I have no interest at all in debating whether monogamy is better than polyamory.
Nor do I, but for different reasons. I don't think the question can be addressed in the abstract; in the concrete, you'd have to ask "For whom?"
Different relationship structures work better or worse for different people. I believe there are intrinsically monogamous people, who genuinely have eyes for no one else; and I believe there are intrinsically polyamorous people, who are happiest at the center of a loving network of people. Most people are probably either somewhere in the middle or adapt themselves to culture and circumstance.
(Actually, to be cynical for a moment,
most people are bad at both. The majority of people who swear themselves to monogamy fail at it, through divorce and/or cheating. However, those people wouldn't be any better at poly unless they changed their habits and perspective. On the other side, the poly community has plenty of people who
call themselves poly when all they really mean is "I'd like to have sex with a lot of people and be able to call myself ethical and enlightened for it." I don't have much respect for that. I think part of the problem is poor relationship education and a lack of good relationship models in culture. But I digress.)
But I am curious to hear Steve's perspective. Steve, you offered, so I'm asking. What's your take?
Okay. I have a couple of 'takes' here. My take on polyamory in general is simply this: If individuals are capable of romantic love for others (and I believe we are) then we are capable of loving more than one person at a time. It doesn't mean we
have to; but we
can, and we can be pragmatic and ethical about it. It doesn't really matter if you're with one person, or two, or twelve; if you're honest, you communicate, and you're open to other people's needs, you'll probably be happy and make other people happy. If you're not, you probably won't. More people does make some things more complicated -- but that's just a matter of degree. Monogamous couples still get jealous, have scheduling issues, don't always talk about what they need, etc.
That's general principle. My take on
me and
my situation is this:
Anna and I have been 'poly in principle' for many years. When we met in college, one of the reasons she stayed with me over the other people she was dating was because I was the one who didn't insist she date
only me. Since then, throughout our engagement and into our marriage, we've both had a few starts at relationships (her more than me -- hey, she's cuter) which never went far for various reasons. It's not exactly an open marriage; we can't just do whatever we want with other people. But we talk with each other and we're honest with each other, and when one of us
really likes somebody else, we talk about it. It doesn't happen often.
I met Minx in Chicago in March. We'd corresponded in e-mail before -- she'd been asking to read a story for Escape Pod for a long time, and eventually did with
EP091: The Acid Test. In e-mail she said that if I was ever in Chicago we should do lunch. As it happens, I was going up for Scott Janssen's and Deborah Green's wedding reception (Scott's our submissions editor, and Deb's read a bunch of stories for us; both are dear friends). So we had lunch...and it became a long lunch...and that ended with us cuddling in my room and talking for a few more hours. I knew that cuddling and kissing was as much as I could do without checking in with Anna. Which I did, as soon as I got home, and she was fine.
For more on that initial meeting, including my emotional reaction to it, listen to
Thing One. I recorded it specifically for Minx, but phrased it so that it could be made public as well. It'll give you a pretty good sense of where my head was.
Thing Two has a bit more about me and Anna.
Since then Minx and I have been together several times, had a couple of other occasions when we were
supposed to be together but weren't, and we've had a lot of ups and downs. She's still recovering from a terribly bad break-up of a years-long relationship, and that left some trust issues that we had to work through. Trust in me, sure, but even bigger was trust in Anna to welcome her into the relationship. The two of them have had strong challenges in getting to accept each other's communication styles, and both did things with good intentions that hurt the other. They've been working through it: because they really do
like each other, and also because they know it's important to me.
Meanwhile, Anna and I are closer than ever. My being attracted to Minx, and eventually falling in love with her, doesn't diminish my love or attraction for my wife. She knows that. There was no hole in my life before; this is something new that adds to what was already there. Minx doesn't want to threaten my relationship with Anna; but honestly, she couldn't if she tried. To use a poly label that I dislike but is strictly accurate, Anna's my
primary. If Anna didn't want my relationship with Minx to happen, it wouldn't happen. She's happy for it to happen because she sees how happy it makes me.
It works because everybody's honest with each other and because everybody wants what makes the others happy. If Anna found someone else who made her happy, who didn't make her love
me any less, I'd feel the same way. Minx has come close once or twice and I've supported her. She wants a relationship that's more local to her; and if it makes her happier and relaxed, I want her to have one too. For that matter,
I had a third relationship for a while: another podcaster I met at Balticon whom I won't name here. (Her nickname in my LiveJournal is
The Paper, because of the anime series we've been watching together.) She came to Atlanta a few weeks ago, we explored things together, and decided we worked better as close friends. Anna likes her too.
Is it complicated? Hell yes. Does it take a lot of time and energy? Hell yes. Has it had an impact on my work productivity, or on the Escape Pod slushpile? ...No comment.
Is it about the sex? Definitely not. That's a long story that I'm not going to tell here, but suffice to say that if I simply wanted to have sex with more women this would have been
very, very not worth the effort and drama. I didn't have sex with Minx when we first met. Nor the next time, nor in the next several months... All I'll say is that I'm not doing anything Anna doesn't know about and feel comfort with. (Nor is Minx doing anything with anybody else that I don't know about and feel comfort with.)
So what's it about, then? It's about someone whom I got to like, and then love. It's about Having Fun. It's about a life that's just that much richer because someone else is in it. It's about feeling wanted, it's about that twitterpated feeling you get when somebody new flips your insides out, it's about conversations, it's about caring. It's about feeling really,
really good when everybody is together and sharing and having a good time. This moment at Dragon*Con had me feeling on top of the universe -- not primarily out of ego (though I won't deny we all had fun showing off), but because I could feel so much love and I was in the center of it:
Ultimately, it's because I
can. I can love both of these women, and people feel good and don't get hurt.
So why wouldn't I?