Dear Earthlings:
John Nitowski:
A Book Report on Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy with Multiple Partners
by Deborah Anapol
Dr. Anapol’s book Polyamory in the 21st Century takes
a more academic tone than her other book The
Seven Natural Laws of Love, but draws from the same sources. Dr. Anapol
practices polyamory and has a lot of connections (professional and otherwise)
with other polyamorists. Through mostly interviews, with some statistical
research, Dr. Anapol presents the full picture of polyamory: the good and the
bad.
To clarify,
“polyamory” is the practice of being openly intimate with more than one person
at a time. It’s different from cheating on one’s spouses (because transparency
is always a factor) and from swinging (because “swinging” in current
connotations implies strictly physical relationships, though there is a strong
connection to classical swinging and modern polyamory). As Dr. Anapol defines
it, “I use the word polyamory to
describe a whole range of lovestyles that arise from an understanding that love
cannot be forced to flow or be prevented from flowing in any particular
direction. Love, which is allowed to expand, often grows to include a number of
people. But to me, polyamory has more to do with an internal attitude of
letting love evolve without expectations or demands that it look a particular
way than it does with the number of partners involved,” (1). Many polyamorous
people come to the conclusion that, “lifelong monogamy is more of a mirage than
a reality,” (2). The “monogamy mirage” is something of a product of modern
society. It seems to produce dysfunctional families so while many people
actively seek out polyamorous relationships, “most inadvertently discover that
polyamory provides a very fertile environment for replicating any dysfunctional
patterns carried over from the parental triangle experienced in their family of
origin,” (20).
Somewhat
shockingly, she opens the book with, “I have always characterized my position
on polyamory as pro-choice rather than antimonogamy,” (ix). Dr. Anapol
establishes that she is not out to convert us all to be polyamorists. Rather,
she is here to show her readers that it is a viable alternative to serial
monogamy. Of course a few pages later she writes, “In all honesty, after
twenty-five years as a relationship coach, seminar leader, and participant
observer in the polyamory community, I’m not at all sure that polyamory can
fulfill its potential for sustainable intimacy,” (xv). It would seem that Dr.
Anapol is apprehensive about the possibilities polyamory supposedly promises
for society (more peaceful, more loving, more open, etc.) but reading the book
a little closer reveals something different.
In Chapter 4 “The
Ethics of Polyamory,” Dr. Anapol tells a story regarding a foursome under the
heading “Unhealthy Monogamy leads to Unhealthy Polyamory,” (82). The story
concerns two couples that got together to form a foursome: Vic and Christy met
Alice and Jack at a party. They soon started a polyamorous relationship. While
Christy and Jack developed “a sexual chemistry so strong that it was nearly
palpable,” Vic was concerned that Christy would leave him for Jack, (83). When
their foursome broke up, Christy and Vic were fine and had a thriving
monogamous relationship. But the jealousy and pain was still apparent, Alice
and Jack divorced not long after the event.
This episode
highlights one of Dr. Anapol’s realizations about polyamory: “the form of the
relationship is not so important… the form can change at any time. What accounts
is allowing love to dictate the form rather than attempting to force love into
whatever mold the mind has decided it right,” (ix-x). Like Diamond in Sexual Fluidity, Anapol seems to posit a
sort of “relationship fluidity.” She includes lots of relationship
combinations, for example, polygamy, polygyny, polyandry, group marriages,
triads, dyads, Vs (where A dates B and C, but B and C aren’t dating), and Ns
(where A and B are dating, but A dates C, and B dates D, but they aren’t dating
anyone else). Polyamory is worthless if we can’t take the lessons we assume it
promotes: open intimacy (sexual and emotional), a larger realm of love, decreased
jealousy in favor of compersion, etc.
The chapter I was
most interested to read was 7: “Polyamory and Children.” Whenever I ask
monogamists what the purpose of marriage is, they tend to respond, “For the
protection of children. Without laws in place, there’s nothing to keep fathers
from just walking out,” (ironically, I heard this exact wording from a father).
