I just started studying something called polyamory. It's a lifestyle for people who are polyamorous. They love many people. They have open, honest, trusting, and respectful sexual relationships with several people. There is no cheating, sneaking, or lying involved. You get a family, a tribe, friends, and a full social calendar. Sometimes poly people are married, and one partner has one or more partners. There are many variations and different configurations. Vees, quads, etc. It is not the same as polygamy where a patriarch has several wives. Women have equal freedom. Sex can be heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual and/or a mixture of it all. Short term and long term connections are made, and broken. Really.
Spouses turn into spices (plural for spouses). Spices deal with jealousy by becoming enlightened enough to practice compersion, i.e. an empathetic state of happiness and joy experienced when another individual experiences happiness and joy. If you happen to feel a twinge of jealousy, you haven't arrived at the pure place of true transcendence. Yet. Keep at it, it will come if you try harder. Really?
Poly people speak of monogamy, faithfulness, and fidelity in a condescending and patronizing way. The implication is that monogamous marriage is "numb, boring servitude." Really?
People I know and love have experienced drug abuse - both prescription/street, alcoholism, pornography addictions, infidelity, voyeuristic sex/orgies/prostitution. Really.
Polyamory seems to be a more destructive lifestyle choice than any of the above because it comes packaged as love, light, enlightenment, a better way, the more. If you're hip and sophisticated, cool and avante garde, you'll not only be open minded enough to try it, you'll promote it. It attempts to redefine love. To me, it mocks and insults all four kinds of love -- Philio, Eros, Storge, and Agape. Really.
I feel heartbroken for the young, newly married people who are indulging in this lifestyle. It's like they've been brainwashed by a cult. The Emporer has no clothes, but nobody dares say it, because if you do, you're one of those archaic religious freaks without a brain, liberty or freedom. There is no shame or guilt or stigma attached to this latest craze, this new fad. It's the latest greatest 'spiritual awakening'. Really?
I weep because maybe they haven't experienced the warmth of familial love. Maybe they don't have the tools for a healthy, growing, nurturing marriage. Perhaps they haven't ever seen one. Maybe they have had spiritual, emotional, or physical trauma with unprocessed, lingering grief. Really.
I weep because I do not believe they've had the privilege of being around older couples who have the loving intimacy of 50+ years of fidelity. The Berry's, The Hoytes, The Goodwin's, The Peterson's, etc. Because they haven't been around these precious people, they have no way to play their own movie forward. Therefore they'll miss the sweetest part, the part that comes later, after years and years of faithfulness, loyalty, and fidelity. Really.
What disturbed me most in the many "Poly" sights I visited was that the writers implied that polyamory is the best way to have friends, family, a tribe, affection, love, friendship, freedom, trust, playfulness, spontaneity, liberty, and healthy families. Really?
I would feel hopeless, like the sacredness of a monogamous marriage bed had been defiled past redemption, except I know older couples who have such ease and companionship, such tenderness and intimacy, that being with them feels like being back in the garden again before fig leaves were needed. Really.
"Love makes all things durable." ~ Earl Palmer
Thanks Loverby, you wear well, love well, keep well, and make love and fidelity well. Really.
