June 2013
ModernPoly: Marriage
ModernPoly: Marriage
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“Children of Polyamory: A Story from a 1970’s Group Marriage”
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“To Love and to Cherish”
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“The Need for Poly “Poly Privilege and the Importance of Marriage” Shared Struggle”
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“Straight, Gay, or PolyShould Government be in the Marriage Business?”
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“Toward Marriage “An Informed Equality and Polyamory Sharing the Movement” Spotlight”
Children of Polyamory: A Story from a 1970’s Group Marriage High-profile polygamy cases in Canada and the United States, two imminent United States Supreme Court decisions involving gay marriage, and the accelerated erosion of manwoman marriage restrictions across continents and hemispheres have conspired to bring the prospects for legal multi-partner marriage into the public discourse. Over the next several days we’ll be posting a five-article issue of the ModernPoly e-zine organized around this discourse, including perspectives on its precedents, its implications, and its contexts. In particular, the family and social implications of multiple marriage are not without precedent. In this opening essay, Laird Harrison shares his experiences growing up in a household that, at the time, defied description.
One day in the summer of 1971, my parents held hands, closed their eyes, and jumped out of their conventional marriage into something strange and new. I was 9 years old at the time, and we were camping at Betsy Lake in the High Unitas Wilderness with another family of five. We were halfway into the camping trip when the six of us kids realized our parents had mixed and matched: My father was in the tent with their mother, and their father was in the tent with my mother.
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No sound came from either tent that morning. I remember the smell of mosquito repellent. I remember gray ripples in the lake, squirrels scrambling up pine bark and us kids nervously discussing. I remember trying to believe my life hadn’t shot off its safe, predictable tracks. It had. We began seeing the other family at least once a week; one of my parents spent each Sunday at their house and one of theirs at mine. And then we all moved in together. The arrangement felt uncomfortable, if only because no one else’s parents were doing anything like it. One day, as I lay reading on my bed, the girls from the other family came in the front door with moving boxes in their arms. That night, the adults erected a screen to separate the dining room from the living room. In place of our dark varnished table and our buffet with its china and silver appeared a king-size bed. Downstairs, the salt-andpepper sofa and the desk where my father tracked investments gave way to bunk beds for two of the girls. Over the next few days, my brother and I learned to grab for our bathrobes when our new sisters slipped through our room in the morning on the way to the toilet. They learned to duck behind closet doors when we passed through their bedroom on our way upstairs. Fiction about the 1970s — including “The Ice Storm” and the “Swingtown” TV series — typically depicts such experiments as frivolous and irresponsible. “How could they have done this to you?” my wife still asks me. It’s true that boredom was an element of my parents’ motivation. It’s also true that the arrangement embarrassed me in front of my friends, and that it threw me off balance at a nervous time of my life. But behind that — at least sometimes — lay an idealism that has disappeared from the public recollection. My parents saw themselves as part of a movement, promulgated in visionary writings like Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock.” The idea was that an adult could simultaneously maintain more than one intimate relationship as long as all the partners agreed. But my parents didn’t take a public stance. They kept their sex lives to themselves, and they never suggested I should want to follow their example. The communal household enjoyed a kind of camaraderie I have never felt
June 2013
since. I liked the party we made when all of us kids sat down to watch “Hogan’s Heroes” or danced to the soundtrack from “Cabaret.” Over the next two years, I swapped books with my stepsisters, listened in awe to their stories of crushes, exchanged tips on teachers. Their father imparted his love of great music and their mother her passion for cooking. A sort of bond formed among the 10 of us. I found out it was ending one day, after a tennis lesson, when my mother picked up my brother and me in her blue Dodge Dart with its painted butterflies. I knew from her silence something was wrong. She pulled into the parking lot of a drug store and sat for a moment. Without turning to face us, she said that the two families were splitting into separate households — but not in their original configurations. My father would live with the other woman, my mother with the other man. I didn’t ask for the story of the foursome’s disintegration. I guess I didn’t want to know all the details of the adults’ love lives. Instead I stared at the smudged upholstery of the seat in front of me, feeling in my stomach as though we had just driven off a cliff. Over the next few years, that falling sensation accelerated. My father married the other woman. The other man found a new lover and left my mother. I switched back and forth every six months between my parents’ households. For the first time in my life, my mother let me see her tears, while I hid mine. Divorce is commonplace now, but group marriage is still weird, almost incomprehensible to most people. Only recently have I overcome the shame that used to make me gloss over that period when I told new friends the story of my life. But now, when I think back, I can see it wasn’t the group marriage that cast a lasting shadow on my childhood; it was the divorce. For a few years I’d had something more than a family, then suddenly I had something less. And the loss was wrenching. I wanted to live with both my parents, and I missed whichever one was not there. This year, my youngest son entered high school and
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my older son went to college. Over the years of raising them, I’ve felt for myself the stress that our hyperindividualist culture puts on families. Few of us live with extended family; fewer and fewer of us know our neighbors, go to church, or belong to a social club. We measure success by the sizes of our houses and of our paychecks. We see child rearing as a lifestyle choice, not a community endeavor. But two grown-ups sometimes aren’t enough to pay the bills, to wipe the noses, to coach the soccer team and to listen to the stories of schoolyard bullying. After 21 years, my wife and I are still passionate about each other. I have no desire to engage in the sort of bold experiment my parents took on. But sometimes, even when all four of us are home together, our world feels too small, and I understand the hope with which my parents plunged blindly into uncharted love.
