Polyamory: Entering the Public Discussion

This is from the latest South Bay Poly Newsletter (#236).

Context:  I co-founded the South Bay Poly discussion group around 1993.  It meets monthly in the San Jose, CA area.  For the last year, I have also been serving on the board of the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA).  UUPA had a booth at the June national meeting ("General Assembly") of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)

...

Still not much news to report from the Unitarian polys….though I can say that there appears to be deepening discussions on common ground between the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA) and the Unitarian Universalists for BDSM ("Leather & Grace").

In any case, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage has somewhat opened up public discussion on multi-partner marriage.  Usually (of course?) this is presented as a cautionary tale of the “slippery slope” we are now on, supposedly because of that Supreme Court decision.  Most people, though, I think still regard these as unrelated issues.  I tend to agree with that.  But if we’re going to discuss multi-partner marriage…

I’ve seen at least one commentary that suggested multi-partner marriage should not be dismissed out of hand.  The details of a multi-partner marriage contract could be complicated to be sure.  But then the same commentary raised the question -- perhaps more to the point for most poly families -- of whether government should be involved in sanctioning relationships at all.  Can marriage be replaced by a complex of legal agreements, specified by the people involved?

Raising these issues certainly moves the discussion of multi-partner relationships forward -- which is a good thing.

And if more people become aware of committed consensual nurturing polyrelationships, if these become more accepted as possible options…that is some sort of progress.

I’m cautiously optimistic.

Images of Halloween/Samhain 2013

Some unstructured impressions of this last week or so:  Samhain.  Halloween.

 

Remembering Paula dying, I think it was 2005; looking like she was dying as I sat with her sleeping body on Samhain evening, as my daughter was out “trick or treating.”

Sitting and handing out treats, while inside my stereo plays its standard Halloween fare:  “Danse Macabre,” Carmina Burana, Ruddigore, Symphonie Fantastique, “Night on Bald Mountain.”

Wondering once again whether to put my costume on at work.

The Unitarian Day of the Dead service, and the South Bay Circles Samhain ritual.

My costume this year:  “Rent-A-Beatnik.”  I wore it to the South Bay Writers annual Literary Costume Contest; to the South Bay Circles Samhain; to coffee hour after the Unitarian Day of the Dead service.

Listening to the audio book of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  Lots of drugs in that book, and hallucinations.  Listening to the audio book of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, by Jack 

Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.  A fairly straightforward book.  Sometime in the last year, Kerouac’s Tristessa, a very drug kind of book.  Also heard One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Kerouac, Kesey, Burroughs, Thompson.  So odd leading up to Samhain/Halloween.

Then the “gay” books:  Stuff by Andrew Holleran and Felice Picano.  Drugs…Sex…and Childhood. 

Thinking of my childhood, and how I feel now:  Old.  Thinking of my older sister who died earlier this year, and the older sister who is still alive, but a continent away.  Thinking about how we come to terms (or not) with our environment as we are growing up.

Yes, a time for reflection.  I’ve thought about old friends and old girlfriends and an old boyfriend; and about places I’ve lived.  Time flows on, winter approaches.

Well, and so we move towards winter and the winter holidays…Season of Reflection, “Season (perhaps) of Melancholy”…