...Et Finis

It's 3 o'clock in the morning. I don't normally suffer from insomnia, but it makes a certain twisted sense that, having woken half an hour ago, I'd decide to write my final blog entry now.

As far as I'm concerned, this is an hour reserved for sleep, except in extreme cases: childbirth, preparing to catch an early morning transatlantic flight, lovers' farewells.

I certainly don't make a habit of sitting at my computer in a predawn lacuna, trying to translate something felt to something verbalized.

What's haunting me now are all the things I didn't say.

I could have written about winter oceans, the crooked streets of Orvieto, a cocoa-colored mountain covered with a fine dusting of snow, the smell of eucalyptus trees in the fog.

Over the past nine months, I have been traversing the geography of my past, trying to map it onto the landscape of my present. It's been quite a virtual journey, and although there's much more I could have explored, it's time now for me to focus on my future.

I'm still not sure why I've written this travelogue, but here it is.

Wedding Rings and Marriage Beds

My first wedding band was made of olive green jade, or possibly some lookalike stone – it's hard to know, since Parker found it at a second-hand store. It didn't cost much, so it might not have been jade. A few days before the wedding, I put the ring on to see if it fit. It went over the knuckle just fine going on, but I couldn't get it off again.

There are several photographs taken on the day of our wedding – July 2, 1993 – in which you can see me pulling at the ring on my finger. I was still trying, in vain, to work it over the knuckle, which by then had become raw and swollen. How was Parker going to slip it on during the ceremony if I couldn't get it off? No dice: it was stuck. I think I managed to work it over my knuckle a total of three times in eleven years – each time, the process necessitated ice cold fingers, and the aid of lots of soap.

It finally split in half in 2004, on Thanksgiving Day. We'd finished dinner, and were sitting around the carcass of our repast, telling stories. I'm pretty sure Scott, my lover, was among the company, since he always used to join us on Thanksgiving. He'd probably brought creamed pearl onions (his grandma's recipe) and that green bean dish with the crispy onions on top. Anyway, despite the massive dose of turkey tryptophan I'd just ingested, I was in an animated mood, and, to emphasize a particular point, I slammed my hands down abruptly onto the wooden armrests of my chair. The two halves of my wedding ring went flying.

I'm not a particularly superstitious person, but I wasn't sure what to make of the fact that I'd broken my wedding ring.

We put more thought into the second wedding band, and spent a good deal more money on it, too. Three tiny diamonds, even, and four inlaid Australian black opals. Parker picked it out at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show in the winter of 2005. I practiced putting it on and slipping it off again before we plunked down the money. It fit beautifully.

Except that not a year had gone by before the opals started cracking (the technical term is “crazing”), and pretty soon, bits of stone were falling out. Some online research revealed that opal is a “living” stone (whatever that means), and is therefore not recommended for everyday wear. The next time the Gem & Mineral Show came around, we explained the situation to the opal dealers who had sold us the ring. They took it back to Australia with them, and mailed it back a few months later, good as new, free of charge.

It lasted maybe another two years before I started losing pieces of opal again.

Finally, Parker hit on a solution: glitter and epoxy.

I'm looking at the ring right now, as I type: one inlaid crazed opal, one glitter & glue inlay, three diamond chips, one empty socket with two tiny opal bits clinging to the corners, and another glitter & glue inlay. White gold band.

It's also on the fourth finger of my right hand, European-style, because a ring Travis gave me for Christmas gets stuck on the right hand, but will make it over the knuckle on the ring finger of my left hand (with some vigorous twisting).

That's the story of my wedding ring. There's also the story of Parker's and my marriage bed.

Not too long before my first wedding band broke, Parker decided to make us a bed. He had been reading Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language, and was feeling all inspired by vernacular design. The marriage bed, according to Alexander, is something couples in some cultures construct for themselves after several years together, after they truly understand the nature of their bond, and can design an appropriate symbol for it.

Parker and I discussed the details of the bed for some time before he began building it. All the visible wood was quarter-sawn oak. There were bedposts of bamboo and, in the headboard and footboard, large circles of verdigrised copper. The completed piece of furniture was gorgeous.

There was just one problem: it weighed more than St. Peter's Basilica. Okay, fine, it wasn't quite that heavy, but man that sucker was a bitch to move. Parker hadn't given any thought to how to construct the bed so that it would be not just sturdy, but also lightweight enough to, say, slide it three inches closer to the wall without the help of a football team on 'roids.

