How Cancel Culture Shows Up In Polyamory

Over the past decade, both cancel culture and ethical non-monogamy have been on the rise. Even if the two are fundamentally incompatible, they've become entangled. There are many underlying assumptions that justify cancel culture that can show up in non-monogamy and have deleterious effects. If we strive to practice ethical relationships, it's important that we deconstruct our punitive frameworks and learn healthy ways of managing conflict. I'm by no means an expert on cancel culture, many of my peers, particularly the infamously problematic (I'm being sarcastic) Clementine Morrigan and their partner Jay, have dived into the phenomena of cancel culture. I recommend checking out Fucking Cancelled and Fuck the Police Means We Don’t Act Like Cops to Each Other. Despite Clementine Morrigan's unwarranted reputation, they've contributed a lot of incredible insight into the conversation of how we treat each other online. Even if you're triggered™ by the mere mention of Clementine's name, I recommend you give them a chance, I think you'll be surprised to discover they're not actually the monster hiding under your bed. I also recommend the Creative Interventions Toolkit for learning new ways of resolving interpersonal violence. To be clear, I'm writing this from the perspective of a polyamory peer mentor. I've talked to many folks about their relationships and have noticed a lot of the language used by proponents of cancellations being applied to open relationships. This is troubling. I want to explore why heightened emotions during polyam disputes often lead people to try to control their pals rather than resolve their own emotions and set boundaries. As always, the goal is to offer alternative ways of relating to each other that promote kindness and respect rather than punishment. Let me expand on a few similarities that come up in both cancel culture and polyamory and talk about why it's necessary to challenge these beliefs. 

The difference between conflict and abuse:

Before I go on, I want to make it abundantly clear that I do not deny that domestic, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse occurs in non-monogamous relationships. I am, however, unqualified to offer help to folks who are dealing with instances of perpetual abuse. Instead, I strongly suggest you check out the resources from RAINN, DVRC, and Creative Interventions. What I'll be discussing falls under what I encounter in the scope of my practice: conflict, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings that escalate into emotional blowouts and accusations, which show up both in cancellation spectacles and in polyamorous relationships. Conflict and hurt are unavoidable in polyamory and online so it's absolutely necessary we discuss how to manage and resolve these issues without using a punitive framework or equating it to abuse. 

What's the difference? To simplify, abuse means that violence or threats of harm are being employed to keep a person under the other's control. Again, referring back to the work done by Creative Interventions, interpersonal violence establishes a pattern of leveraging power to exert control. The person who's being harmed must have disadvantaged power in relation to the person exerting harm. In functioning relationships, power dynamics are equitable and any difference is acknowledged and held responsibly. Conflict and misunderstandings on the other hand are not instances of abuse. Conflict simply means that two people disagree about something that is important to them. Conflict is normal and healthy; abuse is not. Again, we have to stress that there's a difference in how power is used to maintain a cycle of abuse which is not the case in conflict. There's a similar distinction between harm and hurt. Harm is a deliberate attempt to subjugate others to violence they wish to avoid in an attempt to control them. Hurt describes the emotional fallout of disagreeing or unintentionally causing/being caused pain. Hurt is unavoidable in all relationships; harm is not. 

When we conflate hurt and harm, conflict and abuse, we strip ourselves and our partners of the ability to seek adequate help. The way forward when we're dealing with hurt or harm is different. It's important to recognize what issues we are dealing with rather than lumping them all into the category of abuse. We have to examine whether power is deliberately being wielded to employ and justify violence. Unfortunately, cancel culture has effectively eradicated the line between abuse and conflict, equating every single instance of the latter to the former. This becomes an issue, not only online but also in our interpersonal relationships. If we accuse or are accused of abuse whenever we disagree with our pals or metas, it becomes impossible to feel safe enough to bring up problems constructively. We need to feel safe to resolve issues in our relationships. Again, I work almost exclusively with folks navigating hurt and conflict and refer those who are in abusive situations to qualified professionals. Seek professional help if you're in an abusive relationship. This article primarily addresses hurt and conflict in cancel culture and in relationships.

