But, as experts and anyone who's been stuck on their ex's Instagram since their breakup will tell you, the experience of obsessively tracking your ex's social media activity is more often triggering and sad than enjoyable.
Parnia doesn't find every aspect of polyamory to be as ideal as her own personal experiences. As a woman of color, she's particularly tuned into the racial blind spots present in many media representations of non-monogamy. Lamenting that mainstream representation of non-monogamy tends to center around white people, she says, "White people have also Columbus-ed polyamory to be a revolutionary tool, claiming it to be political, yet centering it around sex," continuing on to cite the fact that many non-European cultures have practiced some sort of polyamory far before colonisation.
"If you think of the bonds and relationships and connections you have with the world around you as being energetic cords, cord cutting is cutting ties with people, places, or things that no longer serve you—or are actively harming you," says Kristen J. Sollée, the author of Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive. "The practice is frequently used with relationships—platonic, romantic, or sexual—but I personally think you can harness it for addictions, fears, and other traumas that might be holding you back as well," she adds.
This is a common pattern: The same actors and institutions that decry “political correctness” and label demands for basic respect for marginalized people as attacks on free speech simultaneously hyper-police the language and behaviors from some groups and not others. These double standards strike at the core of what criticism of “PC culture” ultimately embodies: deep resentment of societal progress—specifically, progress that increasingly empowers people who have long been expected to shoulder their oppression in silence to speak up and ask for respect.