“Marital Zipcar”?

I don’t know how I feel about the idea, but it is basically slightly more organized partner-swapping.

In any case, the term “marital Zipcar” will likely stick with me for a while.

I think the basic idea already slapped your brain with either awesomeness or disgust (no middle ground is possible, I asset!), so the question is obviously whether it would be a concept worth discussing, as polyamorous people?

I am not sure, but it did make me think about it as swinging for poly people; as in, we have our little poly family over here, and so do you all, so let’s mix up and see who might be interested in swapping a partner or two here or there occasionally. Rather than “monogamous swapping” (really, it’s not monogamy if there is sharing of sexual partners) among couples, it is swapping among groups of people who tend to be too busy to go out and look on their own for a little variety.

Sort of like a hybrid between polyamory and swinger communities. Swingers tend to be couples who play with other singles or couples, polyamorous people tend to be more relationship oriented. And, of course, some poly people do a fair amount of interconnecting between poly groups, but rarely do orgies break out (in fact, outside of specific parties which are designed to create such things, I have not seen this appear spontaneously).

So, would a “poly Zipcar” be a variation on polyamory, or would it just be swinging?

I guess the question depends on how we distinguish polyamory and swinging; as a qualitative difference or one simply of relationship versus sexual orientation.

Semantics.

In any case, one of these days Ginny and I will have to re-construct our attempt to graph the dimensions of differences between swingers and polyamorous people; it involved (if I remember correctly) at least three axes!

Jealousy and polyamory

One of the most cited reasons that people are not polyamorous, even if they are not against the idea in principle, is that they simply could not do it. They are too jealous.

But jealousy is not a sufficient reason to not be polyamorous. Not being polyamorous for this reason is simply a way to avoid dealing with the problem of jealousy.

Ever listen to love songs on the radio? Ever watch a sappy romantic comedy where the blunt end of the joke is the presence of competition or possessiveness? The lamenting lyrics of wanting someone’s girl, seeing someone beautiful on the train but she was with another man, or sappy words about how someone belongs to someone else is so ubiquitous that not even us polyamorous people always notice it. But it is pretty ubiquitous.

Jealousy, whether in the form of competition, possessiveness, or destruction of property is a part of our culture. It is, indeed, part of the mythology of love in our culture. I use the term myth here because if possessiveness or jealousy are anywhere near the core of love, something is wrong.

But it often is near the core of love in our culture. Our culture’s use of love, expectations of relationships, and folk wisdom about how to respond to jealousy are pretty unattractive. It is not surprising that this is the case, especially given that the Bible (which is a part of the foundation of our Western culture) seems to condone this behavior in the book of Exodus.

20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

and it gets better two verses later!

20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

[emphasis mine]

See, god loves us, but if we were to cast a casual glance to some other god, he would smite us. And we’d deserve it, of course! How could we be so slutty….

Jealousy as a bad thing

The problem is that people don’t see jealousy as a bad thing. As the picture at the top of this post shows, there is an idea in our culture that jealousy is somehow an indication that the love is real, rather than imitation love or whatever. I have been told before that if I don’t mind my girlfriend sleeping with other men, I don’t really love her. Such people say that when I meet someone who I really love, I would not want to share her.

I suppose I don’t love either of you, Ginny and Gina. Sorry….

Bullshit! That idea is patently absurd. I love both of them and I don’t see how bowing to any jealous or possessive feelings I may have is someone more real than recognizing that they are both intelligent, talented, and beautiful people who anyone could love. How is it rational to love someone (or some thing) and not expect other people to love them too? And what right do I have to claim possession to a person just because I love them? That is the implication, right; I love them, and anyone else who does is competition.

Of course, for many of us anyway, jealousy still occurs. Sometimes it’s mere envy, but sometimes it’s not. But what do we do about it? Do we address the object of our jealousy or do we address the fact that jealousy is damaging to relationships and love in general? Most resources I have seen seem to emphasize that the feeling is probably unwarranted; that what we fear is not happening and we need to stop being so suspicious. But when you share your lovers, the thing you feel jealous about is happening! The question is whether you should feel bad about that.

Obviously, if you are agreeing to non-monogamy with your partner(s), you have no justification to be angry about it happening, even if you do feel jealous from time to time. In such circumstances, your project should be to find ways to rid yourself of those types of reactions so that your good feelings for those people are not tainted by unpleasant experiences of feeling possessive or insecure as a result. Eventually, you may grow to like the idea of sharing (some call this compersion. I hate that term. It’s still better than frubble), and jealousy may be nothing but an unpleasant memory or a curiosity for reflaction on human nature.

Monogamous people may have reasons to be angry if their partners have romantic or sexual relationships with other people (since this was not agreed upon, by definition), but the jeaousy is still something they should try and transcend. Jealousy does not stop it from happening, and if it is not happening it causes unnecessary anxiety. It is a sign of lack of trust, security, and can only act to drive people apart, rather than help in any way.

Therefore, there is no excuse for tolerating jealousy, even if one is monogamous.

Monogamy is not a cure for jealousy

Even if you choose a lifestyle of sexual exclusivity, your partner will probably love someone else. They will probably find other people sexually and/or romantically attractive, they will have fantasies about those people, and ultimately they will probably want more than you are able to give. If you decide to structure your relationship such that neither of you will pursue anything beyond friendship with others, so be it, but this will not eliminate the existence and problem of jealousy.

It will just avoid the problem by treating the symptom rather than the underlying cause.

The love you have for someone is because of who they are, and should not be dependent upon who else loves them or who else they love. So, for someone to say that they could not be polyamorous because they are too jealous, what they seem to be saying is that they do not want to deal with the reality of human needs, desires, or the possibility that they may not be able to satisfy every need a person has.

Jealousy is not a reason not to be polyamorous; it is a reason to consider not being in a relationship with anyone. Jealousy does not go away just because you are not sharing, it just isn’t challenged when we are not sharing. It’s sort of like teaching children how to share toys; if you just keep them all separate and let them play with their toys separately, the problem never arises. But when you put children together, they fight over toys. Separating them does not alleviate the problem, it only avoids it.

Similarly, separating everyone out with monogamous pairings does not make jealousy go away, it just tries to create a dynamic where it ideally is never relevant. It is an unrealistic expectation and is rarely possible. So why try?

Only because it avoids the problem most of the time. From a practical point of view, it is easier to not deal with hard problems. But this is short-term thinking, and does not lead to us growing up to emotional adulthood. Jealousy is one of the many aspects to human behavior which we need to address as a species, and too often it is shelved in the name of practicality.

We can do better than that.

Objectification and polyamory

There should be no doubt that unhealthy relationships exist. Hell, I have been in a few in years past (and I was not always the one at primary fault, even despite my struggles and past failings). And the causes of such relationships are varied and attributable to too many psychological, cultural, and communication-based issues to cover here to any sufficient degree.

But I obviously want to address some of it, right? Otherwise I would not be posting anything. So, a rather cynical and, perhaps, true thought occurred to me this morning while on the subway. The thought immediately brought to mind real potential examples, from acquaintences of mine, of this thought.

What if one of the reasons that many people could not be polyamorous is simply due to the fact that many people are not in love with (and possibly incapable of such a thing) their partner? What if the fact that their partner, spouse, etc is a mere object to them (a trophy, for example) and that they cannot imagine what it would be like to love two or more people openly because they can’t really do it with one?

With some such people, their partner is just a sort-of space-occupier. Yes, this partner has certain attributes which the person likes, but ultimately they are pretty swappable or replaceable And perhaps they go about town being non-exclusive behind their back because, well, sometimes you just want a different flavor. Afterall, when your spouse is from Stepford, what’s the difference, right?

OK, so some of that is pretty extreme and cynical, but not completely useless to us here. So, for the sake of this idea, imagine relationships which are not very deep, open, or are merely primarily shallow or political in nature. What sense could polyamory mean to such people? Relationships for such people are not really about deep and meaningful connections made in an effort to complement ourselves, so what sense would it have to talk about doing more of this?

