Someone well respected in my community said nasty things about my preferred poly practice

Someone who’s a “sage” in the community basically called polyfidelity monogamy with bonus people and that polyfidelity is basically just a relationship of insecurity. I feel personally offended by this notion as I’ve had partners with other partners not dating me. I never once self jealous or unhappy, but my preference at its roots is fidelity. The whole conversation made me feel really bad and invalid, unaccepted and lesser. Advice?

I am sorry that someone who is respected in your community made you feel that way. That always sucks, and it can be so alienating.

However, it sounds like you know pretty solidly that what that person said is straight up not true. You know that you have a preference and you know that it is not rooted in jealousy or insecurity. Nothing this person says can change that or take that away from you.

People are often out in the world being wrong. Sometimes they are even wrong about us, personally. And that can be maddening, but a big part of finding some kind of peace in this bonkers world is learning to let some people just be over there being wrong.

Becoming a “sage” in a community doesn’t make someone an infallible expert on all things. If this was a one time thing, resolve to skip all their workshops and panels from now on, and surround yourself with people who respect you and your relationships.

If you are seeing ripple effect ramifications from this person’s influence, start speaking up within the community. No one person gets to determine the truth for an entire group of people. (That way lies cults.) You may find lots of allies who were also uncomfortable with that idea being spread around.

Sometimes, it can be freeing and empowering to realize that we’ve outgrown our heroes. You’re confident enough in your own experiences that you don’t need to look to these “sages” to define things for you, and you are knowledgable enough to recognize when they are wrong.

Take some time to care for yourself, because it can really hurt when someone whose voice we value says something that is alienating, hurtful, or false. But focus on the fact that you know they were wrong.

Do you have any book recs, fic recs, or show recs that are polyamory positive? I’d prefer it if the main character has two or more partners, but those partners aren’t romantically involved with each other. I loved the captain america fanfic: Known Associates by thingswithwings.

I answered a similar question a few weeks ago: you can see my answer here! After I published that, I got this message from @scutellatebooted:

For the anon looking for good polyships in media, Leverage has one! It is confirmed by the creators but the show was canceled before they fully developed it. That being said, the interactions between the characters involved are loving, healthy, and supportive - they totally read as romantic even though only two of the three are officially “dating.” In fact, all the relationships are fantastic. There’s no shame for divorced or promiscuous individuals and family is more than blood relatives.

I personally love the show Steven Universe for its depiction of all the different types of love. Greg can be a great dad to Steven even though he can’t raise him in the traditional sense; Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst are all united by their love for Steven and Rose and are co-parenting him and co-habiting; Pearl learns to manage her complicated feelings about and connections to Greg; etc.

I also loved the book The Color Purple for the way it depicted deep love between multiple people - again, not overtly or explicitly polyamorous, but I wrote a paper for one of my classes in college that was a close-reading of the book through a polyamorous lens, and I definitely feel that it’s an exploration of poly themes.

In addition to the lists in my answer previously linked, here are some other collections of resources: