I have a few close female friends, and once a week or so I will get together with one of them for coffee.  This is code for “bitching about our men.”  It’s a form of therapy, I think, the way women communicate.  It’s an unspoken agreement.  One of us will start out with, “So how are things going,” and the other one will sigh and say, “I don’t know. . . ” then launch into an hour-long tirade of all the terrible things her boyfriend(s) did over the past week.  The sympathetic listener will interject little things here and there, but basically the speaker has the floor.  Then at a silently agreed upon time, we switch places.  This goes on for another hour, depending on the time allotted, and then we hug and part ways, feeling like we have grown exponentially.  We have expelled the demons.  We have sorted our thoughts, categorized our feelings.  Whether any of what we said was true, or whether our men were really to blame for it, we’ve purified our image of them, and can now move forward in our relationships with no regrets and less bitterness.

The goal is to surround yourself with people who make smart choices in their own lives.

What is this tendency to bash polyamory because it’s  “over indulgent”? 

Why should love, relationships and sex be oppressive or restrictive?

A lot of couples in the poly community have similar rules that they follow, and one of them is “no surprises.”  I understand this.  I think I can handle anything my partner’s going to do, as long as I have ample warning that it’s coming, and enough time to process it.

For example, ”Honey, next week I have a date with so-and-so. . .yes, I might sleep with her” is a great way to prepare me for something. . . ”Honey, I met this girl at the club last night and fucked her in the bathroom,”. . . not so good.

Basically, No Surprises gives me time to process something that might be scary, well before the event.  It gives me time to get over it, without it having happened yet.  I’m not sure why this works, but it does.  

Lately I’ve been questioning the No Surprises rule.  This is so tough for me to look at objectively.  When I ask for no surprises, I think it’s my way of assessing what *could* happen, so my imagination doesn’t run wild.  It’s my self-preservation trying to figure out what the threat is. 

But looking at it realistically, no amount of forewarning is going to make a threat less threatening, if it truly is a threat.  Sheltering your relationship doesn’t protect it, as many people who’ve been cheated on can attest to. 

More to the point though, does it diminish the experience if you remove the element of surprise?  We are human beings, changing and flexible, and isn’t the surprise of an encounter sometimes the best part?  If it’s purely sexual, sometimes that perfect situation lines up, or maybe it’s romantic and your boyfriend surprises you with a weekend getaway.  Who knows what crazy things can happen, but the goal here is to be free to pursue our truest desires, and stifling that seems counter-productive. 

We should also try to keep our perspective.  You’d be surprised what will seem threatening at first, and how much that can change over time and circumstance.  You may find that meaningless sex in the bathroom turns out to be way less scary than a romantic night with someone.  

I guess it boils down to compromise.  After all, we have a common goal here, and a lifestyle we want to maintain that is not easy.  If it makes me or my partner comfortable to have no surprises, isn’t that the least we can do?     

That was a whole lotta thinking to come right back to my original POV.  Just a reminder to be flexible, I guess.

An article from CNN released today discusses whether monogamy is realistic in our current society, “in the age of hookups, friends with benefits and online dating, and as human life expectancy grows.”  

Original Article:  http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/28/monogamy.realistic.today/index.html

It then goes on to discuss the benefits of Polyamory, stating, “the expectation that one person should be our everything seemed unrealistic given our day and age. … It’s oddly pressuring to set up that scenario.”

Is mongamy realistic?  I’d like to think it is, but it seems the circumstances are so strenuous I don’t know if it’s fulfilling.  So many people refer to their grandparents, who were together for 50 years or more, and my thought is that people in those generations HAD to stay together.  When you are living in a depression and you have 5 or 6 kids, especially if you’re  under the guilt of religion, as so many of our ancestors were, divorce simply wasn’t an option.  So they may have been together, but were they happy?  A successful marriage is not just a lasting one.

I look at the people I know now, the very few couples who have made monogamy work for any real amount of time (past the 7 year itch, at least), and I can easily count them on one hand.  It could be that we, as a generation, are too lax, too lazy, and divorce is too easily obtained.  Marriage vows kind of lose their meaning when you know there’s a way out.  But should marriage be something you are trapped into for life, something you are forced to work out?  People change and grow, sometimes apart, and it seems oppressive to ask them to stay in a (sometimes) miserable situation to honor their vows. 

I should note that the few couples I know in my age bracket who have been with their partners for 10+ years DO seem truly happy.  I have always viewed those couples as fairy tale relationships, where they either found their “soul mate,” or are dedicated people in the other aspects of their lives, and it shows in their relationships as well.  I do not think, however, that any of these people would stay married if they were miserable. 

Thoughts?  How many long-term, happy, monogamous couples do you know?

I typed “Polyamory” into Slate Magazine’s Dear Prudence, and this was the only response I found (second one down).  Boy, am I heated.

