Understanding Polyamory

            Polyamory is the practice of simultaneously engaging in multiple meaningful, committed, loving relationships. It is a rational, beautiful alternative to the traditional monogamous relationship paradigm that has dominated the western world for centuries, and it is distinct from polygamy, open relationships, and swingers. Polyamory is a lifestyle, even a sexual preference, and it is the next movement in the sexual and relationship revolution currently taking place. I am polyamorous, and I would like to take some time to explain what exactly that means—and what it does not mean.

            To start, you have to understand the causes that led me to a polyamorous mindset. I do not consider it something I’ve chosen to live, but simply the route I have been supposed to take all along. Although there have been hurdles along the way, the same would be true of a monogamous relationship, so I don’t consider the difficulties I’ve encountered particularly salient detractions. Simply put, I look around me and see so much anger, jealousy, and negativity in the world. After a war that has dragged on for over a decade and a society that has come to take the word “terrorism” as a fact of life, I have wondered if an alternative exists. One does.

            Since polyamory is the act of loving multiple people, it stands to reason, then, that it is also the act of cultivating more love and positive energy in this increasingly hostile world. For that reason alone, it is worth considering.

            But more powerful is the knowledge that love is far from a finite resource. It is an emotion, a feeling, like so many others. It would be absurd to tell someone not to get “too happy” or “too sad”; these emotions, like all others, come in varying intensities and are instigated by various things. Indeed, the more things we have in our lives that make us happy, the happier we are. The same works for love. The more people we have in our lives whom we love, the more love we have to give and the more loved we feel. It’s really that simple.

            If you have ever found yourself wishing to connect with a friend at a more intimate level—be it holding hands, a hug, a kiss, or even sexually—then you probably have already felt what I’m describing. If you’ve ever had that feeling while already in a loving, committed relationship—without thereby lessening the already existing feelings toward your lover—then you have definitely felt what I’m describing. Take a moment now to think about that feeling.

            In a polyamorous relationship, these feelings are encouraged because the returns are great. Do jealousy and insecurity pop up? Initially, yes. But once we learn to acknowledge and then disregard these negative feelings, recognizing their petty, self-centered nature, we are able to break free of the yoke of social restraint and begin to develop something bigger

            As I already said, polyamory is distinct from polygamy, open relationships, and swingers. Polygamy is a typically religion-based practice of multiple spouses—often, one husband with multiple wives. Polyamorists typically are very hostile and skeptical of religion and marriage both, and they are certainly interested in having a level playing field rather than a male-dominated one. So polygamy and polyamory are clearly very distinct. Open relationships involve a committed couple allowing one another to engage in sex with other partners (often as a result of being geographically distant). Open relationships do not seek additional loving partners, but merely the gratification of sexual desires. And swingers are similar. Swingers are couples who swap partners or even engage in sexual acts all together, but they do not form loving, committed relationships. As soon as additional loving relationships are added to the open relationship or swinger format, it has actually evolved into polyamory.

            Sex, it would seem, is not a part of the polyamorous lifestyle, then. But to think that would be a huge misunderstanding. Of course sex is a part of the lifestyle! It is simply not the focus. However, most polyamorous people have healthy, open attitudes toward sexuality, are comfortable discussing it, and they do choose partners based in part on sexual attraction. Sex is a part of life, and we accept and embrace that rather than shun it. But it cannot be the motivating factor behind relationships in order for them to last.

            As an additional result of the polyamorous mindset, bisexuality is extremely common. Once a commitment to love more people has been made, it is a natural step to tear down any arbitrary gender-based boundaries, thus in effect doubling the number of prospective lovers.

            These points undoubtedly raise questions in the open-minded reader and skeptic alike. The most common: How many partners is enough? Similarly, how does one find enough time for all those partners? The answers to those questions are highly specific to individual needs, time, and polyamorous motivations. Polyamorous communes do in fact exist, harboring groups into the double-digits of people all living together and loving each other. But these scenarios are rare. More common are relationships based around three to five members, their relationships sometimes intertwining but sometimes kept separate. Imagine a web of relationships. Regarding the issue of time, that depends on proximity, levels of connection, and individual needs. But when you have multiple people fulfilling different relationship roles for the same person (as well as that person fulfilling different relationship roles for other people), then you are likely to find an economy of love that simply works its way out in the end—just as some traditionally monogamous couples are together constantly, and others spend lots of time apart. Both are functional, healthy relationship styles.

