The British Columbia government’s decision to test the legality of Canada’s 120-year-old polygamy law led to a shocking revelation for Karen and her two male partners. The 37-year-old Winnipeg-area mother, her husband of 15 years and a second male partner concede their arrangement is unconventional. She calls it a plural union based on equality, not religious ideas of male dominance. What she didn’t realize, until the B.C. court reference drew attention to the issue, was that they’re breaking the law by sharing a home. “This has been a real learning experience,” she says.

Karen, who doesn’t want her surname used in order to protect her children, is part of a constituency of polyamorists, one of many groups seeking standing in the B.C. Supreme Court. The case will determine if the polygamy law—Section 293 of the Criminal Code—is constitutional. It was triggered by the province’s failure to prosecute two polygamous bishops in the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful, B.C., but its outcome could affect the rights of thousands.

Some 16 groups have submitted affidavits seeking permission to argue for or against 293 when a trial date is set—proving, if nothing else, that polygamy creates strange bedfellows. Some groups see the polygamy law as the foundation of the traditional family and a defence against the exploitation of girls forced into multiple marriage, as the province alleged happened in Bountiful. Others argue the law is unenforceable, does nothing to help the women of Bountiful, and that it imposes a moral code out of step with Canada’s modern, multicultural society. ...

Fromm’s group is uncomfortably in the same camp as the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association, which includes many gay and lesbian multiple partnerships. Vancouver lawyer John Ince, legal counsel for the group, and in a polyamorous relationship himself, says the case will determine only if plural relationships are legal. What flows from that—the rights of multiple partners to pensions, adoption or immigration sponsorship—are issues for future rulings many years, and many appeals, down the road, he said.

Labels: Canada, polyamory, polygamy, religion, religious liberty

posted by Eve at 12:01 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Sociologist and gay rights activist, Li Yinhe, continues to stun the country with her comments on hitherto taboo topics such as sex and same-sex marriages.

She has submitted, for the fifth time, to the ongoing 2010 annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC, proposals to allow same-sex marriages, and rescind the ban on sexual orgies as a violation of the Criminal Law of the PRC. ...

In 2006, Li caused a flutter with her support for one-night stands and polyamory (multiple sexual partners). Explaining her stance, she says unmarried people have the legal right to one-night stands. And while it may be morally wrong for married couples to do so, there is nothing illegal about it. ...

She says polyamory offers important evidence for her sociological studies.

"I know of three lovers living together in harmony, in China and in other countries. They are straight and are not jealous of sharing lovers," she says, adding this proves that the human emotion of jealousy stems from social rather than physiological reasons.

Labels: China, gay marriage, polyamory, premarital sex, sex

posted by Eve at 6:55 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Most nights, Matt Bullen's 7-year-old son sleeps at home with his mom and dad, except for the nights when he sleeps at his dad's girlfriend's house. The arrangement works well because his mom's boyfriend lives there, too. Actually, his mom's boyfriend is married to his dad's girlfriend. Confused? Don't worry, that's just par for the course in polyamorist households. ...

"I don't think it's any different than raising [kids] in a monogamous family," says Robyn Trask, Managing Director of Loving More, a polyamorous magazine and nonprofit organization based in Colorado. "You just have to really talk and communicate with your kids, which is important anyway." Trask raised three kids in a polyamorous household. When her oldest son was 10, she broke the news to him that she and his father had other lovers, expecting it to be a difficult conversation. To her surprise, he rolled with it.

"I explained that we had an open relationship, and that that didn't mean [his father and I] didn't love each other very much," she says. "I asked him how he felt about it, and he said, 'That's kind of cool.'" Now 22, her son identifies as poly and currently has two girlfriends.

For Trask's kids, growing up poly meant they had a large network of aunt- and uncle-like figures to call on. "We have more adults that we can lean on, who can be there for us," says Trask. "That kind of extended family, where there's an intimacy, is really nice."

The unusual family setup does have its drawbacks. Poly kids have to deal with judgmental peers, hiding their true family structure from friends, and the sudden absence of parental figures they have come to love and trust (if their biological parents break up with the boyfriend or girlfriend du jour).