Accountability and self-righteousness:

As anyone who's witnessed or been part of a cancellation spectacle knows, the proponents of cancel culture will assure that the purpose of calling folks out/in is to hold "offenders" accountable. Interestingly, "holding someone accountable" recreates the same unequal power dynamics that enable abuse to happen by stripping away the person's autonomy and forcing them to comply with the desired behavior of others. Forcing people to behave in certain ways, even if you believe it's a good way, is ultimately unethical. This is super hard to contend with, especially for those of us who want to see a world where people treat each other with kindness and respect. No matter how good your intentions are or how bad the other person's perceived behavior is, you can't force them to do shit. Unfortunately, cancel culture reinforces this mindset that with enough social pressure and threats of isolation you can bully people into being remorseful and subsequently good. Or it justifies continued harassment of those who refuse to comply. It's utter nonsense. Current research on punitive systems and carceral "justice," show recidivism rather than reform. Cancel culture does not work. Prison does not work. Punishment does not work. Harassment does not work. Controlling our pals does not work. 

Whether we like it or not, taking responsibility for one's actions requires autonomous choice. People need the freedom to decide how they want to behave in order to change. No amount of threats, ostracizing, harassment, or anything else can actually make others be good. That means, that people who've been hurt or witnessed shitty behavior need to state the way they were impacted, and then let the person make their own decision on how they wish to behave moving forward. Cancel culture obliterates the basic concept of autonomy by allowing people who've been hurt to set the terms of how they want others to behave; this is revenge, not responsibility. No matter how self-righteous your intentions are, this attitude is unethical. And it sucks, I talk to people very frequently during peer support sessions who've committed sexual assault and other forms of violence, I WANT to force them to change, but I also know I can't force them to. What does work is compassionate education, listening, empathy, and strategizing ways to grow and learn responsibility. That's all we can do. Support people who've done shitty things. That obviously doesn't mean the person who has been harmed is responsible for offering support, quite the contrary. This is why community and connections are crucial for justice. As Clementine continues to state, playing god/cop does not create healthy relationship dynamics. We have to be friends and mentors if we want to see healthy change.

As we said, it's inevitable that we'll disagree with our pals, and hurt them in polyamory or any form of relationship structure. If we start adopting a cancel culture mindset in our relationships, we're enabling unequal power dynamics. Again, regardless of how badly we want our pals to change, they are the only ones who have the power to do so. We can support them, we can't force them. In ethical non-monogamy, all we can do is try to find compromises or resolutions to conflicts and allow each person to align their behavior accordingly. If they don't, we have the right to change our behavior, but we still can't change theirs. Holding people accountable means that we change the way we behave to support our needs when we're around that person, not to exert force over them. If they choose to take responsibility and change, we can then respond accordingly. Free will is impossible to accept if we're coming from a punitive framework, but it's also important to realize it's an entirely futile way to resolve our problems. 

Violations of boundaries versus expectations: 

As I frequently mention, my work primarily deals with quotidian issues in ethical non-monogamy, meaning that I help folks navigate common disagreements, conflicts, experiences of jealousy, etc. One thing I hear over and over is a misunderstanding of boundary violations. Most people will come to me and say, for example, "I set a boundary that my pal is not allowed to kiss their other partner until I'm comfortable and they violated my boundary by making out with them." Ok, so first, telling other people what to do is not a boundary. Second, this is a classic example of confusing boundaries and expectations. To quickly summarize, boundaries outline your own limits and the way you will behave, you are in charge of upholding your boundaries, and technically only you can violate your boundaries. By contrast, expectations are requests you make of other people, they outline how you wish they would behave, but others don't have to meet your expectations just because you stated them, an expectation is only broken when it was initially agreed to and then subsequently not upheld. 

