Mainstream poly, anti-capitalist poly, the Harvard Law Review, and the good stuff your relatives are reading from Ask Amy right now

●  The ability to consider new information and change your view in light of actual facts and evidence is a key sign of personal integrity.

"Ask Amy" — the advice columnist Amy Dickinson, who is published in up to 200 newspapers — lays out her changed stance on polyamory in this column that your parents and sibs may be reading right now: Ask Amy: Our son and his wife just told us they’re polyamorous (week of March 7).

Thank you to the many of you who have written to Amy over the years and helped lead her to change her mind.

Dear Amy: Our son and daughter-in-law, married for about six years, recently dropped a bomb on my husband and me.

They told us they are involved in polyamorous relationships where each has another partner, lover or person they each spend a lot of time with outside of the marriage.

They tell us that this lifestyle is becoming more common. They are in their mid-30s, and don’t have children.

We are having a hard time understanding this choice and accepting what this will mean for our relationship going forward, and for our larger family. We are the only family members they have shared this information with so far, and we are sworn to secrecy.

They may have eased their consciences by telling us, but now we are left with troubling and unsettling information and no place to go with it. We assured them that we will never stop loving them, but this is awkward for us.

What can we do to ease our troubled minds?

— Bewildered Parents

Amy Dickinson

Bewildered: ...You may define marriage as monogamy until divorce or death, but as people explore their freedom to redefine the boundaries of what it means to be married, they may choose “ethical non-monogamy,” which is where they remain lovingly married, but are free to engage in other romantic relationships in a way that they believe is open and honest. They don't define this as infidelity. It is about consensual relationships.

In my opinion, the important question is how these polyamorous relationships will affect children growing up in families with three or four adults who all identify as parents and partners. If all the adults are stable, loving, and committed to the children, then I imagine the kids will be fine.

Take a breath, do some reading about polyamory, and understand that you define marriage one way, while they define it differently.

Unless you and they are religious, this doesn't make it “wrong.” It just makes it “what is.”

This is their life and their choice, and if they want to remove the taboo surrounding polyamory, you should discourage them from defining this as a deep, dark family secret.

They (not you) can explain themselves to other family members when the time comes, and yes — it's bound to be awkward … until it isn't.

● Amy is clear enough there to prompt a reaction from the distinguished president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler: 'Trust the Bible, Not Amy,' Mohler Says (Christian Headlines, March 9).

Well, do you trust the Bible? Or know someone who does? Please take it out and turn to Exodus 21:10. Here Jehovah Himself instructs men who take an additional wife to continue to support and fill the sexual needs of the first wife:

"If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights."  The word that's discreetly translated as "marital" (or "conjugal") in most English versions of the Bible explicitly means "sexual": In the original Hebrew the word is וְעֹנָתָ֖הּ (wə·‘ō·nā·ṯāh), sexual. Here's some rabbinic commentary.

● A rather different major advice columnist, Dan Savage, fields two poly questions this week: about jealousy feelings that won't fade and coming out to family too early: Polyamorous paradise (in many alternative newsweeklies, first week of March). Here's the first of the two:

Joe Newton

...When we started dating, she said she needed us to be poly and I agreed. It was a first for both of us! I'd always been interested—my parents are queer and have been poly my whole life—so it wasn't a new concept to me. Early on, we went on some random dates, made out with some other people, but took it slow because we wanted to build a foundation of trust and love first. Now we're there.

She recently started dating a close friend of ours. In theory, I'm good with it. I adore him and he cares about us as a couple. There's lots of communication happening in all directions. We've even tossed around the idea of some threesomes or foursomes. I can't wait for the day when I am truly stoked for this, and we can all play and love on each other. But I don't want to “overcome the jealousy” or “deal with it.” I want being poly to be something that makes life amazing! But I am still being restricted by silly feelings put in my head via some nefarious patriarchal capitalist hack. Any advice for moving on as quickly as possible into a polyamorous paradise? I want to feel queerer and a little less mainstream!

—Seeking Polyamorous Effortless Wonders

No relationship—closed, open, or poly—is a paradise. Ideally a relationship brings more joy into your life than pain. ... But misunderstandings, disagreements, and hurt feelings are a part of every romantic partnership. And the longer that partnership goes on, the likelier the people in it—couple, throuple, or quad—are going to face the kind of relationship-extinction-level event that requires contrition, forgiveness, and aggressive memory-holing to survive.

As for jealousy… My husband has been with his boyfriend for five years; there are times when I see them together and I am not just happy for them, SPEW, but made happy by them. (I’m straining to avoid the term “compersion” here, or “the other c-word,” as it’s known at our house.) But there are times when I feel jealous… and if I’m still experiencing jealousy after 20+ years in an open relationship… and still experiencing jealousy after 30+ years being pretty fucking queer… I don’t think jealousy is something you need to completely overcome before opening your relationship or that that being “queerer” cures.

And it’s important to distinguish between different kinds of jealousy. There’s the healthy kind of jealousy (someone is being neglected or taken for granted, and their feelings need to be considered), there’s the unhealthy kind of jealousy (someone is controlling and manipulative, which is a red flag for abuse), and then there’s the sexy and energizing kind of jealousy (seeing your partner through another’s eyes and recognizing—or being reminded—of your partner’s desirability).

... You need to ask yourself what kind of jealousy you’re feeling at a particular moment. If it’s the healthy kind, ask for you what you need; if it’s the unhealthy kind, get your ass into therapy; if it’s the sexy and energizing kind, enjoy the ride.

And finally… It’s good that you’re taking your time, because rushing things is a good way to fuck this up. But paradoxically, if you wait until you’re no longer experiencing any jealousy—or no longer have conflicted feelings about this—you’ll never get there.

Read on.

●  In a different vein, Challenging Monogamy Is a Political Act. The institution has its roots in capitalism and colonialism. (Feb. 17) It's in Novara Media, "addressing the issues that are set to define the 21st century, from a crisis of capitalism to racism and climate change." It features the indigenous American activist and scholar Kim TallBear.

By Sophie K Rosa

Even among “people who consider themselves progressive […] there’s a deep resistance” to non-monogamy, says Kim TallBear, a professor at the University of Alberta, who specialises in decolonial sexualities. ...

On the left, critiques of non-monogamy and polyamory are often framed in neoliberal terms. Choosing to have sex with multiple people, or to sustain multiple romantic relationships, some argue, mirrors individualistic, free-market ideology. But according to polyamorous educator Leanne Yau, versions of both non-monogamy and monogamy can be criticised as “relationship capitalism”.

