Yvonne Rorrer Declares Herself Ethically Non-Monogamous
Good for her, and for those of us who are also into ethical non-monogamy.
Yvonne Rorrer from her
campaing website.
I have never heard of Yvonne Rorrer until Stephen Colbert talked about her on The Late Show last night. I know she is a Democrat, but I don’t know more about her political positions. At any rate, it is a good thing that she declared herself ethically non-monogamous in a statement. I’m not saying that she came out because I got from a Huffington Post article that she was already out.
Colbert talked about her as a swinger. Mainstream media often does such a piss-poor job at reporting about things they do not understand that I was wondering whether swinger was her expression, or whether the journalists jumped the gun, and assumed. The Huffington Post article I link to above confirms it is her expression.
Ethical non-monogamy is a large umbrella term. Swinging falls under this umbrella, and so does polyamory. (I am polyamorous.) In all cases, of ethical non-monogamy, the assumption is that everyone involved knows what is going on. Ethically non-monogamous people do not hide one relationship from another.
One thing irritated me in Colbert’s talk about Rorrer. It came across to me as mononormative. Colbert said,
She might be one of those people who thinks everybody wants to hear about their thing.
😩 Why did he need to go there? Why?
Colbert, like the majority of our population, monogamous, and straight. People will assume, correctly, those two characteristics about him. When people run into someone like me, or like Rorrer, they make the same assumptions, and they are wrong. We are both ethically non-monogamous. I am because I’m polyamorous. Rorrer is because she is a swinger. I’m moreover not straight, because I’m pansexual. I don’t know about Rorrer’s sexual orientation.
We do not talk about our ethical non-monogamy because we think that everybody wants to hear about it. We talk about it to normalize it, and because some people will benefit from it. In a world where monogamous people are in the majority, we who are ethically non-monogamous are assumed to be monogamous too. That is, until we tell people otherwise.
I’m open, too, about all kinds of things. I cannot count the number of times when, after being open about being pansexual, polyamorous, or autistic, I had a nice chat with someone else who was in a similar situation. This discussion would not have happened if I had not been open about my identity.
Please do not assume that when someone is in a minority group that, when they are being open about their identity, their intent is to shove their business into your face.
#AutisticWriters #EthicalNonMonogamy #polyamory #SexualMinorities #StephenColbert #swinging #TheLateShow #YourAutisticLife #YvonneRorrer