Over the years, we've attempted to lighten our marriage bed by cutting the base in half (so that each half can be moved separately, and then rejoined once both are in place), dispensing with the headboard and footboard (Parker used both in a sort of strange wall panel he designed for our office, which means they are now part of this house), taking off the bamboo posts and canopy latticework, and cutting off a good 4 inches at the head end of the base.

This morning, Parker told me he wasn't sure he wanted to move the bed again, even though at this point it's just the wooden base (with four handy built-in drawers, for underwear and socks) and a mattress. I said I wasn't keen on trying to get it down the stairs and into a moving truck either. When we were moving into this house, I pulled my arm muscles trying to maneuver the thing, even though we were just dealing with half at a time.

“I would consider parting with it, if we could find a good home,” he said.

“Travis just has his memory foam on the floor,” I mused, and then quickly changed my mind: “Never mind – it will be just as big a pain for him to move it,” I said. “What if he decides he wants to join us in the northwest? I don't want him feeling like he's got to lug that behemoth with him when he comes.”

We couldn't bear to get rid of it, though. Sienna was conceived and also born on that bed.  Parker and I have shared it with each other, and with our lovers, too. It's got some serious sentimental value.

After a bit of discussion, we decided that the best option would be to dismantle the bed, keep the drawers and all the pretty parts, and discard the rest. We'll rebuild the whole thing once we've settled in our new location, using a completely different structural design and lighter materials. 

I think these two allegories kind of stand on their own, but I'll offer a brief explication.

You can get a wedding ring at Diamonds-R-Us or at Tiffany's, but in either case, you're buying someone else's design. On the other hand, if you go with something less traditional, less tried & true, you might end up with a marriage that looks cobbled together: part sublime, part ridiculous.

Also: there are perfectly good beds at Ikea. They're lightweight, chic, and affordable. I doubt they're going to last longer than a few years, though. One day, something's going to get smashed up, and you'll discover that there's particle board underneath that veneer. On the other hand, if you go with a concept of marriage you construct yourselves, something you fashion out of idealism and the sturdiest materials you can find, you may need to jettison bits of it periodically. You may even have to take the whole thing apart and put it back together in some new configuration that will better fit your circumstances.

Stripped down to its essence, what I'm saying is that long-term relationships are about building and dismantling things together, making it work with what you have on hand. Stability lies in the continual act of co-creation, not in the structures you create.

In Praise of Maintenance Sex

I've been meaning to write a paean to the somewhat subdued joys of maintenance sex for a while now, and it appears that tonight's the night: I'm in fine form for maintenance blogging.

In other words, I'm exhausted. I don't have an ounce of passion in me for sex or writing or anything else.

This morning, I woke up at 5:30, pulled weeds for an hour, made breakfast, and then sat down to do some editing. Unfortunately, all of my bread-and-butter editing clients are in dire need of my services THIS WEEK – my final week in this town, when god knows I've got other fish to fry.

Around noon, I discovered that the file I was working on was weirdly corrupted, and all of my changes disappeared. Three hours down the drain, in other words. And for some perverse reason, it took longer to edit the document the second time.

I won't bore you with the other details of my day. Consider my "woe is me" litany complete.

So. Maintenance sex. I realize that not everyone's a believer: the argument goes something like, “Why go there if I'm not really into it? Why take the trouble to wheedle/tipple/dazzle/patiently caress my partner into something s/he would just as soon skip?”

Why, indeed? Well...because it's kind of like saying, “Why write if I'm not feeling inspired? In my current frame of mind, whatever I produce is bound to be second-rate at best, and pure drivel at worst. I think I'll wait for the Muse to sprinkle her literary love-dust on my keyboard.”

That's what I said to myself for years – and guess what? I didn't do any creative writing in those years, except for one poem that Parker specifically requested as a birthday present, knowing that this was the only way he was going to get me to experience some semblance of verbal pleasure – to play with words for a change, instead of just working on them.

Recently, I was talking to a poly friend of mine who complained that he and his primary partner hardly ever had sex anymore. “Why not?” I wanted to know. “Well,” he replied, “there was a while when we weren't getting along, and we went so long without having sex that I think I just un-checked the box in my brain next to 'this is someone I have sex with' – I'm not sure I think of her as a sexual partner anymore.”

