Excerpt from my in-progress dissertation: Recommendations for future research

I just finished up the section of my dissertation where I provide suggestions for future research on polyamory. I thought y’all might be interested in taking a peek. I have also included the full list of references that I cite for the entire chapter (Ch. 2). Please give me feedback, if you feel so inclined! Thanks!

PS: I apologize for the spacing being not-so-perfect for my references list. I spent an hour playing with it, but wordpress seems to hate me today. I have thrown my hands up in defeat, and leave it as is. I know you intrepid folks out there can make sense of it, though! I have faith!

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The Future

     A methodological problem has arisen throughout every one of the qualitative studies I reviewed: the problem of not obtaining enough participant variety. Again and again, participant groups are comprised of mostly middle-class, well-educated, able-bodied Whites. At this point, it is unclear whether attempts to obtain participants across a range of races/ethnicities and income/education levels is due more to the fact that polyamory as a practice and identity has not yet spread to those outside the white, middle-class, able-bodied categories and communities, or, if the problem instead lies with the researchers themselves not being able to put into motion the right kinds of connections, the right kinds of networks to reach other kinds of participants due to (unfortunate) racialized histories and influences. No matter the reason, however, this lack of participant variety in the qualitative data works to create a portrait of polyamory as a White, educated, able-bodied and predominantly “middle-class Western discourse” (Rambukkana, 2010, p. 238). In my own personal experience with polyamory communities, this portrait does not seem entirely accurate, however. For example, at a monthly private (invite-only) poly support/social group that I attend, at least half of the participants would be categorized as working class and have not had more than a high school education or a few years at a trade school, with many either unemployed or underemployed. There are also a number of affluent attendees (a few millionaires, in fact). Also, at this support group—which meets in rural northwest Ohio—there are a number of African American and Native American attendees, which is surprising considering the mostly White population in the surrounding towns. In addition, there are a relatively significant number of attendees who are differently-abled (either due to injuries or chronic illnesses), and many of these people cannot work typical jobs, either relying on economic support from their spouses or from government aid. Granted, my comments here are not based on any formal data; however, I do point to this out as a way to add weight to my call that researchers aim to fill the large methodological holes that currently exist in the scholarship. We need more information about poly people who are non-white, differently-abled, and from educational and class backgrounds other than the middle class.

Researchers in rhetoric and writing would do well to consider conducting qualitative work, such as ethnographic studies of polyamorous communities (both virtual and in-person), as well as publishing narratives and autoethnographic accounts of their own experiences with polyamory or other non-normative ways of doing relationships, as the “relatively unknown nature of polyamorous practices and communities makes qualitative, and especially ethnographic, research an appropriate methodological choice” (Sheff, 2007, p. 112). The pioneering autoethnographic work of Sheff, where she discusses her quite-personal involvement (both intellectually and sexually) in poly communities, can be used a model for such future studies. Significant effort must be made to contact participants and groups who are not white, not middle class, not able-bodied, and from various educational backgrounds. Key questions that could be asked of poly-identified or poly-practicing participants are: What types of people comprise your poly friends, loves, and networks? What types of people are not present in your networks, and why? In asking participants themselves to directly weigh-in on the composition of polyamorous communities (in other words, involving participants in discussions of methodological issues), we might begin to get a better picture of how knowledge of polyamory, as an option, spreads. Who knows about polyamory? How did they come to know? At what point in their life did they come to know? What blocked their knowing or subtly hindered their knowing about polyamory before they knew? How long did it take for participants to learn about poly before actively engaging in polyamorous practices or identifying as poly or coming out of the closet as poly? When participants came out as poly, what words did they use to describe themselves, and were these words intended to create a sense that, even though poly, their lives and loves were “normal”—or did participants use language to critique the dominant mandate that people should strive to be normal? In qualitative/ethnographic work, these questions can help shed light on just who comprises poly communities and how those communities came into being.

The problem of not obtaining enough participant variety is not always overlooked or hidden, though. Some researchers openly admit to these limitations in their methodology sections, and sometimes they even offer possible—often intriguing—hypotheses for their being unable to obtain a more diverse population sample (e.g., Sheff, 2006, p. 624). Future qualitative work should continue the task of attempting to find more diverse populations to study beyond simply White/middle-class/able-bodied/university educated, and in addition, should begin to work to test the available hypotheses (or even new offer new hypotheses and then test those) to explain the lack of diversity portrayed by research studies. It is entirely possible that, even if researchers tried more creative ways of creating a more diverse population sample that the portrait of poly communities would remain the same. Sheff and Hammers (2011) reminds us that “we must consider that, on some level, there might not be anything to be done about the dearth of people of colour [and people of other diverse categories] in samples of sexual minorities” because those people just might not opt to participate in public poly communities/networks and just might not self-identify as poly, even though their behaviors might be quite similar to self-identified polys (p. 217–218). If that is the case, then the research questions need to change, and we need to ask more questions about how race and class and other factors impact the way people behave or identify (or not) in poly ways. We can ask questions like: How does being Asian affect one’s choice to have multiple partners? How does notions of choice and agency relate to race/ethnicity? How does being working-class impact one’s knowledge of the term polyamory? Does education relate to one’s self-identification or one’s coming out as poly? How does being disabled affect sexual practices in dyads or groups? How might being elderly affect participation in public poly events or organizations?

Another important area for future research: poly scholars can make more explicit connections between forms of consensual nonmonogamy. Swinging, open relationships, fuck buddies, polyamory, and other variations might not be so wildly different from each other. Indeed, “There is a continued need to explore consensual non-monogamy both generally and relating to particular identities or categorizations . . . as it is indeed overlooked in much traditional sociological research on marriage” (Frank & DeLamater, 2010, p. 20). While distinctions and differences are important to point out, we often miss some common-ground-building that could happen through an attention to what people have in common rather than what they don’t. By utilizing the concept of relationship literacy as a creative force for understanding the creative ways of knowing and engaging with others, we can ask, in celebration: what are the similarities, the overlaps in ideals, practices, traditions? Here are some examples. Both polyamorists and swingers are frustrated by a very sex-negative mainstream culture, a culture that places high priority on sexual exclusivity; both swingers and polys enjoy engaging in new, exiting, free-spirited sexual acts beyond normative expectations and limits. The two groups of polyamorists and consensual polygamists both explore sexual networks and intimate connections between people in ways that break traditional boundaries of the dyad form. Along with the political theme of the need to engage in coalition-building (e.g., Noel, 2006; Haritaworn, Lin, & Klesse, 2006), it is important to remember that however important categorization is as well as the recognition of difference (made possible through the thought-vehicles of feminism, anti-racist scholarship, engaged critical pedagogies, as I will discuss in Chapters 4 and 5), it is equally important to realize when people and groups share common ground. In doing so, we feel closer to one another and feel less isolated in our quest to achieve social and individual progress.

