Sep 05 2008
Checking in from Loving More East Coast Conference
Dear Friend and Reader:
As I mentioned earlier, I’m at the Loving More East Coast Conference in upstate New York. Long-term readers know that I’ve been involved with something called the polyamory movement — responsible non-monogamy — since the mid-1990s, and long before I knew the word, since the mid-1980s. Loving More is actually a Colorado-based magazine for which I write, and for 22 years they’ve sponsored these retreats on the East and West Coasts.
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Chuy Garcia works the registration desk at the Loving More east coast conference. Photo by Eric Francis.
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For those who have never heard the word or who think it’s a kind of plastic, polyamory is a form of alternative sexuality to serial monogamy, “permanent” monogamy and one night stands. The difference between poly and cheating is that the discussions are had out in the open. Poly by definition potentially means multiple partners, but the core is no secrets among partners.
The difference between poly and swinging is that swinging is about sex and poly is about relationships that may or may not include sex.
Every year there are a few relatively small conferences where the a small part of the tribe gathers. Polyamory is mainstream. If you do a Google search on the word, you come up with 2,190,000 returns. There are not quite that many people at this retreat center near Saratoga; there are about 70 of us. The median age is about 40 or 50 — it’s an older crowd in general, though some interesting, high-energy young people are here.
One of them is an attorney you’re going to be hearing more about in Planet Waves by the name of Diana Adams. I wish I could convey an energy picture of this articulate, bright and bold young Aquarian, a civil rights attorney who specializes in sex, gender and sexual orientation-related cases. In other words, if you’re a dominatrix and your ex-husband is trying to take away custody of your child on the grounds that your job is immoral, Diana, apropos of her name, is the woman you go to for help.
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She’s friendly, but I would not want to be opposing counsel. She was the keynote speaker tonight, and among other things reminded us that we all have the right to make our own choices about our sexual orientation and family structure. We don’t have to follow the prescribed models. (I haven’t transcribed the quotes yet, she was more articulate than I’m being.) We share at least one thing in common: the idea that the best, safest, freest, realest place to be is out — out of the closet, out to your friends and family, out to the world if you can do it. She offered her goal that within five years, every college-age person knows that the word polyamory exists. In other words, that we all know we have options to traditional monogamy or being a single mom.
I’ve got my fingers crossed that she’ll agree to an audio interview, and I do plan to have a series of interviews from this conference next week (I haven’t even told our audio editor Lion that I’m here…)
More tomorrow. I’ll only be able to post these summaries…it’s going to be a busy weekend and I dare say more fun than an astrology conference.
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13 Responses to “Checking in from Loving More East Coast Conference”
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I’m listening. Would like to hear more. Mostly, I realize, because I’m very intrigued by the utterly internalized non-defensive tone organic to how the paradigm is being presented. That itself is sublime. Please, do tell.
Does Diana Adams have any likeminded colleagues in Texas? Is there a directory of attorneys somewhere who specialize in open marriage law?
“Ah,” I hear my fellow Texans say, “what ‘open marriage’ law?” Glad you asked that question. The one this state needs to legislate in order bring ‘de jure’ into the same universe with ‘de facto’ in these parts.
Right now, I know too many people with one foot in each realm. Makes for a really funny gait.
I don’t understand the concept of ‘open marriage’. Can someone explain? Why marry if you leave the options open?
An ‘open marriage’ is one in which either partner may introduce a third or fourth partner to the union. My foster parents had an open marriage when I first came to live with them in 1969. The dad/husband was a University professor, the first wife was an anthropology scholar and their partner was a grad student in the same department as the dad/husband. That partnership lasted five years, and was based largely on very early material on Tantra being released in the 1960s.
Being *very* young, I played the part of amanuensis, setting up the sacred space, clothing, foods, incense, etc. This was not the most peaceful household in the world (kids, dogs, goats, chickens, grad students, mayhem), but it was highly functional.
Thanks for the explanations, mystes, but i was more curious about the kind of vows uttered in an “open marriage”. Traditional catholic marriage would be about death separating the spouses. It’s strange but i always thought that real marriage was the one death would never dissolve, one i had lost through my life experiences but was persistently looking for.
Tachikata, I have yet to participate in or officiate a ceremony in which the partners explicit state their intention to be in an open marriage. But I have used -or been asked to use– various texts to indicate as much. Cf: Section IV of Wallace Steven’s Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, or the Oak and Cypress stanzas of _the Prophet. My favorite was my friends Bob and Trudy singing “You Ain’t Ugly’s Far as I’m Concerned” while jumping over a broomstick. Another friend –married in the NYC Botanical gardens on the spring equinox– just scrubbed the ‘forsaking all others’ verbiage from her marriage vows. Her husband was monogamous, she was not, and all was well.
I think the vows are pretty easy to re-route if you don’t intend to remain monophallic for 60 years. You just say: I love who you are. I have no intention of trying to change you. That which loves you is out of my control; as long as I am, I love and it flows unconditionally to and through you. (Allah-tu! or some such punctuation)
It’s the doing of it all that gets interesting, eh?
I’m glad I asked the question. Thank you mystes. I’m still not sure I understand what marriage is about. But hey who cares?
Hey baby… marriage might be about whatever you wind up doing! Not knowing exactly what is possible is half the fun. I tend to not think of marriage as rules and structure as a space where the ‘freedom-to-love’ committee hangs out. Full-time.
Marriage is a social construction. Obviously, if we end up giving any individual meaning to it, then it stops loosing sense. Marriage is not a shallow thing. I can love someone without marrying them. Then why would I marry if it was just about love and flowers?
Marriage is a social construction. Obviously, if we end up giving any individual meaning to it, then it looses sense. Marriage is not a shallow thing. I can love someone without marrying them. Why would I marry if it was just about love and flowers?
Sorry for this 2nd post…
Tachikata… Yes, you have a point, and I would say that like all ventures into the sacred, marriage has been *turned* into a social construct. But in its *actuality* the act of marrying is an almost involuntary will-to-love a specific person or persons in ways that you cannot predict at the outset of the bond. It starts out being driven by karma, but in the best situations, becomes a more truthful vehicle.
And one question might be: isn’t this too important a developmental pathway to leave in the hands of the church and state?
(*’Will-to-love’ is how N *presently* describes the disreputable ‘will-to-power.’)
all-love, half-wit
m
I agree with you, the State mariage seems so far from a sacred ritual. As for the Church, I have to admit that the Roman Catholic Church is relatively new in the history of religions. As I see it, this Church has built its empire by erasing some important parts of history and tradition. Anyway, there has to be some wise people out there who have kept the secrets and the vows of our ancestors.
I had a strange dream yesterday -maybe because of this conversation. I remember there was water around me everywhere, someone was holding my hand, showing it to me. I had a silver ring, not on my annular but on my middle finger in my left hand. My skin seemed so dark. I had never seen that ring before. It was round and big, with features making some strange pattern i could not recognize, in the middle a red stone. The voice kept telling me to look at it. My mind captured the image.
Pretty cool dream. I am officiating a wedding in two weeks on the California coastline, and the bride chose rubies for her engagement and wedding rings (which is also the stone of my commitment rings). So two out of two, Lady T. You’re hired!