...Yau takes issue with the stereotype that non-monogamous people have shallower relationships, or that they tend to instrumentalise people. “You can commit to multiple people and accept them flaws and all,” she says. “While there are people who commodify others in non-monogamy, that also happens in monogamy.” 

Non-monogamy can be a deeply political project. 

It can be a privilege to dismiss non-monogamy as a flimsy or apolitical idea, argues TallBear. Queer people, for instance, she says, “don’t really get away with feeling like it’s irrelevant” because they don’t fit into heterosexual dictates to begin with. Race also plays a part in this. “I think many white people, especially, don’t have a sense that [non-monogamy can be] a deeply political project” for some people of colour, she says, beyond the idea that it is “vaguely pushing back against religious norms or restrictions.” 

Even among leftists, it goes widely unacknowledged that monogamy not only has its roots in capitalism, but that it was violently enforced upon colonised peoples, says TallBear. Monogamous and non-monogamous people alike often “have no sense of the way that [monogamous settler] marriage and straightness was imposed on people in order to build the nation-state.” 

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of The Sex Lives of African Women, explains that in Ghana, for example, British colonisers framed multiplicitous relationship structures – any alternative relational forms – as immoral, while institutionalised heterosexual monogamous marriage was seen as a civilised form of kinship. “A diversity of relationship types was lost, and a form of relationships that wasn’t native to us became what was regarded as the norm,” says Sekyiamah. ...

It’s not just for the white middle class. 

...Non-monogamy can be part of building queerer, more comradely and communal futures. When researching for her book, Sekyiamah found that the women she interviewed who “seemed to me to be the happiest women, the women with the best sex lives”, were those “not conforming to societal norms [but] trying to figure things out for themselves.”  

...But while challenging the dominance of compulsory monogamy is important both politically and in terms of building more conscious relationships, it doesn’t mean we have to pit different relationship styles against each other.

Yau says she rarely encounters non-monogamous people who are “anti-monogamy” – those who are, she says, are often “newbies”, insecure in their new way of being in a mononormative world. More often, she finds, when monogamy does come into criticism, it isn’t the idea itself that is being challenged, but “either the institution of monogamy – compulsory monogamy – [or] the toxic parts of monogamy: the idea that jealousy equals love and care, or that love is sacrifice, or that your partner should be able to meet all of your needs, or that your one romantic partner should be the sole focus of your entire existence […] or that the relationship escalator is how you should find meaning in your life.”  

Non-monogamous people are very rarely interested in replacing monogamy, but in imagining a society beyond compulsory monogamy. It isn’t all about romance and sex, either. ... Asexual and aromantic polyamorists have taught her a lot about this, [TallBear] says, through their capacity to “have multiple, caring, mutually sustainable” committed partnerships that might not include romantic love or sex at all. ...

In Yau’s view, intentional, “healthy monogamous relationships” are not so different from non-monogamous ones anyway. Whether or not you’re having sex with more than one person, you can sustain multiple close relationships. “In non-monogamy all you’re doing [differently],” she says, “is doing romantic or sexual things with more than one person.” ...

Sophie K Rosa is a freelance journalist. ... Her book, provisionally titled Radical Intimacy, will be published by Pluto Books in 2023.

Read the whole article.

●  The Harvard Law Review examines the future of legalized multiple-partner domestic partnerships such as those recently enacted in Somerville, Cambridge, and Arlington, Massachusetts. This article will be a key legal reference point going forward: Three’s Company, Too: The Emergence of Polyamorous Partnership Ordinances (March 10).

This Note examines potential legal challenges to multiple-partner domestic partnership ordinances. Part I describes communities that the ordinances serve, characterizes the discrimination and harassment that communities face, and explains what CNM people will gain from the passage of these ordinances. Part II surveys the complex legal questions that these ordinances generate, such as local government’s authority to pass them, state preemption through civil and criminal statutes, criminalization through anti-bigamy laws, and the application of comity doctrine in other cities and states. Part III evaluates approaches for addressing challenges that the ordinances may face at the municipal, state, and federal levels, such as legislative advocacy and litigation based on gay rights precedents. Ultimately, the ordinances likely will survive challenges and show that, legally speaking, “three is company, too.”

Although the article is called a "Note," it's 10,000 words long and has 186 footnotes. I guess that's a note by Harvard Law Review standards.

● Another basic, accurate poly/ non-monogamy 101, the sort we're seeing all over these days, appeared in Vice: A Monogamous Person's Guide to Exploring Non-Monogamy. "More and more people are turning to alternative relationship styles, but how should newbies approach it?" (Feb. 9, by Simon Doherty).

It quotes an interesting bit of insight from Janet Hardy, about opening couples: 

“There's nearly always going to be one partner who is more adventurous about outside relationships and one who is less so,” she says. “If you’re doing it right, you wind up with one person feeling just a little bit stretched and pushed, but within their tolerance, and one person who's feeling a little bit constrained, but within their tolerance.

“So if everybody is just a little bit unhappy, that's a good sign that you're doing it right. If one person is delighted and the other person is unhappy, then that's a good sign that you're doing it wrong.”

● Cosmopolitan has been riding the poly trend hard, with 64 online articles tagged "polyamory" in the last six years. The latest: 10 Polyamory Experts to Follow on TikTok (Feb. 2).

● But you still encounter Poly 101 pieces that are plain stupid and get almost every other sentence wrong. For instance, Multiple Lives: How Do Polyamorous Relationships Work? on the site of the Ashley Madison imitator VictoriaMilan, a cheaters' dating service ("Relive the passion. Find your affair. 6.2 million members can't be wrong.") It's a reminder that certain segments of the public are still being fed bullcrap and eating it. Maybe you can tell them by the shit sticking to their teeth when they talk. Be careful when dating.

● Since you asked... here's one more from the British tabs: a happy story that was picked up on this side of the pond by the scummy New York Post's site: I’m in love with a couple after matching with both separately on dating app (March 1).

Charlotte, Jamie and Laura. (Mercury Press & Media)

A UK woman says she’s fallen head over heels in love with a couple after matching with the pair separately — and now the smitten trio have formed a throuple.

“We all date each other, and it’s all equal,” Lora Corser, 28, told Caters News Agency of their polyamorous relationship...

