Poly Planet GAIA | ecosexual love | arts of loving | global holistic health | eros | dissidence

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Vivien Leigh: A Savvy, Healthy Collaborator who Spent Time Having Fun with her Boss

Of the many comments about the recent book that criminalizes Vivien Leigh's sexual behavior, i found one to be quite interesting: it critiques the book for its sensationalism and criminalization, and emphasizes the idea that Vivien, as an employee who went to the brother with her boss, must have been brave, a person with good self esteem!
the author is one Svutlana, who writes a very interesting English, which seems to have a simplified grammar from another language, and has an uncanny resemblance to the kind of street talk one hears in certain parts of town. the form may be funny, but it reveals an interesting content.  Kudos!

you can find Svutana's blog here

you can get the book from Amazon.com, even though yours truly cannot really recommend it, seems too sensational! 
yours truly posted a comment to Svutlana's brave blog, and she copies it here:

"Svutlana, i completely agree with you, the whole thing, the way it's presented, tends to criminalize Vivien Leigh, which is really unfair since Lawrence Olivier, George Cukor, and others in that generation of Hollywood stars had similar, somewhat excessive behaviors, partly due to the fact that cinema was new, star status unprecedented (to the extent that cinema could generate world wide) and that their personal lives, their privacy, fell thru the cracks. It's unfair to single out Vivien Leigh as a woman, it presumes that different standards would apply to her than to the men who accompanied her. And your point that she did 'rough trade' with her boss is very important, perhaps a sign of her being a healthy, savvy collaborator (Cukor was a closet gay, and maybe she helped defuse the attention and provide some safety for him). Some of the criminalization also results from the implication that she was something of a 'fake,' as in fake British who was actually born in India. again, nationalist and racial stereotypes behind the criminalization of women's sexual freedom!

Oh, and i just wanted to add, for more in the ways of POSITIVE perspectives on bisexuality, polyamory, and other styles of amorous expression that promote women's freedom and equality, all are invited to visit my blog, http://polyplanet.blogspot.com, and to join my Facebook Fan Page, Gaia and the New Politics of Love."


Monday, August 23, 2010

New Paradigms # 4: Gaia, the Sacred and the Material

When we separate the sacred from the material, we come to delude ourselves that matter is inert, that it won't react against our tyranny, our abuse, that we won't be held accountable for disrespecting it. But is matter really inert? Hasn't science taught us that matter is energy in a different form?



You've watched Segment 4 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010.  Leave a comment on the blog and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire. 

The Kindle edition of Gaia and the New Politics of Love will be available soon.  Ecovillages and intentional communities are adopting this book as a model of holistic living in the realm of personal and amorous relationships. Now you can get your copy without wasting a milligram of wood from a single tree!  We welcome your contribution to generating bestsellers for the people and by the people: September 26th is the official date for massive buying of this new, paperless edition (or the paper one).

If we get to be 100th or higher in rank, we can say to have reclaimed bestsellers as creative people's activism rather than a corporate initiative.  Please mark your calendar for Sunday, September 26th, and hop to the link to make your purchase.  If you choose not to spend money on a Kindle, we completely approve and suggest you download the FREE Kindle for PCs software here.

Oh, and if you're ready to find out how it did happen that my life became the experiment from which came the theory, don't hesitate to get all the juicy details from the memoir Eros.

Namaste,
Gaia
a.k.a. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
author of Eros, A Journey of Multiple Loves
and many other books

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Keynote - BiReCon, London, UK, August 26, 2010


BiReCon, London, UK, 1:30 PM, August 26, 2010, Univ of East London, Dockland Campus
Keynote Address
Gaia & the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Bi Planet

In the new politics of love that enables humanity to make peace with our hostess planet Gaia, love is an art, not a science, a cure, not a disease.  Bisexuality is a portal to practicing these arts of loving in a gender inclusive manner.  When we understand love as an art, we feel the affinity between the arts of loving and the arts of healing.  The practice, awareness, and theory of bisexuality are key to the paradigm shift that will usher in this new global culture.  The world revolutionized by the arts of loving will be a "world where it is safe to live because it is a world where it is safe to love."

