“Primary” and “Secondary” September 29, 2008

Lately, the terms ‘primary’ and ’secondary’ have been popping up rather more often than usual in the Poly blogosphere (at least in the part of it that I read) as well as in some of the recent discussions I’ve had with people in the community.

In essence, I understand the usefulness of the terms ‘primary’ and ’secondary’. Not always, but often enough, a polyamorous setup will include one pair that has had a longer relationship with each other than with any of their other partners, and this older relationship will include shared finances, kids, property, etc. Often, but again, not always, this relationship will have started out monogamous and then become polyamorous over time. With the shift to poly will have come some questioning and reassessing of the time spent by the original couple with each other, shifts in responsibilities, and adjustments of different kinds within the relationship, all of which will have been dealt with in whatever way seemed best to the couple at the time. One way of dealing with it is to set up the original relationship as the ‘primary’ relationship and to count all other relationships as ’secondary’.*

On the face of it, that’s pretty reasonable – the older relationship seems the most ‘real’ or even ‘grown up’ one given the presence of financial investments in housing and other kinds of property, shared living space, shared family, shared children, shared goals, and the mutual support that all of this entails. This casts a newer relationship as less ’serious’ because the people involved are only just starting out and can’t really say for sure whether it’ll last or end up filed as a pleasant diversion. The amount of time invested in each relationship is also (usually) in proportion to the number of places where the lives of each pair intersect – the more points of contact, the more time given to (and needed by) the relationship. This then also leads to the conclusion that the first relationship – the primary in this case -  is more important, more worthwhile, more permanent, more serious, etc. than the second – or secondary – relationship.

This bugs me for a number of reasons – some of which I realize are specific to me and my situation. I’m sure the above can and does work for many people and I don’t mean to imply that there’s something inherently wrong or bad with they way they do things. It’s just not, I’m beginning to understand, the way I want to do it.

First of all, in this kind of situation, one relationship will always be older than the other, but I think casting one as less serious and one as more based solely on that is a mistake. Eventually (however far down the track) I think the relative ages of the relationships in question cease to matter very much. Using the sibling analogy, there’s a bigger gap between a two-year-old and a four-year-old than between a twelve-year-old and a fourteen-year-old; by the time they’re reach twenty-two and twenty-four, the gap has shrunk even more, and so on. Each relationship grows and matures at its own pace, but, assuming it lasts, it does get there.

Another thing that puts me off the terms ‘primary’ and ’secondary’ is the implication that one must maintain this dichotomy and pull back if the ’secondary’ relationship starts to stray into ‘primary’ territory. Privileging one relationship over the other, while perhaps reasonable at the outset, can soon start to limit the ’secondary’ relationship unfairly. Obviously, not all relationships automatically bloom into always-and-forever type scenarios, but assuming a connection that feels lifelong is made, I don’t think it makes sense to deliberately stop it from developing. As I understand it, the whole point of polyamory is the ‘many loves’ idea, ie, the freedom to have multiple committed relationships. A primary-secondary setup seems, to my mind, to limit that unnecessarily.

Speaking of privilege, there’s also the assumption that primary partners have a say in each other’s secondary relationships. Again, while that may make sense at the beginning when you’re only just beginning to figure out your desires and boundaries – and is probably very useful in some cases – I don’t think it’s sustainable in the long term. Once begun, relationships can and do take on a life of their own and are intensely personal and specific to the individuals involved. Interference from a third party is just that: interference. To give a third party veto power over the relationship after a certain point is grossly unfair as well as disrespectful to all involved.

No two relationships are identical so you can’t really expect them to be equal in all respects, but you can value each for what it is. Terms like ‘primary’ and ’secondary’ are unnecessarily limiting and impose a structure that may not actually suit the nature of either relationship. I’ve heard over and over that each relationship finds its own level* and I have found that to be true. Sometimes, relationships move levels quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes not at all. And sometimes they end up at the same level quite unexpectedly and it can be something of a challenge to figure out how to make it all work. But I’d rather have the challenge than put relationships into artificial cages and not allow them to grow as they will.

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*That may be a quote or a paraphrase from The Ethical Slut.

No Big Deal May 8, 2008

Another post by Greta Christina on the Blowfish Blog. This one’s about the importance and effect of non-monogamy in relationships, even if said non-monogamy is mostly theoretical. A quick quote.

Which brings me to the best thing about non-monogamy. For me, anyway. When you’re not monogamous, you realize that not every single person you’re attracted to is someone you’d seriously like to fuck if given the opportunity.

Also, check out Greta Christina’s blog for her other writing, particularly her stuff on atheism.

Jenny’s Open Book April 23, 2008

Writer and journalist (and wonderfully supportive, positive person) Jenny Block has a new book coming out in June called Open: Love, Sex & Life in an Open Marriage (Seal Press, 2008). According to her website, in her book,

Block explores the nature of the open relationship, why it works for her, why it makes sense for her and her husband, and why it makes so many people uncomfortable. This is not a memoir of cheating and regret, nor is it a glorification or cure-all. It’s a frank discussion of a practice that’s more common and popular than most people are willing to acknowledge. Open also touches upon swinging (which Block doesn’t do), polyamory (she is currently in a polyamorous situation with her existing relationships), and the various ways in which open marriage works for different couples.

