites, 2009). Sexual orientation, too, connotes a deep-rooted disposition and suggests uni-directionality and immutability. Waites (2009: 151) argues that ‘installing “sexual orientation” in human rights discourses entails … exclusionary effects for a huge range of people worldwide who do not relate sexually only to one gender’. Although some legal provisions include references to bisexual behaviours or identifications,³ Waites proves to be right, if we look at the practical workings of the law. Research demonstrates that it is extremely difficult for asylum seekers to demonstrate persecution on the basis of sexual orientation, if they present a bisexual identity or life story (IGLHRC, 2007; Rehaag, 2008). In the following section, I deepen my discussion of the theoretical objections to the concept sexual orientation.

The problems with sexual orientation

Powerful criticism of the sexual orientation discourse has been raised from within social constructionist scholarship, life course research, queer theories and poststructuralist legal studies. Social constructionist accounts of sexual orientation have aimed at providing alternative understandings to biological or psychological determinism and universalism (Heckert, 2005; Stein, 1999). Most social constructionists target the problem of essentialism, but at times they rebut the very concept of sexual orientation. Plummer hints at an incommensurability between sociology and sexual orientation models, when he argues that sociology embraces identity construct models, whereas ‘the orientation model is found among geneticists, clinicians and behaviourists alike and suggests that a person’s sexual orientation is firmly established by mid-childhood’ (Plummer, 1981, quoted in Waites, 2009: 145). Others have rejected the polarisation of biology and culture, life sciences and social sciences or of essentialism and constructionism. ‘Human eroticism always encompasses biopsychic dispositions, cultural possibilities, and personal choices’, argues Murphy (1997: 4).

Social constructionist insights are backed by life-course research, which demonstrates that people’s sexual behaviours vary across their life experience (D’Augelli and Patterson, 1995; Fox, 1996). Women frequently report more fluid patterns of desire than men and are more likely to consider identity changes in response to particular experiences (Diamond, 2008). Trans, gender-queer, non-gender or pan-gender identification tends to complicate dominant sexual orientation and sex/gender models (Sanger, 2010). Sexual orientation theories are further fraught with the problem of cultural universalism: Homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality are categories with a specific western genealogy. Even if these identity categories are commonly used in global sexual politics (Altman, 2001), they do not necessarily resonate with local vernaculars, meanings and identifications. In specific localities, appeals to the allegedly universal global categories of LGBT rights activism often coexist with persisting local identifications (Dave, 2011). Universalist categories are also unable to accommodate the multiple entanglements of diasporic lives (Manalansan, 2003).

Queer theorists have highlighted the normative ways in which sexual orientation thinking regulates gender presentation and sexual desire (Butler, 1990, 1993). Sedgwick (1995) refutes the epistemic violence at the heart of reductionist sexual orientation thinking which ignores the rich diversity of eroticism and the multi-directional flows of desire. Some queer theorists have countered the notion of sexual orientation by developing the conceptual inventory proposed by Deleuze and Guattari (Heckert, 2010; Nigianni and Storr, 2009). Deleuze and Guattari (2009) stress the positive, productive, fluid and effervescent quality of desire. Talking of ‘desiring machines’, ‘machinic desire’ or ‘assemblages’ they discard essentialist individualism.

Critical legal scholars, too, have applied queer critiques to the legal and political processes in which rights are mediated via the concept of sexual orientation. Individual and collective (sexual) identities are not seen as pre-given, but as produced in social struggles (Stychin, 1995). Anti-discrimination and human rights campaigns mobilise identities compatible with these legal frameworks, modelled upon the notion of the unitary, individualised and rational subject (Morgan, 2000; Stychin, 2003). Appealing to sexual orientation, they reinforce the idea of homogenous representative collectivities around ideal-typical L-G-B-T positions. This limits the scope for recognising the true diversity of sexual and gender dissidence and for understanding the interconnectedness of various modes of oppression (Herman, 1993a, Beger, 2004).