Not only does that sound absolutely absurd, that the instinct of fatherhood is
held only in place by arbitrary laws, but I’ve seen too many parents who did walk out on their children. And not
just fathers, but mothers as well. This isn’t to say monogamy is inherently
bad, any more than Dr. Anapol shows the reader with her book that polyamory is
not inherently good. But when it concerns raising children, the only advantage
seems to be convenience. Several times in the book, Dr. Anapol expresses how
nice it is to be able to go somewhere intimate with a partner and know her
small children were well cared for at home. Otherwise, there don’t seem to be
any actual beneficial or detrimental effects from raising children in a
polyamorous home. Among the many stories Dr. Anapol includes, a woman describes
her polyamorous lifestyle’s effect on her son, “I hear of the ups and downs of
his relationships, just like any normal young man. So while I would like to say
that our sexualoving lifestyle saved him such grief, I see that is not so. On
the other hand, he sees the slings and arrows of his love life as part of his
spiritual path, and I also notice that he truly honors his girlfriends and
maintains friendships with odd lovers. As a mother, then, I do not worry about
him,” (135). So really, she’s just describing a well-adjusted young man. Not
that these are absent from monogamous relationships, but it stands to reason
that polyamory’s emphasis on communication, openness, honesty, and a deeper
understanding of unconditional love translates well to children.
This book is a
great addition to our list (and I’m somewhat surprised it wasn’t required). I
remember reading one story in Sexual
Fluidity where a woman, not using any specific label to define herself,
said she loved to date men because of the intensity, but loved dating women
because of the intimacy. When she was with a woman, she missed the intensity of
her male partners, but when she was with men, she missed the intimacy of her
male partners. After reading the story, I wondered why she couldn’t have both
and just be polyamorous? I think Dr. Anapol would ask the same question.
One of the more
unexpected aspects to me (that I believe relates more immediately to concepts
of Ecosexuality) is the way Osho looked at relationships. Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh, better known by his followers as Osho, was a spiritual guru in the
‘70s and ‘80s. He developed spiritual communes in Pune, India and Oregon. Osho
praised “conscious monogamy as a very evolved form of relationship” however,
“he was a severe critic of the traditional family, saying that it was ‘no
longer relevant for the new humanity that was being born,’” (152). In Osho’s
commune, children belonged to the community, and in order to expand awareness,
adult sexual relationships were to be shared and free to prevent negative forms
of attachment, what we would call jealousy, (93).
For me, this book
was an incredible contrast to my own monogamous, Judeo-Christian upbringing. In
school, I was told that “sex exists, and here’s all of the diseases you can get
from it, also pregnancy.” In Osho’s ashram, the philosophy was that teenage
sex, “was the most innocent, the most raw and pure of sexual experiences,” and
that it, “could help to blossom people into sexually loving adults when it was
not thwarted and laden with fear and moral judgment or hidden in secrecy and
shame,” (152-3). Even though our society (as many of the books interviewed
subjects have pointed out) seems to be content with the loneliness, despair,
and depression that serial monogamy produces, I have not been. I was raised
with three seemingly permanent parents who’ve had their ups and downs and saw
several secondary father figures come and go. How very different can polyamory
be for raising children if that’s our main concern? What is the advantages
jealousy produces in a society so already laden with conflict, corruption, and
envy?
Dr. Anapol’s book
is academic in its approach, but poetic in execution. She is able to show how
the philosophy behind having multiple sexualoving partners can open the doors
to a more compersive and peaceful society. Dr. Anapol actually references Gaia and the New Politics of Love and
describes how polyamory is conducive to the Gaia hypothesis. Patriarchal values
(and it should be noted that much of what passes for polyamory is really old
fashioned patriarchal polygyny, much of Mormon and Muslim sanctioned polygamy
falls under this category) often place female dependence on male hegemony “over
symbiosis or interdependence and
direct bodily awareness,” (234). If we are able to begin practicing polyamory,
not as a method of sexual gratification, but as an opening of awareness and
love, as Osho proposed, then we can practice the arts of love in a sustainable
way and open the doors to a loving society.
Published with permission
WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love
Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio
U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013
Dear Earthlings:
Let "nature" be your teacher in the arts of love. Education is the heart of democracy, education to love. Come back for more wonders: Book Reports to appear every other Thursday. Book Reports to be scheduled soon. Check out our summer offerings: Ecosexuality in Portland, OR, July 17-21. Registration here!
Namaste,
Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
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