Best opportunity to connect with Bi communities locally and worldwide! 
BiReCon Online Registration 
August 26-30, 2010
Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio gave the keynote address at the 2007 Loving More and World Polyamory Association conferences.  She has been interviewed on Italian public TV about her books on practices of love that include bisexuality and polyamory.  She is an academic, an activist, a writer and a healer.  Her numerous books include Gaia and the New Politics of Love (2009), Lambda finalist Eros (2007), Plural Loves (2005), Women and Bisexuality (2005), and Bisexuality and Queer Theory (2010).  She leads workshops on Gaia, Eros, & the SacredShe has been published in and peer-reviews for several journals.  She is a professor of humanities at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, and lives in Cabo Rojo, Western Puerto Rico.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

New Paradigms # 3: Gaia is Gay!

Why should anyone believe that nature is heterosexual? Where could this belief possibly come from? The word Gaia means 'gay' in Italian. It means cheerful, happy, playful diverse. Isn't that the way our planet is?



You've watched Segment 3 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010.  Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire. 

The Kindle edition of Gaia and the New Politics of Love will be available soon.  Ecovillages and intentional communities are adopting this book as a model of holistic living in the realm of personal and amorous relationships. Now you can get your copy without wasting a milligram of wood from a single tree!  We welcome your contribution to generating bestsellers for the people and by the people: September 26th is the official date for massive buying of this new, paperless edition (or the paper one).

If we get to be 100th or higher in rank, we can say to have reclaimed bestsellers as creative people's activism rather than a corporate initiative.  Please mark your calendar for Sunday, September 26th, and hop to the link to make your purchase.  If you choose not to spend money on a Kindle, we completely approve and suggest you download the FREE Kindle for PCs software here.

Oh, and if you're ready to find out how it did happen that my life became the experiment from which came the theory, don't hesitate to get all the juicy details from the memoir Eros.

Namaste,
Gaia
a.k.a. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
author of Eros, A Journey of Multiple Loves
and many other books

Monday, August 16, 2010

New Paradigms # 2: Gaia as a Force of Nature

Ancient Greek mythology teaches us that certain forces of nature are more powerful than any human can be. Gaia, the earth; Aeolus, the wind; Uranus, the sky; Chronos, time; Eros, the force of love. This power has been in our face with the oil spill in the Gulf. A good time to relearn the lessons of mythology: why fight battles that cannot be won? The mythological aspect of Gaia theory connects us with our own very nature as well. Another good reason to encourage poly and other ecosexual styles of love.




You've watched Segment 2 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010.  Leave a comment on the blog and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire. 

The Kindle edition of Gaia and the New Politics of Love will be available soon.  Ecovillages and intentional communities are adopting this book as a model of holistic living in the realm of personal and amorous relationships. Now you can get your copy without wasting a milligram of wood from a single tree!  We welcome your contribution to generating bestsellers for the people and by the people: September 26th is the official date for massive buying of this new, paperless edition (or the paper one).

If we get to be 100th or higher in rank, we can say to have reclaimed bestsellers as creative people's activism rather than a corporate initiative.  Please mark your calendar for Sunday, September 26th, and hop to the link to make your purchase.  If you choose not to spend money on a Kindle, we completely approve and suggest you download the FREE Kindle for PCs software here.

Oh, and if you're ready to find out how it did happen that my life became the experiment from which came the theory, don't hesitate to get all the juicy details from the memoir Eros.

Namaste,
Gaia
a.k.a. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
author of Eros, A Journey of Multiple Loves
and many other books

Thursday, August 12, 2010

New Paradigms # 1: Gaia Science and Polyamory

New science and cosmology encourage a paradigm shift toward more symbiotic styles of love. We humans are welcome on the third planet under the auspices of our hostess Gaia. If we want to continue to be welcome, we may as well learn from the species who've been around quite long, including bacteria, our 4-billion year old ancestors, who have sex with their neighbors all the time for no other reason than to rejuvenate themselves. Bacteria are slightly orgiastic and very symbiotic. They are a good ecosexual model for us. Woooooooow! Watch the video for more info and details!



