A repeat, but an important one...

I feel almost bad bringing in this link today because I know I've talked about it before... But it's come up recently in our lives, and it's one of my hot-button issues... So I'm going to let myself go off on this one again.

http://therumpus.net/2011/08/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-81-a-bit-of-sully-in-your-sweet/

Ms. "Happily Ever After" comes into this question so arrogantly, and frankly, it frustrates me. The entire basis of her question is that she thought her sister and brother-in-law were the paragon of examples right up until she found out their life hadn't been perfect... And it's so absurdly backwards!

Why is it that society's ideal is so focused on a life where nothing goes wrong? On a life that's so unrealistic? I would have thought most people would prefer an ideal they can relate to, one they can aspire to. But they don't - people aspire to the ideals they'll never reach.

This woman's sister and brother-in-law do sound like an amazing example of a loving couple and an excellent ideal to live up to - and I think the fact that they have survived hardship proves it, rather than bringing it into question.

Ms. Happily Ever After says:

I know couples have to work on their relationships, but my position on infidelity is that it’s a deal killer. My fiancé and I have agreed if one of us ever cheated on the other it would be automatically over between us, no conversation required. When I told my sister about this she actually laughed and said we were being “too black and white,” but, Sugar, I don’t want to think that in twenty-five years I’ll be saying that there were times I didn’t think my husband and I would make it. I want healthy love.

It's funny, because I read that and think "to me it's obvious that you don't understand that people have to work on their relationships, because you ruled out the most common way people have to do so". It's somewhat hard to find statistics on exactly how common it is, but it's somewhere between 30% and 60% of all married individuals will cheat during their relationship.

It's hard to find statistics on it, because everyone has their angle; and unfortunately, because of the nature of the question, that angle is usually "infidelity is evil"... And this is where I have to struggle not to go off onto my pet peeve rant... But that's not even relevant to this discussion, because I'm prejudiced in favour of open and polyamorous relationships anyway. My point is... A tested relationship is provably stronger than an untested one. How can you be happy knowing that you've never had a conflict and therefore not knowing what'll happen when you have one?

One thing you hear a lot after a while is "Oh, we had a perfect relationship! We never fought or disagreed." "Why'd you break up?" "Oh, we had a fight." They don't seem to get it - the measure of a relationship isn't what happens when things are going well, it's what happens when things don't go well.

Ash and I don't fight much. We don't see eye to eye on everything, but we honestly just don't disagree enough on much to actually have many fights. That doesn't mean we haven't fought - we have, usually when one of us feels neglected or misunderstood. But mostly, we talk. We have an interest and a strong desire to keep our relationship intact... And we know that means we have to work to make sure the other person is happy. I have no illusions I meet all her needs; she has no illusions she meets all of mine... And that's fine. We know that, we accept that, we love each other, and our relationship is shaped around it. I have disappointed her and made mistakes; she's done the same to me... And our relationship is stronger because of it. Both because we learned more about each other, and because it's driven home the point that we need to work to keep each other in our lives.

As I think all my readers know, this marriage is my second marriage. My first marriage lasted five years - from 2002 to 2007 - and in hindsight was the product of an immense amount of ignorance on both of our parts. I was naive, thinking I could suppress a lot of my needs and our differences; while she was lying - either to me or to herself - for the entire duration. My ex-wife (let's call her Celia) is gay, and had an extended relationship with her now-wife (let's go with Pat) while we were married. I'm not trying to be difficult by not giving you a number; it's just that, well, I don't know exactly how long it was. I know that the first time Celia told Pat she loved her was about two and a half years into our marriage - and things went downhill from there... Though it took me far too long to admit it. It's unclear when she changed from lying to herself to lying to me... But the entire marriage was based on her running from what she wanted - and my misunderstanding what it was I needed to ask for. The fact that she and I didn't fight for most of our marriage wasn't a sign our relationship was strong; it was a sign our relationship had failed from the beginning, and neither of us was brave or smart enough to admit it.

Most people see the surface, and not the truth; most people see the ideals and not the reality. Relationships aren't as simple as that.

Conversations with a Polygamist

So the lovely and talented Ash found this link I enjoyed:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/caitlincowie/ask-a-polyamorous-person#.etMyMaBpm

which actually is mostly a wrapper around this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o1gsI3e0u4

and is eminently worth watching. I do find myself wondering actively whether BuzzFeed has that many openly poly people on staff, or whether they imported and/or substituted a few for the purposes of this; but either way that video was great. Anyone who has any questions or interest in Poly should go watch it.

No, I'm serious. Go on; I'll wait here. Look, I'll even pause the blog.

...

...

*taps foot, checks watch*

Okay, good? Good.

What I thought when I saw this was "Okay, this is like the ultimate how to answer questions after you come out" video. They hit so many good points, including a number I've harped on before. "What's the difference between Poly and Cheating?" Couldn't be simpler - cheating is against the nature of the relationship, but poly defines the boundaries of the relationship and sets the limits on what is cheating. Why isn't one person enough? You're asking the wrong question, or at least making an assumption. Why isn't one friend enough for you? Oh, you get something different out of all your friends? Do tell. How do you deal with jealousy? The same way most (healthy) monogamous relationships do, just not including the assumption that jealousy is the worst possible thing that could happen to two people.

The comments are worth reading, also - if for no other reason than the sheer lack of bitchiness and stupidity. Really reassuring to not have the ass holes out in force. For once.

All that being said... My favourite line was "Orgies aren't that common. I've been to one; and I spent most of my time in the corner eating Oreos."

A Brief Rant...

I keep up, in my own quaint little way, on kink in the world. I follow a number of groups on Fetlife; I listen to Dan Savage; I follow a couple of blogs; I follow news stories and follow some events as they happen... There's certainly much more I could do to be up-to-date on kink news and culture, but I keep a toe in. And recently, quite a few times, I've come up against someone that has been pushing my buttons; people talking about the fact that they're "Poly" because they have sex with a lot of women. Let me release a small amount of bile; if that's what you're saying, YOU AREN'T POLY.

One definition of polyamoury found online is the following:

The practice, state or ability of having more than one sexual loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved.

To be blunt, if you sleep with a lot of women, you may be open; it's possible you're poly; it's quite likely you're a slut (said in the most friendly, loving way possible); you may be a big stud... But poly is different. Poly is actually maintaining multiple, honest relationships... Not having a huge list of women to call up when you're horny, or being good at picking up men in bars when you're out.

I refer to myself as poly, and I suppose it's a little unfair of me to be so grumpy without differentiating. Fine; I'm poly by nature, without being actively poly right now. There's nothing inherently wrong with having sex a lot - with one person or dozens of people. There's nothing wrong with having one relationship, or five relationships (if you have the energy for it). But for the sanity of those of us who care... Learn what your terms mean? Please?

Maybe It's Rhetorical?

There's this movie trope, which I'm sure most people are familiar with -- the main character, in a beaten down moment, will find themselves inundated with the sound of voices repeating something over and over that perfectly describes the moment at hand. For me, when I'm having an off or bad day, the phrase that ricochets back and forth is, "So why are you even with him? Even with him? With him? Him?" (My mind has an echo, don't mind me.)

It's such a strange phrase given the circumstance of Mike and my relationship, and it's almost invariable said to me by men -- men, who, for the most part, are hoping to land a spot in my pants if things go right. Never mind the fact that I'm in a relationship with a structure that allows me to talk to other people in an otherwise questionable manner. The question haunts me though, as does the implication behind it.

How do you explain to someone *why* you're with someone when your sex drives and interests don't match? How do I say, "everything else is almost perfect for the most part" without sounding like I'm lying or over-exaggerating? How do I make someone understand that sex is important, but not necessarily in this particular relationship? It's such a strange concept to most people.

