Researchers find key polyamory motivations. Taking ignorance apart. Feeld, compersion, our history, a very public failure of consent... and upcoming polycons.
● First: The next poly conventions/gatherings on the calendar!
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March 28 – 31
March 28 – 31
Bastrop State Park near Austin, TX
A big annual campout of the area community, with self-organized
workshops. "Previous events have featured dancing, board games, crafts,
hiking, bike riding.... Volunteer to teach, help make our shared
experience better!"
April 12 – 14
Tucson, AZ
Currently the largest poly/ENM hotel convention. "We expect 400+ attendees, with all-day workshops, Friday and Saturday
night social events, community vendors + more!" Mission: "To create
greater opportunities to find community and learn from others' diverse
relationship experiences."
May 10 – 15, 2024
Abrams Creek Retreat Center, Mt. Storm, WV
A very poly-friendly "multi-day experiment in loving community and cultural change. Each year
we choose a new theme, an aspect of life that we want to explore."
For fuller descriptions and events for the next 12 months:
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Meanwhile, the big winter wave of polyamory in the news has slowed
down. Some recent items:
● Why do people seek polyamorous relationships? Researchers identify key motivations (PsyPost, March 14). This is a report on the paper Initial Motivations for Engaging in Polyamorous Relationships by Alexander K. Tatum, Sharon M. Flicker, Imara Peralta and R. J. Kubicki in Archives of Sexual Behavior, Dec. 14, 2023.
Even if
something seems plain to you, it does needs to be checked and examined.
Getty
By Eric W. DolanNew research sheds light on the motivations that lead individuals to pursue polyamory.... The study reveals that individuals in polyamorous relationships are often driven by desires for deeper emotional connections, autonomy in their personal lives, and a fulfillment of needs that may not be met in monogamous arrangements....By focusing on polyamory separately from other forms of consensual non-monogamy, the researchers hoped to provide nuanced insights that could aid clinicians in supporting clients in polyamorous relationships, especially those facing stress related to their relationship style....[Says lead author] Alexander K. Tatum, “Over the last several years of my practice I’ve noticed an emerging trend of individuals and couples presenting to therapy with a desire to explore ethical, consensual polyamorous relationships. [Searching the literature] I didn’t find a satisfying answer to [why], so I decided to conduct my own study to understand people’s motivations for initial engagement with polyamory.”The study recruited participants through the “r/polyamory” forum on Reddit.... The final sample consisted of 63 participants....A significant number of participants identified their attraction to polyamory as stemming from a deep alignment with their personal values and beliefs about relationships. [These included]-- a philosophical approach to relationships that emphasizes authenticity-- a conscious rejection of societal norms favoring monogamy, and-- a transition from other forms of consensual non-monogamy to polyamory as individuals’ relationship needs evolved.Participants described polyamory as more congruent with their ideals of honesty, openness, and the ability to form meaningful connections with more than one person. This alignment with core values facilitated a sense of living authentically and fully, allowing individuals to express love and affection in ways that felt natural and fulfilling to them.The second theme revolves around the dynamics within existing relationships.... Some individuals turned to polyamory to address dissatisfaction within monogamous relationships, seeking to fulfill unmet emotional, intellectual, or sexual needs. Others were introduced to polyamory through their partners....External stimuli, such as the development of feelings for someone outside the primary relationship or exposure to polyamory through media, friends, or community, constituted another pathway to polyamory. Participants recounted how encounters with polyamorous individuals or representations of polyamory challenged their preconceived notions of relationships and opened up new possibilities for love and connection.The final theme, Sexuality, captures motivations related to sexual exploration, desire for diversity in sexual experiences, and managing discrepancies in sexual desires or interests within relationships....“There are many reasons why people may become curious about polyamory, and it’s important to avoid making broad-brush assumptions about why someone decides to explore polyamorous relationships,” Tatum told PsyPost. ...
● From the PR office of Northeastern University in Boston: If polyamory is on the rise, there may be good economic reasons. But
economist says arrangements are ‘tricky’ (Northeastern Global News, March 15)
By Tanner StenningSocial attitudes toward dating may be a factor in a rising interest in polyamory, but economic forces could also be playing a role, says Mindy Marks, associate professor of economics at Northeastern University....Whatever the primary drivers are, Marks sees polyamory as having some economic basis. Northeastern Global News asked her to weigh in on the recent wave of headlines about polyamory, and on the status of the nuclear family in 2024.