You've watched Segment 1 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010.  Leave a comment on the blog and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire. 

The Kindle edition of Gaia and the New Politics of Love will be available soon.  Ecovillages and intentional communities are adopting this book as a model of holistic living in the realm of personal and amorous relationships. Now you can get your copy without wasting a milligram of wood from a single tree!  We welcome your contribution to generating bestsellers for the people and by the people: September 26th is the official date for massive buying of this new, paperless edition (or the paper one).

If we get to be 100th or higher in rank, we can say to have reclaimed bestsellers as creative people's activism rather than a corporate initiative.  Please mark your calendar for Sunday, September 26th, and hop to the link to make your purchase.  If you choose not to spend money on a Kindle, we completely approve and suggest you download the FREE Kindle for PCs software here.

Oh, and if you're ready to find out how it did happen that my life became the experiment from which came the theory, don't hesitate to get all the juicy details from the memoir Eros.

Namaste,
Gaia
a.k.a. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
author of Eros, A Journey of Multiple Loves
and many other books

Monday, August 9, 2010

Is Monogamy Unnatural? Book Argues It Isn't and CNN Talks About This!

When yours truly read about this on Facebook, she rushed to read the article and fund out is is a review of the book, Sex at Dawn, abut the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality.  The authors are Cacilda Jetha and Christopher Ryan.  The argument does not seem very new, and is still quite interesting.
  
Foraging societies did not have a sense of personal property and this applied to people as well as things. Groups of humans moved around with personal possessions reduced to a minimum, and no one really bothered to find out who belonged to whom. Women breastfed children regardless of who delivered them, and men helped parent them regardless of who sired them.  This was normal for humans before agriculture became prevalent, before, in other words, we knew about seeds, and wombs, before the concept of paternity was part of human knowledge systems.  

This argument started with Bachofen, in the late 19th-early20th century, who, in Myth, Religion and Mother Right, argued that matriarchal social organizations were prevalent throughout the Neolithic for that precise reason: that paternity was not a concept yet, and so men did not think they should know who put the seed in.  Women were more revered and also more free: they had sex with multiple partners, especially in the fertile period, to make sure someone would make them pregnant. 

This line of thought developed further with feminist philosophers and theorists of the 'second wave,' including, to my knowledge, Adriana Cavarero, who, in In Spite of Plato (translated by yours truly), argues that this ignorance of paternity was a good thing, because it empowered women with sovereignty over our bodies, and the decision to be hostesses to the reproductive process necessary for the species was ours and ours alone.  Two other theorists on this topic are of course Riane Eisler and Marija Gimbutas.  Eisler links the social practice of competition to the social construct of paternity and the ensuing practice of controlling the female body that hosts the seed to ensue its authenticity, the fact that the resulting child is sired by the man who parents it.  This, Eisler observes, not only disempowers women, but also preempts the possibility of a society organized on partnership.  Because partnership requires trust and equality, and these are impossible when men's self esteem is predicated on their ability to certify paternity. Matrifocal societies are better candidates for partnership systems.  The Romans, who learned a lot from the Greeks, and the matrifocal cultures that preceded them, put this very simply: "maternity is always certain, paternity never is."  So, if it isn't, let's shift our focus away from it, argues Gimbutas, who studies the matrifocal cultures of the Neolithic in the pre-Indoeuropean Mediterranean, to find out that they indeed were organized around the sacred feminine, myths of fertility, the management of waters, the practice of sharing resources, including amorous, sexual,and reproductive resources, the commons, and social peace.  social peace.  

Obviously, with us humans having been around for about a million years now, monogamy and paternity, which came about as social constructs only about 10 thousand years ago, it follows that our species is not monogamous from an evolutionary viewpoint: indeed, our bodies, our biology are not programmed for sexual exclusivity.  How could they be?