“Initially, I matched with Jamie and Charlotte separately,” Corser said of the instant chemistry among the three soulmates, who live together in Leicester, East Midlands. “We weren’t ever supposed to all be in a relationship but Charlotte and I instantly hit it off.”

And while the lovestruck triumvirate initially intended to date separately, their relationship “grew naturally” to the point where the three are now inseparable.

“This is definitely the most communicative and safe relationship that I think I’ve ever been in,” gushed Farmer of their romantic triple header. ...

● Lastly: Randy Ralston just sent me this historical broadcast from his archives. It's almost 30 years old but sounds remarkably current: From KCAL-9 TV in Los Angeles, December 21, 1993: Open Relationships on the "Shirley" talk show.

I'll explain in a bit why this one is notable for poly-movement historians.

The show devoted all its 43 minutes to interviewing a long-term open MFM triad about their life together. A fourth partner of theirs, a woman who has a husband and other partners of her own, comes on partway through the show. The whole extended network is on great terms with one another.

The married couple met their other main partner at a "workshop in California" where they explored depths of communication, sexuality, and human relationships. The husband mentions Stan Dale, which confirms that these were Human Awareness Institute events, probably at Harbin Hot Springs, California. Stan Dale (1929-2007) founded and ran HAI, which became an early seedbed for the modern polyamory movement and its early message-spreaders, roots that are generally forgotten today (2022).

The people on the show may have 1970s-ish hairstyles, but they talk the talk of high-quality, best-practices, successful ethical polyamory as we see it 29 years later. Way back then, HAI set much of the movement's communicate-communicate-communicate ideology, its takes on jealousy and insecurity and how to deal with them and what they can mean, and some of today's common phraseology as you will recognize in the video.

They do not yet, however, use the word "polyamory," nor does the host or anyone else on the show. The word was still too new and unknown; it originated elsewhere just three years earlier. (Even Loving More magazine didn't settle on "polyamory" as the word for what it was doing until 1995, two years after this show aired.)

Thanks to Randy for pulling this out of his archives and YouTubing it.

More early history: I've collected significant poly-in-the-media items from before I started this blog in 2005: Older articles, for history's sake. That post is backdated "August 2005" to make it fit here chronologically.   

Also: Many other early items of polyamory in the media, as well as all kinds of early original documents, publications, personal papers, etc., are held in the Kenneth R. Haslam Collection on Polyamory in the Kinsey Institute Library at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. Media items are listed in the Finding Aid to the collection; search the text of that .pdf document for "Series IV) Media Coverage".

And if you have any such material in some old file box (basically pre-2000), please donate it to the Kinsey collection before it is lost, so that scholars and researchers can access it for all time. Write to Kinsey's special collections librarian Liana Zhou, libknsy@indiana.edu. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

And stepping back for perspective:

We polyamorous people are a small, weird minority of social-rule breakers. Some call us a threat to society. 

Our freedom to live in non-traditional relationships, and to speak up for ourselves about the facts of ourselves, is just one way we depend on a free and pluralistic society that respects people's dignity to create their own lives and to access facts. Such a society is only possible where people have the power to govern themselves, combined with legal structures that are at least supposed to protect the rights of all. 

People who create their own lives, and who insist on the democratic structures and legal protections that enable them to do so, infuriate and terrify the authoritarians who are growing in power around the world and in our own United States. They seek to stamp out people's freedom to go their own way, whether by laws, intimidation, propaganda campaigns, or, eventually, artillery.

For what it's worth, this site has received far more reads from Ukraine over the years (56,400) than from any other country in Eastern Europe.

For now, you can donate to Ukrainian relief through this list of organizations vetted by the Washington Post, or many others. (Avoid scams.) Much more may yet be required of us.

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"Polyamory in the context of capitalist culture"

"All polyamory participants talk as if they are living in a social vacuum, unaffected by the wider social order, writes Sydney Peiris."

It's only a letter to the editor — following the Guardian's publishing of All you need is loves: the truth about polyamory four days ago — but I think it's worth attention. This elephant is frequently in the room.

Polyamory in the context of capitalist culture

Alexandra, Mike and Laura are in a polyamorous relationship and featured in Sirin Kale’s G2 article. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian   

 
In your article (‘There’s so much joy in being poly’, G2, 25 September) one person declares: “What I love about polyamory is that I’m my own person and no one owns me. I don’t own any of you, either. We’re all free.” It seems to me this represents the vision of the human in capitalist culture: the unfettered, autonomous, rational, economic man. All polyamory participants talk about their feelings as if they are living in a social vacuum, unaffected by the wider social order in which they live. Kathleen Lynch, the Irish educationist, argues that our education system too enshrines the rational autonomous subject. Instead she advocates education for nurturing affective relationships and the recognition that we are profoundly dependent and interdependent on others for much of life. Relationships, whether monogamy or poly, are vitiated by the values currently celebrated in capitalist culture: narcissism and hedonism.

Sydney Peiris
Wolverhampton

The letter (Sept. 29, 2018).

The title of the original article, of course, is a takeoff on the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." I'm with Abbie Hoffman, who said, "But it is not. And this is basically the flaw in Beatle politics. All you need is justice." ¹

------------------------------------------------

¹ The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, p. 239.

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"Should Feminists Be Critical of Compulsory Monogamy?"

Ms. magazine online

At the Ms. magazine blog, Angi Becker Stevens extends her run with three solid poly articles appearing in three significant publications in a week.

Should Feminists Be Critical of Compulsory Monogamy?

By Angi Becker Stevens

Akrabbim / Wikimedia Commons

In 1980, Adrienne Rich broke new ground in her essay “On Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in which she argued that feminism need not merely include lesbian voices but actively critique compulsory heterosexuality as a patriarchal institution. More than 30 years later, feminist support for gay and lesbian rights has become commonplace.... But we have yet to turn a critical eye toward the similarly functioning institution of compulsory monogamy.

...As feminists, we’ve learned to speak out and criticize these narrow visions of romance for their heteronormativity as well as for their strict enforcement of gender roles, their frequent double-standards for male and female behavior and their two-dimensional portrayals of women. But we fail to acknowledge the institution of compulsory monogamy that underlies media portrayals of love and romance, or how that institution has worked hand-in-hand with patriarchy for much of history.

...Though exact numbers are hard to come by, it’s estimated that between 4 and 5 percent of Americans are in some form of openly non-monogamous relationship, many of them polyamorous.... Modern polyamory has many feminist roots, and although there are polyamorous folks across the political and ideological spectrums, a large number are feminists, progressives and leftists....

