I love that, "may all unions be blessed with truth"🙏❤️.
Thanks-you Leah for opening this discussion. Truth is both the answer and the trickiest part. First, being fully honest with ourselves, like Joe, for instance?.
This topic has always left me uncomfortable, as I have wondered if all participants are being fully truthful and heard. I get that monogamy is still the prominent ideal, my personal choice for sure, but one that fails often as we are human. It's the ownership and perceived infallibility side of monogamy that perhaps we need to work on rather than throwing the whole thing out.
But hey, if PA works for you and all participants.. fine, go for it.
I still wonder as you expressed so well ...the suspicion
..." that maybe, just maybe, at bottom it’s really just about the privileged getting to fuck whomever they want with impunity..."
I would add, men to the privileged ...Joe aside, and maybe that's evolution....women getting to fuck around with impunity for awhile.
No thank you, not wired that way. Although I will say I have wondered how harem life might work, sharing the load and living in the company of women sounds intriguing🤔😉.
We get older, there's talk of libido & saggy bits, joking to overcome remembrances & realities, and you may shrug or rage against the want of it all, but then you tingle from the trigger of touch, wondering what might come up as you pay attention to the urge. Thanks for the sensual affirmation of the motives for being amorous Leah. My heart beat faster. May all unions be blessed with truth.
I’m my experience it isn’t monogamy or its opposites or sex that stave off despair. its commitment to a cause: in Joe’s case, his daughters. Relentless choice is exhausting.
Nice to read the role reversal. I know a couple of active polyamorists, one is a man with two kids and a very young wife who is not poly and is lumbered with the housework and childcare. ‘She knew I was poly when she met me. She knew what she was getting into.’
The other is a young green haired neurodivergent sweet thing who struggles with the work, emotion, neuro balance. In other words, it seems to take up a lot of her time! I would be interested to meet someone who manages it without chaos, but children change everything imo.
Yes the role reversal is kind of lovely! Joe has pointed out, very gently, that perhaps my ‘concern’ about his situation is actually indicative of my own internalised sexism. He insists he is largely content, btw. He and his wife don’t argue and the marriage functions very smoothly… perhaps every happy family requires one selfless person/workhorse? I also hear you re: time. The millennial concept of poly is wonderfully evolved and high-minded but it’s also a bit of a luxury problem once children and careers are involved. Hey, I have an idea! Maybe we could solve it by living in a commune? Oh wait… never mind.
Enter the common emotions that corrode even the steel backbones of those (even earnest male feminists) who are determined to keep their oaths, whether to monogamy or polyamory.
Here's an old song (by Adams-Hough-Howard-Orlob)
You have loved lots of girls in the sweet long-ago
And each has meant heaven to you
You have vowed your affection to each one in turn
And have sworn to them all you'd be true
You have kissed 'neath the moon while the world seemed in tune,
Then you've left her to hunt a new game.
Does it ever occur to you later my boy, that she's prob'ly doing the same?
If you want to feel wretched and lonely and blue,
Just imagine the girl you love best
In the arms of some fellow who's stealing a kiss
From the lips that you once fondly pressed
But the world moves apace and the loves of today
Flit away with a smile and a tear,
So you can never tell who's kissing her now
Or just whom you'll be kissing next year.
I wonder who's kissing her now, I wonder who's teaching her how,
I wonder who's looking into her eyes, breathing sighs, telling lies.
I wonder who's buying the wine for lips that I used to call mine.
I wonder if she ever tells him of me, I wonder who's kissing her now.
The internets are clogged with accounts of couples who have opened their loving but perhaps sexually stale marriages and embraced poly. The husbands are finding some flings here and there, but their wives are booked up until well past Thanksgiving and coming home wobbling. Divorce follows.
For whatever reason, reading this with great interest (for an octogenarian), a paraphrase of novelist Tom Clancy's answer to an enthusiast's question, "Why don't your books have any sex in them?"
Clancy: "I don't know anything about sex. I'm a married man."
I love that, "may all unions be blessed with truth"🙏❤️.
Thanks-you Leah for opening this discussion. Truth is both the answer and the trickiest part. First, being fully honest with ourselves, like Joe, for instance?.