Further, it is important to create scholarship that makes more of an effort to point out the similarities between the seemingly incompatible monogamous identities/practices and poly identities/practices. A few examples: both polyamory and traditional dyadic marriage explore connecting, loving, evolving, and relating in often profound, long-term ways. Polyamory and casual dating or fuckbudies actually have much in common too, as both are explorations of sexuality without placing limitations on the other person.

Finally, I believe that more needs to be done to focus on the sex-radical and sex-positive politics of polyamory. Both popular and academic narratives and analyses tend to focus on polyamory as an act of long-term love relationship or as an identity or kind of relationship style/orientation that is totally different from “casual,” short-term sex. This makes logical sense in that polyamory evolved from the 1960s practitioners of polyfidelity (a form of group marriage/commitment that typically emphasizes sex only inside the group), which placed greater importance on emotional relating and relationships that, ideally, last for the long-term (Wheeler, 2011, p. 23). Along with Andrew Samuels (2010), I want to question the judgment made about the value of relational time in regard to healthy, positive forms and expressions of sexuality. Samuels’ critique seems right to me—that we may begin to understand the positive aspects of sex/intimacy shared between friends, casual acquaintances, or even strangers in light of what one might call a “mystical experience” (p. 216). Taking a positive spin on the term promiscuous, Samuels has written: “There’s something numinous about promiscuous experience as many readers will know. Overwhelming physical attraction produces feelings of awe and wonderment and trembling. There is a sort of God aroused, a primitive, chthonic (that is, rooted in the earth), early, elemental God. There is an unfettered experience of the divine” (p. 216). Further, I want to challenge scholars to consider the hidden values and norms that attend thinking any kind of sex as automatically shameful, dirty, risky, problematic. The potential dangers of increased sexual activity is a valid argument against more freer forms of love—yet, as scholars such as Munson (2010) have pointed out, monogamy is not necessarily any safer than polyamory in terms of risk for STI transmission.[1] Unlike monogamous couples (where, by the way, it is entirely possible that at least one of the partners is secretly engaging in sexual acts with others—according to recent statistics, the likelihood that one spouse will have an affair over the course of a marriage ranges from 20 percent to 25 percent[2]), poly people cannot assume that they are safe. In my personal experience with a variety of online and in-person poly communities, networks, and friendship circles, I have been astounded to see new poly members (often formerly monogamous) undergo a radical, rapid education. New people in poly communities, often for the first time, begin to enact safer sex practices and create boundaries and long term planning with the health and wellbeing in mind of not just themselves, but their partners and the larger, extended networks of polys within which they engage. There are a variety of preparedness strategies that polys can take, such as implementing closed poly tribes or polyfidelitous families, weekly or monthly STI-status reports given to all concerns parties, open and honest dialogue with partners before sexual acts occur, the use of toys in place of oral or manual stimulation, and regular medical screenings.[3] In making these calls for more sex-positive understandings of sexuality, I do not wish to claim that all sex is inherently unproblematic. Sex is a sensitive and powerful issue and act. I do not, further, wish to unintentionally reify the binary of sex-as-good as opposed to sex-as-bad. What is my intention is to inspire scholars to take a more expansive approach to sexuality, approaches that take into account the possibility for sex to be a healing, connective force, rather than an automatically risky or dangerous one. Using the concept of relationship literacy, we may begin to realize how normative understandings of sexual mores place any sex outside of a long-term dyad form as inherently negative, unethical, or problematic. Revising these assumptions will open up new spaces for dialogue to occur about relationship forms, identities, and practices that begin from a place of optimism for how sex/uality can be a powerful, creative, ultimately healing and connective act. In recalling my previous comments about revising the us (safe inside) versus them (dangerous outside) mentality, we can begin to view sexuality and intimacy as energies that bring people together in love, rather than those which expose us to harm.

A related notion about time is questioning why experiments with nonmonogamy or polyamory are often tried by people but then denigrated or abandoned when relationships end. The bisexual activist Alison Rowan (1995) has convincingly written about this perplexity. Here is one particularly compelling passage:  “There is one more thing that non-monogamy, or my constant defense of it, has taught me, and that is about the success of relationships. This actually came to me after running a workshop on non-monogamy where out of 30 people, at least half said that they had tried non-monogamy once, “but it had failed”. This phrase got stuck in my mind until I had to work out what was wrong with it. What did they mean by failed? What does anybody mean by the word when they’re talking about relationships? They mean the relationship ended. Which is very odd when you come to think of it. A meal is a failure because it doesn’t taste nice, not because you ran out of food to eat, but a relationship can “fail” even if it’s fun all the way through, because a meal isn’t supposed to last forever and a relationship is if you’re monogamous. But if you’re not monogamous this [theory] just doesn’t work anymore.” (p. 18)

If the time aspect of judging relational quality is exposed in further scholarship, perhaps bridges could be built between those who have (at one point in time) tentatively tried polyamory or nonmonogamy and those who proclaim a poly and nonmonogamous identity. Perhaps if we deconstruct the myth of relationships as only “successful” if they last “forever,” then more productive dialogue can be had between those who have experienced serial monogamy, swinging, and other types of adventures without necessarily choosing the label “poly” or “ethically nonmonogamous.” Along with Rowan (2010), I believe it will be incredibly productive—in ways that I cannot even begin to foresee—that “people abandon longevity as the sole measure of the success of a relationship” (p. 18).

