Let’s talk about one penis policies, which is when a nonmonogamous couple–generally a straight man and a queer woman–create a rule stating that the woman can only have sex with other women. (In a less extreme but probably harder-to-enforce version, the woman can have casual sex with other men, but she can only fall in love with or form committed relationships with women.)
One penis policies are generally justified using some combination of these rhetorical moves:
- “Well it works for us so you can’t judge it”
- “It’s equal because both of us are only seeing women”
- “I [the man] can’t emotionally handle her fucking another man so isn’t this better than just being monogamous”
- “I [the man] wanted to give her the opportunity to explore her interest in other women; she doesn’t need another man”
- “I [the woman] am not interested in any other men anyway so what’s the problem”
I’m going to suggest another justification for one penis policies, one that tends to underlie the rest. This one usually remains invisible because nobody wants to say it out loud and sometimes they don’t even realize it’s what they believe:
Girls don’t count.