Bits from the interview:
Marriage, partnerships and coupledom — however you want to put it — have responded to economic forces for as long as they’ve been institutions. ...If I were to speculate, I could give you two economic reasons why you might see a rise in polyamory. One has to do with imbalanced sex ratios in communities, especially in more highly educated communities, where there are more college-educated women than college-educated men. Assuming that people don’t want to change their preferences to partner with somebody with a similar education level, then some unmatched women might be more open to considering the sort of partnership arrangements that don’t look like the traditional nuclear family — because there literally just aren’t enough men. ...
No argument about that.
● Feeld has become the go-to dating app for people interested in exploring
poly, kink, and other non-mainstream relationship models because, say its
fans, it has many good people in its pool (for now) and because of the
management's affinity with its users. These and hard work have made it a
booming success after many other poly dating apps over the years have come and gone. (Who else here remembers PolyMatchMaker? Your only matches
within 100 miles tended to be your own partners.)
Success brings new problems. The tech-biz magazine Fast Company reports on Feeld's devastating crashes in recent months as it
gets overloaded:
On again, off again: Can Feeld keep up with non-monogamy’s big moment?
(March 20). It's a long, basically friendly piece about the company, its
founder Ana Kirova, and its user community. But has the crashing stopped? Doesn't quite say.
The company remains independent even as corporate Big Dating buys out
other niche ventures (expect their enshittification), and as young people in particular are growing disillusioned
with dating apps.
● KUER public radio in Utah produced "A Brief History of Polyamory
in America," a 44-minute interview with Christopher M. Gleason. He's the author of American Poly: A History, which came out last fall. "He joined us to talk about
it." (March 18).
As a historian, Gleason starts the show with our 19th-century free-love precursors and the religious framing they gave their attempted utopias, then the Roaring Twenties, then the anarcho-libertarian-freespirit stew of group-love visionaries who helped drive the 1960s counterculture.
A historically important force in the beating heart of the counterculture was the Kerista commune in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. It was a large, enthusiastically utopian, sometimes cultish group marriage that for 20 years flooded California with "a deluge of literature," Gleason notes, and spun off former members and hangers-on as independent visionaries. Adding to the stream were Stranger in a Strange Land converts, some of whom swelled into the Neo-Pagan movement and in 1990 coined the word polyamory.
Out of this brew emerged the later, more practical women leaders who, during the countercultural drought of the 1980s, birthed what we know today as the modern polyamory movement.
Gleason tells of the New Age spiritual thread that was more prominent in the movement in those days, often centering "sacred sex" and Neo-Tantra, and some reaction against this as too "woo-woo." A boost in the late 1990s was The Ethical Slut with its entirely non-spiritual practicalities; and on to the mass spread of poly awareness enabled by the internet.
"Polyamory's genetic history should not be forgotten," says Gleason in
the interview. "As a historian, I think that
just knowing where a thing comes from helps you understand that thing
better."
As for the future? Gleason notes on the show that culture evolves by selection much
the way species do. "Multiple forms of polyamory or ethical non-monogamy
are beginning to proliferate, and eventually some of those will be
selected out, as we have seen in the history of ethical non-monogamy."
But whatever their future cultural forms, he thinks our basic ideas are
now permanently embedded in the world. "Probably from here on, we will
have forms of ethical non-monogamy and monogamy side by side. ... It
could go so many ways."
● Another of our words that was invented early (this one in Kerista)
was compersion. It's not yet in mainstream dictionaries
but that will change; it's gaining wide knowledge and use. The definition that its communal inventors gave it was exact and succinct:
the feeling of taking joy in the joy that others you love share among themselves.
Dictonary.com renders that as
noun (especially among polyamorous people). A feeling of happiness caused by another person's happiness, especially by seeing one's romantic or sexual partner interacting positively with another of their partners.Seeing them giggle like teenagers as they came in from a date filled me with compersion.