In other words, there's a habitual component to sex. Once out of the habit, it may not be so easy to get back into it.

In my view, if a couple wants to maintain a physically intimate relationship, maintaining their physical intimacy is a necessity. They ought to be sexual together – in some fashion, at least, on a reasonably regular basis. A once-a-month back massage isn't going to cut it.

Yeah, maintenance sex isn't anything to write home about. Er, I mean, it isn't anything to write erotica about. Compared to the kind of sex occasioned by knock-your-knickers-off desire, maintenance sex might not even deserve to be called “sex” at all. However, I think it keeps the door open.

People who don't ever write aren't writers. Couples who don't ever have sex aren't sexual partners.

***Addendum***
It appears that I failed to include a definition of maintenance sex in the above entry. So let me just say that I am NOT referring to a scenario in which partners lie stretched out at full length on the bed, staring at the ceiling, going, "Gee, do we HAVE to? I know we agreed to once-a-week sex, and that this week we blocked off Sunday afternoon from 3 to 3:30, but you know, the Home Shopping Network is on...."

The Polygamists in My Closet

I was in Zion National Park with my extended family on May 21, 2011 – the supposed Day of Judgment, according to a few kooks who took it upon themselves to advertise the event. Not surprisingly, Saturday came and went, with no opportunity for post-rapture looting.

Wacko religious cults are nothing new. And the older the cult, the less wacko it is going to seem to the outside world. No one bats an eye when Catholics claim they're eating the body and drinking the blood of their crucified god on a weekly basis. Oh, wait, sorry – they're consuming ordinary wafers and wine that somehow turn into divine flesh and blood in their mouths.

The wacko religious cult in which I grew up is less than two hundred years old. These days, it's pretty inoffensive, but it's got a colorful history.

For example: Mormons aren't going to be phased by any “apocalypse now” announcement that isn't accompanied by a Church Headquarters directive to migrate en mass to Jackson County, Missouri. Never mind that there isn't room in Jackson County for millions of Mormons – Joseph Smith said that the Saints would be called back there in preparation for the Second Coming, and by golly, that's the way it's going to be.

Shortly after my parents got married, they attended a church service in which the Sunday School teacher pretended to have received a letter from church authorities, to the effect that the last days were upon them. According to this communication, it was time to go back to Jackson County. Which also meant, the teacher pointed out, that it was time to re-institute the practice of plural marriage. For a minute, my mother was taken in by the ruse – and in that minute, she revolted. She was ready to renounce her religious beliefs rather than become a sister-wife.

Of course, it turned out that the “official letter” was just some eccentric soul's idea of a good object lesson: when Judgment Day arrives, will you be prepared to do what God asks of you? Even if it means moving to Missouri? Even if it means sharing your husband with another woman?

Oh, yeah. Polygamy. Go back three or four generations, and most Mormon families have to confess to at least a token polygamist or two. I guess you could say we've got non-monogamy in our genes.

Mainstream Mormons haven't practiced polygamy in over a century. But it's hardly a moot point. Official doctrine has it that plural marriage – one man, multiple wives – is going to be practiced in heaven.

Church officials tend to keep quiet on the subject, but speculation about this embarrassing relic of Mormonism's “new cult on the block” days is rampant in the rank-and-file. I have clear memories of many discussions about heavenly polygamy. It poses quite a conundrum for people who are raised to be clean-cut, conservative, “save it for marriage” types. Everyone seems to have his or her own pet explanation or justification, some way of making the weirdness okay.

My BYU roommate's mother, for example, argued that plural marriage was the only reasonable solution to a serious logistical problem. Since only married members of the church are eligible to enter the highest level of heaven, and since, as everyone knows, women have an easier time being righteous than men, she thought there was bound to be a demand-exceeds-supply issue in paradise. Given the severe shortage of marriageable males in heaven, she argued, women will have no choice but to double, triple, or quadruple up if they want to be top-tier.

My own mother once told me that she didn't believe the plural marriage doctrine to be the word of God. When she uttered this heresy, we were cross-country skiing, just the two of us. The whole world was hushed and snowy. I felt honored that she'd confided in me. I was also struck by this thought: “If you're going to question the official doctrine, why stop there?”

