What Kind of Man Is That?

Among the many polyamory blogs I follow is one by polyamory speaker and activist, Anita Wagner. She has common sense, a sense of humor, and a generous spirit that makes her enjoyable to read. So I often end up reading articles to which she links. One of these was particularly appropriate: a Huffington Post piece by Sierra Black on how to deal with poly at the Thanksgiving table.

For the first time ever in my life, at 51, I’m cooking a whole Thanksgiving dinner. This is huge for me, even though it’s a very small dinner. Isaac nearly always has to work on Thanksgiving; I used to work on holidays all the time; and before that, the matriarchs of either of our families would claim the honor and the hassle.

But I like to cook — I used to be a food writer — and have been doing a lot more of it in the past year or so, because I want the people I love to be healthy and I find it both creative and a way to turn my values into practical realities: local, small, homegrown, support the ones I believe in, that kind of thing. So I’m very excited to be cooking for Issac, our daughter, Chris, and two friends who, along with Isaac, will be going to work after dinner (Chris and Tobi will help clean up). I won’t have to come out to my mother or grandmother (of blessed memory), but I’m interested to read about those who will.

The Black article was a basic, coherently and evocatively written article about handling the holidays. My only quibble was that it glossed over the choice to come out during the holidays instead of screaming NEVER, NEVER, NEVER do it, but maybe that’s just me.

Then I did what I know I should never do. I read the comments.

It’s like looking into Blackbeard’s locked room. A bunch of disembodied screaming heads, and most of them shrunken. For people who prefaced their remarks with phrases like: “well, I don’t know much about this” and “I’ve never heard of such a thing!” and “WTF?”, they show extraordinary determination never to let their deeply cherished ignorance become an obstacle to issuing passionate directives to the general public.

I can deal with people saying we’re an affront to their gods or that poly people can’t know what real love is. What hits home is the one that gets me every time poly, especially that of MFM triads or V’s, hits the mainstream. The “male” commenters start busting on the men. What kind of man would “allow” such a thing? they wonder. What kind of man would let “his woman” do that?

Her husband’s whipped, her husband’s a jerk, her husband’s secretly gay. Among the more sophisticated: her husband has a cuckold fetish.

This one hits me because it’s one of the big reasons we’re not fully and openly out. Isaac and his friends talk to each other the way a lot of men do; that is, they insult and bully each other, putting down each others’ teams, skills, abilities — frankly like dogs pushing for position. I’ll never get it or want to do it, but hey, it works for them. Nobody’s making me do it, so I’m OK with it.

I just can’t take having our love made into a topic for casual humiliation. Isaac says he has nothing to hide (but the bigger priority of keeping our daughter secure and our employment secure is what keeps us from becoming crusaders). We tend to simply move along as if this is a normal part of life for us, and it is, and it becomes more integrated all the time.

But I would like to answer that question, and because you are generous enough to give me this space on this blog and in your minds for a while, I’ll take the opportunity.

What kind of man is this? A supremely confident one. A man who has faced down situations and trouble most people haven’t ever had to. A man who is as physically strong as he is ethically so. A man with an open heart and an open mind. A man who makes friends easily with other men, but who enjoys his time alone. A man who can talk to just about anyone, anywhere. A man women like almost immediately — when he talks with a woman, he asks questions and really listens. A man women trust. (All of my friends love him.)

An attractive man who is successful professionally but doesn’t feel the need to be a master of the universe. A man who doesn’t have to have his job or his clothes or his car proclaim who he is, because he knows who he is. A man who, when he helps people, doesn’t tell others about it. A man who, as a father, has a lot of love and a lot of guidance and expectations. A man whose daughter loves to spend time with him, doing sports, playing games, dancing, talking. A man whose daughter wrote a poem for him today, because she loves him so much.

And the boyfriend? The trolls paint him, too, as suspect. Doesn’t he “deserve” more? It’s interesting how often the word “deserve” comes up in relationships. The woman in this V doesn’t “deserve” to have two men. The men “deserve” more. Who is dividing up the desserts?

What kind of man is this boyfriend? Again, a rock of confidence. A man who has literally been to the end and back (who technically died and was brought back to life). A man who can make things and build things and grow things. A man who is in pain every day, but still helps make things and build things (like helping aging relatives or renovating a bathroom for a friend with MS).

A man who can’t go anywhere, from the pub down the street for dinner to a desert in Nevada, without having someone (often cute women) come to him for help, zeroing in on some invisible signal that tells them he will understand and can be trusted not to take advantage. A man who will happily help, but really prefers relationships with those not so much in need of emotional rescue. A man with nine years of sobriety to his credit. A man with books lining every wall. A man who writes poems for me sometimes.

To declare anyone a mere walking pathology because of their relationship orientation is an insult — but beyond this, to reduce a person to an orientation is dehumanizing. All I can share is what I see beyond the orientation — but I know this kind of variety and complexity is shared by every human, even the trolls. One of the most infamous Internet trolls, it was revealed recently, rarely leaves home not because he is actually a lesser species of mushroom but because he cares for his disabled wife. This doesn’t excuse the bigotry and bullying, but to be honest, I have to admit the full picture. I don’t have to like any of it, but it’s all there.

I could probably go into a 12-page comment war of my own about the pathologies and problems with people who troll around looking for articles that even remotely mention sex so they can work themselves up getting thrillingly nasty. But I have a yoga class to go to, a lot of vegetables to cook, a dessert to help my daughter make. That is, I have a life.