Social constructionists and queer theorists have produced a powerful body of work dedicated to the refutation of sexual orientation models. Some have also suggested a radical redefinition of sexual orientation for a better understanding of human eroticism. Ahmed (2006: 3) returns to the spatial meanings of the term to foreground agency, choice and commitment. Murphy (1997) expands the meaning of sexual orientation to include all our sexual interests and tastes and all the dynamic and subtle features of our erotic life experience. Ahmed’s and Murphy’s alternative definitions are valid attempts to unfreeze the meanings associated with the idea of sexual orientation. Yet their accounts have few similarities with the usage of the term in the world of medicine, science, law and civil rights politics. Sexual orientation is a core concept in these fields and access to rights and resources is frequently mediated via modes of politics and representation steeped in sexual orientation discourses. It may go too far to argue that power resides in this category, but it certainly structures the field of power within sexual politics. Beger (2004) notes the gap between the radical deconstructive insights of queer theory and the discourses that determine current human rights frameworks. Queer-inspired activists face a dilemma when they ponder on the risks and damages implied in strategic deployments of sexual orientation discourses. Recent debates concerning whether polyamory can be represented as a sexual orientation bring to the fore the same difficulties. In the following, I discuss current definitions of polyamory and identify which elements sustain sexual orientation discourses and poly civil rights agendas.

Polyamory – a sexual orientation?

The term polyamory is closely bound up with debates on consensual non-monogamy. Some claim that the term was invented in the early 1990s by the founders of a neo-pagan church in the USA (Anapol, 2010), but variants of the word have been around since the 1950s (Alan, 2010). The concept resonates with critiques of compulsory monogamy in other counter-cultural milieus, including leftist, feminist, lesbian, gay male, bisexual, transgender, BDSM and queer activism (Klesse, 2011). As a relational practice, polyamory sustains a vast variety of open relationship or multi-partner constellations, which can differ in definition and grades of intensity, closeness and commitment. For some, polyamory functions as an umbrella term for the multiple approaches of ‘responsible non-monogamy’ (Lano and Parry, 1995). The ethical dimension of polyamory stems from its endorsement of consensus and a set of interrelated values, such as honesty, self-knowledge, self-possession, integrity and the valuing of sex and love over jealousy. These values are implicated in a range of theories around polyamory, which sustain a philosophical meta-discourse (Emens, 2004). Some have described polyamory as a relationship orientation, designating a personal disposition to be prepared to enter more than one intimate and/or sexual relationship simultaneously. Anapol (2010: 1) sees polyamory as a ‘range of lovestyles that arise from an understanding that love cannot be forced to flow or be prevented from flowing in any particular direction’. Finally, polyamory has also been described as a distinctive identity (M Barker, 2005). I will discuss poly identity narratives in more detail, because representations of polyamory as identity most strongly resemble sexual orientation discourses.

Some participants in my 1997–2003 UK study (Klesse, 2007) highlighted that polyamory provided an important reference for identification. ‘I identify as bisexual and polyamorous’, explained, for example, Marianne, who went on to claim that coming to terms with her polyamorous identity was much more difficult than accepting her bisexuality. Marianne’s detailed account of her struggles shows all the elements, which Cass (1979) describes as being central to lesbian and gay identity formation (i.e. identity confusion, identity comparison, identity tolerance, identity acceptance, identity pride, identity synthesis). Poly identity stories closely mirror the structure of classical coming-out narratives. For some research participants, polyamory was just one layer in their multiply interwoven coming-out stories (e.g. as bi, BDSM and poly). The resemblance of poly and LGBT coming-out processes is frequently acknowledged in psychotherapeutic literature (Weitzman, 2006). At the same time, poly activist writing produces politicised coming out discourses (Rambukkana, 2004).

M Barker’s (2005) research found that while some poly-identified people see polyamory as a choice of practice, others claim it as a natural state of being. Some people suggested that they were ‘essentially wired’ to be polyamorous. Essentialist variants of polyamory narratives on polyamorous identities resonate with ideas on sexual orientation. Even if they do not necessarily imply a fixation of the sex (or gender) of object choice, they share with classical sexual orientation accounts the insistence on stability and durability. The affinity of poly identities with sexual orientation models is often reinforced through a strategic pairing of polyamory with identities that are more easily recognised as ‘sexual orientation’, as evidenced in claims such as ‘I am poly and bisexual’. A similar effect is achieved through the technique of constructing an analogy between different coming-out experiences (e.g. coming out as poly compared with coming out as queer or BDSM, etc.).

