How much I love polyamory February 27, 2012

Posted by shaunphilly in Culture and Society Tags: family

Anyone who has seen me recently will attest that I am pretty happy with my life right now. For a while, things were going pretty badly for me, but in the last year or two, things really turned out pretty well. I can safely say that I would not use a time machine to avoid any of the bad times, just in case it were to prevent the good that I have found.

And a lot of this has to do with polyamory. You see, being polyamorous has allowed me to maintain two very important and rewarding relationships in my life. And for readers of this blog, you may have figured out that I am now willing to share them with readers here, at least insofar as their writing can provide a slice of their awesome-pie.

I am excited by the prospect of having more voices here at polyskeptic.com, whose perspectives differ from mine in some ways even if we agree on most things when it comes to polyamory and skepticism. And I hope that you, whether you follow this blog, stop in now and then, or found us accidentally, will enjoy the perspectives and points of views that we all offer.

There is a lot that our culture does not understand about polyamory, but I think seeing it in action helps make it easier to comprehend. I could blather on for pages (and I often do!) about why I think polyamory is a wonderful option for people, how it is in some ways more honest and authentic a lifestyle in comparison to monogamy, or how skepticism and polyamory should overlap more (there is a larger project I am working on, which I hope to publish soon-ish, which will address that very issue).

The people that post here, as of now, are my family. They are my fiance (we will be married in less than 3 months!), my girlfriend, and possibly more to come. I hope that aspects of our personal lives do seep through this blog in such a way that shows that we are pretty normal, in a lot of ways.

I mean, we are freaks in that we reject gods, monogamy, and some other social niceties, but in addition to that we function, day-to-day, like most people do. We have dinner, drinks, watch movies or TV together, and sometimes we do awesome things like produce burlesque shows and so forth. OK, so that last one is not so normal.

Fine, our relationship structures are more complicated, but all that is about is more people sleeping with other people than any group of people who are friends and spend time with one-another. Think of us like a group of people, like in a sitcom, who are more intertwined sexually and romantically than you are used to seeing in a sitcom. There is funny shit, sometimes drama, and there are important moral lessons embedded in plot arcs which slowly erode the traditional concepts of love, sexual morality, and family.

In fact, we should write that sitcom. (Ginny and Gina, are you taking notes? I want daily reports on the status of this project!).

In other words, the Religious Right hates us, the Left tends to marginalize us (because they don’t want the Right to think we are associated with them), and most of the center do not even know we exist. Well, all parts of the spectrum share this ignorance, I suppose. I hope to help change that.

So, in conclusion, I am very happy with my life right now. I hope that happiness translates into an awesome blogging experience for years to come. I hope you continue to read, and I hope that your feedback can help us better communicate our worldview to a larger world which is largely unaware of what polyamory (or skepticism, for that matter) is all about.