"These Five People Are About to Have a Baby Together"

Vice

An interesting thing about this story is that it treats nonmonogamy as a minor component. The five people are a couple and a triad. They're treated as friends who decided to commit to live as a family.

The media are seeing a trend toward such arrangements: millennials who, partly driven by economic forces, are turning group houses into true long-term communities, families even. Three days ago the New York Times ran a feature on the trend and on real estate developers' efforts to cash in on it: The Millennial Commune.

But this bunch takes it further (even though they live in two domiciles).

Vice picked up the story from its Netherlands edition. I guess that means Vice's other recent group-relationship stories have done well.

These Five People Are About to Have a Baby Together

By Noor Spanjer

Clockwise from top: Dewi, Sjoerd, Jaco, Sean, and Daantje in front. (Photo: Raymond van Mil)

...Another new, lesser known family structure that has emerged is that of multi-parenting — or raising a child with more than two legal parents. For instance, a lesbian couple and a gay couple bringing up a child together as a single family, but in separate households.

That's more or less the family unit that two couples — Jaco and Sjoerd, and Daantje and Dewi — have decided upon. The four have known each other for ten years, and have been considering the possibility of having a child together for about six. That possibility is going to become a reality this week, when Daantje gives birth.

Both couples are married, but Jaco and Sjoerd's relationship also involves a third person: an Australian named Sean who's been their partner for the last three years. "Three and a half," Sean shouts from the kitchen when he hears me asking Sjoerd how long they have been together. Sean is such a big part of their relationship that he will play an equal role in raising the gang's future son.

"Five parents with equal rights and responsibilities, divided across two households — those are the terms of the agreement that we all signed and had notarized," says Dewi....

The laws surrounding parental rights have improved significantly for gay parents in the Netherlands over the past few years, but the issue of multi-parenthood is still a complicated one. In the case of this particular five-parent family, Jaco has taken on the role of legal parent number two — replacing Dewi, who initially held the position because of her marriage to Daantje.

"We wanted to make sure that there was one legal parent in both households, because we're splitting the upbringing equally," explains Dewi.

"The advantage of that is that us men can take our son on vacation without customs stopping us for traveling with a child that, legally speaking, isn't ours," agrees Sjoerd.

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The vast family (the baby will have five parents, 11 enthusiastic grandparents, and 21 aunts and uncles) seem to be ready for whatever issues that may arise while they're raising the child together. "We're ridiculously well-prepared," says Sjoerd. "We've already picked out schools. It's mainly people around us that expect problems, but that whole myth about the more people being involved with something the harder it being to come to a decision, isn't true. With us, there isn't a lot of room to be irrational — if it's just the two of you, you can easily get stuck in an emotional discussion which you both want to win. But when there's five of you, you're forced to reach a reasonable consensus."

Dewi tells us that she was surprised about the criticism they'd been getting from the LGBT community. "People say things to Daantje and I, like: 'You shouldn't get the men involved,' and to the boys: 'Be careful with those lesbians, they'll take your child away from you.' It is all about ownership, about fears, and ego."...

The baby is due this week and all parents plan to be present for the delivery....

Read the whole article with more pix (August 4, 2015). Here's the original in Nederlands.

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Recent Poly Books, 3:Love Unlimited

Six new books on polyamory have come out in the last year and a half (as far as I know). I've reviewed two of them so far:

● Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy with Multiple Partners by Deborah Anapol, and

● What Does Polyamory Look Like? Polydiverse Patterns of Loving and Living in Modern Polyamorous Relationships by Mim Chapman.

The others are:

● Love Unlimited: The Joys and Challenges of Open Relationships, by Leonie Linssen and Stephan Wik,

● Swinging in America: Love, Sex and Marriage in the 21st Century, by Curtis R. Bergstrand and Jennifer Blevins Sinski,

● Love in Abundance: A Counselor's Guide to Open Relationships, by Kathy Labriola, and

● The Art and Etiquette of Polyamory: A Hands-on Guide to Open Sexual Relationships, by Françoise Simpère.

