The Polyamorous Misanthrope

It’s been a busy week and I have the flu, so this is a re-run of a personal fave.

Peeve time, and this is a big one.

I get sucked into drama really easily. I’m an intense person and all the gods know that I am a sucker for almost any type of intensity - good and bad.

A personal Poly Drama got me talking to one of my spice recently. As we were talking, he sighed and said, “I don’t really consider myself poly.”

At this point, I looked at him like he had three heads. I mean, he lives in a group marriage, for goodness sake!

“I don’t get it. You’re in love with two women. I know you are,” I said. After all, one of those women was me and I know he’s in love with our wife.

He shrugged. “Yes, I am. But I’m not poly. Polyamory isn’t about love that I’ve been able to see. It’s all about playacting and drama.”

This cut me up short and hard. God, I soo wanted to protest… “No! No! No! Darling, it is too about the love. It’s all about the love. You’re just not seeing it because you’re isolated from the community, you won’t hang out with poly people enough. You’re just getting the bitching at home!”

However, there something about this husband that makes it really hard to bullshit yourself when you’re talking to him. Oh you can scream and rail and call him names and call him a blind idiot, but it’s a waste of time. It’s better to shut up and think a minute. ‘Cause no, he’s not always right. You do have to think. However, he is a damned intuitive man. So, I shut up and thought about what I was feeling in the moment of my own Personal Poly Drama. The whole situation on all parts was not coming from a place of love, I can tell you, and this particular poly situation is so common that if someone posted it to a discussion list it would get an eyeroll for being boring. I’ve seen it and its various permutations at least once a week for the past eight years.

I realized something.

Polyamory is supposed to be about love, but my husband was right. Tragically, far more often than not, it is not. In my watching the poly community over the last eight years or so, I see a truly appalling lack of love . In my own life… God, oh God, it is worse. There are days when I marvel at the complete gall I am showing in having anything to do with the poly community, much less write any articles about relationships. I make so many foolish, blind, unloving mistakes in my relationships it’s not even funny. Oh, the NRE crap? Got that down pat. Sure do. It’s fun and I’m not running it down. It has its place, honest.

Don’t leave out the real thing.

If it ain’t about the love of all your relationships at the core of it, it’s not worth it. Really, it isn’t.

So what do I mean by love?

While I am not a Christian, but when speaking on the nature and power of love, I really think this passage is simply brilliant:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

I’m not about fluffybunny here. The cosmic muffin nonsense that some people pass off as this universal love crap without following through gets to me. It cheapens the work, worth and power of what love really is. Don’t listen to words. Watch actions. Okay, just for the record though, I don’t want any of you guys quoting this article and saying, “See, see, I got hurt, so that’s proof you don’t love me!” Mama Java, she don’t like it when people twist her words. People can fuck up, be blind, be human, be faulty and still be loving. It’s whether or not you keep on trying, ‘kay? That’s the essence of a lot of what I am talking about. Do you get back up and keep trying when you fall short of your own ideals? Do you accept that your loves are going to fall short of their own ideals, and give them the opportunity to keep trying? So many poly people get on their high horses about love. Frankly, the general run of us win no damned prizes in the demonstration of love department. We’re about on par with monogamous folks. That’s okay, mind. We’re human. But let’s step down off the damned high horse, ‘kay? We look like bloody hypocrites, and it’s got to stop.

I wanna go over in detail a bit of this Bible passage (any of you former Southern Baptists out there havin’ flashbacks yet? LOL). I want it very clear that I do not claim for one second, by the way, to fulfill all these goals. They’re goals in becoming a more loving human being. I am not there by a long shot.