Of course one function of compulsory monogamy is that polyamorous relationships are widely condemned, by both liberals and conservatives. But it’s important to reflect on the root of that condemnation. Whenever a society prohibits a certain behavior or identity, that prohibition is most likely serving the interests of people in positions of power. As feminists, we should always question these socially mandated norms. Is monogamy enforced simply out of tradition? Or is it enforced as yet another way to control and police women’s bodies and sexuality?

...Just as one can be straight and still critical of compulsory heterosexuality, it is possible to engage in monogamous relationships and yet still be critical of the institution of compulsory monogamy. I hope we can begin having a dialogue about this institution, examining what it is and how it functions, and envisioning a future without it.

Read the whole article (August 6, 2013).

All my posts tagged Feminism (including this one; scroll down).

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"Why are we so committed to keeping compulsory monogamy intact?"

PolicyMic

PolicyMic is a news-and-opinion site, founded by recent Harvard and Stanford grads, designed to function as "the first democratic online news platform to engage millennials in debates about real issues. We believe in amplifying excellent unheard voices."

So Angi Becker Stevens, polyactivist and radical theorist in the Detroit area, went there and wrote this:

Valentine's Day is For Celebrating All Kinds Of Love ... Including Polyamory

By Angi Becker Stevens

...David Blankenthorn, who once opposed same-sex marriage... has since changed his tune. He announced last June that he wished to join forces with same-sex marriage advocates “to build new coalitions bringing together gays who want to strengthen marriage with straight people who want to do the same.” And his recent “Call for a New Conversation on Marriage” — with its claim that “this hollowing out of marriage in mainstream America is among the most consequential social facts of our era” — has been signed by both gay and straight activists and thinkers from across the political spectrum.

...Even if we put aside for a moment the fact that many “traditional family values” are deeply rooted in patriarchy, is this really the best turn for the marriage-equality movement to make? If we can agree to cast away the oppressive social institution of compulsory heterosexuality, why are we so committed to keeping the institution of compulsory monogamy intact?

As a polyamorous woman, I admit to having a personal stake in that question. Families like mine, with more than one romantic partner, are seldom treated with credibility. To conservatives, we're the ultimate danger that the "slippery slope" of gay marriage might lead to. To liberals and particularly same-sex marriage advocates, we're often seen as a silly distraction from more important matters. (That is, when we are seen at all.)

But relationships like mine do exist, happily, and we want the same thing anyone wants: to have our choice of partners recognized and accepted by the world we live in. And of all the arguments I have heard against the ethics of relationships like mine, I have yet to hear any that do not rely on the same kind of "defending traditional values" reasoning that has so long been invoked against gay marriage.

I don't mean to criticize the choice to marry; I'm legally married to one of my partners, and would quite likely marry the other if multi-partner marriage ever becomes legal. And I certainly don't mean to scoff at lifelong commitment, as someone who has made not just one such commitment, but two. Nor do I wish to criticize monogamy, which is wonderful for a lot of people, but simply not right for me. What I do wish to criticize is the notion that there is any one correct way to form intimate, loving relationships....

Read the whole article (Feb. 14, 2013).

Stevens has just started a new blogsite, The Radical Poly Agenda.

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From Monogamish to Relationship Anarchy: a Widening Poly Spectrum

America is having a nonmonogamy moment, and probably more than a moment. After a generation in the shadows, the concept of responsible nonmonogamy is settling in as a permanent part of modern life and thought. Workable, agreed-upon multi-relating is certainly getting more attention than at any time since the 1970s, and in healthier, more mature, more sustainable forms.

Many things are contributing to this, from the slow disintegration of traditional marriage to the appearance of books like The Myth of Monogamy (2002) and Sex at Dawn (2010). The latter in particular makes a compelling case from anthropology and other sciences that we have evolved by nature for a life of easy nonmonogamy, a fact that we ignore at our misery and peril.

Getting the most public interest are, naturally, the multi-relationship styles on the least radical end of the poly spectrum: those that challenge the fewest other cultural assumptions.

"Open marriage," for instance, usually implies a very primary couple, secondary relationships that are presumed to be disposable in a pinch, and little or none of the deeper poly ethos that "we're all in this together" even if just tangentially. The standards of communication within the couple, and toward outsiders, are likely to be much more ordinary (and unexamined) than the radical transparency, self-analysis, and fearless honesty that many polys consider to be their guiding ideal, even when they fall short of reaching it.

The new terms "monogamish" (popularized by Dan Savage), "flexogamy" (from Cosmopolitan), and "The New Monogamy" (the title of a book by Tammy Nelson coming out next January) refer to even more tentative dabblings with outside liaisons. For instance, here's a local TV news report on "monogamish" couples that aired last Monday on ABC-2 News in Baltimore.

A different sign of ferment on the mainstream end of the poly spectrum is the growing rapprochement between poly and swinging. Since its origins in the 1940s, swinging has mostly been about couples swapping with other couples at prescribed venues: sex parties where what happens at the party stays at the party, with cultural taboos against falling in love or seeking to build too many real-life connections. That's changing; there's always been crossover, but the current generation of swingers is taking new interest in poly philosophy and practice. At Atlanta Poly Weekend in March, swing-community lawyer and entrepreneur Stephen G. Cobb predicted to the crowd that this trend is reaching a "tipping point" and that the poly movement is about to be inundated by a "flood" of people from the vastly larger Lifestyle. Other signs suggest this may be so.

The biggest difference between polys and swingers is cultural. Swingers tend, on average, to be more conservative, mainstream, Christian, happy to stay closeted, satisfied with standard American life in other ways, and unpracticed in questioning dominant paradigms. As a result, despite its large size (estimated at 4 or 5 million people in the U.S.) and the radical nature of what it's actually doing, "the Lifestyle" has left remarkably little imprint on American life and culture in the last 60 years. If lifestylers really do flood the poly world in the next few years, poly on average is going to look less geeky, alternative, intellectual, queer, and Seattleish than it does now.

However, there is also new activity brewing on the opposite end of the poly spectrum.

"Relationship Anarchy," or RA, is the term being used by really alternative people who disdain "polyamory" as meaning something too limited and ordinary. Or perhaps too much like the older generation. This is the term of choice in some anarchist and Occupy cultures in particular, especially in Europe, and it's spreading.

