Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy With Multiple Partners

by Deborah M. Anapol

  Challenges with time management and coordination are probably an inevitable part of polyamorous relating. As one member of an eight-person intimate network put it, “Have you ever tried to get eight people to agree on where to go for dinner and then get them all out the door at the same time?” This kind of dilemma is common but, while relatively trivial, can take its toll over time. Nevertheless, it is likely to be less emotionally loaded than a conflict over who is going to sleep with whom when everyone’s preferences are different and time options are scarce.

  Sally was leaving town the next day on an extended business trip. Oscar and Frank each wanted her to spend her last night alone with them. “I honestly didn’t have any preference,” Sally moaned, “and maybe that was the problem because they both wanted me to decide, and I didn’t want to. I would have been happy for all of us to stay together, but that wasn’t what they wanted. We ended up spending most of the night talking about what to do and why.” Even when decisions about how much time to spend with different partners are not an issue, simply fitting several relationships into a busy life can send some people racing back to monogamy.

  With all these difficulties, is polyamory worth the struggle? Why would anyone want to swim upstream when they don’t have to?

  POLYAMORY AND THE GAIA HYPOTHESIS

  Feminist humanities professor Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio has woven together fact and theory from widely disparate fields to present a case for the value of polyamory and other nonnormative sexualoving expressions to preserve human life on planet Earth. She views polyamory as a school for love that teaches a way of feeling and thinking that is crucial for our survival as we enter the twenty-first-century.

  One of the central themes of her Gaia and the New Politics of Love2 is the utility of the hypothesis originally put forth in scientific terms by James Lovelock3 and Lynn Margulis and widely adopted by ecofeminist philosophers, neopagans and others that planet Earth, or Gaia, is not mere inert matter but has a consciousness like an animated, self-regulating organism. This point of view has been pervasive among indigenous people the world over for millennia and is the basis for all nature-based spirituality. Anderlini-D’Onofrio traces the development of modern religious and scientific thought that views Earth as an inert object. This worldview happens to correlate both with the rise of monogamous marriage as the only legitimate sexual expression and, as many observers have noted, with the increasingly life-threatening destruction of our environment.

  The value of accepting the Gaia hypothesis, she asserts, is that it moves us away from a course of irreversible environmental destruction and human suffering and toward greater justice and ecosocial sustainability. In her words, “Hypothesizing Gaia in our era is like hypothesizing heliocentrism in Galileo’s. It helps the world shed needless fears from current dogmas, like the idea that love is a crime or a disease, or that we need to fight preventative wars against terrifying enemies, and it gets us to look reality in the face.”4

  Another major theme for Anderlini-D’Onofrio is the concept of symbiotic reason. She defines symbiosis as a way of sharing bodies in which both host and guest benefit. In biology, this refers to phenomena such as beneficial bacteria found in the digestive tract of many species. We might also apply the term to the presence of humans and other species living in the body of Gaia. Symbiosis classically describes the relationship between a pregnant woman and her fetus. In Freudian psychoanalytic thought, the term symbiotic refers to a pathologically dependent maternal relationship carried beyond the appropriate developmental stage. Instead, AnderliniD’Onofrio argues for a new understanding of symbiosis as “the wellspring of a mode of reasoning that appreciates the sharing of bodies as resources for fun and pleasure and does not diagnose it as unhealthy or perverse.”5 Not only is symbiotic reason crucial to sustainability, she says, but it’s also closely related to the practice of polyamorous love.

  Patriarchal values have placed independence and logic above symbiosis or interdependence and direct bodily awareness—with disastrous results. Rational science has been revealed as lacking the objectivity on which its alleged superiority is based. Symbiotic reason, which leads us to think in terms of the whole rather than isolated parts, is the cure, according to Anderlini-D’Onofrio and countless other contemporary thinkers. As she expresses it, “I believe that the political problem of today is a problem of love because only hatred and fear can cause people to construct enemies that do not exist while they ignore the most serious and impending issues. I propose holism as an ecologically sound approach to biopolitical issues that heals the thought system that causes anxiety, rather than attacking the enemies this system constructs. Love is therefore the problem that is also the solution of modernity’s diseases and the absurd position these diseases put us humans in. In homeopathic terms, love is the disease that is the cure. Indeed, if as humans aware of being mere cells in Gaia’s organism we could love as selflessly as the two unicellular organisms who die to merge into one larger symbiotic being, we could perhaps cure ourselves of modernity’s diseases.”6

  Anderlini-D’Onofrio takes this line of thought a step further by emphasizing the mutual sharing of oxytocin-mediated bonding in symbiotic styles of love, which, by her definition, include polyamory. Oxytocin is a hormone well known for its role in bonding a breast-feeding mother to her newborn infant. More recently, the action of oxytocin in promoting bonding of sexual partners, at least temporarily, has been highlighted. Oxytocin produces feelings of calm, love, and connection. Could it be the antidote to the anxieties of modern life still driven by the adrenaline-driven fightor-flight syndrome? At the risk of oversimplifying, this could be likened to the famous slogan of the 1960s peace movement, “Make love, not war,” in terms of neurotransmitters.

