Love, Sex, & Kink: "Three’s company"

West Ender (Vancouver)

In its Valentine's-week "Love, Sex, & Kink" issue, an urban weekly newspaper gives a good, basic, factual report on what poly is about, with its joys and its difficulties.

Another few thousand articles like this in the next ten years, and we'll be living in a different, better environment: one where most people at least know what polyamory is, and what poly relationships tend to look like, and that the folks doing it are not (necessarily) creeps but in fact are often unusually nice.

Moreover, each article like this surely comes as a life-changing revelation to some new handful of innately poly people — who've had no idea before that this is actually possible, or that communities already exist, very much this side of utopia, where they can go connect and learn.

Are polyamorists sexual deviants or the world’s most incurable romantics?

By Andrea Warner [Feb. 9, 2009]

...Other “kinks” have come and gone as the primary target of “polite” society’s moral outrage — homosexuality, orgies, swinging — and forged, in some people’s homes, an uneasy truce. Polyamory, then, might be the last taboo — possibly because many people can barely navigate the obstacles of one relationship, let alone several.

But, contrary to popular belief, people who engage in “poly” say they aren’t just in it for the sex — although that doesn’t hurt. True to their name, polyamorists have a whole lot of love to give (and take).

According to John Ince, co-owner of Vancouver sex shop The Art of Loving, poly people might just be the world’s biggest romantics. “Poly is really about relationships, an ongoing experience rather than a sexual connection,” he says. “I’ve done long-term monogamous relationships and long-term polyamorous relationships, and the poly ones are conducive to more intimacy... but it’s a lot of relational time. Time and work.”

Jillian Deri, a PhD candidate writing about polyamory and jealousy within the queer community, is also involved in poly relationships, and acknowledges the common misconceptions people have about it. “[People think] we’re just dating around until we find the right person,” she says, “or that we’re just promiscuous and can’t decide, or that we’re not committed. But, actually, poly people are usually more committed because they commit to more than one person.”

For Deri... “I believe we have this dichotomy between friends and lovers: only one lover and all the rest are friends. I find that having that boundary broken allows for more intimacy — a whole range of different ways to be with people.”

In a world where hate, rancour and loneliness permeate all aspects of society, one could say that polyamorists are, in their own way, forging a path where love is all around. For those looking to venture into the world of poly, Deri suggests honesty as your best tactic for success.... “Communication is the biggest key to making it work.”...

The Art of Loving hosts its first polyamory seminar, 'Polyamory: Loving More Than One', on Wednesday, March 18. Info: ArtOfLoving.ca

Read the whole article.

Update Feb. 12: Prompted by this article no doubt, the local "News Radio 1130" just aired a snappy little report. I happened to catch it live;— it was silly and dismissive. The promo on the station's website, by contrast, is informative and accurate.

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