{"id":1625,"date":"2008-09-05T21:58:45","date_gmt":"2008-09-06T02:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2008-09-07T14:47:44","modified_gmt":"2008-09-07T19:47:44","slug":"loving-more-polyamory-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/astrology-eric-francis\/loving-more-polyamory-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Checking in from Loving More East Coast Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Chuy Garcia works the registration desk at the Loving More east coast conference. Photo by Eric Francis.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The difference between poly and swinging is that swinging is about sex and poly is about relationships that may or may not include sex.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong><\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

One of them is an attorney you’re going to be hearing more about in Planet Waves by the name of Diana Adams<\/strong><\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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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.<\/p>\n

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…)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Eric<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[13,207],"tags":[209,52,208,117,1785],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}