“In the Orient the butterfly is a symbol of love and sex. In the West it’s a symbol of transformation. I feel like a butterfly in both senses. My life journey began being carried in a basket on a donkey’s back in China during my parents’ march to Beijing with the People’s Liberation Army. Today I am actively involved in the global peace, justice, and environmental movement in California. Have I found love? I think love has found me. And I have gained a greater appreciation of the human spirit that carries each of us in search for our own path. For me, the polyamorous way of relating to people is my utopian dream come true, a revolutionary approach in human relations, as well as a powerful political statement: If we love and feel loved, we will be peaceful; furthermore, if we can bring that spirit of love and peace to formulating and implementing social, economic, and political policies, positive changes will follow. Today I’m living my values by enjoying a joyful polyamorous lifestyle, politically active, ecologically conscious, and spiritually grounded.”3
C. T. Butler, who is now in his fifties, has lived polyamorously and been actively engaged in working for social change for his entire adult life. In 1981, he cofounded the Food Not Bombs collective, which is still going strong around the world as a grassroots organization to provide free vegetarian meals for the hungry and raise awareness about homelessness as well as protesting war and military spending.
C.T. reports that for two years in the early days of Food Not Bombs, the collective was run by three men and three women who shared a large house and whose relationships included sexual involvement with each other in one way or another. They went so far in challenging the status quo that they had the experiment of not having their own personal bedrooms in the house. C.T. recalls, “Downstairs, we had the kitchen, dining room, living room, and study; upstairs, we had the sleeping room, the sex room, the library/meditation room, and the music room. We all slept together in one big bed in the sleeping room, and sometimes, some would sleep in the sex room or music room. There were others moving in or moving out of the collective all the time.”
While many of the young people who formed the Food Not Bombs collective were already lovers, they were “seasoned activists” who viewed their sexually radical lifestyle as a precaution against infiltration. C.T. recalls that “we were quite concerned about infiltration at the time and felt that the willingness to be sexual and deeply intimate with everyone else in the collective was a way to prevent infiltration. Obviously, we did not think it was absolutely foolproof; we just thought it was helpful. However, that does not mean we required everyone to have sex with everyone else in the collective; it was that we were interested in experimenting with sexual relations in an outside-the-box way, and we saw the usefulness of this experimenting in strengthening our bonds and our effectiveness as political activists. Therefore, in practice, if someone was unwilling to experiment, they were not suitable collective members. If they were comfortable with open relationships and had a willingness to experiment sexually, as demonstrated by their behavior, then we assumed they were very unlikely to be an agent of the state.”
In keeping with their anarchist politics, the collective were strong adherents of consensus decision making. Any member could call a meeting called a group-group, where everyone would engage in a discussion that could not end until everyone agreed on a resolution, which might mean two or three days with breaks only for eating and sleeping. C.T. reports that these group-groups were called only maybe five times in two years to address things like “dealing with a sexual predator, kicking a member out, and sexism.”4
C.T. says that jealousy was never much of a problem for him because of his “political analysis of life.” He explains that, “from early adulthood, I realized that possessive behaviors and the idea that one person could control the behavior of another because of the concept of marriage was really just another form of slavery, one person owning another. I have never wanted to control or have another person all for myself. With regard to the jealousy my partners would feel, I was very patient and clear that jealousy is primarily based on fear. I would take the time to help my partner uncover her fear and manage it so that it would either go away or, at least, not destroy our relationship. Generally, that worked pretty well.” During the 1980s and 1990s, he helped start polyamory discussion groups throughout New England, lived in a series of polyamorous families, and fathered several children. For C.T., polyamory was as much a tool for political activism as a means of personal gratification.
POLYAMORY AND SEX ADDICTION
Not all polyamorists claim to be as well prepared or idealistic in their motivations as Nancy and Darrell or Kamala and Michael, Sonia Song, or C. T. Butler. In some cases, polyamory becomes a context for the unconscious playing out of the classic addict and codependent drama; in others, the dynamics show a mixture of conflicting motivations to satisfy an addiction alongside more altruistic, growth-oriented, or utopian agendas.
Thelma first sought my advice on informational resources about polyamory because a year or so into their relationship, her boyfriend had come out to her as polyamorous, and she wanted to learn more about it. “I am not polyamorous,” she told me. “I have enough difficulty with one relationship at a time, and I would go completely unconscious in a number of simultaneous relationships. But I’m in love with him, and he wants polyamory, so I’m trying to be open minded about it.” I suggested a few books and websites, offered to put her on my mailing list, and suggested she let me know if she wanted some coaching in navigating this unfamiliar territory. About two years later, Thelma sought help from a therapist.
Several years after that, Thelma looked me up again, asking what I thought about sex addiction. I responded that I was very disturbed by the presence of sex addiction in the polyamory community, saying that while most polyamorous people are not addicts, it was a significant problem and one that often came up for discussion in my workshops. Although I wish sex addiction was never an issue in polyamory, the truth is that polyamory does provide a convenient cover story for addicts who are generally in denial about having an addiction. It’s easy to justify sexual obsession by calling it polyamory. A handful of sex addicts can wreak havoc in a community, especially when people are still operating out of conditioning that forbids the sharing of “family secrets” out of misguided respect for confidentiality. Polyamory offers a venue in which sex addicts can begin at least to tell the truth about what they’re doing instead of carrying on secret affairs. I prefer to put a positive spin on it by seeing that bringing their destructive, addictive behavior out into the open is the first step toward healing, but unfortunately it can get messy and hurtful for those who are hoping for love and instead find callousness.
