A happy poly quint on MSNBC.com
YourTango, MSNBC.com
More than 2,000 comments are burning up the board at MSNBC.com after it reprinted, on the Today Show site, a polyamory article from YourTango.com (the successor to the late Tango magazine). Although the title calls it "polygamy," the article is about a FMFMF polyamorous quint. They're living together, raising kids, and sound quite happy.
Read the whole article. (You can join the comments only if you register at MSNBC, which promises in the TOS to spam you among other things.)
This one's certainly getting lots of attention. And no, the Alan in the story isn't me.
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More than 2,000 comments are burning up the board at MSNBC.com after it reprinted, on the Today Show site, a polyamory article from YourTango.com (the successor to the late Tango magazine). Although the title calls it "polygamy," the article is about a FMFMF polyamorous quint. They're living together, raising kids, and sound quite happy.
I have two husbands: A polygamist’s diary
By Kathleen Lewis
...I was first introduced to such alternative relationships in college when a female friend of mine and I knowingly decided to share the same boyfriend.
No, not a threesome, just going out with the same guy. It was partially a matter of convenience, and partially the fact that we were close friends.... As this was my first intimate relationship and it became polyamorous, it is hardly surprising that I ended up in a polygamist marriage....
[Alan and I] fell together like a couple of old shoes, somehow instantly comfortable with each other. We had similar opinions about plural relationships, and neither of us was averse to the idea. Around a year and a half after we were married, we met Eric. He and I were instantly attracted to each other and, as Alan had no objection, we began getting to know each other better. Over time, I found myself falling in love with Eric. Alan certainly wasn't blind to this, so we all got together to discuss it. This turned out to be one of the most important conversations of my life, and led to an increase in my family’s size.
...To avoid legal troubles, I remained legally married to Alan, and we all decided a larger house was in order when we met Leslie.
...Fast forward to today, and our family is now composed of Alan, Eric, Leslie, Amber, and myself, plus our children: Todd, Steve, Jennifer, Lisa, and Amber is currently pregnant.... We have two family meetings a week, one of which is for adults only, both of which can get lively and loud. We've had our arguments over money, people monopolizing other people's time, dealing with children's issues, and so forth — like any other family — but we just have more voices in the discussion.
As far as finances are concerned, Alan, Eric and Leslie all work, and Amber intends to go back to work after the baby is born. I kind of became the head Mom and housekeeper, and we all take turns at cooking except for Eric. (We all try to keep him out of the kitchen. We've decided we like the house, and we don't want him to burn it down.) We have main household accounts for bills and home improvements, and we all have our own personal accounts as well. Alan keeps all the books balanced, as he's best at it. Amber and I both receive a kind of salary for what we do around the house....
This lifestyle really isn't for everybody. We are all here because we love each other and we choose to be together.... Incidentally, for those who insist on knowing, we are all straight. This did not keep me from sleeping in Leslie's bed for a few nights and holding her as we cried after she had a miscarriage. We all love and support each other, and try to see that everyone's needs are met....
Read the whole article. (You can join the comments only if you register at MSNBC, which promises in the TOS to spam you among other things.)
This one's certainly getting lots of attention. And no, the Alan in the story isn't me.
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Labels: polyamory, Show Your Parents
8 Comments:
www.bugmenot.com provides anonymous, temporary logins to comment boards like MSNBC's.
Polygamy is wrong, and frankly disgusting. Your children deserve better. Don't you understand how confusing it is for them? You polygamist men think that everything is owed to you. You treat your women and children like objects that you own. It is not only illegal, it is morally wrong, and you will reap the consequences for your sins if not in this life, in the next.
The above anon is clueless or ignorant or both. There's a major difference between the criminal acts in Bountiful or other fundamentalist christian offshoots, and a loving plural marriage of consenting adult men and women.
I'm sure the children do just fine, they are surrounded by a lot of love unlike many many monogamous families with an abusive mother or father.
Get a grip, anon, and educate yourself.
THIS WEBPAGE ARTICLE, "I HAVE TWO HUSBANDS: A POLYGAMIST'S DIARY" BY KATHLEEN LEWIS CONTAINS PLAGIARIZED CONTENT FROM ANOTHER AUTHOR'S COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. I THINK ACTIONS SPEAK VOLUMES AS TO BEING AN IMMORAL PERSON!
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Anon #1 is indeed ill informed. There is a huge difference between patriarchal polygamy and egalitarian polyamory. Also, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support the contention that egalitarian polyamorous families are bad for children, and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that children actually thrive on the extra love, attention, financial resources, and the rest of the abundance that having more than two loving parents in a household can contribute to the family.
