Polyagony and Talking Shit

On an online social networking site that I co-administrate, a conversation started about the difficulties, in a poly Vee (a relationship where A is dating B and C, who are not dating each other), caused by someone “talking shit” about the other person, to the person “A” who they both share.

Someone replied hotly that it was the job of the person at the point of the Vee to be supportive and loving, and take shit-talking as a simple sign of needing more love and reassurance. They brought up the example of a poly woman in a primary relationship with a monogamous woman, and in a secondary with another woman.

I’ve had some thoughts on this “shit talking” thing in the past, and this is probably the clearest I’ve been able to put it, so I’m sharing it here as well as there.

Here’s what I think:

So, Polyamorous Polly reassuring her lover Monogamous Mona that she loves her and adores her and wants to be with her and is willing to stay and deal with Mona’s fears and insecurities around Polly’s poly is one thing; and heck, it’s a good thing.

And Mona expressing her honest fears, that’s cool too.

But Mona talking shit about Polly’s lover …um… “Hussy”… well, that’s ain’t cool.

Wait! Let’s define “talking shit”. (grin)

I don’t mean that if Hussy pees in Mona’s coffee cup when Polly, Mona and Hussy are all out together, that Mona doesn’t have the right to say “Polly, me and Hussy have an issue with each other, and it’s about her incontinence when we’re all around each other. I’m going to try to resolve it with her.”

In a more real-life sense, if Mona says “Hey, Polly. I’ve noticed that Hussy won’t speak directly to me in a social situation, and it makes me uncomfortable.”, then that’s the first half-step to problem-solving.
(A full step is saying “Hussy, I’ve noticed this thing when you, me and Polly are all out together. Can we talk about it?”)

This ain’t talking shit, in my opinion.

What I mean by talking shit is, that jealousy is someone being angryscared, and folks in that mindspace may have a little slip of a tongue which could range from “Oh, you’re going to see ol’ Bozo Hair on Wednesday, are you?” to “That conniving little bitch you’re dating has X personality faults, Y appearance faults, Z unwholesome motivations, I hate her I hate her I don’t know what you’re seeing in her, you must be crazy.”

This puts Polly in a weird situation, where she can

1) be silent, and thus seem to agree with Mona’s perception of Hussy

2) agree with Mona utterly, which would be lying (if Polly’s still interested in seeing Hussy, she’s obviously not considering her evil.)

3) defend Hussy to Mona, either in low-key therapy-speak, or in full-on hot defence.

And I think we all can see that if Mona’s really complaining hard to Polly about the evilness of Hussy, that even Polly’s mild “I’m not entirely sure that Hussy has been plotting to break us up since 1986, Mona.” could be seen by Mona (who’s probably feeling scared and off balance anyhow) as Proof That Polly Really Likes Hussy Better Than Mona.

So shit-talking of that sort makes the polyagony cycle spin faster and nastier.