![\"Poly](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/325_burnman_bliss_86381.jpg?resize=325%2C222&ssl=1\" "\\"Poly")
So part of that is just to tease me, but I\u2019m not going to lie — they are a particularly hot group of people they got to host the camera crew in Polyamory: Married and Dating<\/em>, a half-hour reality show on Showtime on Thursdays. This makes it a pleasure to watch in other ways than just that it seems to be on track to give a pretty good look at some of the realities of living this way.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s got plenty of eye candy. I watch installments twice, because frankly, I\u2019m distracted by the clothes. Not only is she hot, but Kamala really knows how to accessorize. The people in it are healthy and fit and mostly naturally beautiful (the women in the triad wear more makeup, but that\u2019s their choice) — what I call \u201cEuropean-movie beautiful.\u201d Real, responsive and engaged, on top of having interesting features.<\/p>\n The only thing that\u2019s not quite on target is: when do these folks work? But that\u2019s the problem with all reality shows (I say boldly, having watched, like, seven random episodes of reality shows in my whole life). If anyone made a reality show that revealed the humiliating and numbing time suck that is most of our daily (or nightly) jobs (or two jobs — and if you\u2019re an exception, I\u2019m happy for you), it would either never sell or be like watching that video in the horror movie The Ring<\/em> — it would kill anyone who watched it. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The second episode was titled \u201cPoly Rules\u201d — that\u2019s rules as a noun, not as an adjective. As in, who\u2019s making them and who\u2019s breaking them.<\/p>\n I really like the commentary of Alan P in Polyamory in the News<\/a> (nearly always, but about this show in particular). He writes:<\/p>\n There sure are a lot of soft-core group sex scenes. They’re portrayed sweetly and briefly but frankly, as part of the ongoing relationships and discussions that are happening among everybody and as genuine expressions of shared love and playfulness — as Kamala has been telling her fan base in the last couple weeks.<\/p>\n I was struck by how the group sex sometimes functioned as it does among bonobos — as a means to diffuse group tensions and reinforce bonds among the group. Yes, couples sometimes use sex this way too. But I felt I was watching something deep in our ancient nature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The bonobos are known as the peace primates who according to stereotype live in constant hippie commune mode and keep the peace through lots of sex and sensuality and body contact (as well as strong roles and boundaries). With all the tension engendered (hmmm) in this world by the fears and realities of violence, maybe the bonobo method would be useful to learn. What I\u2019m usually coming from is this: \u201cI\u2019m so tense from work and driving I\u2019m about to explode and if you come near me I\u2019ll scream!\u201d This causes a lot of trouble and strife in all my relationships. <\/p>\n I\u2019m thinking of doing some reading, including going back and carefully reading Sex at Dawn<\/em>, and then making a conscious effort to give the bonobo method a try, in a sort of personally controlled experiment. Even though monkeys creep me out. (I know, it\u2019s evil, I should love them, probably lots of projection shit to that one, but too bad.) I\u2019ll let you know how it comes out and throw some more bonobo info out there, maybe next month.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a lot of preening that goes on. When relationships are a big priority to you, you want to be in a physical state that means you can have people close and touching at any given moment. It means being healthy, fit, good to the touch and good to the smell and taste. <\/p>\n But now it\u2019s time to get sexy with the rules. Here are the show highlights:<\/p>\n First, the quad: Kamala and Michael (married) and Tal and Jen (married) are in a quad and newly moved in together. Kamala has a girlfriend, Roxanne, whom she does not want to share with the rest of the quad. Michael\u2019s got issues with this. The four have a really good, honest talk, opening up some ways they hadn\u2019t even known they felt. You can see Kamala start to well up and even spill over as she expresses her needs and realizes what she\u2019s feeling. It\u2019s brave work. She says, in a cut-in edit:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Michael said that I was acting monogamous [about not sharing], I was like: \u2018Who are you talking about? I\u2019m the queen of poly! Who are you calling mono?