Note: In line with this week’s conversation of “maleness in transition” as Mars leaves Gemini for Cancer today, here’s an article by Maria about men in poly situations — especially ones that have one woman and mulitple men. It first published on Aug. 13, 2011, and you can see the original comment thread here — but for some mysterious Mercury Rx reason, you’ll have to scroll down through two versions of the article to get to them. — Amanda
By Maria Padhila
I tend to like men. Surprise! And at the risk of sign-ism and/or sounding like Cosmopolitan magazine, I tend to really like Capricorns. The Eeyore gloom, the way this mordant, louche sophistication combines with a stuffy, traditional integrity — that’s a shallow way to put it, but there you go. The shallow Gemini I am enjoys their contradictions.
Plus, there’s the Capricorn quality my daughter, Tobi, has been able to get across even since infancy: a wickedly dry sense of humor. (If you don’t think infants have senses of humor — and very individual ones, too, some playful, some silly, some sweet and some snarky — you need to spend more time with infants.)
So the combination of man and Capricorn is part of what kept me reading Poly Guy’s blog — and made me think he’d be a good person to interview about some men-and-poly questions I’d been having. I’d ask one of my guys, but I don’t want to put them under the interrogation light just yet. Isaac, my legal husband, has actually said he’d write a guest blog sometime, but he wants to wait until I have things better established.
I had been wondering about the whole Sex At Dawn line of argument that monogamy is unnatural and not something the human animal will ever be comfortable with. If I accept that argument, I’m thinking I must also accept other ‘natural’ tendencies as well. And is ‘natural’ unreservedly something to aspire to, in any case? I don’t think monogamy is natural — at least not for me — but condoms aren’t natural, either; and both monogamy and condoms have enriched and improved many peoples’ lives and happiness for many, many years.