Dear Prudie:
I am a female involved in a four-year-long polyamorous relationship with a married couple. We are all happy and love one another very much. They have invited me to move into their home, and I would like to. The problem is that their two teenage children are beyond angry with the relationship. Even though they are not losing anything as a result of the relationship, they blame me for breaking the family apart and are very rude to me and their parents as a result. We don’t want to break up to appease their children, who will be out of the house and on their own soon enough. But I can’t imagine putting myself in the middle of such an uncomfortable living situation. Any suggestions for getting these teens to learn to accept me and the relationship?

—Three Is Not a Crowd

Prudie’s response:

Dear Three,
Teenagers are just impossible these days. Mom and Dad go out and get a perfectly nice girlfriend to share, and the kids totally destroy the great erotic vibe you’ve all got going with their insolent remarks like, “Ewww, gross!” and “Why can’t you be normal like other parents and just get a divorce or something?” They sound like complete downers who don’t even understand the stimulating couplings and triplings that could take place when they have their friends sleep over (before the friends’ parents hear about this, and all of you end up explaining polyamory to social services). It’s too bad these rotten kids don’t understand that their parents’ need to fulfill their sexual appetites takes precedence over providing them a stable home. But since the teenagers are doing nothing but making life unpleasant for your happy threesome, my only suggestion for you is to find a couple who had the good judgment not to have children and leave this family alone.

—Prudie

My response:

Dear Prudie,

I was saddened by your response to a woman writing to ask how she could get the two teenage daughters in her polyamorous relationship to accept her.  Your response was full of references to sex, eroticism and selfish parenting.  As a woman in a long-term polyamorous relationship, I feel compelled to educate you on the concept of polyamory.

The woman who wrote has been in her poly relationship for four years, and they “all love one another very much.”  She didn’t refer to their relationship as sexually based, whatsoever.  The word Polyamory means “many loves,” not “many sexual partners,” and while I understand that the general population has a hard time seeing the difference, I feel it is your responsibility as a public advice columnist be educated on those differences.

Your advice for her to “find a couple who had the good judgment not to have children and leave this family alone” implies that this woman is a home wrecker, or that the husband or wife is having an affair, or worse, that polyamory and good parenting can’t go hand in hand.  I have read many of your responses to single, monogamous parents, giving them tender advice on how to gently approach the children in their partner’s lives, and the same advice should apply here. 

I agree with you that putting children in a situation they are not comfortable with is not fair, but to suggest that their parents’ need to “fulfill their sexual appetites takes precedence over providing them a stable home” is unfair.  This couple has been together for a long time if they have had 4+ years with an outside partner, and being polyamorous in no way takes away from the stability of a household with children.  If anything, this couple is honest with their teenagers, which is certainly not always the case in monogamous relationships.

You then continue to say (sarcastically) that the teenagers “don’t even understand the stimulating couplings and triplings that could take place when they have their friends sleep over.”  Would you say the same to a single mom or dad who introduces a new boyfriend/girlfriend to the children?  Would that be implying that they should start sleeping with their friends?  Or if one parent is gay, that the children should start pursuing people of the same sex? 

Prudie, your response was insensitive to a real issue that affects many true, valid relationships, and I was surprised to find your response so accusatory.  I hope you can consider that just because a relationship doesn’t fit in with the traditional views of marriage, that it is neither harmful, nor something worthy of “explaining to social services.”

Many Hollywood marriages are on the rocks in the time it takes to make a movie.

Will Smith has come up with a highly unconventional way of trying to ensure that his marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith doesn’t go the same way.

His solution? When you want to cheat with one of your costars, get permission from your partner first.

The Men In Black star and his wife say they have agreed a pact that it is all right to sleep with someone else, as long as it isn’t behind the back of the person you love.

They researched the subject by meeting up with high-profile couples who have split – including the likes of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and Bruce Willis and Demi Moore – to find out what went wrong.

“Our perspective is, you don’t avoid what’s natural,” said Smith.

“You’re going to be attracted to people. In our marriage vows, we didn’t say “forsaking all others”.

“The vow that we made was that you will never hear that I did something after the fact.

“If it came down to it, then one can say to the other, ‘Look, I need to have sex with somebody.  I’m not going to if you don’t approve of it – but please approve of it’.”

Smith said he was forced to admit he had sexual feelings for other women when working on his film Hitch, in which he stars with Eva Mendes, who he described as ‘freaking gorgeous’.

Despite his attraction to Miss Mendes, Smith insists that his marriage is still strong – and that he and Jada still behave like newlyweds.

Smith, who has been married to his second wife for seven years, added: “I don’t let a day go past that Jada doesn’t feel like the Queen of the World.

“I make sure every single day that she knows how I feel about her.”

Original Article

Another noteworthy couple who practiced polyamory?