There's a part of me that is bothered simply because I don't think I would be questioned if I was a guy complaining that my partner/spouse/FWB didn't put out enough. We are raised with the idea that men "only want one thing" and women always have headaches. So not only is it strange to them that *I'm* the one complaining, but the situation itself flies in the face of our societal understanding of women's sexuality.

What's worse is the follow-up to this question, which is usually something along the lines of, "what kind of man can't satisfy you?" This presupposes two things: that Mike isn't "man enough" because he doesn't constantly think with his penis, and two, that it can't be that my sex drive *is* actually pretty far out there (I mean, what kind of pervert must I be if I can't be satisfied by a mere man?!). This line of conversation is actually a serious deal-breaker for me, for a number of reasons.

I can understand that being a secondary for a partnered person is difficult for single people. I have no problem with that. But if I'm going to step away from my primary relationship to give time to someone else, I want them to be respectful of my primary relationship (the same way I want Mike's partners to be respectful of me and I aim to be supportive and encouraging of their relationships as well). If they can't appreciate that I'm not being completely closed off from them despite being married, then I won't even give them the opportunity to be asked "why are you even with her?" from any of THEIR friends.

The second issue I have with the conversation is that I don't appreciate not being taken at my word. I understand we live in a world where a lot of people "put their best foot forward," but I'm too lazy and tired to dick people around like that. If someone presents themselves a specific way, I expect that to be authentic. When I say "I've never dated someone who could exhaust my sex drive," I'm not saying it to brag or titillate anyone. It's simply a fact (one I will explain at a later date, since it's not as straight forward a fact as it sounds, though it's still true), but I get a wink and a nod and a pat on the head -- "suuuuure, sweetie...uh-huh, I believe you..." -- and I'm not into age play, so being treated like an immature child makes me angry.

Sex and intimacy are important to me, and yes, being married to someone who doesn't have the same ideas regarding physical contact is often difficult and frustrating on both sides. But that isn't the end-all-be-all -- I'd rather have the companionship, the similar interests, compatible parenting styles, the laughs, the respect...even if, in the end, we never have standard penis-in-vagina intercourse ever again. I have my toys, I have my options...and I have a husband who makes me laugh and doesn't mind that I find other people attractive.

At the base of it, I'm not sure how anyone would question it. Why would I *not* be with him? I can have my cake and eat it too, more or less. I have a good man at home who loves me enough to say I can go get my needs met elsewhere as needed. Maybe I should just assume that people question it because they're jealous of how awesome my situation is. It's not appreciated, but I can't really blame them.

'Haters gonna hate,' I guess?

Tomorrow is a New Day

So a while back, I found two articles by a woman called Helen Croydon:

http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/04/screw-fairy-tale-it-s-time-rethink-monogamy

and

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118931/monogamy-rare-new-commitment-currency

Anyone who's read any of my blog knows my opinions on open/poly vs. monogamous won't be surprised by the fact that I agree wit most of what they say; still, it's worth looking at it from another perspective. Those numbers in the 2nd paragraph of the 2nd story really scary me... But they don't surprise me. I've encountered that type of thing before; hell, I've been in relationships like that before.

Out of her online survey, 7 people out of 100 said that just thinking about another person was cheating - was unacceptable. This happened to me in my first marriage; my ex-wife was so upset by the thought I might find another woman attractive, without ever saying anything, without ever acting on it... Just the idea that I might find another woman attractive was cheating to her... Which is patently absurd. Not all human thought is conscious. Most human emotion isn't conscious. No human can meet that standard. It may not happen immediately, it may not happen every day, but eventually you'll see someone on TV or walk past someone on the street who happens to push your button; and you'll find tem attractive. It's not like that's a problem; it's not that it's unreasonable. It's that some people are so insecure and jealous that they can't handle human nature.

Relationships are just so... Fragile, these days. Maria made a comment earlier today about "never having had a successful relationship", which I objected to; most people have very poor ideas of how relationships are supposed to work. A relationship not lasting forever is seen as a failure by almost everyone I know; but that's just as absurd as saying that you'll never be attracted to anyone except the person you're with. Relationships start, and relationships end. They change, they evolve, they aren't always recognizable as what they originally were... But most relationships end quickly. Why? Because you're not meant to be together. You get to know each other... And that process indicates you aren't meant to stay forever.

In either of these cases, why has the relationship failed? Because it didn't meet some unrealizable ideal. Our culture has idealized this holy state of "dating" or "being in a relationship", when all it really means is you both get something out of spending time with the other person. And this is where I stumble with respect to monogamy - because I get something out of every relationship I have, not just ones that end up naked and in bed.

I love my friends. In a very real sense, that's how I define friendship; my friends are the people who I care about. I get something out of my relationships with them, or I wouldn't care about them. Some of them are sexual; some of them are platonic. Some are same-sex, some are opposite-sex. Some are based in our professional lives, some are based in our gaming lives, some are based in our kink lives, some are based in our sporting/martial arts lives... They're all different; but they all bring me something else, some value, something better than my life would be without.

As Ash said... Even the labels "monogamous" and "non-monogamous/open/poly" aren't always fair. I didn't go into this relationship, this marriage, intending to be monogamous; or intending to be polyamorous; or even thinking hard about it. I went into this relationship realizing we enjoyed each other, and looking for something stable. In my own geeky pseudo-scientific thoughts, it's a higher-energy stable condition. She had a stable life without me; I had a stable life without her; those two lives went away, and now we have a stable life together. Our life together is better than our lives apart... So we're still together. Not complicated. But my dating and being attracted to other people doesn't change that stability. It doesn't change that our life is still together just because I'm involved with other people. In fact, sometimes it's even better still because we're together and I'm seeing other people.

My need for companionship and my need for a submissive are, for the most part, exclusive. I still choose to believe it's theoretically possible one person could fulfill them both; but I've not found someone who does, not properly. Ash is the best companion I've ever had; my best friend, my lover, my wife, (step-)mother to my child. But she isn't my submissive; and the fact that I don't have one makes me sad. Having a sub fills a hole somewhere in me... And that makes my life better, and - as a result - the lives of everyone I relate to better, even if only indirectly.

It's not a hard concept; it's just hard for people to accept they're not losing something when their boyfriend, or girlfriend, or lover, or spouse also loves someone else. Hearts aren't finite; but brains are jealous. And it's that jealousy, that unwillingness to admit the very lack of loss, that leaves our society where it is today.

Maria is a friend who I lost touch with for many years, and we reconnected essentially by accident. We agreed in principle, a couple of days ago, to negotiating for her to become my slave; a process that, right now, I expect will take a while to sort out. I'm cautious and want to make sure we both understand each other, but I'm excited; this has the potential to be very good for both of us. And Ash? Ash is really excited. She isn't excited because she'll lose some of my time; and she's not yet met Maria, so she's not excited at getting a chance to have this woman around. She's excited because her husband, her love - me - has a chance to have a hole in his life filled, and she knows it's a chance for the life of everyone involved to be a bit better.

I'm very lucky to have this opportunity. Do I know how it's going to work out? No. We may just never be able to come to agreement about what limits and rules we can live with; we may never quite get to the place where we can say "Yes, Maria is my slave and we're both content." But we might; and we like that prospect... And we know that if we don't get there, it isn't a failure for us. There aren't illusions about perfection or permanence, not yet. Hopes? Sure. There always are. But for now... It's one day at a time, as we all work to be in a better place tomorrow.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

A Guest Post...

So Mike mentioned this article (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/25/our-three-way-relationship-isnt-your-business-even-if-were-doing-business) the other day and brought up the dread he felt in response to it, without going into a lot of detail. The main takeaway was the fact that rolling out the inherent threeness of a potential relationship is problematic for him, especially in light of his exwife's inherent conservatism.