            A final question is, what about the children? Well, since homosexual couples have had to field responses to that same inane objection for decades now when trying to start their own families, it makes sense that polyamorous people have to do the same. The answer is simple; when children are involved, how can it ever be a bad thing to have those children surrounded by more people to love and influence them? If anything, they grow up with much healthier ideologies about love and sexuality and are overall happier people.

            To conclude, I am not trying to persuade anyone to my lifestyle. Anyone who knows me well and has heard me talk about these issues knows that my sole goal is to raise awareness and, with any luck, reveal to a few like-minded people that there is an alternative out there. I’ve done it many times already, so I hope this article continues with that success.

            Peace and love!

Suggestions for further reading:

http://www.planetwaves.net/compersion.html - article discussing the feeling of pleasure polyamorous people feel knowing that their partner receives pleasure being with another partner.

http://www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com/ - a cool polyamorous blog that offers an unapologetic look into the lifestyle.

http://aphroweb.net/nre_faq.htm - discusses “new relationship energy”—the impact on an already existing relationship exacted by falling in love with another person openly.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/28/only-you-and-you-and-you.html - discusses both the social rise of polyamory and the many challenges it faces in gaining acceptance.

http://lovingmorenonprofit.org/faq.php - a famous polyamorous online magazine.

The Problem with Faith

           I spend a lot of time arguing with religious people. As I live in North America and am a United States citizen, that typically means I argue with Christians. And I love it. Really. Every time I plant even the smallest seed of doubt, every time I deconstruct a worldview based on tradition and faith rather than reflection and reason, I get an indescribable feeling of satisfaction. It isn’t because I’m sadistic or even because I simply believe that life should be about enlightenment, constant improvement, and discovery of the truth. It isn’t because I have a vendetta against religion. It’s because, and I say the following without reservation, I have never met a religious person whose religion actually improved his or her life. I have always found the precise opposite to be true.

            The facts are painfully straightforward. Religion essentially is the imposition of a given worldview upon an individual. One’s conception of morality becomes rules, dogma, law. As such, it is unshakable, unerring, and unavoidable. Even in cases of doubt. I don’t need to get into the ways religion has spawned fanaticism, bigotry, and violence. The events of September 11 in New York City, the murders of doctors who perform abortions, and the oppression of homosexuals, among other crimes against humanity, are well known catastrophes religion has engendered. Discussing these issues all over again would be redundant (although I cannot stress enough the value of restating the truth again and again; the more places it is in print or in the air, the more places people will become exposed to it).

            Instead, I want to discuss some of the crimes against humanity religion yields against its own followers, and then I want to discuss the major roadblock in making these believers see their oppression—faith. Again, this subject is a mammoth one, and it has been well documented. Catholic priests molesting little boys and the unparalleled cover-up from the Vatican down to the President of the United States is no secret. If you don’t know the facts, you’ve never used Google properly. Or the recent spread of fundamentalist Christianity, predominantly in the southern United States (the dreaded “Bible Belt”), which encourages a literal reading of the Bible and an outright rejection of virtually all scientific studies, is another fairly mainstream issue. Evolution isn’t real—an “intelligent designer” made everything and everyone in six days somewhere around five thousand years ago. Dinosaur fossils were either put here to test peoples’ faith, or dinosaurs coexisted with humans not too long ago and current scientific methods for dating fossils are incredible inaccurate. Or my favorite: The Grand Canyon was formed, not over centuries of natural erosion, but during the Great Flood. Yes, the Grand Canyon is frequently cited as proof that Noah actually produced an ark in the not-too-distant past and saved the future of all life from God’s wrath during the deluge.