Cancel culture further warps our understanding of boundaries and expectations and equates any transgression with deliberate acts of violence. My experience of 98% of cancellations or pile-ons goes like this: a random follower will disagree with something I've said, claim that it constitutes harm, state an expectation as a threat (ie I must publicly repent and apologize to them... OR ELSE) rather than an expectation as a request (ie I'm an autonomous person who's allowed to decide whether or not I change my previous statement) if I refuse to behave as they have demanded they will claim this is a violation of their boundary, and then claim this further proves harm which justifies on-going harassment. What should be obvious is that we can't force other people to meet our expectations, especially not strangers online. An actual boundary would be for that person to unfollow me if they dislike or disagree with my content. An actual boundary, as you can see, can't be violated by others. If you block or unfollow me, I can't suddenly force you to reengage, only you can violate your boundary by deciding to lurk. 

In polyamory, our pals will constantly make decisions we don't like or agree with. They will occasionally violate our expectations or violate their own boundaries. It happens, we're all human, and we fuck up. Pals will choose to spend time with metas instead of us, they will hurt our feelings, tell us things we aren't ready to deal with, escalate relationships too quickly for our liking, etc. these are all quotidian issues. We can be hurt by these actions, but once again, they don't constitute harm because (for the most part) they are not attempts to use unequal power to maintain control. What we have the power to do is to clarify expectations that were unclear or broken, or to set boundaries to elaborate on how we need to behave to deal with a situation we don't agree with. The more we have a strong understanding of our BAES, the easier it is to resolve conflict. Getting mad that our pals don't always behave exactly the way we want is petulant. 

Fear and perfectionism: 

We are entitled to disagree with our pals. In fact, not being allowed to disagree classifies as abuse. We all need to learn how to deal with feeling hurt. What cancel culture does is make us afraid of not being perfect. If we say something dumb (like using the word dumb) we start to fear that someone will come after us to tell us how much harm we've caused. We fall into a perpetual trap of self-monitoring, obsessing over the potential criticism that we'll receive for not being perfect. Because at the end of the day, cancel culture equates disagreements, bad takes, or other forms of relatively benign conflict to complete moral failure or evil intentions. Perfectionism fucks us. We need to be able to make mistakes, recognize them, and be given enough grace to learn to do better. If the bar is already set at perfect, and any failure to meet that standard means complete social obliteration, we're never able to take risks, let alone admit that we are wrong. Fear is an impetus of violence. When you're terrified, you're not thinking rationally, you're simply reacting, and often lashing out at what scares you. Put simply, cancel culture breeds more violence than it resolves. Punishment is not an avenue for kindness, respect, or progress. 

You will fuck up in your relationship, especially if it's non-monogamous. If you expect yourself and your pals to be perfect, you set yourself up for total disaster. Again, we need space to make mistakes and compassion to resolve them. If you take each instance of hurt personally and ascribe malicious intent to your pals and metas, your relationship will crumble faster than a Chips Ahoy in the pouring rain. Being scared of failure doesn't set you up for success, cause you need to make mistakes in order to learn how to do better. I constantly remind folks during peer support that they're on the same team as their pal, that just because they disagree doesn't mean they're enemies. Adopting the black-and-white mentality that drives cancel culture is a disaster for interpersonal relationships. Rather than seeing ourselves and others as fallible while trying our best, we see each other as disposable unless we're unrealistically perfect. The only thing cancel culture does in relationships is planting an unshakable sense of insecurity. 

Safety and support during conflict: 

Ok, we're finally nearing the end! What do we do with all this information? In our relationships, we have to focus on building safety and support around conflict. Jessica Fern discusses this at length in chapter 8 of Polysecure, she calls it "turning towards [each other] after conflict." Basically, strong couples create compassion for each other when they've disagreed and are able to continue expressing gratitude for the ways they align. When you're able to express to your pals that you feel hurt, while taking responsibility for your emotions, it becomes easier to strategize about how to avoid similar conflict in the future while giving everyone the autonomy to take responsibility for their own actions. Sometimes, resolving conflict safely means acknowledging that behavior won't change and that you'll continue to feel hurt, for example, a pal will continue kissing a meta even if it causes you pain. In these situations, we can look for support elements and self-soothing tools to decrease the emotional distress we feel towards the conflict point. Again, disagreements will not always be resolved exactly how we like, we can't expect to control our pals or constantly be aligned. Ethical non-monogamy is about releasing control, not finding new ways to exert more. 