Deborah Anapol, a spiritual founder of the modern poly movement and author of Polyamory: the New Love Without Limits (1992, 1997), commented a couple of weeks ago,

Most people in open marriages are very deliberately and intentionally committed to the couple paradigm. This has led some younger, more radical people to reject polyamory as old paradigm and advocate what they call relationship anarchy but is pretty much what I called polyamory over 20 years ago....

My feeling is that we are still at least one, if not two or more generations away from evolving beyond the couple paradigm, but that the standard couple is rapidly evolving into an open couple — and an open couple who does not resonate with the word, community, or concept of polyamory. Furthermore, among the people I meet in conscious environments all over the world, most of those who really "get" polyamory —— not so much as an identity, but as a way of life —— don't want to apply the label to themselves or their behavior.

Longtime poly researcher Meg Barker in England notes,

Three phrases that I have heard for a potential 'third wave' of polyamory are 'relationship anarchy', 'relationshipqueer' and 'polytical' (the UK website). All are more explictly politically engaged, tend to come from a queer and/or anarchist perspective, and question things like the privileging of romantic over other kinds of relationships and the ideas of rigid rules and contracts.

(Barker and Daniel Cardoso in Portugal were recently on an academic panel exploring these topics. Elsewhere, Cardoso and Pepper Mint go deeper into theory.)

From the leading RA activist Andie Nordgren in Sweden:

8 Points on Relationship Anarchy

Andie Nordgren

By Andie Nordgren (2006 translation by Leo Nordwall and Elli Åhlvik)

You can love a lot of people — each relationship is unique

     Relationship Anarchy (RA) questions the idea that love is a special, limited feeling which is real only when kept between two people at any given moment.... Every relationship stands on its own, a meeting between independent equals.

Love and Respect is to have no demands

     Refraining from demands, as a basis of a relationship, is to show respect towards other people's independence and capability of making decisions on their own. You having feelings for others or a history together doesn't give you the right to set rules or make demands. Try instead to explore how you can develop a relationship without disregarding each others essential values and opinions.... Demandlessness is the only way to be completely sure that everyone in a relationship is there of their own free will. It's not “real love” to adjust to each other according to an existing template.

Give yourself a solid point of view

     How do you want others to treat you? And I mean everyone. What are your premises and how do you define your boundaries? What kind of people do you want to have around and how do you want your relationships to be? Find such a core point of view and work with all your relationships according to it....

Remember the heterosexual norm but don't be afraid

     Remember that there is an incredibly powerful set of normative beliefs telling you how life and real love should be. People will wonder and question your relationships.... Don't allow your relationships to be driven by fear of societal norms.

Spontaneity instead of duty

     To be able to be spontaneous – to act without the fear of being punished and without obligations – is what makes radical relationships come to life....

Fake it 'til you make it

     Sometimes it might sound like you have to be some kind of übermensch to "stand life" as a relationship anarchist. It's not true. Try using the trick “fake it 'til you make it”, which means that you imagine how you would have done in various difficult situations if you were as strong and cool as you'd like....

Trust is better than being suspicious

     Assume that everyone near you wants you to be happy....

Change through communication

     Whenever people do something together, there is a norm on how to act and what to do – a norm on how a the situation should turn out. If you and people around you won't talk about the whats, hows and whys, everything will turn out as the norm dictates. Communication, common action and a will to change is the only way to break free from the norms. Radical relationships must have open discussions as their main component.... Talk to each other!

That's a condensation; read and save the whole article [updated new translation by Andie, July 2012]. "Andie Nordgren is a genderqueer relationship hacker and a key voice behind the Relationship Anarchy movement, which originated in Sweden but is now gaining international interest."

Similarly, the radical web magazine The Scavenger presents a long article that's worth saving to show anyone who wonders why a person with the author's philosophy takes such utter joy in this life:

Revolutionary romance: A primer for polyamory

By Sadie Ryanne

...I guess because I’ve been talking a lot about new dates (*cough* like a giddy teenage queen *cough*) and my upcoming wedding, I’ve been having to answer lots of questions about polyamory. Monogamous people just seem to be utterly fascinated (or horrified) by it, and they want to talk to me about it all the time.

One friend recently called me “the most amorous-seeking person” they’ve ever met. I’m a flirty gal, it’s true… But when asked how many relationships I’m in (which happens often), I honestly don’t know how to answer. Three? Five? A dozen?

According to dominant monogamous narratives, “a relationship” is a special kind of dynamic that is easily distinguishable (because it is the only dynamic that is supposed to involve both romance and sex), and it needs to be fiercely defined and defended....

I find that when most monogamous people try to understand polyamory, they still generalize this basic idea. They understand that I’m not sexually or romantically exclusive, but they still assume that I have multiple “relationships” the way they understand what a relationship is. Thus, when monogamous people ask me “how many relationships are you in?” they expect the answer to be easy.

Well, that just doesn’t apply to my life....

...And of course, it’s all very flexible: Someone who begins as a sexual partner often ends up as a platonic best friend.

...I still get joyously anxious about new crushes when I’m not sure where they will go, I still squeal when someone asks me to be their girlfriend, and I still cry when one of my partners decides that we shouldn’t call each other lovers anymore. It’s not that the labels have no meaning for me.

But instead of assuming that there is only one, monolithic way to define a relationship, I see it much differently: There are just many different dynamics between two or more people (I’m in at least one triad, by the way), and many different words that they might use to describe their relationship to one another.

...I can still be heartbroken by the breakup of one relationship while being ecstatically in love with another and brimming with excitement about the possibility of another new one starting.

The radical politics of blooming flowers

But there’s also more to my poly identity than that. Polyamory is more than a descriptive term for a certain type of relationship structure. It is also, at least for me, a political identity marking my opposition to compulsory monogamy.

...Polyamory has the potential to challenge many of the entrenched sexist and trans/homophobic social structures — notably, the nuclear family.... Polyamory opens the door to a variety of messy, self-determined, tangled networks as alternatives for creating families, providing for mutual support, raising children and so on.

Not to mention, the more we pursue pleasure and love for ourselves and the people around us, the more we eschew the neoliberal imperative to be productive (where productivity is narrowly defined within a capitalist framework).

...On the whole, I find that poly relationships are usually much stronger because we do openly talk about things like jealousy. I’ve found that many monogamous people (at least the vanilla ones) have no idea how to negotiate things like safer sex, boundaries, desires, and so on. Hell, most monogamous people don’t even know how to talk about sex or romance at all without getting super uncomfortable!

