Welcome back to the Menagerie my good readers! I want to be upfront and say that this is a piece that I'm reposting from an old blog of mine from about a year ago. I still feel the topic covered here is important and in need of continued discussion.
So I’ve been doing this poly thing for a while, not a terribly long time by some people’s standards, but remarkably successfully by others. In all that time I’ve discovered that for a community that is open, loving, and an absolute paragon of communication and emotional processing there is one thing that tends to bring all communication to a screeching halt.
That would be the OPP policy, Or “One Penis Policy”. Yes, I recognize that OPP Policy is redundant, but people still call Automatic Teller Machines “ATM Machines” so I imagine this bit of grammatical redundancy can be forgiven. That being said, let’s dive right in and explain what an OPP is and why, perhaps, it is so universally reviled among a group who otherwise professes that we should “Poly How It Works For You”.
First: What is an OPP? It’s pretty much written on the tin. A poly relationship in which there can be only one penis, but both partners are allowed to date all the women they want. A situation that’s especially problematic if the female partner is, I don’t know, a 1 on the Kinsey Scale? (That means straight as they come for those who aren’t familiar)
The Origins Of The Case Against OPP
We all know about those discussions, the ones where your average Joe will try to convince his wife to engage in a threesome. So long as the other partner is a woman of course. There’s a reason two men and one woman is called the Devil’s Threesome, and I like to believe that’s because even the most devout priest would soil himself dreaming of two naughty nuns, but the idea of another penis was too close to a nail from the crucifixion for him to be comfortable with.
Unless it was an underage boy perhaps? Ahem… Moving on.
There’s a lot of reasons for this that the men involved will quote you, and a lot of it probably comes down to a socially conditioned attitude about sexuality and a paralyzing fear of penises touching. There’s also a massive amount of insecurity likely floating around about penis size, which is something about which every walk of society is brutal.
Perhaps these can be forgiven.
Where the real problem begins is men who are wanting to get into a threesome for purely selfish reasons, especially where the word “Poly” gets thrown around in that context. They are only concerned about getting their fantasy fulfilled while still keeping their ‘home base’ all to themselves.
In the worst cases it isn’t just their primary partner that is subjected to the OPP, but all partners they have. This is commonly known as ‘the Harem Collector’, but I find that phrase problematic for reasons we’ll address later.
“But what if the partner is bi?” I hear you ask “Then doesn’t she get to have her cake and eat it too?”
Sure… If the partners he selects are all bisexual woman who are also interested in his wife. Such creatures are called Unicorns for a reason, they’re rare as hen’s teeth. (To be accurate, it’s not that such women are rare, it’s simply that the confluence of a woman who is both poly, interested in you, AND equally interested in your partner is a lot of variables to coordinate, and we can’t all roll 20’s all the time).
So, let’s see if we can narrow down the actual problem here, shall we?
The OPP is a problem when it unfairly benefits one side of the equation, where one or more partners are not happy with the situation (more on this later, it’s an important distinction), and where one or more partners are not having their needs met. Add in a few extra (and frighteningly common) parameters where coercion and control are involved, and the reason this is problematic becomes incredibly clear.
But Wait? Isn’t This Just A Bad Relationship?
Well now! That’s where you and I come into agreement! The factors involved in the relationship are unhealthy! It’s unbalanced, someone (or multiple someones) aren’t happy in the relationship, and their needs aren’t being met. The other elements mentioned above aren’t just an unhappy relationship, they’re an abusive relationship. None of these elements have ANYTHING TO DO with the fact that it’s an OPP. It’s just incredibly common with OPP relationships. And here is my opinion on why.
The problematic relationships that have an OPP are not Poly Relationships, they’re coerced relationships where infidelity is involved. Yes yes, one could argue that because someone agreed to it, it’s technically a poly relationship. So perhaps we can call it an unhealthy Poly relationship. That work for you? Good. Because at the end of the day it isn’t the OPP that’s the problem, remove it from the equation and the relationship is still a shitty relationship.
So maybe, just maybe, we can stop talking about the OPP being the problem, hmm?
There are plenty of relationships, solid, happy poly relationships, that invoke the OPP. It’s just what makes them happy. In the quest to help warn people and protect them from bad poly relationships where the OPP happens to be present we vilify those people who are in healthy OPP relationships and make them worried about speaking out.
Instead, we need to find a way to discuss “Healthy” poly relationships vs “Unhealthy” ones, without any discussion of the structure, and without vilifying any particular dynamic.
We are an open and inclusive community, one who celebrates love in all its forms. This seems to be one place where we forget that, and in the process begin to alienate people who might otherwise become allies and find a home among us. We need more examples of good OPP relationships so that we can hold them up against relationships that are unhealthy as examples.
Full disclosure. I’m in one such relationship, there’s even a name for it. “A Closed Bisexual Triumvirate”. We’ve been together for two years and counting and will be having a wedding for the three of us next year. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I’m hoping we manage to beat our mother-in-law’s present record, her and her two partners have been together for 25 years.
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