Selfishness vs. “Soulishness”

If I had to describe my moral philosophy as succinctly as possible, I'd say I'm a responsible hedonist.

If I were allowed some extra phrases, I'd tack on a few cliches that have always resonated with me, such as:

*reach for the stars

*All are One

*truth is beauty, and beauty, truth

*the unexamined life isn't worth living

You'll notice that self-sacrifice isn't a big component in my philosophy of life.

Maybe people will say nice things about me after I'm dead, but I'm willing to bet that selfless won't be among them.

So I've got to warn you that everything I have to say in this post should be viewed with suspicion. Dish yourself up a nice pile of salt before you read on.

My guess is that most hedonists are met with accusations of selfishness. And the more unapologetic the hedonist, the more outraged the accusations become.

If people already perceive you as selfish, you're probably asking for trouble if you reveal that you are polyamorous.

When my mother-in-law first found out that Parker and I had an open marriage, she was pretty upset about it. Here was her take on the situation, communicated via an email she sent to me and Parker in May 2003:

I’ve been thinking about you constantly the last couple of days, not sure exactly what to say and then stymied further by my computer, which at first was speechless and then seemed to have suffered a nervous breakdown, printing out an endless string of 2’s. Maybe it was a sign.

To me, the rules of a bad marriage (rules I learned first-hand) are pretty simple. Think of yourself first. Be unwilling to be devoted to both the other person and to the idea and realities of marriage. Finally, rationalize your desires and behaviors to get what you want.

...

If I’m being honest I might as well really go for it. I rarely see you put [Denali] first. I rarely see you put anyone else first. What I see, often, are two people who don’t know how to sacrifice and do know how to get what they want, who know how to always be right.

Yes, most people get bored in relationships at some point. The mature ones, I imagine, try to find outlets that do no harm.

I love both of you. I have been so happy and grateful that you found each other. Is it worth risking love and family for whatever this other thing is?

My mother-in-law is no longer as upset as she was, so her opinions may have softened a bit. She might even say I've improved somewhat in the past eight years. But I'm sure she still thinks I'm selfish.

I probably am selfish.

And, as we all know, being selfish is a bad thing. Right?

Whenever I imagine myself successfully rooting out my selfishness, though, I feel like I'm imagining myself out of existence. I picture myself in some Mother Teresa capacity, and what I see is a shell of a person, someone without a soul.

So I'd like to posit that there are two types of selfishness, the bad kind and the good kind. Thanks to Lilianna & Robin for coming up with the term “soulishness” to describe the well-dignified version of selfishness. As for the ill-dignified version, I'm going to use a ready-made term: egotism.

You see, it all depends on what you conceive of as your self.

If you mistake your self for your ego, you're always going to be operating within the narrow confines of your psychic survival structure. You're probably not going to be capable of seeing anyone else's point of view. There are people who need to feel selfless in order to appease their own egos, and these are the type who pitch a fit when others fail to acknowledge their thoughtfulness. I've met some pretty selfish martyrs in my time.

If, on the other hand, you recognize that your real self is something that transcends your ego, you may have moments of grace in which you are capable of real compassion. There's an expansiveness to this soulish self, an inclusiveness. But – and this is important – this is a self that includes the body. I'm not talking Cartesian splits, here. The transcendent experience I'm trying to describe is when the whole self, body included, expands to include someone or something that is otherwise mistaken for “not me.”

I have found it immensely helpful to have some terms that help me distinguish between the kind of selfishness that keeps me small and the kind that allows me to grow. Unfortunately, I'll probably never manage to rid myself of the bad kind altogether. My own brand of selfishness is, and will probably remain, a confusing mix of egotism and soulishness. Still, as a responsible hedonist, I try to ask myself the question, “Is fulfilling this desire going to feed my soul – or is it merely going to whet the appetite of my insatiable ego?” And when I'm seeing the answer clearly, I tend to choose what's right.

Boundary Bouncing

Rick and I had sex for the first time in the bed he normally shared with his wife. The pale green sheets, however, had been newly purchased for the occasion. These, Rick explained, were going to be the Viny sheets. In the morning, they would go straight into the washer, and he would remake the bed with the blue or brown sheets he shared with Lilianna.