June 2013
Laird Harrison- Writer- Active Contributor Laird Harrison is a novelist and multimedia journalist. Harrison has written for Reuters new service, magazines such as TIME, Audubon and The Nation, newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Web sites such as Salon, MSNBC and CNN.com. He has produced video for websites including Smithsonianmag.com, and audio for WUNC radio. Harrison has taught writing at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley Extension and Mediabistro. Harrison grew up in Berkeley, California, and studied creative writing and politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He lives with his wife and their two sons in Oakland, California.
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June 2013
To Love and to Cherish The institution of marriage carries a range of meanings, and conveys a range of expectations, to families and friends as well as to ourselves. In the second installment of our issue on marriage, editor and contributor Heather Gentry talks about her own recent marriage and discusses poly marriage in the context of the present monogamous culture. I got married last October. Southern tradition dictates that weddings are quite a fanfare with family and food and traditions. But my husband and I celebrated our union by going to Savannah for four days– no ceremony, no wedding, no reception. We just exchanged rings in our home and signed papers at the courthouse. Simple, stressfree and private. The first question people asked when I got back was: "How's married life?" The answer was "Just the same as engaged life." (Then I joked to myself that since I'm poly, it's the same as single life too.) It is generally a big deal to get married, but it was not a big deal for my husband and I to get married because in all aspects, but legally, we already were married. In our hearts. In our minds. In our souls. After all the growing, changing, reassessing, questioning, arguing and making up, in the end (or more like the beginning) we committed to each other, and getting married before a judge was just a formality. To be poly and married in a mostly monogamous world is strange. People assume a lot. They assume you aren’t dating anymore. They assume you get jealous if someone finds your spouse desirable. They assume you don’t flirt with other people or tell your spouse about a new crush. It’s strange sometimes to walk around in a world where the rules you live by are so different from everyone else’s. But that’s just what it feels like to be a minority I guess. As a white woman born in 1986, I haven’t had to feel that much. The first question I get asked whenever people realize that I’m poly and married is: “Why did you get married in the first place?”
Well, I think part of it is just following our raising. We were raised to get married when we fell in love. Unlike me, ours was my husband's first marriage, and I think following that tradition was especially important for him. He wanted to experience it. Another reason is mostly practical– it’s just really hard to function in this world as an unmarried couple. There are so many things that marriage qualifies you for. It legalizes your relationship to the federal government and gives you access to all kinds of benefits and protections. Family health insurance. Tax breaks. Legal rights in crisis and death. It makes your partner your “default” person in the eyes of the government, so that you have rights to information, money and decisions that you wouldn’t otherwise have without that signed piece of paper. This special recognition is what same-sex couples are fighting for: that ability to designate their “default” person. It opens up your world in a practical way, but it’s also very gratifying to be “legal” in your own country and recognized by your own government. I believe it is something that opposite-sex monogamous couples take for granted. Getting married has not changed our status as polyamorous individuals. There is nothing that could change that. Sometimes I worry that being married might bother some future partners, but there are a lot of married poly couples. Like I said it’s the only way to function in the world. For truly poly people, it will
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not matter. They will know that I can love more than one person, and being legally married to one person will not change that. Being poly, I hope that getting married last year isn’t the last time I exchange vows. I hope that I find someone else or a couple someones to make this promise of forever to. Perhaps my husband will make that promise to those same people or maybe it’ll be different people. There are too many possibilities. I hope one day that my other partnerships will be legally recognized by the government. Once same-sex marriage is legal and the requirement for marriage to be only between one man and one woman is removed, I think the next natural step will be to challenge the number.
