Originally published on
http://www.polyfamilies.com/misanthrope20050205.html
Yet again, Mama Java, she’s had it up to her eyeballs!
I’m tired of seeing this:
Well, Mr. I’m Searching for a Hot Bi Babe, that’s nice you want to get laid and all, but we’re about polyamory. What you’re talking about is just swinging!
What the hell is it with the poly community sneering at the swingers? I’m sick of it, I tellya! I am serious. Had it up to my eyeballs and wanna rip on someone.
It comes from several places. For one thing, what’s wrong with swinging? Seriously. I don’t sneer at it, think it is a lesser form of sex or anything like that. If we’re coming from a place that says sex is okay, that monogamy is not the only way to be, why say swinging is bad? Not to your taste? Okay, that’s fine. There are plenty of things that are to my taste and that aren’t. These don’t make me better/more moral/more spiritually advanced. It’s just what might rock my socks or not.
These are the arguments I tend to see:
- “But, swinging is about anonymous sex!”The hell it is. Most swingers play with people they know. In fact, one swinger I talk to a lot commented, upon hearing the poly attitude to swinging, “Hey, I only have sex with friends.” In truth, even if swinging were about anonymous sex, so what? Why is this wrong? That’s really as absurd as people who used to justify pre-martial sex as not quite wrong if you were “really in love”. Fah! Get over it! Go read The Ethical Slut, have a cup of cocoa and call me when you’ve gotten a grip on reality!
- Polyamory is just so much more emotionally fulfillingOh I love this one! If you think poly is automatically more emotionally fulfilling, then you’ve never watched some of the spectacular breakups one can see in the poly community. Sorry, ain’t pretending everything is all butterflys and roses here, m’kay? Sometimes poly works out great, sometimes it bloody well sucks. Same range as relationships in general. I’m not here to reassure you that poly is gonna be The Way to Have Deep and Fulfilling Relationships. It ain’t. It’s a way to have more than one ethically. What you do with that is up to you.
- Polyamory is about commitment.In the words of a friend of mine, “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.” I’ve not seen that the poly community exactly wins any real prizes in the commitment category. Drama? Hell yeah, we’ve got that down pat. Miscommunication? Got it. We’re masters. Keeping in there when the going gets rough? Again, about on par with the monogamous community. Don’t get on your damned high horse. Swingers are more honest about sex, ‘kay?
I find the attitude many poly people have about swinging just mind-numbingly hypocritical, and I would really like it if we’d rethink the attitude. In all honesty, I have to wonder why we hang on to such attitudes? What the heck are we afraid of? Being called a slut? <shrug> Sticks-n-stones, luv! Having people look down on our relationships? Get over it. No, they’re not going to be respected and sneering at people won’t help them to be that way. Someday, maybe, we will have multiple relationships treated with dignity, but if public opinion is that damned important to you, why the heck are you poly?
The swingers don’t get up in arms about what we say about them.
Yay! I like doing whatever makes me happy; sometimes “swinging”, sometimes serious relationships, etc.. It’s all poly to me, and usually the two mix together in surprising, yet natural ways. I love my friends, and sometimes I want to have sex with them, and sometimes I fall in love with them. Sometimes that attatchement lasts for years, sometimes just one day.
I honestly think people’s bad attitudes about swinging are based more on their western, fear-based, Judeo-Christian cultural upbringing. I also think that people have this picture in their minds of a bunch of older folks acting out some 70’s porn flick, or something.
And, I think people just have a hard time letting go of their lovers when it’s appropriate to. “Swinging” often means having to let go pretty quickly. I think it takes a certain amount of maturity to be able to do that with goodwill and happy memories.
Interesting post. I have been mulling over this one myself and have pretty much come to the same conclusions. Personally I think the problem comes in because the term polyamory covers so many relationship aspects that people from the one end of the poly spectrum find it difficult to comprehend the things that can be going on, on the other side. And polyamory doesn’t just cover two extremes, it’s more like a starfish so the moment you get your head around two sets of extremes, you learn that there are people who don’t even remotely fall into the categories you have so neatly created for yourself.
But, this is life so we all want to find the big answers to the mysteries around us and one thing I can think of is that people associate swinging with monogamy. Wild concept but, for a lot of people swingers are all monogamous couples (or single females that are allowed to get into swingers venues for free) that swing as a recreational activity. After they have done their thing they go back to their monogamous lives. Clearly not all swingers fall into this category but, the stereotype is out there. And if they seem monogamous by day, surely they must be and therefore they cannot be truly polyamorous(tm).
I have lived my life this way to the 47th year and never known any other way. I have a difficult time understanding why anyone is more special or should more special to me than anyone else. I love everyone, though I don’t sleep or have relationships with everyone (would be fun but who has that kind of time?). I believe you may find Jesus was arguably the greatest polyamorist in our recorded times (and any Christian may be hard-pressed to dissuade me of this thought). Apply that thought to the purported life and sayings of Christ and you can see the pattern. We are all spirits wearing this cloak of humanity. Who among us is perfect? What does “perfect” even mean? I create what I create and I am not concerned with what anyone thinks. I have never met a woman I did not see as beautiful. I am a Seer, I can see the little children in people and match it to my own child. I live to teach people, that’s my validation and Love for myself…