The Viny sheets had been Lilianna's idea. She and Rick were brand new to polyamory, and she was feeling a little freaked out about the idea of another woman in her bed. At first, she'd considered asking me and Rick to conduct our amorous pursuits elsewhere entirely, but she had decided that wouldn't be practical. Either we'd have to get a hotel room, which would have been expensive, or we'd end up doing god-knows-what on her living room couch. So she decided to draw the line at sheet-sharing. No, it wasn't going to be enough to simply change the sheets between different occupants. She wanted to be certain that the sheets she was sleeping on hadn't played any part in the extra-marital action that would be taking place in the marriage bed.

Lilianna's demand seemed a tad eccentric to me, but Rick and I solemnly promised not to mix up the bed linens. If it was going to make Lilianna feel better, we'd by-god keep things kosher for her.

Interestingly, when Lilianna slept with my husband in the bed he normally shared with me, there were no rules about the sheets. Apparently, Lilianna didn't mind sharing my sheets. She just didn't want me sharing her sheets. I think she felt a little silly about this inconsistency.

“I'd be happy to get you guys a set of Lilianna sheets, for when I sleep with Parker,” she told me.

“I don't need you to do that,” I said. “Unless you want your own sheets.”

“No...but isn't that weird? I mean, you have to use separate sheets at my house. Do you mind? Do you think it's unfair of me to demand something that doesn't really make sense?”

“Don't worry – it's fine,” I told her, quite truthfully. The Viny sheets were no big deal.

A few months later, Lilianna arrived home before the bed had been stripped of my special sheets. “Oh, don't worry about it, Rick – this whole sheet-changing drill is such a hassle,” she said, and got under the covers to watch a video.

The next time I slept over, I noticed that the regular blue sheets were still on the bed. There was also a fair amount of sand in them – probably tracked in by the kids, who had a sandbox in the back yard. The era of the Viny sheets was obviously over...and, for a moment, I felt a little let down.

I learned a valuable lesson about boundaries from this experience. Lilianna made up a rule as a way of exerting some control over a situation that was otherwise out of her control. Rick and I agreed to follow her rule. We didn't tell her she was being illogical. In this way, we signaled to her that her peace of mind was important to us – and eventually, she no longer needed us to make that token concession. The Viny sheets were important to her, until they weren't. Rick and I honored the boundary Lilianna had set up, until it dissolved of its own accord.

A success story.

There have also been a few failures, some of them pretty phenomenal.

In order to illustrate some of the common mistakes people make in setting (and maintaining) boundaries in poly situations, let me share three boundary-bouncing belly-flops.

1. When Lilianna fell in love with Robin, he was married. Lilianna, Robin, and Robin's wife had talked about polyamory, and for awhile it seemed like Robin's wife might be on board. Understandably, though, she was dealing with a lot of anxiety. At one point, she made Robin and Lilianna promise not to talk to each other unless she were part of the conversation, too. In other words, no private phone calls or emails – as for seeing each other, that was completely out of the question, as Robin and his wife lived in a different state. Lilianna and Robin capitulated to his wife's demands, but being entirely dependent on her for their communication was torture. After a few days, they broke their promise. And when Robin's wife found out that Robin had been talking to Lilianna in secret, she completely lost it. She moved out of the house, taking their 2-year-old daughter with her. What followed was 2-3 years of hell: theirs was a most acrimonious divorce.
2. In the spring of 2008, after Robin and Lilianna had been lovers for about two years, Robin came to the southwest for a visit. Rick generally preferred not to interact much with Robin, but the rest of us – Lilianna, Robin, Parker and I – often spent time together when Robin was in town. On this occasion, Robin and Lilianna were staying in one of our community guest rooms. Prior to his arrival, Lilianna had been speculating about the possibility of some kind of shared sexual energy. She was a bit vague about what she meant by this. A full-on foursome wasn't on the table, that much was clear. She didn't want that, and neither did I. Robin and I had developed something of a friendship by this point, but aside from some mild flirtation, our interactions had all been completely platonic. Anyway, to make a long story short, on night 2 of Robin's visit, Lilianna ended up in the hot tub with the two men. She was having a grand time. But she thought I ought to be there too, so she sent Parker back to the house to get me. I almost opted for a good night's sleep instead – I've often wondered how things would have turned out if I hadn't joined the three of them that night. But I did join them, with disastrous consequences. Robin and I didn't actually have sex, but we certainly overstepped Lilianna's boundaries. I'll never forget watching her march out to the parking lot the next morning – she'd packed her things in such a rush that there was a shirt sleeve sticking out of the suitcase, dragging on the sidewalk behind her. After she got back to her house, away from the scene of the crime, she and Robin spent the rest of the day on the phone. The next day, I drove him to the airport. That was the last time I ever saw him.
3. A long time ago, under a certain amount of duress, I made a promise to Scott that I did keep. This was back in the days when Scott was jealous of my relationship with Mr. E. Most of the time, Scott didn't have a lot to worry about: after all, Mr. E and I lived half a world apart. However, Mr. E had planned a visit to the States. After a lot of wrangling, I finally gave in to Scott's demands: I would see Mr. E, but there would be nothing sexual between us. I remember explaining the situation to Mr. E. We were sitting on a park bench, eating cherries. “I can spend the night,” I said, “but we can't do anything except sleep. I promised Scott.” Mr. E looked at me. “There's only one bed,” he said. “That's okay,” I assured him, “I can hold the line.” “Are you sure?” he wanted to know. “Because if you change your mind, I'm not holding the line for you.” “I'm sure,” I told him. “Don't underestimate my Mormon upbringing: I have a lot of experience with repression.” It was a long night. I hardly slept at all, tossing between frustrated desire for Mr. E and resentment at Scott. And here's the real kicker – I don't think Scott ever believed me that I'd kept my word. It made me mad: screw this kow-towing to Scott's jealousy, I decided -- and began the long, torturous process of extricating myself from the cage he'd constructed for me.