Another important strand of thought to be pursued in research regarding human sexuality, ethics, social justice, anti-normativity, or anarchist thought is a more thorough distinction between a simple rejection of monogamy and a rejection of mononormativity. This relates to calls for more overt politicization/activism in poly writings/theory outlined in the previous section. As Wilkinson (2010) notes, a rejection of monogamy in one’s personal life is not enough—scholars need to “address the false assumption that those who practice non-monogamy will have an inherent commitment to wider political change” (p. 242). As many in the polyamory movement have attempted to portray themselves in normative ways in the popular media, in order to gain recognition and acceptance from the broader public, Wilkinson points out the flaws inherent in this approach, for such an approach fails to make societal change on a truly radical, foundational level. Along with Wilkinson, I argue that “there is a need to differentiate between a rejection of monogamy and a rejection of ‘mononormativity’ . . . By making this distinction we can begin to map out a vision of what a politics of anti-normativity could become (while separating it from the rather more ‘normative’ lifestyles of those who may simply be non-monogamous). (p. 243)

Finally, more work needs to be done to estimate the numbers of people who are in polyamorous relationships or identify as poly. Currently, researchers aren’t sure just how many poly people there are in the United States, and elsewhere. Leading poly researchers such as Meg Barker (2013), in her most recent book Rewriting the Rules: An Integrative Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships cites sociological and psychological studies that estimate—based on somewhat limited and somewhat outdated data—that the proportion of people in openly nonmonogamous relationships vary from 15–28 percent of heterosexuals to around 50 percent of bisexual and gay men (p. 103). But we just don’t know how many poly people there are. It’s important that researchers have more concrete figures for the specific practice/identity of poly, and not just nonmonogamy. We need more statistics quantifying how prevalent open poly relationships are, as well as more subtle, closeted practices of polyamory by those who do not necessarily identify as poly. Understanding how widespread poly identities, practices, and philosophies are will help provide impetus for ongoing research. In addition, broader studies in the social sciences about love and intimacy need to begin to take into account what Hidalgo, Barber, and Hunter (2007) refer to as the dyadic imaginary, which is an “ideology or hegemonic concept that renders non-dyadic intimate and sexual relationship forms invisible and unnatural” (p. 173). Empirical studies about how people do intimacy and love must include, at the very least, nods to how those in multiple relationships might compose their lives. Multiple relationships must not continue to be invisible or portrayed as unnatural. The methodologies in these studies must, therefore, go beyond choosing just couples as research subjects.

Like the term polyamory, understanding of the term mononormativity is just beginning to blossom across the academy. In conjunction with already-existing and well-accepted terms like compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity, I believe the term mononormativity has the potential to be influential in spreading the word about polyamory as an ethical relationship lovestyle, as well as giving learners across disciplines some much-needed vocabulary for explorations of relationship literacy. For rhetoric and writing in particular, mononormativity helps us ask some tough questions about language. What are “relationships”? What kinds of “normal” relationships does our culture value? What is the difference between a “lover” and a “friend”? What is the difference between a “partner” and a “lifepartner” or a “girlfriend” and a “boyfriend”? Does the poly terms of “primary” partner and “secondary” partner(s) serve a practical function for organizing how one will spend one’s time and energy, or does this terminology simply reify a problematic hierarchical system? What does monogamy and polyamory have to do with eros and ethics? What is my personal definition of love and what sorts of love do I want to cultivate in my life? What are the possible options for loving? Or, as feminist Sonia Johnson (1991) has put it, “What would love look like in freedom?” (p. 113).

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[1] For a compelling critique of the global “health care” paradigm that mistakenly focuses on allopathic hypotheses to explain and control conditions such as AIDS, please see Anderlini-D’Onofrio’s account (2009, pp. 59–103). Ultimately, she argues that polyamory can be seen as a healing art, and not something to be feared on account of the—as she sees it—mistaken mainstream understandings of health, the body, and ecology.

[2] For more interesting statistics and estimates such as these, please see the chapter “Communication and Marital Infidelity” (Vangelisti & Gerstenberger, 2004, pp. 59–61)

[3] For more on STI’s, safer sex issues, and navigating the health care system as poly, please see Wheeler (2011, pp. 59–60).

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Short & Not-So-Sweet

All of the poly people I know that are in the closet as poly (at least partially) work for corporate America. The ones that are “out” work in academia, are unemployed, or are freelance artists or own their own business. Interesting. Very interesting.

And, when I think about it, the majority of poly people I personally know are in the closet. Which makes me wonder…if all the poly people were to Please Stand Up–what would happen then?

“Polyamory Across the Disciplines”: A Transcript

I am very excited and grateful to be presenting some of my dissertation research this weekend at a graduate student conference, hosted by The English Department at the University of Cincinnati. The theme of the conference is “Being Undisciplined“–which fits in so perfectly with this current project, as one of my aims is to show how poly has been analyzed across, between, and among various very different disciplines.

I thought it might be cool to include a transcript of my talk here, so that folks who hear me speak on Saturday might be able to re-visit my words in a different medium (online and written, as opposed to simply aural). In addition, I invite those who are/were not present on Saturday to read this. Thanks!

Also, I welcome any comments, critiques, or feedback!

 

“Polyamory Across the Disciplines” 

There is something that cannot be disciplined.  Love. Love cannot be disciplined. It refuses to be. By its very nature, love is an act and an energy of connection. It is about bringing together and exploring and questioning and getting excited and getting scared and changing—all things that refuse neat categorization, division, separation. In this way, you could say that love is…quite queer. Love doesn’t stay the same. Love is beautiful and messy and full of surprises.

This talk today springs from my longer dissertation project. I’m currently writing and researching the second chapter. My dissertation is titled, “Relationship Literacy and Polyamory: A Queer Approach.” If you’d like to know more about this project beyond what I’m saying today, feel free to check out the link to my diss blog on the handout I passed out.

So, you might be asking yourself, Why? Why polyamory? What is polyamory? Why is this  the subject of Heather’s dissertation?

Let me tell you a story.