For me, though, the dread comes from a totally different angle.

First, like the lesbian married to a man in another article Mike posted recently, I take issue with being automatically assumed to be straight by the simple fact that I am married to a man. I am not a fan of "rounding up/down to heterosexual," leaving me to come out repeatedly to random people whenever the conversation lends itself to it -- for example, when talking about Hooters, my coworker mentioned being a little offended that the waitress had flirted with her in front of her boyfriend, leaving me to point out that not everyone in relationships is unwilling to flirt, and not all women with male partners have issues with ladies flirting with them.

In a lot of ways, I worry about how people would react if Mike and I did find a good match for both of us. For Mike, yes, it could cause issues with his exwife because she might assume our home would be an inappropriate place to raise their child. Meanwhile I know Mike's mother would more or less disown me, to say nothing of my own family, because there was never any option but for this magical third to be anything but some approximation of female given that is where our broad physical interests overlap. There is no real challenge to Mike's image being presented, whereas mine will come under scrutiny considering his first wife turned out to be a closeted lesbian.

When I came out to my immediate family in high school as a liker-of-ladies, my youngest sister was the only one who didn't care. My mother insisted it was a result of sexual abuse and because my *gay* father was also a *bad* father. My dad pretended not to hear me, and my middle sister was disgusted (and conveniently later chose to forget about it entirely). My school friends chose not to believe me, except for the ones I would occasionally make out with. It wasn't an uncommon reaction, but it more or less forced me back in the closet in their eyes: so I have basically been rounding up/down to straight because that's what happens when your family and friends refuse to take your female relationships at face-value.

So there is a serious part of me that feels queasy at the thought of re-coming out, with the lovely added bonus of explaining how Mike's and my marriage works (which could easily be the subject of many a blogpost).

It wouldn't be fair to our potential third to be kept a secret or be treated like a perpetual roommate, but I would be lying if I didn't admit the whole thing is as terrifying as it seems potentially wonderful. I can't tell if my concern would keep me from pursuing something, but it would certainly affect how I made people aware of the situation when it became serious enough to matter. I get enough grief for not being threatened by the idea of Mike having freedoms and using them (even though I have the same freedoms and generally don't take advantage of them) that I cannot imagine the response to admitting our relationship involves a third person.

Ultimately, it's all speculation until it becomes a reality. I have little faith we will find a good fit (Mike and I have very different needs/wants in our partners), but until then, maybe I should start putting money aside for a bigger bed since they are pretty expensive...but would be totally worth it when the time came.

-Ash.

Ash sent me this link a few days ago:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/25/our-three-way-relationship-isnt-your-business-even-if-were-doing-business

...I worry about this. This is something I dread. I mean, it's not like we have a third, or someone that might be moving in any time soon; but it's something we've talked about, something we're aware may happen if we find the right person. And this is something that may happen. Worse, I'm going to consciously make the choice to inflict this on us, because of my ex...

I've gone on and on about this on a couple of other posts, so I won't go on a rant on it. But this is my thought for the day.

Christopher Ryan on Sex

The below quote is from Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn (B&N Link, Amazon Link), and is actually transcribed from the Savage Lovecast - forgive me, I don't have the episode number handy but a quick Google search makes me think it was 194 or 210, probably 194. Anyway! This is a book that's on my reading shelf and I've just been very slow to get to; it would have been ideal to read and review with the series of Poly entries I've been working through, but I simply haven't been reading much lately except on my phone - physical books have been suffering in favour of puzzle magazines and 3DS games.

Either way... When I was listening I ended up transcribing this quote because it struck me so much. This is very much how I feel - love is about the two of you growing old together and sharing your life, and not necessarily about getting a good fucking. Sex is great, orgasms are lovely, but they aren't - have not been - never will be - the most important thing to me... Even though that puts me (us!) in the minority.

The beauty of... Y'know, people say the book's not about... Ah, they talk about love, y'know. Jealousy is one issue, and then "what about Love", y'know, "you people are discounting love". But the thing about love... I don't know, maybe this will sound arrogant or something, but real love isn't about sex. If you're lucky enough in your life to find "love", you realize how relatively unimportant sex is, and you realize that you would never walk away from love for a blow job.

[...]

Y'know love is about getting old together, it's about raising a child together, it's about sharing your life. It's not about orgasms, and so many people confuse that; they think that, y'know, good sexual chemistry is love. Good sexual chemistry is a reason to, you know, sign onto a lifetime together, and then a few years down the road they find they've made a big mistake. So even though our book is about sex ostensibly, one of the points we're trying to make in the book is that people take sex way too seriously; and y'know; and we can chill about sex, we can have fun with sex, it doesn't always have to be sacred. It's like music; sometimes it is sacred, sometimes you heard god in the Bach toccata; but other times it's just for dancing and having a good time.

Anyway. For now, I'll leave this entry here; a lazy entry for a lazy holiday weekend, and depart with the promise that when I do read the book I'll review it fully for you in the blog. Hope you all had a great Labour Day!

Friday Rant - Polygamy Et Al

In a news article that couldn't have been better timed if I'd planned it:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/polygamy-is-legal-in-utah-for-now

A Utah judge ruled that the law making polygamy illegal in Utah was unconstitutional. This has been around for a while and this is actually the conclusion of an appeal, not the original judgement. See here:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56894145-78/utah-polygamy-waddoups-ruling.html.csp

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/14/justice/utah-polygamy-law/

...Well, actually, it's not quite that simple. It isn't "Polygamy"; it's cohabitation. The judge struck it down because, essentially, there are already laws to prosecute bigamy; there are already laws to prosecute abuses inflicted on partners, especially under-age partners, in certain forms of polygamous marriages (the famous "marrying 14- and 15-year-old girls to 50+-year-old religious leaders" thing which has gotten some Mormon sects a lot of bad press); and Utah does not prosecute adultery or adulterous cohabitation... So prosecuting "religious cohabitation" when no other crimes have been committed is unconstitutional. It's an interesting spin from part of the media on what, underneath, is really a decision based around religious discrimination.

According to Wikipedia (and who doesn't trust the Oracle? *cough*) there are now three states that have anti-cohabitation laws - Mississippi, Florida, and Michigan - and there's some level of expectation that if/when they're challenged they're going to be struck down due to various precedents. When it comes down to it, though, these laws are ones that are generally totally ignored except in particular cases; Utah in particular was famous for totally ignoring their cohabitation law in the case of couples and only using it to threaten polyamorous families - such as the "Sister Wives" case in the original link. It's all part of the same prejudice - the idea that a coupled relationship is "normal", even when it's technically in violation of the law. The total lack of acceptance... But worse, the totally *unthinking* lack of acceptance. It's not even an active discrimination on most cases; it's just the blithe assumption that since it's abnormal it can't be accepted.

I mentioned when I linked the video this week I was going to refer back to it; so let me tie it in here. Right near the beginning at 1:17 is a woman (one of their experts - even re-watching it, I didn't catch her name) talking about BDSM "pretty much being about kinky sex". At 32:35, Hudsy Hawn talks about how important it is to "Let yourself go and role-play." The video was specifically referring to BDSM and power exchange, but the same general attitude is endemic to all of kink - whether it be BDSM, poly relationships, asexuality, or something else. If it's not something you personally believe in or understand, all too often it's "fantasy" or "make-believe"... And frankly, this is an attitude that drives me frigging crazy. Do some people get involved in kink, BDSM, Poly, or something else as "play"? As just something to fool around with? Absolutely. I'm even willing to go so far as to say most people involved feel that way. But even in the video it contradicts itself - one of the couples there are a permanent, married, 24/7 Dom/sub relationship complete with negotiated contract. Parts of their relationship - that contract - may not be protected by law, but that doesn't make it "not real".