  Polyamorous people, Anderlini-D’Onofrio asserts, have developed practices that allow the establishment of gradual levels of intimacy, including playful touch, cuddling, snuggling, spooning, and inclusive sexual play. “Because of their heavy reliance on touch, connectedness, nonviolence, and a subtle knowledge and practice of intimacy, the styles of love invented by bi and poly people promote the activation of the hormonal cycle of oxytocin.”7 Of course, these practices are not limited to the polyamorous, but they are often avoided, particularly in group settings, by those who are fearful of temptations to stray from their monogamous vows.

  THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF PLEASURE AND VIOLENCE

  Dr. James Prescott is a developmental neuropsychologist and former researcher at the National Institute of Child Health. On the basis of extensive laboratory research with animals, he theorized that the deprivation of physical sensory pleasure is the principal root cause of violence. His experiments showed that in animals, pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship. The presence of one inhibits the other. In other words, when the brain’s pleasure circuits are “on,” the violence circuits are “off” and vice versa. A raging, violent animal will abruptly calm down when electrodes stimulate the pleasure centers of its brain. Stimulating the violence centers in the brain can terminate the animal’s sensual pleasure and peaceful behavior.8

  Do these animal studies apply to humans? Prescott maintains that a pleasure-prone personality rarely displays violence or aggressive behaviors and that a violent personality has little ability to tolerate, experience, or enjoy sensuously pleasing activities. As either violence or pleasure goes up, the other goes down in humans as well as animals. Prescott found further evidence for his theory by examining data correlating extramarital sex taboos with sexism, crime, and violence in cultures around the world. According to Prescott, “The data clearly indicates that punitive-repressive attitudes toward extramarital sex are linked with physical violence, personal crime, and the practice of slavery. Societies which value monogamy emphasize military glory and worship aggressive gods.”9

  Deep-ecology advocate Dolores LaChapelle was one of the first twentieth-century writers to discuss sex and intimate relationships in an ecological context. She views the breakdowns in
so many modern relationships as a direct result of placing too much emphasis on the romance between two people and losing sight of the larger whole in which we are all embedded. In her encyclopedic Sacred Land, Sacred Sex,10 she draws on indigenous wisdom the world over to paint a vivid picture of the ways in which multipartner sex has traditionally served to bond the group, diffuse potential conflict, and strengthen the connection to the land. She cites many examples of both ancient and modern native peoples whose customs and rituals incorporate sex as “natural, inevitable, and sacred because it’s part of the whole inter-relationship of humans and nature in that place.”11

  One account is from a woman anthropologist who was traveling through the jungle with a woman friend from the tribe and the woman’s husband. When they stopped to camp for the night, her friend was making love with her husband and asked if she wanted to join in. She describes the experience as natural, playful, tender, and bonding for the two women.

  In many of these cultures, as in the lovestyle now called polyamory, pair bonding is one option among many, and couples expect to include others in their intimacy or relax their boundaries when the situation arises. Couples as well as other grouping and singles all participate in seasonal festivals involving ritual sex to “increase the energy not only between man and woman but within the group as a whole and between the humans and their land.”12

  Prescott’s previously mentioned research revealed that cultures like these are significantly less violent than those that disallow extramarital sex. While modern Western thinking generally regards fertility rites as merely superstitious, if not immoral, LaChapelle, like Anderlini-D’Onofrio and Prescott, describes a biological basis for their positive effects.

  LaChapelle explains it this way: “In ritualized sex, which is not confined to the genital area, the entire body and the brain receive repetitive stimuli over a considerable period of time. This leads to ‘central nervous system tuning.’ To briefly summarize, if either the parasympathetic nervous system or the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated, the other system is inhibited. Tuning occurs . . . when there is such strong, prolonged activation of one system that it becomes supersaturated and spills over into the other system so that it, in turn, becomes activated. If stimulated long enough the next stage of tuning is reached where the simultaneous strong discharge of both autonomic systems creates a state of stimulation of the median forebrain bundle, generating not only pleasurable sensations but . . . a sense of union or oneness with all. This stage of tuning permits right hemisphere dominance; thus solving problems deemed insoluble by the rational hemisphere. Furthermore, the strong rhythm of repetitive action as done in sexual rituals produces positive limbic discharge, resulting in increased social cohesion; thus contributing to the success of such rituals as bonding mechanisms.”13

  Of course, polyamory does not necessarily involve such exotic activities, but as a philosophy of love, it provides a context in which erotic ritual is possible without prohibitions based on a belief in entitlement to sexual exclusivity as proof of commitment or fidelity. What polyamory does require is a more altruistic, unconditional type of love than is common in monogamous unions and that naturally arises from a felt sense of oneness. While monogamy, of course, also thrives on unselfish love, it can survive more easily than polyamory in its absence.

