Re: [UUPoly-L] Too many circles, etc.

["Laura Stewart" <mathlaura@gmail.com>]

On 12/5/06, David Hall <airsafe1@comcast.net> wrote:
> <Whoa, "Destroy the sense of poly". Them's strong words.
>
> <-Laura
>
> Think for a moment if poly meant only close friendships without sex. Why
> would our culture give a damn? It is only because we have sex with more than
> one at a time that we are condemned, and thus have support groups, lists,
> magazines and organizations to educate others and comfort each other.

Have you ever observed the condemnation that people get for any family
structure that does not involve one married couple and their genetic
or legally-adopted-as-children relatives?  Observe the family
structure of a couple, their children, their best friend who intends
to live with them forever and is considered a co-parent to their
children, and look again at society only condemning sex in the issue
of non-traditional family structures.

Having said that, I rather think this is a tangent.

> I do not need these things to explain why I have a lot of close, platonic
> friends. Nobody else cares who I have lunch or dinner with, only who I have
> sex with. Polys (and swingers and cheaters) are dangerous only because of
> the sex. So John is very correct, as usual.

Do you need to explain why you have close, platonic friends that you
would never move, or make a large financial decision, or choose to
have children, or plan your life without consulting and accomodating?

I bet you have to explain that a lot more than you have to explain why
you have a friend whom you have dinner with, have sex with, and then
go home from; mostly because more people would notice the live-in
life-partner friend than the non-live-in secondary OSO.

Now, those of us (including myself) who don't have any non-sexual
romantic or life partners can take our ball and go home with the term
"polyamory", but I think doing so does a disservice to language as
description, as it is a term which I believe is quite descriptive of
SOME possible non-sexual relationship structures.  The same cannot be
said of those trying to use "platonic" to describe both intense
romantic life-partners and their dinner-and-drinks buddies.

-Laura