It's not just BDSM. Too many people look at poly or open relationships and just call it "cheating" or "unworkable" or "selfish" or "a phase". Too many people look at asexual relationships and say "Oh, if they don't want sex they don't want a relationship, they just want a friend"... When what's really going on is that they have every bit as much desire to be loved, wanted, protected, held close as any other person - they just can't relate to what most people assume about relationships.

Funnily enough, this is the root of my single large disagreement with Dan Savage. He constantly refers to BDSM as "Cops and Robbers for adults with their pants off", which - as I said above - is true enough (in a glib sense) for most BDSM relationships but totally discounts a significant minority of the culture. Similarly he frequently discounts asexual folk because to him the sexual relationship is the center of the relationship, and so a missing sexual relationship means the more general relationship is almost invalid from the start. For someone who's so open, so - to use his term - GGG about almost everything, it's such a strange blind spot to me.

It's astounding to me the blind spots that people don't seem to see they have. Even many of my most progressive friends and family, who are rabidly in favour of freedom for same-sex marriage and gay adoption and all sorts of similar things - just get skeeved out by the idea of either a coupled relationship with a demi- or asexual partner... Or a permanent, committed relationship with more than two members... Or a permanent D/s relationship.

It doesn't help that something like a permanent D/s relationship is very hard to enshrine in law, and rightfully so. Asexual relationships are - for the most part - already supported by law; not having sex, or having a modified sex life, isn't normally a cause for the relationship being invalidated or ignored. Poly relationships are essentially totally unsupported in Western civilization; unless the relationship is a monogamous couple it's either ignored or banned. Many of the same problems found here by same-sex couples apply to multiple partnerships, just in a slightly stranger way; if Ash and I did end up in a relationship with a third, if we settled into a family with someone else, and I ended up in the hospital or - god forbid - dead, Ash would be the only one with any rights or protections. If a poly triangle has a child, two of them are the legal parents as well as the biological parents - and the third  If the same family decides to adopt a child, it's actually one couple that is adopting the child and the third has no rights at all... And the fact there's a third adult in the house may be looked at seriously askance when being interviewed for the adoption. Poly legal issues really are directly parallel, with only a fraction of the attention.

A D/s relationship, though, is usually a formalization of removing part of someone's rights - and I doubt there's any viable way to enshrine that into law without offering significant risk of abuse... If we're ever able to make it past the revulsion most people have when you bring up "no, I don't just mean for play - like, for real." One thing that Ash has brought up with me is that when you start talking submissives, start talking long-term permanent Master/slave relationships, the only real comparison most people have had is the looming spectre of slavery that still even these days hangs over race relations in the US; forced sexual slavery of women being trafficked around the world; and, these days, the 50 Shades trilogy which enshrines an abusive relationship in the trappings of BDSM and tries to make it sexy. None of them are very positive examples... But they're the only examples too many people have.

This has been a very rough week for me. I know I'm essentially just very deep in my own head, but it's been very difficult to shake off a lot of depression, and a big chunk of it is centered around this discussion. People who are okay with BDSM may not be okay with poly or demisexual; people who are okay with poly may not be okay with BDSM or demisexual; people who are fine with demisexual may be totally freaked out by BDSM or poly; and very few of any of them are okay with my limits surrounding my ex-wife and the trouble it will inevitable cause me if I'm fully open about most of this. Just that look of disgust, or that dreaded "...Oh, I see" when you're talking to them... Or even just that sympathetic look when they're trying to explain why you're wrong and assuming you don't understand them when really you understand them perfectly well and are just exhausted of being patronized. It's very easy to fall into despair and fear at never finding someone who can look at you and meet your needs and fit into your life and never give you that look... Of never finding a place where you feel like you fit in because you're just a little bit too far over the edge for anyone around you to ever be comfortable with you, or for you to be comfortable with yourself.

When it comes down to it I know it's just fear and not rational, but I don't have an answer to this one except to keep the faith.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Polyamoury and Asexuality

So my last entry was originally going to be the end of my little Polyamoury series, but Ash asked me a question last week I decided to include... Specifically in what way - if any - does asexuality relate to or affect polyamoury? And the short answer is "frequently, very well". First, lets just say that there's no reason at all an asexual-scale person can't be in a polyamorous relationship.

The biggest place where they interact is in the area of jealousy. It's not always a positive effect or not always a negative one, but the effect is almost always there. That's because jealousy - depending on the person - can come from different sources; some people get far more jealous over emotional involvement from their partners with other people, while some people get far more jealous over physical involvement from their partners. In the latter case, an asexual partner may remove jealousy from the equation; while in the former, it may be even worse than normal because the relationship is *purely* emotional.

The second really big place where they're going to interact is that - with less or no sexual contact - some of the complications simply disappear. If there is no intercourse involved (no sex or non-intercourse sex), then there's no risk of pregnancy from that partner and significantly reduced risk of disease transmission.

This isn't a rule, of course. Let's say that Alice the asexual woman and Bob the non-asexual guy are married, and the relationship is open so that Bob can satisfy his sex drive somewhere else. If he isn't smart about it (and let's face it, how many guys act smart when sex is involved?) he can *introduce* an enormous amount of risk by being exposed to diseases or risking pregnancies that would not exist at all in a typical relationship with an asexual partner. Common sense still applies.

One discussion I had with an asexual woman from California on Fetlife about the subject brought up the idea that to her, finding a couple to bond to was actually ideal. She's asexual but not aromantic, and wants very much to be part of a partnership in the same way as all her friends - but because she can't offer the physical side of it, is afraid she'll never find what she's looking for... Afraid that any partner she has will not have their needs met and be unhealthy as a result. In that respect, a polyamorous or open relationship is the best of all worlds; the chance for an asexual person to have the attachment they may need while their partner(s) still have all their needs fulfilled.

At the end of it, though, there's the fact that for someone like me - who enjoys sexual acts sometimes, even if intercourse just isn't my thing and my sex drive is lower than most folks' - there's not a really strong difference there... Or at least, any difference is a matter of quantity and not type. My "relationships" are almost always at least partially sexual, even if that sexuality doesn't necessarily match the societal norm in most cases. Rather, my poly nature is almost more a product of my asexuality; my view of relationships (which I've gone over before) tends to remove a lot of the barriers to having multiple partners vs. a single monogamous partner.

So how does asexuality work with polyamoury? Quite well, thank you. It changes things... But no more than it changes any monogamous relationship; and in my experience, polyamoury actually makes asexual relationships easier to maintain!

Won't You Think of the Children?

So one subject that comes up a lot in the area of polyamoury is the question of children when their parents are poly. For that matter, it comes up a lot in many non-standard relationships, but - in my experience at least - poly is the place it comes up most outside of homosexual couples. The question as it relates to same-sex couples, though is a major conversation point in media, drawing fire from both sides; while the children of poly families don't get much screen time. The discussion - to some level - does show up both in media and news, with shows like Sister Wives and the recent news stories about the United Effort Plan out in Utah/Arizona, but even when the focus shifts to the children from the parents it's all too often about child abuse, inappropriate living environments, and similar problems. So what's the real deal with children in poly relationships? The answer, possibly surprisingly, is "very little that isn't also true of every other relationship out there".

Children of polyamorous relationships really, for the most part, don't live significantly different lives than children of non-polyamorous relationships any more. There are variations from "traditional" families but - with a drastically higher divorce and multiple-marriage rate, the increasing legality of same-sex couples, and partners who form families while never marrying - poly folk hardly have a monopoly on that at this point. Lets address a few of those points - arguments I've heard or read in my research - specifically.