Such people might comprehend swingers better (which is not to put swingers down; they are not always shallow and scared of sharing intimacy), but their world is not dominated by thoughts or practice of authenticity, honesty, and quality (which is not to say that all poly people are seeking such things; I know quite a few who certainly aren’t).

Such a large segment of our culture seems to be about finding some arm-candy, a sugar daddy, or just someone who appeals to us right now rather than a truly good personal match. Part of this is the fact (it seems pretty true to me, anyway) that many people lack a true ability to find what they like, want, and are capable of. Finding a good match necessitates some level of self-awareness, which takes work and some courage to attain.

And since our culture is fairly unaware of itself, many relationships tend to be co-dependent, co-objectifying, and shallow. Polyamory, to such a culture and to the people which inhabit it, simply would make no sense. The only sense it could make is having more hot bodies to touch and enjoy, which is not bad in itself but is limiting on how we can see potential partners.

Yes, sometimes another hot body to enjoy is what we polyamorous people want and what we find. But ultimately I find it much more worth-while to find people I really like intellectually, emotionally, and sexually. If some people are not looking for all of that with their one (ideally) exclusive partner, then of course polyamory makes no sense to them.

This only leaves why people who do want all that are unwilling or unable to share the wonderful people they find. Sounds selfish, possessive, and silly to me.

How Ginny became polyamorous

Hey all! My wonderful fiancé Shaun has invited me to become an author on this blog. Anything I have to say about skepticism and polyamory I’ll post over here; for broader discussions of human sexuality and other areas of interest to me, check out my own blog.

As an introduction, I thought I’d write about how I became polyamorous. A lot of people find it perfectly natural that a man would want a relationship where he could have multiple partners, but balk at the idea of a woman’s embracing the same thing. So here’s my story.

I have the disadvantage of still being in my first poly relationship. Before I met Shaun, I just assumed I wanted a monogamous lifelong partner; the fact that it was meeting him that got me reconsidering that assumption casts suspicion on my decision to be polyamorous for a lot of people. “Ah,” they think, and some have outright said, “she knew she had to put up with this to keep him, so she went along and is making the best of it.” If I’d broken up with my first non-monogamous partner and continued to pursue non-monogamous relationships on my own, I’d have more credibility. Unfortunately, I found a terrific, loving, compatible partner the first time around. Sucks to be me.

I’d heard of polyamory before I met Shaun: my best friend dated a poly woman for a while, and we had several discussions about it, during which I concluded that, while I didn’t think there was anything wrong with honest, ethical non-monogamy, I wouldn’t want to do it myself. A truly original statement, that one.

What I meant when I said I wanted monogamy for myself was that I wanted a relationship of deep intimacy and commitment. I wanted to pour my energy, care, and devotion into my hypothetical partner, and I wanted him to do the same for me. And like many monogamous people, I just couldn’t imagine the same depth of love, intimacy, and connection happening in a non-monogamous relationship.

Being confronted with real life has a way of shattering faulty assumptions and expanding our imaginations. When I met Shaun, I knew he was attractive and interesting, and someone I wanted in my life. I also knew that I was pining, fairly hopelessly, for a boy who had been sending me mixed-but-mostly-negative signals. If that boy ever came around, I would want to jump at the chance, which I knew would be unfair to anybody new I’d started dating. In that light, meeting a cute polyamorous man was like a revelation: maybe I could have it all! As it does for many people, just the fact of being interested in two people at once made me realize several things: first, that I was very capable of wanting relationships with more than one person at a time; second, that my interest in one of them had really no impact on my interest in the other; third, that the inconveniences and challenges of polyamory might well be balanced out by the solutions it offered to other inconveniences and challenges that I had always taken for granted.

