More AoOO Thoughts: This Time, With Polyamory

[alixtii]

So, some other concerns raised about the AoOO's tagging system concerns the genre system. Namely, the two following interrelated concerns have been raised:

1. The distinction between "Multi" and "Other" is unclear and/or ambiguous.
2. There's not a sufficient distinction between, on the one hand, a story with multiple pairings and one with an instance of polyamory, and on the other, a story with an instance of polyamory and a one with pairings between non-traditionally gendered individuals.

The most popular temporary solution put forth is to further refine one's classification of the story with freeform tags. However, as I've set about to do so, I've realized I don't really have a sufficient working understanding of polyamory to do so. Largely this is a result of a monogamocentric (I'm assuming that's what the word would be, and Google attests hits) worldview, in which any relationship can be reduced to a set of pairings. (This, undoubtedly, is the source of the "Multi" tag.) Even a threesome can be reduced in this way: A/B/C becomes A/B, B/C, A/C--but admittedly, this reduction is a distortion, because the threesome is a fundamentally different thing than just the sum of its parts. That's the main complaint as I understand it: the "Multi" tag simply doesn't capture that extra richness.

So take a fic like What the Caged Bird Feels, which has two pairings: Dawn/Ethan and Dawn/Giles. Is this an example of polyamory, multiple pairings, or both? (In that story, Dawn is married to Giles. Does it make a difference that's she had sex with Ethan before, and may see it as likely that she'll do it again, or would the dynamic be the same if the relationship with Ethan was a one-time thing. Does Giles' perspective on the whole thing matter?)

Or how about Substitution Rule, which manages to be A/B, B/C, and A/C without being A/B/C (and to make it more complicated, C thinks A and B are the same person)?

Restricting a poly tag to just threesomes or moresomes doesn't seem to be in accordance with the way real polyamorous people on my flist use the term.

But I'm afraid that identifying all (or even most?) cases of a single character being involved in more than one pairing would be too broad a use, which could end up being appropriative.

So I'm throwing this out to those on my flist who know more about these issues than I do, in hope we can work out (and/or you can help me work out) a helpful, accurate, and non-appropriating tagging practice for me to utilize, because I've come to realize that my thoughts are much less clear and much more monogamocentric than I had previously realized. (ObDisclaimer: No one is required to help me do this.)

Comments

[melusina]

My opinion, not representative of any larger community:

I wouldn't use poly for serial monogamy in a story (it starts out Buffy/Angel and then becomes Buffy/Faith) or cheating (Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Faith, but Angel is not aware that Buffy and Faith are together.

I would use poly for a situation where everyone was aware of one another, whether or not everyone is in a relationship with everyone else (so either Buffy/Angel/Faith or Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Faith, where Angel and Faith are aware of and accepting of what's going on). Does that make sense?

In my experience, most poly people I know in RL are in multiple relationships rather than everyone-in-bed-together (A/B, A/C, B/D, rather than A/B/C), while most fanfic seems to be about everyone-in-bed-together. . .

[alixtii]

I would use poly for a situation where everyone was aware of one another, whether or not everyone is in a relationship with everyone else (so either Buffy/Angel/Faith or Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Faith, where Angel and Faith are aware of and accepting of what's going on). Does that make sense?

Yeah. I share your intuition that cheating and serial monogamy are outside the bounds of polyamory. There still seems to be a grey area between those types of situations and ones where not everyone is fully knowledgeable of and okay with what is going on--for example with "Substitution Rule," where one character doesn't know Annie and Hallie are sleeping together, because he thinks they're the same person. These situations wouldn't be ethical polyamory, but . . . I don't know where that sentence is going.

Or even a situation where a character in a long-term relationship with X goes out and has a one-night stand with Y. Y doesn't seem to need to know about X's existence, as long as X is okay with Y's, but at least previously I would have seen that as instance of polyamory.

In my experience, most poly people I know in RL are in multiple relationships rather than everyone-in-bed-together (A/B, A/C, B/D, rather than A/B/C), while most fanfic seems to be about everyone-in-bed-together. . .

My fictional polyamorous characters (well, Dawn, mostly) do a little bit of both!

You have have been very helpful in getting a sense of the lay of the logical space, so thank you. Even if I can commit to excluding serial monogamy and outright cheating from polyamory, that cuts down the number of problematic cases. . . .

[torachan]

Or even a situation where a character in a long-term relationship with X goes out and has a one-night stand with Y. Y doesn't seem to need to know about X's existence, as long as X is okay with Y's, but at least previously I would have seen that as instance of polyamory.

Er...that is failing to take into account X's relationship with hir partner. If X has a one-night stand and is not in an open relationship, then that's cheating.

[alixtii]

That's why I specified "as long as X is okay with Y's [existence]." (It's X's partner, not X hirself, who is having the one-night stand.)

[torachan]

Oh, sorry, I misread it as "a person in a relationship, X".

[alixtii]

No problem!

[torachan]

I agree with melusina. In fact, I would find it offensive to see a cheating fic tagged as poly, and if having more than one relationship over the course of one's lifetime makes someone poly, then most people in the world are poly and that dilutes the term's usefulness.