June 2013
Heather Gentry- Writer & EditorActive Contributor Heather Gentry is a polyamory and bisexuality activist work-in-progress. She tries to find fulfillment after her onehour commute from her secretary job in a small Southern city to her home in a small Southern town, but she usually just gets irritated by the volume of anti-tolerance, anti-diversity bumper stickers. She has one life partner and other relationships in the works.
Because of my non-traditional intentions for my marriage, I wanted to break from the conventional diamond solitaire with matching wedding band combination. I fell in love with a heart-shaped diamond solitaire long ago, so I broke tradition by adding our shared birthstone to the wedding band, which has four aquamarine stones. I hope one day to replace a couple of these stones with the birthstones of my other life partners. I don’t imagine I will want to have a wedding for those marriages either. It’s just not my thing. Too stressful, too much attention, too showy. So we might do the same thing, exchanging rings privately, signing papers. Hopefully, the papers will be actual marriage licenses and not just legal papers drafted by a polyfriendly lawyer. I will always cherish the day that I married my first poly husband because even though I’ll get married again, it will not be to my childhood best friend and no one will ever be him. Each relationship will be special and important, loving and accepting, open and honest, all held in our rings, our hearts, our souls, and our decision to join together.
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June 2013
Straight, Gay, or Poly- Should Government be in the Marriage Business? Social conservatives have long trumpeted the slippery slope to polygamy in their rails against marriage rights for gay couples. Poly progressive Martin Hine welcomes the comparison but steers it toward a different outlook altogether. Marriage should be based on love. The current Supreme Court cases regarding Proposition 8 and DOMA have the potential to transform the concept of marriage in this country. The oral arguments had people asking some difficult questions. Many were abstruse and legally nuanced, but one was simple and clear:
Can our society live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if we continue to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation? No? Then let's grease up that slippery slope. Why do we discriminate on the basis of non-monogamous orientation? Why aren't those arguing for marriage equality including marriage among multiple consenting adults as well? If the government has no power to discriminate against relationships involving two consenting adults of the same gender, then why does it have the power to discriminate against multiple consenting adults of any gender? Let’s also be willing to ask what purpose “marriage” serves today, and even if there’s a legitimate role for the State to play.
The recent debate only obliquely focused on Church vs. State prerogatives regarding "marriage", but this consideration is actually at the core of the issue. To understand where we are, it helps to know where we've been. On glancing back, we find that, originally, marriage was an economic and political arrangement with wives having fewer rights than the husband. Women were chattel and offspring were protected assets. Marriage largely developed as an institution to safeguard the transmission of property down a blood line. From the fall of the Roman Empire until the 16th century, the Church controlled the institution of marriage. They decided whether you would be allowed to marry.
The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century rejected the prevailing concept of marriage, when Martin Luther declared marriage to be "a worldly thing . . . that belongs to the realm of government". The English Puritans in the 17th century passed an Act of Parliament asserting "marriage to be no sacrament" and soon thereafter made marriage purely secular. It was no longer to be performed by a minister, but by a justice of the peace.
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June 2013
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Enlightenment thinkers advocated marrying for love rather than wealth or status.
The simple solution? Get government out of the marriage business.
And only in the late 19th and 20th centuries do wives achieve the voice to insist on being regarded as their husbands' equals, rather than their property.
Currently, a marriage ceremony performed in a U.S. church is recognized as conferring the civil rights of marriage. This needs to change.
By 1970, widespread use of contraception transformed marriage: Couples could choose how many children to have, and even to have no children at all. Marriage gradually become viewed as a personal contract between two equals seeking love, stability, and happiness.
As an example, in Mexico only civil marriages are recognized as legal.
