Meta-Blog Musings: An Alternative to the Poly Support Group?

I've got a lot on my mind these days: in three weeks, Parker, the kids & I will be packing all our worldly possessions into a moving truck and heading northwest.

There are a lot of things up in the air, and I'm totally stressed out. So, what am I doing? Listening to Dexter Freebish's “Leaving Town,” drinking a beer (a Deschutes NWPA, in honor of the upcoming move), and writing a blog entry.

Let's skip the emotional drama for now, and focus on something a little easier, shall we?

Because I'm wondering about the future of this blog – Do I end it before I leave, or just put it on pause? How much do I even have to say about polyamory? Have I said everything I need to say? – my brain has been going back to the bloginning, the Blog Bang, when all my ideas exploded and something emerged from the chaos: a decision to write.

One of the reasons I decided I should write a blog about polyamory was because I imagined that what I have to say might be helpful to someone. There are resources out there for polyfolk, but I have found them to be less than helpful. I've already complained about what's available on the web; today, I'd like to complain about poly support groups.

(Disclaimer: everything I know about poly support groups, I've gleaned from online discussions, experiences recounted to me by friends, and attending in person maybe three or four discussions and three social events held by my local poly support group.)

In my experience, a poly support group is made up of two kinds of people: the neophytes and the old-timers.

In a discussion group, it's usually the neophytes who have the floor. These are people in the “my head is exploding” phase, which means they're either rhapsodizing about limitless love with the drunken enthusiasm of a holy roller on moonshine, or they're bleeding all over the floor. Sometimes, they've got a reluctant partner/spouse in tow, whom they're hoping to convert.

At a social event, the old-timers hold court. They've got their private jokes, their complicated & incestuous relationship histories, and a clique-ish “insiders-only” attitude. Any interest in newbies they might display seems to have less to do with a desire to be helpful and more to do with their lust for fresh meat.

My biggest problem with the discussions I've participated in, online or in person, is that they barely scratch the surface. There's a lot of talk about jealousy. People recount their experiences, good and bad. They chart the beginnings and ends of their relationships. But the neophytes aren't ready to discuss the more vexed philosophical and ethical conundrums that come up after the sturm und drang of the experimental phase, and the old-timers don't seem to be interested in rocking the boat: they've sailed into calmer waters, and they're not going to make things more complicated for themselves – unless, that is, the complication in question has a particularly nice ass.

Sex Niche Special, with a Cherry on Top

Travis and I had a 10-minute debate about ice cream today.

We were doing a quick phone check-in, and I wanted some help with today's blog entry. “I need a flavor,” I said. “If it were a kind of ice cream, what flavor is that not-exactly-vanilla thing we like to do sometimes?”

Okay, I didn't call it “that not-exactly-vanilla thing.” There's a much more simple term for the sexual activity I'm referring to. But I'm being coy. That's the whole point of the ice cream euphemism: I'm trying to figure out a way to reference some sex specifics without getting too...specific.

“I was thinking Strawberry,” I went on, “but it seems a little too dainty.”

“How 'bout Rocky Road?” Travis suggested.

“No way,” I said. “Chocolate's all wrong. And nuts aren't really involved, at least not directly.”

“Not Butter Pecan, then.”

“No. Peppermint, maybe? We need something that's a little unusual, but not that unusual. It's not like it's in the Black Licorice category or anything.”

Travis said he thought maybe I ought to look at the Ben & Jerry's website for inspiration.

“Ah, like Cherry Garcia?” I asked.

“No, that's going to seem like some kind of virginity fetish,” Travis decided.

We never agreed on a flavor. So let's just call it Slightly Scandalous, and leave the toppings to your imagination.

Why this elaborate ice cream parlor set-up?

Be patient. I'll get you there. Meantime, feel free to dish yourself up a bowl of cold, creamy... sublimation. Mmmm.

Fact: Slightly Scandalous™ is a flavor I've enjoyed only with Travis. It hasn't really been on the menu with anyone else. Scott tried to serve it once, and it was a disaster: I got really upset, and told him in no uncertain terms that he'd better cart it back to the freezer, on the double. My negative reaction might have been partly because I knew his other girlfriend, Chani, was a big fan of that particular flavor – but I think that most of it had to do with the fact that it tasted like humiliation to me.

