Since our recent success has brought light not only to our local group but the cause of polyamory as a whole, I thought it might be nice to go about looking for groups in Wisconsin that I could become a part of - even if only online. There are a lot of them. (Do a Google search for "wisconsin polyamory groups" and you'll come up with about 14 on Yahoo alone). So I joined them - all of them.
Two of them accepted me in. Wisconsin Open Marriage and Poly In Wisconsin. I was told by most of the other group moderators (not all of them, because some of them just clicked the "deny" when they saw I wasn't from their area, I imagine) that because I wasn't local, that I shouldn't be a part of their group. I needed to just go to Poly In Wisconsin.
Why? Why should I be relegated to my area only? Isn't the point of a community to be as broad as possible to offer the most support? If I'm willing to go the extra length to find your group and join because I want to be a part of it, shouldn't I be granted that privilege? Perhaps not; perhaps I'm untrained in the ways of the community outside of my own Milwaukee one. I think something that Alan said makes a lot of sense, and perhaps that's why I get a little frustrated.
"...I have an impression that young polys, raised with the internet, are more ready to be out in public, compared to older generations who may have lives more deeply invested in conventional versions of respectability."
Am I intruding into someone's private space? Is the possibility of an outsider one more risk of exposure to the world? Even with as many reservations as I've had in the past about coming out publicly, I still understand and appreciate the nature of a support group, and I sincerely hope that all of the trouble we have gone to and headaches we're liable to create for ourselves with this media coverage will help others recognize that there are others like them, that there is a recognized support network, and that there are ways to go about acting on your desires in an ethical way. I also hope that it will show some of those groups that are reluctant to bring members in from outside of their immediate area that we're only here to help.
"Times, they are a-changin'." We have to change with them.