{"id":67662,"date":"2013-06-08T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2013-06-08T19:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=67662"},"modified":"2013-06-08T15:35:59","modified_gmt":"2013-06-08T19:35:59","slug":"my-love-is-better-than-yours-mother-superior-explains-it-all-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/my-love-is-better-than-yours-mother-superior-explains-it-all-to-you\/","title":{"rendered":"My Love Is Better Than Yours: Mother Superior Explains It All"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I really wish I could travel more and attend more poly events. For instance, I had to miss Vancouver, BC\u2019s PolyCon event, \u201cClaiming Our Right to Love,\u201d and worst of all, I had to miss the workshop: \u201cHow NOT to Be a Poly Elite Douchenozzle.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The workshop was given by Samantha Fraser, mistress of the Not Your Mother\u2019s Playground<\/a> website and book of the same name, now available on Kindle. She also gave a workshop on double standards, and the keynote talk, \u201cLiving Honestly & Creating Change.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201c…Word is that Samantha Fraser brought down the house with her Friday night keynote talk,\u201d reported Alan of Poly in the Media. <\/p>\n

I think what makes her so popular might have something to do with honesty, openness and good communication, judging from her writing. I put in for an interview with her; she\u2019s currently on the road, but is down with it in the future.<\/p>\n

But the topic of how not to be a poly elite douchnozzle is one whose time has certainly come. This morning, my mailbox was tied and bound with news of a study that people who do BDSM are \u201cmentally healthier\u201d<\/a> than those who don\u2019t. So get out the spatula if you\u2019re feeling a little neurotic, and whap your way to mental health, right? Actually, BDSM\u2019s customary honesty, openness and good communication — people actually talking about boundaries and what they want — have been tagged as the culprits in this case.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I still remember the collective community cringe when the quad member on Showtime\u2019s poly series declared that poly people are \u201cmore evolved.\u201d Get out the spatula for that guy! Whap!<\/p>\n

And over the past few months, there was the much-repurposed and reprinted article on \u201cwhat swinging couples and committed polyamorists can teach monogamists about love<\/a>.\u201d Spoiler alert: It was something about the importance of honesty, openness and good communication.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t stop there. Lots of virtual ink got spilled on the superiority of gay relationships as well: for instance, in the Atlantic<\/em> article<\/a> on what gay couples teach \u201cus\u201d about a good marriage. It seems honesty, openness and good communication are really good for relationships.<\/p>\n

The point of all this being that there\u2019s nothing inherently superior about being poly, BDSM or gay. What makes a relationship good are relationship skills and talents. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of heteronormative and cis privilege in all these perspectives, and if you want to quantify evils, these would seem the worst of them (“cis” is short for “cisgender,” used to describe someone whose gender identity matches their anatomical gender at birth). <\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also a fair share of elite douchnozzlery within the poly world. These cases of ED may have a psychological cause — a kind of insecurity that leads to a need to shore up our inclinations and our behavior with studies and statistics. There\u2019s another variety where one\u2019s identity isn\u2019t integrated but instead is constantly being self-reinforced as legitimate — the person who can\u2019t stop talking about themselves in terms of their job, their kids, their car or their sexuality. <\/p>\n

First, there\u2019s the variety that posits that poly is \u201cmore evolved.\u201d I\u2019ve been called out once or twice here for placing poly above mono on occasion, and I appreciate it. Please continue to keep me honest (and open, and communicating).<\/p>\n

Then, in a world of workshops and discussions and gatherings, there\u2019s a tendency to do the \u201cmy poly is better than your poly\u201d thing. A ‘V’ like I have, where we\u2019re still struggling to make it all work and the guys aren\u2019t in love by a long shot — well, that kind of poly isn\u2019t real, or at least isn\u2019t as good as a group of five. And that group isn\u2019t real poly until they own a house and have some children together. On and on, we have to prove ourselves among ourselves. <\/p>\n

