Honestly...

You have to know that I am composing this post while my thirteen-year-old son Denali is playing “Eye of the Tiger” on the bass approximately 6 feet away. At least it beats “Souls of Black” at half speed, which is the only other choice at this point.

After my last post, I asked my husband (currently on electric guitar, playing something unrecognizable – gotta love cacophony) if he thought I was being too self-defensive. “What can I say? It was a bunch of ethical debate,” he said. “Who's right, who's stupid....I mean, what's the point?”

“Also,” he said, “I kept waiting for you to get back to your topic paragraph.”

So here I am, dutifully getting back to the point, even though a blog is, by nature, writing-as-indulgence as opposed to writing-as-discipline.

I think we've established that some people think that ethical monogamy is possible, and some people do not. I'm guessing there's less debate about whether or not an ethical person is an honest person. But honesty is a crucially important component of ethical non-monogamy, so it's a topic worth exploring.

I was pretty much cured of lying by the time I was seven or eight. You see, there was this incident on the last day of first grade involving a salami sandwich. I had thrown it in the trash as soon as I got to school, then sponged food off the volunteer mom on the field trip, claiming that my mother hadn't packed anything but some raisins in my lunch, then lied to my mom when she asked if I'd eaten everything she had packed me.

Wasted food; made mom look bad; lied. I was going to hell, for sure. Every night for two months, I prayed for forgiveness, but that unconsumed sandwich was still eating me up inside. Finally, one queasy, sleepless night, I got up and padded down the hall in search of my confessor. She was in the bathtub, with two facecloths draped strategically over her naughty bits. I told her about my crime. I don't think my mother even knew what I was talking about, but she did her best to soothe me. She assured me that if I had truly repented, the incident was between me and God, and I didn't need forgiveness from anyone else. In other words, I hadn't really needed to tell her anything.

Maybe it shouldn't have surprised me that I got a similar response from her when I finally came out to my parents as poly: “Why on earth did you feel the need to tell us these details about your private life? Especially when you knew it would make us feel terrible?”

Why, indeed?

The two basic tenets of my ad hoc moral code – one, Do No Harm; and two, Be Honest – had really bonked heads over that one.  

Next up: To Tell or Not to Tell -- Is Honesty Always the Best Policy?

Poly Ideology

From what I've been able to gather, most people who identify as polyamorous – that's including yours truly – subscribe to the following set of beliefs:

* ethical non-monogamy is possible

* ethical people are honest people
* everyone has an equal right to engage in multiple simultaneous sexual relationships, regardless of sex or sexual orientation

*there's plenty of love to go around

My mother holds that my “lifestyle” is both immoral and unethical. (Some other heavyweight words she's used to describe my situation: toxic and addiction. But we'll get to that later.) In her mind, the fact that I'm honest about what I'm doing does not address the underlying wrongness of it. According to her, abstinence and monogamy are the only ethical options, and she claims that “99.5 percent of the population agrees” with her.

I can't verify the accuracy of her statistic, but I'm sure she's right that the U.S. mainstream would side with her. So we'll let her argue her point for a moment.

Mom: “If you commit murder, you aren't going to make it okay by being honest about it. If you rob someone, it doesn't matter if you warn them you're going to do it beforehand. What you're doing is wrong, and telling the truth doesn't make it more moral.”

Me: “Wait a sec. If you take fifty bucks from someone without asking, it's called theft. If you ask the person beforehand, 'Hey, do you mind if I take this fifty bucks?' and the answer is, 'No problem, go ahead,' that's okay, right?”

Mom: “Adultery is a sin. Period. No matter whether you have permission from your spouse or not.”

When it comes to people like my mother, people who believe that God is the ultimate go-to whenever a moral question arises, there's nothing I or any other polyamorous person can say that will change their minds.

Nevertheless, I'd like to submit that there are some strange contradictions in the religious position. First of all, there is that embarrassing stuff in the Bible about concubines and multiple wives. If it was okay then, but not now, what's the reason for the change? Is it possible that different eras and different cultures have different criteria for determining which behaviors are moral?