If I need some space from my fiancee or just want to stay in for the weekend, I might ask her, “Hey, I was really hoping to sleep in my own bed this weekend. Do you think you can either not hang out with your other partner, or maybe spend the night at her house so I can have the house to myself?” A lot of monogamous people I know are terrified to ask for space like that, and obsessively worry that they’re going to hurt their partner’s feelings or something. In my case, my lovers just try to accommodate my needs and everyone ends up better off for it.

Poly people basically have to talk about this stuff. With my poly partners, it’s totally considered normal to have regular check-ins about our boundaries to see how they’ve changed and how we’re feeling. Acknowledging things like jealousy and talking about what we’re okay with and what we’d rather not hear about and so on means that we have better communication skills, and thus are healthier partners.

And there’s another emotion that needs to be acknowledged. Jealousy exists, but so does compersion. This is a word that poly people invented to describe the feeling of happiness, satisfaction or fulfillment that is derived from knowing that your partner is happy, satisfied and fulfilled.

It’s real! Whenever one of my partners starts seeing someone new, I get excited and giddy with them. And when they get back from a fun date, I love to hear about it because knowing they had a good time cheers me up, too....

Read the whole long article (June 11, 2011).

We have an interesting and diverse future opening up.

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"Love Without Boundaries: A Revolutionary Relationship"

The Indypendent (New York)

The Indypendent is an award-winning radical newspaper in New York "exploring how systems of power — economic, political and social — affect the lives of people locally and globally.... part of the global Indymedia movement." Its current issue has a long, happy article on the writer's amazing poly life, how she came to it, and what she thinks it means.

Love Without Boundaries: A Revolutionary Relationship

By Ichi Vasquez

...A dozen faces sped toward me screaming “SURPRISE!” I stood in disbelief, staring at my friends and loved ones, and I could feel a wide grin take over my face. I spotted my boyfriend coming toward me with open arms, sweeping me up into a fierce hug.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been planning this,” he said, laughing with relief and happiness. I pulled him into a deep, sweet kiss of gratitude. Through the frenzy of hugs and happy chatter, I saw my secondary partner, who had driven hours up to the city to stay the weekend and be a part of the surprise. Thrilled that he was there, I kissed him lovingly.

I turned my head and rested it on his chest as my eyes found my boyfriend’s gaze near the front of the room. He stared at me adoringly as I was being held by my other partner, and my eyes silently sent him waves of joy and love. I felt so immensely cared for — the combination of being held by one man I adored and receiving space to enjoy myself from the man I loved. This was pure happiness….

...I certainly didn’t know other choices existed until I came to New York City. It was here in this bubbling melting-pot city of various cultures, lifestyles and artistic innovations that I stumbled across the world of polyamory almost five years ago — and it has forever altered the way I see myself as well as my connection with others....

...I learned that certain freedoms my partner and I gave each other actually brought us closer. I learned of numerous ways to connect romantically with someone that don’t involve sex. I rediscovered the value and intimacy of a single kiss. I learned that my heart feels genuine love in numerous degrees and variations for all the special people who have been in my life.

I exposed myself to situations that provoked my deepest fears of abandonment, betrayal and jealousy. I lived through them, and came out the other side with a deeper understanding of my heart and myself....

...Discussing which rules I wanted to follow in my relationships gave me a greater sense of freedom, empathy and empowerment — not just in my connections with others, but also within myself. I was an equal on a team, a life adventurer — not a subordinate or a passive participant. For the first time, I truly felt like I was living out subconscious curiosities that were coming from the deepest recesses of my heart.

Exploring polyamory encouraged me to seek wholeness on my own, as opposed to feeling whole thanks to my relationships or other external factors. People screw up. They let you down, they change their minds and they break promises — so even if you are receiving genuine love from various relationships, your priority should always be to love yourself no matter what happens. It’s also okay that partners can’t meet every need you have — they aren’t supposed to. Taking responsibility for one’s own happiness is a lesson that spans a lifetime.

This responsibility actively forced me to pay closer attention to the choices I made on a daily basis. My emotions became deeper, more alive — I began to have a conscious awareness of myself that I never had before....

A Double-Edged Sword

...One of the biggest challenges I tackled within myself was learning to communicate with partners more than I ever had before, and standing my ground....

Polyamory isn’t for everyone, and this article certainly isn’t a call for everyone to embrace it as the main model for relationships.... The importance here lies not in having multiple partners, but in the freedom to mold and create how we connect to each other from the most platonic to the most intimate of ways.

...By taking control of our hearts and sexuality and seeking others who are like-minded, we can take control of the most precious gifts of self-expression and sharing we have. And perhaps this will lead to other personal revolutions that inspire rebuilding the kind of world where love truly has no boundaries, we no longer feel the pull of popular repressive ideals — and we answer to no one but our highest selves.

Read the whole article (March 21 – April 17, 2012).

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Monogamy, polyamory and relationships at Occupy Wall Street

Time Out New York

In the thick of the most important event of this year, polyamory emerges naturally for a certain fraction of the participants.

Relationship styles at Occupy Wall Street

Monogamy, polyamory and preoccupations with the future of modern love.

By Rachel R. White

...According to 2010 Pew research, 50 percent of young people think that marriage is becoming obsolete. As the Occupy Wall Street movement represents the change people want to see in our society, what kind of change do protesters want to see in relationships? What is the future of dating, or even marriage, according to the protesters? Here is a glance at sex, dating and modern relationships at Occupy Wall Street.

Part One: Poly at Zuccotti

Caitlin, Robert, Yelle, Leandra, Alex and Kyle slept together in the same tent at Zuccotti Park. “Everyone is romantically, intimately and sexually involved,” says Robert. They are a polyamorous family (a relationship style meaning, literally, “many loves”). The group share food, finances and plans post-protest: one pair are traveling to Portugal, others will be tree-sitting in Oregon.

...Cuddled up in the tent, Robert and Caitlin reminisce. “You totally initiated the first orgy,” says Robert. “No,” Caitlin argues, “wine initiated it!” Regardless, more people were slowly invited into their sleeping space. “When you engage in something you care about with someone, that builds a deeper connection," says Robert. "And sometimes that blossoms into other ways of connection."

Although the sixsome, all aged 18 to 24, found that while their poly relationship happened naturally, relations at Zuccotti were not easy. Before it got cold and the police finally allowed tents, the group slept together on an air mattress, covering themselves with a tarp. “Finally we went to Leandra’s house, and we all got in a gigantic, California king-size bed with banisters and soft sheets. There was an epic orgy,” says Robert.