Labels: children, culture, family structure, parenting, polyamory

posted by Eve at 8:34 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Jay Sekora isn’t actively looking for an additional relationship, but he admits to occasionally checking a dating site to see who’s out there. Sekora’s girlfriend, Mare, who does not want her last name used here for professional reasons, said she is not pursuing anyone, either, but is “open and welcoming to what might come along.” In the three-plus years they have been together, a few other people have come along, like the woman whom Sekora, a 43-year-old systems administrator from Quincy, met online and dated briefly until she moved away. There was also a male-male couple that Mare and Sekora, who identifies as bisexual, dated for several months as a couple. Other than that, it has been the two of them. Well, sort of. ...

It’s complicated, as the poly catch phrase goes. It’s also still surprisingly closeted. Nonetheless, Valerie White, executive director of Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund in Sharon, says we are ahead of the curve in Massachusetts, particularly compared with the South, where teachers have lost their jobs and parents have lost their children for being poly. But she notes there is no push in the poly movement to legalize these relationships, largely because there’s no infrastructure for it. “It was easy to legalize gay marriage. All you had to do was change bride and groom to person A and person B. But we don’t know what multi-partnered marriage looks like,” White says.

“The gay struggle is a larger struggle, and as poly people we don’t have to be political,” says Amoroso, who, like many poly people, does see the need for a clearer legal recognition of relationships that aren’t marriages. (If one of his partners were to fall ill, for example, he would want legal visitation rights.) ...

Then there are the kids, who in this case, according to Alan, understand as much about their parents’ lifestyle as they want to. The two boys have attended several Boston Pride Parades, and they know and interact with their parents’ partners as they would with any other close adult friends. But the Wexelblats have not yet explained the specifics of their lifestyle to their sons. “Kids deal well with things they think are normal,” says Alan. “To the degree that we can help them be comfortable with this, then they will treat it as normal. That’s the theory, anyway.”

That theory is starting to get support from research. In 2006, Elisabeth Sheff, an assistant professor of sociology at Georgia State University who had been collecting data on poly families since 1996, launched the first long-term study of children raised in such families. While her findings are not yet conclusive, Sheff says her initial generalization is that kids raised in poly families have access to many resources, such as help with homework, rides when needed, and the additional emotional support and attention that comes from having other, nonparental adults in their lives. Sheff adds, however, that “kids in poly families also sometimes feel extremely upset when their parents’ partners leave, if it means the end of the relationship between the kid and the ex-partner.” She says that poly families often pass as mundane, blended families from divorce and remarriage and therefore easily fly below the radar.

Labels: culture, parenting, polyamory

posted by Eve at 10:33 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...As it turns out, desire is exactly what's at issue here. Human beings desire variety. We desire multiple partners. It's a simple fact that's built into our biology. And while some choose monogamy simply because it feels right, I think many more of us choose it because we think it's what we're supposed to do. You don't want to end up an old maid or a lonely bachelor, do you?

Monogamy just isn't always realistic. There's nothing wrong with admitting that. It simply doesn't work for some. And just as people choose different religions, eating habits, and places to call home, I believe we should be able to choose different ways to live out our relationships.

Several years after my affair, my husband and I jointly decided that monogamy just wasn't for us. We love each other and want to be together, but monogamy is not the cornerstone of our partnership—trust is. So we decided to open up our relationship to other people.

First we both dated the same woman. Then my husband dated her and I saw other people. And then they broke up and I dabbled until I met a woman who, like my husband, I cannot imagine being without. And so now it's her and me and him and me, and we are all fabulous friends. Everyone gets their needs met. No one feels left out or guilty, and the only time any of us questions our lifestyle is when we let those Disney movies come creeping back into our heads.

Let me be very clear here: I have no problem with monogamy. I think conscious, honest, true monogamy can be a wonderful thing. What should not be tolerated is hypocrisy—and that's where Tiger’s vow of marriage got him into trouble. If you want to be monogamous, great—but don't think you can claim it while you sleep around. It's not fair and, quite frankly, it's exhausting.

Labels: adultery, Jenny Block, Marriage, open relationships, polyamory

posted by Eve at 11:20 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...In the age of hookups, friends with benefits and online dating, and as human life expectancy grows, is it still reasonable to expect people to pair up and stay monogamous until death do them part?

"It's realistic that some people can mate for life in the same sense that some people can play the Beethoven violin concerto or other people can ice-skate beautifully or learn a new language," said psychiatrist Judith Eve Lipton.

Added evolutionary biologist David Barash, "It's within the realm of human potential, but it's not easy."

