Author: ShaunPhilly

Human, gamer, philosopher, godlike being, atheist, nonmonogamous, pariah, contrarian by nature, probably occasionally right human who writes nonsense to very few people. Some people come here only to downvote my posts. That seems sort of ridiculous, right?

Those damned kids…are making me have hope!


So, over the last few years there have been a number of stories about high school students standing up for something they believe in.  Specifically, in my memory, are those students who stood up for the first amendment, LGBTQ rights, and general social progress.  Whether it has been Jessica Ahlquist, Damon Fowler, Matt Leclair, or any of the many other not-quite adults (And yet displaying great adult understanding and maturity), I find it quite promising that the next generation seems to be willing to stand up for what they believe is right.

What bothers me is that those in charge now–the school administrators, politicians, many parents, etc–are the ones they are fighting against.  Shouldn’t the older generations, ideally anyway, be the ones demonstrating maturity and understanding? Is it sad that the students are schooling the teachers and administrators?

I am, of course, severely oversimplifying the issue with a huge dose of confirmation bias; I’m remembering the heroic youth and the egregiously unaware and backward adults they fight against while ignoring the many uninformed students and the many adult activists who have been working tirelessly for decades.  I admit that I do have a bias for the less powerful against the powerful, and have a rebellious streak in me (“no shit,” many of you are saying).  My point is that I’m glad that there are signs that despite an educational system with many flaws and shortcomings, many students seem to get it.

I’m glad that there will be another generation with leaders within it to keep the progress progressing.

But ultimately, I look forward to an ideal world where teenagers can stand up against things of lesser importance at best, mostly because their teachers, administrators, and school board understand the rights and responsibilities that their positions affords them and the students they are placed over.  Again, as is the goal of all activism, I look forward to making activism irrelevant.  I don’t expect that we shall succeed in my lifetime.  If ever.

For decades now, conservative Christians have had the long-term view to take control of school boards, and we have been seeing the result of it now with what happened in Dover, PA a few years back, arguments to “teach the controversy” (hint, there is none), and the various fights between homophobia and LGBTQ supporters.  The internet certainly has helped to keep information flowing in order to combat ignorance about rights and legal protections, and I’m sure we are all glad for that.

I think there is reason to be optimistic.  I think there will be hard fights for many years, but I think that all is not lost.

The sky is not falling, but where there is forecasts of rain there are also many people with umbrellas, and willing to hand out more of them in hopes of sunnier days.

polymoons, set theory, and boundaries


Ginny and I returned from Austin, Texas yesterday.  Gina, who had been with us for s few days, had returned a few days before that.  Ginny and I had decided to go to Austin for a few reasons.  One, she attended a conference which would be helpful for her academically and (potentially) professionally.  Two, Austin is pretty awesome, and three, there is a very active atheist community there.

Oh, right…we also just got married.  So, it was partially a honeymoon.

So, for those of you not paying full attention, what happened here is that my girlfriend came with us for part of our honeymoon.  In a sense, it became a polymoon.  That’s right folks, a polyamorous honeymoon.

There was some discussion while planning this trip, as to whether it was appropriate to have one’s other significant other (OSO) join them for their honeymoon.  Ginny and I agreed, months before the wedding, that this relationship is not all about us.  Neither of us feel very strongly about the idea of hierarchies in polyamorous relationships, and so there does not need to be a sacred space, time, or vacation that is just about us.  Yes, we wanted some of it to be just about us, but all of it did not need to be so.

At the wedding itself, Gina was not only there, but she was a central part of the party as well as the ceremony, as I chose her to be my signing witness on the license.  For most of my relationship with Gina, she has played a central, integrated, and important part of my life.  So why wouldn’t she come with us to Austin? And being that Austin is one of the best places to hear live music and be around the vagaries of hipster culture, Gina and I had a great time watching ridiculous and down-right awesome live music while enjoying some good local food and drinks.

 

A new paradigm of relationships

What I am not sure many people fully understand about polyamory, at least as I view it, is that it is not merely about adding relationships to our lives.  It isn’t merely having a girlfriend and a wife (in my case).  It’s about discarding the very foundation of traditional monogamous culture.  It’s about saying that there may, in fact, be something fundamentally broken about the way our culture looks at relationships.