The women's mag PureWow is out with What Is Compersion? Therapists Break Down the Opposite of Jealousy (March 3)
By Alexia DellnerWe recently asked a sex therapist about the words that she wishes people would use more often, and one of her answers was a term we'd never heard before: compersion. ...Although the neologism is relatively recent, similar concepts of selfless love have precedents in world religions, such as Buddhism's state of mudita and Christianity's agapé....[psychologist Joli] Hamilton says that "polyamorous people do their best to treat jealousy as a valuable teacher, an indicator that they care deeply about someone, then then they take steps to move away from the fear and move instead towards jealousy’s opposite." She explains that "compersion isn’t about destroying jealousy, it's about turning toward joy and turning toward each other, instead of turning away..."...Here’s an example of what that might look like: Let’s say that you go to a party and your partner spends the evening working the room and mingling with others. In fact, every time you look over, it seems like your S.O. is laughing and having a good time with an attractive and charming guest. Meanwhile, you’ve been stuck talking to Mr. Let-Me-Tell-You-About-My-Cats for the last 40 minutes. Do you A. start an argument on the way home about it? Or B. take a deep breath, tune into your body, notice that you’re feeling jealous and tell yourself that you can figure this one out?If you go with option B, you’ll probably feel better about yourself tomorrow morning and you may even realize that seeing your partner having fun and being so engaged and desirable is actually pretty cool. Boom—compersion....“When jealousy plants a seed of despair, compersion says — hold on, let’s not water that,” explains Hamilton.
But I would add the flip side: Sometimes jealousy is not just your
internal insecurities tweaking, but your gut reacting to a genuine
external problem that your clueless brain hasn't yet grasped.
How do you tell the difference? Ah, there's the hard part! The easy
questions in life were answered long ago.
● MundoNOW, formerly Mundo Hispanico, aims "to reach the newly dominant 55 percent of America's Latino
population that identifies as either bilingual/bicultural or
English-language preferred." It served its 10 million monthly visitors
this straightforward, glowing report of our beliefs and standards:
Exploring love without limits: Insights into the polyamorous
lifestyle (March 9)
MundoNOW archive
By MundoNOWThe polyamorous lifestyle is a journey into the realm of love that transcends traditional boundaries, offering a unique perspective on relationships and affection.It’s rooted in the belief that one can have meaningful, romantic connections with more than one person simultaneously, with honesty and consent forming the cornerstone of these relationships....At its core, polyamory is built on a foundation of transparency, communication and consent, principles that guide and sustain multiple romantic partnerships.It’s about nurturing meaningful relationships with various partners, each with its unique dynamic, without ranking them in a hierarchy of importance.This lifestyle emphasizes emotional openness, with all parties involved being aware of and agreeing to the relationship structure.Understanding and navigating these principles can lead to a fulfilling experience, allowing for a diverse and profound connection that celebrates love in its many forms.
However,
Navigating a polyamorous lifestyle comes with its set of challenges and widespread misconceptions. One of the main hurdles is managing jealousy and ensuring that all partners feel valued and secure within their relationships.Additionally, societal misconceptions often paint polyamory as merely a pursuit of casual encounters, overshadowing the deep emotional bonds and commitment it entails.Addressing these challenges and misconceptions requires constant communication and emotional introspection, ensuring that every relationship within the polyamorous network is nurtured with care and respect.Effective communication stands as the linchpin of polyamorous relationships, facilitating the expression of needs, boundaries and desires among all partners.It involves regular check-ins and discussions to navigate the complexities of multiple relationships, ensuring everyone’s emotional well-being.This level of openness fosters a deep sense of trust and understanding, allowing individuals to explore their connections fully without fear of judgment or insecurity. ...Embracing this communicative approach can lead to stronger, more transparent relationships, where every individual feels heard and respected.
Again however,
In polyamory, nurturing multiple connections simultaneously requires a delicate balance of time, energy and emotional availability.Each relationship needs to be tended to with intention and care, ensuring that no partner feels neglected. This involves not only managing one’s own needs and schedules but also being mindful of the needs and commitments of each partner....The societal perceptions of polyamory are gradually shifting, but the lifestyle still faces significant stigma and misunderstanding. ...Despite these hurdles, the polyamorous community continues to advocate for understanding and recognition, aiming to normalize consensual non-monogamy and promote its acceptance in mainstream society.
● A poorly informed writer for Your Tango said this
whole thing is a brief fad that will blow over:
Monogamy Is Good — And It's Here To Stay (March 13). What it doesn't mention is that it is a reprint from 2008!