1) "Raising kids in a family with three or more parents is confusing/dangerous for the kids." This has been said directly to me, and is so absurd I don't even know where to start. I've never seen statistics on it but I'm 100% convinced a "standard two-parent family", when it comes to child-raising, is an almost total myth. Single parents and divorced-and-remarried parents are incredibly common at this point. My son has four parents - his biological mother, his biological mother's wife, me (his biological father), and my wife. Even ignoring the marriage statistics, though, parenting is not a biological function - it's a tribal function. "It takes a village to raise a child" may be trite, but it's accurate; most children have siblings, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, cousins, family friends, teachers, coaches, and dozens of other folks impacting their upbringing - having two parents isn't magical, and can't be considered in isolation. Imagining that a close-knit, faithful three-person parenting group is somehow inherently less stable or correct than two parents is ignorant and arrogant to the extreme.

2) "You'll never know whether the kids are yours or one of the other men's." First, this assumes a level of fluid bonding which isn't necessarily normal - a woman having unprotected sex with multiple men. If that's what's going on, and I assume everyone involved knows about it, you're literally laying your own bed here. Second, paternity tests - they're damned cheap at this point. Walmart sells them for $25. If it means that much to you, or there's a specific financial/legal reason you need to know, find out. Third, there's a difference between biological paternity and family. Ash may have zero biological relation to my son, but she's an amazing mother to him - the extent of how well her and my parenting styles mesh is one of the reasons we got married. If you're in a poly family, worry more about bringing the kids up in a safe and healthy manner and less about whose child they are.

3) "Raising kids from multiple parents together can confuse them." Again, how is this any different from half-siblings or step-siblings from parents with a second marriage? Or children being raised in close proximity to cousins? Children make their family with the people around them. It doesn't matter if they're related or unrelated; it matters who they love and who loves them.

4) "Open/poly relationships are a bad example for the children, teaching them unhealthy relationship patterns." This is one of those arguments which is sortof half-true and can be hard to fight, but the real answer is that *unhealthy relationships* teach children bad relationship patterns - this argument is no more than prejudicially classifying "poly" as "bad" or "unhealthy". In my experience and research, the average open/poly relationship is *more* healthy than your average monogamous one because of a combination of more communication between the members of the relationships and the higher likelihood that everyone's needs are being met. A healthy poly or open relationship is no worse - in fact, probably better - an example for children than multiple sequential healthy monogamous relationships, and is far *better* for them than an unhealthy monogamous relationship. Put the blame where it really belongs.

5) "Children make open/poly relationships impossible to keep discreet." This objection always makes me laugh because of the number of times I've encountered or read about poly relationships who thought their kids were ignorant that "mommy's friend" or "mommy and daddy's roommate" was actually sleeping with them, only to find out that little Mary or Johnny knew all along. This isn't a new thing; parents have always had things they wanted to keep from their children. Affairs are the obvious one - daddy's little piece on the side or mommy's "wrestling" with the pool boy while daddy's at work - but it doesn't even have to be sinister. A divorced/widowed parent may not want their child to know about a new boy/girlfriend. A gay or bi parent - especially if the child is from a previous hetero marriage - may not want their child to know about their sexual orientation. A kinky parent may not want their child to find out about the dungeon in the basement. This isn't a new problem. The real answer here is "good parenting". Also this is closely related to...

6) "It's unfair to make kids keep secrets from family/friends/authority figures." This one is 100% true; it *is* grossly unfair to them, and telling them to keep it secret isn't the answer. If it's desperately important that someone not know about your relationship and you're unwiling or unable to keep it secret from your kids... Don't. Like I said before, if it's something you need to keep secret... Seriously consider if it's something you should be doing at all. It may not be fair to you to restrict you from being a family with your loved ones... But the other side of that is the cost of openly doing what you should be allowed to do.

Both these last ones here are very close to home for me. My son doesn't know Ash and I are open, or that I'm poly by nature. The closest we've ever gotten to addressing it was commenting on "Dad going out with a friend", which is about as innocent as it gets. Similarly, he doesn't know I'm kinky. This is partly because he's only 8, too young to truly understand all of the aspects of it... But it's more because I don't want to put him in a position of needing to keep secrets from his mother to protect me. His mother knows I'm kinky and knows I'm poly by nature (she does not, to the best of my knowledge, know that Ash and I are open), and it's something she has threatened to use against me in court before. For better or for worse, the courts are as a rule not friendly towards poly situations. It may come across as selfish, but I will say with 100% certainty that I'm protecting all of us - Ash, myself, my son and all our relationships - by simply avoiding the fight, because even if the courts take no steps as a reaction to that revelation the extra stress between his parents can be nothing but bad for the boy.

Right now, with no permanent partner in the picture, it's not hard to just totally divorce those two parts of my life. If at some point we *do* have a permanent third partner living with us... In the short term, my son is only with me part time, and that third partner will be Mike and Ash's roommate. And in the long term, when I think both he's old enough to fully understand the conversation and there's no real risk of retaliation from his mother finding out, he'll know the truth - the whole truth.

Children complicate things - they always do. It's your responsibility as a parent to do the best for them that you can. Always remember that kids learn what they're taught - if you teach them that being open or poly is something to be ashamed of, that's what they'll know; and if you teach them nothing more complicated that the third or fourth person are nothing more than family, that's how they'll grow up. It isn't any different from any other relationship, when you get back down to it; not a single issue children raise are unique to poly relationships. All of them are shared by gay parents, or divorced parents, or widowed parents, or even just traditional purely two-parent families. Don't over-complicate the issue - just raise them as any other child should be raised, and you'll be fine.

The Shape of Polyamoury

One of the things I've done repeatedly in the last few entries is refer to both "open and poly" relationships, and most of the things I've said apply to both. Open and Poly relationships, though, are really radically different things.

An open relationship really means nothing more than that one or more of the people involved is free to date or pursue other people - that being in one or more relationships (of any level of commitment) does not rule out pursueing other relationships. In and of itself, calling a relationship "open" does not apply any specific structure or type of structures to the underlying relationships; and it can be on top of almost any other relationship. A poly relationship can be open, if one ore more of the partners is free to pursue other people; so can an otherwise monogamous relationship, and in fact an open nature can lead from being monogamous to becoming polyamorous.

Being open also can have multiple meanings. It may mean that the open partners only pursue sex with other people - this includes swinging, generally. It may mean the open partners pursue only non-sexual behaviours with other people; dating, activities, emotional connections, but no sexual contact that may generate insecurities or health risks. This is particularly common in kinky or partially-kinky situations - a Dom or Domme married to a vanilla spouse with an exclusive sexual relationship, but having submissives or play partners on the side to indulge their non-vanilla interests, for example.

The real big distinction between open and poly, however, comes when one of those relationships itself becomes committed - and one or more of the partners finds themself in two relationships. In fact, I'm going to stick with that for my definitions:

-An open relationship is one where one or more of the partners are free to pursue other people in a non-committed manner, with whatever limitations or restrictions are agreed to between the committed partners.

-A poly relationship is where at least one member of a committed relationship is in fact in at least two committed relationships.

The line can get fuzzy sometimes in the middle; after all, not everyone has strong distinctions between "dating/non-committed" and "dating/committed". That line is incredibly subjective, and may even be seen as committed by one partner and non-committed by the other. That's fine - I'm still going to stick with those answers.