After hearing my opinions, Thelma decided she’d like to tell me about her own experience. “I can well describe what it is like, how it feels to be the substance that a sex addict uses to engage in his addiction. If I could curtail even one person’s suffering by doing so, it would be worth revisiting the whole ugly mess which I finally put behind me two years ago,” she told me. For Thelma, the idea that she was attempting a polyamorous relationship that would involve a potentially painful confrontation with her own jealousy but would be well worth it in the end allowed her to be drawn into an abusive relationship. A man with more empathy and integrity would have either told her about his sexual activity with other women before she became so deeply involved or curtailed his sexual adventures until he had disengaged with her once it became apparent she was suffering so intensely. Here is her story in her own words.
“This is about loving a man who was and is a sex addict. It is a story that ends with loving myself for the first time ever. Into the wounded and forgotten places, into the hated cesspools that I had tried to paper over and pretend out of existence. Of course, I cannot know if there was another way I could have gotten where I am. I certainly wish that it had not been so painful, so depraved. I will never know what might have been had I not had this set of experiences.
“The rel
ationship began with more hope than I had ever dared. Looking back, I can see now how frightened I really was. In hindsight, I can see scores of warning signs that I ignored, misinterpreted, reimagined to fit my high hopes that covered my desperation for enduring love. The external events and my reactions changed over the six years with this man. At first I reacted quickly; I was indignant, angry, fully expecting him to change his behavior. Surely I could show him these errors, and he would correct them. Right?
“I later changed to defensive behaviors. This is the longest chapter of all—this is the place that I lost myself utterly trying to maintain a relationship that was much more in my head than in my life. Every day was so full of hurt and despair and calculated prevention that there was precious little of myself left in everyday life. Finally, I devolved to a conviction that this misery, this unremitting effort with horrific results, was going to be my entire life. He would never hear my agony, see the effects he was having upon me. If he could just know how much I was hurting, surely he would stop, I still hoped weakly. No one could be so cruel, could they? Surely my efforts would matter; this would all have a satisfactory ever-after ending, happy and glowing.
“For years, his compulsive flirtations, the online pornography, the obsessive masturbation in the shower, the dates with other women when he was out of town, the secretive seductions and ongoing attempts to have other lovers, sometimes successful, the “friendships” with coworkers and business associates kept me off balance. I worked with every ounce of ability I possessed (or could borrow from others) to contain this behavior. I was so desperate for help maintaining my relationship, I compromised my friendships, my values, my integrity and ultimately any shreds of respect for myself.
“Then, finally, he upped the ante. He announced he was going to spend the night with a ‘Tantra’ practitioner who was clearly besotted with him. She sold her sexual services for money and called it Tantra. He had enticed her overtures, and she was one of those women who had a sad need to involve herself with unavailable men. She knew that we were living together and executed this rendezvous anyway. He was enthralled with her flattery, so much so that he responded to my pleas to not hurt me so deeply with threats of violence instead of empathy for the pain I was displaying. He had been violent in the not-too-distant past, so inward again went the humiliation, the pain. There was no more room, I could not hold another ounce of pain. In utter despair, with no way to stop the pain, I planned to commit suicide that night rather than have to be tortured one more minute. I had invested everything that I had into this relationship, and he was throwing me away and everything that I had worked diligently for six years for a night with a prostitute.
“So how did this begin? How did I come to this place? How did I go from having an admittedly interesting life to the precipice of suicide? What about all the in-between things that happened? There are places that I can explain with great fervor, and even a dash of humor, some sweeping geographies that can be described with grand dispassion, corners that remain shrouded to me still, and places that I will never ever, ever have the vantage place to see. There are places that are for others to define and shine light upon. There were places, dark and cavernous, that I fumbled through and emerged in spite of my lack of navigation skills or even the ability to see fifteen seconds into the future. I call those places grace. There are places that I revisited ad nauseam, ad infinitum, failing an astounding number of times to avoid because I was trying yet another fix/cure/technique/ploy to prevent the recurring addictive scenarios.”
Thelma’s story is the polar opposite of Nancy and Darrell’s, chock full of drama, manipulation, and misery. In addition to being a story about addiction, it’s a story about a woman who knows very clearly that she wants monogamy but is so desperate for love that she tries to tolerate an inconsiderate, nonmonogamous partner, hoping she can somehow change him. Chances are she would not have gotten involved had she known he was unwilling to be monogamous, but by the time she found out, she was hooked. Some individuals struggling with sex addiction behave more responsibly but still find healthy polyamorous relationships impossible.