I wish I had grown up in a family like this.If I were a child in a family like this, first of all, the adults would have to be quite unconditionally loving and mature already in order to sustain such an arrangement. They would constantly communicate and trust each other, and learn how to be there for each other and listen, something sorely lacking in so many relationships...and these skills would trickle down to me and my siblings, the children, and we would benefit from having such mature parents. This provides for way more stability and security than most 2-parent families.
In addition, think of the stresses of being one of two parents, let alone a single parent. With 5 loving parents all sharing love and supporting each other, they would pretty much never have to make the horrible either/or choice of "my children's needs or my own." If a couple of the parents wanted to take a vacation for some adult time alone, it would be no problem to do so without guilt about leaving the kids parentless. The responsibility for caring for the children would be so easily shared that any thoughts of having "sacrificed" or "been burdened" by raising a large family would pretty much not exist.
If one of the parents was offered a yearlong dream job in another country, even, say a project in South America helping farmers that [s]he has dreamed about doing all his/her life, this would not be out of the question at all! A family like this can be extremely flexible and adjust itself to all its members' needs in a way that no nuclear family can, and this is what produces human beings that love free of fear and get the nurturing they need to realize their potential as human beings and have no regrets.
Would a family like this confront taboos? Of course! Would that affect the kids? Yes, but not in a bad way (kids will run into identity issues anyway, who are we kidding). Remember, when a kid comes home from school in tears after having been picked on for not having a "normal" family, [s]he has five loving, mature parents who have a lot of experience with this question and will collectively have all the time [s]he needs to help him/her make sense of things. The kid will come out stronger, more mature, better able to deal with rejection and discrimination generally, wiser about whom [s]he can trust and who unfortunately cannot be trusted, and so on.
I am polyamorous myself. I am "in love with" another person who is poly, and when you can share this kind of unconditional love, love that says, "I rejoice in your happiness, no matter how, where, and with whom you find it," suddenly you can each share all of yourself with each other. No thought, shame, fear, delusion, or opinion is too taboo. No matter what, you know you will be loved and listened to---so you can always be honest, and indeed, you feel a great desire to be honest, and for both of you there is no other way to be, because let me tell you, this kind of love has a healing power that just cannot be found in too many places.
Multiply this unconditional love by five---and the possibilities are endless. If I ever have children, it will be in a family like this. I can't imagine raising a family within rusty, artificial, bureaucratic constraints that put limits on love. As long as you make sure you are mature enough to avoid dangerous situations, why, then, should you ever limit whom you love and how you love them? The children in this family are truly blessed. In fact, everybody in this family is blessed. This is how life should be.
Hi Alan.
You are busy sir, so I'll try to keep it brief.
Your posts have provided me with a more informed perspective on the subject of poly-amorous relationships.
The insights in this blog has led me to confirm the age-old notion that maturity, give-and-take, communication and consent make a relationship work – however the set-up may be.
Currently, I am writing a novel with heavy themes on Love, Politics, and hints on Religion.
The love angle of this project is working under my personal hypothesis that sometimes, people don’t get the love that they are looking for because they are either unaware of the relationship set-up that might work best for them; or they simply think that such an option is not going to work out when in reality, it might actually do.
Ages ago, same sex relationships (and not just the customary secret fling) would be unimaginable. And this lack of awareness has probably left plenty of people unhappy or unfulfilled – unable to attain the love that was meant for them because they were caged by the notion that there is only one relationship set-up in the world.
In this regard, I plan to have my characters attain the love and relationship that they need and want (or are “destined” to, corny as it may sound) by exploring the possibility of a sincere, polygamous and/or poly amorous set-up.
Hence, I respectfully request a personal correspondence with you or any poly-amorous/polygamous couples whom you could recommend via email. This is in order to prevent the pitfalls of stereotypes and misinformation in the portrayal of my characters.
I understand that you or the couples would probably be too busy to answer my message. Nevertheless, I hope to hear your positive response very soon.
Also, the probable participants may not want to have a stranger like me probing into how they make their lives work. I can understand that. In the course of this exchange of ideas, I can simply send my list of questions which you or they can answer without having to reveal their actual identities (although, ofcourse, knowing them and/or you personally would be a great pleasure on my part).
Your insights would be very valuable in providing a better understanding of this relationship set-up to me and to my future readers.
Maraming Salamat po. Thank you very much.
You may email me at johnraypucay@gmail.com
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