In short, I am trying to destroy so-called “traditional marriage” in our culture.  But more precisely, I’m trying to show that this “traditional” idea is not particularly good nor even very traditional.  It is a broken, largely unhealthy, and unskeptical approach to relationships which does not answer our needs and desires in this short life.  Some changes need to be made, if we are to live this life on our terms, not the terms of obsolete ideas about sex, love, and relationships.

Why do we make the logical leap from “I like this person and want to be with them” to “they are mine, and nobody else can have them”? Well, partially because this is not a logical leap at all, but it is a leap based upon emotions which are largely driven by uncertainty and fear.

Surely, at the beginning of relationships we are often genuinely distracted by the relationship, but why, upon having the relationship mature, do we continue along the path of exclusivity? Why do we seemingly forget that a relationship with another person does not have to be a contract of exclusivity, setting one person above all, forever, forsaking all other loves?

Why do we place other relationships second, third, etc hierarchies below that one special place?  I don’t mean the people we are not very close to or perhaps don’t like; why do friends, other potential love interests, etc all become somehow demoted below that relationship necessarily and automatically?

Don’t get me wrong, when people voluntarily enter into relationships of their choosing, they can do so in any hierarchical fashion they like.  But why (as I ask again and again) is their a default setting to put your significant other into a role of unique importance?  Why can’t anyone else be placed there, or at least near there, as well?

The problem isn’t that people are not more or less important to us and our life, it is that we artificially have a slot for that one special person, when in real life things are not so simple.  There is no reason to have to choose one person to inhabit that special part in our lives.

 

Poly set theory?

What I offer as an alternative is something like the following.  Let’s think of relationships as fitting into sets. Each set may or may not overlap, especially over time, but they have levels of intimacy, care, and importance attached to them.

  • Let’s start with what I will call strangers.  These are people with whom you interact at a very superficial level, and who you either don’t know or don’t know well. These people are not close to you, you probably don’t know their name, and they are less likely to become part of your life in any meaningful way.
  • Then there is a set of acquaintances.  These are people with whom you share familiarity, but not closeness.   You may like them or you may dislike them.  You may, in fact, like them or hate them a great deal.  They may be people from work, people in your network of social ties, neighbors, or distant relatives you see occasionally.  These people may become close to you under certain situations, but likely only for short periods of time before returning to their relative distance.
  • Also, there is  the set of what I will call platonic friends.  These are people with whom you share commonalities of interest, background, etc and with whom you have no romantic of sexual interest.  You like, possibly love, these people and you enjoy spending time with them and may do so often.  There is no rule that you cannot be lovers with them, but one or both of you is not interested in this arrangement, for whatever reasons, and so you do not.  A good example here is your best friend from high school, college, work, close family members, etc.
  • Then there are your friends, perhaps we could call them poly friends, with who you share romantic, sexual, etc relationships.  These people are not your partners, not in the sense of a “girlfriend” or “boyfriend” kind of way, but they are people with who you have more than a mere friendship.  Whether you do kink scenes with them, have occasional sex, or just like to spend time with them talking, sharing emotional intimacy, etc they are not mere friends, but also lovers and people with whom you share some level of intimacy.  But they don’t quite make the set of partners, significant others, or even spouses.
  • That last set, those with who you are closest and with whom you share highly integrated lives in addition to sexual and/or romantic intimacy are your partners or perhaps your family.  In mainstream relationship culture, this role is set aside of one person, usually your wife, husband, etc.  These are the people with whom you plan long-term lives with.  You consider these people in making life-choices, they know you very well and care for you, and you may hope to spend the rest of your life with them around as part of your life.

But why should this last set, your partners, be defined as being a set of one ideally? What is the rational explanation for this? The fact is that any of these sets can have many or few people in it.  And, I would argue, many forms of polyamory probably maintain the arrangement of that last set being set aside for one person.

 

Hierarchy in Polyamory

In my experience, many forms of polyamory still include this idea that one person is still relegated to this last set.  Some poly people see the primary relationship as sacred, unique, and other partners should not transgress the boundaries set by a primary partner.  Now, clearly boundaries agreed to are important, but I wonder to what extent those boundaries are necessary or ideal.

The idea that my girlfriend should not join my wife and I on our honeymoon assumes a boundary around such times and places.  It assumes a sacred space into which another person should not tread.  Now, if my wife and I decide to set that boundary, a girlfriend should not cross it, but the question is whether such a boundary should be created.

In polyspeak, are rules and boundaries necessarily a good thing to require, or do they perpetuate the very basis of mainstream monogamous culture?

