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I watched this show called big love. Its a show that is based around a polygamist family and there drama. I realy never thought much about polygamy. It was something Mormons did, and that was about it. But it has a rich and long history. In fact the Mormons might be right about Jesus having more then one lover. In Africa this was not uncommon. In fact I have met African men that would be a polygamist even today if they could afford it. It is interesting to see jungle civilizations that practice it but in this case the women have multiple husbands. It is a shame that it is repressed in america for the most part. I feel that allot of people would be served by it. It shoulds not be forced, but it should be an option. It has a better feel to me then polyamory. Polyamory for health reasons I would not recommend, but you must do your own thing. I think the main thing I learned is that there are allot of options that people should be able to explore and this may create some peace all on its own. The big step is being honest about what will make you happy. For me I am happy with just one, but I can see the value in other options. Would love to hear peoples thoughts feelings.
My central thought on the subject is that we try too hard to think everything out, figure the best way and make up a guideline/rule/way of life as a group that is supposed to fit the needs of or be the best thing for everyone, even though it isn’t and can’t possibly be that way, and that all of that is part of our craziness.
If we just left each other alone to pursue his/her own personal way of fulfillment and stopped trying to control the situation we would have a chance to see some actual balance and rectification of the problems we have. Poly this or poly that, it all a head trip and worth giving up so we can be free to be who we are.
Until people stop trying to make up a control-based system so they can avoid the personal ordeal of having to face what they really want and, even worse, to have it, we humans will be totally confused and dysfunctional as a group.
It’s all about assuming responsibility for one’s own destiny and fulfillment, and that’s the last thing the human race wants to do because it’s so frightened of itSelf. People would much rather be controlled by laws that over limit and oppress them than to have freedom- it makes them insecure.
-A
… but why don’t you like polyamory I think it’s also a good option. I mean it’s working I see alot of people doing it. I think the goal of a one-to-one relationship is still there but people are much more open now in my experience. As in, people might say yes or they might say no, but there’s much less, ‘Well I wouldn’t dream of it it’s disgusting’ going on now or whatever. People are making decisions based on their own feelings rather than the you-musts they were handed by previous generations.
So yeah I don’t get why you don’t like polyamory! Assuming I get the distinction you’re making. Polygamy would be one man many wives or one woman many husbands, polyamory would be less structured than that, or what do you see as the difference there?
j
Its all shades of grey. I like the openess of polyamory vs cheating, but the jing swaping that goes on with multiple partners is not something I would recommend. I do not see often the men or the women accetping the partners of there partner. Realize you are having sex with the partners your partner is having sex with. That is allot of other peoples jing to deal with when you can bearly deal with your own. Not to mention the denial(not just a river in egypt, hi ooh) most are in about the jealousy. I just have a feel that couples that have there center in each other do not want to let go, yet they still want to have different sexual partners. Most have a # 1 this can change over time as a person can find a new person for there center. Polygamy is intersting you can have a powerful family unit and over time they intergrate supporting each other often peoples center are in the family, multiple centers become one, a big cooking pot, could be very powerful also could be limmiting. It is not a ethical thing I am just looking at it from a health perspective. I get this since that polygamy can create for childeren a place where they can be more independent if culture allows as there center may not be so tide up in there parents because there partents have so many kids. I do not through the baby out with the bath water. I am just feeling it out, it is the only way I know to since harmony or disharmony. Of course I also look at it from my cosmology. I am much more in to reading some ones feelings then there words it cuts through the bull doo doo. I am just couriouse what peoples feeling are about this topic what there shen there heart is trying to say about it. The heart is the truth for me. I am getting better at listening.:) I am not saying it should be band, there is no campassion in restricting some one from exploring there sexuality. But I will suggest for some one to look at something with there heart. I hope that clarifies my position.
thank you for your commints.