\u2019 It really actually hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael says something that I know from personal experience hurts to hear: \u201cIt does seem like you\u2019re making some rules for yourself that you\u2019re not allowing others to have.\u201d<\/p>\n Kamala explains: \u201cHer [Roxanne\u2019s] love makes me feel so special. It\u2019s like old programming, that somehow sharing her love with someone else is going to take away our love.\u201d<\/p>\n The result is Kamala agrees to be open to what might happen. Those are the rules. Of course, it\u2019s not brought up what Roxanne wants in this situation (you can\u2019t get everything on camera). If Isaac had a girlfriend who was not attracted to me, I wouldn\u2019t accuse him of not sharing, for instance. But it\u2019s a pretty neat look at the conflicts and tensions and how they\u2019re resolved.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the triad of Anthony, Vanessa and Lindsey, the problem is similar: Lindsey has taken up with a boyfriend and is in the throes of pink fuzzies and not paying enough attention to her triad mates. <\/p>\n Their rules were that the triad comes first, and that they had all given each other veto power over new relationships. Anthony and Vanessa ask Lindsey to back off from her new boyfriend for a while. Instead of telling him, she waits a few days and then meets him at a coffee shop, to tell him in person. Except they get distracted by canoodling. I know how that goes. Let\u2019s avoid that difficult conversation part and just be all smoochy or program the calendar or something, yeah, that\u2019s it!<\/p>\n So Anthony and Vanessa ride their motorcycles (!) to the coffee shop for a smooch intervention. They explain to new boyfriend (Krystoff) why they\u2019re there. Krystoff says he thinks he gets it, but that he had understood that not everything they did needed to have the permission of the triad. He\u2019s like a lot of people encountering this. He\u2019s not a dick — he doesn\u2019t want to hurt anyone — he just isn\u2019t sure of all the rights and wrongs in the situation. Vanessa explains that in this case, it\u2019s a bigger issue than rules and permissions for individual activities. It\u2019s about the triad relationship, and that needs repair. Krystoff, bless his heart, asks what he and Lindsey can do to help that repair. It\u2019s time for Lindsey to speak up and say the hard part.<\/p>\n She needs to not see him for a while, cool things down, and concentrate on her triad relationship. And then, something great happens — Vanessa and Anthony leave and give Krystoff and Lindsey some time alone to talk, and say their temporary (maybe, who knows?) goodbyes. I loved that. They leave with kindness, not in a huff.<\/p>\n When all three are home later, Vanessa asks Lindsey how she\u2019s feeling. \u201cIt\u2019s painful,\u201d she says. That\u2019s true, too. It\u2019s painful not being with someone you love in order not to hurt someone else you love. But it can be done, and it can bring you closer to everyone involved, and denying the pain won\u2019t get you anywhere closer to that point. <\/p>\n I\u2019m going to be all stereotypical and show my age here, maybe, but it was oddly refreshing to see the woman be the jealous one and the one who was making the rules. In fact, in both the groups, the women are in many ways driving the deal. As the two were leaving the coffee shop, I was seeing in Krystoff\u2019s expression a struggle between \u201cdamn, that Anthony\u2019s got it made\u201d and \u201cdamn, two hot babes are four times the trouble.\u201d <\/p>\n This is why it always surprises me when people say I\u2019m being \u201ctaken advantage of\u201d or when I hear similar things said about other relationships. Or \u201che gets everything,\u201d meaning he gets to have strange AND have a committed woman who may even have a girlfriend over once in a while. <\/p>\n There\u2019s a line in the movie Marnie<\/em> (I know some Hitchcock movies by heart) where one of the ripped-off bosses is remembering the lovely, larcenous Marnie and grumbles that she was \u201calways pulling her skirt down over her knees, as if they were some kind of national treasure.\u201d Not that THAT script is any model on which to run a life, but we are taught pretty hard to guard our treasure, and rarely taught worthwhile ways to share it. Yet here, in a cable TV show, some of those ways are coming across. Amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cYou should really watch the second episode of the poly reality show,\u201d I told Issac. \u201cSure, I\u2019ll watch it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat woman Kamala, she\u2019s hot! So part of that is just to tease me, but I\u2019m not going to lie — they are a particularly hot group of people they got to host the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59452"}],"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\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}