Essentialist identity narratives are an indicator of the prevalence of minoritising identity narratives in contemporary polyamory culture. Emens (2004) adopts Sedgwick’s (1995) distinction between minoritising and universalising tropes on homosexual identity for her discussion of polyamory. According to Sedgwick, minoritising views suggest ‘that there is a distinct population of persons who “really are gay”’ (quoted in Emens, 2004: 340). Universalising views assume a closer proximity between the categories heterosexual and homosexual and frame same-sex desire as a characteristically human potential. Emens claims that most poly writings deploy universalising arguments. For example, the common comparison between the cheating majority and honest polyamorists in the poly literature suggests a widespread disposition towards non-monogamy in the population. The privileging of love over sex, too, has a universalising effect by mobilising the mainstream values of romantic love for the recognition of polyamory. Kaldera (2005: 102) advances a further universalist argument when he argues that it is possible to learn the cultural values of polyamory. In his study on neo-pagan polyamory, half of the children raised in poly families assumed a poly identity as adults. This corresponds with a universalising construction of polyamory in mainstream culture, which recognises the common nature of the fantasy of sleeping with multiple partners, even if it does not condone the practice. In contrast to the common perception of lesbian and gay identities, minoritising discourses regarding polyamory are poorly developed.

Emens believes that the hegemony of a universalising logic poses a serious problem for polyamory rights activism. ‘Rather than empathizing with others who share one’s traits, people often fear or shun people they could become, particularly when the common traits are stigmatized’ (2004: 345). She refers to this reaction as the ‘paradox of prevalance’ and explains it as an aggressive defensiveness designed to ward off anxieties regarding one’s partner’s or one’s own potential transgressions in the face of the widespread failure of monogamy.

Strategic essentialism could provide a promising remedy for this dilemma: ‘Convincing the mainstream non-monogamists that polyamorists are a recognizable group with a distinct identity might be polys’ best chance of overcoming the effects of the paradox of prevalence’ (Emens, 2004: 352). However, ultimately her reservations take the upper hand. She cautions that the time and circumstances are not right for an essentialist agenda and that strategic essentialism could also undermine radical poly politics.

Tweedy (2011) acknowledges the downsides of essentialist politics, but she is convinced that the classification of polyamory as sexual orientation in state-based workplace anti-discrimination legislation would be beneficial for polyamorous people and the wider social justice agenda of US anti-discrimination law. Tweedy argues that poly identities are sufficiently engrained in many people’s sense of personhood to qualify for sexual orientation status. She points to the profound significance of poly values, the risks of poly lives, the cultural significance of romantic relationships and the analogy between homosexuality and polyamory. She provides evidence for discrimination against polyamorous people in marriage law (couples only), criminal law (anti-bigamy and adultery laws) and family law (discriminatory custody decisions). Tweedy suggests that the sexual orientation category as it is currently defined in US anti-discrimination laws is sufficiently flexible to accommodate polyamory. The definitions vary widely across different statutes and some states also refer to gender identity as an element of sexual orientation. Although many LGBT activists reject this conflation and advocate the inclusion of gender identity as an independent category, these cases demonstrate the malleability of the category. It proves the feasibility of expanding the definitions of sexual orientation in a ‘piecemeal way’ to include further preferences, including polyamory. Tweedy concludes that ‘it makes conceptual sense for polyamory to be viewed as part of sexual orientation.’ and that ‘anti-discrimination protections for polyamorists are warranted’ (2011: 1514). Although anti-discrimination protection for polyamorous people is an important value, I consider the risks bound up with advocating sexual orientation models of polyamory to be severe.⁴

On the drawbacks of the conflation of sexual orientation and polyamory

In the following, I argue that the promotion of sexual orientation models of polyamory will strengthen one-dimensional poly identity political currents in the wider field of politics around consensual non-monogamy. The equation of polyamory with sexual orientation may undermine the disruptive potential of the category polyamory, achieve only selective protection under the law, obstruct the ability of poly movements to pursue broader alliances, and foster a politics of recognition at the expense of a more transformative political agenda.

For many, polyamory is incommensurable with any rigid categorisation or typologisation (Aviram, 2009). They believe that the value of polyamory resides in its endorsement of the fluidity and unpredictability of emotions and erotic desire. Polyamory provides a plot for desire without any necessary references to gendered object choice. By encouraging multiple involvements, polyamory sustains an imagination of erotic intimacy that transcends the binaries of sex/gender and homosexuality/heterosexuality. From this perspective, polyamory shares with bisexuality the critical potential for ‘undoing’ binaries. Some authors suggest that the critical potential of both concepts is enhanced if they work in tandem. According to M Barker (2005: 2), polyamorous bisexuality is even more effective than monogamous bisexuality in troubling ‘the male/female and straight/gay binary constructs at the root of compulsory heterosexuality’. Anderlini-D’Onofrio (2009) believes that polyamory shares with bisexuality the potential for recreating sexuality in the spirit of an ars erotica beyond the modernist trappings of essentialist identity categories.