I didn’t embrace it all at once. I did a lot of reading and thinking. I remembered a lot of daydreams that I’d had as a child and suppressed as I “matured” into the realization that these didn’t fit with the pattern of adult life I’d been taught to aspire to… daydreams about having different lovers that met different needs of mine, shared different interests. I thought of how I’d always said “I could forgive being cheated on, but not being lied to”: I’ve never felt that a partner’s being intimate with someone else was in any way a betrayal of me, but it is vitally important to me that I can trust my partners to be fully, radically honest with me. I thought of how important family is to me, how I’ve always loved being part of a small, close-knit group of peers that shared life and supported each other, how I’ve wondered how to make those communities stable and permanent rather than only for a time.

At the same time, I told Shaun I was interested in polyamory but not making any promises. I might turn out to hate it; I’ve had too many exciting ideas turn out to be unhappy realities to talk confidently about how I’d feel a few months down the road. I took it slow, but what I found as time went by was that non-monogamy felt easy, natural, comfortable and happy. There was never a moment that I said, “Okay, I’m officially polyamorous now, not just trying it out,” but as our relationship progressed and we each dated other people, it became harder and harder for me to imagine going back to monogamy.

For me, it’s not primarily about being able to have multiple partners. I like having multiple partners, and giving that up would be a sacrifice, but it’s a sacrifice I could imagine making if I had a very good reason. The things I couldn’t give up are the view of love without possessiveness, the ethic of honesty and communication, and the opportunities to develop close-knit communities where sexual or romantic interest doesn’t have to jeopardize everybody’s existing relationships. I’m a happy woman.

Lies, deception, and default monogamy

We lie to ourselves quite frequently, us humans. We have the ability to conceal cognitive dissonance from our awareness in ways which are quite staggering, whether with the incoherence between religion and skeptical thinking or between our actual desires we have deep down and the way we actually live. Those internal lies expand into lies to others, ultimately, and create unhealthy relationships. It is better, I think, to explore all of our desires, share them, and (when possible) have them.

Now, there are obviously people out there that don’t lie to themselves or others in this way. These people truly explore what they want, are honest about those things, and have largely happy lives. Sure, they may sacrifice some temporary or insignificant desires in order to have what is more important, but generally they live their lives as they want to. And such people live lives of many varieties, including monogamy, asexuality, and the varieties of non-monogamous lifestyles. I want it to be out of the way at the beginning that my argument here is NOT that honesty and authenticity necessarily lead to polyamory, because that is quite obviously not true.

My argument is that if more people were honest with themselves and with other people, more people may be polyamorous (perhaps), but certainly more people would have healthy relationships however those relationships are structured. And as another side of this coin, I think that many people usually end up attempting monogamy because they are not being honest with themselves or their partner(s).

I am willing to wager that a significant percentage of people entering into an exclusive relationship are doing so by default or in the name of pragmatism. They either have no conception of other realistic options, don’t think they will meet anyone who will want those other options, or don’t think they could actually do it themselves.

So they lie to themselves that they can be happy being exclusive, and don’t even mention this as a sacrifice to their potential partners (because it offends the monogamous morale to do so). It becomes a background which is rarely openly discussed, and so monogamy is attained without as much as a conversation. That’s what it means for monogamy to be the cultural default; it’s never decided upon, it just happens because that discussion of other options is too likely to cause discomfort or even termination of a potentially good relationship.

And what happens so very often? Cheating, or at least thoughts about cheating which lead to resentment and damage to the relationship (because they don’t talk about those thoughts), which often leads to a monotonous life with sparks of fun here and there. It leads, essentially, to a life not lived fully or authentically. It leads to having unexplored desires, unexplored because many of our desires are not compatible with the fairy-tale of finding “the one” and being “Happy ever-after.”

Yes, I am the Anti-Disney.

There are expectations built into our culture which nudge us towards a largely unrealistic way of living which is not coherent with the desires that humans tend to have. We rationalize our decisions to seek exclusivity as a sacrifice towards loftier goals, because those other desires are somehow wrong, destructive, or simply unrealistic. But over the years we still flirt, fantasize, and sometimes go for that hot piece of ass anyway. And rather find a new potential partner, lover, and friend we destroy relationships and cause harm where harm is not necessary if we were just honest with what we wanted.

