There are certain songs that are touchstones for me: they instantly bring me to a different place and time. Many of mine date to early childhood. My mom usually had music playing. Harmony leached into my blood from very young.
I stumbled across some old Olivia Newton John a few weeks ago and it was like diving into a warm pool of nostalgia. She was one of Mom's favourites, and so her songs were on heavy rotation for years...and then they receded with time until Youtube brought them rushing back in on a tide of memory. Please, Mister, Please, If You Love Me (Let Me Know), and especially Let Me Be There...I've been playing them a lot lately.
Many of the songs that resonated with me as a kid, oddly enough, have poly themes. You should have seen me bopping around the house to Stephen Stills, or lamenting along with Mary MacGregor -- this is a seminal poly song:
There's been another man that I've needed and I've loved
But that doesn't mean I love you less
And he knows he can't possess me and he knows he never will
There's just this empty place inside of me that only he can fill
...
You mustn't think you've failed me just because there's someone else
You were the first real love I ever had
And all the things I ever said, I swear they still are true
For no one else can have the part of me I gave to you
Why is she torn between two lovers, I used to think. Still do. Pretty clear from the lyrics that both love her and she loves both; what's the problem, exactly? She sounds so sad. Having two lovers shouldn't make you sad. It should fill your life to overflowing with joy. Ah, that's it. She's said because she feels she can't have both, it's "breaking all the rules". Whose rules?
(Yeah, I overthink song lyrics. And everything else).
And don't get me started on the first time I heard Jefferson Airplane's "Triad". I was old enough by then to know most of what was being sung about here.
We love each other--it's plain to see
There's just one answer comes to me
Sister lovers, water brothers, and in time...maybe others
So you see, what we can do is to try something new
(If you're crazy too)
I don't really see why can't we go on as three.
("Water brothers" is a concept from Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, something I didn't read until my mid-twenties. It denotes a connection of absolute trust and love.)
But then there are other songs...the vast majority of songs, really, which are very mononormative. Case in point: Jolene (here Dolly is joined by the astoundingly talented a cappella group Pentatonix).
You've heard this, right? I think pretty much everyone has. It's iconic. There aren't many pop songs in C-sharp minor: this is one of the most haunting tunes ever written.
I can not compete with you, Jolene
Now, anybody who has been with me here any length of time knows how I feel about competition. We have framed our entire society on the Darwinian merits of competition: the best rises to the top, and all that. There are times when this frame has its uses: you're not going to entrust your physical safety to a seventh-rate engineer. But in human connections, competing to be the "best" utterly ignores different scales and values of "best". No one person can possibly be the best for you in every conceivable way.
What's really telling here is that the scale Dolly's using to establish "best" is physical appearance. Well, we know Jolene's "voice is soft like summer rain" and that he calls her name out in his sleep. But most of what we know about Jolene is physical. Which is transitory, shallow, ultimately pointless. And yet it seems Dolly is afraid Jolene's going to "take" her man based on that.
Take.
Like the man's an object.
Ugh.
No reference to what the man might do here: he's supposedly utterly helpless in the wake of Jolene's charms. Well, I can tell you, I get the sentiment. New love feels that way: you can't stop thinking about her. You're drawn. Like a magnet. It's for this reason that NRE ("new relationship energy") is the bane of poly existence. You learn to make allowances for it, but you also learn when it's time to snap your fingers and say darling? don't forget about me over here.
The thing about poly is that people don't "take' you. To play with it a minute, you might be "taken", but that in no way prevents you from being "taken" with someone. "I'm quite taken with you...but I'm taken." In poly it doesn't matter, subject to the rules and boundaries you have with another partner or partners.
I used to use "borrow" instead, but even that is objectifying and...well, not the correct word, for me, anyway.
My poly is not like some others. Sorry if this is TMI, but it's highly relevant to the topic at hand. There are many poly people who share not just simultaneous emotional connections but also simultaneous physical connections. That's NOT me. Sure, like any functional male it's something to fantasize about every now and again, but some fantasies ought to remain fantasies and I strongly feel that each relationship should have its boundaries. It's part of cherishing each person for who they are--which is something that for me transcends poly: I do it instinctively with every friend I have.
There are people with multiple lovers who use the same terms of endearment for each: also not me. I get the idea behind this -- love is love is love, right? But in my reality, each love is different in ways subtle and profound and I think it's important to have little tells that differentiate each relationship from others. If only so that you know your lover is...with you.
I tend to bristle the tiniest bit at a slip of that kind, because it may indicate that I'm not actually, uh, present. And yes, I have slipped myself, once or twice. But put me in an intimate moment, emotional or otherwise, and the world narrows. The more intimate, the more narrow it gets, until at some point there's only room for you and I. This is all standard love trope stuff. The difference is that if I'm with her, the same thing applies. At some point it's just her and I.
That's how it works. For me. Others see this completely differently, and that's why you hear "there is no one right way to do poly".
Back to Jolene. Dolly says that 'her' man -- the man she's afraid Jolene is going to 'take'-- is the only man for her.
Here is where I'm going to gently press just a wee bit.
It's a beautiful sentiment, of course. Truly it is. But...is he? is he really?
I have two reasons for saying this. One is specific to the song; the other is universal and may seem silly.
In the song, it's pretty clear that while he may be the only man for her, she's not the only woman for him. You don't get to talking about Jolene in your sleep without, you know, thinking about her a whole lot. It occurs to me that I may have been wrong about Dolly's overwhelmingly physical assessment of her 'rival'. There's an emotional connection between Jolene and 'her man'. too. Can you truly say that the only man for you is a man whose heart is in two places? I don't know the answer to that, but suspect most people have their own answer to a question they perceive as uncomfortable.
Here's another reason that's going to immediately trigger a Jesus, Ken, stop overthinking reaction.
He's going to die. Statistically, before you do. Now, you may sentence yourself to a lifetime of mourning afterwards and shun all connections out of hand, because he was "the only man" for you. That would be a real pity, to put it mildly.
You know, there are more poly people than you realize. Widows and widowers are very much poly. Unless you're going to tell me that the presence of a new partner, if and when you become ready for one, somehow lessens the love you have for your departed spouse. Perhaps you still wear the ring you've worn for decades. Does THAT somehow negate the love you have for your new partner? I should think not. Chances are excellent that, as a widow with a new partner, you're going to encounter common poly traps like jealousy: rather than support you in your grief, your new partner may well suggest the presence of that grief suggests you're "not ready". That's silly, in my view.
There is no taking...not even death can truly take your love away. What there is...is sharing. And I think sharing is a beautiful thing...if everyone involved can share.
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