Let's take a look at the next on this list:

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Love Unlimited: The Joys and Challenges of Open Relationships, by Leonie Linssen and Stephan Wik. Findhorn Press, 2010.

Leonie Linssen is a relationship coach in the Netherlands, bi and poly herself, who specializes in clients with multi-relationship situations. She has counseled hundreds of people, and certain repeating themes stand out. Love Unlimited, coauthored with Stephan Wik (translated from their Dutch edition) presents the detailed stories of 12 representative individuals, couples, and groups who came to her with multi-love problems. Each gets a chapter, following how Linssen and her clients examined situations and worked toward resolutions.

Each chapter ends with a list of questions you might ask yourself in similar situations, and tips for progressing on a particular problem highlighted. Wik adds sections looking at larger philosophical, historical, or spiritual aspects of the topics that have been raised.

A Special Calling

Linssen found her way to her counseling role late. "I grew up in a small Dutch village with an upbringing based on monogamy, strict rules, and the Catholic faith," she writes. As a result, "My childhood concepts of love and relationships were rather romantic and bore no relationship to who I actually was." Not until age 40 did she face up to her bisexual and poly nature and start consciously constructing her life.

"Someone who wants to live a life based on true personal authenticity first has to have the courage to be who he or she really is," she continues. "For many of us, this is an in-depth process that first involves discovering how to come in contact with our own inner source of truth, our own being." Her own transformation was so powerful and difficult "that I decided I would like to share my experiences and, if possible, be of service to others grappling with the same issues."

So she went back to school, earned a degree in counseling, and in 2005 opened her own coaching practice, Verander je Wereld ("Change your World"). She is now a pioneer in poly coaching in the Netherlands and has made many media appearances.

The case studies come from both avant-garde and mainstream society. They include a women seeking to make a successful poly-and-single life for herself with her several very different lovers; a conventional woman in a conventional marriage confused and devastated by falling in love with someone else; couples recovering from cheating; a married woman attracted to other women whose husband disapproves; a couple opening their marriage together; two couples investigating swinging together and perhaps more; a mono-poly couple breaking up; an otherwise fine marriage that has gone sexless, with a possible agreement for one spouse to go outside for sex; and a full, three-way poly triad seeking to construct their pioneering way of life.

In each case Linssen is careful to put her clients' interests ahead of her assumptions or agendas. For instance, a woman with a conservative Christian husband ultimately decides to put aside her unexpected love for another and to cleave to her husband and the way of life she has sworn herself to. Linssen helps guide her to resolution in making this choice.

Each case study is presented at length, possibly more length than you'd like unless you're really interested in people. But that's who the book is for — especially those who face similar problems in their own lives, and especially other therapists who want to see how a variety of poly and extramarital situations can be handled in a non-judgmental way based on the clients' own wishes, needs, and values.

Anyone can benefit by considering the self-examinations and exercises suggested at the end of each chapter. Examples are the "see it through my eyes" exercise, tips for developing autonomy, tips for setting boundaries, making clear agreements, active listening, recognizing codependence, and developing an effective complementary sexual relationship even with different desires and needs. And some of the characters portrayed along the way may stick with you forever.

You can read the (very detailed) table of contents and more of the book online.

Here are some audio interviews about the book that Linssen did in the U.S. (with Monika Thomas and Susan Block) and in the U.K. (with Mike Vitalis and Julia Armstrong).

She and the book have appeared in many more articles, radio, and TV reports in the Netherlands; for links see the entire right-hand sidebar here.

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New forms of marriage

When I was a teenager in 1969, one of my beloved waterbrothers found a magazine article declaring that marriage as we knew it was ending, that new and different ways of partnering were the future, and that group marriage would be one of them. Part of me was elated that ideas like our little group's were getting into print. Another part of me, even at that age and in the midst of poly NRE, knew that the article was out to lunch.

And indeed, talk of "the end of marriage as we know it" disappeared for a generation. Now it's back, driven less by starry visionaries than by ugly statistics.