• Love is patient. Patience isn’t just the ability to wait without fidgeting. Can you hold your tongue and listen fully when discussing something with a loved one? More to the point, do you? If you want an issue resolved right now can you still bring yourself to wait and give a loved one time to think?Do not confuse patience with putting things off, though. They’re not the same thing. Avoidance isn’t patience.
• Love is kind Kindness is one of those odd things. It’s not quite just being “nice”, though that can be and usually is a component. Kindness has to do with genuinely having the welfare of the other (or self if you’re discussing love of self) at heart.Here’s where the issue comes in, though. You’re not wise enough to make choices for other adults. No, you’re not special here. I know you wanna help, but that kind of nonsense ain’t kind, so if the goal is being loving, don’t be doing it.
• Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude Kinda hard to be loving when you’re wanting something the other person is/has, are bragging, or being caught up in your own ego. That’s really the essence of it. Don’t be so damned ego driven if being loving is your goal.
• It does not insist on its own way If you’re into Me! Me! Me! exclusively, you’re not being loving. Loving yourself does mean taking care of yourself, but balance here. Balance is important.
• It is not irritable or resentful Are you holding on to past pains, shortcomings or things like that? Not loving. This means purging resentments - the ones held against yourself included. Remember what I said, you cannot be honest to goodness loving to someone else until you are doing the same with yourself. In fact, it makes it easier. Trust me on this one.
• It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth “Yeah, she got what was coming to her…” Not a loving thought. “Hey, she learned from that. Cool!” Loving thought… It’s a pretty simple concept.Rejoicing in the truth means that you’re not going to want to pretend that things are other than they are, either. You’re going to want the honest facts, rather than fool yourself. This can be hard, if you want to ignore things that you don’t like.
• It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things This boils down to one essential concept - forgiveness. If you’re dedicated to being loving, you’re dedicated to forgiving. You’re dedicated to forgiving yourself and everyone around you for being flawed and human. This is not an easy thing to do. Worth it, but not easy.

I’ve been doing a lot of ranting on this subject among some of my intimates lately, and one of them brought up an interesting point as well, commenting that he saw a lot of relationship problems as being matters of not seeing things clearly, and laboring under misconceptions. While do not entirely share the full world view (I think that you can still see things clearly and choose to be unloving. He has a somewhat more positive view of humans than I), he does have a point. It’s hard to be genuinely loving when looking “though a glass darkly”. You cannot make the loving choice when laboring under misinformation, self-deception or assumptions. Truth is Love’s most precious companion. Keep that in mind as you look at your own life, your own loves and your own choices in life.

Back about a year ago, when I rejoined the PolyFamilies Community, I was still working in an office and had some slack time. Being bored, I proposed creating a PolyFamilies drinking game based on some common things that happened on the particular list. Some of ‘em are peculiar to the PolyFamilies “subculture”, and some are very much common to Polyamory online discussion groups in general. My apologies for a post that’s insular to one small group, but they begged and pleaded. With tears even. Honest.

So, I’m formally declaring this iteration to be the Official Rules for the PolyFamilies Drinking Game. (And if there’s no more Misanthrope columns, it’s because they filleted me for my presumption. *grin*)

Take one drink if:

• Someone falls for the “Is Swinging Poly” debate gambit.
• Someone starts a pot of Troll Stew[1].
• Anyone asks how they can change a mate’s feelings about something.
• Anyone asks how one gets involved in poly relationships.
• Anyone starts an etymological debate.
• Anyone asks “how do I tell my spouse about my lover so we can all be poly and happy.”
• Someone apologizes for being “off-topic”[2].
• Take a drink if anyone claims to have psychic powers, such as telepathy, empathy, stupokinesis, whatever.
• Whenever someone gets all defensive about not being treated they way they EXPECTED to be treated (for example: “I thought I’d get a little support at least!”) — take a drink!
• Anytime someone asks for a commitment ceremony.
• Anyone who has been dating three weeks, lives on opposite sides of the country and use spousal titles for each other
• Any time someone mentions Heinlein.

Take Two Drinks if:

• Anyone posts looking for a nice female third who doesn’t mind helping
  with the kids and likes three-ways.
• Anyone declares themselves in love with The Monkey for something clever he said.
• Every time Ron or Franklin and Kit disagree.
• Every time someone thinks that Stranger in a Strange Land would work outside of fiction.

Take Three Drinks if:

• Someone tries to explain to the List at Large the Real Intention of the List is to Love Each Other.

