Re: [UUPoly-L] Poly in the news

[Cynthia Armistead <cyn@technomom.com>]

GAH - get it off! Geit it off! I don't want to be associated with Raelians!
Oooooo!

I have so many problems with Vorlihon's "open letter" (aka "grab for media
attention") that it's hard to know where to start. For one thing, current
usage generally uses the term adultery, as opposed to fornication or
extramarital sex or some other term, to carry negative connotations, like
this definition from Princeton's WordNetWeb: extramarital sex that willfully
and maliciously interferes with marriage relations *"adultery is often cited
as grounds for divorce" (
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=adultery)*. Volihon's claim
that it is "natural" is ridiculous - most of the people I know do NOT engage
in adultery, whether nor not they engage in extramarital sex.

The remarks about Elin Nordegren being jealous are way out of line. We don't
know if or how jealous she is, but it's clear that her trust has been
violated.

I definitely agree with Gordon that Woods failed in terms of having "done
responsibly" by anyone. His wife and at least some of his lovers have been
hurt. The scrutiny surrounding him does not in any way preclude honesty.

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Stacey Greenstein <stacey.nj@gmail.com>wrote:

> Yes, but how much of that is because he didn't have the support (or
> knowledge/understanding) to do poly responsibly? Did he only have the
> societally accepted choices: Be monogamous, or cheat. That's what society
> teaches. Had he had the support of a poly-positive community, would he have
> made different choices? If he wouldn't have done anything different, he's a
> cheater. If he would have done differently, he's a struggling poly. IMHO.
>

Nonsense. I don't know anyone who has had the support of a poly-positive
community, yet I know people who have "done" poly responsibly. How do you
explain these people? How do you explain me, and presumably you, and however
many people are here with us? I'm sure none of us can lay claim to
perfection, but unless someone hails from a paradise that I don't know
about, we're all living in a real world that is holding onto a  monogamous
ideal that works out to serial monogamy most of the time.

>
> I wonder how many famous-like people who come out publicly and say they
> "cheated" on their spouse, do it only because the public found out they had
> these extra relationships, and how many actually had reasonable poly
> relationships that they had to keep quiet from their peers because
> educating
> their peers would take too much away from the other work they had to do.
> Can
> a politician or a sports figure or an actor have a chance at a successful
> poly relationship in today's social climate, and have that relationship
> found out by the public, and have that relationship and their career
> survive? It's questions like these that give me some degree of sympathy for
> these outed "cheaters".
>

How many of us have access to the resources those famous-like people have?
It isn't that I want to live their lives, because I really wouldn't be
willing to trade my privacy for material wealth - BUT most of the made their
choices and fought to get where they are. I'm not about to pity them. They
can afford travel to see LDRs much more easily than most of us, to note just
one little detail that comes to mind!

I figure that if Tiger Woods is a "struggling poly" he's a reasonably smart
guy, and at any point in time he could have done a little research on how to
deal with multiple relationships. If he did so, he would have found one of
the many, many web sites about polyamory. We would have been here for him,
right? It's so easy to set up an anonymous-enough email account that he
could have done it at any time. Heck - he has enough money that he could
have bought the closest thing to true anonymity you can get (although I
figure he would have been better off to just get a gmail account and keep it
low key).

As far as we know, he didn't do that. It's unlikely that we'll ever know,
though. That's one reason I've mostly ignore the whole Tiger Woods
kerfluffle, other than vaguely thinking that this must really be horrible
for his wife and kids.

Cyn
http://technomom.com/