Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy With Multiple Partners (2 page)

The idea that monogamy, which is freely and consciously chosen, is a totally different affair from monogamy, which is demanded as a condition for love or enforced by legal codes, religious strictures, financial considerations, or social pressure, has been put forth by a number of thoughtful individuals. Of course this is so, and while I am unconvinced as yet that this higher-level monogamy is superior to all other relationship forms, I don’t know that it’s not. Some therapists have suggested that multipartner relating prevents attachment.1 In my experience, it doesn’t. True, plenty of people use multipartner relating as a strategy to avoid attachment, consciously or unconsciously, but attachment is a powerful force that can override any mental argument or situational defense, except perhaps in people whose capacity for bonding is already impaired because they were prevented from bonding with nurturing caretakers in infancy.

I’m more inclined to see a diversity of relationship forms, all based on compassion, respect, integrity, and goodwill, as appropriate for different people at different times and in different places. However, I am fairly certain that only those who have first allowed themselves the freedom to explore a variety of sexual and intimate relationships are capable of completely embracing monogamy in a sustainable and responsible way.

I first became interested in polyamory in the early 1980s while working on a grassroots global education project originating in the United States called the Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose. Inspired by the United Nations, the Planetary Initiative was intended to make people around the world more proactive about the megacrisis facing humanity as we transition into the postmodern era. In his 2009 book
Global Shift
, Edmund Bourne describes it this way:

A worldview shift is part of a broader change that includes a far-reaching cultural, economic, and political restructuring of society. Such a shift happened in Europe during the Renaissance, and also much earlier in ancient
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Greece. This time it is happening globally and, unlike the past, it may occur rapidly, over several decades rather than one or two centuries. . . . Such a shift has been developing over the past three decades and will continue to evolve through much of the twenty-first century. . . . The primary problem is that the current worldview promotes a separatism that has been encoded into many of our social and economic institutions. It has led individuals and groups to prioritize their needs over the good of the whole, to exploit others and the natural environment, and to disassociate their own well-being from that of the world around them. . . . However, there are cultural movements, scientific advances and new assumptions that have contributed to a broader understanding of who we are and what we are capable of becoming.2

I view polyamory as one of the cultural movements to which Bourne is referring. In the early 1980s, as is still often the case, sex, love, family, and intimate relationships were almost entirely left out of the conversation on sustainability, ecology, and consciousness in the United States. Zero population growth (ZPG) was given a nod but without much consideration of the implications for relationships or family life. While feminist writers had been critiquing monogamy and the nuclear family for decades, the only real integration I found of sexual relationships with the larger picture was in the work of renowned philosopher and astrologer Dane Rudhyar, who was born in Paris but spent most of his life in the United States. His 1971 book
Directives for New Life
addressed the central place of less rigidly constructed but still focused intimate relationships in the transition to a new society. The Planetary Initiative materials that had already been developed when I came on the scene included modules on alternative/

renewable energy, transportation, architecture, health care, economics, education, and government, but the domestic domain was conspicuously absent except for the rather mechanistic approach to ZPG. Since sex and relationships happened to be my area of professional expertise, I took it on myself to start researching alternatives to monogamy and the nuclear family, seeking models for ways of relating that were more ethical and sustainable than those common in the twentieth century.

At that time, I was just completing my graduate work in clinical psychology at the University of Washington with a specialization in human sexuality and the psychology of women. I had chosen sex and intimacy for my professional focus because I had become convinced by that time that ending the war between the sexes was the crucial missing piece for sustainable peace between nations and that world peace was crucial to the
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very survival of humanity. Indigenous wisdom tells us that in making any decision, we must consider its consequences for the next seven generations. As the grandmother of two preschoolers, this consideration is now a very personal one.

Since I first began researching alternatives to monogamy and the nuclear family nearly three decades ago, I’ve been in communication with tens of thousands of people around the world about their experiences with polyamory. Many of these people attended my seminars or conferences I organized or spoke at; some have been coaching clients or read my books; a few are also researchers, activists, or academics; and some are personal friends, family, or lovers. I’ve been in contact with quite a few of these people for fifteen years or more. I’ve watched them fall in love, once or many times; add partners to existing relationships; form new relationships; struggle with jealousy or addictions; confront deaths and life-threatening illness, career changes, and geographic changes; marry, divorce, and remarry; get pregnant; and raise children and send these children off to college. I’ve watched them open their relationships and close them, come out of the closet, get religion, lose religion, become financially successful, and lose their life savings.

I’ve done my best to protect the confidentiality of these people as well as their families and loved ones while also relating accurately the essence of their words. I have changed names, dates, locations, and details of appearance, professions, and avocations. In some cases, I have blended the words and the histories of different people into composites while always endeavoring to keep the significant facts true to life. The only exception to this is people who are teachers and writers who are already totally “out of the closet” and so public with their lifestyle that I would hardly be infringing on their privacy to name them. In fact, they wish to be known to a wider audience and perhaps to correct mistaken impressions of their lifestyle as sometimes portrayed by the media.

In all honesty, after twenty-five years as a relationship coach, seminar leader, and participant observer in the polyamory community, I’m not at all sure that polyamory can fulfill its potential for sustainable intimacy, as I hoped when I subtitled my 1992 book
Love without Limits
the “Quest for Sustainable Intimate Relationships.” Nevertheless, as the twenty-first century rolls on, it’s increasingly apparent that lifelong monogamy is more myth than actuality and that the nuclear family is an endangered species.