After that, the group members started saying “I love you” to each other. There was more of a bond. “There are tender moments," says Caitlin. "Like taking care of someone who's sick.” And no two relationships in the group are the same, “I relate differently to the 18-year-old who is new to protest culture than to members who are older and more experienced than me," she says. "You need the one-on-one, or that sense of family gets lost."

While polyamory might not be the norm, the group says relationships are changing for their generation. “Traditional courtship rituals are not financially possible — for people here and for our generation as a whole," says Robert. "I’ve had more girlfriends in the past who I moved in with early on because it was the only thing that was economically feasible."

...And for them, it works. “We can go days without talking to many other people, because we have so much of what we need right here!”

Part Two: Monogamy, Uncommonly, at Zuccotti

Sebastian and Catherine met in L.A.... The couple describe the moment they decided to camp out at Occupy as amorous. “How many people can turn to their partners and say, 'You know, I think we should go live in a park for the good of humanity, for months on end'? The entire thing is a wholly romantic exercise,” says Sebastian.

They have a fairly traditional marriage: Catherine and Sebastian are monogamous; they want children. But their model for that is different than their parents'.... [Catherine] hopes that the future of relationships includes a more communal style of living. “Nuclear families can be so isolating,” she says. Sebastian points out that even if you believe in nuclear families, that model isn't looking sustainable....

Living with other couples can provide the nonsexual benefits of polyamory — you can have a support system while remaining monogamous, and passionately so....

Read the whole article (Nov. 18, 2011). It was written before November 15th, when New York authorities staged a pre-dawn raid, arrested 200 occupiers, and bulldozed the encampment.

Added Dec. 16: A reporter for the San Francisco Bay Guardian who was embedded at Occupy San Francisco and Occupy Oakland reflects on the non-monogamy movement and what it could mean for the 99 percent: Revolutionary bedfellows: What Occupy has in common with the sex-positive movement (Dec. 16, 2011).

Added later: Kit O'Connell's article Occupy Counterculture & Polyamory (Jan. 14, 2012).

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"Critique of Pure Relationships: On Consent and Compulsory Monogamy"

Organization for a Free Society

Poly activist Angi Becker Stevens and Alex Upham examine autonomy in sex, gender, and family formation for the anarcho-left-libertarian Organization for a Free Society ("to break down all systems of inequality and injustice and to create a participatory, democratic, and egalitarian society").

This is a narrow niche as media go, but I think their "Critique of Pure Relationships" (a play on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason) is worth attention.

Within feminist circles, there has been a movement in recent years to reframe our notion of consent, moving away from a passive “no means no” model wherein consent is a lack of resistance, toward a “yes means yes” model of active, empowered consent. Proponents of this model of consent offer invaluable insights into how our personal relationships can be transformed... but they often fail to articulate a broader vision and strategy for deconstructing the coercive forces at work in our society. We propose that in order to realize a truly liberated sexuality, the model of active consent must be applied not only to our personal interactions, but to our interactions with society as well. A truly liberated sexuality is one in which all aspects of our sexual identities... are a result of active consent, not a result of passive submission to coercive structures....

The word “choice” appears frequently in debates about sexuality, as if our desires can exist only on the extreme ends of a continuum between purely biological inborn traits and frivolous choices. We believe this absolutist notion of biology vs. choice is a false dichotomy.... Applying a model of consent offers a way out of the choice vs. biology debate, offering instead a model for valuing and respecting a variety of sexualities regardless of their origins.

...Any institution that upholds any particular form of sexuality as ideal, and privileges it as such, in turn acts as a coercive force, pressing individuals to comply with that ideal.... We can hardly be said to be actively consenting when only one option is considered valid, ideal, or “good.” In order to better understand consent it is important to look at some of the systemic roots of coercion in our lives. In this essay we will be exploring the way these coercive forces act to create a culture of compulsory monogamy. While we have chosen to focus on this specific issue, however, we hope this example offers a model of consent which can be applied to all aspects of sexuality.

The section headings are

● Compulsory Monogamy and the Nuclear Family
● Upholding Traditional Gender Roles
● Love and Marriage?
● Jealousy
● Community
● The Economics and Politics of Compulsory Monogamy
● Toward a Non-Coercive Sexuality

Read on (Dec. 11, 2010).

P.S., added later: This is from a classic anarchist-poly article a few years ago by Dean Spade:

For Lovers and Fighters

...Sometimes while I ride the subway I try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. I think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it was a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. It's a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom I would never be attracted and think about what looking at them feels like to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible strings that are connected to this person tied to every part of their body. I think this fun pastime is a way of cultivating compassion. It feels good to think about people that way, and to use that part of my mind that I think is traditionally reserved for a tiny portion of people I'll meet in my life to appreciate the general public. I wish I thought about people like this more often. I think it's the opposite of what our culture teaches us to do. We prefer to pick people apart to find their flaws. Cultivating these feelings of love or appreciation for random people, and even for people I don't like, makes me a more forgiving and appreciative person toward myself and people I love....

Here's the whole article.

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"Is Polyamory Revolutionary?"

Adbusters

AdBusters magazine, based in Vancouver, is “a not-for-profit, reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine concerned about the erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial forces.” It claims that its online members “are a global network of culture jammers and creatives working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society.”

On its website, one of its contributing editors blogs these thoughts:

Is Polyamory Revolutionary? Rupturing the consumer myth through sexual liberation.

By Micah White

...Now, four decades later, we can discern the faint stirrings of a return to the project of sexual liberation. This time, however, it is not under the flag of “free love” but of “polyamory” that the struggle will be waged.

...Sexual liberation as imagined in the 60s was heavily biased towards a vision where sexual energy was freely flowing, all partners essentially equal, and sex something that ought to be shared without restriction. Against this borderless, formless vision of sex another perspective is gaining traction: the “polyamorous” position that maintains it is the tight bonding of a group, whether it be three or four or more, that is revolutionary [apparently referring to trends in urban anarchist communities].

Polyamory is an outgrowth of the free love movement but instead of looking to the orgy as the model for rebellion, it is the notion of a tribe that excites their imagination.

...Can capitalism exist without its foundation of heterosexual monogamy? Is polyamory inherently revolutionary? To all these questions we must answer: capitalism is a master of recuperation. What first shakes it, soon motivates it, later strengthens it....

Read the whole article (July 29, 2010).

