Conversely and surprisingly to some, I don’t particularly find BDSM to be inherently sexy. Don’t get me wrong; with the right person and in the right circumstances, BDSM play can be incredibly sexy. I’ve probably already beat this analogy to death, but BDSM really is a lot like sex, and let’s face it - sometimes, even sex isn’t sexy.
Just to clarify: I like sex. I like it a lot.
My thoughts on love are a bit more complicated and controversial.
I believe real love should be unconditional. It simply doesn’t have to be as complicated as most people try to make it. Whenever you let coulda, woulda, shoulda, and ought-to-be get into the act, you’re just mucking up something that, if left alone, is truly beautiful in its simplicity and incredible capacity for creating a lot of joy in your life and in the lives of others.
If you think you love someone, but you’re hoping or angling or trying to get something from that person in return, that isn’t real love. It’s just another form of self-gratification. At best, it is emotional masturbation; at its worst, it is emotional blackmail.
Love is that condition where someone else’s happiness matters more to you than your very own.
If you’ve spent your entire life thinking that love should be all about insecurity, jealousy or drama, chances are your search for happiness is going to be longer and exponentially more difficult. Love shouldn’t be about saying I love you, therefore, you should love me back, or prove to me how much you care, or you must start shaving your back, or settling down to have babies, or riding unicorns into the sunset.
It shouldn’t be all about what’s in it for you.
You either love the person standing in front of you, or you don’t. Loving the person that you wish he or she could be is a terrible waste of time and emotional energy.
Love the person, not the fantasy.
“The more you love, the more you can love - and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
Chapter 12: Polyamory
Polyamory is the practice of loving, or ability to love, more than one person at a time. The word is derived from the Latin poly, meaning many, and amor, meaning love. Polyamory is about multiple loves; not necessarily about multiple sex partners. Perhaps it would also be best if we establish a working definition of love before we go much further on this subject. For our purposes, we’ll use Robert A. Heinlein’s definition of love, which is, “that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” The elegance of this definition allows us to sidestep the sometimes thorny problem of trying to differentiate between romantic love, familial love, sexual love, or any other kind of love that can be imagined.
If you are one of those people who has a difficult time understanding how loving multiple partners can be accomplished without jealousy, instability and strife, consider the love that a mother has for her children. With each new child that comes along, a mother seems to have an infinite reservoir of love to share with each new addition to her family. She doesn’t love her first child any less just because a second child has come along, nor does she love her second child any less when a third one is born. Each child is loved for his or her unique and special qualities, and while their mother may love each in a slightly different way, it is rare for a mother to love one child significantly more or less than any other. Do siblings often vie for their mother’s attention, and sometimes feel shortchanged or jealous? Of course they do. Yet, for the most part, these feelings rarely lead to destructive behaviors, nor do they undermine their love for their mother, or for that matter, for each other. All things considered, most people believe that a child who grows up with siblings reaps many intangible benefits that an only child does not. So why are we, as a society, programmed to believe that polyamory, which works so elegantly for parents and children, is next to impossible in other kinds of loving relationships?
In the D/s lifestyle, polyamory is typically far more prevalent than in the general population for three simple reasons. First, a Dominant usually has far more discretion to do as he pleases than the typical non-Dominant outside of the D/s lifestyle. Second, the D/s lifestyle tends to attract people who are inherently willing to swim against the tide of social conventions. If this were not so, they wouldn’t be in the lifestyle in the first place. Third, many of the people in the D/s lifestyle participate in group activities within their local BDSM organizations, and sometimes develop close relationships with the playmates they meet there. D/s folk are no more or less likely than anyone else to be sexual swingers, however the cultivation of BDSM friendships with common kinks makes polyamory a more likely scenario. Let us not forget, however, that just because polyamory is relatively common in the D/s lifestyle doesn’t mean that people in the lifestyle are any better at it than anyone else. It is a profoundly difficult thing to be successfully polyamorous in any relationship, D/s or otherwise.
Any discussion of what polyamory is would not be complete without some attention to what it isn’t. First and foremost, polyamory isn’t promiscuity. Just because someone loves more than one person, does not mean they love everyone, nor does it mean they are willing to have sex with just anyone. To be clear, promiscuity is defined as having indiscriminate sexual relations with multiple partners on a casual basis. A polyamorous person may have multiple sex partners, but he can be just as faithful and loving and attentive to his two (or three or more) partners as a monogamous person can be to his one. This faithfulness to multiple partners is called polyfidelity, and a polyamorous person who practices it is called polyfidelous. Promiscuity and similar conditions, such as love or sex addiction, occur about as often in polyamorous individuals as they do in monogamous people.
