Part of why I write polyamorous stories these days is that I am polyamorous myself. It’s a trendy thing to be lately, although it wasn’t when I first found myself in a romantic triad by near-accident.
Before crossing into polyamory, I’ll admit I didn’t mind reading harem romances. But since then, I have developed a severe intolerance for the genre. For the most part, I let it be. I recognize that harem romances (call the ones with a woman collecting men reverse-harem if you must, but I find that silly myself) are fantasy. And mostly for straight allosexual women, which isn’t a demographic I belong to. The genre isn’t aimed at me and I don’t actually have a problem with it existing, provided no one gets the impression this would be a healthy polycule in real life.
That last bit was important. The main peeve I have with the harem sub-genre is how often I see it labeled in reviews, sometimes even by authors, as polyamorous. At that point I have to throw up a stop sign. Yes, technically the main character has multiple love interests, which falls under polyamory. And, yes, technically there’s no one way to do polyamory right. But there are many, many ways to do it wrong. And situations, where one party is permitted as many romantic partners as they want but those partners are expected to limit themselves to this one person even if they’d rather not, are extremely toxic. If someone invites you into such a relationship in real life, run, don’t walk, to the nearest exit. And, yes, it is something that happens for real, to real people who deserve better.
One of the core concepts needed to practice polyamory in a healthy way is a basic level of respect. The people you’re involved with are people, not sex objects. You have to treat them as though their desires and experiences matter as much as yours do. And if you have more control over who they partner with than they have over who you partner with, then you’re not doing that. Obviously, an individual who chooses to have one partner because that’s all they want is perfectly entitled to do that, no matter how many people that partner is seeing. But it has to be their choice, not one that was made for them.