I understand that some people find humiliation erotic. Not me.

That's why, early in our relationship, when Travis told me that he'd savored Slightly Scandalous with one of his previous partners, I said adamantly, “Too bad: it's one of the few things I can tell you I am absolutely not into. Don't even think about going there with me.”

“That's fine,” Travis said. “NO Slightly Scandalous. Got it.”

And he was as good as his word.

After a few months, I said, “You know, about that Slightly Scandalous flavor you like – you're really taking me seriously about not going there. Actually, it seems like you're taking the avoidance a bit too far. You're going out of your way not to give me anything even remotely similar. So, just so you know, it's not that big an issue: a little tiny spoonful might be okay, on occasion...”

“Okay,” said Travis, laughing a little – and went on NOT dishing out the flavor in question.

In the end, I asked for it.

And, to my surprise, it was a treat.

However, I can't say I'm a complete convert. Even though I now know that I am capable of enjoying Slightly Scandalous in some circumstances, I'm not keen on the idea of sharing that cone with anyone other than Travis. It's a relief that my husband prefers other flavors. As for Scott, if he were ever to try it with me again, I think I'd clock him.

And this makes me feel guilty.

I would be willing to bet that other people in my situation are sometimes made uneasy by the fact that so much depends on who, exactly, is holding the ice cream scoop.

In the polyamorous ice cream parlor, comparisons between lovers are discouraged, if not actually verboten: after all, it's not supposed to be about picking a winner, the Mr. or Ms. Right who is going to provide you with the panoply of flavors perfect for your particular palate. You're just supposed to enjoy what you share with each person, whatever frozen confection it might be. Cool idea. But everyone has preferences, and even poly people are sometimes going to have preferences about which flavors they'd rather share with which lovers.

You can't help but notice who's best at serving Fudge Ripple, who's most likely to give you some Raspberry Sherbet, and who's got all the fancy extras – and by that I mean whipped cream and maraschinos, of course.

How I Came to Start this Blog: The Idea Takes Root

Sept. 23, '10: Views on Art

1. The first, French: art as excess, luxury, something out of bounds, sinful, ugly. The truth is ugly, the way a dry wash is ugly, or the mass of tiny wrinkles on an old face, the folds of flesh so deep and cavernous they mimic the landscape: organic forms. Beautiful and rotten.
2. The American view of art, esp. the essay: discipline that unruly flesh, sculpt it, manage the impression, craft it to fit your audience, put in the WORK to make it your best self – which is always, in the end, inauthentic. And yet there's something to discipline, to the work required to make a marriage, bring the art into the home.

In contrast, what about writing as exile? Becoming an expatriate, a foreigner, someone who does not belong in her own country anymore, someone with a made-up country that can never be returned to?

The paradox of leaving oneself to find oneself, the separation implicit in becoming an observer of one's own life.

Virginia Woolf said we needed a room of our own. I've never had one. How, then, do I find the space to separate from myself long enough to long for myself?

Men have always had the luxury of having their home and leaving it, too. More solitude. More focus, should art become a discipline, a career. We women are dilettantes. The man also has his leisure, time for the dalliance with his mistress Muse. I get one day to myself and I have to cram everything in. The true form for a woman with husband and children is anything that can be done piecemeal: a crazy quilt of desires, here & there. A mosaic, in other words. It can't be all of a piece.

Domestication is the death of passion. This is true for art, for writing, too.

Art as masturbation: solipsism, self-referentiality, the audience as mere voyeur.

I think I like the “Art as Adultery” model best, but then, I am an adulteress.

How I Came to Start this Blog: The Conception

August 31, 2010

On a pilgrimage to my past, I encounter the ghost of my own ambition. She's eating crackers.... Now here we are, shelves and shelves of books: what were we thinking: print is the only lasting fame? The printed word, obsolete. OBSOLETE, carved into the headstone of the present.