You see, I fell in love. You see, I had found someone. I found a person; he wanted to be my lifepartner—and, miracle of miracles, I felt the same way. I was in love. We were wed, one of the most ecstatic, and dare I say triumphant, days of my life. I was happy. Blissful. And, then, I found myself, to my great bewilderment, in love. Again. But with someone else (!?) This was NOT how my story was supposed to go.

That new love for that new person didn’t swoop in from nowhere; it developed gradually, over time, like all deep love does. And I woke up one morning and realized: Shit. The values of my culture tell me that I should either a) break up with my lifepartner so I can begin to pursue this new person, OR b) avoid this new person entirely and suppress my feelings about the whole situation.

Both of these options sucked. I didn’t want to do either. I didn’t desire to do either. And if I’ve learned anything about staying alive in this world, I have learned to respect desire.

So, I did something radical. I took a risk. I talked to my lifepartner, Andrew, about how I felt. And damn that was scary. I told Andrew “I am in love with another person, and I am in love you, my darling. How do you feel about this? What’s to be done?” Well, to my utter delight, he responded with compassion. My lifepartner said, “Heather, thank you for being honest with me and coming to me with this part of your heart. Let’s talk about what to do next.”

It took many months of conversation. What we both realized is that we both wanted to continue our relationship, our lifepartnership. We wanted to continue being partners, because the relationship still served us, serves us, emotionally, erotically, spiritually, materially, intellectually. It was and it is a rich relationship, so why end it?

What we also concluded was that that new love I felt for that new person was something I shouldn’t repress but rather explore. My lifepartner realized what is true: That love is not scarce—and what I could feel for someone else did not detract from or dilute the love I felt for him.

Since that time, both my lifepartner and I have fallen in love with, been in love with, desired, and experienced both reciprocated and also unreciprocated passion with other people besides each other. And what’s going on for us right now is pretty exciting.

This is our family. We’ve nicknamed ourselves “the quad.” My lifepartner Andrew (bottom left) is partnered to me, of course, as well as to Cordelia (she’s in the top right of the photo). Cordelia and Ben (top left) are engaged. I am also partnered to Ben. Cordelia and mine’s relationship, while sometimes erotic, depending on our mood, is more along the lines of sisters. Ben and Andrew’s relationship functions in a similar way; they are like brothers to each other. It might SOUND complicated, but, as many of our other close friends and colleagues have commented after they’ve spent time with us, it’s not really that complicated. We act as many families do—we have dinners together, we hang out together, we grocery shop together, we walk the dogs together, and we have disagreements together. When issues come up, we talk. There’s lots of talking. But it’s okay because we really like to talk.

What we have learned, through so much radical honesty and intense communication between each other, as well as deep soul-searching and times of quiet alone introspection and meditation, is this. And here I will quote psychologist Meg Barker. We’ve learned that: “There is no universal answer” for how people should be in relationships and “It is okay to question the rules” that society has constructed for how we should be with each other.

So, why am I writing my dissertation on polyamory? Well, a simple answer is that because I’m poly. And, there’s more poly people out there than you might think. The problem is, many of them are in the closet. The other answer I can give you about why I’m doing this project is that polyamory connects to countless other discourses. When you talk about poly, you start talking about love, about social justice, about legal issues, about affect, about anthropology, about cultural rhetorics, about feminisms…the list goes on.

But let’s back up for a minute. Some brief definitions are in order. The word “polyamory” was first coined in writing in the early 1990s. The word is a hybrid, composed from both Greek and Latin roots: “poly” meaning many and “amor,” meaning love. Polyamory…many loves.

To be polyamorous ( or “poly” for short) is to embrace the idea that abundant love, connection, and support is possible between honest, communicative, consenting human beings. Probably the most important term here is “consent.” When poly arrangements are made, there is no lying, no sneaking around. Instead, there is honest and open communication, and all parties must agree to whatever boundaries and arrangements work for those involved.

My theory of poly is that it is more than sexual desire or specific object choice. I think of poly as a larger thing. It’s a broad orientation to life. As feminist and cultural studies scholar Sara Ahmed points out, orientation should not just denote sexual object choice, but rather “as involving differences in one’s very relation to the world—that is, in how one ‘faces’ the world or is directed toward it.”

 

Poly is an attitude, an orientation toward living and loving that is an option that is in addition to monogamy. Most polyamory activists and theorists, myself included, are not “against” monogamy. We’re not trying to tear it down or say that monogamy doesn’t work for some people. Monogamy is indeed a valid and beneficial choice for some. What many poly activists and theorists are trying to do is not discredit monogamy but rather discredit and expose mononormativity, a term coined by poly researchers Robin Bauer and Marianne Pieper, meaning the normalizing tendency that assumes that all people should be, or at the very least, aspire to be sexually or romantically or in other ways intimate with only one person at a time.  

In academia, fields that have done the most work on polyamory include: sociology, communication studies, psychology, human development, women’s studies, theology, law, health and education, and geography. There have also been a handful of journal articles, chapters, and thesis and dissertation work done by some in literary studies and creative writing.

I’m going to wrap up this presentation by providing a brief hint of how I believe my field of rhetoric and composition, as well as those outside my field, perhaps in related humanities or social sciences fields, might benefit from thinking seriously about polyamory.

Drawing on the work of queer rhetorician Jonathan Alexander and his well-cited notion of “sexual literacy,” in my dissertation project, I am forwarding a similar term that I have coined: “relationship literacy.” Relationship literacy is a useful conceptual frame, which refers to the reflexive, critical fluency with which human beings can understand, analyze, discuss, and reflect upon their own as well as others’ relationship styles, choices, practices, values, and ethics.

Relationship literacy gives us the language to help us ask important questions about language and about how our relationships are both constrained and bolstered by the available cultural talk we have at our disposal. And thinking about relationship literacy helps us ask crucial questions about discourse, power and agency …questions like: How do I choose relationships? Are my relationship choices guided by my own ethical values, or am I being swayed by dominant paradigms of normality or morality? What is the difference between a lover and a friend? What is the difference between a partner and a lifepartner? Do I want to get legally married? How important is sexual expression in my life? What kinds of loves do I want to actively cultivate in my life?  Or, as feminist Sonia Johnson has put it, “What would love look like in freedom?”