Another thing that polyamory isn’t, is a value judgment. Polyamory isn’t objectively good or bad, right or wrong. It is simply a description of how some people think, feel, and love. You are either polyamorous, or you are not. It is virtually impossible to turn a monogamist into a polyamorist, and vice versa. Yes, there are things that a person can learn that can make polyamory easier or more viable for someone who has polyamorous feelings, but doesn’t yet possess the skills and knowledge to make it work in their relationship, but you simply cannot turn a monogamous brain into a poly one. Polyamory isn’t for everyone, and anyone who believes and preaches the notion that polyamory should be universally practiced is just as wrong-headed as those who are moral crusaders for monogamy.
Even for the small minority of people whose brains are wired for it, being poly in a predominantly monogamous world isn’t easy. Since the great majority of people in western cultures equate polyamory with promiscuity, adultery and cheating, the result is a natural tendency to shun or condemn anyone associated with or practicing polyamory. It is rather common, even in these supposedly “enlightened” times, to hear people toeing the politically correct line that “the government shouldn’t try to tell us whom we can and can’t love; people should be able to marry whomever they want.” Yet, for many, those very same principles don’t apply when someone wants to marry more than one person.
Polygamy is illegal in all fifty states of the United States, yet no one has ever made a logically compelling case for why it should be so. Even as more and more states move to make same-sex marriage legal on the grounds that the benefits of marriage should be extended to any individuals, regardless of their gender, who wish to get married, the unspoken fine print seems to be, “as long as they are gay, and there are only two of them.” It’s truly ironic that some of society’s most enthusiastic advocates for social justice, and tolerance of alternate lifestyles also happen to be the least likely to support changes in the law that would legalize polyamorous marriages, or polygamy.
Group Marriage and Polygamy
Polygamy is simply polyamory applied to the institution of marriage. There are three types of polygamy: Polygyny, polyandry, and grou
p or plural marriages. Polygyny is defined as a man having multiple wives. Polyandry describes a woman with multiple husbands. Group or plural marriages are umbrella terms used to describe any marriages or relationships resembling marriages that have more than two partners.
Plural marriages have been around, in one form or another, throughout human history. About half of the over 1200 societies listed in the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook have a significant incidence of plural marriages occurring in them. In most of those cultures, plural marriages are relatively rare, even when accepted and legal. In modern times, polygamous marriages have been practiced and legally recognized in Tibet, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, and 21 of the 22 countries that are members of the Arab League, with Tunisia being the lone hold-out. In Senegal, 47% of all marriages are polygamous, while in highly-westernized South Africa, it is not only practiced and legal, but President Jacob Zuma has four wives and twenty-nine children.
In the United States, polygamous marriages were practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church) from 1832 until 1890, when it was officially renounced by the church’s leadership and made an excommunicable offense. Since that time, splinter groups in the latter-day saints movement, most notably the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have continued to practice polygamy in isolated communities in the western United States and in Canada.
Another experiment in polyamorous living was founded in 1848 in New York by a group called “Christian Perfectionism” which was led by John Humphrey Noyes. The members of this community, called the Oneida community, practiced a form of group marriage wherein all of the males in the community were married to all of the females, and vice-versa - a doctrine which they called “complex marriage.” The community thrived for thirty-three years and, at one point, boasted over 300 members before being disbanded in 1881.
In addition to the Mormon and Oneida experiences, there have been other, more modern, institutional attempts at polyamorous living in the United States. One of those experiments was the Kerista Commune, which existed in the San Francisco area from 1971 until 1991. The Kerista Commune pioneered many of the concepts and practices that are now considered doctrinal in the polyamory lifestyle. One of the terms coined there was polyfidelity, which we defined earlier in this chapter.
Another concept developed there was the notion of compersion. A simple way to define compersion would be to describe it as the opposite of jealousy. Compersion is a positive emotional reaction to your partner’s involvement from another romantic or sexual relationship. The Kerista Commune pioneered the practice of modern group marriages; however some of their practices were controversial, even among their members, such as assigning sleeping partners to commune members on a rotating schedule, and discriminating against homosexuals. After twenty years of operation, the Kerista Commune shuttered its doors due to internal strife and legal troubles.
Today, there is still a growing polyamory movement in the United States, and it is nowhere more robust than in the D/s lifestyle. The reasons for this are relatively straightforward. First, the sort of person who is attracted to a lifestyle that is outside of the mainstream has a higher probability of having attitudes and beliefs about loving relationships that are outside of the mainstream, as well.
Second, the D/s lifestyle is structured to allow polyamorous relationships to occur more easily, and with greater frequency. Specifically, Dominants are far more likely to be allowed to have multiple partners, and submissives are far less likely to forbid it, than their vanilla counterparts in general society. Third and finally, the BDSM culture encourages experimentation, group activities, and casual fetish play (which may or may not be sexual in nature) that create opportunities for polyamorous relationships to develop.
There are, of course, many potential advantages and disadvantages that come with any polyamorous relationship. They can be more or less applicable to any particular relationship, depending upon the nature of the relationship, the number of people involved, whether or not children are a part of the relationship, living arrangements, financial arrangements, sexual relations, and other factors.