And here we are today, with gay and lesbian couples claiming a right to be married, and critics warning that polygamy is just around the corner. These critics forget that the idea of marriage as a sexually exclusive, romantic union between one man and one woman is itself a relatively recent development. Perhaps it's time to ask whether we're on a slippery slope, or on a societal ascension, each step a deliberate advance toward a more just society. Harvard historian Nancy Cott notes that until two centuries ago, monogamous households were a tiny portion of the world population, found in just Western Europe and little settlements in North America. But because this is the predominant form of marriage in the U.S. today, the issue was raised at the Supreme Court.
In her questioning Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked: "If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?" She went on to wonder if the state could place "restrictions with respect to the number of people [that could marry each other]." If the government has no power to discriminate against relationships involving two consenting adults of the same gender, then does it have the power to discriminate against multiple consenting adults of any gender? We'll see what the Court decides.
Couples need to have 2 weddings (1 in the house of government and 1 in the house of God) if they want the religious implications. The transition in the U.S. could happen by substituting the term "civil union" for "marriage" in all legal documents and laws, while the term "marriage" would be made specific to religious and personal implications. The government would look to the civil union when interpreting legal and tax issues. Federal legislation might be needed to ensure that the rights conferred by a civil union performed in 1 state are recognized by all other states. Some religious denominations might elect to perform ceremonies for same gendered folks (e.g. the Holy Union performed by the Metropolitan Community Church), while others would not. Applying existing civil union law to unions of more than 2 consenting adults would be difficult. One proposed solution would be a legal structure similar to a Limited Liability Company, with additional contracts regarding medical care, child care, etc. Other solutions are in the works. At this moment one thing is certain: the concept of marriage in the U.S. will be in flux for some time.
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I predict the Supreme Court will rule narrowly (or not at all) on the specifics of the cases, and will not issue any sweeping opinions.
RUSH: Why? I don't understand. Why would you discriminate that way? What does the number matter when we're talking about love here?"
Most unfortunately, I think they will fail to clarify the unquestioned implications of the word "marriage".
Ditto, Rush. Why indeed?
This blind spot cropped up in this exchange with Rush Limbaugh on his 3/26/13 radio show:
"RUSH: Where does this freedom to do what you want stuff stop? CALLER: Well, I think if you were talking about like a three-party marriage...
A version of this essay originally appeared in the Chattanoogan. Martin Hine- Writer- Active Contributor Martin Hine is a progressive blogger, observing the changing political and social scene. He sees the breakthroughs in gay (and eventually polyamorous) rights as the next milestone in the human rights movement.
RUSH: Why? If you love one, you can love two. What if all three people love each other and they want the benefits and all that, who among us should deny those three people their love? CALLER: I think they can be loved, I just don't think you need to give it a legal status because ... RUSH: Why not? CALLER: Because two people would make a family, they could raise kids, adopt kids, do whatever they want, I don't think ... RUSH: Wait a minute. But why can't three people do that? You got a lot of love and what could possibly be wrong with that? CALLER: I think society's determined that two spouses, two people ... RUSH: Well, someday society is gonna evolve away from marriage by two people and could be three or four, and you're gonna oppose that then for some reason. You're gonna deny those people their love. CALLER: Yeah, I would. I would oppose that.
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June 2013
The Need for Poly Marriage While poly people and activists don’t give much credit to the apocalyptic projections of opponents of gay (and poly) marriage, we do recognize the nuances of expanding marriage to multiple partners. But these legalities are not without precedent, and the civil institution of marriage may be more flexible than we tend to give it credit for, argues polyamorous skeptic and lawyer Wes Fenza. In early June of this year, the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association held a three-day conference to advocate for legal recognition of their relationships. The conference was organized after a 2011 decision of the British Columbia Supreme Court upholding Canada's antipolygamy laws. While the case centered on a fundamentalist Mormon family practicing plural marriage, many polyamorous people felt that the decision had implications for polyamory as well. In fact, the decision found that the law does not apply to people practicing polyamory unless they get married to multiple people. The decision was touted as a victory by the CPAA, whose view echoes a common sentiment in poly communities namely - that poly marriage isn't something to worry about. In fact, even Mistress Matisse, a high-profile polyamory activist, published an article several months ago stating that “poly marriage is never going to happen,” arguing that working out the details would be too complicated and that most poly people don’t even want marriage anyway.