Basic rules about safety, property, etc are good ideas, but it seems to me that any healthy relationship would not have to enumerate such rules.  Why, for example, would I want to be in a relationship with a person who would flaunt and disregard safety, property, etc?

If a new lover said to me something like “don’t bother with the condom.  I know we haven’t talked about it or cleared it with your partner, but I’m clean and I won’t tell anyone,” then not only am I most-certainly using a condom, but I might decide to discontinue the sexual relationship under some circumstances.

Why? Because it shows that this person cannot be trusted to respect safe sexuality.  How many other partners has this person said that to? How many of them are usually safe? There are too many uncertainties for me to follow this request and still consider myself a loving partner.  It shows that this is a person I should not want to be very close to me because I already know they are willing to lie and deceive.  Such a person could not enter my last set of partner, and may not last long as a poly friend, depending on other factors.

Boundaries are rules that grown organically out of actually loving and being considerate of the people we are with.  It seems to me that to enumerate such rules demonstrates some level of distrust.  And so the more a person moves from one set to another, the less rules should be necessary.  When we have people we wish to think of as partners, family, and spouses, we should not have to have rules so much as respect and good decisions.  We should want to keep them as safe, or safer, than we would be willing to keep ourselves.

Bottom line, Ginny and Gina are my partners.  I trust both of them, even in their times of human weakness and uncertainty.  My life is entangled with both of them, and as a  result their lives will be entangled with each other, and also with the people with who they are entangled.  Therefore, Gina does not need to be relegated to a second-class place in my life any more than I would want to be relegated to a second-class place in hers.

And through this tangled web of sets, a family forms.  Not that we are all extremely close, that we are all necessarily intimate, but that the decisions I make affect them and vice-versa.  Rules and boundaries for such arrangements only betray lack of trust, and I want trust as part of my life.

Jerry DeWitt in Austin (part 2)


Yesterday I uploaded a picture of Jerry DeWitt starting his talk at the Austin History Center, here in Austin, TX.  I was mobile, and wanted to listen to the talk, and promised an update.  Well, here it is.  I was unable to update yesterday due to being caught up in socializing, sitting in studio for the Atheist Experience, and then socializing again after.

You know, like vacation stuff!

Well, now that I have a bit of time while Ginny catches up on some reading for school, I thought I would talk about the day’s events from yesterday.  Let’s start with Jerry’s talk.

I had not met Jerry before yesterday, but had followed his coming out through the Clergy Project and his position at Recovering from Religion.  Jerry wanted to talk about what he called “laughing through the apocalypse,” which is his way of saying that he is quite enjoying his experience as being an out atheist, perhaps in ways he could not have foreseen a few years ago.

He said that in a time which was supposed to have been the lowest point in his life, he discovered that other people–other preachers, that is–were going through the same thing.  The bottom line is there are many priests, pastors, ministers, and other leaders of Christian denominations (there was no mention of non-Christian leaders that I remember now) who are secretly non-believers.  But because their position, both professionally and socially, is tied to the church, they are reluctant to come out.

Slowly, more and more are working on coming out.  Jerry mentioned 25 or so people involved, and about 100 new applicants for the Clergy Project.  Who knows how many more there are out there that either don’t know about the Project or who are not ready to step forward, even behind the anonymity which the Clergy Project offers.

And Jerry has something to say to the atheist community.  While we talk a lot about creating a community, Jerry DeWitt thinks we already have a community.  He thinks that we already have everything the church has ever had, “plus more.”

Jerry emphasized that he, despite this coming out and all of the consequences of it has had, is the same person he has always been.  He emphasizes that there is a person that we are, and that throughout his ministries over the years he had been trying to figure who he was.  When he stepped into the light of atheism, that search simply evaporated.  He had found that the culture of Christianity As I understand his message) acted as a sort of stumbling block to finding who he had been the whole time.

Christianity had ripped out a Jerry Dewitt shaped hole in his heart, and tried to put ‘God’ in that hole.  The only thing that fits in that hole is Jerry DeWitt.  The only thing that fits in our hearts is ourselves.  I find this to be a wonderful image, and it resonates with me, even though I have never had his Christian background.  Jerry and I both have a deep interest in religion, of truth, and while his is stronger than mine a love of people. I can be, as readers here will know, a bit of a cynic often enough.  Jerry truly cares for people and the truth, and that compassion and care are not christian; they are Jerry DeWitt.