I don't see the multi tag as "result of a monogamocentric worldview, in which any relationship can be reduced to a set of pairings". I mean, many, many fics have multiple pairings without being at all about polyamory. So it's not like the multi tag should be called poly and is not because people can't see outside their monogamocentric box. It's that there are legitimately many stories which have multiple, non-poly relationships. (A fic about two separate relationships A/B and X/Y is not poly. A fic about A/B who then break up and it becomes A/C is not poly.)

[alixtii]

Hmm, yes, I spoke in over haste. It's not the existence of the multi tag that's indicative of a monogamocentric worldview, it's the idea that tag is sufficient to cover all the possibilities it denotes: cheating, serial monogamy, polyamory in the sense of multiple relationship pairs going on at the same time using the same characters, polyamory in the sense of threesomes and moresomes, as well any grey area between those categories.

And fully agreed with you and melusina that cheating fic and serial relationships would be offensive if tagged poly.

[torachan]

I guess so. Honestly, I read the categories as being het, slash, femslash, and multi, with multi meaning combinations of the above. (For example, even though the dropdown menu says M/M for slash, I would use the tag for M/M/M as well, since I simply read it as meaning slash rather than meaning "only slash with two people".)

[alixtii]

I think that's how I read them too (and ditto on tagging F/F/F as F/F and M/M/M as M/M--but it does seem deeply weird that M/M/F then gets tagged as "Multi"; same-gender threesomes get treated as one "pairing" while opposite-gender threesomes get treated as two). But people who aren't me have made complaints that sound reasonable.

[torachan]

Well, I didn't see it as being treated as a pairing at all, is the thing. I didn't read M/M literally, but rather as a synonym for slash. (In other words, I didn't read multi as meaning multiple relationships, so much as multiple sexualities represented.) It seems that since there's confusion, they should clarify whether it's meant to be a synonym (in which case they should change it to something less confusing) or literally meant to be for fics with only one pairing.

And if people think poly should be an option then they should consider that, too. (Though there is also tags, so it's easy enough to tag something as poly even in the current system.)

[alixtii]

In other words, I didn't read multi as meaning multiple relationships, so much as multiple sexualities represented.

I think that's the point of confusion. I think most people (including myself) join you in reading "M/M" as "[male] slash" and "F/F" as "femslash"; it's the interpretation of "Multi" which people don't seem to be finding intuitive.

And if people think poly should be an option then they should consider that, too.

I think they will, eventually, given the number of places I've seen it brought up.

[zvi]

Er, polyamory, as a movement, is about responsible non-monogamy. The specific format of that non-monogamy is a matter of choice for the participants, but the idea that people are making choices, and that they are as informed as they want to be about those choices, is sort of the key.

[escritoireazul]

(NB: I am a tag wrangler and one of the reasons I became one was to work through some of the issues I had with the tagging system when it comes to pairings, sexuality, and gender, but I'm not speaking as an official anything right now.)

Everyone else has made the point about ethical non-monogamy, poly versus cheating, etc. so I'll skip that.

One thing I run into when thinking about what tags to apply to my fic is poly versus threesomes, foursomes, or moresomes because I'm not sure whether I think the emotional relationship is what is necessary for me to tag a fic poly (and therefore I want to tag fics where it is just sex as threesomes or whatever instead) or if I want to tag anything ethical non-monogamy as poly fic. Because though I identify as poly whether I'm emotionally involved with more than one person or not (or with anyone or not), I think there may be a difference in the storytelling of multiple emotional pairings versus multiple sexual pairings. I don't know, though.

[franzeska]

To be honest, and speaking purely unofficially, if I were going to tag my own fic, I would only use "polyamory" on fics about modern people who self-identify as poly. I wouldn't use it for most multi-person or non-monogamous relationships that happen between people who either don't identify that way in the modern day (cheaters, swingers, orgy participants) or who aren't from the same cultural background as poly-the-identity (aliens, characters in Ancient Rome).

My feeling is that the "Multi" description currently implies that it's for fics with some mix of m/m, f/f, and m/f pairings ("more than one kind of the relationships listed here") and that "Other" refers to relationships that are not neatly categorized as m/m, f/f, m/f, or any combination of those. Whether that's how everyone would interpret those and whether those are the best options to have, I couldn't say.

[alixtii]

To be honest, and speaking purely unofficially, if I were going to tag my own fic, I would only use "polyamory" on fics about modern people who self-identify as poly.

I think, ultimately, this is what I've settled on (with the caveat that they wouldn't necessarily use the word "poly" in so identifying, so I might be a little broader than you--I haven't really had to think about it wrt aliens or ancient Romans). I feel a little uncomfortable about this, because if there's not a sentence in the fic about the character identifying as poly then I sorta feel as if I'm violating the Death of the Author, but so it goes. And just because a character who in my head is poly appears in a fic probably still isn't enough to mark it as poly; they'd at the very least have to have sex or date somebody or something.