In our culture, men and women supposedly have the same basic rights. Is anyone really going to say that it's okay for men to have multiple sexual partners, provided that some religious leader performs the requisite official ceremonies before they engage in any shenanigans, but that women must be monogamous? [Yes, there are religious fundamentalists who argue precisely that – they're called polygamists. More on the difference between polyamory and polygamy later.]

Secondly, I've never understood why people who violate their own moral code are so often forgiven for what's shrugged off as a lapse in judgment, as human weakness, whereas people who take pains to adhere to a moral code that differs from that of the mainstream are so often condemned as being scary, sick and wrong. Oh, okay, fine, on some level, I do get it.

After all, most of us feel some sympathy for the criminal who can say, “Yes, I realize that what I did was bad, but I lost control of myself in the heat of the moment!” This attitude makes sense when the crime we're talking about is something like murder: we're understandably creeped out by murderers who are capable of dispassionately evaluating how best to execute their evil deed before they kill their unsuspecting victim. But bias toward human stupidity makes a lot less sense when the “crime” we're talking about involves engaging in sex with someone to whom one is not legally married. Surely it's better to think through the possible consequences of one's actions before engaging in sexual activities? Surprise – the probable answer to that question, at least in the Mormon community in which I grew up, is a resounding No.

To illustrate: the average Mormon is pretty indulgent when a hapless teenager finds herself knocked up: “Oh, the poor girl got carried away in the heat of the moment, and now she's having to pay the consequences!” In contrast, the girl who actually thinks through her decision beforehand, taking care to procure some reliable form of birth control before engaging in sex, is liable to get excommunicated. Apparently, it's completely unacceptable to commit a premeditated crime of passion. I know, because I was once the eighteen-year-old Mormon girl who visited Planned Parenthood. The only reason I didn't get excommunicated is because I kept my mouth (mostly) shut, and because I stopped going to church before my behavior became too obviously outrageous.

The long and short of it is this: as long as I remain unrepentant and unapologetic, I'm going to get nowhere whenever I try to explain myself to people who are convinced that adultery is a sin, no matter the circumstances. In fact, the more trouble I take to come up with well-reasoned arguments in support of my own moral code, the more vehemently they'll reject whatever I might have to say.

“What? She's committing adultery IN COLD BLOOD?!? Stone her!”

A Note from the Dictionary

The wanna-be scholar in me feels that, at this point, it is necessary to define what I mean by polyamorous. I know, I know: b-o-r-i-n-g. But maybe you could just humor me? (Or maybe you would prefer to imagine me at the front of the classroom, doing my best to look prim – but my hair is kind of unraveling, and my skirt is a little bit too short, and oh damn, I've had to stand up on a chair so that I can reach the very tippy top of the chalkboard....)

Ahem.

It seems to me that there are three different facets to a polyamorous identity: 1) orientation, 2) practice, and 3) ideology.

This particular post will address only the first two items, however – because, as my friend Lilianna might say, ideology can be a real panty-drier.

So, without further ado:

1) Poly by orientation

Someone who is poly by orientation is predisposed -- whether because of upbringing, genes, or a combination of the two -- to being non-monogamous and/or to experiencing less than the usual amount of jealousy if a mate chooses to be non-monogamous.

I'd like to see more references to “sexual orientation” that include “poly” among the choices. I suspect that there are a lot of folks who feel oriented toward polyamory, but who choose not to practice non-monogamy, for various reasons.

I can't count the number of people who have said to me, “I know I could love more than one person at a time – but I just couldn't deal with my jealousy if [insert name of partner here] got involved with someone else.” Enter the monogamous compromise: “I promise not to act on my feelings of sexual interest in other people if you promise not to act on yours.”

Of course, there's a corollary in polyamorous relationships: “I promise to do my best to deal with my own jealousy, if you promise to do your best to deal with yours.” All relationships entail compromise. The question is this: what kind of compromise is going to be most effective, given the orientation(s) of the people involved?

