Myths and Misconceptions

Anything that is not considered a normative heterosexual relationship is seen as wrong. Society has difficulty accepting anything that goes against the norms, and even more so when they are misinformed. This is why it took us to long to be more accepting, socially and legally, of the LGBTQ+ community, and even now some people still struggle.To truly understand something we have to have the correct information first.The polyamorous community has to deal with a lot of false information that society believes. There are too many myths and misconceptions to put on this post, so I will only do a few.

I read different articles and they all had different myths that they believed society had to stop believing. Some myths that Kae Burdo from the website Bustle, says exist are that if it’s a heterosexual couple, it was the man who wanted an open relationship. This is not true because women have proven to be open to the idea and just as sexual as men. Other misconceptions are that polyamorous couples share all their partners with each other, being polyamorous must be a phase, or they aren’t really in a serious relationship. The truth is that some couples do share their partners and others don’t, it is not a phase, and they are serious relationships.

The article “9 Myths About Polyamory You Need To Stop Believing,” by Tina Horn in allure focused more on what people thought that polyamorous people do emotionally/sexually. Several people in society believe that you can’t cheat if you are in a polyamorous relationship. This is so false, you can still cheat. Each relationship is different, but they all have boundaries, and they don’t go behind each others back. Another big myth is that they don’t get jealous. They do get jealous, because they are people with feelings! Being in a polyamorous relationship means you have to have good communication in order to deal with those types of feelings. Some other myths and misconceptions are that polyamorous people want to have threesomes and that they are best friends with their partners’ partners. Again no, some might want to, but everybody is different. Also not everyone is going to get along all the time.

Psychology Today, had the article Myths About Polyamory written by Elisabeth A. Sheff that offered more myths that the previous articles didn’t have. Since people are in a polyamorous relationship, they have more partners, which must mean that they will have more STIs. This is a false statement because, they have safe sex like everyone else and are more likely to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Finally, people think that being in that type of relationship is bad for the kids because it confuses them. In reality several kids have parents who are in polyamorous relationships and they are doing just fine.

These are only a few misconceptions that society has about polyamorous relationships and hopefully by being able to distinguish the truth and false statements being said about them we can normalize them and make it easier for people to come out as polyamorous. As a society we should try to be more understanding, get the proper information, and try not to judge others for being different than us.

Allure. 2017. “9 Myths About Polyamory You Need to Stop Believing.” Retrieved May 26, 2019 (https://www.allure.com/story/myths-polyamorous-relationships-dating)

Bustle. 2016. “8 Myths About Polyamorous Couples, Because We’re Not Trying To Replace Each Other.” Retrieved May 26, 2019 (https://www.bustle.com/articles/151297-8-myths-about-polyamorous-couples-because-were-not-trying-to-replace-each-other)

Psychology Today. 2018. “Myths About Polyamory.” Retrieved May 26, 2019 (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-polyamorists-next-door/201806/myths-about-polyamory)