|
If love is what makes the world go ``round, polyamory might be
what's keeping the world turning
It was a classic case of boy meets girl …… meets girl.
When Rob Hamm, Catherine Glewwe and Shannon Henry met, each says
it was infatuation at first sight. Rob and Cat met first, in
2000, at a gaming conference, and Cat eventually moved to
Lawrence from
Minnesota to live with Rob. She confessed to him that she'd
always wanted to date other women but that she was already so
deeply in love with him that she didn't want a relationship that
didn't include him.
Rob says he jumped at the opportunity to be in a relationship
with two women, so he agreed to keep on the lookout for a new
woman who would mesh with both their personalities. Enter
Shannon.
Rob first met Shan, who was living in Pennsylvania until early
January 2005, through their online journals, but they met in
person at another gaming conference, where they had arranged to
share quarters, and the two immediately hit it off. Rob says
that when the
two women finally met in person last October, the chemistry was
obvious. Outwardly, the three seem more like a few friends
hanging out than three people in love, but tiny nuances in their
behavior give them away: playful slaps on the thigh at a
sarcastic comment, sideways glances and shy smiles at an
outsider's mention of their relationship. Rob, though twice the
girls'' age at 42, doesn't look a day over 30, wears a leather
jacket and sports short, spiky hair. Shan and Cat, both in
their early 20s, sit together next to him —— Shan has
bright pink hair and silly socks, and Cat is soft-spoken and
fair-skinned.
The three now live together in Lawrence and are what is known as
a polyfidelitous triad, or ""polyfi"" triad for short.
Polyfidelity is one of many divisions of polyamory, which
literally means ""many loves."" Polyfidelity differs from a
monogamous relationship in that people form multiple romantic
relationships with more than just a spouse, girlfriend or
boyfriend. It's not cheating because their partners always
know about it. And it's not swinging, where
swinging involves sex exclusively, polyamory is more concerned
with emotions and relationships. Robyn Trask, managing editor of
Loving More magazine, which is dedicated to polyamory and poly
issues, says poly can be hard to define because there are so
many different combinations of people in poly relationships.
Poly relationships need not include sex, but they often do. In a
polyfi triad, all three people involved promise each other they
will be committed within the triad. Members would only begin a
relationship with another person if that new person were to be
included in that commitment; the triad would then become a
foursome. But it doesn't have to stop at four: Poly
relationships can grow to include as many people as its members
can handle interacting with.
Hey, jealousy
Liz, Kansas City, Kan., senior, who asked that her last name not
be used, is a secondary in an open poly relationship with a man,
Chris, who has another girlfriend, his primary. Liz is
romantically and sexually involved with Chris, but she doesn't
share financial or domestic responsibilities like his primary
does. She's only become involved with him recently, but he's
been with his other girlfriend for more than six years. He is
the "V," or center of the relationship, and Liz and his other
girlfriend are not involved romantically in any way —— though
they are friendly with one another. Hers is an example of a more
open poly relationship instead of a polyfidelitous one —— the
three of them are not exclusively ""together,"" which could
potentially create an environment of jealousy.
Liz says that she entered into this relationship after a string
of bad experiences in traditional two-person relationships. She
says she searched herself for signs of jealousy but found none
once she understood the nature of the poly lifestyle. She says
people in poly
relationships experience only "occasional pangs of jealousy,"
and when they do, they work through it and get over it quickly.
On her first date with Chris, Liz says he received text messages
from his other girlfriend, who was acting as his wingman for the
night.
Ideally, poly people are all about "compersion," being happy for
their partners when they find a new way (or person, in this
case) to make themselves happy. The term compersion —— as well
as the concept of polyfidelity ——was coined by the Kerista
Commune, a famous commune in San Francisco that was founded in
the 1970s.
"In a polyamorous world, you say, `I love you, and I can't be
everything you need, nor can you be everything I need,' so you
have multiple loving relationships that balance out those
neglected needs,"" Liz says.
Jealously is never an issue within Rob, Cat and Shan's triad,
either Rob says, even though there are more people's emotions to
take into account. Jealousy can be avoided, he says, by keeping
the lines of communication open at all times and always talking
about their needs, desires and concerns.
We can work it out ……
Dennis Dailey, professor of social welfare, says communicating
in a poly relationship can be more difficult just because of the
numbers. In a dyadic relationship –– one with only two
people –– there is a simple back-and-forth exchange required.
But Dailey says there's no reason communication should be more
important in a triad setting than in a dyadic relationship. In
fact, he argues that there are fewer differences between dyads
and triads
than people may think. He says the individuals within each
relationship are what determine the success or failure of the
connection. American society, particularly the more
conservative, religious part of it, places a high value on
dyadic relationships and marriage between two people, he says,
but the success rate of American marriages is just about 50
percent.
The only real test of whether a relationship will survive,
regardless of how many people are in it, is whether the people
in it are differentiated enough, Dailey says. He describes a
differentiated person as one who doesn't need external
affirmation to feel validated. Problems arise in a relationship
when someone develops a dependency on others to build
self-esteem. A high level of differentiation and the ability to
communicate openly and honestly are important in creating
healthy, stable relationships. "It's less about the
numbers, less about who you're fucking : It's got a lot more to
do with who you are as an individual and the context of that
bond," Dailey says.
