Some Thoughts All Mashed Together

For some, non-monogamy or polyamory might be lifestyle choices, alternative sexual identities added to a growing list of sexual minorities: a proud, beautiful diversity or a range of shameful immoralities, depending on the eyes of the beholder. I can appreciate the appeal of political strategies based on stable identities: they fit into dominant political structures and patterns of relationships; they offer an obvious route for expressing desires for dignity and understanding. I can even understand the temptation to label immoral the practices of others that I don’t understand, that I find painful to witness. I’ve done it.My own life has been deeply enriched by my awareness of polyamourous existence and I fully support efforts to share that knowledge, to help others imagine their own lives differently.For some, non-monogamy or polyamory might be lifestyle choices, alternative sexual identities added to a growing list of sexual minorities: a proud, beautiful diversity or a range of shameful immoralities, depending on the eyes of the beholder. I can appreciate the appeal of political strategies based on stable identities: they fit into dominant political structures and patterns of relationships; they offer an obvious route for expressing desires for dignity and understanding. I can even understand the temptation to label immoral the practices of others that I don’t understand, that I find painful to witness. I’ve done it. My concern here is less to do with right or wrong and more about the placing of borders around the imagination. Belief systems, world views and culturally-determined expectations from life determine the texture, causation and expression of even our very basic emotions. Nature's purpose for the sexual impulse may be the propagation of the species, but in controlling and harnessing this drive for the ends of social cohesion, different cultures have had very different objectives in view and used very different means. The emotive affects associated with its expression have also varied accordingly.Pay attention. Plato says that lovers are like two parts of an egg that fit together perfectly. Each half is made for the other, the single match to it. We are incomplete alone. Together, we are whole.