>>I do not see often the men or the women accetping the partners of there partner.<>That is allot of other peoples jing to deal with when you can bearly deal with your own. Not to mention the denial(not just a river in egypt, hi ooh) most are in about the jealousy.<>Most have a # 1 this can change over time as a person can find a new person for there center. Polygamy is intersting you can have a powerful family unit and over time they intergrate supporting each other often peoples center are in the family, multiple centers become one, a big cooking pot, could be very powerful also could be limmiting. It is not a ethical thing I am just looking at it from a health perspective.<>I am just couriouse what peoples feeling are about this topic what there shen there heart is trying to say about it. The heart is the truth for me. I am getting better at listening.:) I am not saying it should be band, there is no campassion in restricting some one from exploring there sexuality. But I will suggest for some one to look at something with there heart. I hope that clarifies my position.<<
It doesn't really clarify it to me, are you saying you want the heart opinions on this board or are you saying you want the heart opinions in your relationships? Everybody wants that second one don't they? Polyamory is no different, and the people who indulge in it are interested in the heart very much.
My feeling is I would rather a polyamorist world than a polygamist one, with no *requirement* of course (!) but with no stigma against it, I feel it's a positive thing and it works to loosen self-definition and experience many things you could not otherwise experience. Whereas to me polygamy is just like a template where one sex is automatically dominant and gets to pick as many spouses as they want, more often than not the other spouses just have to bear it.
Things are like that in backward places, maybe not Utah I don't know, but for sure in Afghanistan! If you're a wife and your husband wants another new wife, you just have to get ready to not have much attention for a while! You can imagine the cattiness, this is not an open thing never mind a spiritual one. In polyamorist circles the whole point is that everyone has got to be comfortable every step of the way, there is no societal power dynamic functioning because there is no societal framework anyhow! It's just, well how shall we do this? Not saying it always works but I do say that it can, and nothing is guranteed to work let's be sure of that.
I once saw a lovely post by someone in a polyamorous relationship where she tried to explain what is called 'compersion' which is the opposite of jealousy where you get a feeling of great love from seeing someone you love with someone else. I felt what she was saying was very genuine and she certainly wasn't in denial. But she was dumped on. After that I realized that the set of possible reactions to these ideas is very varied, people should just realize what they really believe and want like AA says. The only way to find out is to do something about it. 🙂
That's my take at this time! j
Indeed, it is all about and nothing but the heart, which is an immense work of LOVE ART, takes a lot of refinement, reflection and inner truth.
No polygamy for me, too restricted…
Polyarmory is a way of being“Polyarmory is a way of being”
Hi Wendy! Have a good trip? Your energy feels really open and balanced.
Great word you just coined to make your statement about peace and love.
I think the world is suffering from too much “polyaRmory”. Look at all of us fighting with our “armorys” all over the world. Everyone’s “armory” is getting bigger and bigger and it is not a healthy way of being. Instead of hugging each other with our arms we are protecting ourselves from each other with our “armorys”.
Or was that just a typo?
Jason, (I’m laughing as I write this) as usual you seem to have misunderstood what I said. I’m not going to go there again though. I just thing it’s funny that I’ve seen it happen so often. Maybe you can go back and read my statement again and see if you can see it differently this time.
Armory to all,
Alexander>>Jason, (I’m laughing as I write this) as usual you seem to have misunderstood what I said.<>Poly this or poly that, it all a head trip and worth giving up<<
… lumping polyamory with the 'control-based systems' you are decrying, my point was polyamory is not such a system, not about handing one's heart over to preconceived social mechanisms, and not a head trip therefore, so it shouldn't be lumped in.
Did I misunderstand? j
To further your phrase, Wendy, of LOVE ART, I remember a performance I saw in 1986 by an artist from Quebec. He had a strong accent and enjoyed making the pun about things being ‘art work. At various times the ‘art meant art (art work), hard (hard work) and heart (heart work).
Love, whether monogamous/monamorous or polyamorous, can be ‘art work – creative, difficult and heart centered. But, any form of relationship can also be superficial. Some might say that polyamory spreads a person thin, and so it would become superficial. But, in requiring the person to expand their heart to truly include the others to which it speaks, it could be very deep.
