NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #16

“Some men will be left out as polygyny increases.” This is based on the assumption that in a culture with gender equality, polygyny would still be more plentiful than polyandry. Anti-equality people, based on this assumption, insist that this will result in unmarried men devolving into criminals.

The mistake here is assuming that the second, third, etc. wives in a polygynous marriage would have wanted one of those unmarried men rather than legally sharing the man they did marry, and that the unmarried men would in turn want to marry them. Some of those men may want to marry men, or not marry at all. Why not allow people to marry the person or people of their choice? Why try to force people to settle? Also, the system is not closed. There are billions of people in the world and more and more people are reaching the age and status of eligibility every second.

There was a study attempting to link polygny to criminal behavior in unmarried/unpartnered men based in part on nineteenth century frontier America. Things have changed a little since then. And guess what? Married men commit crime, too. Most of the men in prison have been married, were married or had at least one girlfriend at the time they were convicted.

Maybe men in the hypothetical polygynous community who don’t get married are violent people. Is it better that they have a wife to beat instead of committing crimes on the street? I don’t want to be the one who tells a woman she can’t marry the man/men or woman/women she wants; rather, she has to marry a less desirable man so that he can take his aggression out on her.

The warnings that polyamorous or polygamous freedom to marry will result in an increase of violent gangs of unmarried men committing crimes falls flat when one considers the overwhelming data revealing both that 1) Men in the US are getting married for the first time later than ever, and 2) Crime rates in the US have decreased.

There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (and any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/p/discredited-invalid-arguments.html

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #15 

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Consanguineous) Love #17

Navigating the Holidays

The year-end holidays are here. [I’m bumping this up early this year because it’s not too early to plan, especially when you consider Halloween festivities are underway.]

If you might be getting together with family for Hanukkah, Winder Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year's Eve/Day, or any other holiday coming up, you might be facing specific decisions and considerations, especially if you're in an interracial relationship or an age gap relationship, or are LGBTQ+, nonmonogamous, consanguinamorous, or are exploring/living out kinks and certain dynamics:

• Avoiding hostile people
• Keeping closeted
• Coming out
• Making a move

You are under no obligation to spend holidays with people who are hostile to you because of your gender, orientation, relationships, or kinks, even if they are related to you. Repeat that to yourself as needed.

That being said, if there is just one or two hostile people and there will be dozen or more other people, consider if you can go and simply avoid the hostile people. Some families and gatherings allow for that.

What you tell people, how, and when, is up to you. If you're not ready to come out to the people you'd be spending time with, you shouldn't have to. Or, if you think coming out now to one, more, or all of the people who will be there would be best, you'll need to prepare yourself for emotionally for that.

As far as making a move, if there is a person or people likely to be there you want to "get closer to," whether relatives or family friends, plan ahead for the possibilities. Will there be a way to get them alone? Would it be good to get things in motion ahead of time through texts, messages, video chats, calls, etc.? Or do you want to wait until you're face to face to get things in motion or back into motion, as the situation might be. Mistletoe and “stroke of midnight” kisses to ring in the New Year can present great opportunities.

Plan ahead and make the most of the season. What that means is up to you. For some of you, it will be making plans with friends and "found family" or your partner(s) and their families. Others will make the most of their opportunities by going "home." Plans can change, and that's fine. But do consider what you might want to do.

If you need someone to talk with or to give you feedback about your plans, or you just want to say hello to Keith, you can do so, as always, by emailing fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com or message him on Wire at fullmarriageequality or on Facebook.

You can also comment with your thoughts, plans, or past experiences below.

Spirit Day 2024

Thursday, October 17 is Spirit Day. Among varying activities, people wear purple in support of LGBTQ+ youth, against bullying.

Nobody should be bullied, harassed, or discriminated against because of their gender, sexuality, or relationship diversities or those of their family members or friends.

Are you observing Spirit Day? Leave a comment below telling us about it.

Defend people against prejudice, bullying, harassment, and discrimination.

How You Can Help

The World Needs More Love

There's so much hate, prejudice, and bigotry. 

There is also love.

The world needs more love.

Support love.

Don't try to stop love, even if it doesn't look like what you'd want.

Let people love each other how they mutually agree.

Is Polyamory Just a Renamed Swinger Lifestyle or Open Marriage?

No. This is a common misconception.