It is important to recognise that such a strategic alignment of polyamory and bisexuality has its drawbacks, too. Polyamory is not grounded in any particular sexual identity. Although polyamory is quite popular among some sections of bisexual communities, its position has always been contested and controversial (Klesse, 2007). The emphasis on the affinity between polyamory and bisexuality as part of a deconstructive argument may have the unintended consequences of reinforcing stereotypes, which counteracts any deconstructive ambition. It may be preferable to stress polyamory’s potential to deflect from gendered object choice. Polyamory brings to the fore the question of what kind of relationships a person may want to engage in, rather than what kind of gender or ‘sexed’ bodies they are responding to. Poly perspectives can therefore lead us away from narrow questions of individual identification to a more nuanced understanding of mutual interactions and associations. These qualities are lost in the definition of polyamory as sexual orientation.

To the extent that an equation between polyamory and sexual orientation is supposed to enable access to legal protection, this could implement a divisive bias separating polys from other non-monogamous people. The governmental policies and legal provisions of many societies continue to invest into monogamy as an assumed indicator of commitment, stability and authentic kinship bonds. Cultural norms put pressure on people to be monogamous. The law, too, is practised in ways that promote and institutionalise monogamy. Many laws (such as criminal adultery laws, bigamy laws, family laws, custody cases, workplace discrimination laws, and zoning laws) discriminate against non-monogamous people, including polyamorous people. Tweedy’s (2011) proposal is meant to resist this cultural and legal marginalisation. Effective legal protection against workplace discrimination would be an important achievement. It is impossible to address certain discrimination issues if the respective grounds are not defined in law (Grabham, 2006). However, the revision of sexual orientation definitions to cover polyamory would define the grounds for protection in very narrow terms. Polyamory designates a highly specific subset of the wider universe of non-monogamous practice. It prioritises love and long-term commitments and designates a culturally specific social identity, which is largely confined to white, middle- or upper-class settings in the USA and western societies (Sheff and Hammers, 2011). Moreover, as Grabham (2006: 21) reminds us: ‘Discrimination law … employs grounds not in the sense that we hope they are being used – as reminders of the structural inequalities that mark our world – but instead as defences against the complexities inherent in how those structural inequalities are played out at an interpersonal level’. This means that some non-monogamous people may feel de-authenticated, if they turn to polyamory as a ground for claiming discrimination (the best case scenario) or that they will be effectively denied protection against discrimination on this ground (the worst case scenario).

If legal rights are mediated via essentialist categories of personhood, access to these rights is determined by the ability of claimants to match these subject positions. Non-monogamous people who do not use the script of romantic love and long-term partnership are likely to fall outside of the traits covered by sexual orientation definitions. People who engage in sex work are extremely unlikely to receive protection on the grounds of sexual orientation. There is evidence from within other areas of the law, which shows that people, who may be nominally entitled to certain rights, may fail successfully to claim them, if their identities, behaviours, desires or intimacies raise the suspicion of ambiguity, indeterminacy or fluidity (Rehaag, 2008). Inscribing polyamory into law via an expansion of sexual orientation definitions will only serve a small subsection of people engaged in non-monogamous ways of life. This is why I think it is preferable to explore alternative routes for anti-discrimination protection of non-monogamous and polyamorous people.

The promotion of essentialist models of poly as a socio-political and legal strategy is likely to reinforce an even stronger identity-focused political orientation of the poly movement, which is likely to work against broader alliances in the politics around non-monogamy. Research indicates that polyamorous people often distance themselves from other, more sex- or pleasure-focused styles of non-monogamy, such as queer public sex cultures, swinging or ‘casual’ sex (Klesse, 2007). The readiness of the polyamory movement to build coalitions across various non-monogamous interests is already limited. It is not un-warranted to fear that pushing minoritising identity models will marginalise coalitional strategies even further.

While it may be fairly obvious why people who engage in different kinds of non-monogamy may want to act in solidarity, coalitions across different forms of oppression are even more difficult to forge. The ties of solidarity have to be woven consciously and reflexively. There is no necessary link between different oppressions and the ‘chains of equivalence’ between them have to be worked out ideologically and practically (Herman, 1993b; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Current poly writing does not have much to say about the problem of economic class, racism, sexism, ageism or ableism (Haritaworn et al., 2006; Klesse, 2013).