• If anyone person unsubscribes in a huff because they did not get the response they wanted.

A lot of people think that there’s some definition of polyamory that’s the final word on the subject. I’d like to address that a little. Technically, this article should be about three words long:

“There isn’t one.”

Once you get past the concept of “willing to have more than one sexual/romantic partner”, you start getting into a lot of debates about what polyamory is or isn’t. All of us do tend to quote our favorite literature on the subject, and that’s okay.

Back when there were one or two writers on the subject you still got a level of disagreement. Now?

There’s a lot of poly writers out there. A whole bunch. Off the top of my head¹ and in no particular order, lemme name some poly writers:

• Debrah Anapol
• Catherine Liszt and Dossie Easton
• Ryam Nearing
• Morning Glory Ravenheart-Zell
• Franklin Veaux
• Anita Wagner
• Noel Figart

This list is hardly even a sample, and many of my readers will probably slap their foreheads, say, “She missed Book X and Blog Y. My God, how could she have neglected to mention that writer!”

You’ll find that these people all have their own views and are unlikely to agree on everything, or even a majority of ideas. That’s okay. Multiple points of view are really useful when exploring a complex topic like polyamory and the more literature we have on the subject, the better. Every one of these writers probably has had readers at some point or another think they’re total whackjobs who have no business contaminating the purity of poly literature with their ill-thought-out and foolish ideas as well.

That’s okay, too.

When you’re going to read about polyamory, I really encourage you to read widely. Don’t take your whole philosophy from a single writer. Hell, don’t take your own point of view from literature only in any case. Test ‘em against your life. What works, what doesn’t? Why?

And don’t say that “The Polyamory Community thinks X”. Defining what the polyamory community is would be hard enough. I assure you that other than the fact we mostly think non-monogamy is okay, you’re going to find such a range of opinions. I often wonder if part of the reason polyamory is unlikely to “catch on” is merely because marketing to the “polyamory community” would be a non-trivial problem at best. You can’t break it down to a useful consumer demographic. My bet is that the media will likely ignore us except as a curiosity for for the fun of scandal.

But the real point here is that there isn’t a final word on polyamory. There can’t be. Oh sure, I’d love to think that my writing is the ultimate in what practical, sensible polyamory life and living is.

But it’s not, and I know it.

And neither is anyone else’s.

¹If I left you out, please understand that this is a list off the top of my head with no real thinking involved, not because I think your work doesn’t count. Do feel free to add yourself and a link to your work in the comments. I hope you will, as I need to work on my blogroll.

“You like coffee! I like coffee, too! We must be soul mates and spend all of our time together!” — A wise online friend with whom I really oughta make a coffee date.

I’ve noticed among the various online perverts a certain tendency. If we’re sexual deviants, it’s not unusual to expect that to come along with a sheaf of assumptions about other similarities.

A guest column was recently scolded because someone got some queer colloquial language “wrong”.  From a scientific point of view, some incorrectly-applied terms  have developed other meanings through subculture usage.  In the tradition of the Good Editor, I’m gonna stand up for the author here.   The author was using the expressions in the technical, rather than jargon, sense and was using them absolutely correctly.  I would have accepted either technical or colloquial if the meaning seemed obvious from context.

Friends, just because one is poly, or lesbian, or whatever, does not necessarily mean that everyone in the pervert community is necessarily going to agree with you on all subjects of language, politics and religion. It certainly does not mean that the person is going to be up on the minutiae of technical terminology you might you for your own relationships.

The implication was that if you’re not up on all of this, then you’re not supposed to be writing these columns.

Hell, I only learned that “beard” is an expression for a female companion of a homosexual man who does not care to make his homosexuality known about a month ago! I know the handkerchief code exists, but I’ve no idea what means what. So, you guys that think that people that aren’t up on all the jargon should just stop reading this column now. I’m constantly running across new language and new concepts.

Things that are big and obvious to you and your life might not necessarily be so to everyone’s. I cannot count the times that someone who is pagan will become poly and think that every poly person they meet is not only pagan, but their brand of pagan using exactly their terminology¹.

