"At this point I am hoping my stay in the mono side of things really is temporary, or I will have to have one of those long talks with myself about how poly I really am." - Arashi

The rather long-winded essay below began as a response to this statement, and ended up a dissertation on labels themselves. I'd still like to share it with you. I will cross-post it to a couple of the tribes it applies to and my journal. I hope that no-one minds. :) In this particular case, I think it relates to this thread in that it discusses perception as it applies to how we view ourselves and other people.

Again, I think the misconception here is that "Polyamoury" is a thing. I've often said I played the devils advocate with labels, because they *do* allow strangers a rough template, a place to start from, when they're figuring out how to relate to someone new. Beyond that though, people begin to see them as an entity or a template to mold into, qualify as. If you aren't careful it becomes a glass ceiling and an obstacle keeping your perception from helping you realize who you are as an individual.

This is the danger of all tools.

I'll use myself as an example, because I'm the only person I know that well ;)

FIrst, I'll tell you that I've had several relationships with men. There, right way you can establish that the chances are good that I'm gay, or at least bi-sexual. If that's the only thing I tell you you'll probably label me as gay.

But, I'm married.

Now you think you've got it figured out. I'm probably bisexual, possibly a gay man in denial?

But, I haven't been in a relationship with a man for nine years.

Wait, this is getting confusing. Possibly I was just experimental, or trying to be trendy. Maybe I'm a happily married bisexual male. Maybe I'm *still* gay, but still happily in denial in it's most extreme, at least for the time being.

I could go on like this forever, because the layers of a human personality don't lend themselves to simple admissives and dismissives.

What if I told you I've been with her gay friends in front of her, recently. We've had sex with other peple, recently. Now what are we? What happens if I tell you that it may never happen again, or that we are never, ever with people without the other person there.

All these layers, all this doubt. All these assumptions crashing into each other. The tool becomes a weapon, at least to me (in this example), because now what was intended to help you realize who I am is limited by the image each part of my personality creates. Am I "poly" am I a "swinger". Am I gay,bi, or straight?

How many things have I told you that exclude one and prove another in spite of itself? And what if two years from now I end up divorced in a relationship with two men? Was I ever monogamous, straight, bisexual, am I now?

You see, the problems with labels starts when you use them as a noun, instead of an adverb.

An adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language

In traditional school grammars, nouns are all and only those expressions that refer to a person, place, or thing.

"all and only" is what we've been tought. That "man" is not a "bisexual". He is a "bisexual man". To say "that's a efemminant guy" is to say he has a tendancy towards androgyny. "That guy is a fem." indicates that he will do things to conciously put forth and mold himselsf into an androgynous person.

To learn about ourselves, that's one of the first destinctions we should make in our language and how we understand the terms that define us, because ultimately nothing does. You are a person. You are (likely) a human being. Beyond that anything can change. Clumsy, graceful, gay, straight, polo, mono. It's pride, or our need to categorise that raises these less important definative terms to descriptions of the beings we are.

We have to, as inquisitive and ever-fluxuating beings, from the personal to the communal level, understand that everything short of being in and of itself is subject to change by such universal factors we can NEVER assume it's constant.

So take these words, and use them to understand your tendencies, your curiosities, but treat them like you would a bookmark in the novel, which is you. Ever-changing and progressing, pausing in places of particular interest one the way from the beginning to the end.

Consider them a definition, and you could be stuck on the same page forever.