Poly relationships, on the other hand, are generally much more clearly defined; their structure depends heavily on the exact nature of the relationships involved. The most common structures are what are typically known as "vees" and "triads". A vee is three people, where one (the "pivot", as I've heard them called) has relationships with both of the others, but those others do not have a committed relationship with each other. This may be a person dating two people; may be a married couple plus a third long-term secondary partner or girlfriend/boyfriend for one of them. It's distinct from a triad in that in a vee there are two people who aren't involved with each other. Please note, this doesn't mean they don't have a relationship with each other and aren't invested in each other; it means they aren't involved with each other. In most healthy triads, those two people are friends, talk, may even be very close; they just aren't a couple.

A triad, of course, is then a group of three people who are all involved with each other - that uninvolved pair are involved - and otherwise shares a lot of features with a triad. Sometimes one pair of them will be married, sometimes not; sometimes the triad or vee act as a single married unit even though at least one of those folks will not have legal protections around their involvement.

Both vees and triads come in all sorts of combinations. Depending on their orientations and preferences, it could be three men, two men and a woman, two women and a man, or three women... The only restriction, obviously, is that a relationship involving three straight women or three straight men won't be a sexual one.

Beyond vees and triads, the next most common arrangement is a quad - four people. The arrangements of relationships inside the quad can be... Complex. It could be a single pivot with three committed partners; it could be the "swinging model", where two couples also exchange partners, creating a "square quad"; it could be a committed (married or not) pair where each of them has another partner, creating a "U"; it could be four people all involved with each other... The number of possible compositions is staggering, especially when you take into account different combinations of male/female and gay/straight/bi/pansexual.

The next major organization is what I've commonly seen referred to as a "Star"; a core group of however many (I've heard of core star groups from 2-5, but there's no reason it couldn't be more depending on the people involved), where most or all of them have additional relationships "radiating out" from the center. A "U" quad is really a very small 2-core star, but the core can be larger.

After that... I mean, if I wanted to I could go on for days about all the possible arrangements. Poly relationships can be small, tight-knit groups or sprawling interconnected tribes and everything in between; You just need to always remember that the "right" size and structure for a poly relationship is the one that works best for the people in it.

...And the Light Side

So obviously not everything about polyamoury is bad. It's very easy for me to dwell on the downsides of poly relationships; not because I've suffered so terribly with it (in the grand scheme of things, I haven't), not because of the terrible relationships my friends have had (though at least one has - had, soon, we hope - a really neglective punk of a husband I'm not a fan of)... Just because I've seen and heard of too many cases where one person just blithely jumps into a poly relationship, convinced it's the best thing they could ever do and totally unaware of the consequences... Usually ending in less sadness and more anger. So I'm always very cautious.

That being said, I don't want to sound like I'm down on it - from my comments about my own life it should be obvious I'm not, since I'm functionally open/poly myself. When they're healthy, poly relationships really do have a huge upside. So why are people poly? Why are people open? What do they get out of it? It varies from person to person, and also frequently varies between open and poly relationships,  but here are a few things.

To some people, being in an open or poly relationship is a nigh-endless source of "new relationship energy" - or NRE, as it's usually referred to. Meeting a new person can be a huge rush. Getting to know them, exploring them, finding out how you mesh and merge can really charge a person up, and it's almost like an addiction. Some people do it to continue to get that feeling.

Some people do it to meet different needs. My need for companionship, for example, is generally separate from my needs around sadism and dominance; getting them all fully met with a single person is... Not incredibly likely. Most everyone has different needs in different areas and at different times... And sometimes, it just makes more sense to meet them with different people.

Another rather obvious possible reason is that of variety. Some people, for lack of a better way to put it, get bored easily. Continueing to date openly to keep that variety going, for some people, is about the only way to make a permanent relationship with someone else viable. The only alternatives, to some people, are being single or cheating; and there's nothing inherently wrong with a person being functionally unable to be monogamous, just like there's nothing inherently wrong with a person being functionally unable to be polyamorous.

Some people - especially those in long-term, close-knit relationships - do it because of the extra support it can generate. In a lot of healthy relationships, your girlfriend or wife or significant other is your greatest supporter and biggest source of external strength; if  you have two partners instead of one, they can each be a similar source of the same strength and support. This means, of course,  in relationships with more than two people when one is upset or sick there are more people to take care of them; and when one *isn't* in the mood, you're far more likely to have someone to fool around with...

The most basic thing that I've seen or experienced, though, that people get out of being poly is simply expressing their natural feelings. In any monogamous relationship people have to suppress feelings for those who aren't their primary partner; an open or poly relationship usually takes that restriction away and allows for far more honesty between the people involved.

So yes, as long as the relationship is healthy - by mostly the same definition as I would use to describe a healthy monogamous relationship - and whatever complications it brings, there's a lot of benefit you can get from a poly relationship. People may or may not agree, but to me it's worth the trouble.

The Dark Side of Poly

Jealousy is one of the most endemic human conditions you'll ever encounter; it frequently astounds me how much so. I've been more or less held hostage by past girlfriends (and my ex-wife), being forced to disassociate from female friends in order to preserve my relationship. It's astounding what you can be convinced makes sense by someone you're attracted to or invested in, especially when you're insecure and confronted by the handicap of a confused or mistaken sexual identity.

I really have very little idea how much this happens to other people outside my immediate experience, but it's been endemic to one degree or another in my own relationship history and that of the people I grew up with. The worst was my ex-wife - about whom I could, were I feeling unusually masochistic that day, go on for hours - but it's happened with numerous other girlfriends as well, on dozens of individual occasions. So many people live in a haze of restrictions and problems and jealousy, and it's so normal in our relationship that half they time they don't even realize it.

Being poly doesn't really solve any of those issues - unsurprisingly, it makes them worse for all sorts of reasons. A lot of glib comments about poly folk having it great and lots of sex and no problems and... It's all so crazy. And for today, I thought I'd address a few of them.

The biggest one, unsurprisingly, is jealousy; and this is honestly the one that stops more people than anything else from being in open relationships. It can be difficult to see the person you're with be with someone else. The reaction from many folk when confronted by the idea of their partner being with other people is "Why am I not good enough for them?"... A question which is sure to start a fun conversation.

The problem here, of course, is that sometimes that *is* the answer; but that's less of an indictment than it may at first appear. It's... Hard to find someone who will meet all your needs. Not just because compromise is a major part of relationships; but more simply because so many people have partially or wholly conflicting needs. There's nothing wrong with getting parts of your needs met by different people... Until jealousy kicks in and those people conflict with each *other*.

Unfortunately, in many cases there's going to be very little you can do about this. Most jealousy is - at its heart - the product of insecurity, so sometimes this can be resolved simply by proving the person's fear is unfounded. This isn't always a viable option, though - sometimes the insecurity is too deeply seated.

Never forget that this type is feeling is valid. One of the biggest problems I've encountered with poly folk in the past is the idea that everyone either is or should be poly. You'd think that with the level of intolerance poly practitioners meet in some areas, they'd be more accepting in their own right - less intolerant of *monogamous* folk.

Poly isn't for everyone. Some people (some tiny minority) really do find a perfect partner who meets all their needs... And of the vast majority where that isn't true, many do find a partner they're perfectly content compromising for. Relationships, partnering, is compromise; you're sharing your life with someone else, and it won't always be exactly what you wanted or assumed. Maybe the person's unwillingness or discomfort with being in a poly relationship is insecurity; or jealousy; or fear; or possessiveness; or discouraging past experience; or social conditioning; or any of a number of other possible things. No matter how invalid it may be *in your own mind*, remember that it's valid *to them*. You have the right to disagree - hopefully respectfully - and discuss it, even try to sway them to your point of view... But they have the right not to change their minds.

Monogamous folks, whatever the reason they choose to be that way, have every much as right to be monogamous as poly folk do to be polygamous. Failing to respect that is just sad hypocrasy.