I suppose I find it funniest because I used to run across that sort of thing from church to church as well. In-groups develop their own language, but often forget that they are often relatively small in-groups. They begin to think that their way of thinking is somehow the right way to think. In a community as diverse as the polyamory community, this can become a little problematic.

I’m not saying that language and defintion don’t matter.  I’m a writer, for God’s sake!  Words and their meanings matter a great deal in my line of work.  But assuming that if one calls oneself polyamorous that one is necessarily going to approach things as you do or have the same attitudes isn’t going to be very productive to you in the long run.

¹If you’re of the slightest mischievous frame of mind, this can become an endless source of entertainment as well.

I’m on vacation, so damn’f I’m writin’ something important!

Ask me a question, either here or via email, and if it entertains, horrifies or piques my interest, I might write about it/snark it/answer it with all the sober seriousness in my power.

Caveat Emptor and all that snot.

See y’all next week. Be good, play nice, and don’t burn the house down.

Kisses,

Mama Java

P.S.  Make sure to eat your vegetables.

Sure, you can fly, but that cocoon has gotta go!

When we’re newly poly, especially if we’re fortunate enough to have found a poly community in which to participate, it is not unusual to dive into this new community with joy and excitement.

Naw, I’m not gonna knock that. Joy and excitement are good things. Community is good, too.

What I am going to caution you to do is keep your head on straight when you do it. There’s a wide world out there. Some of ‘em are poly, but plenty of ‘em aren’t.

Being understood is a heady feeling, and goodness knows that being understood and accepted for your sexuality in this crazy society ranks right on up there with one of the great joys in life. It’s a human desire to feel accepted by one’s community, and it’s a fantastic feeling.

I encourage anyone who is involved in various poly communities to keep touch with the wider world. Don’t surround yourself in an enclave and leave the rest of the world behind. It’s tempting, it’s seductive, but don’t do it.

To get a reality check, you have to look at reality — that means your poly world, but it means the monogamous world, too. There’s a lot about monogamy that I actually don’t agree with. The basic paradigms don’t suit my worldview at all. But I keep looking, and I keep watching people. The reason I do this is a little selfish, I admit.

You see, if you keep watching, you may learn something.

You won’t be able to watch if you cut yourself off.

So I have some questions for you, the poly people:

1. Are you involved with a polyamory community? Do you make contacts and talk to people who are similar to you? Yes, you’ll need support for being a weirdo from time to time.
2. Are you involved with a community that is not polyamory-based? This could be a religious group, social organization, professional org… almost anything? There’s more to your life than your sexuality. What are you into, what do you do that’s not based on romantic relationships that causes your eyes to light up and your soul to tingle to create?
3. Are you involved with any charitable work? This could be something as mundane as volunteering at your kid’s school or picking up trash beside the road. It could be something a little more involved. There’s more to life than your own interests.

What I’m saying here is that being poly is cool, but for goodness sake, have a Life rather than a Lifestyle!

Happy, well-rounded people are good “positive press” for polyamory, too, so you could call it a form a community work to show that <grin>

Franklin Veaux is a long-time polyamory writer and commentator. He’s still working on a book about polyamory. I encourage you to poke him to finish the damn thing! I wanna promote it here, dammit.

First things first: Basic stats. Who are you *grin*, what got you into polyamory and how long have you been poly?

Hmm. “Who am I” sounds like a philosophical question. I could say “the future ruler of all mankind,” but I’ve recently discovered I’m actually much too much of an optimist to be a proper evil overlord.

I can’t say that anything ever “got” me into polyamory, so much as it’s the way I’ve always been. I remember even as a kid thinking that the idea of one and only one partner didn’t make very much sense. Why should the fairy-tale princess need to pick one of her two suitors?

Princesses live in castles; everyone knows this. A castle has plenty of room for both of them, right?

My first relationships were always non-monogamous, even though I didn’t have the word “polyamory” back then. I took two people to my high school senior prom, and I lost my virginity to my best friend’s girlfriend, with his knowledge. Looking back, the three of us were struggling toward what would now be called a “V” relationship, though at the time we didn’t really have the language or the models to put to it.