            Let’s talk about the more personal issues that we may encounter with religious people in daily life. For me, the most destructive aspect of the religious worldview on the worshipper is how it corrupts the natural order of love, relationships, and sexuality. Imagine for a moment a perfect human being, of either gender. Well-rounded, intelligent, affluent, physically attractive, athletic, charming, artistically talented. The ideal mate, many would say. Now couple within this Übermensch the Christian religious tradition toward relationships. I’m no expert, but I’m at least informed. So here’s more or less how our sex drive works within the framework of God’s divine plan.

            When we see fellow humans, we almost immediately determine whether they are physically attractive or unattractive, based on our preferences. This phenomenon is one we have all experienced on a daily basis since a young age. A normal, rational person will then either determine to pursue this individual for the sake of mating and perhaps long-term courtship, or they will instead decide they are not interested and will move on (granted, plenty of grey area exists within this process, but more or less, that is how it works). In the former scenario, they will be subjected to the same scrutiny as already applied to the other member of this relationship; if selected, the common social practice of dating will ensue. If rejected, then the individual will have to deal with rejection and perhaps learn to alter their approach. In the latter scenario, the individual simply moves on from the very start.

            Unfortunately, Christianity (and most of the world’s other religions, especially the religions of Abraham) teaches that objectification is a terrible sin. God wants us always to see people for who they are under the flesh. Purely determining interest in relationships based on physical attraction, especially at the start, is wrong and must be avoided. The logic is that the relationship would develop out of lust from the start, not love. But this system is inherently flawed; aside from the rules of nature, which insist that we absolutely need attractive mates, it leads to a paradox. In order to avoid entering a relationship based on lust, the good Christian should presumably only woo people he or she finds, believe it or not, unattractive. After all, how else can lust ever be written out of the equation? Based on the logic of Christianity, we should all be going after the people we have no interest in physically. But isn’t this just a form of objectification, in and of itself? The person is being reduced to an object suitably distasteful to one’s sex drive, so much so that sex becomes entirely not an issue. Which leads to the next problem, of course. Hypothetically speaking, if somehow this damp green wood is properly kindled into the flames of a romance, what will the effects of these sidestepped laws of attraction be on mating? If the end of relationships is procreation (at least Biblically), shouldn’t we all really be going after the most attractive people we can find, as a way to entice us to, well, procreate?

            But the fun doesn’t stop there. The whole sex thing is an issue in and of itself. Two major forms of sexual release are forbidden under Catholic tradition: masturbation and premarital sex (we won’t even talk about sodomy . . . ). That may be all good and fine for some people, but frankly, you show me a man who is not sexually active, and I’ll present you with a habitual masturbator. Plain and simple, it is healthy. Our bodies inevitably need release. What happens, unfortunately, is that men and women alike are taught that auto-eroticism, as some would call it, is sinful, abhorrent in God’s eyes, and just plain wrong. Can it really be healthy to attach such a perverted stigma to a perfectly natural, universal sexual practice? What happens to a person’s self-image when he or she is constantly fearing God’s judgment for the sin of self-pleasure? Especially in a pre-marital world where no alternative exists! Because God wants us all to save our chastity for marriage. He wants purity, he wants cleanliness, and he wants the act of devirginization to be a holy event. Maybe he’ll even be spiritually present somehow to celebrate that big moment.

            To summarize, religion promotes hasty marriages by sex-starved young people who find each other unattractive. Any union but one of that nature will presumably be sinful, or at least inferior. Which really doesn’t leave much room for love, does it? After all, isn’t a big part of love the physical side? You don’t have to be dating a supermodel to find your partner indescribably attractive, and you should look for the person who fits that protocol. If they catch your eye the first time you ever see them enter a room, their presence will undoubtedly ravish you every time from then on. Furthermore, having time to develop one’s sexuality with a partner, ideally a few partners even, before settling down is immensely important. Taking it on faith that you and your partner will have a fulfilling sex life without ever giving it a practice run, so to speak, is as foolish as buying an expensive house in an undisclosed location that you’ve never seen or even gotten a description of, but agreeing to live in it for the rest of your life, for better or for worse. But I suppose if that were in the Bible, it would be a virtuous practice also.