There is something noble in recording, though no one reads it. It not being about “hits” or readership or whatever that implies. Just myself and my pen: we might as well be on a voyage around the world in a submarine, the world's waters passing blackly past the round portal where I sit in my pressure-optimized bubble, surveying the scattered contents of my own brain: a shiny penny from 1957, the last hurrah, Abe Lincoln's assassination, jelly on toast, a neighbor's laugh, the particular way in which passion allows for focus on the visual, a yeti I once imagined who now, in his dotage, feels lonely in his ice cave, and wonders whether he should take up knitting – socks, maybe, or striped scarves; what I intended and left undone, the curves of my signature on a document I couldn't read. Every once in a while, a ghostly squid tentacle flashes by, and I remind myself I'm not alone among creatures: there are others like me, with as many arms, with as poor a vision.

Why do I want the chronicler's pallor, his twisted bedsheets, his bachelor's dinner of PB & J? Surely there is some other Fate, hell on wheels, a motel with the light on, a moth-motel where all those light-besotted moths congregate and beat their dusty wings, pollinate our dreams.

And so I come again, and come again: this is my life, this thing without form, no plot, all sub-plots, plotted out for blotting out: we none of us live very long beyond the grave. It has to be that there is something larger than “I,” a sensory organ, the mind of God who blinks into and out of existence like a Christmas light in a string slung over the antler of a plastic reindeer on a suburban lawn.

Two's Company, Three's a Crowd, Four's a Dramafest...

We all know that love is limitless, but that time is limited. Or so goes the Poly Party Line. So how many simultaneous partners are too many?

It's time to talk numbers.

In pursuit of some seasoned perspective, I sought out my friend Seamus. He's been poly as long as, or longer than, anyone else I know. Since we first met, almost six years ago, he's been a treasure-trove of information about all things poly-related, or at least sex-related – from must-reads (The Erotic Mind, for example, which is fantastic) to must-sees (I'll pass on his recommendation for Dot the I) to quotable quotes (“I'm all about instant initiation of the gratificatory process!”).

We met for lunch recently, at our usual restaurant. I ordered my usual Salmon Nicoise Salad, and he was accommodating enough to let me pilfer a few of his sweet potato fries.

Viny: What's your record number of active, local relationships? When you think of periods in your life when there was a lot going on, a lot of different people you were balancing...?

Seamus: By “active,” you mean people I was seeing...on basically a weekly basis?

Viny: Yeah.

Seamus: Hmmm. What comes to mind is around the time when we first met.

Viny: Yeah, I was thinking you might say that. How many were there?

Seamus: I'd say five. If you mean local people, people I was seeing a lot. Plus there were some people from the past, women I still had ties to, but who weren't really around as much.

Viny: Five.

Seamus: Yeah. And it was too many. I think it was a pendulum swing: I was coming out of hibernation. A relationship had ended badly, and I had spent the previous six months licking my wounds, not dating anyone.... I'd add that, as far as sustainability goes, I wouldn't think any more than...three. Three active relationships, with local people.

Viny: What made you come to the conclusion that five was too many? Was there anything you had to give up to maintain that many relationships at once?

Seamus: Oh yeah: I had no alone time at all. It was all sacrificed. There was no time for reflection. No quiet, no calm, no peace. It was all fire, drama, and booty calls.

Viny: You feel like you have a better balance now, yes?

Seamus: Things are great right now. I have time with [my primary], time with [my new girlfriend], time with [my sons] – I make sure to spend time with them every day. 'Cause, you know, they're growing up. Theoretically, they'll be out of the house soon.

Viny: What would you say motivates you to make time for your relationships?

Seamus: I get the most juice out of relationships. So I make them a priority. You know, I feel kind of dull when nothing's happening, when one day's just like another.

Poly FAQ #6: Where Do You Find the Time???

My friend Rose and I had just gone to see the movie Monogamy. We were sitting in her car in the parking lot, processing the film and our own lives. She said it wasn't like she thought it would be. I said the take-home message was an interesting subversion of the monogamous fairytale: what does it say when a couple maintains marital passion by hiring a voyeur to watch as they commit “pretend” adultery with each other?

Rose would probably be the first to admit that she's not exactly the “Happily Ever After” posterchild. She and her husband went through an extended separation a few years back. Perhaps because her marriage has been such a challenge, she doesn't come off as judgmental about how others choose to conduct their relationships. Still, it's always seemed to me that she finds polyamory objectionable in some way.