Has there ever been a time in your life when you, in some passionate or intimate or electric or curious way, were pulled to more than one person at the same time? You can define “pull” in any way you like, and you can define “time” in any way you like. (pause)…What was that like for you? Did you feel excitement? Joy? Guilt? Confusion? Did you feel shame or embarrassment? Did you tell anyone about this pull? Why or why not?

In asking these questions to you now, I am not meaning to imply that everyone or anyone besides myself should be or could be poly. And I am not trying to say that being poly is “normal.” These are not my aims. What I am trying to do, rather, is to connect with you and reveal how, even if you identify as monogamous—you and I are not so different. There is a commonality between us: the desire to connect with others. Yet, we have all probably have had to deal with normalizing codes of conduct that have impeded that desire for connection. For instance, was there ever a time when you were shamed, either by your partner or by friends or colleagues, for doing something that you thought was no big deal, but in other’s opinions, was going over the line? Something, maybe, as simple as smiling too much while talking to someone other than your partner, or maybe simply laughing too much at another person’s jokes? Have you ever gotten flack for giving someone a hug that lasted too long? Or what about having a long lunch with a person who isn’t your partner? …In our American culture, we have intricate rules for what is allowed and what is not allowed outside the dyadic, monogamous structure. And sometimes we, either on purpose, or totally accidentally, step outside of those bounds—and we are sometimes shamed for doing so.

What I am meaning to imply is that the desire to connect (whether that be sexually, intellectually, spiritually, or emotionally)—dare I say, the desire to love—is so much a part of what makes us human.

In closing, I want to point out how in other areas of life, our intellectual academic careers for example, we are expected to change, to evolve. I have to ask why, I have to pose the question: Why, in our current culture, the goal of our romantic lives seems to be one of fixation. We say things like: I am married. I am gay. I am straight. I am a lesbian. I am with this person. I am married. This person belongs to me and always will.  …Why is it that we extend the notion of evolution and change and transformation to so many areas of our lives, yet in our romantic lives the goal is to stay stable and lock down our identity and our partner’s identity and even our future as we declare things like: “I will be with you FOREVER.” What’s up with this “forever”??? How we can we possibly know the future? And, why would we want to?

In many ways, we already recognize that life, when lived well, is a life that is in constant flux. Yet, with monogamy, which I argue is done not often through careful consideration yet rather taken on thoughtlessly, by default, is adopted far too often than actually fits a person’s needs. The option of polyamory nudges us to realize that monogamy does not have to be compulsory after all. We can stop disciplining love, and, instead, let it move into freedom.

 

A Very Disturbing Book

The only reason I am taking time out of my life to write this review is because I want to save at least one person from feeling the frustration I have felt. Please don’t waste your money on the book I am about to review!

Let me further preface this review by saying that I pride myself on usually seeing books to their end—even if that journey is bitter. Sometimes it happens that a book looks super awesome: perhaps this book got great reviews on Amazon, or maybe a friend said “you just gotta read it, Heather!” But, as it sometimes happens, a few pages or chapters in, I realize that this is a book that is causing more confusion, stress, anger, irritation or some other negative emotion rather than helping me gain insight. Yet, even when this happens, I often force myself to finish the book. Why, you ask? Why would I torture myself in that way? Well, because I’m a writer. Thus, I have this complex feeling of empathy for other writers; I finish their books because I hope that, one day, when I get a book out there into the world, that readers will be as gracious and sympathetic as I have tried to be. Also, another reason I often finish books that I don’t particularly like is because I think it’s a good intellectual practice not to insulate myself from ideas that I might find wrong, stupid, annoying, etc.—so I finish these books because I want to keep an open mind…and one of the ways to maintain an open, flexible mind is to do undergo the (often uncomfortable) practice of considering viewpoints that clash with my own. What I am trying to say is that I have thought long and hard about why I often read books in their entirety.

But, I couldn’t manage it this time. I just had to stop reading Brad Warner’s Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between by page 66. Here’s why.

Warner is…well, he is misguided, ignorant, and…has an odd sense of humor, to say the least.

Warner warns his readers repeatedly that he has absolutely no personal experience with polyamory (except that he read a handful of popular books, such as The Ethical Slut) and that he has had virtually no experience with the spiritual-erotic path of Tantra, except to casually attend, “for research,” what seemed like a single visit to some sort of daylong workshop in San Francisco, where they teach OM (orgasmic meditation). Yet, despite his repeated frank (often bordering on smug) admissions that his experience and knowledge level with these practices are next to nothing, he goes ahead and starts to mercilessly mock both. His tone is alternatingly condescending, snarky, and, at times, downright cruel. He’s like a bully on a playground. I realize that one of his aim’s in Sex, Sin, and Zen is attempting to be humorous. I get that. But, the problem is, he’s seriously not funny, because making snap judgments about people, groups, and practices that he’s seriously uneducated bout is not only funny but it is also wrong. On top of it all, this guy is supposed to be a Buddhist monk, somebody is has vowed to do no harm. Apparently, he thinks humor can act as a cover or excuse the serious harm he is doing with his ignorance.

Repeatedly, Warner gets his facts wrong. For example, he writes about how tantric/sensual practice is all about chasing the highs of orgasm and about escaping the mundane, everyday world. That is seriously not what Tantra is about! (I’ll talk about my experience with Tantra in a moment.) Then, on top of presenting the wrong information, he piles on condescending judgment on top of the misinformation, in attempt to gain a laugh: he writes, “I’ve never seen a single person advocating tantric sexual meditation who didn’t strike me as mainly just wanting to get his or her rocks off” (62).

I really was disgusted and saddened by his authorial ethos. Consider this mean-spirited jab at polyamory: “Just because you think you’re so cool that you won’t have any notions of commitment or betrayal or jealousy or any of the rest of that stuff doesn’t mean your partner(s) won’t” (42). Um, what the hell? Poly isn’t about trying to be cool. Being poly doesn’t mean running from commitment or denying that commitment can be a good thing. And, poly people talk CONSTANTLY about how jealousy comes up—how it’s totally a part of life, and that that’s ok! I know hundreds of poly people, and I have never once heard the premise that polyamory is about totally overcoming jealousy and, thus, attempting to be cooler or superior than anyone else. In the poly community, jealousy is pretty much assumed to be a standard emotion that tends to rise up…and then the question is: How can I use jealousy to prompt me to look deeper inside myself to resolve some sort of inner-conflict or evolve in some way?