You know the drill: the roughly 50% divorce rate, the high rates of cheating and infidelity (depending on which surveys you trust), and see my last post about the news that 40% of American babies are now born to unwed mothers. This is very bad news for many of those babies (yes, I'm conservative about some things. So kick me.)

But the collapse of one social structure always drives the invention of new ones. Some of those 40% of babies will grow up in stable, happy un-marriages. Gay parents have always had to live this way, and of course much of the current attention to the role of marriage in society is driven by the gay-marriage debate.

One gay-marriage solution now getting a lot of notice is for the state to quit the marriage business and let churches do it however they want — for their own members. As in France, you'd sign a civil contract at City Hall that makes you spouses under the law. Then, if you want, you could have a church wedding under the rules of the church of your choice. No church would have veto power over nonmembers' marriages.

See the argument for this idea by Stephanie Coontz, "Taking Marriage Private" (New York Times, Nov. 26, 2007). Coontz is author of the excellent books Marriage: a History and The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. Also see San Francisco attorney Colin P. A. Jones's article, "Marriage proposal: Why not privatize?" (San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 22, 2006).

The prospect of legalizing group marriage hovers in the background of these discussions, as conservatives point out with horrified glee. But as I've discussed, the legal frameworks for group marriage would have to be very complicated and worked up almost from scratch — unlike same-sex marriage, which maps right onto existing marriage law. I suspect it will take generations for a good body of law to evolve to accomodate polyfamilies' needs. But already this future is getting noticed.

On The Colbert Report last Thursday, for instance, Steve Colbert brought on the Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec. Kmiec argues for the state to stop trying to define marriage to exclude gays. In the Catholic Church, he noted, marriage is a sacrament, and

you don't go to the state to get baptized, you don't go to the state to get confirmed.... There's a role for every church to decide the terms on which marriage will be defined in their own tradition... [but] the state has an obligation to treat all of its citizens equally and to observe the principle of equality.

Later in the interview, Colbert challenged him about allowing relationship contracts among three people. Kmiec refered to "these kinds of arrangements" as if everyone knows they exist:

Colbert: If you're just establishing a contract between two people, what's to say the state can't establish a contract between three people?... Would you agree you could make a contract between three people to share property, and have visitation rights in hospitals?

Kmiek: Well you can share a contract among three people, you can share it among a large number of people, but the state has drawn a distinction between two people and a larger number for a very good reason, because these other arrangements have side effects, external effects, where [joking] a "storm" would come and we would have to worry about it.

Watch the segment (6 minutes).

Meanwhile, a petition for legal poly marriage has started in the Netherlands. Dutch poly activist Ageeth Veenemans writes to us:

There’s a wonderful new initiative in the Netherlands. The Columbian artist Francisco Camacho started a petition to collect signatures to allow group marriage. By the end of September 2009, the petition has to bring in 40,000 signatures [to put the topic on the agenda of Parliament]. The German TV news program ’Heute in Europa’ (ZDF) paid attention to this Dutch polygamists' Initiative.

Watch the TV report (German spoken).

Read the press release about the petition (Dutch and English).

Here's more discussion in the Netherlands (on a spirituality website): "Polyamory: Evolution or Decadence?", in Dutch and English. (The article's conclusion: "Time will tell.") See also the many recent poly-related news stories in Europe cited at www.polyamorie.nl.

Lastly, Christians often say they believe in sticking with marriage as defined in the Bible. No they don't. For the Bible to define what marriage should look like, our laws should be amended as follows, comments gladkov on the liberal political blog DailyKos (Dec. 10, 2008):

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Genesis 29:17-28, II Samuel 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Samuel 5:13, I Kings 11:3, II Chronicles 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Genesis 24:3; Numbers 25:1-9, Ezra 9:12, Nehemiah 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deuteronomy 22:19, Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Genesis 38:6-10, Deuteronomy 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your father drunk and have intercourse with him (even if he had previously offered you for sex to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. This rule applies only if you are female. (Genesis 19:31-36)

For reference: here is a much more thorough, scholarly, non-snarky list and analysis of the types of Biblical marriage. It says basically the same things.