We are human beings with complex desires which do not fit neatly into the boxes our culture often finds acceptable. And yet these boxes are so resilient and popular. These ideals and goals that people seek in our culture are just so, well, silly. And when they are challenged (by freaks like me) those same ideals becomes so, well, sacred.

I guess it’s no surprise that I find sacred things silly.

And in a way, the word sacred is not stretching the term too much. It is pretty clear that the role of religion in these cultural ideas about relationships is significant, but even insofar as these ideas have become secular, they are coveted and central to much of our lives in a way which is at least analogous to sacredness.

And it’s all because we ignore our real desires, pretend that they will not affect our relationships, and invest in relationships which do not match what we really want. All because we don’t honestly explore and talk about what we really want, all too often. And when those chickens come home to roost, we find that our desires destroy the sham relationships we have constructed.

A relationship built upon lies cannot stand forever. And wherein it does stand, it will not provide happy shelter for very long. Relationships are hard, and they are not made easier by attempting to live a life which does not match our desires. No one person can fulfill all of our needs and wants all the time, and it is irrational to allow our fears, insecurities, and jealousies to prevent us from having what we want.

So if you do want other people in your life, why would you pretend otherwise? Yes, sacrifice of small, insignificant, and temporary desires is healthy for a relationship, but when that sacrifice is something which perpetuates, festers, and creates (often silent) resentment…well that’s not healthy.

Polyamory is an option for relationships for people who genuinely still care about each other but simply desire something more. Do not allow the expectations of culture, religion, or your own acculturation to limit your imagination to the small, parochial boxes of exclusivity and fairy-tale love. Be honest with yourself, with those closest to you, and through work and courage to overcome your own fears and insecurities you can have whatever you want in this short, potentially wonderful, life.

We need a world of adults who are willing to challenge themselves and their worldviews. Because only with such people can we make the world and the lives of individuals better.

Where profession and lifestyle meet

The other day I was watching one of the older and more experienced teachers deal with several 3-year-olds with practiced skill. It occurred to me that the skill of knowing what children are likely to do, how to respond to them in groups, and generally how to work with groups of children has analogues to poly relationship skills.

We, as teachers, can tell a lot about parenting tendencies by watching their children. And it is clear that some parents surely are taking their responsibility with more or less…let’s call it wisdom. And I imagine that many parents might make different decisions if they had more experience with children.

Its not unlike us more experienced polyamorous people watching younger and less experienced people in relationships (whether they are learning about polyamory or are monogamous). We see mistakes, or the seeds of mistakes, arise. If only they had more experience! (And if only we could have the experience we will have, but have it now). We always have more to learn.

I have identified previously the fact that maintaining multiple relationships simultaneously forces you to become better at communicating, dealing with interpersonal and psychological problems, etc. Well, in many ways working in childcare is similar in that it shows you many ways children can behave, and how groups of them illuminates their character as they learn about themselves and the world.

Just like polyamory.

Its hard to hide your inner demons and imperfections in the more difficult circumstances of your partners and their partners interacting in ways that may irk you or make you uncomfortable. And spending a whole day (or weeks!), through garious changes in mood and environment, with children is similarly illuminating.

So, people who have children surely know a lot about their own offspring (hopefully, anyway). But to understand children in general takes experience with groups of them, especially if they all have different home lives from which they draw their worldviews. Similarly, people with one partner know a lot about how to maintain a relationship with that person (again, hopefully). But to be good at relationships, that either requires having had many relationships either serially or in parallel. I have had both.

And, to tie this to religion, having more experience with different ideas about the universe and the supernatural leads you to a perspective where you are able to see the nature of religion and how it interacts with our psychology and society. Knowing more about different religions leads you to start seeing what makes them all-to-human enterprises, rather than divine.

