Poly pro and con

KPFA Radio Chronicles

KPFA, an alternative radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area, aired a one-hour show on April 6th on the topic of Queer Love. Nearly half was about the pros and cons of polyamory. Featured were several polyfolks, the daughter of one of them, and a couple of people who tried polyamory and, after grueling experiences, left it behind. One of these is John:

John: It was difficult. I lost a partner I cared about a lot, probably the first partner I ever deeply fell in love with.... I found it something I could not resist exploring. I ended up breaking up with her over whether or not it would be okay for me to pursue another relationship.

John is indirectly connected to Akien MacIain, a Bay Area poly educator and activist. Akien has been married to his wife Dawn for 18 years.

Akien: One of the things about the monogamy model is it comes with a whole box full of rules. And the poly model, in general, comes with very few rules. Everybody kind of defines their own. And the most important one is, finding the level of communication that supports making all the relationships work.

Announcer: What are the best things about being polyamorous?

Akien: One of the best things is there's just this tremendous feeling of abundance around the whole topic of love. Not just, "I have a lot of love with my primary partner," but I have a lot of different love, in a lot of different ways. I get to have romantic feelings around the teaching work that Dawn and I do. I get to have romantic feelings around energetic romance stuff that I do with another partner.

The announcer went back and talked with with John about an eternal topic:

Announcer: What about One True Love?

John: Nice! I think that's exactly what has caused me to decide to be monogamous. Is I think I've found that one true love.

[About Akien's comments that you can have two or more true loves:] Yeah, that sounds like somebody who hasn't found their one true love.

Announcer: ...I asked Akien what he thought of that switch. And he told me this: his version of the Creation story, and an explanation about my friend and what he might be going through.

Akien: In the beginning there was God. And God was infinite and knew everything, except what it was to be finite. So one day God split itself up into zillions of little bits and commanded them all forget that they were one. And to go figure out what it was to be finite. And so we are all those little bits of God the infinite, learning what is to be finite.

And as such, every piece of learning is absolutely necessary. Every experience, all of the joy, and all of the pain, equally important. I think John is learning what it is to be finite.

Listen to the show. The parts about poly run from time 23:20 to 47:00.