Article for shrinks on polyamories and what to do if you ever come across one in practice:
http://www.polyamory.org/~joe/polypaper.htm#WhatIsKnown
Sample bit:
>>”In 1976, Knapp administered a battery of standardized psychological assessment measures to a sample of polyamorous couples (Peabody, 1982). No significant differences were found between the couples in her sample and the general population norms. “That is, neither group was particularly neurotic, immature, promiscuous, maladjusted, pathological, or sexually inadequate… The response patterns suggested a modal type of individual in a sexually open marriage who was individualistic, an academic achiever, creative, nonconforming, stimulated by complexity and chaos, inventive, relatively unconventional and indifferent to what others said, concerned abut his/her own personal values and ethical systems, and willing to take risks to explore possibilities” (p. 429). Watson (1981, cited in Rubin, 1982) gave the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1957) to 38 sexually open individuals, and these subjects also scored within normal bounds.””<<
This is like the 'secret truth' about polyamory I think, it doesn't actually make that much difference in terms of personal health. This is what I am trying to get across. I find it more a kind of barometer of societal sexual honesty.
Below I linked to a fun wikipedia list of polyamorites, which only includes true polyamory that is, everyone in the relationship knew everyone else; no mistresses that wives had to curl their lips and put up with etc.
j
I saw a show on a tribe in South America (I think) and the people married many others, men and women alike. A 50 year old women might have a 50 year old husband, a 13 year old husband, and a 75 year old husband. And these men would have many wifes as too. It isn’t wrong, it is what the social norm is for them. Yet, I didn’t get the sense that it was for sex as the basis.
My sister told me that she had learned that some native american tribe(s) (not sure exactly) would care for their children communally and the adults would be with whoever they were with at the time.
I feel that this is more natural than monagamy, just have to have a social context for it otherwise it doesn’t work out well regardless what one feels is right for them. So most of us conform to the social norms becuase that is our context.
MatthewQi
I don’t see the need to cogitate these things. We tend to try to create a philosophy for living around everything. There is really only one “philosophy” which is functional and that is “natural philosophy”. Following your inner promptings, trusting your desires, not going into doubt, respecting the inherent sovereignty of each individual…these all allow you to follow the way the dao has lined up for you.
I see no need to construct artificial structures to control society even when they appear to be non-invasive ones such as making up a group called “polyamory”. (You might like to say that there is no “law” here, but there is. The act of defining one way from another does that automatically because it is the mind’s endeavor to create its “right” apart from someone else’s “wrong”.)
To me this seems so artificial, so contrived (not to mention that the word “polyamory” itself is totally awkward). We all belong to the human family. We are just one big group. The rest is the work of the mind separating everything out into smaller and smaller dysfunctional groups in its effort to prove its rightness or OKness.
Just do what you want to do. Why make such a big deal out of it and expend all that energy?
Polynaturally, Alexander
It is pretty popular where I am from maybe more in ashville, but they have more people then Carrboro. I have met allot, I have to say not from wide age groups. Mainly people in there 20’s. WHat age where you polyamoris? I thank you for bring up differnt sides(postive of braking up ridgidity) of this issue I did not say I covered it all and its all a grey area. I am mainly looking at it as a tool for completion and its ups and down. Now of coure harmony is dictated by surroundings so you never know. In playing music I learned there is no inherent wrong note it all about context. Honestly It is hard to find time to be polyamory. I get swinging for its time saving/energy saving I still donot like bring all that extra jing in from human sources. I guess as we all cultivate maybe down the road poeples jing would not be to bad. You got to watch what you eat. I recommend being polyamory energeticly with nature more then humans. Injesting jing chi shen from nature is more balanced then humans. I think everything has its place and time. I think the main thing that hurts poeple is not going with there primal nature (there heart). I do not want to take away an option, I think more options should be add, but I like to look at it.
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