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"Thirty years after the sexual revolution: How is it possible that I didn't know this existed!"

Onkruid (Netherlands)

The long, slow arc of world history bends toward human betterment. At least that's what most of the Western world has believed since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The ideal of historical progress toward ever greater knowledge, humanism, civilization, and reason — an ideal aborted in the United States — continues in Europe, the place that gave birth to the Enlightenment and the concept of historical progress itself. These ideals remain especially strong in the Northern European countries.

So in a place like the Netherlands, people tend to be unthreatened by new ideas about better human relations.

European societies do tend to behave more traditionally around issues of home, family, and community than Americans do — what with our own ideals of individualism, private gain, and mobility, which have led to social fragmentation. Few of us Americans pay much attention to our neighbors any more or even know who they are. This individualism does give American polys a lot of breathing room, despite the hostile ruling ideology.

But in societies that believe in the idea of progress — that we are here to throw off the darknesses and cruelties of the past, and to strive for a happier, more humane future (as America itself once believed) — in such places, the notion of polyamory lands on friendlier ground.

All this is by way of introduction to a letter I got from GeekFox in Amsterdam:

The magazine "Onkruid" ["The Weed"], which is the main 'alternative' print magazine here in the Netherlands [with a New Age slant], has 8 pages dedicated to polyamory in its Juli/August 2008 number. Much of this is an interview with Ageeth Veenemans, whom you mentioned on May 17, 2008.

The article is called Dertig jaar na de seksuele revolutie: van partnerruil naar polyamorie, or "Thirty years after the sexual revolution, from partner swapping to polyamory". It starts by talking about the ability to love multiple people, as opposed to just have sex with multiple people as was long the focus of the sexual revolution.

The suite of articles includes a column by Iteke Weeda, a Dutch sociologist who has written books and columns about the concept since the mid-80's, when it was called liefde in meervoud, "love in plurality". There are also sub-articles dealing with the origins of polyamory, a rather simple test to see how poly you are, "From Jealousy to Frubble", "Polyamory and Spirituality", and "Polyamory as a Trend".

He has translated the main article for us, shown below. "It wasn't easy," he writes, "as Dutch has a lot of flowery sayings and idioms, and the article has used a lot of them. ^.^ I've tried to keep close to the original; I hope this hasn't created clunky English."

Thirty years after the sexual revolution: from partner swapping to polyamory

By Judith van der Graaf

Do you remember... the sexual revolution and its effects? Or is that way before your time, and are you more into monogamous relationships as came afterwards? In either case, summer is a good time for love. However, what to do if you're already in a relationship and have butterflies in your stomach over someone else? Cheating is cumbersome, and 'swinging' doesn't have all the answers either. Polyamory might provide you with an alternative: Openly loving more than one person at the same time. In a conversation with Ageeth Veenemans who wrote a book about it, we'll shed some light on this phenomenon and take a look at its spiritual content. Also, a look-back by Bob Snoijink and Iteke Weeda as experts on the achievements of 30 years of sexual revolution.

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Ageeth Veenemans (age 44) has made polyamory her life's work. She wrote the book Ik hou van twee mannen (I love two men). A book about her personal struggle with love and falling in love while being married, with a happy ending. At the same time it's a guide: how do you actually do this, and how do you become a full-fledged 'polyamorist'?

Q: What is polyamory?

A: "Polyamory is a life-philosophy in which you admit that you can love more than one person and that you can be loyal, open and respectful towards each other. Typical qualities can be: Friendship, intimacy, emotional or spiritual closeness, and/or sexuality. In essence it is love, not sex. it's about love without limitations rather then sex without limitations. Love is an energy that you can feel, and that you can show by loving. I see sex as the most beautiful and intense way of communicating love. However that is where the taboo lies: having sex with someone else than your partner"

Is polyamory limited to gender and age?