Swinging, open marriage, and polyamory are all forms of ethical, disclosed, or consensual nonmonogamy, meaning none of them are cheating, but they aren’t the same thing as each other.

Swingers have casual sex at clubs, events, or parties, usually ones that are mainly there or being held for the swinging element. Couples (and triads, and...) who swing have agreed with each other to do so.

Polyamory involves having a dating, romantic, partner, or spousal relationship with more than one person in a way to which those involved have agreed. For example, three people might live together as partners with each other in a triad. Or, one person might have ongoing dating relationships with three different people, none of whom spend time with each other, but all three of them are aware and agreeable to the fact that the person they are dating is seeing other people, not for the purposes of “picking” one of them, but on a continuing basis. Each of them may or may not be seeing or living with other partners. Polyamory can take many different forms.

An open marriage or open relationship is a marriage or relationship that isn't closed to new partners. The people in the marriage or relationship have agreed that one, both, or all of them are open to finding new partners, whether separately or together, whether those partners are for casual sex (like with swinging, or hookups, or threesomes) or a spousal relationship (like with polyamory), or some other way.

People in an open marriage or open relationship might swing, or might be polyamorous, or might look for casual encounters that aren't part of swinging. But many polyamorous people are in closed relationships and aren't open to having new partners. Some swingers consider their marriage or relationship only open for swinging and not anything else; it's not a generally open relationship and neither or none of them are looking for anyone outside of the context of swinging.

So...

Swingers may or may not consider themselves polyamorous.
Polyamorous partners may or may not swing.
Swingers might be in an generally open relationship or only be "open" for swinging.
Polyamorous relationships can be open or closed.

Whether you know it or not, you know people who are in consensually nonmonogamous relationships. You know people who are, or have been, swingers. You know polyamorous people. You know people in open relationships. People of all walks of life find these forms of ethical nonmonogamy suit them and their relationships. Some of them are health care providers, firefighters, accountants, airline pilots, military personnel, engineers. lawyers, educators, clergy, or stay-at-home parents.

Nonmonogamous people shouldn't be discriminated against or denied their rights. Let people have the relationships to which they've mutually agreed.

California Voters: Yes on 3

Vote YES on Proposition 3!

If you’re a registered California voter, you might have received your Presidential Election ballot in the mail already.

If you’re not registered or not registered in your current location yet, you likely can still register for this election. Do so ASAP.

You should have multiple ways to vote in-person even if you don’t get a ballot in the mail or don’t want to use a mailed/mail-in ballot. You can also hand-deliver mail-in ballots.

Vote YES on Proposition 3 to advance the right to marry.

Here it is:

*****

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE I

First—That Section 7.5 of Article I thereof is repealed.

SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a

woman is valid or recognized in California.

Second—That Section 7.5 is added to Article I thereof,

to read:

SEC. 7.5. (a) The right to marry is a fundamental

right.

(b) This section is in furtherance of both of the

following:

(1) The inalienable rights to enjoy life and liberty and to

pursue and obtain safety, happiness, and privacy

guaranteed by Section 1.

(2) The rights to due process and equal protection

guaranteed by Section 7.

*****

Here’s the link to the official voter information with the official language of the Proposition (it’s a PDF) if you want to see for yourself:

https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2024/general/pdf/prop3-text-proposed-laws.pdf

If you want to see the current “in the book” law as of this posting, here it is:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=CONS&division=&title=&part=&chapter=&article=I

While Proposition 3 isn’t written like the Marriage Equality Amendment this blog endorses, Proposition 3 can enable the same result with some court cases and some follow-up legislation. It removes “dead” language from the California state constitution that was determined to be a violation of the US Constitution and it adds language to the state constitution emphasizing that marriage is a right. It is wonderful that it is written in a way that doesn’t restrict that right; rights are for all.

Let’s advance EVERYONE’S freedom to marry.

Yes on 3 in California!

Coming Out Day 2024 is Friday

Life can be tough for someone whose identity and orientation doesn’t fit in to a narrow little heterosexual, monogamous, "traditional"-gender-role box or whose relationship doesn’t meet the local sex police’s approved standards. Sometimes, a person or the people in a relationship want to come out of the closet. Sometimes they need to come out. For some of these people, it is a little less difficult if they do so as part of a communal event, such as National Coming Out Day.