I am poly by orientation. I've always known myself to be capable of, and interested in, having more than one sexual/romantic partner at a time. And, although I am probably a more jealous person than some, my inclination has always been to get over my jealousy (as opposed to getting over the relationship).

When I was sixteen, my high school boyfriend informed me that he wanted to date a girl in his band class. I still remember the feeling: a twist in my gut, like I was being stabbed. I was silent for a moment, and then said, “Okay. You can go out with her.” My boyfriend hemmed and hawed, then got to the real meat: “So... that means you and I have to break up.” This reasoning made no sense to me. “Why can't you date both of us?” I wanted to know. He: “Because that would be two-timing.” Me: “But what if it's okay with me? What if it's okay with her?” He: “I just wouldn't feel good about it.” End of story. Except it wasn't the end of the story, because two months later, after deciding that Band Girl had chronic halitosis, Jack wanted to get back together with me. That's when I decided that serial monogamy just wasn't an appealing prospect.

2) Poly in practice

Someone who is poly in practice is someone who has more than one romantic/sexual partner and who has made a commitment to be honest about his/her multiple involvements with any current or prospective partner(s). In other words, people who are secretly fucking (or kissing, caressing, canoodling with, sending dirty texts to, or what have you) someone other than the partner to whom they've supposedly pledged their monogamous allegiance are NOT practicing polyamory. They're cheating.

I am currently poly in practice. (No, I am not going to give you the complete Cast of Characters...at least not yet.) There have been times, in the course of my seventeen-year marriage, when I was not actively poly: for most of the first five years, for example, I was monogamous in practice – unless you count a few crushes (which I confessed to) and a couple of dates (for which I first asked permission).

Now, are we on the same page? (Metaphorically, I mean, since OBVIOUSLY we're on the same virtual page!)

Next up: Poly ideology! Let's put the “fun” back in “fundamentals,” shall we?

Hello, My Label Is...

The first time I heard the term “polyamorous” was at a Valentine’s Day party in 2001: lots of scented candles, lots of guacamole, and lots of cheap red wine. Nearly everyone there was a graduate student, which meant that the conversation tended toward a mix of intimate details and politically correct abstractions. I was sitting next to a woman I hardly knew, recounting what I hoped was an amusing story. Midway through, I realized I'd gotten myself into a bit of a jam: the words “boyfriend” and “husband” had just appeared cozily side-by-side in the same sentence, and now I had no choice but to confess. “We’re not especially committed to the idea of monogamy,” I said, nervously reaching for a tortilla chip. I had been rolling that line around in my head for months, mentally practicing a matter-of-fact tone, but this was the first time I had uttered it aloud. Her reaction to this news was not what I expected.

“Oh, so you’re Polly!” she said, as if that explained everything. “Polly,” she repeated, “You’re Polly – so am I!”

Polly? As in, Pretty Polly wanna cracker?

I’ll never forget that moment of identity confusion, the mad mental scramble as I tried to make sense of what I'd just heard. I’ll also never forget the sudden rush I felt when my new friend, clued in by my deer-in-the-headlights stare, explained that she meant Poly – as in polyglot, polyhedron, and polyamorous. Amazing! I had spent the last two or three years thinking there was no way to sum up the complicated plot in which I found myself entangled -- when, in fact, there was a word that fit my situation to a T. Not just a word, but also a dating site, a magazine, a bunch of listserves, heck, a whole entire underground culture!

Now, almost a decade later, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about identifying myself as polyamorous. When I look at the poly community in aggregate, I don't see how I fit the demographic: I'm not a member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms, I don't play World of Warcraft, I'm not really into BDSM, and I don't own a motorcycle. My husband and I still have children at home: a daughter running headlong out of toddlerhood and a son slouching headstrong into teenagerdom.

But everyone must have a label, so I'll go ahead and slap that polyamorous sticker on my chest and do my best to mingle. At least it beats stitching a scarlet "A" and being an outcast.