Introduction
The United States’ LGBTQ+ community has been more vocal ever since; their importune for a prejudiced-free environment has taught and led the outside society to more tolerating conduct. At the same time, the community conjectured the same for its own self—a community more accepting and more welcoming to its members than ever as the group expands. It is an undeniable fact that the topic is complex. Conjointly, apart from terms that are unconventional to the veteran and common folks. The said terms expand to even smaller branches of identities that dispose themselves to others’ perplexities. Within this tract, we are to delve into the bottom line, the root, the fundamentals. The ins and outs of one of the community’s known identities; Polyromanticism.
Polyromanticism alludes to the romantic attraction to multiple genders or a group of people. This is divergent to Pansexuality as it’s more on all, not many, and focuses more on sexual appeal rather than romantic. Polyromanticism is by no means under the Pansexual category; rather, they are two distinct identities that fall under an umbrella term—the latter describes identities that focus on sexual attraction, not romantic.
Roots of Polyamory
According to the LGBTQIA Resource Center of California, the identity appertains to consensual involvement to open or multiple loving relationships. Along with the idea of that, polyamory is occasionally considered an umbrella term for all forms of loving non-monogamous connections.
It has not been made known to the public as to who has coined the term polyromantic; however, what the public recognizes today is that it has been coined before July 4th, 2015. The first known flag beneficial to the said identity was speculated to be established at least before May 2016. By the same token, another flag was fashioned by a deactivated Tumblr user around the end of August 2015.
There exists a considerable amount of alternatives concerning the flag—nevertheless, the flags pertain to only one identity.
What Does Being Polyromantic Mean?
To be polyromantic means you are romantically drawn to multiple genders instead of all of them. For instance, if one finds themselves drawn to only bigender, androgyne, and non-binary people, then it’s only applicable to identify as polyromantic. Under other conditions, if one finds themselves attracted to anyone regardless of gender identity, an individual might classify as a panromantic.
The prefix ‘poly’ typically portends to multiple; however, the second part of the word polyromantic, romantic, should not be dismissed. The contempt for this often leads to confusion among those fresh faces in the community and to those who intend to grasp the whole LGBT+ identities concept. Romantic and sexual attraction are two different things—both are in the same bundle of attraction and yet have their own distinctive characteristics. Both are inarguably independent of each other; romantic attraction may or may not associate itself with sexual attraction and vice versa.
Mentioned before in this discussion is the account claiming that polyromanticism and pansexuality fall under the same umbrella term. The umbrella term in question is the Bi Umbrella. To construe the term, the Bisexual Umbrella denotes a much bigger category in which an array of non-mono sexual attraction identities sojourn under. Alongside polyamory and pansexuality, other included identities that lodge under the category are biromanticism, bisexuality, omnisexuality, panromanticism, and so on. To have a better grasp of it, let’s put it into an analogy: a huge tree has a considerably large amount of branches, all looking different on its own. With those branches springs even smaller branches that are also distinctive from one another. Consider the tree as the Bisexual Umbrella and the branches as the identities cited above.
Are Polyamorous People Cheaters?
Absolutely and objectively not. Polyamory is consensual involvement in a relationship with multiple loving partners. It is not polyamory if other parties do not consent to this nor have they been made aware of committing to it.
Bear in mind that cheating is defined as the breach of faithfulness to one’s partner and their commitment. The keyword to this is consent to such a concept and the negotiations made through it.
Polyromantic vs. Panromantic: What’s the Difference?
As if it has not been elaborated enough, polyromantic represents an attraction to multiple genders of preference. On the other hand, panromantic alludes to attraction to all, regardless of gender.
Polyromantic Heterosexual: Valid or Not?
To elaborate on being polyromantic heterosexual, this simply implies the romantic attraction to many; however, one’s sexual attraction is still towards that of the opposite sex. As mentioned before in this article, romantic and sexual attraction are independent of each other.
The validity of an individual that identifies as such isn’t less than those who identify as purely queer themselves. After all, one of the premises of the community is to not let others dictate whether you are valid or not. It’s a matter of acceptance of all parts of oneself.
Why Are There So Many LGBTQ+ People Today?
LGBTQ+ people have long existed since medieval times. The drawback is that oppression against such demographic is much more compelling; though, let us not ignore that such discrimination still remains—and still a common occurrence at that—in today’s time and eon. The reason for a widespread gain of LGBTQ+’s ‘popularity’ is that its people had been more open about their identities.
There is a myriad of ways to express oneself—especially now that we are protected by such anonymity on social media and on the internet in general. Along with the account of anonymity, of course, comes with much more oppressive forces. That is one of the precise reasons why the LGBTQ+ community demands further acknowledgment of one’s rights.
LGBTQ + Demographic in the United States
In respect to the account of an article published on November 12, 2018, the author claims that it’s estimated that around 4 to 5 percent of people in the US identify themselves as polyamorous and that at least 20% have practiced ethical non-monogamous habitude at least on one occasion.
In addition to that, according to the Gallup Poll conducted on February 2021, the reports exhibited results that are as follows:
- 5.6% of US adults identify as part of LGBTQ+.
- The majority of the US population are heterosexual or straight, making up about 86.7% of the adult group.
- Shrinking the focal point onto settled LGBTQ+ participants, about 54.6% of the demographic identify as bisexuals, 24.5% as gay, 11.7% as lesbian, and 11.3% as transgender.
- In conclusion, zooming out of the focal point once again, the absolute percentage of LGBTQ+ people among all US adults are 3.1% bisexual, 1.4% gay, 0.7% lesbian, and 0.3% transgender.
Conclusion
Polyromantic lies under the Bisexual Umbrella and is often confused with Pansexuality; therefore, the two are considered different branches of the same tree. Though not much known to the crowd of the greater part, it is quite significant to cultivate the culture to those of lacking familiarity in furtherance to the constitution of a much more tolerating and impartial community.