Inexperience leads to perochial perspectives. Diversity in experience leads to a broadening of perspectives. My academic background in religion, culture, and philosophy has lead me to the broader perspective that religion is largely unjustified and harmful. My experience with my own desires and with relationship leads me to the conclusion that monogamy, at least as a natural and default relationship structure, is a deception and a lie of tradition.

Family

Family is more than the people related to you. Family is also what you create in your adult life. Who is part of your family also extends beyond who you marry, especially in a legal framework where marriage is restricted (that is, against our natural rights–and I use that in reference to the founding fathers intentionally) to a man and a woman. Our family consists of those who we want to be a part of our intimate lives, whether they be sexual partners, friends, or people with whom you share genetic information.

Polyamory is about family. It is about choosing who is part of your life, to what degree they are part of your life, and what rights they have in terms of access, decisions, and all other legal considerations. whether these rights will be recognized is not relevant to whether they are moral and rational. The good [sic] Lord knows that all that is legal is what is moral and rational….

The conventions of our culture, conservative and outdated (but I repeat myself!) as they are cannot contain what family is. We already have the concept of family extending to the people that matter to us, so why is it so hard to allow this concept to restrict us sexually and romantically? It is, to speak plainly, absurd. Love who you love how you love them. Do not be restricted or pushed towards obligation or expectation in the matters of love.

The mainstream is not wise, aware, or right; they are boring and atavistic even in looking forward.

Live your life as if it is the only life you have, because it is. Gods, assumed monogamy, and accommodation to fear are all poisonous to all of us, and we can do better. Let’s create families large and open, and let’s leave behind the nuclear family of the conservatives and fading liberals (which will soon be the conservatives).

Let’s be progressives not of substance but of perceptual looking forward to improving ourselves, our society, and our world. Liberal not just to be liberal, but liberal because liberalism is about the striving for improvement.

Happiness and Exclusivity

I had a conversation with a long-time acquaintance (and one-time friend) a couple of years ago about, well, a lot of things but which included polyamory. This is a person who claimed, credibly, to have had experience with things such as group sex, alternative sexual communities, etc. Nonetheless she had grown out of all of that, and she seemed to view my active polyamorous lifestyle as a sort of atavism towards our younger days when we were young and experimenting with ourselves.

She also seemed to have somehow concluded that my view of monogamy was to view it as prudish and ridiculous. Now, under some circumstances I might be willing to make such a declaration, but certainly not in general. I think that the assumption of monogamy is often problematic and I would like more people to understand the skills which I have learned from being polyamorous, but I do not think there is anything inherently bad, immature, nor reprehensible about deciding to be monogamous.

But one thing she said has stuck with me since that conversation. It was right after she said that she had experiences with non-monogamous activities that she said that she was with a man (her husband) who made her happy. She emphasized the fact that he had qualities which she appreciated, both physically and otherwise, which sufficiently satisfied her. And while I don’t remember the exact words, she implied that my desiring, or perhaps even requiring, multiple relationships was immature. She said that if I ever had a real woman (like herself, whom she considered out of my league) that I would not be able to handle her and I only chose this lifestyle because I was with inferior, insecure, women.

The basis for this claim was to indicate some recent women I had dated. One recent long term relationship, a girl I still talk to occasionally but with whom I have no continuing relationship , she referred to as a “fool.” The woman with who I had been living, but who had recently broke up with me, was referred to as highly insecure (hence my ability to talk her into polyamory), and the girl I was with at the time and with whom I had recently moved to Atlanta (yeah, her…) just seemed to my acquaintance to be similar to the last; insecure, uninteresting, being manipulated and possibly victimized by an insecure and predatory man.

Let’s just say this acquaintance of mine does not think highly of me, at least anymore.

To her, at least at that time, this polyamory thing was for insecure or at least immature people who are trying to overcompensate for something lacking. Real adults (“real” men and women) don’t do silly things like that It’s an old charge, and an amusing one for me.

But what stuck out to me was her repeated insistence that she was happy with her relationship as it existed. She saw no reason to add to it in any way, and I was missing something in not being with a “real woman” in a “real” relationship. I have no doubt that her claim to happiness was (and probably still is) sincere and probably true. I know her husband (I’ve known them both since high school), and he is a person I like. But something about her comment has stuck with me, and today I want to talk about why.