One of the quotes on her website also points out that Jenny is part of only a minuscule group of women who write about their sexuality under their own names. While it is sad that so many of us even in the blogging world (myself included) find it necessary to shield ourselves behind pseudonyms, I am glad that there are people like Jenny out there who have the guts (and the freedom) to lay claim to their own stories, good or bad.

The first chapter of the book is available as a PDF here. I read it recently and had to stop halfway through to go tell Jenny how spot-on I thought she was in her analysis of the conflicting messages imparted to girls. The way she does it is wonderful as well. She uses her own story extensively – the book is, after all, about her own experience – but she relates it to the larger experience of growing up female in a certain strata of society (in global terms). In doing that, she nevertheless avoids solipsism and turns out what I think will prove to be an extremely relevant exploration of a subject that, as her website points out, everyone seems to think about but nobody actually addresses head on. I, for one, am glad she’s stepped up to the challenge and I look forward to reading her book as soon as it comes out.

Freaksexual March 25, 2008

Freaksexual is a wonderful blog I found (via Bitchy Jones) in which Pepper deals intelligently and accessibly with issues surrounding polyamory and sexuality. The entries are more essays than posts but please don’t let their length put you off. They’re excellent reading regardless of how well acquainted you are with polyamory, but they’re particularly valuable if, like me, you’re just starting out with this whole non-monogamy thing. You could start with the latest post or start at the beginning or however you do it, but I’d recommend you make reading “Polyamory is not about the sex, except when it is” a priority either way.

And while we’re talking female sexuality March 20, 2008

I love Bitchy Jones, and not just because she knows how to use apostrophes properly. Her latest post, On Being Straight, talks about the routine subordination of female sexuality to male sexuality. Nobody’s going out of their way here: it’s just a given that women are not sexual except in relation to men and what gets the latter off.

I’m crosser even than usual, because this statement – viewed as a kind of meta – just it feels like such a perfect encapsulation of the way female sexuality is viewed by everyone from Freud up. The vagina accommodates what’s offered! Yeah, right. Female sexuality will basically adjust itself to meet the needs of whatever is being asked of it.

‘Cause as we all know female sexuality is all fluid and undefined.

Thus a sexually liberated woman will simply be open to anything. Any sexual experience at all. Being whatever is convenient. In a way that men are simply not expected to be.

In fact, it often feels like if you are a woman who is sex positive you are required to be an adventuress, constantly searching for new things that might turn you on. You are required not to rule anything out or you’re not really playing the game. And ruling out the sex with women? How lame.

….

And it’s even worse if you’re poly too. The poly default is that it is about the woman in the obligatory couple exploring her bisectshuality. Hence the eternal quest for the hot bi babe to make the triangle complete. But you don’t have to be a bi woman to be a poly woman. It can just be about getting more dick.

She then speaks specifically about the BDSM subculture and while I’m not personally involved in it, I find everything she says relevant and applicable to wider sexual practices.

Oh and I also love Bitchy Jones because she says things like this:

If crashing waves really did feel like orgasms we’d all be at the beach.

“Gay” February 23, 2008

I was about eleven years old when my father brought home his usual copy of Newsweek. Per our custom, he handed it over to me and off I went to read it. I was vaguely aware, as I was leaving, that my mother had made an indignant-sounding noise that my father had countered with a mild, pacifying one. I paused to see if the magazine was going to be taken away, but nothing happened. Ah, blessed inaction.

When I got to my room and flopped on the bed, I saw what had probably upset my mother. On the cover was a couple, fully clothed, but in a pose that was unequivocally intimate. And they were both men. One had his back to a wall and had one or both hands on the other man’s waist, while the other was leaning over him, his wrist and forearm resting casually on the wall. They were staring right into each other’s eyes, faces inches apart. I had never seen a man look so tenderly, intimately, passionately at another man.

I cannot explain the sudden surge of joy I felt when I saw that. I wanted to cry with relief – I think I might have, I’m not sure. All I remember is that I also wanted to dance around my room and tell the whole world about this wonderful thing I’d seen. I felt good. I felt happy. I felt like everything was going to be alright. And I had no real idea why.

I didn’t really understand the story either. All about ‘Gay Pride’ and a ‘gay march’ and ‘gay men’. I’m sure the word homosexual was in there somewhere, which I also didn’t understand other than getting that it had something to do with sex. So I asked my mother.

She blinked. Paused. Exhaled. All signs of her preparing to lie to me. “Happy people,” she said. Now I was completely confused. Surely that couldn’t be it? They didn’t look unhappy, so maybe she was right, but it couldn’t just be that. On the other hand, why shouldn’t that be it? I was glad they were happy because some part of my brain reasoned that if they could do it, so could I.

I am unutterably grateful that my mother’s fear of addressing sexuality kept her from explaining homosexuality to me because not only was she unable to feed me canned homophobia, she inadvertently implied that there was nothing wrong with being ‘gay’. Her discomfort with my question made it clear, though, that this Was Not To Be Talked About, so I didn’t. I didn’t really mind not talking about it. I was too busy feeling vindicated and triumphant for weeks afterwards, though at the time I couldn’t have explained that either.

Some part of me must have understood though. I’d always fantasized about women so, I figure, seeing those men on that cover must have told me – thanks to the knack girls have for identifying with both female and male ‘characters’ – that it was ok for women to do the same thing. I couldn’t wait to grow up and get out there.