"Slut-Muscle Mania"

SexSF

The San Francisco Bay Guardian, one of the oldest alternative newspapers, has a blogsite called SexSF. This morning it offers a long article musing on a workshop being offered this afternoon (Sat. June 6) by Dossie Easton, co-author of The Ethical Slut. The workshop is titled "Exercising Your Slut Muscles" (it's at San Francisco's Center for Sex and Culture, 2-4 p.m.).

...It isn't the non-monogamous aspect that confounds me, because, quite frankly, we've all been there. What fascinates me about polyamory is the notion that deep feeling is an essential aspect of being with multiple people, that the very meaning of "I love you" can exist on the same emotional spectrum as "I love you, you, you, and you". Maybe my heart is closed off, maybe I'm calloused or jaded, but I find it so difficult to even accept the notion that I'll even meet "the one" that the very concept of meeting "the many" is so ludicrous to me that I'm tempted to laugh (or, what is more likely, cry). At the same time that it's strange to me that there are those who exist who naturally embrace this lifestyle, it's also comforting to know that there are people out there capable of loving not just another, but others (emphasis on the plural).

What doesn't sit so well with me is the view that many polyamorists hold that monogamy is a myth. Just as monogamists tell ourselves that polyamory is unnatural, weird, or even disgusting, many polyamorists have an equally closed off view of monogamy, proclaiming that a connection between "merely" two people is somehow bogus, that monogamy is an indoctrinated and fictitious idea, that it's a "recipe for emotional disaster". Just as there are those who are comfortable with waiting until they meet that one special someone and there are those who believe that life is lived fuller with many loves, both types of people should be able to live comfortably with one another in the same world, a world full of many definitions and possibilities for love.

One thing that I love about living in San Francisco is that our city is so accepting of the multiplicities of love and sexuality. San Francisco has some great resources for polyamorous folk, from MeetUp groups to local polyamory conferences. In our city, the poly lifestyle is often associated, though perhaps unfairly, with the hippie residue left over from the Summer of Love. The stereotype is reinforced by the often New Age sensibilities of many public figures associated with polyamory.... But more and more, young, culturally aware, and (gasp) "normal" people are identifying as polyamorists, and new life is being blown into the movement. There is even a long list of psychology professionals who are "poly friendly" in the Bay Area. It appears the polyamorous need "couples therapy" just as much as actual couples do, and I'm actually relieved....

Read the whole article.

SexSF also recently ran another outsider's essay on poly — by a woman who was won over by Jenny Block's book Open, at least theoretically:

Mostly, I'm glad that my fear about what a relationship has to be is starting to be lifted. Because I do want a partnership. I just don't want any of the kinds I've already seen. And Jenny Block says I don't have to.

Read the whole article.

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