Conflating structure with quality

Here is what I think my old acquaintance, as well as many others I have talked to since who have made similar arguments, are missing. If you are happy, is your happiness dependent upon the structure or the quality of your relationship?

By the “structure” of your relationship I mean the negotiated rules and boundaries. Are you permitted to pursue other relationships? What are the limitations on those relationships? Are you married, just dating, and will you be co-habitating? Things like that.

By the “quality” of the relationship, I mean the level of communication, shared goals and activities, and other related considerations. Are you honest both with yourself and your partners? Do you try and communicate and address issues as they arise? Do you make an effort to maintain your relationship and not merely coast? Things like that.

In terms of the health of your relationship, it is not really relevant what the structure of your relationship is. Whatever rules and boundaries you agree to (non-coerced, obviously), you can be happy so long as you are doing the necessary work involved. The quality of your relationship seems to be a measure of your happiness itself. In other words, the level of communications and so forth are tool you use to make and maintain a healthy relationship. If you don’t communicate well, don’t share goals, and you don’t like each other then being happy in that relationship seems impossible.

So, what does it matter whether this acquaintance of mine was/is happy being monogamous? What does that have to do with my being polyamorous? Why address the structure of my relationship rather than the quality? Well, perhaps she knew little to nothing about the quality of my relationships (this seemed true). And in fact the quality of those relationships at the time were not ideal, but they were good. But she didn’t know that, and she showed no interest in addressing that in any case. For her, it was sufficient to say that she was monogamous, was happy, and so I was just overcompensating for something by doing what I was doing.

Happiness has nothing necessarily to do with structure of your relationship.

If you are honest with your partner(s), if you make an effort to communicate effectively, and you share goals, interests, and quality time with them, then you have a much better chance at being happy with them. Once you decide to do the necessary work to improve whatever relationships you have, you have the ability to make them healthier and more satisfying. And this can be done whether you decide to be monogamous, to swap partners, to go to swing clubs, to have casual sex outside the relationship, or start your own polyamorous commune where everyone belongs to everyone equally.

What matters in terms of being happy is being honest with what you want, communicating that to the people you care about, and doing the work it takes to maintain a healthy relationship based upon those considerations. Anyone can do this, whether they are monogamous like my acquaintance or polyamorous like me. I think this is something that our culture in general needs to better understand.

What I am saddened by is that my friendship with this person has not continued, in part because of this conversations. But largely it was the events around that time, much of it due to my own misdeeds, led to her distancing herself from me. And since then I have done considerable work to improve myself, and I believe that all of her criticisms of me at that time are no longer relevant. Nonetheless, now all that remains between us is the inauthentic polite chit-chat at our occasional meetings at a party, which has been thankfully rare. I think if she knew me now, as well as the quality of my relationships, she could see the two amazing women of high quality (“real women^TM“) I have built relationships with.

But she’s stubborn, and so it will likely not come to be. But I’m happy, and if she is happy then I suppose I can live with lost friends. What bothers me is being judged for what I’m not, by a person who seems to have no interest in knowing who I am. If I’m going to be judged, I want to be judged for what I am.

A debate about polyamory and monogamy

I was directed to an interesting conversation on Facebook today. It is in two parts.

If you just refuse to read it, essentially it is a conversation between two people (“Jaime” and “Kelly”) about monogamy and “permanent promiscuity,” but the term polyamory is used in the conversation as well.

There are many points I find incomplete, flawed, etc on both sides (although I agree with the polyamory-advocate “Jaime” much more, obviously), but I will not bother with in-depth analysis.

What I do want to comment on is that “Kelly” comes across as saying that promiscuity, or polyamory, is too hard for most people and so to ask it of people is asking too much. This comes across to me as apologizing for human weakness.