Amelia Earhart

Jealousy is all the fun you *think* they had ~ Erica Jong, Fear of Flying.

Last night Luke and I went to a play at the Rendezvous, and while we were waiting in the bar for the show to start, there was a pretty woman standing alone at the bar flipping through a magazine. Luke and I were sitting a few feet away, obviously staring at her (unbeknownst to her we were discussing what sexual positions we imagine her in upon first glance), and I was surprised to see that she was completely unaware we were looking at her.

This got me thinking.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m open (and therefore always available regardless of my relationship status, at least to women), or if I have always been this way, but the first thing I do when I walk into a bar is take a mental note of how many attractive people are there.  Not that I’m constantly on the prowl, rather, it seems to be an instinct of mine to at least take note of my options (whether I’m going to pursue them or not).  It seemed completely unnatural to me that this girl had a total lack of awareness that an attractive couple was sitting a few feet away ogling her. 

Am I oversexualized?  Do other people think these things when they walk into a bar, or really, any public place?  Do you size up every attractive person you meet, wondering what it would be like to sleep with them? 

I was once told that if you are a woman of any sort of attractiveness, that your (insert male role here – teacher, boss, doctor) has already fantasized about you.  This leads me to wonder – is it a guy thing?  

I’m the same way with women.  The only twist to this is now that I am open, every woman is a potential for my partner or boyfriend as well.  Not only am I sizing up women for myself, but I’m also imagining what she would look like with her legs wrapped around my man’s waist.  This is not in jealousy, it is a simple, instinctual observation.

I know Luke thinks this way too, because most of our nights in public are spent sending silent signals to each other – the slightest raise of an eyebrow, the downward turn of the mouth, the miniscule nod of the head – all of these minute motions are questions, asked and answered, barely perceptible even to us.  But I know they’re there, and perhaps it’s just that we’re huge sluts, or maybe everyone is like this but since we’re open we are free to express these things where other couples are not.

The woman last night, looking absent-mindedly through her magazine, was not posturing at all.  She was truly un-self-conscious, or at least portrayed it very well.  Perhaps she was thinking of the bills she had to pay, or where she was going to get her nails done tomorrow.  I don’t know.  But it was clear nothing sexual was on her mind, and it gave me this sudden feeling of lechery, guiltily wondering, “Am I normal??”

Let’s talk about something simple.  Often times I pack this blog full of concepts that are probably very foreign to an outsider, or someone not in an open relationship.  I’ve scoured the internet for “poly blogs,” looking for people who are going through the same things as me, because monogamous relationships, while similar, just have different issues.  In fact, I’m thinking of going to this  some Sunday.  It’s a poly potluck.  It sounds gay (not in the hot way), and I’m a little sketched out, because these things tend to be full of obese, over-opinionated S&M “Masters,” and little girls with Daddy issues wearing collars (this is not a judgment of BDSM relationships as a whole), but I’m hoping to get that small kernel of wisdom from the discussion group afterwards.  Food for thought. 

So onto the “simple” topic, which of course is not simple at all:  Jealousy. 

For me, this is probably the single most difficult issue to deal with in open relationships.  A lot of people on the outside are under the false impression that poly folks are devoid of jealousy.  For me, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  My thought is that people who are open are already thinking outside the box, and looking at life from different perspectives, so it’s easier for us to look at jealousy from a different perspective as well, and work our way through it.  That doesn’t mean we are at a higher level, have no egos, or are free from the green monster.  I think there’s healthy, natural jealousy, and then there’s the kind that is so damaging to a relationship that they should probably reconsider being open in the first place.

Sometimes, we have ideals that we want to reach.  Some people think, “Being open sounds so intriguing.  Something I really think I could do.  Something I want to have for myself,” so they try, and struggle so hard with jealousy, but are so insistent on maintaining that ideal that they sabotage their relationship.  Yes, at times I am talking about myself in that respect.  I’m more guilty of trying to make myself ok with certain things, than actually being ok with it.  I’m learning to express those things more, and working toward a real balance.

I believe jealousy is inherent in all of us, as an instinct for self-preservation.  Evolutionary psychologists, applying Darwin’s theories to human behavior, suggest that jealousy might have given us a fitness advantage in our ancestral environment.  In other words, it may be hard-wired in our brains.  I’m not saying we can’t counteract that wiring, and while some people are naturally able to do that, others are in a continual battle with themselves, fighting this admittedly illusionary sense of “ownership.”

What are some ways you fight jealousy?  I have learned some tricks, whether or not they work all the time, but I am interested in hearing yours.

My strategies include looking at my partners actions.  If he goes on a date, and comes home as loving as when he left, I try to quiet my (vivid) imagination and look at what’s really going on.  Sometimes the things we think are so over the top, and we don’t even realize it.  I was talking to my partner’s girlfriend the other night, and I confessed that when I imagine them meeting, it’s in slow motion, and he runs to her awaiting arms, caressing her face, “My love!  My darling, I’ve missed you so!”  She laughed and gave me the look that said, “You’re crazy.” 