  POLYAMORY AS A TRAINING GROUND

  FOR UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

  In my book The Seven Natural Laws of Love,14 I discuss the universal principles that govern the flow of love in the world, just as the laws of physics govern the interactions of matter and energy. Most people are aware that as our understanding of the physical nature of reality has grown, physics has undergone several paradigm shifts. The physics that is taught in universities today is not the same physics that was taught in the nineteenth or even the twentieth century. A paradigm shift is also taking place in our comprehension of love, but there are few resources available for integrating this new understanding. Polyamorous relationships are one of these precious resources. While any intimate relationship is a training ground for love, polyamory inevitably brings several “laws” of love front and center, where they cannot fail to get our attention.

  One of these principles is what I’ve referred to as the law of consciousness. In the old paradigm for love, we think of love of as a substance, something that can be given or received, as something that can be lost or taken away. We imagine that love is like a pie that can be cut into slices. The bigger your piece, the less there is for me. In the new paradigm, we recognize that love is not an object. Rather, love is an energy, a vibration, a state of consciousness. The image is that of a radio station broadcasting twenty-four hours a day and available to an unlimited number of listeners.

  Some polyamorists have complained that while love may be unlimited, time appears finite, but I’ve noticed that time often seems to expand when I stop telling myself there’s not enough of it. For now, let’s just notice how a situation in which love is shared among several partners is going to be painful if we’re holding the belief that love is like a pie and pleasurable if we think of it as an experience that is enhanced when others also enjoy it.

  Another of the natural laws of love that polyamory inevitably highlights is the law of unity. Simply stated, in the new paradigm, we realize that love knows no borders and no boundaries. Love includes everyone and everything. It takes no position and rises above separation. This doesn’t mean that discernment about how and when to express love goes out the window, nor does it mean that the expression of love automatically involves sex. Instead, this new-paradigm law offers a context in which the reality of Oneness can be embodied, and practical, mutually agreeable strategies for inclusion can be negotiated with a partner or partners instead of reacting with guilt, shame, and blame.

  The old paradigm for love enshrined jealousy and possessiveness. Instead of discouraging jealousy and possessiveness so that people could freely choose how they would mate, the old paradigm for love established cultural and moral barriers intended to eliminate legitimate alternatives. By drawing a line around the couple or the nuclear family and saying, in effect, “inside this circle we share love and selflessly look out for each other, but outside this circle we keep anyone and everyone from taking what is ours,” an illusion of artificial boundaries that is increasingly difficult to maintain was created.

  Altruism is another expression of the law of unity. It refers to the choice to unselfishly do something that benefits someone else even to one’s own apparent detriment because the illusion of separation has been replaced with the new-paradigm reality that we are all part of the same whole. While many people willingly embrace altruism when it comes to their children or even strangers, one of the greatest challenges to experiencing joy and generosity in someone else’s good fortune seems to arise where sharing erotic or romantic love is involved. The word compersion grew out of the experience of polyamorous people in the Kerista commune who noticed that it was far more enjoyable to enthusiastically accept the love and pleasure their partners found with each other than to resist it.

  We need not rely on logic to decide whether separation is an illusion. If we turn instead to our direct experience, it soon becomes apparent that while the skin is a kind of physical container for the body, we are able to sense activity beyond the boundaries of the physical body. More dramatically, without a constant intake of oxygen from “outside,” life on the “inside” soon ceases. Science now tells us that the same molecules that make up our bodies are rapidly recycled and exchanged with other entities. The same, of course, is true for the need for resources from outside the boundary of the family. A single individual or a single couple or family cannot exist without ongoing interactions with a larger human and natural environment.

  Polyamory breaks down cultural patterns of control as well as ownership and property rights between persons and, by replacing them with a family milieu of unconditional love, trust, and respect, provides an avenue to the creation of a more just and
peaceful world. By changing the size, structure, and emotional context of the family, the personalities of the children developing in these families naturally change. Children learn by example. We cannot teach our children to share and to love one another when we jealously guard and covertly control our most precious possessions—our spouses. By making the boundaries of the family more flexible and more permeable to the outside world, we set the stage for a new worldview in which we recognize our kinship with all of humanity.

  Polyamory also offers abundant opportunities to practice the law of forgiveness. This law is crucial because forgiveness is both the means by which it’s possible to love oneself and others unconditionally and the evidence of this love. The nature of being human is that we make mistakes, especially when attempting a new and challenging way of loving. Without always allowing a second chance, this effort would be doomed. It is the capacity to forgive and forget that allows us to release conditional love one condition at a time, as many times as necessary. When someone loves us, even after finding out about our secret “flaws,” even knowing that we may love and desire others, the separation we feel from love is healed. This healing is forgiveness.