beginning of the end

WILL DRAW ✓ mecha ✓ gore ✓ furry ✓ nsfw

great question and I'm glad you asked. in this case I would only draw:

real people, places, or objects

art of media that neither of us are really a fan of

In fact if you're scared of cheating specifically, guess what, it is much rarer if you're poly from the start!

sit down and shut up because I'm about to learn you a thing

This:

is the ORIGINAL polyamory pride flag. Jim Evans created it in 1995 in fucking MS Paint. Not using hearts was an intentional choice to: avoid stepping on the leather pride flag's toes, allow people to use it without immediately outing themselves to those not in the know, and be easily input into MS Paint. The infinity heart symbol did not exist at the time and certainly wasn't available in MS motherfucking Paint. The color symbolism is blue for honesty, red for love, black⚫ in solidarity for those that cannot be out to the world at large, and gold for the high value of each relationship. sources (x, x)

There are valid complaints that people want a pride flag that does advertise what they are, and that this design is hard on the eyes. However. Many polyamorous people still use this flag to represent themselves, most of them 35+ years old. As a personal favor to me, please do not say you hate this flag. Say the colors are too bright till you're blue in the face, sure. But to openly hate this flag is to disparage your predecessors and denounce your history.

The earliest polyamory pride flag to incorporate the infinity heart symbol that I could find actually made its debut on tumblr in 2016. The infinity heart was established as a polyamory pride symbol by this time. ratlab-art intentionally kept the original color symbolism, while using hues generally considered a little more pleasant to look at.

This one, obviously, set the precedent for numerous other iterations of the same idea -- tweaking the colors, swapping the pi for the infinity heart. I will not be posting all of them, because I doubt I could track them all down anyway. The icon I currently use on this blog is one such iteration. But this one uniquely puts the black stripe in the middle, which does make for a nice contrast with the gold.

and of course

This is the "new poly flag" designed by Red Howell for the polyamproud online vote, which took place in 2022. They call it the "tricolor polyamory pride flag" (presumably, not to distinguish it from the other established flags, but to distinguish it only from the others that were in their run-off) Its symbolism is as follows: the triangle ▶️points forward for progress and is off-center to represent the non-traditional nature of polyamory, white⚪ represents possibility, blue for honestly, magenta for love, purple for unity in the community, gold for perseverance, and obviously the heart for love.

It has garnered controversy, because they kind of... openly disparaged every previous polyamory flag and claim theirs is the one true poly flag. They do still say you can use any flag you like, but the whole vote was predicated on the assumption that no one wanted the existing designs, and no pre-existing designs were included in the vote. And that it was bad to have variants of the same flag, even though you see that with many pride flags, including the rainbow flag. Many old school polyams still don't know this design, let alone that there was a single vote years ago, which they missed. However. This flag has quickly become a popular design, especially among the younger generation. So if you would be so kind, please do not say you hate this flag. Say you're frustrated with how the process of choosing it happened, by all means. But to openly hate this flag is to disparage the next generation and sever yourself from new directions in the community.

finally,

A couple of honorable mentions made by Em Essex in 2019 and Molly Colleen Bennett Wilvich in 2020, respectively. They don't get full write-ups, but they're an additional couple of the more unique (without being downright obscure) flag designs.

Hi there. I'm wondering where you got the idea its a choice. Many polyamorous people do not feel it was a choice for them, myself included. Some do, but you're speaking very definitively.

And, while I mean no offense to anyone asking this in good faith, it truly baffles me that people have a hard time grasping this concept with polyamory. Let me give you a metaphor.

Lets suppose I am dating someone. I enjoy their company, they mean a lot to me🥰, and I never want to hurt them. But something feels wrong about it to me. It takes me awhile to determine what feels "off," and in the meantime I do the best I can to be loving❤️ and treat them right. Eventually, I reach the conclusion I do not feel attraction to their gender. At this point I technically have a choice: I can continue the relationship and accept I will never be fully happy, or I can leave them to date someone of the gender I'm attracted to. I have a choice, but my sexuality isn't it. You understand this.

Same scenario,

I am dating someone. I enjoy their company, they mean a lot to me🥰, and I never want to hurt them. But something feels wrong about it to me. It takes me awhile to determine what feels "off," and in the meantime I do the best I can to be loving❤️ and treat them right. Eventually, I reach the conclusion I do not feel attraction to their gender can never feel satisfied never dating anyone else. At this point I technically have a choice: I can continue the relationship and accept I will never be fully happy, or I can leave them for someone who will allow me to date polyamorously. I have a choice, but my sexuality isn't it. You... don't understand this??

My sexuality of being bi was personally much easier to accept than my being polyamorous. The process was much the same, but it took me an additional... 8 years or so bwtween saying "I'm bi" and saying "I'm poly". I am currently much more scared to tell people (and banks and jobs and-) I'm poly than that I'm bi.