Lipton and Barash, who have been married 32 years and are the co-authors of "Strange Bedfellows" and "The Myth of Monogamy," said serial monogamy may be more realistic -- a model in which people move from one committed long-term relationship to another and choose partners for different reasons at different stages of their life.

Possibilities in polyamory?

For some, even serial monogamy seems too restrictive.

The 1970s introduced the concept of "open marriage" in which couples stayed married but were free to date other people.

More recently, polyamory -- the practice of having romantic relationships with multiple people at the same time with the full knowledge and consent of all involved -- has been getting a lot of attention.

"We found 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," said Mark, who lives in Springfield, Missouri, and is in a polyamorous relationship. (He asked that his last name not be used for privacy reasons.)

Mark, 42, has been married for five years. He and his wife tried different things to spice up their marriage, including swinging, or having casual sex with other people, he said. But they found the experience unfulfilling and decided what they really wanted was to be able to fall in love with others while staying together.

Mark dates another woman, and his wife, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is dating another man. The four of them frequently get together to have dinner or watch movies.

"People describe polyamory as 'poly-agony' because of all the work you have to do to maintain things," Mark said. "It's just not normal to look over and see your wife with another man. I know a lot of people would have a real problem with that. I really don't."

Labels: adultery, monogamy, polyamory

posted by Eve at 2:08 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

I started the Polyamory in the News site four years ago... it now has 338 articles, TV shows, radio interviews, magazine stories -- and most of them coming in nowadays are surprisingly good. It's unusual these days for the media to miss the basic concepts behind what we're doing, and why. That's a wonderful change from how it used to be.

But let's drop back for a bit and take a longer view. ...

Poly relationships have always been around. But until recent years they were little-known — secretive, ashamed, underground — accepted only among small private elites with no interest in gaining attention — and elsewhere, such relationships were dismissed as insignificant or a joke at best, or an awful crime at worst. A lot like how gay and lesbian relationships existed 50, or 100, or 200 years ago. The great emergence of gay relationships and gay culture into wide recognition in the last 40 years — the normalization of the gay alternative — marks a permanent change in the world. And this change will be recognized as having come about during our time, for centuries to come.

The same is starting to happen with polyamory. There aren't very many of us yet. The largest poly get-togethers in any one place since this movement began have numbered about 200 or 250 people as best as I can determine 1. Newsweek just reported estimates that there are a half million poly households, in a nation of 300 million people. And yet, we've already had a head-turning impact throughout the Western world.

Labels: culture, polyamory

posted by Eve at 3:00 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

You gotta admire her pluck.

Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage (see my review) will march into the most hostile situations to speak up for honesty in open relationships and the possibilities of poly in marriage. She went on Fox News during Fox's mini-jihad against triad relationships last May. And last night, as broadcast by ABC's Nightline, she went onstage at the enormous Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, for a Nightline-sponsored "Face-Off" with the church's pastor — about adultery and the Ten Commandments. In front of several thousand of the pastor's charged-up, cheering followers. On national TV. ...

Nightline's half-hour edit of the debate aired 11:35 p.m. (Sept 24, 2009). Watch it here. Nightline also put a video of the entire debate on its site.

Jenny didn't get time to say much. But when she was on she handled herself very well. Nightline also put up a short introduction clip in which she has a chance to explain herself excellently.

Labels: culture, polyamory

posted by Eve at 12:55 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: adultery, culture, Marriage, parenting, polyamory

posted by Eve at 4:09 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

MTV just aired its much-anticipated "True Life" documentary titled "I'm Polyamorous," which has been in the works since last spring. The 1-hour show (which will be rebroadcast many times in the next ten days) is told through the voices of two groups of young polyfolks putting their lives and thoughts on camera.

The show alternates between the two groups' stories. One is told by Kerry, 21, the tentative new girlfriend of young New York lawyer and poly activist Diana Adams. Diana introduces her to the concepts, the problems, the joys, her own main-squeeze boyfriend Ed, and the New York poly crowd. We see Kerry and Diana discussing where this relationship is going, what it means to Ed and vice versa... and talking through the issues when Kerry decides to invite a new boy on a date. Diana was her first lesbian relationship. We see them at their best when they are sitting face to face and working through a difficult topic: Diana's gut reaction to Kerry joking that if Diana were a guy everything would be perfect -- and what Diana asks of her to help get through it. Watch carefully; this is how it's done.