I’ve often run into the argument that poly marriage would be "too complicated" from a legal standpoint. While gay marriage easily fits into the existing marriage framework, marriage among multiple people would require a more complicated legal framework in regard to property, insurance, inheritance, decision-making, and related areas. However, an understanding of family law renders such arguments unconvincing. The courts routinely deal with complicated family situations. From a legal standpoint, in terms of inheritance, power of attorney, property ownership, and insurance coverage, having multiple
spouses is not all that different from having multiple children. In terms of alimony, equitable apportionment, child support, and parental rights, having multiple spouses is very similar to having multiple ex-spouses. Courts are adept at apportioning rights and obligations amongst multiple people, even in the most elaborate family structures. While, in theory, the problems posed by poly marriage to the legal system are manageable, Mistress Matisse is correct that it won’t be happening anytime soon. So what's a poly person to do? There are options. Many poly people form relationship corporations to hold joint property, where legally enforceable rights are granted to each shareholder. The other option, and the one I prefer, is contract. I'm married, and I'm engaged to a second partner. Next May, we'll be getting married, and my intention is to recreate as many of the legal aspects of marriage as possible. I'll be drawing up a will dividing my (meager) estate between my two partners. I'll be executing a document (which was recently made legal by the Affordable Care Act) which allows both partners to make medical decisions for me and visit me in the hospital. We may also come up with an agreement for how to handle things like property in the event of separation. Or we may not. One of the nice things about not having a legal marriage is we get to define the contours of our agreement without fitting them into a preexisting framework. While my family is not interested in group parenting, families have an option of drafting contracts regarding child care.
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Such contracts are not always legally enforceable, but can be used as evidence of the family’s intent if there is a dispute down the road..
June 2013
Wes- Writer- Active Contributor
Wesley Fenza is an attorney practicing in Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. He maintains a general litigation Unfortunately, there is no way to add my second partner to practice, and is hoping to expand his practice to help the my health insurance or to file taxes as a family. We won't polyamory community protect their rights, gain legal recognition for their relationships, and avoid discrimination. He be able to make loss of consortium claims, receive lives in South Jersey with his wife, his fiancé, her boyfriend, disability benefits for each other, or exercise any of the and his wife blogs with them at atheist, polyamorous skeptics.
other hundreds of privileges belonging to married couples. Without poly marriage, my relationship with my second partner will always be treated by the legal system as less important than my relationship with my first partner.
I agree with critics that poly marriage is a long way off, but it is a goal worth pursuing, and will eventually be a key step in recognizing the legitimacy of our relationships.
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June 2013
Poly Privilege and the Importance of Shared Struggle We opened this issue of the e-zine with a very personal tone and have hit societal and legal notes along the way. We wrap up the issue on a sociopolitical theme. Vanessa Carlisle and Lindsey Cristofani situate the poly marriage discussion, and critique poly advocacy in general, within a liberatory political context. Considering the fact that in twenty-two states it is still illegal to have sexual intercourse with a person who is not your spouse, one would think that more people who identify as poly would be interested in forming a loud and proud movement against state involvement in our families, sexualities, and intimate circles. How many poly parents with children fear being outed because well-meaning grandparents and social workers may want to "save" the kids from the pain of having non-normative families? What is a polyamorous person's relationship to the LGBTQI communities' struggles for legal rights and liberation from both intimate and state violence and oppression? Why aren't more heterosexual poly people voicing their support and allyship with trans* folks directly? Most importantly, why do the preceding questions seem to have very little to do with each other? It is possible, however uncomfortable, to slide through the mainstream without coming out as poly. Accordingly, many poly people simply omit their "lifestyle" from social or workplace conversations to spare the anxiety of explaining themselves to a potentially hostile audience. In this context we might liken ourselves to "stealth" trans* people who forego "opportunities" to educate others on heteronormativity and particularly cisnormativity. It is not an oppressed person's responsibility to educate their oppressor; someone being abused or erased by a dominant culture should be supported by allies instead of expected to fight alone, especially if their fight is constant. "Stealth" trans* people are perfectly within their rights to selfdetermination and practical self-care, and it seems that this logic implies that poly people are entitled to the same privacy rights. Passing-as-normal in any situation is a way to stay safe, so it makes sense to claim that all people deserve the right to stealth as they choose it.
