Serious Fun
This is education we will be doing for generations, people. We are the new wave, the vanguard, the front line soldiers in the war of new love.
Emerging from the mess, muck, and madness of centuries of Victorian, conservative, Christian-based, hetero-normative, monogamous, patriarchal, capitalist existence, and a very narrow social/emotional corridor of connection to travel down, we are breaking free and creating new combinations of human love! It’s a wonderful time to be alive and exploring love! But even if we are doing things like going to Unapologetic Burlesque and going on epic sex club adventures, there is a serious struggle behind every evolutionary step taken into this wonderful world. But it’s all worth it, not only to release one’s self from a lifestyle one doesn’t believe in, but also to be embraced and accepted by a lifestyle that one does believe in… especially if they didn’t know this lifestyle and subculture existed until recently!
One thing I want to remind non-polyamorous people of is this: polyamory encompasses a spectrum, not a singular position. It’s not a binary sexual reality we are operating with here. Sometimes, I talk to monogamous people and they’re like “Oh, you’re poly? So that means you’re having sex with ten people right now? I don’t know how you can do that…”
And I sigh for the truth of my life. Yes, I theoretically have the option to connect (and subsequently, responsibly communicate) with ten people… but it’s not exactly the norm for polyamorous people. It CAN be multiple partners with both (as in all) people involved, multiple partners for one person, multiple partners with emotional/physical/intellectual/social boundaries for one or both (as in all), long distance relationships with occasional physical contact, abstinence, asexuality, an open marriage with all its possibilities, an open relationship with all its permutations and connections, as well as connections that don’t even exist yet, or cannot and will not be described by words.
I find that, as society slows starts accepting these new nameless, formless, phenomenal relationship combinations, formulas, and connections between people’s evolving energies and new modern families and friends with assorted benefits packages, there’s a slight stigma still surrounding the idea of polyamory.
I believe this stigma still treats open and honest polyamorists worse than unfaithful and cheating monogamists!
It’s a horrid state of affairs, pun intended! But I digress.
A good friend who I’ve known for over a decade suggested that, because I was increasingly known as a polyamorous individual, that “my desires were casual” in nature, and that there “wasn’t any security” available in the relationships I offered. I was slightly shocked and appalled that, with this female friend I’ve known for so long who has NEVER once heard of me disrespecting a woman or cheating or betraying a lover of mine, she would assume that my relationships were scandalous in nature simply because they’re untraditionally structured within a monogamous framework.
I told her that I actually offer MORE security because polyamory has allowed me to have more unique, rare and deeply revealing conversations from the moment of introduction than most monogamous relationships, which operate closer to the so-called “three-date rule”, with a conservative, reserved approach to showing one’s true self to another partner (let’s not lie about the traditional socio-sexual convention encouraged by standard monogamy.)
And the “casual” accusation? Not true in my situation, either. I treat love more seriously than damn near everyone I know. But in the immortal words of Jim Henson: “I’m very serious about the business of having fun.” Except my fun is love. Monogamy becomes deathly serious when the singular source of sexuality becomes unhappy, unattracted or simply unable to provide the intimacy/sex/love that the other partner seeks. I do not have that problem, being an emotionally and physically generous polyamorist! (“There should be more than one place to get a hug and a kiss” is how we said it a few weeks ago.) So yes, I am somewhat relaxed in my approach to love and relationships… because I have so many sources of joy and happiness and sex and love, that I don’t need to extract perfection out of any one person to meet the emotional/physical requirements of my love life! But there is nothing “casual” about my encounters or my intentions. I always want to make much more love than most women’s schedules have time for, ha ha!
But, as with all philosophies in life: there will be learning curves. Misunderstandings. And failures. Yet, polyamory, aka non-monogamy, has been a part of human sexual interaction since the dawn of time. What’s old is new again, and we’re just reshaping the love of the future in a totally original way. And that is always a success.
Always in love,
Addi Stewart
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