Eventually, New Date becomes happily integrated into the whole squiggle and Kerry is at bliss. But read the followup-story screens at the end.

The other group is a triad of cute-as-buttons gay boys in Charlotte, North Carolina... with issues. They're much less experienced or skilled in poly. Jim, Thomas, and Chris fell into a three-way polyfi relationship and moved in together before they knew there was a word for it, or knew that others have navigated and charted these waters. They go out on the town together, shower together, make love all around... and hit a serious crisis in sleeping arrangements. They have two small rooms with two overly-small beds. Jim, a Christian, is perennially left out at bedtime because one of the others has a phobia against sleeping alone and, we're left to guess, the third guy would be jealous if he wasn't the bedmate. Lonely prayerful agony ensues. Jim decides the group needs a fourth to keep him company at night -- and has a first date with a New Guy in secret. He then brings it up to the others guiltily and awkwardly, saying the three of them need a fourth for balance. Jealous guy erupts.

We see them visiting a counselor, who gives them a Poly 101 lesson on the fallacy of "Relationship in trouble? Add more people." Nevertheless, New Date gamely agrees to befriend the three of them to see how it goes. And go it does. They become comfortable as a group. They buy a copy of The Ethical Slut together and read aloud from it. They four-way kiss. Read the followup screens at the end; no spoiler here from me.

Labels: culture, polyamory

posted by Eve at 4:03 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...AOL Health: What do you think your husband gets out of it?

Block: He always tells me two things. One, for him it's about the freedom too. He hasn't had a girlfriend since that first one [we had together]. But he likes the idea of going to a basketball game or a bar and buying some girl a drink and hanging out and not feeling like I'm going to walk in and say, "What the hell is going on here?" It's fun to be attracted to other people. It's fun to feel sexy, after having me barking at him about chores. It's nice to have some pretty girls not yelling at him and see him as a person, not as a husband or a father, but as a person. That feels nice, that feels good. It's that and he feels like a success. When he and I were having troubles, he felt like he was a failure. He wondered what was wrong with him that our marriage wasn't deliriously happy? Now he feels like a success. Because I have everything and he has everything and everybody's happy. A happy, healthy marriage, family and household -- that can be a grand measure of success. ...

AOL Health: You have a daughter who is 10 years old. How much of the nuances of your marriage does she understand?

Block: I don't know. We answer all of her questions and we don't lie to her. My girlfriend is still my best friend, so it's not like she wouldn't be around. She has asked me some very pointed questions, which makes me think she's putting the pieces together. One day she asked me if three people can get married. She asked me if I love Jemma [my girlfriend] as much as I love Daddy. She said to me in the middle of dinner, "I'm really lucky because some people only have one parent and I have three." I said, "Why, do you consider all of us parents?" She said, "Sometimes Jemma makes me dinner and sometimes she picks me up from school. When Daddy cooks dinner, he says to set four places at the table. So we're a family." Kids see the truth and the happy family. That's what they see. If they see screaming and yelling and you keep saying, "No, Mommy loves Daddy," I don't think they buy it. ...

AOL Health: Have you raised her to be aware of alternative marriages and relationships?

Block: Yeah, definitely. I think that's the other thing. We have friends who are gay and lesbian. We talk about adopted families and extended families. We talk all the time about how people can choose to love who they want. Now the law doesn't always recognize those choices and she knows that too. She'll ask us questions, like we have friends who are a lesbian couple who were over one day and they were talking about other parents at the school and Emily asked, "Why do they not want [their children] to play with your daughter?" And I said, "Some people have a problem with two women being married." Her child response was, "That's just stupid." I said "Right, exactly." It's really that simple. We as a family think that it's stupid when people pass judgment on other people for choices that won't [hurt] them. It's plain old biology, you can't be mad at someone who has skin that's a different color, so why the heck would you be mad at someone who falls in love with someone of the same sex? We make it very like, "It is what it is."

AOL Health: Do you feel like you have been away from your husband or your daughter too much because of dating other people?

Block: No. Because, to be honest, before my girlfriend, it was all on trips I would have been on anyway. Since my girlfriend, we're all together. We're either all having dinner, or all hanging out. If I have to go to a review, I review a lot of art shows and concerts and things like that, someone would be going with me and most of the time it's her because my husband doesn't care for being dumped in a room to socialize with strangers. If anything, my work takes me away. I do travel writing. That takes me away, and sometimes I know all three of them would like to strangle me for that.

