After Gay Marriage, Is Polyamory (Group Marriage) Next?
June 15, 2015
|
Share this article
Improbable? Preposterous? Alarmist? Perhaps. But by no means illogical.
The
success of the same-sex marriage campaign in Ireland has advocates
elsewhere in a state of high excitement, predicting that the rest of the
(Western) world must quickly fall into line and legalise this concept.
What then?
As
we know, there is a long line of “love” interest groups waiting to
stake their claims for social recognition, and at the head of the queue
are
polyamorists.
In
fact, just before the Irish voted, The Independent (Ireland) ran a long
feature story about the Emerald Isle’s polyamory community.
Jade-Martina Lynch, who has achieved a modest amount of fame by starring
in Irish Big Brother, summed up the polyamory philosophy quite neatly:
"My soul is just so free I can't be in a monogamous relationship."
It’s
hard to pin these people down, so the definition of polyamory given by a
Californian group, Saturnia Regna, is probably as good as any other.
They say:
The
word POLYAMORY means "many loves," (or one love shared among many
people). The word has been used by scholars and writers at least since
the early 20th century to describe the choice of loving more than one
person at the same time. This form of responsible non-monogamy is not
about clandestine affairs or cheating on people you love. Polyamory is
about making mutual agreements with people you love, keeping everything
in the open and treating the people you love in an ethical, consensual
and committed manner.
The
key word in this description is “non-monogamy,” or having a sexual
relationship with more than one person. The rest of it any of us could
subscribe to – Christians, after all, are commanded to love their
neighbour, which means everyone. And who would not agree that we should
“treat the people we love in an ethical, consensual and committed
manner”?
So
what exactly does “responsible non-monogamy” among polyamorists
involve? Newspapers occasionally run feature articles about a bunch of
rather intelligent, thoughtful people living their “open relationships”
in some city neighbourhood, sharing supervision of the children’s
homework and things like that. It sounds quite discreet, mundane and
harmless. But there’s another side to polyamory and to look into that
you really need a clothes peg for your nose.
The
Saturnia Regna crowd, for example, are advertising a summer holiday
programme “in a lovely clothing optional resort in Northern California”
. In this tantalising and distracting environment, the poly
community can hone skills such as “clarification and expression of
desires, jealousy management, expansion and deepening of intimacy and
multi-partner relating.”
The
blurb entices people with the prospect of “interactive” exercises in a
setting “conducive to sensual expression to a degree not possible in
most ordinary settings”. Rumours that people at these gatherings not
only run about naked but “engage in affectionate interactions with
multiple partners, and sometimes even make love in plain sight of other
people” are only slightly exaggerated, it suggests.
Puritanical polys are warned off.
At the same time it seeks to cast a patina of virtue over the proceedings:
“Social
interaction in a clothing-optional setting requires people to be more
respectful than in ordinary settings — not less. Polyamory and open
relationships demand that people be more sensitive to the feelings and
desires of the people they interact with — not less. Exploring polyamory
tends to require a level of trust, honesty, emotional vulnerability,
and a willingness to confront uncomfortable feelings than is required in
more conventional relationship styles. Unless you are a person who is
willing and able to behave in such a manner, this event is probably not
something for
you.
At
one level this attempt to dress up an orgy as a sensitivity summer
school is hilarious. At another it’s a disturbing glimpse of the future
of sexual relationships regulated only by the appearance of “love”.
Same-sex marriage is being instituted solely on that basis, although
monogamy is assumed. But polyamorists tell us that their non-monogamous
relationships are just another way of loving. Who are we to judge?
There is nothing, logically, to stop polyamory becoming the next, successful, “marriage equality” campaign.
Does
it matter? Of course it does. If gay marriage institutionalises
motherless families and fatherless families, non-monogamous marriage
would institutionalise family instability. Divorce allows parents to
part, and we know that many of those men and women form new
relationships. But we also know that children are generally less happy
as a result of these changes, and most reasonable people wish it were
not so. If polyamory is ever legally recognised it would be the day that
society tells children, “We don’t care at all.”
Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2015/June15/155.html#M2XlFu1t50yrS8fJ.99
No comments:
Post a Comment