"Often men are more interested in sex and women more interested in intimacy. In a sense you could say that polyamory is more of a woman's thing. However, in principle it's not connected to gender or age. In the forums most people are 35-plus. This is natural: by then you will have had a steady relationship for a while, and it is possible that you will fall in love with someone else. There are people in their 20's who practice it. These usually are students who are very conscious about their life. I even know people aged 80 and above who have been practising polyamory for several decades!"

Do you belief that deep in their hearts, everybody is polyamorous?

"I belief that everybody can feel love for several people at a time. But not everybody will be suited to the polyamorous life. I sometimes call it 'love for advanced students', because in practice, it's not an easy road."

What to do when your partner is polyamorous and you are not, or the other way around?

"Indeed, it is tricky if you differ from your partner in that way. however I don't believe in perpetrators and victims."

What do you think about 50-plus men who say: my wife is getting old, with all the wrinkles, I'm going to add a younger woman?

"I see two or three people who will have to work that out. Sometimes you'll see, especially in older generations, that such a wife has learned to sacrifice herself and take care of her husband. In return she expects his sexual fidelity. How awkward that he should fall in love with another. I'd want to challenge such a woman: take care of yourself, assume responsibility. Don't become a victim of the situation. That will be bad for your self-image. But I can see how difficult that is!"

And the man, does falling in love with 'a young flower' offer him any chances on self-development?

"I think he does, often involving insecurity about his age and looks. I find it hard to understand this focus on superficialities. For me it's all about the 'click'. On the other hand I do seem to fall for taller men, so perhaps I have some things to work out about my height!"

What is the link between polyamory and 'swinging'?

"The morality needs to adjust itself to the reality. Swinging is a way to deal with that: sex with other people is allowed, but restricted by rules. Love is often not allowed. Sometimes it works. I know people who experience an enormous amount of freedom, by only having the guts to do that, and who develop beautiful friendships because of it. Personally I feel that sex for the sex is in no way comparable with loving sex. In polyamory it's all about the love, and is sex a possible result, not a purpose."

What is your personal mission in writing this book and doing this work?

"I was raised Catholic and monogamous, got married, had three children, and thought that this would be the way it would be for the rest of my life. Until seven years ago when I fell in love with a co-worker: Bob. Cheating was a big personal taboo, and I condemned it strongly in other people. However when he kissed me, all the fuses blew and I started a secret affair.

"I was so much in love, that I considered leaving husband and children for him. Maybe you should experience something like that yourself to understand how this can happen in a life. My brother had the same experience: He had a relationship of 17 years and a child a year old when he fell head over heels for another woman. He was convicted by people around him, his wife left him, taking his child, and he lost everything he had in one fell swoop. One time we talked about it, and I saw him cry. About how intense his love felt, but also about how he still loved his wife, and missed his child. Unfortunately he had a cardiac arrest a few months later in this stressing period of his life, which cost his life.

"I have literally seen what kind of misery the monogamous norm can bring. I myself went through a harsh time: I confessed to my husband and said my farewells to Bob. I was completely open to my husband about that, because I didn't want to cheat any more.

"But what was the alternative? That was when I found the website (www.polyamory.nl) and thought: how is it possible that I didn't know that this existed! I immediately decided: I'm going to write a book about this! The writing began to process my own experience, but also to lend support to all the people in that situation.

"Polyamory saved my marriage. Only when we were able to talk about this, could our relationship improve. Finally I could show my sorrow for my lost love, and my husband could show his emotions about my deceit, and through all this openness we came to each other again.

"Before I went public under my own name, I extensively talked with my husband about it. I like the way we live and want to express it. And I have experienced that you can do it: I continued to live, and feel that people even respect us. Only the pre-war [WWII] generation cannot seem to muster understanding. The generation that experienced the sexual revolution is usually quite open to it.

"I couldn't consider leaving my husband any more and would be extremely embarrassed if I had taken the care of their father away from my children. An important part of my mission is: Assume responsibility for your children. Sometimes divorce is the way to go. But I want to show: This is the alternative, take a look, maybe it's something for you."

