The Trentonian
So a few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about the Showtime reality show “Polyamory: Married and Dating” and, you know, had some fun with it. After all, it is a show about a bunch of people having sex with a bunch of people of other. Fun.
Anyway, little did I know that real polyamorous people — you know, those not having sex on camera for money — are, in large part, completely, 100 percent “in the closet.” Their families don’t know. Their employers don’t know. No one knows. Even two people on the Showtime show were closeted (at least until the show aired, duh).
Why? Because they’re fearful their families would shun them, their employers would fire them, everyone will look at them like sex-crazed fiends.
As it turns out …
“This lifestyle choice isn’t all hedonism and group sex,” one “poly” person told me via Facebook. “It’s mostly based on all the normal, mundane yet wonderful stuff you ‘monos’ experience on a daily basis (like) grocery shopping, TV, spats over who has to mow the lawn. I felt compelled to let you know that the ‘everyone sleeps with everyone’ style of polyamory depicted in the show is not indicative of every poly relationship out there.”
Another poly person echoes the point.
“It is like any other group dynamic,” she said. “OK, so that is over-simplifying it, but it is true.”
And both these people were adamant about staying anonymous.
“I myself am afraid to ‘come out’ as poly at my place of work for fear that someone’s small-minded judgement might cost me my job,” one said.
Same goes for the other person, who at first posted her thoughts on my Facebook page.
“I realized that it may cause problems where I work,” she said. “I have no problem answering any questions about it, but I work for the state and, well, you understand, I hope.”