When it comes to cancel culture the path forward is both murky and simple. We first need to recognize that disagreements are also inevitable, don't actually constitute harm, and learn to tolerate that folks have all sorts of views, opinions, vocabulary, and experiences that don't match ours. Lots of people are just assholes and we can't change that. Mind your business and let it the fuck go. We can't force other people to be entirely aligned with us and it is peak immaturity to insist the entire world caters to us. The world often sucks, throwing a tantrum online isn't changing a single thing, you're just being the asshole. People are allowed to be distasteful to us. Next, we can work on our own boundaries rather than trying to control others. If you don't like the way someone continues to behave, you can remove yourself from that situation. For example, if you're mad that I mentioned Clementine Morrigan, you can choose not to listen to their podcast and to stop reading my blog, you can block and unfollow both of us on social media, and you can process why you feel so personally and self-righteously offended with your therapist. If instead, you send me a vitriolic email about how harmful it is that I mention Clementine's work, my highly esteemed assistant, Allie, has been instructed to delete your email cause I'm not paying her an hourly wage to answer something that is entirely your problem to deal with. You don't need to force everyone else to comply with your beliefs, trust them to make their own decisions. Focus on yourself, that's literally all you can do. You can also stop blaming individuals for systemic issues and instead start finding folks who will work with you to improve real conditions. Yet again, the folks we work with don't need to be perfect, nor do we. We can focus on fostering compassion for each other rather than self-righteous condemnation and increase our tolerance for differences including despicable ones by improving our own confidence and minding our business. Attacking people is futile. I'm not perfect, I get plenty mad at others, each time I realize it was fucking pointless. 

While I give advice, I can't control what y'all do. At the end of the day, I write loads of "you" statements because it psychologically engages readers, but I am only speaking for myself. When I reject cancel culture, I don't condone shitty behavior. I instead focus more on creating conditions that foster growth. If we want flowers to grow, we can't poison the ground and yell at the weeds, we can instead add as many nutrients as possible and sow seeds that we tend to with care. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I rip all those fucking weeds out of the ground and set them on fire, they just grow back stronger. It’s not a good use of time, trust me. Increasingly, I keep to myself and focus on being who I want to be. I love that my sense of integrity is becoming strong. I love that as I distance myself from cancel culture proponents, my relationships feel stronger and more stable. I also have more energy to oppose systems that are blatantly fucked up by supporting and loving those who are being impacted. I shield myself and those I love from violence by practicing non-violence and making amends when we fuck up, rather than insisting on perfection. It’s an ongoing learning process since I admittedly am impatient and a raging perfectionist. But I’m learning to lean on my pals who are the opposite. I go to therapy. I bring the folks I love closer together and increase my capacity to tolerate that they are also fuck ups at times. When they say weird shit that I don’t agree with, I don’t get as mad, I point it out if it feels necessary, but mostly I trust them to do their own self-work. I take naps instead of playing god. I set healthier boundaries each day, like turning off my phone for hours. I reclaim my time by not dealing with online bullshit and instead focusing on my microscope, and other projects that bring me pleasure. I'm more pleasant when I'm happy. Social media makes me miserable and angry, so I limit how much I use it. I stop answering people who seek to misunderstand or misrepresent me. Although I do occasionally tell cis-men to suck my dick. Again, I’m not perfect, I have a short fuse. But overall, I don't take things as personally. I accept that I’m a walking contradiction, and so is everyone around me. I celebrate folks who get me. I block those who try to get me involved in cancellations, I'm not drinking a poisoned fucking cup of tea.

I hope we got your juices flowing. As always, we aim to provide as much free and accessible content as possible; thanks to the amazing support of our patrons. Head over to our Patreon to support our work and get access to bonus content! If you have any questions or want to chat, please book a peer support session.