Does polyamory perpetuate relationship competition?

This week, I attended a workshop on Practical Non-monogamy. I have been to workshops on non-monogamy before and have experimented with different levels of non-monogamy in my dating life (also I hardly ever do relationships). I have read The Ethical Slut (lets be honest, I read half of it several years ago) and heard of other books to read.

I am currently in a serious, committed relationship relationship that is not monogamous in the traditional sense. We are both open to sexual encounters outside the two-person, couple model. It is something we discuss a lot and our rules and boundaries are under continual negotiation. Our relationship is also queer, so it already exists outside the heterosexual norms.

With this workshop, I was hoping for a little refresher and some thought provoking insight on how to negotiate non-monogamy in my life. Initially, I was excited about the workshop because I like to see different trainers and educational models in action but I was unsure of my feelings because I have had weird experiences with non-monogamy trainings in the past. The workshop was led by three trainers, one female who was in relationships with the two male trainers. They did a great job of defining the various types of non-monogamy (polyamory, swinging, open-relationships, and poly-mono relationships), but they spent most of the time talking about their personal experiences with polyamory.

I found their experiences interesting and some of the information they shared about boundaries and trust was very useful. I even gained some insight into how to talk to my partner about my needs. The major message that I took away from it seems like a truth universal to most relationships. Those who manage to engage in polyamorous relationships are those who are truly to committed to it. The trainers were honest about their challenging experiences and didn't paint a easy-going unrealistic picture what poly relationships are like.

They had my buy in until they started talking about coping with jealousy. Now, they did a good job of naming jealousy as a complex reaction that included other emotions. They were even forthright in talking about how jealousy can be illogical and irrational. They lost me on some of their strategies for coping with jealousy. They talked about the self-talk you should use when you are feeling concerned and threatened by another person that your partner is interested in. All of the trainers talked about the nature of self-comparison and repeatedly encouraged us to compare ourselves to that other person until we could pinpoint something we are better at (i.e. looks, smarts, personality, etc.). Their coping suggestions all involved competition and self esteem through cutting down someone else.

Society teaches women this competition as the way that we are supposed relate to each other, it prevents us from creating real community, and helps perpetuate patriarchy. I was put off by this message and felt really frustrated that it was encouraged in a non-monogamy workshop (polyamory is thought to be a way of liberating women from the patriarchal limitations of the origins of monogamous relationships). This suggested competition seems far more detrimental for the progress of female relationship and doesn’t seem to be a healthy way to cope with jealousy. How can we discuss the increased communication, the clearly discussed boundaries, and coping with jealousy without perpetuating the same competitive attitudes that keep women from uniting?