Moments of annoyance

[trixtah]

So, there was a thread on dot_poly_snark over on LJ, where someone got snarked when they went all bawwwwww about their coming out to one friend who didn't immediately do the happy dance about the good news. And justifiably so.

But one person commented by saying in part, "But then generally, I don't get the whole "coming out" process for poly people. Just live your life and the people will either figure it out or they won't."

Obviously I'm just a big old queer with a chip on my shoulder, because this really irked me. And I had to rant in reply:

Mmmnh, so why would anyone bother coming out at all. Ok, I'm very slightly beyond "Queer Nation" myself, but if everyone chooses to remain invisible, society as a whole will certainly choose to continue ignoring you. I look as dykey as dykey can be, but it still irks the fuck out of me when people obviously decide not to "figure it out" and then force me to decide whether they are going to roll out the overt bigotry thing on me if I make it clear what my relationship status is, or just do the awkward why-are-you-making-me-deal-with-shit-outside-my-comfort-zone silence.

I know you're not precisely saying you are remaining invisible, but it's the more open people who ensure that we aren't ignored as a whole. Because being ignored is actually not that many steps away from being marginalised, excluded from the usual set of social rights, and then to outright persecution. No thanks, it's not long ago when I had no right to expect fair treatment in terms of retaining my job or accommodation.

I do however agree that people who get shocked and amazed when they give acquaintances confronting information that is not immediately welcomed with open arms are precious in the extreme. Not to wah on about privilege, but it's fascinating when (mostly) het white middle-class people realise that others will always consider them to be second-class citizens because of their "lifestyle choices".

I dunno, maybe I got a bit into lecture mode, but "letting people figure it out for themselves" is only a useful strategy when you're coming from a fairly secure base to begin with. I still don't overtly out myself at work, except to a selected few people, sometimes. Maybe I'm still paranoid, but fuck, we only got "rights" in NZ the year I officially came out. And given the whole gay marriage debacle, we still aren't fully equal citizens, according to most - I'm still not in favour of marriage as a whole, but this willful discrimination just serves to show we don't have "real" relationships and we're not "equal" in some fundamental ways. It's fucked up.

And I'm still fucking angry with Gillard, to give it some Australian context. Not that I can vote here, so it's all a bit moot.

Comments

[kk1raven]

I think you make a valid point about invisibility and I think that has to be balanced against the appropriateness of discussing some subjects at all in some situations. Letting people figure it out might be appropriate some of the time. It seems silly and somewhat deceptive to me to just wait for your friends to figure out what kind of relationships you like. You should be able to talk about such things with your friends. Co-workers and other acquaintances you don't know well are another matter. I think that if your relationship with them is such that you'd talk about a monogomous heterosexual relationship, then you ought to be able to talk about other types of relationships. I've known a lot of people over the years who I'd never talk about my private life with at all though. Too much "coming out" results in people feeling like private matters are being shared too much in public which tends to turn them against you wheras being invisible causes people to assume you don't exist which doesn't help you. I'm glad I don't need to make a decision about that for myself.

[trixtah]

That's right, it's definitely horses for courses. If you didn't talk about such things with your friends, they may well think you have some shame about what you're doing with your life, and avoid the topic entirely.

Many of my queer friends (the ones I've known for decades) aren't actually very comfortable with my being poly, but as I point out to them, most of them (being exes) have DIRECT evidence of how it was when I was in denial (i.e. lots of cheating and resulting angst). So I'm not going to avoid the topic with them - one of them even unbent so much a few years ago as to say that I was the happiest she'd ever seen me in context of a relationship.