After a lot of snipes and gripes, Warner presents his conclusion on polyamory. He writes that poly is basically too utopian—that it’s a great concept in theory, but that he can’t imagine how it could ever work in real life for real people, because, unlike pair bonding (about which he says: “I’m fully convinced that human beings are basically pair-bonding animals” [40]), polyamory is far too “unstable” (43) of a way of being. Yet, by his own admission, he has no evidence of this. He admits that his only realm of experience with polyamory is reading a couple books on it.

It’s seriously appalling the extent to which he mocks practices like Tantra and polyamory, yet then he (often in the same paragraph) dares to write things like “I have no interest in trying to convince anyone to live the way I think is best” (42).

…um…really?

On top of all these problems, when Warner talks about Zen Buddhism, he does so in a way that, to me, comes off as extremely dogmatic. In one instance, for example, he writes how one should “never” do guided meditation. I’m not kidding. He writes “never.” To quote him: “I’m not a fan of guided meditation. Mediation should never be guided” (60). In the 66 pages I read, he repeatedly praises the specific practice of zazen meditation (a very formal, specific way of meditation, complete with specifics on how to hold your fingers)—in a way that borders, to me, on obsessive and preachy.

Like I said, I only read to page 66. I did flip ahead to notice that he makes fun of BDSM culture, too. I just scanned it, but I can feel pretty safe guessing that, along with polyamory and Tantra, he probably has little or zero experience/knowledge about that culture either. How can I tell? His chapter is called “BDSM and Cult Behavior.” How he goes about comparing BDSM to cults, I’m not sure. Like I said, I only got to page 66 before I threw up my hands in defeat.

I bought Sex, Sin, and Zen because I assumed that any writer who would put the term polyamory in the very title of their book would mean that they had at least a modest level of experience with it, at least in theory if not practice. But, no. Despite the title of his book, there are only six measly pages devoted to the topic of polyamory. Six! And Warner, despite knowing virtually nothing on the topic (again, he freely admits this!), he obviously takes great relish in judging polyamory foolish and unrealistic, even dangerous.

Again and again, Warner cautions his readers, warning them that sex, because it is so powerful, is quite a risky business. I agree with him—it’s powerful. However, his knee-jerk negativity around sex/uality I cannot get behind. In his ramblings about how dumb Tantra and other mystical approaches to sex are, he writes, “my problem with sex as meditation is that, as a method, it’s much too prone to abuse and danger” (63). There is this fearful tone, throughout. In a nutshell: Warner is a person who, due to his lack of experience, feels a great amount of fear, and then leaks that fear onto the page. It’s odd how he tries to say that he’s not trying to convince his readers that they should do or live in any certain way. Whether or not he is aware of what his book is doing is immaterial, because the effect is the same. What Warner is doing is spreading his fear and using his ignorance to condemn people and practices that he is seriously ignorant about.

Who am I to write all this? How am I qualified to write what I just wrote? Well, here’s some information about me, Heather Trahan:

For about three years, I’ve been a polyamorist in both practice and theory (I have two partners and I am writing a dissertation on polyamory), and I have a moderate knowledge about Tantra both practical and theoretical (I’ve attended workshops, read books, and talked to others about the topic—a lot!). I have a moderate amount of experience, too, with BDSM, having attended workshops, events, and parties, and also read some books on the topic. Most of my close friends are involved with some combination of BDSM, Tantra, and polyamory. I feel qualified to say, based upon both my book knowledge and my hands-on life experiences, that he is flat-out wrong about what he says about Tantra and polyamory.

If you enjoy reading a book where the author uses humor in sarcastic, mean ways, or if you like reading a book where the author does nothing more than make guesses about other people’s cultures and passions, then you might enjoy reading Sex, Sin, and Zen. And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I only read to page 66. So, it is always possible that the rest of the book somehow gets better, that he stops being so damn mean. I don’t know. If you want to find out, I’d be glad to give you my copy.

An Overview of Poly in the Popular Media; and, A Gift of Sources

I’ve been a busy little bee, lately, drafting Chapter 2. In two full weeks of crazy, hermetic work (where I holed myself up in my office with my lovely books and sometimes forgot to eat, forgot what day of the week it was–and sometimes forgot to use the bathroom or brush my teeth or complete other fairly simple human tasks), I have accomplished a good 25 double-spaced pages. Hooray for me! All that’s left at this point are minor tweaks, and then I can ship it off to my committee chair.

I want to share with you an excerpt from that chapter, where I provide an overview of polyamory as depicted in popular, non-academic sources. (Please be kind! Remember that this is a draft, a work-in-progress!) Some of you who are following my blog and are also working on scholarship regarding the poly movement, might find this excerpt inspiring or useful. Feel free to cite me if you want to use my ponderings or to track down the sources I mention and analyze them yourself.

Also, in the spirit of feminist collaboration, at this end of this post I have provided my full References list, covering both academic and popular sources on the topic of poly, for my developing chapter 2 (please note that this is not a complete list, though–it’s still under construction at this point). Many of you have emailed me, asking me to point you toward sources for your own projects. So, here you go–and…you’re welcome!

Polyamory in the Popular Media

Simple searches of the World Wide Web can begin to indicate just how quickly discussion of this alternative relationship style is proliferating. For instance, in March 2005, scholars Ani Ritchie and Meg Barker, using Google and the search term “polyamory” reported results of around 170,000 (p. 588). Eight years later, in March 2013, my Google search generated results of over a million, at approximately 1,710,000 links.