Beyond those emotions, however, there are still other problems with poly relationships; and the next biggest one is the sheer amount of work it takes. Relationships take *work*. You have to put effort into maintaining all of your relationships. Depending on the exact nature of those relationships, maybe it's not hard; having one primary partner and a large number of tertiary partners is perfectly viable, for example. Partners who lean towards being purely sexual or activity-based relationships rather than emotionally attached partners tends to take less effort - just time. The more involved you are with your partners, however, the more of an investment you have in the person, the more thinly spread you become having multiple partners.

This isn't really something you necessarily need to fix; it's more accurate to say that this helps shape your relationships. I'm not currently dating anyone; but when I am dating someone it eats up time. I spend time talking with them, texting them, concentrating on them, actually physically going out with them, just as I do with Ash. Of course for me and my occasionally-confusing demisexual nature the line isn't quite so clearly defined (my motivations and relationships are just different than most), but the same applies to any polygamous person with their own quirks and differences.

Communication in a poly relationship, of course, gets far more complicated. It's bad enough trying to keep abreast of everything when you only have one primary partner; trying to give that level of attention to two primary partners (or a primary and one or more secondary partners) is far more complicated.

The last big downside I'll mention is that being in a poly relationship - even if, or especially if, you're the monogamous partner of a poly person rather than directly poly yourself - imposes entirely new problems on you that you may never encounter in another relationship. Things like dealing with the downside of your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend's "NRE" (New Relationship Energy, the rush they get when they get a new girlfriend/boyfriend), or dealing with their significant other's breakup.

Break-ups can be exceptionally ugly in poly relationships depending on exactly how it falls out. With a couple or monogamous pair, if there's a breakup, there's normally no really complicated emotional entanglements to sort out. It may be painful, the two of you may not agree... But once the decision for the relationship to dissolve is made, it only *directly* affects the two of you. In a poly relationship, the possibility exists for a relationship to *partially* dissolve, and this gets incredibly complicated incredibly quickly. If my three fake poly folk Alfred, Bobby and Christine are in a relationship, and Alfred and Bobby decide to cut off their ties... What happens? Does it transition from a triad to a V? Does either Alfred or Bobby leave entirely, changing the threesome into a couple? What if Christine's relationships with both men are still strong - does it convert to a vee? Does the entire relationship end and dissolve entirely? You end up in a situation where your relationship with a single person is intimately tied to your relationship with someone else, and they can affect each other in ways monogamous folk are not confronted with.

When it comes down to it, this category isn't really drastically different from things you may encounter with your friends and family; being poly just drags it into relationships in a way that doesn't happen to monogamous folk. It's the same problems, but more... Intimate and possibly intense. New wrinkles on the same issues you've always had.

The summary here, of course, is that being polygamous (successfully and fairly, at least) isn't easy; it's work, it's difficult, and it's not for everyone. Never forget your communication, never forget the feelings of the people you're with, and never forget they have a right to those feelings! If you make sure everyone's needs are being met, it'll work out. Just never forget that some days, "working out and meeting everyone's needs" means breaking up, if your needs indicate another partner or poly relationship, while their needs exclude it. Be honest with yourselves, address it carefully but directly, and you'll find a place that's best for both of you.

My Impression of a Dictionary

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Opening Up Your Mind

On the first of my five overnight business trips, back in May, my coworker (who was driving me) and I had a very long conversation on the way there and back. We had a good 4-5 hours of driving and topics roved from books to movies to music to work to relationships to hobbies to houses to our ex-marriages. It was obvious on the way out I'd said something that confused her slightly, though, and on the way back I managed to figure out what it was. She'd asked a question and I'd responded with a comment about my "girlfriend", and to other questions I'd answered with comments about my "fiance", and there was enough of a conflict in the responses that she'd gotten confused. On the way home I asked her, and figured out what had happened - and I clarified by explaining the fact that the girlfriend I was referring to was not the same person as my fiance.

She was in many ways way more okay with it than I'd been expecting. She's now the second person at work who knows the situation, and it really was a bit of a risk; she's definitely more conservative than some. She took it remarkably well, though; she wasn't willing to at least openly object to it. It may be telling that she's carefully avoided the subject ever since. Which is fine; most people really aren't entirely comfortable with the idea. She was remarkably open about discussing it rationally rather than just reacting badly. For better or for worse, the idea of an open relationship or being polyamorous really isn't one that most people even understand very well.

Our US culture is very firmly rooted in the concept of monogamy, mostly because... Well, maybe I'll try to dodge most of the really controversial commentary at least for this entry. The fact remains that the general assumption up front in the dating scene and most relationships is one of monogamy. It doesn't help that "monogamy" means different things to different people. This is the first problem people run up against - misunderstandings or different understandings - but it's certainly not the last.

So what exactly is "cheating"? What constitutes breaching monogamy? Ask different people, and the following may or may not be allowed:

• Staring at another person
• Finding another person attractive
• Developing feelings for another person
• Flirting with another person
• Being close/best friends with someone who could be a potential love interest (bi/pan-sexuals have it rougher on this one...)
• Become "emotionally involved" with someone else (e.g. fall in love with them)
• Hugging another person
• Cuddling another person
• Being sexually involved with another person
• Have a "relationship" with another person (e.g. dating)

I think it's fairly obvious that the ones near the end are "cheating" on a monogamous relationship, but some of them aren't even - in my opinion - under control of the person in question. Sure, no matter how I feel about someone, I can avoid getting naked and having sex with another woman; but how could I possibly control whether or not I find someone attractive? And yet, with a number of my past relationships - including my marriage - just finding someone else attractive was considered "emotionally cheating".

You know, it's funny to me how much easier my current relationship is than so many of my relationships in the past. Even if we didn't have an open relationship Ash and I would at least be able to talk about it, which seems to be a rare commodity in general. It's somehow comforting to be able to discuss attractive women we see - our tastes are different but overlap, so it's occasionally also amusing. But Ash is willing to admit that there's a lot of factors here not in our control, and that's a good place to start.

If I pass a sexy woman in the street, I notice. Most people do. The fact that she's a body type I like is an objective statement. If I notice her, the fact that I find her attractive is also an objective statement. The first place my actual judgement, my conscious choice, comes in is when I respond to that fact. I can just ignore it; I can be creepy and stare; I can strike up a conversation and flirt; or any of a number of other possible things... But why would you judge someone on the pieces not under their control? Why would you hold how someone *else* looks against your partner?

Be willing to talk. Be willing to discuss and be open to the fact that you aren't the only person your partner will ever possibly be attracted to on any level. Very few people get married to and die with their first ever girlfriend; if you were even the second person they dated, it should be blatantly obvious that there were other options out there. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that fact! There's nothing wrong with being human... And part of being human is other people. Remember that, and your relationships will probably be far happier.

Book Review: Opening Up

I just finished Opening Up, by Tristan Taormino (Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1128665.Opening_Up), and I'll admit that - as a first choice for a book to review here - I'm really happy with my choice. The thing is, though, once I finished it I found it hard to figure out how to review it... Mostly because I was an indifferent English student at best, and I just agreed with way too much of what it said. Going through the book, there were only one or two concepts I was not already conscious of and comfortable with; the main difference was her terminology, where she may use a different word or phrase than I did.

Tristan Taormino is an excellent author who writes in an approachable yet intelligent manner, and I was instantly comfortable with how she presented all the information. She found and interviewed a number of people in all forms of poly relationships as source, as well as seeking out all sorts of academic and popular books on the subject. Tristan lays out all the topics in a logical, well-ordered manner, splitting them up by chapter and addressing each concept in order; with relevant quotes and excerpts from her interviewees, each segment is easy to understand and easily relatable.