Rob says he's never been happier in a relationship. But other
people's misunderstandings and judgments, even those of family
and close friends, have made it more complicated for the triad
to live normally.
Shan's sister back in Pennsylvania is the only one of their
family members who knows about the triad. Shan says her sister
doesn't quite understand the situation, but she isn't against
their arrangement. Cat rarely speaks to her family and hasn't
since she left Minnesota to move in with Rob; things got messy
when they found out she was dating and going to live with
someone twice her age. Rob says he sees no point in
corresponding with his family much anymore. They're what
he calls "conservative religious fanatics" who
wouldn't understand his relationship with his girlfriends.
Rob is not alone. Growing up in a Christian household, then
breaking away from that upbringing is not an uncommon trend
among polys nationwide. According to a survey of about 3,000
people who subscribe to Loving More, 87 percent of polyamorous
people say they were raised in Christian households, but only 28
percent are still Christian in their independent adult lives.
Rob says he feels most vilified by conservatives trying to
protect the institution of marriage and their ideals of
heterosexual, monogamous relationships. He says their criticisms
are based on ignorance and closed-mindedness –– he says he
thinks it's funny that "the most rabid anti-poly people sling
Bible quotes" at he and his girlfriends. The Bible, he says,
often discusses polygamy and people with multiple partners in
their relationships.
Paul Mirecki, chairman of religious studies, says the Bible does
not contain endorsements of polygamous relationships, nor does
it contain many straightforward rules on the ideal of monogamous
relationships, but it does mention both. He says that people
often interpret the Bible according to their cultural framework
—— for example, when people read of King Solomon's hundreds of
wives, they can claim it's an exaggeration or make the judgment
that Solomon was wrong, because while they want to defend the
Bible's writings,
monogamy is the American cultural standard.
The pressures Liz has felt within her relationship don't involve
religion, but people close to her have told her to break away
from it because they think she's selling herself short or
getting screwed over by a guy who just wants lots of sex. She
says her friends want to stage a sort of "intervention," saying
she's only kidding herself about not being jealous and not
needing a monogamous relationship with a future of marriage and
family. She says people can get uncomfortable when they don't
understand polyamory.
"I know my friends'' reactions are out of love for me, but they
still make me not want to tell them what's really going on in my
life,"" she says.
Cat and Shan say Rob mostly shrugs off people's disapproval and
goes about his life because he knows poly works for him and
makes him happy. They say he acknowledges that he can't fully
explain his relationship to everyone or convince everyone that
polyamory is a valid way of living.
As a heterosexual male, Rob will be able to live his life
relatively normally in the United States, but he says he gets
furious when he considers the same-sex marriage legislation
under consideration by the government. "Fifty-one percent of the
country has decided my
girlfriends don't deserve civil rights," he says. Financial
issues limit their mobility now, but they have considered moving
to Holland, where polygamy and same-sex marriage are legal and
more commonplace.
Love rollercoaster
Sexually, poly relationships are diverse. Even within Rob, Cat
and Shan's relationship, the questions of who will have sex, how
much and to what extreme are up in the air on a nightly basis.
Most nights, Rob says, one member of the triad is too tired, has
a headache or doesn't want sex, and because jealousy doesn't
play into their relationship, sex with just two of the three is
completely acceptable and normal. It's not a prerequisite for
polys
to be into kinky sex. Liz says a lot of people envision poly
relationships as all "orgies and rampant badness." Some
relationships may include orgies, group sex or other alternative
sexual practices, but not all do.
Rob, Cat and Shan say their sexual encounters are fairly normal
about 90 percent of the time. But their openness to the poly
lifestyle has also created openness to sexual experimentation,
such as BDSM, a term for kinky sexual activity that includes
bondage,
domination and submission, and sadism and masochism. Rob says it
"adds spice every once in a while." Shan says that sex involving
BDSM requires a strong foundation of love, trust and respect to
make it meaningful and that she had tried it in the past, in
other relationships, and never enjoyed it as much as she does
with Rob and Cat. As much as wild, involved sex can make a
relationship healthier and more exciting, it can also be time-
consuming and physically exhausting. For three people trying to
pay the bills and carry on normal lives, it isn't something that
happens all the time.
""I love going to Worlds of Fun, but I don't want to live on
the Orient Express,"" Rob says.
Three's company
Rob says his relationship with his girlfriends is like most
monogamous relationships he's seen except that he has two people
who say they want to spend the rest of their lives with him.
Since Shan moved in with Rob and Cat, they've been making the
normal adjustments to living with other people: shared space,
leaving the seat up and squeezing toothpaste from the middle of
the tube (the girls' biggest pet peeve with Rob). But Cat says
it's nice to have shared financial responsibilities, another
person to do things with and another person to cuddle on the
couch with on late nights. Rob says most nights are
nothing out of the ordinary and consist of convincing one person
to cook dinner, then settling back to do their
own things: watching old episodes of Firefly on DVD, working on
their Web comic "Blue Crash Kit," reading, even going to bed
early. To the three of them, the "alternative lifestyle" doesn't
seem exotic or foreign. It's just life, and life is good.
"We're like an old married trio," he says.
|
|
World Polyamory Association 