Gene and I are in marriage counseling for...oh, like the ninth time. We've been learning how to have a fifteen-minute “How was your week?” conversation. God! Sometimes I think it would be nice to have someone on the side, someone I could just see once a week. Go out for a nice dinner, watch a movie, have sex, boom, I'm good, and the rest of the time I don't have to deal with him. But there's no way I could go your route. I mean, it takes so much work to manage ONE relationship, there's no way I'd ever sign up for two. There's my kids, the dog, work, trying to have some kind of social life, community stuff ....Where do you find the TIME?

I get asked this question a lot, and it usually seems like it's a cover-up for a different kind of objection, something the person feels less comfortable articulating.

But let's take a look at the question, anyway.

Q: Where do you find the time?

A: Time is everywhere for the taking. You just have to know where to look. The following is a list of places where I've really struck it rich – if you need to find some extra time, check these places out . They might be worth your while.

1. Sleep. Yeah, you need a certain number of hours, on average. But have you ever noticed that you're sleepier when you're bored and depressed, when you're hoping that if you just sleep long enough, you'll wake up in a different mood?
2. TV. I don't have one. The average American watches an average of, oh, I don't fuckin' know, a gazillion hours a day.
3. Video games, including stupid internet games. These suckers are addictive, and they can eat up whole afternoons. Although I don't play video games at all, I haven't always managed to steer clear of internet games. I had a Tetris problem for a while, followed by JS Lines, followed by Scramble and, finally, Pathwords. I'm happy to report that I have been clean for over a year now – and this blog is probably the result.
4. Porn. Never watch it, myself. Okay, not NEVER – there was that porn “tasting” five years ago, when my friends and I watched a few minutes (on VHS!) from every porn genre we could think of, from bizarro Annie Sprinkle to German Medical Fetish.
5. Current Events. I am abysmally ill-informed about everything from the Royal Wedding to the which public figures have recently apologized for hiring hookers. Unfortunately, it's also true that I count on my Facebook friends to inform me about more important goings-on, like the Japan Earthquake or what's wrong with the Republican budget. So, what's this about Donald Trump running in 2012? Who's Donald Trump?
6. Career. I've never had a full-time job. Parker has devoted more time to work than I have, but his last “official” job ended a year ago. We currently spend maybe 30 hours a week working – and that's between the two of us. Whether or not our desultory attitude about making money is going to pay off in the long run remains to be seen, but at least we're not in debt – yet.

Gotta run, now – it's time to get out of this bathrobe and on with my busy, busy day. Maybe I'll start it off by boning up on the latest celebrity gossip. Or maybe I'll finally figure out how to find porn on the internet. Every day is a new adventure!

On Being Undefined

To conclude the catalogue...

I would say that my relationship with Mr. E began in the fall of 2000, although by then we'd already known each other for about five years. When I scan through the email folder that bears his name, though, it's easy enough to see when things shifted, because there are a few emails here and there, over a period of years...and then, suddenly, eighteen emails exchanged in the space of a single month.

At the time, I was trying to adjust to some big changes in my situation. My husband Parker had developed a huge crush on my friend Carmen. Meanwhile, Scott and Monique's marriage had stalled in Splitsville, and I wasn't sure what that might mean for me and Scott.

As for Mr. E, he and his wife were in the process of re-negotiating their thus-far monogamous agreement, which meant he was free (or was he?) to begin pursuing another woman, someone who had long fascinated him – and who happened also to be married.

In other words, Mr. E and I discovered each other at a certain intersection of interests.

As our correspondence developed, it became clear that we were also interested in each other. But I already had two partners, and so did he.

What's more, we lived on different continents.

In the last dozen years, we've managed to see each other a grand total of seven times. Record amount of time spent alone together: 24 hours. And some of our visits have been platonic – the flavor of the interaction has depended on what's happening with other people in our lives.

Textbook tertiary.

And yet...part of me revolts. I don't want to put us in a poly pigeonhole.

This is from a letter I wrote him in July 2001:

I prize the freedom of my connection to you -- I don't really feel the need to define it, at least not in the limiting sense of "define."  That's not to say there are no limits to our connection, just that I'm content to let them be whatever they're going to be, without manufacturing any. 

I'm not sure how to be true to my relationship with Mr. E in this context. My intuitive sense is that he doesn't belong in this blog -- and yet (paradoxically), there's a way in which Viny's Little Black Book is just an extension of my correspondence with Mr. E.