I am not an activist

Or at least I don’t want to be one. I want to go about my business without anybody giving me crap about it. If it doesn’t involve them, why should anybody else care. But of course it’s not that simple.

I do try to stay out of arguments. Some people may assume that since I’m writing this blog I’m on the front lines of bringing polyamory into the mainstream. Well, if you consider just doing my thing and not making any apologies about it being an activist, then I suppose I am. And certainly I would like it if it were actually considered an ordinary, unremarkable thing. So in the meantime I’m just going to go on, as much as possible, as if it were.

Some people have an obvious agenda, like self-promotion. Others use it as a personal journal, seemingly without concern if anybody at all reads. And certainly there are real activists, out there organizing people to effect change. I consider blogging as another way of interacting with the community, since I hardly have the time to get out and see everyone in person. Sure, I talk about myself, because it’s what I know. I hope I manage to do it in a way that it’s interesting to people who have never met me.

This comes up when I’m poking around on the Internet looking at blog posts about polyamory. I manage to mostly avoid the inflammatory screeds but then there are the others merely saying “WTF?” Sometimes I think about responding. But I decide that since I’m not going to convince anybody who isn’t interested in being convinced, why even get started. It’s like arguing about religion, something else I won’t do. I figure if they want to discuss poly topics in a poly forum (even if it’s their own blogs, saying “hey so what about this poly thing?”) then fine. I do participate in forums and comment on blogs.

So what is the impact of people happily going about their lives and blogging about it? Does anybody outside the self-identified poly community notice? Does it do anything to make the point that we are rational individuals choosing to do something different?

Most of the time I write as if I’d have an editor standing by to review my work. Writing is a big part of my professional life, so I get a lot of practice. I put stuff out on the Internet knowing that it will still be there years later and anybody may eventually find it. While there are forums where I choose to disassociate from my public persona (such as this) it may not always remain anonymous. Whether or not someone agrees on the topic, I’m not going to be embarrassed by poor writing. I would like to think, if nothing else, I’m representing the community well by it.

So, other poly bloggers, why are you writing?