Why aren’t you in an open relationship yet? ... But if history can teach us anything, the open relationship bandwagon will come and go, which is a good thing because most women still benefit from and prefer monogamy.Why? Women still generally do more work in relationships than men do and openness requires even more diligence than a regular relationship; women are taught to care more about relationships and risk more for them than men, so non-monogamy raises the stakes more for us. And, despite today’s female open relationship proponents, it’s men who typically initiate and prefer non-monogamy.Another reason why open relationships don't work in practice for a lot of women is because they're simply too time-consuming. [Open book author Jenny] Block is upfront about the work involved in juggling a husband and a girlfriend. An excerpt from her book on The Huffington Post [published in 2008] prompted one HuffPo commenter to say, "I'm exhausted just reading about all the 'work' and never-ending 'communication' about feelings, situations, jealousy, worry, etc. It all sounds like much more effort than it's worth (IMO)."...Sure, some women can tinker with this arrangement and come out on top, but for many of us there's a sense that this is part of the battle of the sexes we're not winning. So if you're feeling like a fuddy-duddy for not wanting two lovers, remember this open relationship thing is a fad, and, as history has shown us, this too shall pass.
Four days later Jenny Block herself, 16 years older now, replied in
Your Tango: Open Marriage Is Not A Fad (March 17)
I was leery about this 2008 piece the minute I saw the title. But as soon as I read it and saw the word "fad" used to describe the kind of relationship that I have been deliriously happy in for years (and the kind hundreds of other people I have met have been in for decades) I knew I was dealing with a classic case of fear and misunderstanding — a dangerous mix. ... So, below I have gone section by section in response to Ms. Cline's piece.Why aren't you in an open relationship yet? Carla Bruni Sarkozy, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, famously "prefers polygamy and polyandry...."Cline's opening question immediately gave me pause. This is the tone of someone who feels either uncomfortable or threatened. Surely no one is asking Cline, or anyone else, why they're not in an open relationship, which makes me wonder if perhaps Cline is questioning herself. ...I have repeatedly assured my readers that I have no problem with honest, intentional monogamy. ......The truth is, it's the lying that is a racket. And, if history can teach us anything, which surely it can, it's that open relationships aren't going anywhere. ..."In Woody Allen's ménage a trois flick Vicky Cristina Barcelona....This is a movie written by a man. Not real life. A movie."It's intriguing that Block and Taormino, two of today's loudest advocates for open relationships, are women."Why isn't our existence — and popularity — proof enough that there are women in the lead?...
Read more. This is how it's done.
● The USA Today podcast "The Excerpt" brings on UK
activist Leanne Yau, and she is her usual voluble self.
Polyamory is attracting more and more practitioners. Why? (March 22, 14 minutes)
...Dana Taylor:I've been trying to wrap my head around the concept of kitchen table polyamory where there's a large family unit, but not all in it are romantically involved. How does that work?Leanne Yau:Kitchen table polyamory is a specific style of polyamory where like you said, there is a kind of family-like dynamic, but the definition is more to do with the closeness of the people involved. There are certain polyamorous dynamics where partners know about each other, but they aren't necessarily friends or they aren't expected to hang out apart from at birthday parties and special events and things like that. Kitchen table polyamory is a specific dynamic where there's a lot more camaraderie. There's very much an emphasis on a group dynamic as well as individual connections between the people involved. And the idea is that people can sit around a kitchen table and have a chat....Dana Taylor:Leanne, there are people who will be bothered by our conversation. Does that concern you in any way? And are there any common misconceptions that you'd like to debunk?Leanne Yau:Yeah, I deal with people getting offended at me on the internet all the time. ... People are scared by change, and I think that's a very human response. ... It can be terrifying to realize that there are other options out there that you may not have considered. Leads a lot of people to have existential crises about whether they've made the right decision. And so I see it as a very normal response....Some people are going to feel challenged by it, and that may lead them to do more introspection or reflection. And some people are going to feel challenged and run away, and that's their business, not mine. ... And I think it's just important for mainstream audiences to recognize that just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
● A sad, important, and cautionary story. Remember
Hacienda Villa, the famous sex- and poly-positive housing group
that set up ten years ago in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn?
The New York Times reports,
A Brooklyn Sex Club Promised Freedom. Some Called It Rape. (March 10). "The leaders of Hacienda, perhaps New York
City’s most prominent sex club, preach a gospel of continuous consent.
Former members say when things went wrong, the group did not keep them
safe."