However, this comparison poses a problem: polyamorous people are generally self-identified and usually have the option of being "stealth"—operating normatively in environments (government jobs, for example) where mononormative values are dangerously strong. Many trans* people, in contrast, do not experience this luxury of choice. A "stealth" trans woman or man, for instance, checking the appropriate "F" or "M" box on a document, can often only hope that they won't be "clocked" and asked to produce a compatible birth certificate. Even if they consistently pass, they face a constant risk of discovery and rejection. Cis privilege is highly provisional. Trans* people, by their very existence, challenge mainstream normative values of gender and sex. Consequently, People read as trans* will be required to "educate" their oppressors over and over, or suffer, whether they want to or not. While we agree with the logic of liberatory politics around the right to stealth, the comparison between trans* and poly lives has the unintended consequence of absolving poly people of the responsibility to complicate monogamy's cultural dominance. Despite the legitimate dread poly people may harbor about slut-shaming or public disgrace or even state intervention, being poly is, on the whole, nothing like being trans* in terms of vulnerability to employment and housing discrimination, incarceration, bodily violence, and premature death. These are terms that should be considered when we think of what it means to be trying to make the world "safer" for loving
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as we see fit. The world is already unsafe for many other bodies who have no option of returning to normative practices, while poly formations can always break up and go dyadic or solo. However painful our alternatives, we do have them. The structures of privilege remain slippery, however hard we push against them. We have heard poly people claim that their love has nothing to do with politics. Well, hoping the state leaves “us” alone and lets us love how we want sounds good, but it replicates the blindness of the 1970s white feminists who made claims for all women that left women of color baffled and alienated. Conceiving of the struggle for an end to stigma against nonmonogamy in isolation is a way to ignore the intersections of lived political experience in our greater community. For example, poly people of color can offer valuable critique on how polyamory depicts itself as a “diverse movement,” how heteronormativity is linked to white privilege, and what nonmonogamy might mean in non-white cultural contexts in the U.S., but again, people of color shouldn’t have to bear that educational responsibility alone. Nor should people with less financial stability, less gender privilege, and so on. Imagine a person living under the poverty line in an apartment with seven people, four of them sleep together, and they are trying to make rent and keep jobs and care for kids: are their concerns represented on ModernPoly? (Did you, reader, imagine those seven people as white? Black? A mixed bunch? Queer? How does your own racial/ethnic identity and/or gender identity affect your understanding of who else out there is “poly”?) It may seem that we imagine the majority of poly people to be relatively financially stable, uninterested in cumbersome political theory, heteronormative, and white. We are aware that Polyamory: Married and Dating works to uphold this notion. We worked on the show for critical public conversations about non-monogamous practices as part of a larger community of resistance, knowing that some folks would ignore all that and fast forward to the sex. Mainstream media talks down to us, but we hoped that at least some viewers would see past the form of the reality show and find our outstretched hands and open ears: we are trying to find you, we are trying to help you find who you want to find, not just to sleep with, not just to play with, but to listen, and to share in the struggle. What we imagine is that many of those who feel comfortable using the word “polyamorous” may not have
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been urged to think about how the struggle for healthy nonmonogamous relationships is tied directly to the struggles for healthy non-binary-gendered bodies, marriage “equality,” and greater representation of LGBTQI people in public spheres, much less how a poly consciousness could be in productive dialogue with those and so many other identifiable struggles against re/o-pressions. In other words, we believe in the model of a liberatory politics that takes as its foundation the selfdetermination of any person or group who suffers under state, cultural, or intimate oppression. However, we assert that we must add to that model the sobering and difficult work of recognizing differential privilege, and here specifically: undoing the silently self-congratulatory threads of a mostly-psychological poly “movement” that does not take up all sexual politics, racial/ethnic politics, class politics, gender politics, and all the others, as its arena of struggle. The current poly arenas of struggle seem to be dominated by concerns over interpersonal communication and media representation. Obviously we believe in struggling along those lines—but we also believe it is wrong for the big vision of “healthy non-monogamy” to perceive all poly problems as solvable through process talks, more meditation, or better TV. If polyamory is, at its core, grounded in the belief that people shouldn’t be treated as property, and that the capacity for love is infinite, then poly people are natural allies to those engaged in many other struggles, such as the movement against mass incarceration. Poly people are natural allies to trans* folks who want less state surveillance of their gender identity. Poly people can easily find themselves useful allies to labor struggles and anti-military campaigns, remembering that the employers and governments do not and should not own people. Instead of relying on safety through insularity, we could be offering our energy to larger communities who may benefit from the conversations about monogamy, competition, jealousy, and communication we can have so well. It’s dizzying, to think of the possibilities for crosspollination of ideas and practices, but isn’t imagining complexity one of the things we do best? The charge here: organize ourselves. Not only should we
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organize ourselves against the repressive forces of a patriarchal, marriage-as-property-transfer culture, but we should organize ourselves within and in solidarity with other anti-oppression groups, so that we can listen, learn, offer ourselves, and struggle for what we want, together. If that sounds like activism, it’s because it is. We are totally in favor of coming out in safe spaces and living out loud, but our standards are even higher: let’s demand the right for everyone to come out safely, for everyoneto live out loud, for everyone to have enough food on the table for the (alternative, queer, chosen, primary-secondary-tertiary, biological, anarchistic, whatever) family they love.