This topic has always left me uncomfortable, as I have wondered if all participants are being fully truthful and heard. I get that monogamy is still the prominent ideal, my personal choice for sure, but one that fails often as we are human. It's the ownership and perceived infallibility side of monogamy that perhaps we need to work on rather than throwing the whole thing out.
But hey, if PA works for you and all participants.. fine, go for it.
I still wonder as you expressed so well ...the suspicion
..." that maybe, just maybe, at bottom it’s really just about the privileged getting to fuck whomever they want with impunity..."
I would add, men to the privileged ...Joe aside, and maybe that's evolution....women getting to fuck around with impunity for awhile.
No thank you, not wired that way. Although I will say I have wondered how harem life might work, sharing the load and living in the company of women sounds intriguing🤔😉.
We get older, there's talk of libido & saggy bits, joking to overcome remembrances & realities, and you may shrug or rage against the want of it all, but then you tingle from the trigger of touch, wondering what might come up as you pay attention to the urge. Thanks for the sensual affirmation of the motives for being amorous Leah. My heart beat faster. May all unions be blessed with truth.
I’m my experience it isn’t monogamy or its opposites or sex that stave off despair. its commitment to a cause: in Joe’s case, his daughters. Relentless choice is exhausting.
Such a good point
It just seems like a lot of work but fair play to those who are up for it. Great photo, btw.
A friend gifted me your substack and I must say, your observations feel like such a treat every week. This post particularly cracked me up.
This is SO NICE. Thank you Trish!
Nice to read the role reversal. I know a couple of active polyamorists, one is a man with two kids and a very young wife who is not poly and is lumbered with the housework and childcare. ‘She knew I was poly when she met me. She knew what she was getting into.’
The other is a young green haired neurodivergent sweet thing who struggles with the work, emotion, neuro balance. In other words, it seems to take up a lot of her time! I would be interested to meet someone who manages it without chaos, but children change everything imo.
Yes the role reversal is kind of lovely! Joe has pointed out, very gently, that perhaps my ‘concern’ about his situation is actually indicative of my own internalised sexism. He insists he is largely content, btw. He and his wife don’t argue and the marriage functions very smoothly… perhaps every happy family requires one selfless person/workhorse? I also hear you re: time. The millennial concept of poly is wonderfully evolved and high-minded but it’s also a bit of a luxury problem once children and careers are involved. Hey, I have an idea! Maybe we could solve it by living in a commune? Oh wait… never mind.
haha, yes.
Enter the common emotions that corrode even the steel backbones of those (even earnest male feminists) who are determined to keep their oaths, whether to monogamy or polyamory.
Here's an old song (by Adams-Hough-Howard-Orlob)
You have loved lots of girls in the sweet long-ago
And each has meant heaven to you
You have vowed your affection to each one in turn
And have sworn to them all you'd be true
You have kissed 'neath the moon while the world seemed in tune,
Then you've left her to hunt a new game.
Does it ever occur to you later my boy, that she's prob'ly doing the same?
If you want to feel wretched and lonely and blue,
Just imagine the girl you love best
In the arms of some fellow who's stealing a kiss
From the lips that you once fondly pressed
But the world moves apace and the loves of today
Flit away with a smile and a tear,
So you can never tell who's kissing her now
Or just whom you'll be kissing next year.
I wonder who's kissing her now, I wonder who's teaching her how,
I wonder who's looking into her eyes, breathing sighs, telling lies.
I wonder who's buying the wine for lips that I used to call mine.
I wonder if she ever tells him of me, I wonder who's kissing her now.
Oh yep.
The internets are clogged with accounts of couples who have opened their loving but perhaps sexually stale marriages and embraced poly. The husbands are finding some flings here and there, but their wives are booked up until well past Thanksgiving and coming home wobbling. Divorce follows.
agreed. it’s a buyers market for women and puts men at a disadvantage... I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. I’m not sure of anything anymore!
For whatever reason, reading this with great interest (for an octogenarian), a paraphrase of novelist Tom Clancy's answer to an enthusiast's question, "Why don't your books have any sex in them?"
Clancy: "I don't know anything about sex. I'm a married man."