"Cowboys" and abdicating responsibility

One of the most evocative terms in the polyamory glossary is the cowboy or cowgirl - a monogamous partner who becomes involved with a polyamorous person and attempts to "rope them off from the herd" of their established polycule into a monogamous relationship. On the one hand, as a writer, as a fan of metaphor, and as a person who over many years has seen people leave polycules in contentious ways to go be in sparkly new monogamous relationships (and never be much heard of in their polyam community again) - it's understandable why there's a term, and I kind of like it. It's whimsical.

On the other hand, this term fails at what it really means to do - correctly identifying the responsible party in these breakups. The term gives vent to the way we tend to blame our new metamour for "stealing" our partner, or we blame the dominant monogamous paradigm for taking them back, rather than giving our partners, who broke up with us, the credit for making their own choices. Even if the "cowboy" gives the hinge partner an ultimatum, this shared partner has every agency and ability to say no, to decide that they value polyamory, their other relationships, and their pre-existing choices. It is, in fact, a mononormative and amatonormative tendency that leads us to blame a new meta and somewhat absolve our partner who is deciding to leave - because cultural forces say our romantic/sexual partner(s) is/are the most important people in our lives, we forgive them more easily or do more work toward forgiving them, and are quicker to blame (and come up with a derisive term for) the meta they go back to monogamy with.

Long-time readers of the blog might be familiar with my general belief that most problems with your metamours can be better attributed as problems of communication with the hinge partner - or a lack of responsibility taken by said hinge partner, passing it on to their other partner to ease the conversation they're in right at this moment. This applies here for sure, just as it does when someone enforces a veto and says "my partner says we have to break up." Just as in the case of the veto, the person in the middle has full agency about the agreements they're in and whether and how they follow through on or alter them, in the case of choosing to exit polyamory, the person making the exit has just as much agency (arguably more) as the person entering and saying "come be monogamous with me."

The cultural and social pressure can make it feel like a partner is stolen away, or has limited choices, or whatever - but these arguments are based in mononormativity and in shame around non-monogamy. In a world where non-monogamy were perfectly normalized, maybe then we could have a discussion about people's choice of relationship format that felt even-handed, and make jokes about cowgirls roping boyfriends off from polycules that don't feel a little meanspirited and like they're absolving this boyfriend of the dozen choices he made on the way out. As it is? I try to avoid using the term so that I don't give this little lecture in public too often.

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My book, Monogamy? In this Economy? Will be out August 21! You can get it via Bookshop here. I'll be live on Instagram the day it comes out with Andrea of @infinitepolyam at 8:30 pm Eastern; then on the 26th with Mel of @radicalrelating at 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific; then the 28th with Heidi of @shelovesradically at 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific. Come hang out! and check the Events page and Book page for upcoming in person tour events.