It sounds to me like a person saying “being a good person is too hard, and you can’t expect people to do it.” Or, perhaps more to the point; “doing the work involved to become more emotionally mature, honest, and less fearful about my insecurities is too hard.”

I don’t have much sympathy for this. It is merely excusing laziness, fear, and mediocrity at best.

As I like to say, if you are happy, then great. But if it might be possible to be happier with some effort, what is stopping you besides fear and insecurity?

Controversial lifestyles and maintaining friendships

I have been an out atheist for many years. I have been open about being polyamorous for some time as well. I don’t hide who I am because I feel it is important to be a face for things that are controversial, because I feel like our culture is not ideally healthy, and controversy often comes from the sickness rejecting some remedy. There have to be people willing to take the social stigma away, over time and with patience, so that future generations will not have to consider the balance of social stigma to living fulfilled and authentic lives. Granted, this balance will probably always be a part of the human experience. but if we can mitigate the actual discrimination due to alternate worldviews and lifestyles, it will be a step in the right direction. I want a future where the argument that keeping quiet is better for your career, social life, and family life is rare. I want atheists, poly people, and other “abnormal” people to feel less insecure about being who they are, openly.

All of this implies that their still remains a cost to living openly as an atheist or as polyamorous. I have certainly experienced this in my life, and it has effected relationships with people I know. Now I’m not going to pretend that the alienation I’ve experienced from friends and family is always due to my being an atheist and being polyamorous. I have made mistakes in my life which have strained relationships with people I once thought of as friends, but it is also true that having strong, outspoken opinions about people’s beliefs makes you come across as unfriendly, overly-critical, and perhaps even a dick. I accept this outcome, because I understood the ramifications of living as I do. And while I do sometimes lament what I have lost, I am also finding that there are positive things gained that may have otherwise remained unfound.

One thing that happens, and I believe this to be a common observation that all people notice as they begin to mature, is that the people who stick around even after we make poor decisions, come out as some socially awkward minority, or proclaim some controversial opinion consistently and loudly are your friends. They are especially your friends if they tend to disagree with you. I don’t want all of my friends to merely be people with whom I agree, after all. Further, the people who shy away from you in times of stress and courage to stand firm in the face of such social stigma are not your friends. They may remain as acquaintances, but it is often best to cut off your losses with people who abandon you with nothing more than a passivity of intercourse.

But those people I still call friends (and this is not a word I use lightly), are people who know me as I am. They may not agree with me or understand me completely, but they are willing to live among my life without it affecting our relationship. And as I ride this thing called life I occasionally meet people with who I can ride along with; people who have qualities which complement mine and with whom I can enjoy my time. The friends that you meet after finding what has meaning to you are different kinds of friends, but nonetheless friends they are. Alternatively, the people I knew as a child, the friendships that I maintain that are decades old, are special and important because we know each other well in a way that transcends specific adult interests. And while not all of those relationships have survived the journey, the ones that have are especially meaningful. They are people who will be friends for life, most likely, and they keep you tied to where you came from, even we drift further from the safe shores of mainstream culture.

And family is similar. As I ponder the reality of marriage, which implies a wedding with guests, I ponder the realities of family seeing me as I am, not as they knew me as a child. They will see a ceremony devoid of god-talk, vows devoid of promises of exclusivity, and assuming my new relationship survives until then (and I truly hope it will dwarf that time-period in length) they will see two people marrying each other while being in love with other people with whom we shall dance, kiss, and celebrate with at our party. And they will not understand. And they will judge. And they will think us lost, perhaps.

They will miss the unrelenting beauty of reality that we dance upon with genuine joy and appreciation. The beauty of a world devoid of gods, but full of complexity and wonder beyond our ability to comprehend. They will miss the depths of love and intimacy which is shared beyond the artificial limitations of monogamy. They will miss the wonder that is my life, even as it sits before them, beautified and smiling.

And yet some will understand, even at a level that is not quite articulate even to their own ears. And this is the reason I live the way I do; many will not see, but some will. I live my life to experience the many joys of reality, and reality is awesome. I will not apologize for it.