Labels: family structure, parenting, polyamory

posted by Eve at 2:00 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: culture, polyamory

posted by Eve at 1:55 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...When straight people have a relationship involving more than the customary two partners, they call it “polyamory.” We don’t use that term much as gay men, but we are at least as adventurous in trying out all the possible combinations and permutations of relationships. If two is good, then is three better?

Men choose relationships with multiple partners for many reasons. The novelty of having a third person around certainly can make things interesting. Three people can feel more like a family than being a couple feels for some men. Chores and responsibilities can get divided up with less work (sometimes) and there is usually more disposable income.

Relationships are complicated and plenty of work even when there are only two people in them. What’s it like when a third enters the calculations?

It’s unusual for three people to meet one another simultaneously and decide to form a potentially complex relationship. More often, two of the partners have been together a while when the third person enters the relationship.

Labels: gay/straight differences, polyamory

posted by Eve at 1:47 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Terisa Greenan and her boyfriend, Matt, are enjoying a rare day of Seattle sun, sharing a beet carpaccio on the patio of a local restaurant. Matt holds Terisa's hand, as his 6-year-old son squeezes in between the couple to give Terisa a kiss. His mother, Vera, looks over and smiles; she's there with her boyfriend, Larry. Suddenly it starts to rain, and the group must move inside. In the process, they rearrange themselves: Matt's hand touches Vera's leg. Terisa gives Larry a kiss. The child, seemingly unconcerned, puts his arms around his mother and digs into his meal.

Terisa and Matt and Vera and Larry—along with Scott, who's also at this dinner—are not swingers, per se; they aren't pursuing casual sex. Nor are they polygamists of the sort portrayed on HBO's Big Love; they aren't religious, and they don't have multiple wives. But they do believe in "ethical nonmonogamy," or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person—based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. They are polyamorous, to use the term of art applied to multiple-partner families like theirs, and they wouldn't want to live any other way. ...

Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city. Over the past year, books like Open, by journalist Jenny Block; Opening Up, by sex columnist Tristan Taormino; and an updated version of The Ethical Slut—widely considered the modern "poly" Bible—have helped publicize the concept. Today there are poly blogs and podcasts, local get-togethers, and an online polyamory magazine called Loving More with 15,000 regular readers. Celebrities like actress Tilda Swinton and Carla Bruni, the first lady of France, have voiced support for nonmonogamy, while Greenan herself has become somewhat of an unofficial spokesperson, as the creator of a comic Web series about the practice—called "Family"—that's loosely based on her life. "There have always been some loud-mouthed ironclads talking about the labors of monogamy and multiple-partner relationships," says Ken Haslam, a retired anesthesiologist who curates a polyamory library at the Indiana University-based Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. "But finally, with the Internet, the thing has really come about."

With polyamorists' higher profile has come some growing pains. The majority of them don't seem particularly interested in pressing a political agenda; the joke in the community is that the complexities of their relationships leave little time for activism. But they are beginning to show up on the radar screen of the religious right, some of whose leaders have publicly condemned polyamory as one of a host of deviant behaviors sure to become normalized if gay marriage wins federal sanction. "This group is really rising up from the underground, emboldened by the success of the gay-marriage movement," says Glenn Stanton, the director of family studies for Focus on the Family, an evangelical Christian group. "And while there's part of me that says, 'Oh, my goodness, I don't think I could see them make grounds,' there's another part of me that says, 'Well, just watch them.' "

Conservatives are not alone in watching warily. Gay-marriage advocates have become leery of public association with the poly cause—lest it give their enemies ammunition. As Andrew Sullivan, the Atlantic columnist, wrote recently, "I believe that someone's sexual orientation is a deeper issue than the number of people they want to express that orientation with." In other words, polyamory is a choice; homosexuality is not. It's these dynamics that have made polyamory, as longtime poly advocate Anita Wagner puts it, "the political football in the culture war as it relates to same-sex marriage."

