I'm going to cover just two of the many poly articles. The first one isn't even in that list.
This is the first one. It seems Toronto Raptor Lou Williams celebrated the birthday of one of his girlfriends with...both of his girlfriends. The women, we are told, consider themselves "sister wives" and Lou is "living every bro's dream".
Ugh.
Yes, this is poly. By definition. Both women know all about each other: everything's out in the open. But the tone of this article is very off-putting. I can't help wondering if it would be reported the same way if (a) the man wasn't richer than Croesus or (b) it was a woman, famous or not, with two boyfriends. Which is, among the half million or so polyamorous relationships in the United States today, the most common arrangement by a hair.
This is how poly is going to go mainstream, I think: famous people out in pubic in trios and quads. As such I have to celebrate the little victories, at the same time lamenting in this case that this reinforces the "one man, one harem" stereotype that many have of polyamory. And I could really do without the "Williams deserves a full bro salute for figuring out how to make the two girlfriends thing to work." Anybody in a relationship like that knows it takes all three of them to make it work.
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The next article is a lot more in-depth: Five Reasons Everyone Should Try Polyamory.
No. No, no, and no twice more. A title like that instantly sends my rebut-o-meter into a tizzy. You know what? Nobody "should" try polyamory. People should be *free* to try whatever consensual relationship configuration might work for them: one man, one woman; two men; two women; any number of men and/or women. But announcing to the world that everybody *should* try polyamory is both evangelical and antagonistic and I simply can't support it.
Let's look at these reasons, though. We might learn something, all of us, mono and poly both.
1. EXPECTING ONE PERSON TO FULFIL ALL OF YOUR NEEDS AND TO NEVER CHANGE OR GROW IS UNFAIR.
I've written this a few times myself, and it occurs to me that reading the reasoning given here, I probably should clarify my own.
I think most people will let all of this pass unblinking, even nodding their heads in agreement, except for those two words smack dab in the middle: "in sex".
Our rules for relationships focus on sexual exclusivity. It's held as a universal virtue to the point where alternatives to it mostly don't exist; the only one that does is cheating, which is (justifiably) always punished harshly.
Think of every fairy tale you've ever read. "One true love" is a remarkably common trope. It manifests as the prince, the knight in shining armour, *and* the fair maiden or princess or what have you. Take it further: every love triangle you run across in film and literature must resolve into one happy couple and one person left wanting. Fairy tales, movies and books are not real life, at least not for many people: having "only" one love per life is pretty rare. But people are forced to make a choice, feeling love where it "shouldn't be": either drop your first love for your second, or forget your second love. Many would say you can't feel a second love anyway, not if your first relationship is as it should be. For some people, hardwired for monogamy, that's true. For many, it is not. Those many people are left with the choice above, which many of them will try and forestall by means of cheating, deceiving their partners, leading to at least one broken heart. There is, of course, another way.
I've noted in the past that polyamory isn't primarily about sex, and that's true. The kind of non-monogamy concerned with sex is called "swinging", and while some poly people consider themselves swingers and some swingers consider themselves poly, the two communities tend to be at odds on emotions. They're all but verboten in most swinging groups. For the most part, it's lust, not love, that motivates swingers. Polyamory has the Latin for "love" right in the name.
But sex is of course a valid, and common, expression of love, and so yes, sex is part of most polyamorous relationships. The question, for the staunch monogamist, is why.
There are two very common reasons and one universal reason.
COMMON REASON A: MISMATCHED SEX DRIVES. Where one partner is ravenous about sex and one partner just doesn't have the energy, both partners can wind up feeling resentful, one because he's always being pressured for sex, one because he never is. (I mixmaster genders in my writing because they really don't matter.) Many relationship columnists will tell you such a relationship is doomed. Buttocks (or lack thereof). There is more to a relationship than a bedroom; and if the bedroom really is that important...there are other bedrooms.
COMMON REASON B: MISMATCHED SEXUAL EXPECTATIONS
Related to A, but more comprehensive and personal. It's rare to find two people with exactly the same sexual taste. There are no-go zones in most relationships and that's perfectly fine...nobody should EVER be coerced into doing something sexual or otherwise against their will. And some fantasies, undoubtedly should stay fantasies. But polyamory does allow for a more wide-ranging palette of sexual experiences, where that's desired, without hurting the existing relationship.
And it doesn't hurt the existing relationship because of the universal reason, which boils down to
WHY NOT?
That question offends many, and that's fine. Poly people, by and large, have examined the answers given to that question and discarded them. That's their choice and their own personal moral code. It doesn't make poly any better or worse than monogamy, only different. Neither polyamorists nor monogamists have the morality market cornered, okay? Love and let love.
