More from Portugal

LuxWoman

Daniel Cardoso, a polyactivist in Portugal, has prompted a long, informative article in the glossy women's magazine LuxWoman (circulation 70,000; "lifestyle e informação para mulheres com atitude"). Some pieces, translated:

Love multiplied

By Vanessa Nunes

Polyamory offers an alternative to the traditional pattern of monogamous relationships. Daniel Cardoso, polyamorous himself and writing a thesis about polyamory as a member of the faculty of Social and Human Sciences, explains the concept: “Being poly means wanting or maintaining the possibility that you can fall in love with, or feel attracted to, and pursue a relationship with more than one person at a time, without breaking the rules of the relationships you're already in.”

It’s not about coming up with a lame excuse for cheating on your partner or having multiple partners carelessly. Quite the contrary. It’s also more than an ‘open’ relationship. […]

Meanwhile, scientists and specialists have been debating whether humans can actually love more than one person at the same time. The idea [that you cannot] may be a notion acquired through learning, rather than an intrinsic human behavior.

Inês Rôlo, 22 and polyamorous, makes a key point in this debate: “We’re conditioned socially to a lot of stuff. Girls are socially conditioned to play with dolls and develop maternal tendencies. Women are socially conditioned to not develop their logical thinking skills very much (since games are often marketed as being for boys, for example). All of these are social and cultural conditionings.”

[…] Anyway, the human being is free and that means “no conditioning is absolute, be it social or not. We’re certainly not born with the capacity of loving only one person, or multiple persons, just like it won’t be society alone to determine whom we can or want to love,” Daniel clarifies.

Jealousy is also seen in a more relaxed way. Basing on communication and respect, and without the added pressure of exclusivity, polyamorous relationships attempt to eliminate personal insecurities from everyone involved, since there's supposed to be full openness. Everything happens with everyone’s informed consent.

When it comes to marriage, Daniel says: “Much of the polyamorous movement, national and international, sees marriage (taken as a legal and financial, but not religious, institution) as a platform for breeding inequalities and privileges — first for people of the same ethnicity, then for heterosexual relationships, then monogamous ones, etc. — that would do well to disappear.”

But in the real world, this being a different lifestyle choice, members of the poly community often have to face the weight of discrimination. Daniel reveals what it means to escape the mold of being ordinary: “Going out in the street holding hands with two people at the same time can provoke a lot of unfortunate comments, gawking and discriminatory behaviors.”

And among family things can be worse. Inês is a case in point. She says that her relationship has been “ridiculed by my family, disrespected, made fun of” — a tough situation that ignored “any concern for my happiness. And it's clear that this prejudice came from a certain religious morality.”

See the whole article (images of the magazine pages; March 2011 issue).

Also: Cardoso has just published a history of the word "polyamory" and its related forms in the online journal Interact ("revista online de arte, cultura e tecnologia"), issued by the Center for Communication Studies and Languages at the New University of Lisbon. Here it is in the original (March 1, 2011) and machine-translated into English (rough but mostly understandable).

Here are all my posts about Portuguese-language items (including this one; scroll down). As you can see, Daniel is a major force here in describing what we're about.

P.S.: Some lovers' graffiti.

Update May 9, 2011: Daniel and his triad appear on Portuguese TV!

Poliamor, a história de uma vida a três

Daniel, Inês e Luísa vivem uma vida a três. Os poliamoros não têm barreiras para amar. Precisam apenas de tempo e sentimentos. Conheça o poliamor por quem vê o amor partilhado por várias pessoas.

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