That was actually something of an ongoing problem while I was trying to learn how to navigate around this relationship stuff–I knew that the normal way of doing relationships didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I didn’t have any models for what I was trying to do, and didn’t know anyone else who was trying to do the same things. As a result, I ended up making quite an astonishing number of very basic mistakes. Experience is a good teacher, but the tuition tends to be very high. Had anything like a poly community existed back then, I might still have some folks in my life today who are not part of my life any more.

My GOODNESS you’ve got a big… website *wink*. When did you get started with it and what caused you to start writing it?

The first iteration of the poly Web site went up in August of 1999.

The Web site originally didn’t start out to be poly-related at all. A former business partner and I had founded a small-press magazine called Xero magazine, and in 1996 we set up a Web site for the magazine, hosted on his brother’s server. The site gradually started to expand past its intended function; in 1998 I added my own personal section to it, which had a gallery of black and white photography, and in 1999 I added sections on BDSM and polyamory.

It’s kind of spread out a bit since then. I’ve been adding new sections to it ever since; the last new page in the poly section went up two weeks ago. It’s the Web equivalent of the city of Atlanta–the result of years of unrestrained urban sprawl. Not as many pot holes as Atlanta, but a lot more typos.

My original goal in writing it was to provide the kind of information I wished I’d had access to when I first started trying to make non- monogamy work. That’s still the goal–to provide a practical, hands- on toolkit for getting multiple relationships to succeed, without the paganism, New Age spirituality, or Tantric sex mysticism I tend to see on other poly-related sites. (That’s not a criticism of any of those things, mind; it’s just that they have nothing directly to do with polyamory.)

I think that when a person becomes deeply involved in two or more subcultures, there can be a tendency to conflate them; a person who is pagan and also polyamorous might see the two as being connected when really they’re not. A person can be polyamorous without being pagan, or pagan without being polyamorous. My site has a lot of information on a wide range of different things–BDSM, transhumanism, and so forth–but these things aren’t related to polyamory, and a person who’s interested in polyamory doesn’t have to be interested in them as well.

Two of the sections of the site were originally created for presentations that Cherie ve Ard and I did at the Florida Poly Retreat a while back.

You’re quite publicly involved with the polyamory community. What got you started with it and why?

For many years, I was married to a woman who did (and still does) identify as “monogamous.” This presented some unique challenges on top of the challenges of being polyamorous in a culture where polyamory is not the norm, and of trying to figure out how to make things work without having anyone else in a similar situation to talk to.

After we’d moved to Tampa, I got an email inviting me to a meeting of a group called PolyTampa. One of the founders of PolyTampa had seen my Web site and noticed we were fellow Tampa residents.

PolyTampa is, to my knowledge, one of the oldest poly groups in the country. It ad originally been founded as a gay and lesbian poly support group; the original founders were active in the gay and lesbian community.

The first meeting of PolyTampa we attended was also attended by someone I’d known peripherally from the science fiction fandom community, but never been formally introduced to. That’s really what kept me going (and she and her family are still close friends of mine as a result, to this very day).

PolyTampa has gone through several iterations since then. As the gay and lesbian community became less hostile to polyamory, the original “core group” of people gradually fell away, and it became a support group for poly folks of all stripes. For several years, I was one of the regular hosts for the group, which at the time tended to meet in members’ homes. More recently, as people have found it easier to connect with other poly folks in online forums, PolyTampa has become less of a support group, and today it’s more of a social group. I moved away from Tampa a couple years ago, but PolyTampa is still active.

I met a number of my current friends through PolyTampa including Cherie; she and her partners at the time were highly involved in poly activism, and in one way or another have been instrumental in the formation of a number of poly groups and events. Getting involved as an active part of the poly community seemed like a natural extension of the Web site.

If there’s just one thing that you think a poly person should grok and practice, what would that be?

“Just because I feel bad doesn’t mean someone else did something wrong.”

Seriously. If there were one rule of life with even greater power for good than the Golden Rule, that’d be it.