June 2013
Vanessa Carlisle and Lindsey Cristofani- Writers- Active Contributor Lindsey Cristofani (right) is a singer, rapper, poet, lover, fighter, and community organizer in Los Angeles with the InterCommunal Solidaity Committee. She’s working on getting in to law school. Lindsey appeared on Season One of Polyamory: Married and Dating on Showtime and her music can be found and loved at cristofanirocks.com.
Vanessa Carlisle (left) is a PhD candidate in USC’s Creative Writing and English Literature program. Her books, blog, and some poorly-lit iPhone photos of her can be found at gorgeouscuriosity.com. She appeared on Season One of Showtime’s Polyamory: Married and Dating, and she currently works with Break the Lock, a program dedicated to providing prisoner support and abolishing mass incarceration. View Lindsey’s ModernPoly profile here and Vanessa's here.
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Toward Marriage Equality and Sharing the Spotlight Same-gender marriage rights have occupied an international spotlight for several years. In the United States, which most of us at ModernPoly call home, we await what we hope will be a historic validation of civil liberties. Same-gender marriage rights have occupied an international spotlight for several years. In the United States, which most of us at ModernPoly call home, we await what we hope will be an historic validation of civil liberties. We speak in unison with organized polyamorists everywhere when we call for an end to arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on couples' access to marriage. In the midst of this cultural dialogue we and many others have taken up the issue of multi-partner marriage rights. The current issue of the ModernPoly ezine explored polyamorous marriage from several personal, social, and political viewpoints. Precedent is found for families of several loving parents, as well as thelonging for greater social acceptance. The case may be made to expand the pool of families eligible for this privileged legal status, or to eliminate it from the purview of the state altogether.
Finally, care is taken to highlight our hardest-hit and recognize our shared risk. We are unequally vulnerable, but equally responsible to each other. We need to have many conversations at once. The institution of marriage is characterized by a history of dramatic re-imaginings, compared to which gender equality is a modest proposition. More to the point, our (codified!) stigmas toward sex, gender, sexuality, and relating have long outlasted any purpose they might have served. We truly hope that the United States Supreme Court will—this morning or this week—make history, rather than delay it.
Cory- Volunteer Coordinator- Active Contributor Cory is a student and instructor ($) of mathematics, skeptical activist, social justice advocate, cyclist, and avid conversationalist living in the New River Valley. He helped start a local poly group in 2011 and has since participated in poly talks, panels, socials, and Freedom to Marry Day. He eagerly awaits the erosion of the asterisk after his state slogan.
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ModernPoly: Marriage
June 2013
An Informed Polyamory Movement Looking back on the week’s politics and the month’s e-zine, Angi untangles the roots of mononormativity.