2. ENDING A RELATIONSHIP YOU WERE ENJOYING BECAUSE OF SOCIETY’S EXPECTATIONS IS RIDICULOUS
"The idea that if you love someone enough you'll never look at another person with lust (love) again is preposterous."
I, personally, couldn't agree more. And I do blame Hollywood and fairy tales for this almost ubiquitous belief. The example I usually give is multiple children. You don't love the second child any more or less than the first. Somebody the other day chided me and said this smacked of pedophilia, because hello? we're talking about a different kind of love between adult partners and why bring kids into this? I was repulsed myself that this would be the track his mind took, but okay. The point was was that yes, of course the kind of love you share with your darling is different--but why does one of the differences have to do with exclusivity?
Fine, let's change it to "friends". Can you have more than one? Does one get jealous if you spend time with another? Probably not, because she has other friends of her own. In a poly mindset, romance, with or without sex, works just that way. Is it for everyone? Hell, no. The most common reaction I got when I came out was "I could never do that." I suspect some of the people who said that actually could, if they wanted to, but nobody should have to try it.
It is frightening. Of course it is. Not only are you upending a sacred cow, you're introducing potential chaos into a stable relationship. My attitude is that life does that itself every day. One partner could die tonight, and the end result would be the same as if he left his partner for another. But you learn pretty quick in healthy polyamory that there's no earthly reason why you or your partner should leave anyone when you have, perhaps, a whole circle of someones. Why leave A for B (or B for A) when you can have A and B (and maybe C through Z-prime as well, although I pity the Google Calendar in that arrangement!)
3. IF YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH MORE THAN ONE PERSON, YOU ARE NOT A FREAK, AND YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE
You will find that I agree with the general gist of these points. Emphatically. Or I wouldn't be poly, now, would I? Caveat: you might not have to choose. At this point, at least, you almost certainly will: the pool of people open to poly is not deep and not wide. I've run across some people who have zero problems being with someone who happens to be cheating in a monogamous relationship--the attitude there is it's their choice--and I want to slap these people silly. It's like driving the getaway car in a bank robbery...well, no, you didn't actually rob the bank, but without you the bank wouldn't have been robbed.
4. COMPERSION IS AWESOME, AND JEALOUSY IS ONE OF THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS -POLYAMOROUS OR NOT
Com-what? Compersion is a nice hippy-dippy word coined by the Kerista Commune (co-inventors of the word 'polyamory' to describe a lovestyle that has existed roughly forever). It's the opposite of jealousy. It's feeling happy at a loved one's happiness, even if that happiness wasn't your doing. There's an ancient word, mudita, that means essentially the same thing: joy unadulterated by self-interest. It's a quintessentially "poly" feeling...and we work at it.
Contrary to popular belief, poly people do feel jealousy. I disagree that it's a relationship problem, though it certainly can signal one and it will always lead to one if it's not addressed. Jealousy is rooted in insecurity. Sometimes the jealous pangs are wholly justified, when you're being treated like a doormat, but usually they are simply masking some sort of fear that you have to work through, ideally with another person. If you don't work though your jealousy, yes, your relationship is at risk.
The way to work through jealousy and turn it into compersion is practice, practice, practice. Recognize he's not leaving you just because he's with another; share in her joy and you'll increase it, because shared joy is always increased (and shared pain is always lessened).
Compersion, or mudita, or whatever you call it, *is* awesome. But monogamous people can feel it too, when their partner succeeds at something they had no hand in and truthfully no interest in either. You don't have to be poly to share this particular poly feeling, and I know committed monogamous relationships in which jealousy does not exist. The couple are sexually exclusive to each other by choice, but either party is trusted in the sole company of a member of the "threatening" sex. I'm getting the feeling from this article, over and over, that polyamorous people are more highly evolved.
I keep running into these people online: poly types who are fanatical about it--seeking to free everybody from the bounds of holy monogamy, and all that. These people piss me off. Much of what is available to polyamorous people is actually available to monogamous people as well--compersion, close friendships, plural, and so on. Polyamory is...deeper. That's not a judgment, it's a fact; how you interpret it is up to you. Deeper means more, but there are shadows in the deeps as well.
5. BEING OPEN, COMMUNICATIVE, AND ALLOWING YOURSELF AND OTHERS TO BE INDIVIDUALS IN WHOM THEY IDENTIFY AS, WHOM THEY DESIRE, AND HOW THEY NAVIGATE THIS DESIRE, IS IMPORTANT.
True. First, that includes monogamous people, and second, THIS INCLUDES MONOGAMOUS PEOPLE. The open, communicative, allowing ones, which is most of them.
Again, and again, and again: mine is not a better way. Mine is only another way.
Again, and again, and again: mine is not a better way. Mine is only another way.
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