So, now that Jerry does not have to pretend to be somebody else anymore, he hopes, through Recovering from Religion, to help people get out of religion and find themselves.  I find it a noble, caring, and beautiful goal.

Jerry, as I got a chance to see over lunch, The Atheist Experience TV show, dinner, and ice cream afterwards, is indeed “enjoying the Hell out of my life.”  If you have a chance to see Jerry speak, talk with him, or read his upcoming book (still being written), then I urge you to do so.  I would be happy to call Jerry my friend, and am glad that I was in Austin to meet him.

Lastly, I want to thank Matt Dillahunty and Beth Presswood for being awesome hosts, both of the TV show and of us out-of-towners.  Not only have they been an influence on me over the last few years (Matt for longer, since I have known about him longer), but it turns out he, as He has been most gracious thus far in giving us a ride when we needed one, and in giving us a ride to get some Austin BBQ later tonight.  We’re looking forward to it, and may have more stories from Austin later on.

 

Seriously, folks, visit Austin.  I do enjoy this city.

So, you don’t see atheist discrimination?


A challenge (via Atheist Apostle…via Dead Logic)

Wear if you dare!

 

Now, I have been wearing shirts that advertise my atheism for many years.  I have some acquaintances who question why I wear them as well as why it matters.  They are atheists too, in most cases, and nobody seems to care about it around them.

Well, a few things:

1) Most of my acquaintances who make such comments, especially people I’ve known from from high school, are very privileged private school educated, upper middle class, white men.

2) They rarely or never talk about their atheism, especially to non-atheists.  How would they know if discrimination existed? It’s easy not to be discriminated against if you are so deep in the closet nobody can see you there.

3) I’m not sure if most of these people would know what discrimination looks like, from the receiving end, if they did experience it.

My own admitted privileged status in our culture means that I don’t fully comprehend the repercussions of discrimination myself, and this is magnified for those who don’t expose themselves to being out atheists.  I am well aware of my ignorance about the experience of serious discrimination.  But what small amount of lack of privilege that being an atheist entails in our society (especially when compared to what women, non-white, trans, etc (not to mention the various intersectionality that people experience), I can assure you it does exist.

It’s nothing immediately dangerous (in the vast majority of cases, but I also live in a liberal metropolis), and in most cases it amounts to awkward conversations with clueless people.  It certainly can make job-hunting problematic, as advertising atheist activism on a resume may not be wise.  Although I once did get hired for a job (years ago) while wearing a “Hi, I’m your friendly neighborhood atheist” shirt.

So, atheist discrimination, in comparison with discrimination received by other groups of people is comparatively tame.  But it exists.  The more people that come out of the closet as atheists, the better it will eventually get.

So, whether you wear a shirt like the one pictured above or not, keep in mind that there are significant religious privileges in our society, and that we need more people standing up, speaking, and acting in the name of social justice of all kinds.

All social justice activists are working to make their activism irrelevant.  Let’s make atheist activism irrelevant.

Birthdays are awesome


So, yesterday (the 30th) was my birthday.  35.  I got to enjoy some scotch (MacCallan 18!), so home made peanut butter pie, and some spades with some of the people closest to me (you know, the people who write for this blog).

I just wanted to express to the world that I feel quite fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life.  Thanks for being awesome, and I look forward to another good year.

Next, off to Austin for the honeymoon!

Is there room for sex (or at least sex-positivity) at atheist/skeptical conferences?


So, the consensus that is forming on the atheist blogosphere seems to be that there should be significant distance between the world of skeptic/atheist conferences and the world of sex.  If you find yourself at a conference, you should probably put the possibility of hooking up aside.

You know, unless you really want to keep pissing a lot of people off.

Some quick context, in case you have not been aware of the various goings-on around the atheist/skeptical blogosphere recently.  I won’t bother trying to summarize, so I’ll just point you here, here, here, and most recently here (there are many others, but that is where I spent much of the last few days or so…).  Arguments have been had, flame wars ended in ban hammers being unleashed, and good times were had by all.  In the end it seems that a few people were educated, some minds possibly changed, and many others are still holding onto the opinion they came in with.

Oh, and a fair amount of frustration (perhaps related to lack of sex? Or is that joke not funny? Fuck it.)

Just another weekend on the internet.