Sometimes my partner comes home a little amped up after a date, filled with that new relationship energy, and that can usually make my jealousy flare up.  But I try to remember that he RESPECTED the rules of our relationship.  He didn’t come in late.  He didn’t ignore me.  He treated me just like he does every other day, so again, I can quiet my mind. 

Sometimes I hear people (women, in particular) say, “The other girls get all the fun, and I get all the shit.  They don’t have to pick up his socks, or deal with the real parts of the relationship.”  Granted, this is usually when they’re mad at something he’s done, but in a normal situation I say, “Yes!  You do get the real person.  What you see as the fun parts, I see as the surface parts.”  I may be picking up my partner’s socks, but that means he’s chosen me to live with and share a life with.  (I should note that not all outside relationships are surface – it’s entirely possible to have meaningful, loving relationships outside of a primary relationship).  I just find it reassuring to remember that new relationships can be fun and exciting, but you are the one they trust enough to have an open relationship with to begin with.

The biggest way I fight off jealousy is to look at the big picture.  My partner and I have been dating other people for three years, the entirety of our relationship.  We’ve had a thousand ups and downs, a ton of women that have scared the shit out of me, and vice versa for him, and the truth is, none of these situations have ever truly threatened us.  Hindsight is 20/20.  Sometimes when my jealousy starts acting up, I try to step back and remember that.

How do you deal?  Or not deal?  What is the inner mantra playing in a loop in your head?

I’m beginning to see how being poly has changed my outlook on day-to-day life, and the disappointments that come with that.

Take movies, for example.  Often times, a main character is presented with a choice between two lovers.  In my innocence, (I swear, that’s what it is!) I find myself thinking maybe they’ll find a way to make both relationships work.  It just seems the obvious answer to me.  But inevitably, one of the contestants in the running will fall back to friend status, or will do something horrible at the last minute to push the decider away, making his or her choice easy. 

There are a few movies that buck this trend, and I am always filled with joy when I see them.  “Bandits” is one of these movies, where the woman decides in the end that she can’t choose between two (unique, completely different, wonderful) men, and then decides she shouldn’t have to.  They agree. 

Is this selfishness?  Is it based in the inability to “just commit, damnit”?  It is true that there are some things that are made better by your willingness to sacrifice?

I don’t have all the answers.  But I know that when there are two amazing men in my life, and they both want nothing from me but love, and to love me in return, and everyone is accepting of this situation, it is more of a sacrifice to not allow it to happen.  And if anyone were to look at Luke and I and say we aren’t commited to each other, well, they wouldn’t know the word if it slapped them in the face.

This world is full of beautiful, wonderful people.  Sometimes we don’t know this until we get to know them better.  Sometimes we find out that they weren’t worth getting to know at all.  But so many relationships are destroyed when one person decides to find out by cheating.  How many people have had an affair only to find that it wasn’t worth it? *Raises hand!*

I am not an extreme advocate for polyamory (believe it or not).  I’m not saying this kind of relationship is for everyone.  I’m certainly not saying it is the natural order of things, or even easy at times.  But I see so many genuinely good relationships ruined because of something that could have been simply looked at differently.  Or worse, people continue to suffer through ungratifying relationships because they are commited to their partner or their marriage, and in turn are sacrificing themselves.

Take BDSM for example.  Imagine for a moment if your partner said to you tonight, “Honey, tonight I want you to bind my hands and feet, tie a toilet bowl brush to my face, put on some stilettos and grind them into my back as I clean our toilet.”  Could you get into it?  Even if it was something your partner genuinely needed to be happy in your relationship?  What, you’re not into that?  Well. . . can’t you fake it??  After all, this is your partner, and you are the only one who can satisfy their every desire.   

You see where I’m going with this. 

I am not perfect.  I am incapable of answering every one of my partners needs.  Some, I don’t want to answer!  It’s too high of an expectation that one person can be your everything, and I don’t want to be idolized like that.  Plus, we both know I’d be faking it   I’d rather be secure enough to know I can pursue my desires in a safe environment with someone who is satisfied by the same things I am.  It’s even better knowing I don’t have to lose my amazing partner because of it.

It’s so sad to me when people tell me they are in a mismatched sexual relationship.  Their wife doesn’t have sex with them enough.  Their husband doesn’t know the meaning of foreplay.  Their sex life is unfulfilling, even though everything else in the relationship is wonderful and satisfying.  It is my automatic response to ask why they can’t get those needs met elsewhere, given that their emotional, primary needs are being met by their partner.  It’s finally sinking in to me that people just aren’t wired that way.