Potential Advantages of a Poly Relationship
Since this book is ostensibly about D/s and BDSM relationships, we’ll focus now on how polyamorous relationships work (or don’t) in the context of the lifestyle. Not only is the poly dynamic more common in the D/s lifestyle, but it generally tends to be more useful there, as well. Consider these potential advantages, while staying mindful of the fact that being poly in a D/s context typically means a relationship consisting of a single Dominant and two or more submissives.
Empathy. Everyone, in or out of this lifestyle, needs a little empathy from time to time, but for a submissive, this need is usually far more intense. Yet, when it comes to a D/s relationship, where does a submissive go to find someone who truly understands her situation, and how she feels about it? You’re not very likely to approach a vanilla co-worker to discuss, over lunch, your relationship with your Master. Even if you were to couch everything in purely vanilla terms, there would be one crucial part of the equation missing, and that would be the D/s relationship dynamic. Any understanding that your vanilla friend would think she had about your situation would be seriously flawed, and any advice she gave you would likely be tragically misguided. And while it would certainly be helpful to know and depend upon friends who understand the lifestyle and are also submissives, no one knows you, your situation, and/or your Master the way your sister (or brother) submissive does. The empathy and understanding that can exist between co-wives or co-husbands in a poly relationship is unparalleled anywhere else in our culture.
Attention. It’s often easy to assume that being part of a poly relationship means having to share someone you love with another, and therefore being resigned to getting less of that person’s focused attention. However, another way of looking at it might be to see the glass as half full instead of half empty, by realizing that you could also end up on the receiving end of a lot of attention from the multiple partners in your relationship, and that group activities have a way of developing their own brand of energy and excitement, if you’ll let them.
Complexity. This can be a double-edged sword which cuts both ways, but the very same complexity that makes the poly dynamic difficult in the early stages of a relationship can later work in your favor to help keep the relationship from going stale over time. Generally speaking, the sort of person who is willing to swim against the tide of society’s expectations and chooses to live an alternative lifestyle is more likely to be attracted to complex relationships than to avoid them. One of the greatest long-term challenges that confronts any relationship - simple or complex, monogamous or poly – is going to be staying interested.
Synergy. Synergy is a word that is used frequently in the business world, but less so in discussions about relationships. Yet, it is through relationships that the true meaning of the word can be demonstrated best. Synergy is defined as a process by which we may produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. In essence, it is how we make one plus one equal three. This may seem counter-intuitive to us, until we are reminded that couples do this all the time. We call it making babies. But synergy in relationships isn’t just about procreation, nor should it be. Synergy should be all about accomplishing whatever goals you’ve set for yourselves - whether they are health goals, financial goals, educational goals, or any other dream you may have - and utilizing the full range of the talents, skills, knowledge and synergy of the group to make it happen.
Teamwork. While it may be closely related to synergy, the teamwork that occurs in a poly relationship has a nuance all its own, and can be an incredible asset and advantage to everyone involved. Problem solving becomes a process that draws on the unique individual strengths and qualities of each individual. Pooled resources, such as property, income, transportation or even time can be put to use where it does the most good. Tag-team child care can
reduce or even eliminate the need to give up a significant portion of one’s income to pay for child care while on the job. Three or more incomes can go a long way towards improving the quality of life for everyone in a poly household. Even where separate households are maintained, there will usually be ways that teamwork can make some things easier, cheaper, or more efficient for everyone involved.
Potential Pitfalls of a Poly Relationship
Attractive as some of the advantages may be, polyamorous relationships have their own unique pitfalls and difficulties, not the least of which is the existence of an intense and almost rabid anti-poly societal bias. Anyone choosing to become part of a poly relationship must typically be willing to do one of two things: conceal the true nature of your relationship from the great majority of your family, friends, neighbors and co-workers, or reveal it to all, and be consigned to endure a lifetime of contention over it. Neither option is particularly appealing to the average person, but then again, no one ever promised you that polyamory was going to be easy. Here are a few more of the potential pitfalls associated with polyamorous relationships:
Jealousy. It will likely come as no surprise to anyone that jealousy is at the top of the list when it comes to potential pitfalls of a polyamorous relationship. Many people erroneously assume that being poly means being free of jealousy. Jealousy is, and always will be, a perfectly normal human emotion that is fed by fear, rivalry, poor self-esteem, insecurity and envy. It isn’t the emotion of jealousy that can become problematic in a relationship; it is the way in which that jealousy is expressed. A simple parallel, to illustrate this notion, might be to compare it to anger. It would be completely unreasonable to expect that your mates will never get angry, but it is entirely reasonable to expect that they will never come after you with a butcher knife when they do. Yet some studies (White & Mullen 1989, Pines 1992) estimate that 20-35% of all murders are motivated by jealousy! Anyone who is considering entering into a poly relationship should do so with the expectation that jealousy will occur, and will need to be skillfully managed by everyone involved.
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