When we first went live with this blog, I didn’t sleep well at all. It seems I am more worried about putting it out there than Poly is. After registering the domain and putting the site together, I sent Poly all the login information and talked her through it over the phone. The site was not live at this point and I showed her how to edit and adjust the blog content. When that was done, I took her back to the main page on the admin portal and said “see that big blue button that says ‘Publish’?”, she replies “yes”. I continue “Right when you click on that button the site will be live. And I want you to have the pleasure of doing it.” Poly pressed the button and so here we are.
But still I worry.
Mostly this is because of the varied reactions I am getting to the idea of blogging about another person’s sex life and relationships. Most of my male friends that I’ve told have been generally supportive and quite interested. A few of the men who have recently divorced their high maintenance wives definitely saw the benefits of a conscious decision to avoid co-dependence. One guy however wasn’t that supportive, mostly because he is very heavily committed to being a new dad at the moment and it’s understandable that his mind is focused on that.
The women I have told however have for the most part been very critical and to quote the bard, “doth protest too much me thinks”. One simply refused to have anything to do with Poly, did not want to talk about it and is disgusted by all this hedonistic behaviour because it’s total waste of time and there are more pressing issues in the world. Another woman has just dismissed it with a comment saying to me “well it’s your life I guess and you can do whatever you want …even if it is a little bit perverse.”
Perverse?
Twisted?
Creepy?
When she said this, she also very quickly wanted to move onto other topics and not talk about it. But it left me wondering, am I being creepy blogging about Poly having sex?
About an hour later, my emotional brain had calmed down and the rational brain started to integrate what had happened. But the time had passed. Notwithstanding (and because you can do this sort of thing with a blog) here is what I wanted to say her:
“Hey, yeah. So I told an old friend about the Poly Vicarious blog and he was really intrigued. Then about a week later he starts to tell me about his failing marriage and how he is finally coming to grips with the fact that he is gay. Anyway he has been telling me about all his adventures on Grinder and, long story short, he would like me to do a blog about it.”
I can GUARANTEE that if this was the case instead, my female friends would absolutely support it.
Polyamory seems to be about 10 years behind the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.Z.X..$%.W.H.A.T.E.V.E.R.D.U.D.E, because it is just not very well understood yet. To be called perverse was a bit hurtful and perhaps it would be better to let Poly explain what’s going on by way of this bit of transcript. These are her words, not mine, I just typed out the recording.
Poly: “I accept having two relationships, or more, at the same time with different people and I can accept the same in my partner. I get that you can get jealous momentarily, and then you sit with it and work through it in your head and I can do that, and I know what it is.
“For example, it doesn’t bother me that John is telling me about whatever her name is when we’re together and I feel happy when I can see that he has that connection with someone else and I honestly believe it has nothing to do with me, and it’s not my right for it to have anything to do with me. Like he’s his own person, his own entity, and there will be times when we’re together and times when we’re not and times when he’ll call and times when he won’t call.
“That’s why I identify more with poly (more than ‘open relationship’), because an ‘open relationship’ to me is monogamy where you can have sex with other people, and I don’t think that works. Even if you’re open about it, it still won’t work because I don’t think you can have sex, constantly, with other people, and it’s never going to fuck up. And that’s what I think has happened with James. It’s ok because it’s an open relationship, and that’s what I always use to think, but now I’ve seen what the reality of that is and I just don’t think they (open relationships) work.
“I use to think that you can only have one person that you can have sex with but then you’re going to meet other people that you’re going to connect with, it’s just part of life. You’re not going to only connect with one person and then it’s only going to end up in deceit. So I don’t think open relationships works for me, but I don’t what to shove something like polyamory down other people’s throats, because people do have successful (monogamous) relationship. However, monogamy is like yoga and is something that you choose to practice, and it’s hard. Like yoga is not for me, but it could be for someone else, and like monogamy may be for other people but it takes a lot of work and dedication to do that, I don’t think everyone can. …..I can’t.
“And that’s the thing, even if I go through various stages in other relationships, I don’t think I can go back to monogamy. Like I can say that now. And if I met someone and they were wanting monogamy, I couldn’t be constrained by that anymore.
“There’s this woman, you’d love her, called Wednesday Martin and she’s like a sex researcher, scientist really, she’s written this book called “Untrue”, about female sexuality, her argument is that women actually struggle with monogamy more than men and that we are designed to have multiple partners. And she’s got this whole book about it and I have to read it.
“There is a period in any relationship between year 1 and year 4 where women stop being interested in sex, and they think ‘I’m just a typical woman who no longer want’s sex’, but you still want sex, you just don’t want it with your partner. And it’s so fucking true! And like in my relationship with Ed he’s like ‘you don’t want to have sex’, and I’m thinking ‘yes I do, I just don’t want to have sex with you’, … and I KNEW THAT AT THE TIME! ” …end.
So at this this point, it’s worth considering what this means. It was actually hard for me to hear, even as an observer because I had been on the receiving end of this many years ago with my first girlfriend. Actually most women don’t want to have sex with me, but this particular one did, and then she stopped.
She had met another guy and found him interesting, so she tells me that it’s not really over between us, it’s just that she wants to explore something with him. She wanted to live with him and I even helped her move (damn that mattress was heavy). What was happening for me though was the overwhelming sense of feeling rejected. And this is the key, because…
Jealousy does not exist.
Because there is always one or more other emotions that are the real drivers behind this thing we call jealousu. But jealousy is more like an “emotion complex” (if that’s not yet a phase then you heard it here first fellow vicarians). We deny ourselves the chance to learn about what is causing the pain because we just dismiss it as simple jealousy. This over-simplification means we don’t get to understand what we are actually feeling and therefor what we need to work on.
With my ex, I was feeling rejected, so I should have worked on what that meant. I wasn’t actually rejected because our relationship continued and this other guy turned out to possessive and controlling. She ended up having to move out (the mattress was even heavier trying to get down that rickety stairs at the back of the flat).
Our relationship continued for a time. And we did separate after her trip overseas. She has since married and had kids and is now absolutely certain that she is monogamous, but because of that unique connection we had, we will always be very good friends. Oh and by the way, she told me that she doesn’t ever want her hubby to know that we dated…. See, monogamy leads us to lie people!
Now as Poly tells me about the “echo effect” of her relationships, where a current partner reminds her of a previous partner, I think it’s important to understand the pattern because that’s where the clues are to our inner work.
My ex, by shacking up with another guy, gave me the chance to work on feeling rejected and through that I’ve come to experience part of Polyamory before it was even a thing.
The echo of my previous relationship informs me about this one with Poly, and that’s why I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, despite what the critics say.
So, because I still have a lot to learn about myself … I’m glad I know Poly.