(I also spent way too much time here, but that is not directly related to this post, but since I spent like 2 or 3 days reading and contributing to comments, I figure I would pass it along)

—

So, I’m a bit nervous to bring up some questions considering where things stand and what people have said, but I’m going to do it anyway.  I’ll claim that I was tired.  Perhaps drunk will work.  I’ll start drinking now….

So, this is a question that is of some interest to me, because I think, write, and sometimes comment about the intersection of issues related to sex-positivity and skepticism.   I’m an unapologetic slut who is not only quite comfortable with my sexuality, but who believes that sexuality is and should be a part of our lives in more integrated ways.  That is, I don’t think that we should pretend that it’s not a real thing that we think about day to day, assuming we are actually thinking about it.

And I know that many people don’t think about sex at all, much, or in most circumstances.  I also know that other people, such as myself, think about such things rather frequently, and I personally have to remind myself that this is not the case with many people.  So, what do we do with these facts when we travel near or far to go to a conference and find ourselves possibly interacting with interesting people whom we will likely not see again any time soon?

I don’t often go to conferences, being generally broke and not being invited to speak at them and all.  But when I do go to such events, I would be lying if the presence of hundreds, if not thousands, of smart, funny, sexy people is not something I will notice.  I’m attracted to smart people, and I feel no shame in feeling that way.  I’m not merely objectifying a person by finding them attractive if part of what attracts me to them is a combination of their thoughts, sense of humor, and of course their body.

We are always objectifying others.  We are doing so in the technical sense of other people literally being objects (but not mere objects), but also in the sense of making judgments based upon mere appearance, even if more information will eventually provide a more substantial judgment after we have a chance to get to know them better.  The question is whether we are merely objectifying, or are using multiple criteria of judgment to view a person.  I think it’s only honest to admit that this is part of our humanity, and not pretend that this behavior did not exist or that it was wrong per se.

It seems to me that part of this desire to cut out flirting, hitting on, etc at such events verges on doing just that.  In an attempt to create a safe space (and I cannot emphasize enough how important safe spaces are), I worry that we may be cutting out part of our humanity, a part of our humanity that means a lot to me and many other people.  I wonder if we are forgetting that part of creating a network of people, if we care about sex positivity in our culture, must involve our sexuality in all of its diversity.

Religion has done too much to squash and make sexuality dirty and immoral.  I am left with a bad taste in my mouth that the hetero-normative concept of sexual ethics has made too much of an impact on our culture, even among skeptics and atheists. I want to live in a world full of sex-positive skeptics who embrace their lustiness openly and unapologetically.  Perhaps my definition of sex-positivity goes beyond most people’s.  I think that is quite likely.

Now, I don’t suggest we schedule orgies at conferences, or that we consider this desire for sex positivity over the concerns of people’s safety, but I think that in this conversation we need to keep in mind that some people at such conferences, while not there for the sole purpose of sex, are quite interested in finding potential partners for such activities.  And whether we extreme sluts are an extreme minority or not, the fact is that recent discussions are going to make us avoid such interests.

And while I think those safe spaces are ultimately more important than this concern, I don’t want this concern to be ignored.  I don’t know what role sex-positivity can play in the networking and growth of this community pf reason, but I hope it is not left behind completely.

—

That said, I am quite shy IRL.  I rarely openly flirt with people I don’t know, I have never directly propositioned anyone at a conference whom I had not already known and interacted with prior to then, and I do attend such things primarily for the lectures and opportunity to meet people in non-sexual ways.  I don’t go to conferences to hook up and I have always tried to be completely respectful to speakers, guests, etc as people with minds, and not as mere bodies.

But bodies we have, and we cannot forget that nor the fact that they can be quite distracting at times.  I find a wide variety of bodies, especially when they contain brains which house intelligent minds, quite attractive.  I am left wondering if there is room in the conference world for this sexuality, or if it will have to be something left behind when we attend such things, perhaps finding it by accident in rare cases, but never intentionally pursuing it.

The fact is that if you want to find hook ups, there are places for that.  There are singles bars,  clubs, and swingers cruises for all those interested in such things.  But is there room for setting aside a time and place for people who might be interested in sexual activity at such conferences? Could we designate an arm band system, a specific location and time, where such flirtation is not only acceptable, but set aside for?

And if this were to be arranged, would it end up merely attracting the creepy people none of us wants to hook up with?

