--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I'm going to springboard off of something said here
recently to a subject which I've never noticed come
up before.
McCain has already been accused of an affair with one of
his staff members. ...
Similar tastes in women of the great lover of adultery,
Bill Clinton. King of Adultery.
Ok, the subject is not McCain or Clinton or politics.
It's about that word 'adultery,' and about a partic-
ular point of view about sex and sexuality and rela-
tionships, and the pervasiveness of this point of
view in the culture.
We've had discussions of homosexuality here before,
and those were interesting, revealing that not every-
one shares Maharishi's Better to be dead view on
that subject. And the issue of adultery or infidelity
or cheating on one's Significant Other does come up
from time to time, but everyone just lets it slide as
if there were nothing to challenge in looking down at
such things.
Here in Spain I know a few people who are actively
into 'poliamor' -- in English, 'polyamory.' Some are
single, some are married, but they're all into open
relationships.
Note that polyamory does NOT mean swinging. There
are couples who each have other relationships with
other people -- and sometimes more than one -- but
they are *committed* relationships. Everybody knows
everybody else, and is comfortable with the whole
scene. There are even instances of threesomes or
foursomes having and raising kids.
It's been an eye-opener for me, even though I grew
up during the Hippie era and basically practiced this
lifestyle for some years...I just never had a name for
it before. :-)
So I thought I'd bring it up here as a topic for con-
versation. I know that Maharishi's view and the TMO's
view on relationships is Pretty Damned Traditional,
if not downright puritanical. In casual conversation
around this forum, relationships have pretty much been
assumed to be one-on-one, with fidelity held in high
esteem and infidelity held in low esteem.
I have no dog in this fight, if it turns out to be one.
I have been in committed relationships in which fidelity
was assumed, and I have never once violated that assump-
tion. I have also lived at times a fairly polyamorous
lifestyle, with multiple committed relationships going
on at the same time, everyone knowing about everyone
else. Both approaches have had their ups and their downs,
and I honestly see no inherent winner in either approach.
Both have their arguments for, and against, and both
sets of arguments are strong.
I'm just interested in hearing what this intelligent
group of people has to say on the subject. What do you
THINK of the polyamory approach, to being free to have
committed sexual relationships with more than one person
at a time?
I'm sure it could work for some people, but for most, they would have
too much emotional investment to make this a comforting, loving type
of thing.
In many situations, for people who aren't ready for the emotions that
can arise...can be dangerous.
I once knew a woman, when she was younger, was in a situation where
her friend had herself as well and another friend,
In other words they had a ongoing threesome.
Not sure why, or all the details, but the guy in this relationship
ended up commiting suicide by hanging himself, and this girlfiend
found him.
She has never gotten over this completely, and is an advoctae for
respecting the idea of playing with fire, you might get very burnt.
R.G.