Polys themselves are not visibly crusading for their civil rights. But there is one policy issue rousing concern: legal precedents concerning their ability to parent. Custody battles among poly parents are not uncommon; the most public of them was a 1999 case in which a 22-year-old Tennessee woman lost rights to parent her daughter after outing herself on an MTV documentary. Anecdotally, research shows that children can do well in poly families—as long as they're in a stable home with loving parents, says Elisabeth Sheff, a sociologist at Georgia State University, who is conducting the first large-scale study of children of poly parents, which has been ongoing for a decade. But because academia is only beginning to study the phenomenon—Sheff's study is too recent to have drawn conclusions about the children's well-being over time—there is little data to support that notion in court. Today, the nonprofit Polyamory Society posts a warning to parents on its Web site: If your PolyFamily has children, please do not put your children and family at risk by coming out to the public or by being interviewed [by] the press! ...

The child, meanwhile, has his own room. And he's clearly the most delicate part of the equation. Matt and Vera have asked NEWSWEEK not to use their last names—or the name of their child—for fear, even in liberal Seattle, they might draw unwanted attention. Though Terisa doesn't have children—and doesn't want them—she adores Matt and Vera's son, who calls her Auntie. Recently, the child asked his father who he loved more: Mommy or Terisa. "I said, 'Of course I love momma more,' because that's the answer he needed to hear," Matt says. He and Vera say they are honest with him, in an age-appropriate way. "We don't do anything any regular parents of a 6-year-old wouldn't do," he says. For the moment, it seems to be working. The child is happy, and there are two extra people to help him with his homework, or to pick him up or drop him off at school. They expect the questions to increase with age, but in the long run, "what's healthy for children is stability," says Fischer, the anthropologist.

Labels: culture, family structure, polyamory

posted by Eve at 10:12 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Trask likes the extended family that polyamory provides. She has three children -- 22, 18, 13 -- and her first husband's girlfriend also had children who spent holidays together.

"These are important relationships," she said. "The children grew up together."

Some polys support legalizing civil unions or incorporating their "clusters" as a corporation to gain health care and joint property rights. But Trask said her biggest concern is raising awareness so polys do not lose their children or jobs.

"We want it to be OK when you have two dads or two moms -- or whatever configuration -- at parent teacher conferences, and they don't freak out on you." ...

According to expert Deborah Anapol, polyamory has been accepted by many cultures. In Hawaii, where she lives today, there is even a word for the extra partner -- "punalua."

"We talk like we invented it, but it's been around a long time," said Anapol, who counsels couples and families, and is writing a new book on the topic, "Understanding Polyamory in the 21st Century."

Labels: parenting, polyamory

posted by Eve at 2:11 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Noel Coward's "Design for Living" — now in revival by the Shakespeare Theatre Company — shocked audiences when it premiered on Broadway in 1933. It's not hard to see why.

The play, about a polyandrous relationship between two men and a woman, makes no apologies for its liberationist view of sex and relationships and could hardly be more direct in its sympathetic presentation of gay attachment. "Design for Living" was considered so risque that Coward had to wait until 1939 before staging a production in London for fear of offending British censors.

Seen today, the play shocks, but for an altogether different reason: Its message is so outdated that it's bewildering why any theater would put it on except for its curatorial interest as a period artifact. ...

"Design for Living" premiered in an era when traditional ideas about sex and the role of women in society were being challenged, and the play's notoriety almost surely had something to do with the audience's vicarious envy of the characters' ability to break free of oppressive conventions. In the ensuing 70-plus years, however, America has witnessed the wages of free love, and we've decided they're not pretty. The play's controversy is obsolete; there really is no serious constituency these days arguing for the virtue of non-monogamous relationships. And as much as gays have been cultural iconoclasts, it's difficult to imagine a leading gay playwright of Coward's artistic stature today endorsing the sort of message presented in "Design for Living."

...The D.C. audience seemed to go along with the paeans to honesty and unconventional love for a very long time. Although if you're less committed to total honesty than these characters you may find their impassioned revelations self-centered and cruel, they are drawing on a powerful philosophy which commentator James Poulos has dubbed Eros lo volt! -- romantic love is its own justification.

Coward in some ways stacks the deck in favor of the lovers: Gretchen comments defensively that at least they aren't out "peppering the world with illegitimate children," and in fact none of the main characters have families or a history which precedes their meeting. Their bodies' only vulnerability is in sexual desire; no aging, no pregnancy, no illness. ...

