Non-monogamy Without Intersectionality Is Trash

"Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times that framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things."

- "Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality, More than Two Decades Later," Columbia Law School, 2017

Having more than one romantic/sexual relationship at a time doesn't suddenly give us revelations and holy insight into social justice. We don't just suddenly *not* participate in erasure of marginalized identities.

If you take part in non-monog community (whether in-person or online), think about the kind of people who are present. Who's absent? Are events racially diverse? Are venues ADA accessible? Financially accessible?

I strongly prescribe to the "live and let live" philosophy and I always emphasize that there is a wonderfully mindboggling amount of ways to do non-monogamy. Which also means there are an equally vast number of ways to do non-monogamy and be a shitty, willfully ignorant person. It doesn't automatically make us progressive.

Our relationships do not exist in a vacuum. Forging and sustaining non-monogamous and otherwise "non-traditional" ways of connecting and supporting is inherently political.

Be an ally - or better yet, an accomplice - or be a part of the problem. The choice is simple.

Further reading:

"Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex", Indigenous Action