In any relationship of any type, polyamorous or not, shit happens.

There will be times when folks feel threatened or insecure; there will be things that happen that make folks feel bad. One thing that tends to happen when someone feels threatened or insecure or otherwise experiences negative emotions is that it becomes easy to point to other people and say “You did this! You caused me to feel this way! You have wronged me!”

A lot of people in the poly community will say that feelings are always valid. I’m something of a heretic; I don’t believe that’s true. You feel what you feel, and trying to force yourself to feel something different doesn’t work…but that doesn’t mean that the feeling is “valid.”

What I mean by that is that sometimes, the things we feel aren’t telling us the truth. We may feel threatened by things that are not really a threat; we may feel unloved or unwanted when in reality we are loved and cherished. When you’re in the grip of some negative emotion, it can be very, very difficult indeed to tell yourself that the things you’re feeling aren’t necessarily based in fact, and you’re not necessarily feeling these things because someone has wronged you. But keeping those ideas in mind can help you to deal with the negative feelings in positive and constructive ways, and work toward resolving whatever is lying at their root, rather than lashing out that the people around you or trying to control their behavior to steer them around your own emotional triggers.

The PolyWorks Fund Charity is really taking shape and we’re in the process of starting the site now.

We know that the polyamory community is full of talented, creative people and so, we’re going to ask for a little help and ask for a logo donation.

We need an original logo for the org that is:

1. Easily reproducible in print and on a website.
2. Gives a feeling of sturdy capability. (The name of the charity is PolyWorks Fund, after all, so we’re a workin’ charity).
3. Is not limited to the infinite heart motif one often sees in the polyamory community. While hearts are popular, thinking outside the box for this one is a good idea.

PolyWorks Fund is organized for polyamorous people to unite as a positive force within the global community by giving time, energy, and monetary support to the various needs of people throughout the world.

Send submissions to goddessofjava@polyamorousmisanthrope.com with the subject line: “PolyWorks Fund Logo Submission”. Please make sure that submissions are in .jpeg, .tif, or .gif format for the selection process.

Chosen submission will become the property of the PolyWorks Fund including but not limited to reproduction rights and sales rights. The artist of the chosen submission may keep copies for portfolio purposes. Unselected submissions will not be returned to the artist. Submissions that are not chosen remain the intellectual property of the artist and will not be reproduced nor sold by the PolyWorks Fund.

Deadline for Submissions is February 1, 2008.

A lot of poly people turn to online groups for support in their poly lives.

As one of the co-founders of one such group, do I think they’re a good thing?

Of course!

Thing is, it’s a good idea to understand the limits of what an online support group is good for and what it’s not.

Polyamory, by its very nature, is just awfully intimate. The problems and issues that arise in poly situations are often about as close to the heart and the vulnerable spots as you’re able to get. When you get that close in, you start getting into things that are messy, private, and often just plain don’t show human nature in its best light.

The Internet, by its very nature, is public, it’s dynamic and can feed explosions. You post to a support group online and you’re very much jumping into the unknown. There may be thousands of people reading your words, even if the group feels cozy and intimate.

These are things you will not find in a good online support group:

Instant Validation of All Feelings

Don’t go to an online support group expecting that you’ll be petted and treated with kid gloves. If you need that, you want an in-person group, and will probably have to pay for it. It’s okay to need it, but even the fluffiest of online support groups is going to have someone who isn’t so fluffy. Online is a bad place to go when you’re feeling fragile.  And yeah, I do feel fragile from time to time, just like the rest of the world.  I talk to my friends, my family, and if it’s really bad, a professional counselor when it happens.

Privacy

I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone. Even a closed forum where one must be approved by a moderator to join isn’t very private. If it’s an open forum, this means when you complain about a love and what said love does, said love might wind up reading it. Then it’s possible to get one of those lovely catfights where everyone’s jumping in. If that’s your kink, okay. But if you’re looking for real solutions, that may not work out so well.