Ugh, there just does not seem to be an easy solution here.  Perhaps it would be better to leave it out of the conference atmosphere, but I hope not completely so.  Guidelines at very least are important, and we need to continue to educate ourselves and one-another about what a safe space looks like, as there are still many who don’t understand this idea (hell, I’m still learning and I think about this stuff all the time).

It seems that we, as a community, will have to adjust to the fact that many people (perhaps most?) simply don’t want to mix their business/activism with that kind of pleasure.

And while I understand this, the side of me that wants a more sex-positive world can only look on with some small measure of frustration and disappointment.  Despite what I would ideally prefer, I am forced to admit that there are too many issues of social justice between where we are as a society and where we will need to be before we can have gatherings where enough people are respectful, safe, and mature to allow our freaky flags fly en masse.

I hope I get to see it before I die, but I’m skeptical.

Poly lessons I learned from cheating while monogamous.


This post will be hard for me to write.  It will be difficult because it involves mistakes I have made juxtaposed with ideas about love and polyamory that may come across as crass, cold, and possibly uncaring.  There will undoubtedly be people who read this that think of me as an asshole for the thoughts I will express below, but I think it’s worth exploring these ideas anyway.

After all, it is such experiences which helped give me perspective on polyamory, and perhaps some people will sympathize or have experienced similar things.

—

So, I have not always been polyamorous.  Well, I suppose somewhere deep down, I have always been predisposed to polyamory, but I have not always practiced polyamory in my relationships.  I discovered it early, being around 20 or so, and while I had a quasi polyamorous relationship back then, I was immature, uninformed, and was not really ready to have very healthy relationships then.

So, after college I was monogamous, serially so anyway.  And during the most serious relationship I was in during my 20’s, I acted badly on at least one occasion.  All of the details of the act are not necessary, but it should be sufficient for me to say that I cheated, hid that act from my girlfriend (with whom I was living at the time), and it was eventually found out.

But I want to focus in on a small part of all of this in order to draw out a lesson I learned about myself, love, and non-monogamy from that time.  This part occurred a long while (I think 6 months or so) before she found out about the act.  It was pretty immediately after the act happened, in fact.  It was the first real opportunity I had to reflect on it in the presence of my girlfriend, and I regret not coming clean at that time, but it’s the past….

I loved her.  In many ways, I still do.  But I truly loved her then and appreciated our relationship and all the wonderful times we had.  Sure, we argued about things like cleaning (she was terribly messy), being on time (She was perpetually late), and so forth, but I loved her genuinely.  The sex was great, she got along with my friends, and I loved being with her.  I found her very attractive, passionate, and there was never a lack of desire from my part.

The cheating act, therefore, was not about lack of attention or satisfaction.  It was just about me being into someone else I had met and with whom I had spent some time in social gatherings  One weekend, the circumstances allowed the possibility to act on it, which I did.  Yes, alcohol was involved, but the responsibility was ours.  We both knew what we were doing was wrong.  We did it anyway.

A couple of days later I was faced with my girlfriend, and I had a choice.  I knew that it would have been easy to get away with what happened, and so while I felt like I should say something, I hesitated.  And so with the intention of sitting her down and telling her, despite knowing it could end the relationship, I found her and could only express a strained but genuine smile.  She was happy.  She was in a great mood, had plans for the day she was excitedly telling me about, and I was genuinely glad to see her.  Yes, the sex had been good with the other girl.  Yes I also liked the other girl.  Yes, I had violated a trust.  Yes, I should have stopped her and said something.

But we were happy. A rationalization for sure, but a true one.

It was at this moment that it fully clicked home for me that there is no contradiction between loving two people.  Or at least loving one person while enjoying sex and intimacy with another person, as I cannot say honestly I was in love with the other girl; that would be a severe stretch of the truth.  We were recent acquaintances, really.  I didn’t know her very well.  But we liked each other, shared attraction, and decided to act on it spontaneously.

I felt the tension of knowing I had acted badly and feeling genuine love for the person whose trust I had violated.  It was guilt mixed with happiness.  I knew, at that moment, that I would be capable of caring for a person deeply and genuinely while also being with someone else.  I knew that polyamory was something I wanted and would be capable of.  The irony of discovering this in the context of doing it all very wrong is not lost on me at all.

