Looking forward to marriage

Palo Alto Window

A little data to put this in context:

• About half of all marriages end in divorce.
• A recent study suggests that when you test for all kinds of non-monogamy (cheating and/or consensual) (emotional and/or sexual) relationships around 70 percent of all marriages are non-monogamous to some degree at least at some point.
• In 1948 the Kinsey report found about half of all married men have had sex outside their marriage. Since then women, statistically, have caught up.

Marriage is changing, and has been for a while. It’s not that folks are making a mockery of marriage; it's that marriage itself is being redefined. It’s a cultural thing. It's not about the decline of "traditional values." You can blame it on equal rights, or no-fault divorce laws, or birth control, or porn, or the Internet. The fact is it’s all of these and none of these and really it's so much more! It's about freedom, freedom and responsibility to define your relationships.

Just as we have banned slavery we have freed people in marriage. Remember, it was just 50 years ago that the last laws against interracial marriage were overturned in our country. Couples can choose to define roles in their relationships based on "traditional values." But, it is increasingly not the default.

About 10 percent of all people are gay and same sex marriage is legal and also not traditional. Same sex couples have also been freed to marry, despite traditions and laws that in the past were to the contrary. Traditional marriage is on the way out. Marriage has changed.

What is marriage becoming? Marriage is and is becoming more and more a conversation. Marriage is and is becoming an ongoing conversation about mutually compatible wants, expectations and boundaries that may evolve during a marriage. That conversation can last the entire marriage; changing and evolving. This conversation includes not just who does the dishes, laundry, childcare and who works at what employment. Increasingly the conversation about mutually compatible wants, expectations and boundaries has come to include monogamy/non-monogamy.

I have known a lot of couples; some same sex, some interracial, some nudist, some open sexually and/or emotionally, and yes; some very very traditional and monogamous. Some are happy and some are not. The common thread I have found is that people get along, communicate and are dedicated, in their own way, to their marriage.

I am thinking of some swingers I have met. They have a good marriage, get along great and enjoy going to swinging venues and doing what they enjoy doing. It's what they do. They enjoy doing it. What's wrong with that?

I think all people are entitled to define their own lives and personal relationship styles. I think people are better off doing what they are inclined to do. If a person is not inclined toward monogamy, what's wrong with them marrying someone who at least accepts their inclination, or maybe is similarly inclined?

So, what is “traditional” anyway? Is traditional the same as normal? If statistically around 70 percent of all marriages are non-monogamous some way at least at some point, is the normal a sort of quasi-monogamy? Is being normal being kinda monogamish?

I think that Christopher Ryan was correct when he said that monogamy is like vegetarianism. It may be desirable and we may really want to live it, but that doesn't stop bacon from smelling really good!

Multiamory

I think it’s time to consider a new term. I cringe at the thought of yet another term; because in the sex positive culture I love, we have so many terms to decode and keep up with that it’s hard to know how to correctly express ideas and feelings at times. The twist is, this is not about sex. This is about emotions. This is about feelings. This is about love.

This is my opinion:

There is currently the word polyamory. As a noun it is recognized as meaning the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time. In other words, under this definition, polyamory means a lifestyle, that often is assumed to include sex as well as emotional attachment with multiple partners.
For many of us "poly" is defined as being something else too. Folks are recognizing that some of us are incapable of being romantically attached to just one person over a long period at a time. We commonly say we are “wired poly.”
Being "wired" implies a (relationship) orientation. Orientations are facts. Facts are facts, feelings are feelings, no matter what the responding lifestyle is, no matter whether they are ethical or not and that may or may not include sex. Of course this does not absolve people of responsibility for their actions. It may provide context however.
As someone who is pushing 60 I can assure you this "poly wiring" did not kick in 20 years-ish ago when Morning Glory Zell coined the word polyamory. Before the 1990s kicked in, wired poly folks usually either cheated or stuffed it; or both. Many, maybe most, still do. Rarely then were folks able to live a poly lifestyle.
The problem is many folks do not consider folks who are “wired poly” cheaters or “wired poly” stuffers as poly people. Therefore I propose a new term for “wired poly” people.

Multiamory - an orientation that reflects the involuntary inability of a "multiamorous" person to be romantically emotionally attached to just one person over a long period at a time, no matter what their lifestyle either romantically or sexually. Multiamory, as used here, is not a synonym of polyamory. But it is a synonym of the term "wired poly."

Here are some of the possible expressions of mutltiamory. Remember, the focus here is on emotional "romantic" attachment, not sex. Since this about orientation open consent cannot be a defining factor:

Multiamory

A multiamorous person in a romantic situation with one or more other multiamorous persons that's like an open polyamorous lifestyle that may, or may not, include sex on the part of some or all of the people involved where both parties have romantically intimate emotional attachments outside the arrangement.

Multi-monoamory

A multiamorous person in a relationship with an emotionally monogamous (monoamory?) person. Examples can include a traditional monogamous relationship, in all sexual aspects, relationship where one person has but does not act on intense romantic feelings outside the relationship. It can also include "swingers" who are both open sexually, where only one person has romantic emotional attachments outside the arrangement that the one person keeps to themselves.

Multi-cheater

A multiamorous person living an emotionally monogamous (monoamory) lifestyle, but with one or both parties having secret romantic loves that are more than crushes, and that may or may not include sex. This, as an example, is often called "an emotional affair."

And now a word for seniors

What a wonderful time it is to be alive! It's so exciting to see so many folks being able to come forward with different gender and/or relationship expressions. I know it's not easy still for many people. But, being able is an important concept, because there was a time when it was even more dangerous to do so than it is today.

Folks who were wired poly, in an ultra hetro-normative society, not only were shamed for the feelings they had by society, they self shamed. As a poly person, in an ultra hetro-normative pre-Internet society, the only options were usually repression or cheating. I am so glad that Polyamory is now a word and a rapidly expanding subculture. The challenge for many of us who discovered who we are later in life is how to respond.

We may be in long term relationships with mono partners made when that may have seemed the only option. Usually we have a history of repression, self shaming and/or cheating we have to reconcile with our now realized self identity. Now that we have a word for us, where do we go from here?

Days of innocence

It has been a long time and I do not remember all of the details. But during the almost five years from 1978 until 1982 that Mary and I were involved we would visit each other occasionally. We lived about 150 miles from each other so we tended to stay a few days. I had had a vasectomy and Mary had her tubes tied.

This was the time before AIDS, and after the sexual revolution, so basically everyone was fluid bonded with everyone else and we did not think much about it. Pregnancy seemed the most serious STI at the time.

Mary and I were fine but Cindy had to be careful and she was when she was with others. In a few years the AIDS epidemic would change everything and attitudes about sex would never be exactly the same. The days of innocence would end.

Flavors of Poly

There is always at least two sides to every story and so it is with Polyamory.

I read this on a Reddit Post on Poly and really like it. According to the poster, there is "I don't want to cheat on you poly" or "I'm just really able to love a whole lot of people poly."

In my opinion "I don't want to cheat on you poly" is circumstantial. It can be, "I am bored poly" or "I just want to see what other people are like poly." If you (or she/he) has decided you/he/she just wants to try something different there is a whole spectrum of things you can try to spice things up: including maybe trying new sex toys, maybe going to a no PDA naturist resort, maybe going to cuddle parties, maybe going to other play parties, maybe exploring "the lifestyle," all depending on both of your comfort levels and senses of adventure.

If you/he/she have/has discovered he is wired poly, then it is something both people in the relationship have to live with even if you stay together and live a mono lifestyle. This is an orientation. His/her/your emotions for others will be more than just crushes, even if you have a don't ask don't tell policy and you/he/she never acts on the emotions.

What did I learn?

Looking back on all this, writing this blog, has brought back a lot of memories. I asked myself what did I learn from all this that I can reflect on now, over 30 years later?

At the time all this happened Polyamory was so inconceivable that there was not even a word for it. For a lot of the years after Mary and I broke it off I just thought of it as something weird we did in the 70s. I still loved Mary deeply even after she remarried and I stayed married to Cindy.

She was still both Cindy and my best friend and after Cindy died in a late night car accident, Mary was the first person I called. I remember telling her, "I love you. I have some bad news. I need your help." I think she just said, "Oh God...Oh God...Oh God." She and her husband drove through the night to be there to be with me and to help.

Mary had a heart attack and died a decade later.

This was a love that most people would not understand. It was a lifelong love and it rents my heart when I think of how much it hurts that they are both gone.

As much as it hurt, knowing I can give my whole heart to more than one person at a time has given me strength to go on. I did not have to divorce my love for Mary and Cindy to let others into my heart. When I remarried there was whole table of special people at my wedding. Mary was still alive then and she was there too.

One of my then teenage children called it the ex-girlfriend table. They were not all ex’s. I heard it was the most fun table at the wedding.

I learned there is more to love than I ever imagined!

Naked

Going back in time a bit, right after Cindy and I were married, before we had kids, before we opened our marriage, before Mary was more than a friend; we went to a beach party with friends. To everybody’s shock not long after we arrived, other people arrived at the beach and proceeded to take off all their clothes.

Our friends all commented to each other about how awful it was for people to be running around naked in public, perhaps we did too. I can’t remember. I do remember us talking a lot about it on the way home from the party. We liked the idea. The next weekend we went back and got naked ourselves.

I took wonderful photos of Cindy running naked in the surf and sitting on the beach. She was a lovely 18 year-old woman and I took photos for an art photography class I was taking. I still have those photos.

Public nudity, naturism, being a nudist totally changed our lives in a good way and continues to be a great thing for me almost 40 years later. I shed my irrational jealousy of Cindy wearing short skirts in public and started a thread of body acceptance that still serves me well.

I still love the feeling of the sun on my body and the wind blowing across my body. I think there is also a primal bonding that goes on around and among people who gather together with no barriers between them. But, that’s a subject for another post.

Was naturism the gateway drug to open marriage? Is that the reason we have met so many lifestyle people at naturist resorts? Or, is an open enough attitude that allows for public nudity the same kind of openness that is required to even consider a non-monogamous lifestyle?