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Elsewhere in the street-radical world, the occasional zine Dysophia ("the many worlds of green anarchism") published a 64-page issue in May titled Anarchy & Polyamory; download it as a .pdf. From the website:

Exploring open relationships and non-monogamy from the perspective of green anarchism, Anarchy & Polyamory is a collection of essays and articles, many new (but a few oldies), designed to be accessible to those new to both anarchism and polyamory. It is examines personal and sexual relationships through the prism of anarchism, including considering some common pitfalls and how society's hierarchies are reinforced in personal relationships.

The authors are wide ranging, mixing both past and present from Europe and the US, many talking from their own experience.

...We are are looking at doing faciliting some discussions later in the year for groups wanting to explore some of the issues raised.

Given the amount of interest and reaction already received from preview copies, we are planning a follow-up publication. So, we are interested in responses, whether challenging some of the positions taken in the articles or covering topics that the authors have missed out. We are particularly interested in material which deals with the problems of being non-monogamous in modern society, of communication with in open relations, challenging hierarchies in relationships, and how all this is informed by anarchism.

The table of contents:

● Introduction
● Green Anarchism and Polyamory
● A Personal Perspective
● Let Them Eat Cake
● Emma Goldman on Love and Marriage
● A Conversation
● Anarchy is Love, Love is Anarchy
● Eight Points on Relationship Anarchy
● The Rise of Polyamory: Leftist men’s self-serving cure-all for sexism
● A Green Anarchist Project on Freedom and Love
● Resources

---------------------------------

It's no surprise this was published in England. The poly movement there tends to be more political than in North America, according to activists quoted in a long article in the mainstream Sunday Independent (September 13, 2009):

"British polys are often into alternative lifestyles and politics, and tend to be more radical and progressive than American polys," says [Graham] Nicholls. "Some even identify themselves as 'relationship anarchists'."

One such politically-driven poly is Owen Briggs, a 33-year-old gardener from Nottingham. "I believe in trying to break down power hierarchies in society, and that means breaking them down in my personal life as well," he says. "If I wish to try to allow others to be free, why would I want to control the people I love and care most about?"

Anarchic approaches to relationships also abound on the "queer" poly scene, which, as Johanna Samuelson and her primary partner Jonathan David explain, is a little different from the standard gay scene. "It's an inclusive, activist community which sees beyond the divide between male and female, hetero and homo," says Samuelson, a 27-year-old postgraduate student from Brighton....

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Wendy-O Matik interviewed

AK Press / Revolution by the Book

Wendy-O Matik, cultural radical and former punk musician, wrote one of the early books on polyamory: Redefining Our Relationships (Defiant Times Press, 2002). It's now in its 7th printing. It reads, says Hakim Bey, "like a punk-rock Ann Landers channeling Emma Goldman and Victoria Woodhull."

Matik (born Wendy Millstine) is still a street-level activist and leads Radical Love & Open Relationships workshops. She recently held one at the warehouse of AK Press, a worker-owned anarchist/radical publisher in Oakland, California. AK Press has posted an interview it did with her at the scene:

Redefining Our Relationships: An Interview with Wendy-O Matik

By macio | February 19, 2010

Wendy-O Matik, radical love activist and author of Redefining Our Relationships: Guidelines For Responsible Open Relationships, recently held one of her famous workshops at AK Press. I used the opportunity to do a brief interview....

Wendy: ...I’m beaming with enthusiasm and radical love inoculations, even after 7 years of peddling polyamory workshops across the globe.

Macio: ...what are your favorite parts about these workshops? Do you have a least favorite part?

Wendy: My favorite part of the radical love workshop is visibility. There’s this critical moment when a group of total strangers begin to look around the room and acknowledge that they are not alone, we’re not alone, we’re in it together, and we are all struggling to figure out our unique relationships and it is extremely validating. I am deeply grateful to play some small role in bringing people together to create allies and building community support.

My least favorite or most challenging aspect of my workshop is being a facilitator. It can very challenging to occasionally deal with people who frequently dominate a discussion, or people who give unsolicited advice or try to solve someone’s issues. I also get disappointed when I’ve spent the greater part of my work dedicated to how radical love is linked to social justice, revolution, and saving the planet, and still most folks default to sex and juggling multiple sexual partners. I am, of course, more interested in love and intimacy, not sex and sexual conquest. I am committed to smashing patriarchy and relationship heirarchies whenever possible.

...Some day, I do hope to do a second edition, where I would like to develop at greater length this notion of how the practice of loving more is not just focused on people but also a critical part of loving the planet. Radical love has come to embody a form of political, social, and environmental justice for me, deepening over the years. The tendency for more poly folks to focus on sex, and while sex may be a delicious and fun part of open relationships, it fails to tap into our innate ability to love all species, non-humans and the planet.... Radical love has, at this core, an innately spiritual component, centered on global family, a sacred global interconnection.

Macio: What are some of your life experiences that have ushered you toward the idea of loving openly and without bounds?

Wendy: As a child, I was taught to love everyone. As an adult, I still do....

...Everywhere I’ve traveled or people I have connected with — from Canada to the US to Australia to Malaysia — are hungry for new relationship models. Many of them are already practicing different kind of open relationship structures and are eager to find others to connect with and discuss openly their unique experiences.

Macio: Understandably, going against the grain of how we have been trained to love requires us to confront a lot of inner demons. What are some quick tips for people out there attempting trying to maintain open relationships but running into fears around jealousy, loneliness and other insecurities?

Wendy: Quick tips:

* Read everything you can on the topic of open relationships, jealousy, setting boundaries, communication skills, and building self-esteem.
* Join or create a poly support group via online, chat-rooms, forums, or in your community locally.
* Find workshops and presentations on the topic of open relationships and polyamory. Bring your questions and issues to these gatherings.
* If you’re really struggling emotionally, find a poly-friendly therapist who can help you navigate those difficult issues that you’re facing.

...Radical love has the potential to shift the dominant paradigm, to embrace institutional change and to dismantle systems of oppression, such as capitalism, greed, and patriarchy, but only if we’re interested in smashing the system and rebuilding it with a more holistic paradigm to replace it. As a feminist and anarchist in spirit, open relationships go to the very core of patriarchy and threaten to disrupt men’s historical control over how we love, who we love, how many we love.

Read the whole bang-up interview (Feb. 19, 2010).

More:

Interview with Matik on KFPA radio.

Internet talk radio interview on Voice America (registration required).

Interview on Sex With Emily podcast.

Print interview in East Bay Express (May 17, 2006).

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