Many Loves is Just That Simple
Today I got into a conversation, once again, about polyamory. Polyamory, or put simply: many loves, is the ‘practice’ of being with more than one person at once in a loving, committed relationship. I have only written about the subject one other time on this blog, but I got interesting responses from the article, The Ups and Downs of Polyamory, from both online and offline sources. I felt that I was met with a barrage of misunderstanding and immediate impulsive emotional reaction on the topic from the girl I had been explaining it to. The conversation started off with her asking things like, “what are you, a polygamist? Are you from Utah? Are you like the people on that show, Big Love?” I jokingly said, “Ah, once I cross the line people always bring up Big Love, f#@!$ HBO!”
But it is however true that the only television program to ever address anything even related to polyamory is in fact Big Love. Other documentaries have been made, often emphasizing the negative points of old Mormonism, but few people are ever talking about positive aspects. In fact, that has always been one of my biggest points of objection to other people in regards to how they talk about certain topics. We’re a society of supposed problem solvers, and therefore people everywhere feel they need to address problems to solve. Yes, again, it is true: Big Love is the only show to put even a remotely positive spin on the entire subject.
In human sexuality class, the issue of polygamy is addressed in the textbook in a couple places, and it has been mentioned very briefly regarding old religion in class, but when asking the question of, “how much research has been done on the topic?” Virtually none; virtually no legitimate scientific research has ever been conducted on neither the behavior nor the effects of poly relationships. On that note, the country that has conducted the most research on sexual behavior in the world is probably the United States, which sadly enough, has hardly conducted any research on sexuality at all. Europe has never deemed sexuality a very big priority in the scientific community, mostly because the entire European culture is much more open and accepting of sexuality itself.
It is only the past 100 to 150 years that the fields of psychology have began to crack open the nutshells of human behavior phenomena. As far as sexuality goes, the research on the sexual behavior of men and women began to be explored in more depth only after the Kinsey research of the 1950′s. And yet, people everywhere say that it is ‘natural’ for men and women to be monogamous. Evolutionary history and the behavior of virtually all animals says otherwise. Oh, and yes, human beings actually are animals.
Prior to the 1950′s, a common attitude about fellatio, or oral sex, was that it hardly happened anywhere. In fact, it happened a lot more places than society had expected, and thus was made more acceptable. Now, I’m not about to suggest that we all start being promiscuous rabbits as human beings become in such imagined utopian worlds as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
At first, I have to admit that I was somewhat reluctant to write about polyamory for the sake that it seems to be sort of a sensitive topic and typically among those who have not given it much thought or are just making assumptions, the whole discussion gets shot down quite quickly before it can get off the ground. And how many people are making assumptions? A lot. Today I could not help but feel that was entirely demonstrated to me. The girl even began speaking in a bizarre form of false truth. “If you’re with more than one girl, that is not commitment.” It was a simple statement, and even after saying, “well what about if you’re with more than one for a period of several years?” She did not seem to agree that it was true commitment.
The exact definition for the very word, commitment, means an engagement or involvement, an obligation, a promised involvement. If you care for more than one person over a long term period of time, then by definition, you are committed to more than one person. Some people also use the word: dedication. Well, it works the same way. You can, in fact, be dedicated to more than one person at once.
One of the biggest problems for ideas like this is that they often challenge the acceptable model of a person’s immediate world view. If it does not fit with what they have always known it is often extremely difficult to assimilate it into your current reality. As much as what she was saying in response to my words disturbed me, I cannot really blame her for what she was thinking. Everyone makes decisions based off of their own particular past experiences. From what this girl had told me, she was giving generalization of a single idea to all different instances that could possibly happen. For instance, she told a story about how an ex-boyfriend wanted her to move in but that she would not be called a “girlfriend.” Immediately, unless she is okay with whatever this guy was intending, this discredits her very existence and role within their individual relationship.
“It just doesn’t work,” she said, and went on to say that at “my age,” which is 19 years old, it is important to be able to be in a single monogamous relationship for a long while to allow room for the relationship to grow. That certainly makes sense, and it follows the true, granted limitation of time and money on relationships. But what does not make sense was the following example she used, “unless they’re in the military or something and feel they have some sort of thing to fulfill…” talking about soldiers who were about to go to war. Um, what?! This is not an acceptable logic to me, nor is it practical.
“Why would you want to be with more than one person?” the question was again asked. Simple answer. What is it that relationships are supposed to actually be about? My response was, “what if you have feelings for more than one person? What if you care for more than one person?”
Maybe as complicated as it all might be, the entire drive and motivation behind pursuing all of it in a healthy way is just too simple to even explain to those who concern themselves with their own pains and insecurities regarding their own past relationships.