Alex is a handsome, charismatic man in his late forties who is a professional entertainer. His outgoing personality, sexy voice, and boyish charm make him a magnet for women. When he first heard about polyamory ten years ago, he was newly single and fascinated. But after almost losing his new partner, Dawn, he decided he’d better take another look at his motivations for choosing polyamory. Dawn, like Thelma, tried valiantly to accept Alex’s desire for polyamory, but she heeded the red flags and the coaching I gave her to insist that Alex get his addictive behavior under control before agreeing to continue having an open relationship.
Alex recalls that “I immediately resonated with the concept of open, free sexual relationships that could foster deeper communication and intimacy. I felt so at home in the poly community, and for the first time, I didn’t feel shame about desiring to love more than one. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had a huge need for the romantic intrigue associated with new relationships. It wasn’t so much the sex, although that part was great, but the high of being newly in love that just took me over. I was able to hide behind polyamory when what I was mostly looking for was escape from feeling I wasn’t enough. Once I started paying closer attention to what was going on inside me, I found out that as soon as I’d start feeling bad about myself, I’d drown my low self-esteem in a new infatuation.
“For me, the idea of polyamory makes sense and feels right since I’d rather face my jealousy than force my partner to be monogamous. Plus, I like the idea of sharing my love and sexuality with more than one lover. I have a lot to give, and giving it just feels good. Dawn feels the same way about sharing love but not about facing her jealousy. For her, sharing love is a choice, but for me there seems to more of an uncontrollable drive for the excitement and emotional and sexual juice. I realized that for me it was not a simple choice only after destroying over a dozen beautiful love relationships, a business partnership, and a teen ministry largely because of my ‘need’ for poly freedom.
“When Dawn and I got together in 2000, we began to explore healthier, more conscious ways for me to get my poly desires met and not be addictive, inconsiderate, and compulsive. After over six years of emotional roller coasting, we both finally realized that I was not able to do poly in a healthy way since my addictive behaviors and emotional wounds always seemed to prevail. At that point, after an ultimatum from Dawn, I chose sobriety from poly life. Since then, the dramas have all but ceased along with all the shame that was associated with feeling out of control and hurting others. In addition, my relationship with Dawn has deepened and recently gotten even more sexual and passionate. I do crave new sexual experiences from time to time, and all I have to do is think of the pain, chaos, and drama, and I’m back to happy sobriety.”
For Alex, polyamory did provide a context in which he was able to see that it was not so much the jealousy and possessiveness of his partner who was willing to selectively and responsibly include others into their intimacy, nor was it the judgments of society, which were essentially reversed in the polyamory community, that stood between him and his sexual freedom. Rather, he became aware for the first time that nonmonogamy was workable only if he could heal the childhood wounds that led him to compulsively lose control when he indulged in his “drug.” When he wasn’t “high” on “new relationship energy,” Alex was an empathic and attentive partner. “It wasn’t like I could just be satisfied with two or three women and settle down. There was never enough, and I was always tempted by the next one. Dawn was okay with us dating and becoming intimate with other women; she enjoyed it up to a point, but she didn’t really want to live with another person. Cheryl did end up moving in with us, and it worked out fine for Dawn—the two of them loved it—but I was relieved when Cheryl hooked up with our friend Oscar and went to live with him.” Alex’s highlevel communication skills, team spirit, and playful creativity made him a nat
ural for polyamory, but his addictive behavior sabotaged him every time. Alex, like Thelma, finally joined Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA). Similarly to its sister Twelve Step groups, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, SLAA preaches abstinence (which in this case means monogamy rather than celibacy).
At one point, when Alex was having difficulty staying on the wagon, I suggested that it might be easier if he stayed out of “bars,” but he and Dawn so enjoyed the relaxed openness of poly friendly venues and the deep friendships they’d established that they continued to gravitate toward this community and eventually succeeded in establishing better boundaries.
While I’ve seen too much evidence that sexual addiction is as real as any other addiction to deny its existence, I’ve also observed that those who are the quickest to point the finger at others often have a tendency toward sex addiction themselves. I usually tell people that if they must have an addiction, sex, along with meditation, hatha yoga, and jogging, are relatively healthy ones in which to indulge. Sex itself is good for you, and great sex is very good for you, but the more euphoric and ecstatic the experience, the more temptation there can be to sell one’s soul to the devil. In my circles, people often joke about “meditation as medication,” and many spiritual teachers are now warning about the dangers of transitory transcendental states and experiences derailing the attainment of a more abiding but ordinary union with the Divine.
For Tanya, the allure of mind-blowing sex capable of transporting her to other realms kept her involved in a polyamorous relationship in which she resented being “a secondary” with none of the privileges, power, or status of a “primary partner.” Tanya is a mature, introspective woman in her early sixties. She initially consulted me with a complaint about her lover’s wife, Sheila. Her lover, Jerry, was in an open marriage when they met, and Tanya accepted this but objected to his spending every weekend with his wife, Sheila, because she “requires a sex partner every weekend, all weekend. Sheila has at least three other lovers besides him, and he’s fine with that, but I’m not. For Sheila, it’s all about her getting what she wants, and she wants virtually all of it. And we’re talking his money as well.”
Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy With Multiple Partners Page 4