            Sex and love are far from the only aspects of one’s life religion disrupts and corrupts. Indeed, the ego is perhaps the worst-hit part of the devout one’s being. What I’m talking about now are pride and righteousness. Having a precise list of certain rules one is supposed to follow in life always leads to a “holier than thou” attitude. Without exception. If you don’t believe me, talk to a Christian someday about the value of being Christian, and I guarantee you’ll hear the word “perfect” an awful lot. I always do. Granted, it takes an especially deluded person to claim perfection outright, but many will proclaim a devotion to perfection. They’ll explain how they ask God forgiveness for their mistakes and work hard to get back on track when they are led astray by their worldly desires. Overall, the idea is that God has this perfect spotlight of morality shining down upon the world, and those lucky enough to have read his word can see it and follow it into perfection. But wait . . . isn’t this entity the same one that teaches humility, that has even punished angels for the worst sin of all, that of pride? Religion discourages the objectification of others for personal pleasure, plus the rejection of any worldly possessions, really, while essentially encouraging an objectification of the self. No greater foppery exists than religion.

            The end result of all this corruption of human nature is a life that feels shallow, unfulfilling, and even somewhat dead. Which is, of course, the goal: we all want basically to live good lives, but hurry up and die so we can be blissfully at one with God in Heaven. In Christianity, at least. Well, that rather takes the joy out of life—not all of the joy, but a huge range of enjoyable experiences. Experiences that go deeper than mere masturbation, for all its incontrovertible charm. I mean the experiences of discovering right and wrong for oneself, which can be difficult, but are truly essential to the human condition.

            So, to the main point, at last, of this little piece: the problem with faith. Although it is impossible to say for certain whence religion originally sprung, many unbiased anthropologists and theologians concur that it began during the earliest days of human civilization as a byproduct of the development of the human brain. At some point during the evolution of human consciousness, we became self-aware. This self-awareness led to an awareness of opposition—mainly, humans realized that they were different from the animals. Humans carried the bleak awareness of death and were incredibly preoccupied with understanding why they alone stood out from the rest of the animal kingdom. Not surprisingly, certain stories began to spring forward. Two that have carried on through various incarnations are the Genesis creation accounts in the Old Testament. The second account, when read allegorically, is truly a masterpiece of world literature and a touching portrait of the early human psyche attempting to find its place in what must have been a frightening, hostile world. They reasoned that they were created by the same being that created the animals and that they once lived harmoniously with them. However, upon choosing to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, humankind became enlightened and was thus rejected from Paradise (Eden) by the creator (God). In many ways, this story is actually true—what separates humanity from animals is, in a sense, knowledge. Rational powers. Reason. But it isn’t literally true; it is true in the sense that a great work of literature can express universal ideas, sometimes ideas that cannot even be readily summarized in words, but still be, at the end of the day, a work of fiction. Which is precisely what every creation account from every religion or mythology ever to exist has been: fiction.

            So the next time you argue with a person of faith and come to that most dastardly roadblock of faith, so frequently used as justification for any far-fetched notion or simply as a cop-out to avoid an uninformed discussion, offer this idea. Humans are unique in our ability to reason; it is the one power that truly separates us from the animals, and we are indeed such weak, pathetic creatures, that without that power, we’d really have no chance of keeping separate from the bigger, hungrier animals. Evolution at work. So if reason is our highest faculty, our greatest gift, we should cherish it, especially if it came from God, if we must use that silly idea as a starting point. Faith, on the other hand, is the opposite of reason. It’s essentially instinct, taking an idea as the truth based solely on a gut feeling, not on any real evidence or observations. Animals use their instincts, but humans use their reason. So we must never be content to use faith as our justification for anything, for faith alone can be used to legitimize the greatest of evils. If you can convince a Christian that faith is truly inferior to reason, and that reason was actually God’s greatest, defining gift to humankind, if we are to look to Genesis allegorically, then you have done enough. The rest of the argument will logically take hold in his or her brain with further careful consideration.

            After all, it’s the very train of thought that initially led me to atheism. I know it works.