By Sarah Maslin NirThe townhouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn, was once a beacon for Jennifer Fisher, a place where she did not have to hide that she was polyamorous and kinky, because her housemates were too.The landlord, a group called Hacienda, had a unique vision: creating a community of sexually adventurous people whose house rules preached consent above all else, particularly during the orgies they threw in the basement every week. Over the years that followed, Hacienda flourished, and sex positivity, a movement to destigmatize different types of sexual expression, became more mainstream. Ms. Fisher felt a measure of pride at being part of a community that had pushed for greater acceptance of her lifestyle.That feeling helped her ignore what she described as Hacienda’s dark side: a series of claims from guests and tenants who said they were victims of sexual or physical assault under its auspices.Then, she said, it happened to her. Ms. Fisher was in her kitchen at Hacienda in spring 2012 when she was approached and badgered into sex by a guest of the sex party she had left downstairs, she said. She awoke feeling that she had not given her consent to what had occurred — that she had been raped. Yet a fear of betraying her community, the circumstances of the encounter and its very setting stopped her from reporting it to the authorities, she said. It was a decision she deeply regrets.“How do you call the police to report something that happened at a sex party?” Ms. Fisher said. “They’d come and say, ‘OK, which deviant do I arrest first?’”At a time when non-monogamy has become a drop-down option on dating apps, groups like Hacienda have risen to new prominence, drawing in curious newcomers and profiting in the process. Participants envision these groups as a place to push the boundaries of sexual norms — or flout them altogether — in the safe company of like-minded people. But Ms. Fisher’s story and others like it reveal the inherent tension between the desire to create a freewheeling space and questions of consent when one person’s kink can be another’s crossed line.Navigating this landscape has been particularly fraught for Hacienda, which has capitalized on the sex positivity movement in a way few other groups have, charging rent in a cluster of Brooklyn townhouses to people who want to live in the scene full time. ...
If this were just a case of some bad actors spoiling one scene, that
would be one thing. But it's an example of a too-common situation. Where
the police and courts are untrustworthy blunt instruments, but no one
else has the power and resources to investigate evidence and compel
truthful testimony, whole communities often just break apart into two bitter
factions with no resolution.
Bad actors know this.
● Lastly, The New Yorker has a bit of fun: Films That Have Been Rewritten Now That Everyone Is Talking About
Polyamory (March 19). For ex,
First cover,1925 “Troy” (2004)After Paris falls in love with Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, things almost come to blows, but everyone’s able to negotiate and agree that Helen can spend Tuesdays with Paris, and be with Theseus, Menelaus, Achilles, Deiphobus, and King Menelaus on the other nights of the week, but have Sundays to herself. It’s actually pretty nice to have some time apart and not feel completely beholden to a bunch of emotionally volatile men in ancient Sparta.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, as the larger world stage darkens. . .
Time to call or write your representative.
(Look up their phone / email.)
Here again is why I've been ending posts to this polyamory news site with Ukraine: I've seen many progressive movements die
out because they failed to scan the wider world accurately
and understand their position in it strategically.
We polyamorous people are a small, weird minority of social-rule
breakers. Increasingly powerful people call us a threat to society — because by living
successfully outside of their worldview, we expose its
incompleteness.
Our freedom to choose our relationship structures, and
to speak up for ourselves about the truth of ourselves,
is just one way we depend on a free and pluralistic society that respects people's dignity to create their own lives, to access facts, and to speak of what they know.
Such a society is possible only where people have power
to govern themselves, combined
with legal structures that are at least
supposed to guarantee the rights of all.
Such rulers and would-be rulers seek to stamp out other
people's freedom to choose their lives — by
intimidation, repressive laws, inflammatory
disinformation and public incitement, weaponizing of
police abuse, or eventually, artillery.
For what it's worth, Polyamory in the News received more
pagereads from pre-invasion Ukraine over the years
(56,400) than from any other country in eastern Europe.
You can donate to Ukraine relief through
this updated list of vetted organizations (Oct. 2023) or elsewhere. We're giving to a big
one, Razom, and to a little informal one, Pizza for Ukraine in Kharkiv, the project of an old friend of
my wife.
But that is only the start. For those of us
born since World War II, this is the most consequential war of our lifetime. Because we have entered another time when calculating
fascism, at home and abroad, is rising and sees freedom
and liberalism and social tolerance as weak, degenerate,
delusional — inviting easy pushovers. As Russia thought it saw
in Ukraine. The whole world is watching what we will do
about it.
