About Me

March 12, 2008

Love in the Plural Sense

I read an interesting article the other day about polyamory, defined by the Polyamory Society (http://www.polyamorysociety.org) as “the nonpossessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously. Polyamory emphasizes consciously choosing how many partners one wishes to be involved with rather than accepting social norms which dictate loving only one person at a time.”

Modern views of romance suggest that your partner should fulfill all of your needs and desires, but polyamorists enjoy the fact that they can spread out those needs and desires among multiple partners. So if, say, one of your boyfriends really loves outdoor activities, and the other only wants to watch movies, you see Boyfriend A when you want to water-ski, and Boyfriend B when you want to veg out.

It sounds good in theory. Don’t we all have different friends that we do different things with? And I guess you wouldn’t get bored too easily. But I can foresee a few problems. Such as:

1. It’s hard enough to find ONE guy I actually like and want to spend time with who feels the same way about me, let alone two or three! I suppose polyamorists would claim I wouldn’t be as picky if I weren’t looking for one guy to be my “everything,” as they say.

2. What if you get jealous? What if your boyfriends gets jealous? Negotiating time commitments and other issues are difficult enough when it’s you and just one other person.

3. I just really, really, really hope everyone uses condoms.

Enough said!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds good in theory, but I'm still somewhat skeptical. That "ethical" bit is SO important--without it, people could end up getting very hurt. I met one guy who identified as polyamorist, but it seemed he used the label as an excuse to date one woman almost exclusively, but still have the option of sleeping with whomever he wanted. And yes, he mentioned that jealousy issues have often ruined his relationships.

Anonymous said...

I kind of feel like Jen, Jess and I had a polyamorous relationship for a while. I still think I may have been on more dates with Jess.

Anonymous said...

Dorothy L. Sayers came up with this idea in the 1930s, when she recommended having a "day husband" and a "night husband" (you can guess what each was for) who would live on separate floors (you can guess which ones) of the same house!

Anonymous said...

Dorothy L. Sayers came up with this idea in the 1930s, when she recommended having a "day husband" and a "night husband" (you can guess what each was for) who would live on separate floors (you can guess which ones) of the same house!

Anonymous said...

Dorothy L. Sayers came up with this idea in the 1930s, when she recommended having a "day husband" and a "night husband" (you can guess what each was for) who would live on separate floors (you can guess which ones) of the same house!