It’s been a roller-coaster week for leftist politics. First, the Supreme Court devastatingly stripped the historic Voting Rights Act of much of its power, paving the way for states to move forward with passing voter ID laws that will disproportionately impact people of color. Then, Texas Senator Wendy Davis prevented her state’s omnibus anti-abortion legislation from being signed into law by heroically standing for the bulk of a 13-hour filibuster—a victory that never should have been necessary, but is worth celebration nonetheless. And then, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision overturning DOMA, a move which does not automatically grant all same-sex couples equal access to marriage but brings nationwide same-sex marriage a whole lot closer to reality. The VRA detoothing undoubtedly casts the DOMA repeal in a bittersweet light for LGBTQ people of color. And for feminist women, the victory in Texas was at once a terrific achievement and also a sobering reminder of just how desperately we’re forced to fight just to maintain basic bodily autonomy. In the space of days, there have been rewards for long struggles, and there have been reminders of the struggles that are still ahead. But what does any of this have to do with polyamory? Everything, when we recognize that all of the oppressive structures in our society are deeply entwined. Whenever a particular identity or behavior is frowned upon, prohibited, shamed, or repressed in our society, it’s because some people—people in positions of power—stand to benefit. None of these things happen in isolation; many of the same people are benefitting from patriarchy, from white supremacy, from classism, from heterosexism. And many of these things directly support and uphold one another. Patriarchy relies on heteronormativity to enforce a strict gender binary; for without that binary, how is it possible for clearly defined, hierarchical roles for men and women to exist? Both patriarchy and
heterosexism, in turn, rely on compulsory monogamy, because so many of our socially-mandated gender roles rely on traditional one man/one woman relationships and traditional nuclear families to reproduce gendered power relations. This is not to say that monogamous relationships or heterosexual relationships are in any way inherently patriarchal or non-egalitarian. But the enforcement of compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory monogamy in our society don’t just happen. They happen because they serve a purpose. It is no coincidence, for example, that the same society that wants to control a woman’s body by forcing her to continue a pregnancy also wants to control her body by policing her sexuality (and prohibitions on non-monogamy, after all, have always been far more about controlling the sexual behavior of women than that of men). The overturn of DOMA is a huge victory for gay and lesbian folks. Marriage equality matters. But it is not the only thing that matters. Too many queer and trans* people still lack equal access to housing and employment and health care, too many young queer and trans* people of color are living on the streets, and too many are victims of violence. Marriage equality is being championed now by democratic politicians only because they no longer have a choice in the matter; public opinion on same-sex marriage has finally shifted to such a degree that anyone seeking to court liberal voters simply has no choice but to give lipservice to gay rights, regardless of whether they might be legitimate allies or not. There has been a long, hard grassroots struggle to get to this point. But many of the proponents of gay marriage have fought tooth and nail to make the movement as palatable as possible, to reproduce “traditional family values” in same-sex relationships, to shun non-monogamy, to appear normal and suburban. The HRC, one of the organizations at the center of the marriage-equality movement, has a long history of anti-
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trans* politics, and went so far as to silence trans* and undocumented protestors at a rally for marriage equality in April. Arguably, at least some people in the marriageequality movement have lost sight of the forest as they rally around the trees. Having a specific set of goals and a specific focus in a movement is perfectly acceptable and often necessary, but actively throwing others under the bus in the name of that focus is not. I have said many times that I would be glad to see poly marriage legalized someday (though I’d prefer to see the government get out of the marriage business altogether). I don’t blame anyone for demanding the same kind of recognition and validation for their meaningful, nontraditional relationships that normative relationships receive. I want that for my relationships, too. But as our very fledgling polyamorous movement takes shape, I’m concerned about the implications of placing marriage at the center. I think we have the potential to challenge dominant social structures in ways that are far more meaningful than that.
June 2013
Angi Becker Stevens- Writer- Active Contributer Angi’s column at Modern Poly is focused on placing polyamory in a broader sociopolitical context, examining intersections between polyamory and LGBTQ struggles, feminism, and more. Angi is a freelance writer whose work appears at such places as RH Reality Check, the Ms. Magazine blog, Role/Reboot, and her own blog,radicalpoly.wordpress.com. Her debut collection of short fiction will be available early 2014 from Aqueous Books.
I agree wholeheartedly and enthusiastically with Vanessa and Lindsey that we need to adopt real solidarity with people facing all forms of oppression. But in order to achieve that, I’d add that we need a real understanding of how these forms of oppression come about, and why they are interconnected. Compulsory monogamy is not just about traditionalism. It’s about patriarchy. It’s about heteronormativity. It’s about capitalism and the interests of the ruling class. We can choose to build a movement that ignores all of these things, and we'll be successful in many ways. But is this the movement we want?
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June 2013
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