I would like genuine reactions to this documentary!
The question the interviewer asks: "Does emotional intimacy really have to go hand-in-hand with sexual fidelity?" A question that truly gets our attention.
Alice a mother of two says, "My relationship with my primary partner is vital." This is her main romance and she "would protect it with her life." However Alice admits "There are lots of people I love, who I don't have sex with and there are lots of people I have sex with who I don't love." Alice adds, "I am not interested in making a claim on someone else's body."
The interviewer thinks this is quite a revolutionary thought, that a love affair need not come with exclusive sexual rights! And adds, "There is something really liberating about a relationship that refuses to buy into that possessiveness!"
The interviewer asks, "However is the price of that jealousy?"
Alice admits both her and her partner are jealous people! How does she manage that?
Alice answers "I am not ashamed of being jealous, but I can box it off." And adds "that response is not really interesting." Alice asks herself: "What is behind that jealousy?"
The interviewer asks; "Wouldn't it be easier... to just be monogamous?"
Alice wisely replies, "You cannot bind people to you by a set of rules. Monogamy to me is a rigid system that just doesn't acknowledge that people change over time and relationships change. And for me the way in which I desire Sam of course has to change over time."
Then how do children fit into this? The arrival of two children.
The interviewer then asks Alice:
"How does an open relationship fit in with family life?"
Alice answers, "Somebody has to be at home and look after the kids while someone is out with their lover, that feels pretty uneven, yea, that feels like ohhh! I didn't sign up to be at home looking after your kids while you are off shagging someone else!"
The interviewer asks "Is that what you say to each other?"
Alice replies, "That's part of our negotiation. Like how can we do this? That feels really heavy in the times when it does happen, you can't escape it. You would be at home anyway."
The interviewer asks "Are you afraid Sam will leave you?" "Yes of course, but I would be afraid of that if we were in a monogamous relationship as well."
In transcribing this I feel Alice is truly facing her emotions and feelings and how honest and brave she is. Could you do the same?
Int asks: "Can we really expect one person to be everything to us?"
"Nobody is ever enough for one person! I guess one person could be good enough, for most people." says Dr Marion O'Connor at the Tavistock centre who advises couples on how to make monogamy work.
The interviewer says: "That's not really selling me monogamy. "However Marion replies I don't think another lover would help, if you haven't got a strong base yourself you can be like those people that marry. Oh if I marry Bill, then I will be fulfilled and happy. But you know if Bill is not good enough, then I'll marry Jack and if Jack doesn't fill me up. You'll hear people who go through life trying to find somebody who will complete them and make them whole." Then Marion adds, "Wouldn't it be better for you to find how you could feel whole enough. So I don't think having two lovers would solve that problem."
A poly family!
Now the Interviewer visits a polly household in Sheffield of Charlie, Tom, Sarah and Chris. They're in love with each other. A polyamorous family.
interviewer asks: "Are there many songs about polyamorous people?"
"Not really, there's a lot of songs about people cheating between two people." Charlie replies:
"When were watching telly, 90% of plots around romance on TV stuff, its all about falling in love with more than one person. But you must choose between being torn between two people they love, and we start yelling at the TV, "YOU COULD HAVE BOTH!"
Whats the set up?
Charlie and Tom are married, Chris and Sara are going to be married. The two women are in a full blown relationship with both men and with each other. The two men are best mates.
Tom relays, "The number of conversations I've had with peers, where I have started to explain it, then they have got so far as saying; "So you all cheat on each other", and not able to get past that explanation "no everybody is cool with it. Everybody knows what's happening and nobody is deceiving each other". Then they repeat; "so you all cheat on each other."
Int asks: "What would infidelity mean in this relationship?"
Tom replies,
"It is impossible to cheat on someone in a polyamorous relationship!"
"For example." Chris says, "I went on a first date with somebody yesterday and before I went on this first date, I sat down with each of my three partners and checked with them individually that I was okay to go on this date, but cheating would have been me going off yesterday and saying and meeting up with friend x and not say that it was a potential romantic partner."
Interviewer sets scene: "To be clear this is Toms wife Charlie who is out on this date, and he's sitting next to her and sitting on the sofa looking very relaxed about it. But then he is holding hands with Sarah, with whom he's been in a relationship since the second year of his marriage. Now that can't of been easy conversation to have with his wife! How did Charlie react?"
Charlie replies: "Sarah is lovely, so my husband has fallen in love with a lovely woman so that's fine. Yea, thats really what I thought."
Int asks: "Was there jealousy flashing?" "Ah no I was just so happy that Tom was so happy with Sarah."
Tom interjects, "There is a concept been kicking around!" Charlie interjects "Oh your not going to hear the 'C' word." Tom replies, "Oh I know its horrible. Charlie says, "its an invented word that you hear in Polyamory circles an awful lot, because there isn't a good word for it" 'Its compersion replies Tom. "It essentially means the opposite of jealousy. The little warm glow that you get when you see somebody that you really care about loving somebody else and being loved, that you have joy rather than the anger."
Int asks: "Does that come naturally? Or did you have to work on that?" Charlie replies: "I never did." Sarah replies "No nor me!"