The biggest concept I'd never really heard of before is the idea of compersion, or taking joy in the joy of a loved one - essentially the antonym of schadenfreude. When it comes to polyamoury, it's a major part of many - if not most - functional relationships. If you aren't happy and comfortable with the idea of people getting joy externally to their immediate relationship with you, it's all too easy to fall into jealousy.

At its heart, Opening Up has everything you need to introduce anyone to all the major and most of the minor ideas involved in polyamoury. If you're new to it as a lifestyle, or simply want to ground some of your thoughts, this is a great book for you; more to the point, though, this is an excellent book to use to introduce other people who aren't involved to your lifestyle. I'd recommend this to anyone who is looking to learn more about it, and its approachable nature makes it perfect for someone trying to figure all of this out.

The Casual Perv

The articles Ash pointed me about about the poly trio's marriage have definitely set the theme for my this side of my thoughts for the week. The tone of them was a little... Strange to me, but I haven't been able to put my finger on it. Still, vague sensation of discomfort aside, I love what they represent - their brazen disregard for society's pressure - and their bravery in doing it. They talked about the fact that Kitten's father had stopped talking to her for a while when she came out to him, and how important it was to her that they'd reconnected in time for this to happen.

I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday buying a book - "The Ethical Slut" by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, if you're curious - and at some point was struck by the hilarity of the situation. Here I am paranoidly separating my kink-focused and professional lives pretty strictly online, so I spend my lunch break walking through a store at the mall with dozens of people looking at me, holding a book with a provocative title and then having an in-depth, intimate relationship with the cashier on the subject:

"Did you find everything you were looking for?"

*hands her the book* "Yup."

"Do you have a membership with us?"

"Yup, if you wouldn't mind looking it up for me."

"Here you are! That's this much. Would you like your receipt in the bag?"

"Yes please."

"Have a great day!"

"You too."

And like that, I was outed as a pervert.

Well, maybe not intimate or in-depth... But quite often this is how it happens, something trivial, something easy, something... Well, if not innocent, at least trite and mundane. And that's very much what it is, to some people - coming out in the same sense as coming out as gay or lesbian or dominant or submissive or anything else. Coming out isn't about being gay - it's about being afraid of being accepted... And if there's one thing endemic to all humans everywhere it's fear, especially the fear of rejection. Everyone has their own prejudices, their own blind spots, and touchy areas... And for better or for worse it affects us every day. This cashier ignored it openly, but I have no idea what she was thinking. Was she as totally indifferent as she seemed? Was she secretly disgusted and upset to even be touching the book? Was she curious? Amused? Excited?

It's not actually the reaction that scares me - it's not knowing beforehand what the reaction will be. I mean, someone refusing to talk to me because of how I feel or how I act or how I handle my relationships, would be upsetting. If I care for someone, or if they're important to me in some manner, obviously I want them to reciprocate. I can look at this, the situation, and admit I'm deathly afraid of telling my family about my kinks - not because I'm convinced they're going to be upset, but because I don't know if they'll be upset. I don't know if my mother and father will shrug and make some sarcastic comment and move on, or if they'll freak out and refuse to talk to me for a year. My fiance and I are going away with my family for a week this summer - is it worth risking their being upset beforehand and ruining or cancelling the trip? Our wedding is scheduled for August - is it worth risking my parents not coming if they aren't okay with the life I'm living?

It's often something trivial. Right now, I'm very pointedly (though I hope subtly) outing myself to my sister. She's a contact of mine on Goodreads; and while the stream of books has been silly and pointless for the most part for the most part (sci-fi, fantasy, the odd martial arts book), she's started getting a trickle of e-mails saying "Your brother is reading badly-written bondage erotica" and "Your brother is reading books exploring BDSM, kink, and open relationships". Call it a very tentative foot in the water, and even though this is exactly the type of thing that outs people by accident, I'm doing it intentionally. Probably not as effectively outed as when I accidentally left my copy of "The Secret Life of a Submissive" (by Sarah K) on the floor and Ash's family came over... But still there. Because to me, having parsed my way through these thoughts over the last years and consciously making the decision about how I really I identify to myself, I feel like I'm lying to them now by not identifying that way to them as well.

I don't remember where the quote came from, but I heard recently a line I agree 100% with - your sex life is private, but your love life is public. In my case it's not a matter of introducing my boyfriend instead of my girlfriend, but at some point it may be a matter of introducing my fiance and my girlfriend... Or god forbid, my fiance and my slave. I don't like the idea of lying about the status of my "friend" when they come up around my family. At the end of the day if my family is going to love me, they need to love me for who I am and not for who I think they want me to be.

That's what it all comes down to, isn't it? Disappointment. I don't want them to be disappointed in their son or their brother, to believe I'm making mistakes or living the wrong life... But it's the life I'm going to live either way. And it's terrifying, utterly terrifying. But I'm working on it... And for those of you who haven't, I hope you look at the example of the three girls above and work on it too.

As an aside, I will partially retract my bile from several entries ago - "50 Shades of Kink" is actually by Tristan Taormino, who I've had reason recently to investigate further and who I believe should be respected for her efforts to expand awareness and equal protection for nonmonogamy, gay rights and sexual expression in general. In fact, I have very strong motivation to get a copy of her "Opening Up" to read. I will, however, continue my grumpiness with the "50 Shades of X" titling scheme that still seems to dominate the industry.

I was just thinking...

So my fiance recommended an episode of the Savage Lovecast to me, and it was unusually precise at helping me clarify some of my thinking.

That's sortof an ominous beginning to a blog entry! I can understand that, especially for something that relatively few people know about me. Though I've been thinking recently - how few people *do* know about it? I'm honestly not sure. Recently I've been far more open in general with my kinky side; I formally consider something along the lines of "public but undisclosed." I mean, I'm not ashamed of it, and I don't really necessarily consider it private; I just choose not to make a public discussion point of it in most forums. It's not, at least in many circles, "socially acceptable", no matter how much better it is than it used to be. It has the potential to cause trouble with my ex-wife - it has in the past - and there's always the risk of people reacting badly, say, at work. "That guy's a pervert!" is a constant risk. What if this blog entry came up on the inevitable Google search when I'm applying for my next job? There's nothing wrong with it - I do nothing illegal or, at least in my opinion, immoral - but there are people who disagree with at least the latter point there... And it's easier to not give them ammunition.

So is that me wimping out? To an extent, yes. In the same way I couldn't care less that some of my friends smoke weed as long as they don't shove it in my face, most of them don't care - but some do, and the ones who do almost invariably care in a negative way.

So... The episode. It was interesting, because it talked a lot about poly/open relationships, and how to introduce the idea to kids. When it's okay, when it's not... And the real takeaway is, the kids should probably be the last to know. It helps, though, if it's not weird or strange to the child - if it's just status quo. A secret shared with a kid, won't be... So it's easier to start under that assumption. If there's going to be friction, you - as the adult - should take that friction on yourself, not impose it on them. If you have to come out to your parents, especially if the kid in question has a relationship with them, do it first. If it's going to touch on other things - like doctors offices, or school districts, or whatever - figure that out first. If it's going to turn into a major social thing in the neighbourhood, or a problem professionally, then maybe it's just a bad idea up front.

In some ways, it's far easier now - after all, the definition of a marriage, a relationship, or a family is broadening so much that this is becoming easier. A couple of decades ago, divorces were rather more rare, let alone same-sex couples. A “normal parenting family” has gone from a kid with a mother and a father, to a kid with two mother/father pairs... And it’s a smaller step from there to a kid with two mothers, or two fathers. Or, in my case, my son and his three mothers plus one father. I feel like the step is even smaller – in most non-closed-minded, non-bigoted circles – from three mothers and a father to four mothers and a father... At least for most of us.

I guess my point is, it gives me hope.