Indeed, during the progress of this project I found myself sometimes relieved (for the sake of simplicity) that I had narrowed my scope to focus on scholarly conversations—for nearly weekly (or daily it seemed!), new discussions, analyses, mentions, whispers, and red-hot controversies were popping up in venues such as local newspaper articles (e.g., Miller, 2010), national newspaper articles (e.g., Fraser, 2012) syndicated columns (Savage, 2012), popular magazines (e.g., Pappas, 2013) national television news programs such as ABC’s 20/20 and Dateline, as well as other film, radio and other print and online sources. More and more conferences, festivals, meetings, and other networking events for poly people were being hosted than ever before. New websites were being built, devoted exclusively to the topic of polyamory—some prominent examples from the dozens available are: Loving More (http://www.lovemore.com/), The Polyamory Media Association (http://www.polymediaassociation.com/), Polytical: Polyamory and Non-Monogamy in the UK (http://polytical.org/), and the Word Polyamory Association (http://worldpolyamoryassociation.net/). In fact, one could argue that polyamory has finally hit “the big time,” as evidenced by the successful new docudrama, Polyamory: Married and Dating, which aired its first season on Showtime in the summer of 2012 and is currently in the process of filming its second season. To summarize, it’s been challenging to keep up with the buzz. So much has/is being said, across so many countries and in so many formats.

Before synthesizing the published scholarship on polyamory, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of some the most heavily-referenced popular books on the topic, as numerous other popular (and sometimes academic) sources, both print and online, tend to utilize these as pillars, or at least background information, for their arguments. In these sources, which could be summarized as falling under the self-help/instructional nonfiction genre, there is a predominant focus on “individual choice and personal agency” (Noël, 2006), as well as the celebration of polyamory as a proud, conscious identity or orientation.

Four general-audience texts stand out as the most widely sold and cited. The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy (1997) is commonly referred to as “the poly bible.” In this groundbreaking text, Easton and Hardy reclaim the term slut, transforming its negative meaning and connotation into a positive identity marker, referring to an ethical, honest, adventurous person who celebrates and enjoys sex—without shame and without secrecy. Dr. Deborah Anapol, a clinical psychologist and one of the founding figures of the polyamory movement, contributed two crucial books—Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits (1997) and Polyamory in the Twenty-First Century (2010). In these texts, Anapol provides practical strategies that poly people can use (or prospective poly people can consider) in their day-to-day lives. Subjects include: how to come out of the closet as a poly person, how to deal with the various variations of jealousy, how to find and build an “intentional family” (1997, p. 111), how to network with other poly people, and how to deal with child custody issues. Lastly, Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up (2008) explores polyamory and open relationships by offering concrete profiles and narratives of people who are engaged in nontraditional, ethically nonmonogamous styles of relating. She offers readers numerous rich, concrete, lived responses to the question “just how do they do it?” (p. xiv), understanding that living outside norms can be made a bit easier if roadmaps and models, such as her book, are available to the public.

Despite critiques that these as well as other important popular texts in the poly movement are deeply flawed because they limit their dialogue to a too-narrow celebration of identity politics and fail to address “issues of systemic inequity” that appear in the hierarchies of race, class, gender, etc., (Noël, 2006, p. 617), I assert that these writings need to be remembered, considered, and valued, for they remain crucial in the proliferation of knowledge(s) about options and possibilities regarding new ways of thinking and doing relationships. Texts like The Ethical Slut, What Does Polyamory Look Like? (Chapman, 2010), Gaia and the New Politics of Love (Anderlini-D’Onofrio, 2009), The Polyamory Handbook: A User’s Guide (2008), Poly Communication Survival Kit (McGarey, 2004), Polyamory: Roadmaps for the Clueless and Hopeful (Ravenscroft, 2004), and Loving More: The Polyfidelity Primer (Nearing, 1992) work to disrupt the dominant script that the heterosexual monogamous dyad is the only ethical model for forming romantic/intimate/sexual attachments and for building families. Educators working toward more expanded, dynamic understandings of relationship literacy may find that these sources—though often lacking more nuanced, intellectual, and/or “progressive” (Noël, 2006, p. 617) analytical arguments regarding postmodern understandings of social oppression—may be useful in classrooms, cultural studies analyses, historical understandings of human sexuality, as well as for researchers, intellectuals, writers, and the brave pioneers who are learning that “it is possible to honestly and respectfully love more than one” (Anderlini-D’Onofrio, 2009, p. xii).

References

ABC’s 20/20. (2012, April 20). “Strange Arrangements.” Retrieved from http://abc.go.com/watch/2020/SH559026/VD55194402/2020-420-strange-arrangements

ABC’s Dateline. (2012, January 11). “Polyamory: 1 Mom, 2 Dads and a Baby.” Retrieved from http://abc.go.com/watch/nightline/SH5584743/VD55277243/nightline-0221-polyamory-1-mom-2-dads-and-a-baby?rfr=clicker

Al-Zubi, Hasan. “Sweet dreams: sexual fantasies in J.K. Huysmans’s against the grain and Leopoldo Alas’s la regent.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 9–27). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Anapol, Deborah. (1997). Polyamory: The new love without limits. San Rafael: Intinet Resource Center.

––––––  (2004). “A glimpse of harmony.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living (pp. 109–119). New York: Harrington Park Press.

––––––  (2010). Polyamory in the twenty-first century: Love and intimacy with multiple partners. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Anderlini-D’Onofrio, Serena. (2004). “Plural loves: Bi and poly utopias for a new millennium.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 1–6). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Anderlini-D’Onofrio, Serena. (2009). Gaia and the new politics of love: Notes for a poly planet. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.

Bauer, Robin. (2010). “Non-monogamy in queer bdsm communities: Putting the sex back into alternative relationship practices and discourse.” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 142–153). New York: Routledge.

Benson, Peter J. (2008). The polyamory handbook: A user’s guide. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse

Bryant, Wayne M. (2004). “Bi poly cinema.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 219–226). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Chapman, Mim. (2010). What Does Polyamory Look Like?: Polydiverse Patterns of Loving and Living in Modern Polyamorous Relationships. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.

Dodson, Betty. (2004). “We are all quite queer.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 155–163). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Easton, Dossie, & Liszt, Catherine A. (1997). The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities. San Francisco, CA: Greenery Press.

Finn, Mark, & Malson, Helen. (2008). “Speaking of home truth: (Re)productions of dyadic-containment in non-monogamous relationships.” British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 519–533.