There's something unfinished about Design for Living, some sense that we're still seeing the plot synopsis rather than the full interplay of characters. Perhaps some of the missing aspects become clearer when Coward's play is compared to its recent descendant, Edward Albee's 2002 The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?: Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy. Albee name-checks Coward in both the stage directions and dialogue, but recasts Design for Living's story as ambiguously-reactionary tragedy rather than ambivalently-liberal comedy. Albee marshals the same ideas of the unstoppable, unimaginable, irresistible power of erotic love… and puts them in the mouth of a man besotted with a nanny goat.

Labels: culture, gay marriage, Marriage, polyamory, sex

posted by Eve at 4:31 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Nowadays, I think everyone ought to be allowed to do her own thing. That includes getting married, whatever sexual orientation you are. Still, that word marriage doesn't sit easily with me. Yes, I want the legal benefits. It infuriates me that we must stoop to subterfuge so our foreign lovers can live in the United States. Beyond those kinds of legalities, I don't need my partner and me to be seen as a couple by the authorities.

The concept of marriage has too many assumptions attached. Married couples settle down together. They are responsible for each other. They owe each other. They are dependent on each other. They are meant to consult each other on long-term and day-to-day decisions. They are meant to be monogamous. They are meant to be willing to give up things they really want for the sake of the marriage. If they get divorced, which is usually horribly messy, they are considered to have failed, even when divorce is the most growth-enhancing option. There is a tendency to use being married as a safety net enabling one to get away with behavior that lacks integrity: We're married, so s/he's not going to leave me.

Of course, a committed relationship, whether considered to be a marriage or not, doesn't have to be that way. But I'm not on the front lines of the campaign for gay marriage. I'm going for a model that is conceptually broader. I want love and intimacy, and I want freedom, which means not being tied down. My personal experience illustrates that's quite possible. I'm not saying it's easy. It requires a unique level of honesty and responsibility, and it's made far more difficult by social disapproval. Those of us who are choosing these kinds of options are on the cutting edge of something absolutely new in Western culture. That certainly doesn't mean it can't work. It already is working on a small scale.

I hear people saying, but what about the children? In a village type of community, children have half a dozen people, or more, to parent them, and, in my opinion, that's much healthier than having only two.

In this day and age, plenty of other people feel the same way as I do, and are open to very different models of partnership. Next month, I'm participating (not for the first time) in a commitment ceremony involving three people. I'm looking forward to the day when we can do that kind of thing in public, and be honored for it.

Labels: beyond marriage, polyamory

posted by Eve at 7:38 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Less than 18 months ago, Sasha Lessin and Janet Kira Lessin gathered before their friends near their home in Maui, and proclaimed their love for one another. Nothing unusual about that—Sasha, 68, and Janet, 55—were legally married in 2000. Rather, this public commitment ceremony was designed to also bind them to Shivaya, their new 60-something "husband." Says Sasha: “I want to walk down the street hand in hand in hand in hand and live together openly and proclaim our relationship. But also to have all those survivor and visitation rights and tax breaks and everything like that.” ...

As with a couple, the key to making a triad work is communication. The Lessins' group specifically advocates something called "compersion": taking joy in another person's joy. Thus, they know how to process jealousy. “We don’t have anything take place off-stage,” says Sasha Lessin. “You witness your lover making googly eyes and you share your feelings. It’s not difficult for most people to be compersive once they feel they’re not being abandoned.”

Like most people in the poly community, the Lessins, who also helm the school of tantra (they take pleasure of the flesh quite seriously), take great pains to discuss pretty much everything. Some people even write up their agreements like a traditional prenup, detailing everything from communal economics to cohabitation rules. And buoyed by an increasing acceptance of same-sex unions, others want more legal protections. "We should have every right to inherit from each other and visit each other—I don’t care what you call it, we’re not second-class citizens!” says Janet Lessin. “Any people who wish to form a marriage with all the rights and duties of a marriage should have the legal right to. The spurious arguments of marriage being for procreation of children is ridiculous.”

That said, Valerie White, executive director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal-defense fund for people with alternative sexual expression in Sharon, Massachusetts, says she believes that triads are actually a great way to raise a family. "Years ago, children didn’t get raised in dyads, they got raised with grandparents and aunts and uncles—it was much looser and more village-like," says White. "I think a lot more people are finding that polyamory is a way to recapture that kind of support.”

Labels: polyamory

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:16 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

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

Labels: polyamory

posted by Eve at 10:33 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT