Hub love
SWF seeking multiple committed relationships for talking, more talking, and maybe even sex

Amanda Patterson

Melissa was having a busy week. It was her husband’s first anniversary with his girlfriend and they had a special night planned. Melissa wanted to have a plan of her own for their anniversary night, so she was working things out with her boyfriend. But his wife needed to talk to her lovers to synchronize everyone’s schedules. Ah, the complicated life of a polyamorist. Not to be confused with swingers, who seek out multiple sexual encounters without commitment, a polyamorist is generally someone involved in multiple, committed, and non-monogamous relationships.

The Diesel Café in Somerville is a gathering place for the local poly community, which meets every Tuesday through a listserv and affinity group called PolyBoston. Sprawled out on the couches in the back of the café, it’s a purple velvet scene, with combat boots and gauzy rainbow dresses, stunning hair dye-jobs and men with long groomed hair tied back implying vague spirituality. Group conversation is punctuated by massage and lap sitting. Off to the side couples can be overheard hashing and rehashing the boundaries of their relationships, working out a complex network of primary, secondary and even tertiary partners.

Many of them, like Melissa and Eric are legally married. However, sky’s the limit once you enter into non-monogamy. Triads, quads and chains with interlocking loops of romantic connection are all within bounds.

Melissa, a therapist, had been poly for a couple of years when she met Eric, a computer programmer, who was then monogamous.

They are definitely both poly now.

“He started dating Kristen one month before the wedding. That was stressful, mostly because we needed to meet with the caterer and things like that,” Melissa said.

•••

At our first interview at the Diesel Café, Melissa sat on a long couch next to Aries, her boyfriend. Eric arrived a few minutes later and was faced with the quietly loaded question of where to sit. He could separate his wife and her lover, or push them together and sit next to Aries. This is the everyday drama of polyamory. He sat between them.

Having multiple committed relationships may sound like the hottest thing ever, a scheduling nightmare, or a recipe for an axe murder, but polyamorous people argue it addresses some of the constant issues in long term monogamous relationships: boredom, outside attraction, communication failure and adultery.

The story goes that loving more people means less pressure to get every little need met by one person, and making it “legal” means not having to give anything up. It could appear that this is a sex free-for-all with legions of “Hot Bi Babes”. But polyamorous folks talk about feelings. A lot.

Processing is plentiful in polyamory. Melissa has had to learn to be much more direct. Problems arise when the feelings of neglect or jealousy go unattended.

“You have to reassure the person that their role is unique,” she said.

“People get the impression it’s like swinging,” said Aries, who has been in a polyamorous marriage for 14 years. “But it’s not, it’s the opposite. If you are comfortable with yourself, it doesn’t have to be a lot of work. But it does involve a lot of communication.”

Swingers focus on recreational sex, not emotional attachment. The definition given by Poly pioneer Morning Glory Zell Ravenheart does not exclude swingers. However, it specifically includes the expectation that relationships will have a loving emotional bond, and partners will care for each other and intertwine their lives outside of the bedroom to some extent.

The logic of loving more than one was defined by Melissa and other PolyBoston folks mostly through a rhetorical questions about loving more than one child. People love all of their children, but they love them differently, they said.

Poly Activist and author of A Bouquet of Lovers, Deborah Anapol, explained it this way.

“Love is not a pie which can be cut up into slices and eaten up. Love, unlike money, is not used up by its expenditure,” she wrote. “Contracts and agreements designed to ensure that your needs get met undermine love. [They] discourage growth because they take you out of the present and into an imaginary future.”

It’s hard not be a little bit persuaded. Anyone who’s been in a relationship knows that there is a moment, or a year, when needs are not met, and the present is sacrificed to the imaginary future. Is the solution as simple as opening the doors? Does honesty make acting on outside attraction possible? If only it were that simple.

Jealousy is a virulent emotion and a perennial poly topic.

“Polyamory doesn’t absolve you of jealousy,” Eric said. And he would know, he eventually helped Melissa get over a rotten break up with Aries, then he supported her through another exciting but ill-fated secondary relationship.

•••

So who are these people? In Boston, the short answer is geeks, according to Jason a PolyBoston member. He said the upswing in polyamory coincided with the early days of the Internet. Polyamory doesn’t just appeal to computer types, it also seems to attract sci-fi junkies and gamers (you know, Dungeons & Dragons for grown-ups).

“The connection you’ll find here is people who think about weird things. Geeks tend to analyze things other people take for granted,” said Melissa. As she talks, she sits on the lap of Sarah—a mutual lover of her and Jason. Sarah agrees that science fiction is probably the biggest cross-over culture, adding that science fiction conferences often double as singles (and doubles and triples) events.

In addition to the gamer and computer geek crowds, many pagans and wiccans tend to practice polyamory as well as polytheism. A few people agreed that believing in more than one God is good preparation for loving more than one person, although science fiction author Robert Heinlein seems to be at least as effective.

And those kids from the high school drama club, the ones who saw Rocky Horror Picture Show every Saturday night for two years? Well some of them grew up and chose polyamory. And then there is the alternative sexuality/transgender crowd, and a certain amount of androgyny.

•••

For many of us, the expectation of life-long fidelity is no longer the norm and we are left to ponder the function of commitment in a world where nearly half of all American marriages end in divorce. If there can be two mommies, a single dad, or six kids brought together by second or third marriages, are triads and quads such a big leap?

So does polyamory solve the age-old shortcomings of monogamy? After years of human sexuality research, author and professor Helen Fisher doesn’t think so. People have been experimenting with open relationships throughout human history, and she has concluded that “it just doesn’t work”. She says we are built to cheat, but not to talk about it.

“We are capable of being deeply attached to one person while feeling romantic love for another and sexual attraction for another. Polyamory is an attempt to keep all of those things going,” she said.

“I am fascinated by these polyamorous people,” she said. “They are trying to be honest, and that is laudatory. It isn’t cowardly, but is it sensible? People are not good at sharing,” she said. “We are jealous animals.”

But can they be faulted for wanting it all, especially if they are willing to work so hard to get it? Nothing about being poly is easy. They deal with jealousy, self doubt, scheduling and the judgments of family, co-workers and society. But maybe the freedom and extra love are worth it. Melissa said she chose to live poly because she likes a challenge, and this one looked “pretty hard”.

Eric said that becoming poly isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. For those considering becoming poly, he offers the following advice: “Think about it really long and really hard and then think about it longer and harder, and when you think you’ve come to a conclusion, have a pint of Guinness and think about it some more."

Amanda Patterson can be reached at apatterson@theoysteronline.com

02/22/2006   |   Permalink