But broader than that. "Queer" being narrowly defined benefits the non-queers more than the LGBTQIA2S+ [pick your acronym inclusions]. "No hets at pride" and "no kink at pride" people have done me way more harm as a bisexual than... "straight" poly people, or people of no defined sexuality in pup masks, or generally seeing anyone I didn't think should be there. Let our proclaimed friends be friends, the better to break bread and take up arms with.🏳️‍🌈

@widdershyn-panda went through this

My first relationship, I ended things despite being happy with the person, because I got feelings for someone else, and was convinced that meant I was falling out of love with my partner because why else could I fall in love with someone else? I felt like a horrible person, broke up with my partner to let them find someone "better".

For me, it looked like this.

In my teenage years, I at one point had 3️⃣ simultaneous crushes, and a couple other people I would have said yes to dating if they asked. I told my best friend about two of them (because my best friend was the third) and they joked I sounded like [popular YA romance novel at the time]. I laughed, because it was true. I was all the more determined to NEVER let my best friend know I was crushing on them, because in that novel, the two love interests discuss how bad it makes them feel the protagonist can't make up her mind, and I would never do that to my friend. I did not date anyone until I went to university.

My first relationship was only 6 months for unrelated reasons. This is not long enough that I got the poly itch, personally.

My second relationship, I was embarrassingly in love, and I overlooked a lot of red flags for longer than I care to admit... but so did they. It last 3 years, and after the first, even though I was head over heels, I started to feel trapped. I got more pushy about threesomes than I should have, just to have an outlet, a ray of hope for the fact I was attracted to both my friends and theirs. If it was a threesome, if that's all I wanted, I wasn't wanting to cheat, you see. I got the opportunity to move hundreds of miles/over a thousand km away, but didn't think it'd be worth it. My partner then said they would allow an open relationship if we went long distance, and this idea was so appealing to me I started making plans. When we discussed it in more detail, they said I'd only be allowed to fuck someone else if it had been over 3 months since we'd seen each other. I knew my partner would make the trip more often than three months, because there was a convenient rail line. It went from being a dream scenario of getting to have my cake and eat it too, to me getting laid 4-6 times a year. I did not move. I never got a threesome. When we broke up later, for unrelated reasons, I felt relief.

The next relationship, I told them from the outset I "wasn't strictly monogamous" and said since I'd never had sex with someone of my same gender, it was really important to me I get to try that, if the opportunity arose, though I wouldnt seek it out. They agreed, though it was clearly not a great thing for them. A year later I was complaining to my best friend they were shutting down those conversations very quickly. I finally admitted to myself I wasn't just "not very invested in monogamy", I was polyamorous. I didn't just like the idea of dating around, I would never be satisfied without it. I cried alone in the dark because I didn't know anyone I felt safe confessing this to. I did my best to shove that thought to the back of the drawer and forget about it, but I lost sleep more nights than one, staring at the ceiling next to the person I loved, thinking how I was such a monster for wanting something that I knew would hurt them so much. . . When I finally broke, three years into the relationship, and begged my partner to let me have something with anyone else, they had a full-on, rocking-back-and-forth mental breakdown. But they agreed. We set up strict rules. Sex only, no feelings, no more than 3 times with the same person, I had to shower before I got home so they wouldn't smell the sex on me, I don't even remember what else. My partner kept having mental breakdowns. I told myself the breakdown they would have if I left would be worse (which was true by a lot), but anytime I got a text, their mood changed instantly. It made us both paranoid. I was having mental breakdowns, too. I didn't know what else to do. I gave a lot of thought to how much simpler it would be if I was dead. I got fired from my job because I couldn't think about anything else but how what I wanted would clearly never be possible. How even a compromise would clearly never fucking be possible. I was only able to admit I wasn't doing my partner any favors by sticking around when I found them in our bathroom trying to chug a bottle of pills. Their hands were shaking so bad they could hardly get any in their mouth. They were trying to speak, but I couldn't make out a single word. I held them, huddled on the floor, freezing and scared to leave them even long enough to call an ambulance, for about 40 minutes, before they calmed down enough I could get them to move to the couch.

Does that sound like something I would choose?

You want to know the number of times I've cried about being bisexual? Its zero. You want to know the amount of time it took me to come to terms with being bisexual? About 20 seconds. I outed myself as bi to my friend within the week. When I was 17 my sister asked me if I liked the same gender and I said "I don't know" (untrue, I did know, I just didn't want her knowing) and my mother defended me when I was pressed on the issue. That's the single worst experience I've had about being bi, one family member making me squirm and another one immediately stepping in. Sometimes there will be a Christian on a corner preaching that homosexuality is a sin. That's as bad as its gotten for me. I am now out as bisexual to everyone I know. Only my closest friends know I'm polyam. I've heard, in public spheres and from friends I'm not out to, how polyamory makes me a whore, a playa, a cheater looking for excuses, an uggo trying to prop up my self esteem, everyone's side piece not worth committing to. I've gotten anon hate telling me to kill myself for nothing more than being an out poly person. I stress over legal protections and buying a house with my loves not because of their gender, but because I don't have just one. I'm queer because I'm bi, why wouldn't I be queer for being poly?

[ survey.gendercensus.com ]

The 13th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2025.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!