Francis, Eric. (2004). “From self to self: Masturbation as the future of sex.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 167–176). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Fraser, Jeff. (2012, September 21). “Polyamory: Exploring the ins and outs of multiple partners.” The Globe and Mail.  Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/polyamory-threes-or-fours-or-fives-company/article4560587/?page=all

Heckert, Jamie. “Love without Borders?: Intimacy, Identity and the State of Compulsory Monogamy.” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 255–266). New York: Routledge.

Haritaworn, Jin; Lin Chin-ju; & Klesse, Christian. (2006). Poly/logue: A critical introduction to polyamory. Sexualities, 9(5), 515–529.

Iantaffi, Alessandra (Alex). “Disability and polyamory: Exploring the edges of interdependance, gender and queer issues in non-monogamous relationships.” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 160–165). New York: Routledge.

Konstanza. (2004). “In the forecourt of paradise: A report on the possible love-erotic future of humankind.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 121–132). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Klesse, Christian. (2006). “Polyamory and its ‘others’: Contesting the terms of non-monogamy.” Sexualities, 9(5), 565–583.

McGarey, Robert. (2004). Poly communication survival kit: The essential tools for building and enhancing relationships. Austin, TX: The Human Potential Center.

Miller, Sandra A. (2010, January 3). Boston Globe. Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2010/01/03/loves_new_frontier/

Mint, Pepper. “The power dynamics of cheating: Effects on polyamory and bisexuality.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living (pp. 55–75). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Nearing, Ryan. (1992). Loving more: The Polyfidelity primer (3^rd ed.). Captain Cook, HI: PEP Publishing.

Noël, Melita J. (2006). “Progressive polyamory: Considering issues of diversity. Sexualities 9(5), 602–620.

Pallotta-Chiarolli, Maria. (2004). “‘Take four pioneering poly women’: A review of three classical texts on polyamory.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 227–234). New York: Harrington Park Press.

–––––– (2010). Border sexualities, border families in schools. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

–––––– (2010). “‘To pass, border or pollute’: Polyfamilies go to school.” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 182–187). New York: Routledge.

Pappas, Stephanie. (2013). “New sexual revolution: Polyamory may be good for you.” Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-sexual-revolution-polyamory

Phillips, Shalanda. (2010). “There were three in the bed: Discursive desire and the sex lives of swingers.” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 82–87). New York: Routledge.

Pieper, Marianne, and Robin Bauer. (November, 2005). Mono-normativity and polyamory. Unpublished paper presented at the International Conference on Polyamory and Mono-Normativity, Research Centre for Feminist, Gender, and Queer Studies, University of Hamburg.

Rambukkana, Nathan Patrick. (2004). Uncomfortable bridges: The bisexual politics of outing polyamory. In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural loves: designs for bi and poly living (pp. 141–154). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Ravenscroft, Anthony. (2004). Polyamory: Roadmaps for the clueless and hopeful. Santa Fe, NM: Fenris Brothers.

Ray, Numa. (2004). “Love is born from the pulse of god’s heart: An insight into the polyamorous circle kamala.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living (pp. 133–139). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Riggs, Damien W. (2010). “Developing a ‘responsible’ foster care praxis: Poly as a framework for examining power and propriety in family contexts.” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 188–198). New York: Routledge.

Ritchie, Ani, & Barker, Meg. (2006). “‘There aren’t words for what we do or how we feel so we have to make them up’: Constructing polyamorous languages in a culture of compulsory monogamy.” Sexualities, 9(5), 584–601.

Robins, Suzann. “Remembering the Kiss…” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living (pp. 99–108). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Rust, Paula C. (2003). “Monogamy and polyamory: Relationship issues for bisexuals.”  In Linda D. Garnets & Douglas C. Kimmel (Eds.), Psychological perspectives of lesbian, gay, and bisexual experiences (pp. 475–496). New York: Columbia University Press.

Sartorius, Annina. “Three and more in love: Group marriage or integrating commitment and sexual freedom.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living (pp. 79–98). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Savage, Dan. (2012, December 5). “Poly Orientated.” The Stranger. Retrieved from http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/11/26/is-polyamory-a-sexual-orientation

See, Sam. “Other kitchen sinks, other drawing rooms: Radical designs for living in pre-1968 British drama.” In Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio (Ed.), Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living (pp. 29–54). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Shannon, Deric, & Willis, Abbey. (2010). Theoretical polyamory: Some thoughts on loving, thinking, and queering anarchism. Sexualities, 13(4), pp. 433–443. doi: 10.1177/1363460710370655

Sheff, Elisabeth. (2006). “Poly-hegemonic masculinities.” Sexualities, 9(5): 621–642.

–––––– (2010). “Strategies in Polyamorous Parenting.” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 169–181). New York: Routledge.

Taormino, Tristan. (2008). Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. San Francisco, CA: Cleis Press, Inc.

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Warner, Brad. (2010). Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between. Novato, California: New World Library.

Wilkinson, Eleanor. (2010). “What’s queer about non-monogamy now?” In Meg Barker & Darren Langdrige (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies (pp. 243–254). New York: Routledge.

Zell, Morning Glory. (1990, May). “A bouquet of lovers: Strategies for responsible open relationships.” Green Egg 89. Retrieved from http://caw.org/content/?q=bouquet

A thank you note

A most-massive thank you goes out to sexualities scholar Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, editor of  Plural Loves and author of Gaia and the New Politics of Love. Her tremendously insightful encouragement, advice, and general support has been invaluable as I make my way through this dissertation process.

Thank you, Serena, for the conversations.

Quote of the day

In thinking more about how poly lives, ideas, and actions need to be more explicitly political, in order to address the inequities, gaps, tragedies, and hierarchies in areas of human life other than in just sexuality, I offer up this quote:

• “A rejection of mononormativity frees us to imagine new ways of living and loving, and new ways to imagine community, society and ‘the good.’ To stand against mononormativity is not just a matter of private choice, but a political stand that says we desire fundamental chances in all aspects in our lives.” —Eleanor Wilkinson, from her chapter “What’s Queer about Non-Monogamy Now?”