Many will say that neither is our biology programmed for sitting hour after hour at the computer, like yours truly and many other bloggers and other social media people do.  Obviously, we don't need to be biologically programmed for something to enjoy doing it.  We can enjoy sexual exclusivity when we choose it.  That's why yours truly often claims that monogamy is a version of polyamory: it's a spontaneous occurrence which is good as long as it is not enthroned as a social rule or billed as 'superior' because, supposedly, it represent the endpoint of evolution for our species and the biota as a whole.  

Reclaiming that polyamory is 'natural,' as Ryan and Jetha do, is a very good thing.  It helps to reconfigure 'nature' in the human mind as something quite closer to what it is: an ecosystem of interconnected life forms that is, per se, quite queer, namely odd, irregular, diverse, interconnected, happy, gay, and cheerful.  Able to heal itself because it does not follow mechanical rules.  Alive per se because it enjoys the pleasure of being.  Yet claiming that non-monogamy is 'natural' as opposed to monogamy not being so is deceptive too.  It is extremely important to bring back polyamory within the range of what is natural, spontaneous, and healthy for humans to do, but not at the expense of, or in bipolar opposition to, what is commonly known as monogamy or sexual/amorous/romantic exclusivity.  

More to the point, this new acquaintance with polyamory as a natural, biologically-programmed, and long-standing prevalent tradition that goes back all the way to pre-history is a way to revisit the past to invent a new future.  If something was done in pre-historical times we often consider it bad, backward, 'primitive.'  But what is 'bad' about primitivism?  What we often call 'history' is actually a very short period in the life of our species.  A well documented one, for sure!  But a 'good' one?  The past ten thousand years have been filled with wars, empires, exterminations, genocides, tortures, competitions, extinctions and other forms of destructive behavior that we humans have inflicted on fellow creatures and a whole bunch of other species, not to mention entire habitats, climate and ecosystems, based on ever more powerful weapons and domination systems that have, ultimately, had the effect to make us, the inventor species, also a rather unhappy species, with very few individuals still able to connect with the magic of nature, the ability to contemplate existence in the present as a state of pure bliss.  

Maybe those matrifocal 'primitives' who knew nothing about paternity, and were 'naturally' polyamorous because they loved nature in all its manifestations, including several people, were happier than today's average person.  So, by finding out how these poly primitives lived, by looking at the origins of sexuality in the long-standing life of our species, we can also come to a better understanding of a different time in our 'history,' a time when 'history' was actually more of a 'herstory,' as fellow second-wave feminists Susan Griffin and others would put it.  

This will help us also dispell another myth: that women naturally 'suffer' polyamory while men are the ones who want it.  Really?  How come today's women would 'naturally' demand monogamy when historically the times when polyamory was natural are times when women were revered, sovereign, and free?  If paternity, the cultural construct of male insemination as 'cause' of female fertility, is what caused dominant societies where women lost that sovereignty and that freedom, then perhaps sexual exclusivity is a result of patriarchal social organizations too? 

In any event, all reflections on these topics are very significant at this time.  Sexuality, in itself an invention of modernity and its wish to study the expression of erotic love in view of general laws to be considered 'scientific,' is now being re-envisioned as mainly a way to revitalize our species and the biota that hosts it, not necessarily as a way to reproduce it.  The mandate to 'go and populate the earth' has been fulfilled.  We need forms of erotic expression that are about pleasure, connectedness, health, holism, not about possession or release.  We need ecosexual people, people whose erotic inclinations are ecological too.  That's the only way to invent a new future. And of course the potential and ability to express these inclination respectfully with multiple people of various genders is a bonus to this future too.  

An ecosexual future is also a Gaian future, a future when the fact that our planet Gaia is gay will finally be recognized by our sad and ingeniously destructive and self-destructive species and when we will decide to use our ingenuity to finally keep Gaia gay too.       






Christopher Ryan is a psychologist, teacher and the co-author, along with Cacilda Jethá, of "Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality," published by Harper Collins.