A horde of people to validate your virtue in a situation

I cannot count the times I’ve seem someone who clearly wanted to be told that she (it’s usually “she”, but “he” isn’t exactly unheard of) is the poor innocent victim and that everyone should start doing what she wants because she’s so sweet and nice and self-sacrificial only to turn into Medusa when it turns out that not everyone agrees with her take on the situation.

Validation that your situation is unique, special and that no-one’s ever encountered something like this before.

If you have spent more than five years watching people spill their guts on a polyamory discussion group, you have seen it all before. More than likely, you’ve done some of the stupid shit that’s being posted about, too!

Things to look for in an online support group:

People who’ve been there and done that

You want that. People learn best from experience. Bonus points if someone says, “Oh God, I fucked up like that once and here’s what happened to me…” There are online support groups for Polyamory in general, group marriages, monogamous/polyamorous pairings, poly and almost any kink you can think of… You’re sure to find some relatively sane and sensible people for reality checks in almost any poly situation. If most people in the group are into theory and there aren’t a fair whack of them who have been living poly, it’s probably not a useful support group. Beware the social engineers!

A willingness to deliver a reality check

The whole point of getting involved in a community is for the reality check, after all. If you never ever get questioned or called on anything you say, you’re not involved in a useful or growth-producing environment. While I don’t think the “stick of grandmotherly kindness” is something that needs to be hauled out at every instance, a gentle, “Are you sure X is gonna work out for you?” should come up frequently when you ask a question or present a situation. 100% agreement at all times means you might as well be talking to a mirror.  If someone points out that they don’t think a situation is healthy, it’s worth examining.  If fifty people say the same think, it’s worth hauling out the microscope to examine in detail.  (Please not I do not say that one should automatically heed advice in support groups.  I use the word “examine” on purpose because ultimately you are the only true judge of how to live your life.  You’re only looking for advice and ideas, not direction).

A feeling that the group is mostly “sane”.

This is subjective and that’s okay. If you get the sense that the people are nuts, and not in a good way, you don’t need their advice.

Keep in mind, though, an online support group is not a substitute for real-life interaction. You don’t want to dump your social network in “real life” because you’re so excited to have found a group of people that understand your unique situation. There have been many studies that show that the online communities, while a great boon to some forms of social networking, have really taken a toll in how tolerant we are of people who are different from ourselves. You might have your online group, but keep your face to face friendships. It’s all necessary.

An article has zipped around the polyamory community in the past week. An advice columnist answered a letter from a polyamorous reader. A lot of people didn’t like the answer the columnist gave. No, I’m not going to sound off about it. What I want to do today is talk a bit about my own hopes for when you in the poly community choose to make your voice heard on issues. In our culture of instant communications, we get responses quickly to almost anything we put out there. Email makes feedback easy and fast. Now, I think this is great, but I also think there’s a drawback. I mean, who hasn’t shot out an off-the-cuff email in a fit of pique that you wish you hadn’t? When you respond to people in the media about polyamory, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:

1. The person is likely to know dick about polyamory.The Dan Savages of the world are the exception, not the rule. Expect your mainstream journalist to be mainstream. The mainstream is not well-educated about Polyamory.
2. If you respond at all you will make a strong impression The polyamory community isn’t very big. If you respond, instead of being one of hundreds of letters, you’ll be one of dozens at most. Perhaps in time this will change, but the pool of poly people that spend a lot of time speaking up on issues is still small.
3. If you want a polyamory to be seen in a positive light, you must present yourself positively. I’m sure this isn’t really necessary, but if you’re going to write someone in the media about how poly was portrayed, be a grown-up about it. No name-calling, no insults to intelligence or education. Be polite. Be well-spoken/written. Pretend you think grammar, punctuation and spelling count, even if you don’t. If you’re writing a writer, nothing will make you look like an idiot faster than a poorly-spelled, badly-punctuated vituperative block of invective. Save that kind of thing for the warm up, but let your final draft be calm, factual, kind and reasoned.

We’re in a unique and exciting position in the poly community right now. We have a lot of power to influence how poly is perceived. Isn’t that cool?

Me? I think it’ll be good for all of us if we use that power wisely.