The expansion of essentialist poly identity models is likely to strengthen the ambitions to gain group recognition. This again is likely to go at the expense of a more comprehensive transformative political agenda. I do not want to diminish the relevance of a politics of recognition. According to Charles Taylor, ‘[n]onrecognition or misrecognition… can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being’ (quoted in Tweedy, 2011: 1493). The debate triggered by an exchange between Fraser (1997) and Butler (1997) has brought to the fore a more nuanced understanding of the theme of recognition in sexual politics. Despite persistant disagreement on the role of sexual politics within political economy, Fraser (1997) acknowledged that misrecognition is a materially grounded practice, because it has harmful effects and tends to be institutionalised. Moreover, she conceded that claims to recognition can be formulated in ways that include demands for redistribution (Fraser, 2003). N Barker (2012: 193) goes further, when she argues in her analysis of the debates on same-sex marriage that the ‘law uses recognition and non-recognition to control access to economic resources’.

Yet even if complex politics of recognition are in principle possible, many approaches focus on collective identities, cultural practices and state responses. This renders the politics of recognition vulnerable to certain fallacies. The first fallacy relates to the legal aspect of such politics⁵ and consists in succumbing to the illusion that gaining legal recognition equals liberation. As I have already shown, if people wish to claim rights, they must fit the categories of the law. This opens up the scope for surveillance and regulation, imposing conformity on those who seek recognition through the law (N Barker, 2012; Smart, 1989). The second fallacy consists in the allure of assimilationism. As queer-of-colour theorists have argued, assimilationist strategies tend to render collective actors in the Global North insensitive towards the exclusivist dimension of nationalist and other normative agendas:

The politics of recognition and incorporation entail that certain – but certainly not most – homosexual, gay and queer bodies may be temporary recipients of the “measures of benevolence” that are offered by liberal discourses of multicultural tolerance and diversity. This benevolence toward sexual others is contingent upon ever-narrowing parameters of white racial privilege, consumption capabilities, gender and kinship normativity, and bodily integrity. (Puar, 2007: xii)

Advancing the equation of polyamory with sexual orientation, therefore, carries significant risks. It gives away the unruly potentials of polyamory and narrows the discursive terrain for articulating a more radical politics around non-monogamy and polyamory.

Conclusion – resisting sexual orientation

Sexual orientation models have been central to western theories of erotic desire and sexuality. They have been criticised for a range of reasons. As western constructs, they are culturally highly specific, but sustain a kind of cultural imperialism in many contexts. Dichotic sex/gender systems are paired with rigid, gender-deterministic erotic dispositions. The notions of other-sex and same-sex desire sustain a heterosexual/homosexual binary, with bisexuality emerging as a contingent, precarious, non-authenticated third position. Sexual orientation models thus obstruct the intelligibility of intersex, transgender, gender-queer or pan-gender identities and erotic subjectivities. As a normative trope, sexual orientation can be evoked to police people’s desires and sexual behaviours and to reinforce rigid boundaries around identities and communities. Sexual orientation discourse arrests the multi-directional flows of desire. The incorporation of polyamory into sexual orientation frameworks is more likely to damage radical politics of non-monogamy and polyamory than to enhance accurate representations of the diversity of erotic experience. Operating along a minoritising logic, sexual orientation models refashion polyamorous people as a distinctive sexual minority. This is likely to undermine alliances across different non-monogamous identities and other forms of oppression. It carries the risk of reinforcing reductionist and exclusive identity-political currents within poly politics.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Chiara Addis, Susie Jacobs and the two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments on previous drafts of this article.

Notes

Christian Klesse is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is currently doing research (together with Jon Binnie) on transnational LGBTQ activism in Central and Eastern Europe and Queer Film Festivals in Europe. His most recent publications include the articles ‘Like a bomb in the gasoline station: Transnational migration and activism around lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer politics in Poland’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 39(7): 1107–1124 and ‘The politics of age and intergenerationality in transnational lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer activist networks’ Sociology 47(3): 580–595 (both co-authored with Jon Binnie). His article ‘Poly economics – capitalism, class, and polyamory’ has been published online by the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society (DOI 10.1007/s10767-013-9157-4, Online First) as part of a special issue on ‘Gender, sexuality and political economy’, which he co-edited together with Susie Jacobs.

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