We were together for some time after this, even after she found out about the act.  We actually had a polyamorous relationship with another woman later on, which was a fairly successful even if relatively short triad.  The cheating act did create problems, but we worked through them and moved on.  I don’t know if the trust ever fully returned, and the relationship eventually faded until we were friends with benefits, friends, and now there is distance between us.

Now I’m married, and she engaged.  We don’t talk much anymore, but are on friendly terms.  I still love her and care about her, even knowing we cannot work as partners nor, do I think, would either of us want to.  Such is life.

—-

So, here is the thing.  I violated an important trust.  I had sex with another woman while in a monogamous relationship, and after having done so all I could think about was how happy I was with my girlfriend, how much I loved her, and how much I still wanted to be with her. I also thought about how in an ideal world I would continue to see that other girl.  That never happened.  We only saw each other a couple times after that, and eventually job opportunities led her away.

There was no immediate, visceral contradiction there for me.  Yes, there was a tension, but it was mostly fear of losing a person I loved with some guilt for having done it.  But there was no deep feeling of having done something inherently wrong; no feeling that sex with another person while in a relationship was always wrong, just wrong when done in this way.

I was aware of the fact that according to common wisdom there should have been a contradiction there, but it didn’t exist for me.  The tension was all in knowing that I could do it again, at least not in the wrong way.  I wanted to do it in the right way.  And eventually (after she found out) we would start talking about opening up our relationship, and we eventually did decide to become polyamorous.

I was as if, in my mind at that time, I was already polyamorous.  I completely got how one could share and be shared without it being an issue.  The fact that we were not polyamorous at the time, that we had not agreed to share, was a problem that did erode at me, but we continued to be happy.  In fact, later on she did something rather similar with a male friend of hers while visiting home and did disclose it to me immediately.  And it was fine.

It was fine because in my mind I was already willing to share.  I was already geared to have that conversation.  I had already stopped thinking about her as being exclusively mine.  I would love her whether she was with other men (or women) or not.  I loved her because I loved her, not because she loved only me.

Now that I am polyamorous, I experience a similar feeling all the time.  Whether I spend some intimate time with Gina, Ginny, or someone else, if I am to then spend time with my wife or my girlfriend afterwards, I am then focused on them.  The fact that I just had sex with another person cannot touch what I have with them.  What I have with them is special, powerful, and transcends such silly things as where my penis was just a little while ago or whose penis was with them.

Why does that matter? Why should that matter?

And I understood that in that moment I should have disclosed the act, but didn’t.  I rationalized all sorts of reasons why it was better to keep it secret.  I get that even if it didn’t change how I felt or that it really should not matter, I should have disclosed.  And now I do disclose.  If I am with someone else, Ginny and Gina usually know that it is a fair possibility before it happens.  And if it does happen, they know.

And I still love them both, am happy with them both, and all is transparent.

What I learned was that sex and other people cannot damage relationships in themselves.  Relationships fall or stand on their own merits.  If your relationship is strong, it can withstand external intimacy.  If your relationships have weaknesses, those external intimacies will become a lightning rod for those weaknesses, but are not necessarily the cause of them.

So yes, cheating is a violation of trust.  But it is not the act, the sex, that does the damage.  The damage is the violation of trust.  That was a distinction I learned that day, and have ever forgotten.

You don’t have to be a slut, but you should if you are


I love sex.  I think people should have as much sex as they want.

There are a number of cultural, social, and psychological barriers between people’s desires and what they do.  In many cases, these barriers are necessary and good, such as the object of said desire being attached to a subjective point of view that does not share that desire.  In other words, wanting sex with another person is insufficient; they need to want it too.  Having sex with mere objects, however, is fine (so long as it’s your object, I suppose).

Religion, while not really the ultimate source of such barriers, certainly perpetuates many of the behaviors that act as a barrier to healthy desires.  Religion is but a very prominent and powerful outgrowth of human behavior, and much of that behavior is not healthy.  Theological positions which declare our desires to be sinful, ungodly, etc are expressions of our deep fears and insecurities projected onto the universe, magnifying our senses of guilt, repression, and self-deprivation beyond its rational scope.  Most of theology, that is, is anti-human.

We all want sex to some degree.  For some, that amount is zero, and those people will probably not be sluts.  I mean, they can choose to participate in sex, but without the raw desire and attraction, why would they?  It’s not what they really want, so deep down they are not sluts.