Tom "Neither did I" and adds maybe its how some people are wired and some people aren't, I am not sure though!"
Charlie said, "It took Chris a while to get over the insecurity, once he did and once he started feeling the same way we were all feeling then he was fine."
Int sets the scene. Chris was the last of the four to join the family, he didn't want to be interviewed, so his fiancé Sarah told me how she broke the news to him, that she was in love with Tom as well.
"That was a little more complicated when Chris and I got together there was always the assumption of romantic monogamy, if not sexual monogamy, so we sat down and we talked about what it meant to be in love with more than one person and did that mean I loved him less, of course it didn't."
Int asks: "Why do you say 'of course it didn't?' Most people would say of course it did!"
Sarah replies: "Its not like there's so much love I have to give and I have to give all that love to one person, I can love as many people as I can fit into my heart and that turns out quite a few. I don't think there's a limit."
Charlie adds "There's a limit on time!" Charlie says, "I run the google calendar. Which we mostly use for keeping track of date nights. Most of the time we don't do anything. We mostly use for keeping track on date nights….The couple on a date get the first pick on what film goes on the TV and it helps keep track of who is in what bedroom. For example I have a regular weekly date night with Charlie, its us snuggling up with the TV, it's us going to bed together and all that kind of business."
Int asks: "Most people, I think, have enough difficulty managing one relationship, you know where your full time is thinking about the emotional needs and physical needs..Isn't it exhausting having three relationships to manage successfully?"
Tom replies." A bit, sometimes. there are some people you talk too, who write the relationship off as a lazy way of getting more sex, than you normally would." (giggling) He continues: "There are easier ways. They all say "yes there are easier ways!" Tom "Nobody took this as an easy option, you know we kind of didn't have a choice, we are in love with each other."
Int comments: "We don't see any contradiction in loving more than one friend and nobody would ask us to love only one of our children, why should it be any different with romantic love?"
The question is, does multiplying the number of people in a relationship increase its fragility or its strength? Maybe both" the interviewer concedes!
Int asks "How does sex therapist Esta Porel see Polyamory and open relationships fitting into the romantic scheme of things?"
"All of that is the next frontier, now we have a generation of people coming up who are saying, 'we also want stability committed relationships and safety and security, but we also want individual fulfilment, lets see if we can negotiate monogamy or non-monogamy in a consensual way that prevents a lot of the aches and destructions and the pains of infidelity. Monogamy was negotiated the first time when we brought in pre-marital sex. Now we need to negotiate again in the democratisation of contraception. I think sometimes we think of it as this kind of static, stable thing that always meant the same and its not!"
Int: "Monogamy used to mean one person for all time, now we use it as one person at a time. But beyond that boundary there is a lot of resistance. Alice has faced prejudice because of her choice to live in an open relationship. So much so that she asked us to change her name."
Alice: "People think your irresponsible that your deviant..you can't be trusted. Monogamy comes with a whole set of assumptions around loyalty and being able to keep a promise like the vast majority of people will understand monogamy willingly the correct thing they do."
Int:Do you think sometimes that people think its better to be in a monogamous relationship and then have an affair, than to have the kind of relationship that your in?"
Alice relies; "Yes definitely, because that keeps monogamy intact in a kind of way."
Int comments: Monogamy is hard, you only have to look at the divorce statistics to see that. One in seven couples who split up, blame their partners unfaithfulness and lets face it the trail hurts.
Esta Porel sees the aftermath of infidelity all the time, she counsels couples in New York, who are trying to save their relationship. She is unusual among therapists, in that she doesn't always recommend monogamy as the answer. So does she choose to be monogamous?"
EP "That I will not answer this question!"
Int: "Speaking more generally there is a real taboo about non-monogamy? Do you feel people are reluctant to tell us how they live?"
EP "Yes the same way that people will lie about sex more than any other topic!"
Int: "Why is there a taboo about it?"
EP "Because the norm is very, very powerful, but you know all people used be dreadfully ashamed if they divorced. Once people will know that it is no longer a shaming experience and it is not going to be judged and not being isolated, then people will become more forthcoming about what they do. Ask me in ten years if I am monogamous and I will maybe answer you differently than I answer today, at this point the question is so loaded."
Int asks: "Could monogamy really loose its moral monopoly inside the next ten years? Tom, Charlie and Sarah are expecting it to take it a little longer than that."
Charlie: "I think that multi-partnered relationships are just starting to come on the radar and so I am kind of preparing for 30 years of being made fun of."
Tom says, "It will happen, but it will take time. I think anyone who is expecting a massive social change, is terribly mistaken. But it will happen."
A doubtful interviewer asks
Int: "WILL IT? Monogamy, as an ideal at least has shown remarkable endurance despite a formidable challenge from temptation. The relationship pioneers we have heard from are trying to resolve that tension, by revising the rules of love to promote sexual honesty over exclusivity. If they persuade people that there's is a viable model, then monogamy becomes a choice, rather than the default, and it maybe stronger for it, because then those who agree to forsake all others are doing it for love and love alone."
Please let me have your views on this interesting topic.
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