"Three's Company"

AlterNet

And here's another columnist musing about what polyamory might be like for her. Liz Langley is writing for AlterNet, a widely-read national alternative e-newspaper, for April 14, 2006.

Thanks to HBO's new series "Big Love," which features a Utah polygamist with three wives, romantic multitasking is getting viewed with a fresh new eye....

I've never tried polyamory myself, but have always been curious about it for lots of reasons. Maybe it's because I'm an American, and I think more is better. Second, I've far too often been plagued by this quandary: Do I date the one who is safe, comfortable and good? Or the one who's so hot my jeans catch fire? Polyamory seems like it would eliminate that conundrum....

"People in monogamous relationships are sometimes afraid to share their thoughts," Janet [Kira Lessen] says. Been there. But if we tried, would the world really end? Or could we come to terms with other attractions and affections so they woudn't have to mean the end of a good thing, the foregoing of an also-good thing, or a potential deception?

Never having tried polyamory, I don't know if I could handle it or not. "You [need] to have a willingness to look at jealousy and see what it really is," says Janet, who was in two traditional marriages (the first ended in abuse) before trying polyamory in 1991. "Are you feeling envy? Are you feeling abandoned? What is jealousy for you?"

"Yes, I have experienced being jealous in this lifestyle," she says, but she has a community where she can talk about it. Another thing about polyamory is that typical relationship processes are accelerated. "If you have baggage, you're going to have it shown to you by more than one person," she says. You "get busted on your shit" more quickly.

...I don't know if America is ready for polyamory, but as Janet points out, people used to smoke everywhere, and now nobody does. There's lag time for things to change, but change they do.

And she seems pretty happy. "I did something right in my life to come to this place," she says. "My life has been magical."

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