So here's my advice, distilled from years of experience:

Most relationships have some boundaries. They're necessary for healthy functioning. The froofy “no boundaries” idea that some folks romanticize is a nothing more than a fiasco waiting to happen. If you're going to have multiple sexual partners, you should probably establish some safe sex agreements, if nothing else.

However, one sometimes sees poly neophytes – or seasoned polyfolk who have been hit upside the head with an unexpected attack of insecurity – attempting to control their feelings by controlling the people in their life. This isn't a good idea, at least not as a long-term solution.

If you are struggling with jealousy, setting some temporary boundaries might be a good idea. If possible, try to ask that others DO something to help you, rather than asking them NOT to do something for your sake. But if you feel you must ask someone else to make a sacrifice on your behalf, the price they're paying had better go toward buying you the time you need to work through your issues. Draw a very clear line between what's okay and what's not. And give that line an expiration date, or at least a we-will-revisit-this-agreement date.

If you are trying to support your lover by allowing him or her to set some temporary boundaries, don't make a promise you know you can't keep. The agreed-upon rules need to be crystal clear. After you've drawn the lines, don't cross them until everyone agrees it's time to get out the eraser. That's it – it's that simple.

Speak Now, Or Forever Hold Your Peace

The time has come to wrap this thing up, or at least to put blogging on hiatus for a good while. At this point, I can reasonably hope to write between three and six blog posts before the Big Move.

I have a little red book in which I've been jotting down ideas & possible topics. There are a bunch of them that have not yet made it into my (virtual) little black book, a.k.a. this blog:

1. Lilianna (Part Two): specific memories
2. How can I share all this personal stuff on the internet?
3. Poly FAQ #7: Do You All Have Sex...Together?
4. Endings/Transitions, and how they differ in the poly world
5. Normalizing vs. brainwashing: Is polyamory a cult? Do I have to drink the Kool-Aid?
6. The big poly no-no: dating someone new as way of breaking up with an existing partner
7. Selfishness vs. “soulishness”
8. Information STD's: where's the line between public and private information in poly groups?
9. More on niches/specialization in multiple-partner situations
10. Gifts (modeled after the “22 Things I Like about Being Polyamorous” list in Anapol's book)
11. Boundary bouncing – making and breaking rules that are initially set up to make poly neophytes feel safer
12. The polygamists in my closet: how growing up Mormon has influenced me
    
    

So, dear readers, this is your opportunity to weigh in. What still needs to be addressed? Which, if any, of the above topics should I write about before I bid you adieu? Are there other (relevant) questions that have been canoodling in your noodle?

Let me know. I've enabled anonymous comments. No one has to know who you are.