Now more than ever, it’s essential that we release our attachments to
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conditioned beliefs about love, sex, intimacy, and commitment and be willing to discover and embrace whatever works. The one thing that is abundantly clear is that what works may not be the same for all people or even for the same person at different points in life. In addition, while the health and happiness of the adults who are struggling to create all kinds of relationships while honoring their innate sexuality under very challenging conditions is vital, it is the well-being of the next generations that is of greatest consequence.

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WHAT IS POLYAMORY?

P
olyamory
is an invented word for a different kind of relationship.
Poly
comes from Greek and means “many.”
Amory
comes from Latin and means “love.” Mixing Greek and Latin roots in one word is against the traditional rules, but then so is loving more than one person at a time when it comes to romantic or erotic love.

The word
polyamory
was created in the late 1980s by Morning Glory and Oberon Zell. This couple, who have been married since 1974, continue to enjoy a deeply bonded open relationship that has morphed in many directions over the years, including a live-in triad lasting ten years and a six-person group marriage that recently dissolved after ten years.

The Zells did not invent the lifestyle, which has come to be known as polyamory, nor did I, though we are among a handful of pioneers who have mapped this new territory and thought deeply about its implications over the past thirty some years. I use the word
polyamory
to describe the whole range of lovestyles that arise from an understanding that love cannot be forced to flow or be prevented from flowing in any particular direction. Love, which is allowed to expand, often grows to include a number of people. But to me, polyamory has more to do with an internal attitude of letting love evolve without expectations or demands that it look a particular way than it does with the number of partners involved.

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C H A P T E R 1

Few people would deny that there’s been a significant shift in the way marriage and intimate relationships have evolved over the past few decades. Most observers agree that traditional marriage is floundering.

While some couples still manage to thrive, they are in the minority. Rising divorce rates, declining marriage rates, and the skyrocketing incidence of infidelity on the one hand and sexless marriage on the other have many people concerned about their prospects for marital bliss and newly curious about alternatives.

More and more people find themselves facing the discovery that lifelong monogamy is more of a mirage than a reality. At the same time, most experts on marriage, family, and sexuality continue to write and speak as if all extramarital sex falls into the category of infidelity. Sometimes it’s acknowledged that an affair may inadvertently have a positive impact on a troubled marriage, but as far as the authorities are concerned, polyamory or consensual inclusive relationships do not exist. End of conversation.

The losers are those adventurous souls struggling to make sense of their ever-changing relationships. We are all understandably confused by unspoken and uncharted shifts in the ways we mate, but trying to deny this is happening will not help us adapt to the changes already under way, nor will it help us evolve new ways of relating that are truly appropriate for the twenty-first century.

It’s often been noted that changes in belief systems frequently lag behind changes in behavior, and nowhere is this more evident that in the realm of erotic love. Meanwhile, people are voting with their search engines. Fueled by the power of the newly expanded Internet, the concept called polyamory has spread like wildfire. A recent Google search turned up over 1.8 million entries. In less than two decades, the use of and the meanings attributed to this newly invented word have taken on a life of their own. These days, polyamory has become a bit of a buzzword and often means different things to different people. So if you’re perplexed by polyamory, you’re not alone. Some people are still confusing
polyamory
with
polygamy
, which technically means to be married to more than one person, regardless of gender, but which has come to imply the patriarchal style of marriage in which a man has more than one wife while the women are monogamous with their shared husband.

The
Oxford Dictionary
defines polyamory as “(1) The fact of having simultaneous close emotional relationships with two or more other individuals, viewed as an alternative to monogamy, esp. in regard to matters
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of sexual fidelity; (2) the custom or practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned.”

These two alternate definitions are themselves a source of confusion for many. Jenna had the impression that polyamory refers to the “simultaneous close emotional relationships with two or more others” and, when she got involved with Gary, was intrigued by the prospect of exploring how this worked. But when Gary described himself as polyamorous, he had the second definition in mind and was intent on engaging in multiple sexual relationships regardless of the degree of emotional closeness. Neither was aware that they had very different expectations about their relationship, and both were shocked and dismayed when they discovered they were operating according to different game plans. Resentment toward the other for having a different agenda was quick to undermine their budding romance.

Considering how few people risk having any conversation at all with a prospective partner about their intentions around sexual exclusivity, it’s not surprising that Jenna and Gary failed to recognize that they had different expectations about polyamory. They were headed in the right direction, but without some guidance, they didn’t quite arrive where they wanted to go.

Because so much of the discussion about polyamory has focused on the form of the relationship rather than the underlying values and belief systems, such misunderstandings are all too common. Two different relationships can look pretty much the same from the outside but will be experienced entirely differently from the inside, that is, by the people who are engaged in them.

For example, let’s take two married heterosexual couples. Both couples married in their early thirties and have been together for ten years. One couple has the traditional “forsaking all others till death do us part” agreement, but neither partner is emotionally or sexually satisfied. Sheila’s biological clock was ticking when she decided to marry Fred. He is a good provider and enthusiastic father but prefers golf to sexual intimacy and avoids conflict whenever possible. Sheila’s increasing sexual frustration and loneliness soon had her fantasizing about having an affair, but she was
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