GeekFox also translated the sidebar on Iteke Weeda:

Sociologist and love-researcher Iteke Weeda (age 65):

'It should be possible' becomes 'It should be allowed if it can be done'.

"Polyamory is one of the biggest taboos; still, a majority of people have to deal with love-experiences with others in their relationship. Isn't that weird, a taboo for something that lives with most of society!"

Iteke Weeda has been talking about 'love in plurality' [liefde in meervoud] for years, a term that she coined for the phenomenon of erotic feelings of love for several people at the same time. She has an enormous amount of letters and depositions from men and women who have experience of this.

"In the 50's the sexual morality was very strict: you find your true love between your 18th and 25th year of age, and you marry him, without having sex before marriage. It was rather immature if you fell in love after 30. If you had a partner, flirting with another was not done, and cheating was direct cause for divorce.
The period 1965-1975 was a a time filled with experiment to topple the sacred ideals, especially in the more elitist groups: the time of communes, anti-authoritarian raising of children and partner-swapping. Actually partner-swapping was still a bit traditional because you experimented within marriage, and emotions wore not allowed. 'It should be possible' became the new motto. Of course it wasn't that simple: new love and jealousy did develop, with many divorces as a result."

In the second half of the 70's the number of experiment declined; monogamy was nourished more. In the 80's AIDS reinforced this trend. Did the sexual revolution fail because of that?

"Oh no, I see it this way: first we ran ahead 25 steps and then we fell back 15. But those 10 remaining steps we kept: we never returned to the way of thinking of the 50's. Slowly we developed ourselves further, we become emotionally stronger. And this is the requisite for such experiments as polyamory; this allows you to cope with the painful emotions that sometimes come with it. The new morality is turning into 'everything should be allowed if it can be done'. I meet many people who are finding their way into polyamory. It can be an enrichment if all parties can deal with it, and if it can happen in the open. Through secrecy, you distort the intuition of the other, who really can tell that something is happening. This doesn't mean that you should share everything, including the tiniest bed-details. There is something like privacy."

The magazine didn't put the articles on its website. If it does, remember that you can translate (very roughly) a whole site by pasting the URL into Google Language Tools.

Update: In the Amsterdam newspaper The Telegraph for Feb. 14, 2009, there's a short article "Do You Believe in Monogamy?" with many reader comments.

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"Ik hou van twee mannen"("I love two men")

Nederland 1 TV

This one got by me when it appeared. The first-ever TV report on polyamorie in the Netherlands (according to a tribe poster who lives there) aired on February 14th, on EénVandaag (Channel 1 Today). The report is more than 7 minutes long and looks wonderful, with happy, glowing people who make me want to go live there — though they might as well be speaking Sumerian. Watch the show (may require Internet Explorer or a Firefox plug-in).

One of the stars is Ageeth Veenemans, a poly activist now becoming known in the English-speaking world. She runs the big, busy Polyamorie Nederlandse website, which has also a smaller English edition. The Dutch site includes links to many recent mass-media articles about poly in Dutch and other European languages. Clearly I've been missing most of them!

(By the way, you can view a rough English translation of most foreign-language websites by using Google Language Tools.)

Veenemans has published a book, Ik Hou Van Twee Mannen, now in its third printing, which she hopes to get published in English, Spanish, and German. She sends out a free monthly newsletter.

About her book, Veenemans writes:

When I discovered polyamory on the internet, I knew: “This is what I want!” It turned out to be possible: to have two simultaneous love relationships without lying and deceit. And I discovered I am not alone in wanting two loves. Why had I not found out earlier? Polyamory was unknown in The Netherlands. There was no Dutch literature.

I started to write in September 2004. I am convinced that polyamory may be a good alternative for others, too. It saved my marriage.

In writing my book and by participating in a [Dutch] polyamory forum on the internet, I overcame my inhibitions. I learned to talk about what had been the unspeakable for four years, which was, that I had fallen in love with two men and that I wanted to express it.

Also: Pieter Schultz has created a huge resource list in Dutch, polyamorie.startpagina.nl, with much content in English. It includes a big list of European poly groups and sites by country.