It happens in Burning Man world, too — the burnier-than-thou can start to monitor your every trace. Yep, and in the PTA and in the book club. Doctrinaires such as these are actually important and interesting for keeping us all thinking and growing, but damn if they can\u2019t be a drag — and judgement has a way of turning into privilege and exclusion very quickly.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I\u2019m glad Fraser tackled the subject. As I said, I hope to get more on this and a few other topics when she settles again, but in the meantime, here\u2019s how the phenomenon was talked about by Zoe Duff, a director of PolyCon and the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She was quoted in a balanced news article (sprinkled, for no good reason, with photos of the attractive cast of HBO\u2019s Big Love<\/em> drama) in the conservative National Post<\/a><\/em> (also the site of a fussy, tsk-y commentary on bonobos that was the source of much Internet mockery). Let me here make the judgy statement that this is such a great, inclusive way to talk when you\u2019re approached by the mainstream media. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn any pond, there\u2019s people who are going to be, \u2018I do it better than you,\u2019\u201d said Zoe Duff, a director of CPAA. \u201cWithin the poly community, there are people who think that you need to do it this way, and there\u2019s people who think you need to do it another way.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, the term \u201cprimary,\u201d for your main relationship(s), is particularly divisive, for the stigma it places on the secondary partner(s).<\/p>\n

Ms. Duff said some polyamorists say they could be monogamous if they wished to. Some are casually \u201cmonogamish,\u201d a word popularized by the sexual advice columnist Dan Savage. Others see polyamory more as a natural trait, an orientation rather than a lifestyle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally wouldn\u2019t be happy if I was that way [monogamous], so then it\u2019s a sexual orientation for me. I\u2019m happier when I\u2019m with several people than when I\u2019m just with one person consistently,\u201d Ms. Duff said. \u201cI think it\u2019s part of my personality. I\u2019m a multi-tasker anyways.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But in addition to this kind of inward-facing critique, the Canada convention had a strong determination to push for more outward-facing goals. Advocates were able to get past the ubiquitous \u201cBut don\u2019t you feel jealous?\u201d questions and into some interesting future political questions, such as in this Winnipeg Free Press<\/em> article<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While Canada’s polyamorists — people with multiple partners outside a religious context — do not face criminalization as do polygamists, it is not enough for them to be considered “just not illegal,” they said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

As the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association wrapped up its three-day convention, the first of it’s kind to be held in Canada, the association’s director and conference chairwoman Zoe Duff said polyamorists hope to one day gain the same legal recognition as other couples.<\/p>\n

“It would be nice … to have households where our spouses are equal under the law, and moving forward in terms of pensions, and inheritances and property division,” she said.<\/p>\n

Unlike polygamy, there is no law in Canada that specifically bans polyamory. Polyamorists also distinguish themselves from polygamists, saying that while polygamy consists of men taking multiple wives usually within a religious context, polyamory is consensual, secular and egalitarian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Canada has been the site of some legal battles centered on religiously motivated polygamy in the past few years. The upshot has been to bring polyamory into the spotlight as well and, essentially, to make it not illegal — it\u2019s pretty complicated, but basically polyamorous relationships are legal as long as there\u2019s no marriage or authority involved. Nice first step. The strategy in getting there relied on teasing out the differences among forms of non-monogamy and this kind of religious polygamy. In other words, it\u2019s based on Our assertion that We\u2019re Not Like Those Guys. <\/p>\n

You bet your ass I\u2019m going to differentiate myself from the guy on the desert compound with a stable of teenage brides. I would go so far as to call myself superior — in every way. There are some kinds of setting yourself above and apart that I\u2019ve got no quarrel with at all. It is all pretty damn simple, at that — it can even be summed up in one word, and that word is \u201cconsent.\u201d<\/p>\n

This hasn\u2019t stopped the comment flood from proposing all sorts of man-marries-goat or woman-marries-Eiffel Tower-and-Parthenon scenarios sure to arise now that the equality floodgates are open. Pretty confused mental picture there. As one commenter put it \u201c{Insert close-minded comment about how this is all the gay peoples\u2019 fault here.}\u201d Yeah, them and their damn honesty, openness and good communication!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila I really wish I could travel more and attend more poly events. For instance, I had to miss Vancouver, BC\u2019s PolyCon event, \u201cClaiming Our Right to Love,\u201d and worst of all, I had to miss the workshop: \u201cHow NOT to Be a Poly Elite Douchenozzle.\u201d The workshop was given by Samantha Fraser, … 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\/67662"}],"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=67662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}