Background: "The United States has a much higher stake in Russia's
war on Ukraine than most people think." More: "If we stop supporting Ukraine, then everything gets
worse, all of a sudden, and no one will be talking
about “fatigue” because we will all be talking about
disaster."
The coming times may require hard things of us. We don't get to choose the time and place in
history we are born into. We do get to choose how we
respond to it.
Need a little help bucking up? Play this. Another version. More? Some people on the eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war
is awful.) Maybe your granddad did this from a trench
against Hitler's tanks— for you, and us, because a
world fascist movement was successfully defeated that
time, opening the way for the rest of the 20th
century.
But the outcome didn't look good for a couple of
years then, either. Popular history remembers the 1945
victory over the Nazis and the joyous homecoming. Less
remembered are the defeats and grim prospects from
1941 through early 1943.
Remember, these people say they are doing it for us too.
They are correct. The global struggle between a free, open future and a fearful
revival of the dark past that's shaping up, including in our own country, is still in its early stages. It's likely to get worse before it gets better. The
outcome is again uncertain, and it will determine the 21st
century and the handling of all its other problems.
----------------------------------
PS: Ukraine should not be idealized as the paragon of an open democratic society. For
instance, see If Ukraine Wants To Stand for Liberty and Democracy, It
Should Rethink Some of Its Wartime Policies. And it has quite the history of being run by corrupt
oligarchs — leading to the Maidan Uprising of 2013, the
Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and Zelensky's overwhelming
election in 2019 as the anti-corruption candidate. So
they're working on that. And they're also stamping hard on the old culture of everyday, petty
corruption. More on that. More; "Ukraine shows that real development happens when people believe they have an
ownership stake in their own societies."
Now, writes US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic,
Here was a country with a tragic history that had at last begun to build, with great effort, a better society. What made Ukraine different from any other country I had ever seen—certainly from my own—was its spirit of constant self-improvement, which included frank self-criticism. For example, there’s no cult of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine—a number of Ukrainians told me that he had made mistakes, that they’d vote against him after the war was won. Maxim Prykupenko, a hospital director in Lviv, called Ukraine “a free country aspiring to be better all the time.” The Russians, he added, “are destroying a beautiful country for no logical reason to do it. Maybe they are destroying us just because we have a better life.”
They have a word there, with a deep history, for the
horizontal, self-organized, mutual get-it-done that grows from community social trust: hromada. Learn that word. It's been getting them through to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that
community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and
networks. Occasionally we succeed.
----------------------------------
Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a
thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But not bitterly so
like often in the US; in the last generation the ideal of
modern European civil society has become widely treasured,
and social progressivism has room to thrive. The status of
women is fast advancing, especially post-invasion
(pre-invasion article). More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally
male bastions — including as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics,
snipers, and
infantry. (Intimidating video: "Thus the Witch has Said".) Ukraine has more women volunteering in combat positions
than any other armed force in the world.
|
|
Ukraine's LGBT military unicorn. The thorns and barbed wire represent old restrictions now being cut away. |
And in December 2022, Russia made it a crime not just to
speak for LGBT recognition in Russia or occupied Ukraine,
but to speak for "non-traditional sexual relations."
Pre-invasion, Russia had a visible polyamory education and
awareness movement.
Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full material backing for as long
as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and
future. Speak up for it.
Your congressperson's email and phone. Putin-aligned Republicans right now are blocking some
$60 billion in aid, especially ammunition, that the
Ukrainians desperately need in order not to be overwhelmed
by Russian advances. Just a handful of other Republicans
getting some courage to do what they know is right would be
enough.
A Russian writer grieves: "My country has fallen out of time."
|
|
Women defenders in a trench in the Donetsk
region |
Update February 2024: More than a year later
Vidma is still alive, still directing the mortar unit (now
in muddy trenches), and is
posting TikToks. A young girl who looks high-school age has joined them. Another. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on
us.
And maybe our own? Says Maine's independent Senator Angus King (Jan. 31,
2024),
Whenever people write to my office [asking why we are supporting Ukraine,] I answer, 'Google Sudetenland, 1938.' We could have stopped a murderous dictator who was bent on geographic expansion…at a relatively low cost. The result of not doing so was 55 million deaths.
Labels: #PolyamoryHistory, #PolyamoryintheNews, #polycons, #PolyintheMedia, #PolyResearch, Hacienda Villa, history, research
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