For other people, that degree of interest in sex is great.  When I was younger, I remember spending weekends with a girlfriend where marathon sexcapades were common.  Having aged a bit, that is no longer the case but I still love sex, and I like it with women of varying body types, varying personalities, and even with varying numbers of them.  I am an unapologetic slut deep down, and I a not a slightest bit ashamed of that, and I love meeting people who feel the same way, or who at least share an attraction to me.

Whether they also share it with 1, 2 or a 10 others is not really important.

But I also don’t have that much time.  I have two very meaningful relationships, with my wife(!) Ginny and my girlfriend Gina.  Frankly, I don’t have much time to meet other women.  And other times even if I know other women I am attracted to, I don’t communicate it if it seems to create logistical problems, I get no indication that the attraction is two-way, etc.  But, when I do meet someone that I find attractive, I often communicate my interest.  Sometimes it works out, other times not so much.

The point is that I follow where my real desires actually lead, and not to some ideal or expectation.  I don’t artificially pretend that I am more or less interested in sex than I actually am.  Not everyone does this.  Some people reign in their desires, magnify them, or try and intentionally divert them away from some direction they find objectionable.  Now, if they have a good reason for doing so (and what I consider a good reason may differ from theirs), then no problem.  But some people are not comfortable with their sexuality, and that is not healthy.

Slut-shaming is a problem.  There is no reason to talk badly about a person who has a lot of sex with a lot of people, unless they are hurting people in the process.  There is nothing inherently wrong with such a thing as really liking sex and then having it, so long as it is done consensually, comes from real desire, and with transparency.  There is also no reason to feel bad about wanting such things to start with.

From where I stand, the problem comes from where people have those desires but don’t find healthy ways to act on them.  That is if you do have those desires to be sexual, and you are not seeking healthy and consensual ways to act on them, then perhaps there is something wrong.

Are you in an exclusive relationship? Perhaps you need to have an open and frank conversation with your partner.  Are you intimidated? You need to find ways to take steps to get over that.  You you feel dirty? Come on, you don’t find that as part of what makes it hot? No? Well, then perhaps you should find “clean” ways to have sex.

I feel too much pity for people who get into their 40’s, 50’s, or later and finally cannot stand to put off their desires any longer.  I have met many people in the poly community that talk about how they ignored so much about their sexuality when they were young, and then they found later on what they wanted.  Don’t get me wrong, I am glad they did find it, I just wish people would find it earlier.

We need to be who and what we really are under all the bullshit of socialization, religious training, and following of default expectations.  We will all be happier getting what we want out of life by pursuing it rather than putting it off.

In short, we’d be better getting off than putting off.

 

Holy crap, I’m married!


Like, for real.  Like, marriage license, wedding, reception, and all the rest that goes with it.

Damn, why do I always stand so awkwardly?

So, Ginny is more into things like traditions, cultural rituals, etc than I am.  In fact, she would pretty much have to be.  But on the whole, the day was pretty normal, at first glance.  There was a guy standing between us saying some words, there was a bridal party, and we stood there looking at each other all lovingly and crap.  You know, like a wedding.

But the guy standing there (my friend Staks) said some non-traditional things.  The nod to gay marriage (we were at a gay community center in downtown Philadelphia, after all), references to Doctor Who, and stuff like that.  He also included some traditional words that one finds in a marriage ceremony, but no references to any sky-fairies or zombie Jews, so that’s a bit abnormal, I guess.

Also, my girlfriend, the hilarious and talented Gina who readers here will all know as the very serious scientist who pisses off reddit with her analysis of comic book science, brought some people with instruments to play some rocking tunes.  (And yes, Arcati Crisis does indeed rock).  So, yes, girlfriend at my wedding.  Happy poly time!

There were speeches, including one quite sappy and teary one which was forced out through sobs (oh, right…that was me).  There was food, drinks, after parties, and crashing of other wedding parties.  Also, dancing to said rocking tunes.

People visited from out of town, mimosas were had with brunch, and people left to go back home.  Now back to real life, right?

This does not change much in our lives.  We are still polyamorous; marriage and commitment do not change that.  I am looking forward to the future, living in the present, and remembering the past few days with a smile, but also knowing that we can’t always have the people we enjoy being with around.

It was great seeing friends from Atlanta, Illinois, Virginia, etc for a couple of days.  It’s a shame that we can’t all hang out on a Saturday night, in a hotel room, with drinks and ginormous pizzas every week.  It’s a shame that everyone had to go home.

But many of them remain, and I am glad for that.