National Coming Out Day is Friday, October 11. Here’s the official website, at least for the US. There is much helpful information there, regardless of where you live.

The more people that come out, the more the others around them will realize they do know and appreciate people who are LGBTQ+, or polyamorous or otherwise nonmonogamous, or consanguinamorous, and that such people and relationships deserve equality. So coming out helps progress.

On the other hand, it is understandable that any given person, couple, triad, or quad decides to stay in the closet for now. There’s still so much hate, so much prejudice and persecution, and even unjust laws that hinder the life and love of people who are good citizens and just want to be themselves. I support the decision of anyone who believes they need to be reserved for now for the sake of their safety and family.

The decision to come out is yours. Do you want to come out, and to whom? Your friends? Your family? Your coworkers? Your classmates? Your neighbors? Your crush? The whole world?

Also, if someone comes out to you, the decision to be an ally is yours. If your classmate, coworker, neighbor, friend, parent, child, or sibling comes to you and says they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, polysexual, pansexual, transgender, polyamorous, nonmonogamous, consanguinamorous or in a consanguinamorous relationship, what will you do? Will you choose love and acceptance?

Even if you are heterosexual, monogamous, and nonconsanguinamorous, you may want to come out as an ally for full marriage equality. That alone can take courage, but it helps.

If you are planning to come out, or you do come out, please feel free to share your experience here by commenting. You can do so anonymously. You are also welcome to contact Keith if you want someone to talk with. The best ways to do that are to email fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com or message fullmarriageequality on the Wire messaging app.

Lesbians Day 2024

Tuesday, October 8 is International Lesbians Day.

Today and every day, it is good to remember that, like anyone else, lesbians should be free to share love, sex, kink, residence, and marriage (and any of those without the others) with any and all consenting partners. 

Lesbians should be free to live their lives, without fear of harassment, bullying, criminalization, or discrimination.

Thank you to all of our lesbian friends and allies!

A Reluctant Mother Discovers the Joy of Son

People of a wide variety of backgrounds reach out to me. I keep their privacy and can often be of some help to them with my perspective.

Every once in a while, someone will send me hate mail.

Several months ago, someone sent me a private message:

I dont know who you are or where you get off but i want you to know you have ruined a family. My son recently came to me, showed me yourwebsite and blogs here and then told me he wants to have sex with me and that incest is ok!!!!

He’s a teenager!

What do you have to say for yourself?!

I didn’t respond because I figured a rational discussion wasn’t a possibility. I just hoped that the son wasn’t going to be subjected to shame and “therapy” for having normal feelings.

Two months passed.

I received an email with the subject line of “I’m sorry.”

It read…

Hello,

I wrote a message to you, accusing you of things that werent your fault and i am sorry. It was wrong of me.

Sincerely

I wrote back and expressed thanks for the apology, as that took much courage and character, and engaged her in a dialogue.

Below is some of what she’s told me so far over the course of our dialogue. This is all published with her permission, with spelling and grammar corrected and redactions for “language” and privacy. My comments are in bold.

The discussion is unavoidably explicit.

*****

Coming Out Consanguinamorous

Introduction

"Coming out" means declaring or no longer hiding that you're consanguinamorous in orientation or in a consanguinamorous relationship. Whether, when, to whom, and how to come out is something that can weigh on the mind of a consanguinamorous person.

Getting to decide whether, when, to whom, and how to come out is a privilege that is sometimes denied people who are outed against their will or by accident. Consanguinamorous people should seriously consider how to protect themselves.

Please note this entry is about coming out in general, such as to family, friends, etc., not about coming out to a romantic/sexual/spousal partner. That has many different considerations and warrants its own entry.

Stay in the Closet If/Until...

NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Consanguineous) Love #17

“Consanguineous sex, relationships, or marriage ruins, confuses, or distorts family relationships.” First of all, this does not apply to adoptees who reunite as adults, or people who resulted from gamete or embryo donation. They already have families.

People only say this about sex and marriage. They don’t say it about friendships, working together, or any number of additional relationship dimensions family members might have with each other, or at least this objection is not enshrined in law, as it is with laws that deny marriage equality. It is as if these people think sex and marriage are bad things and about doing bad things to the other person(s). Are those who oppose equality frustrated? Are they doing sex wrong?

Many people have many relationships that have more than one aspect. Some women say their sister is their best friend. Why can’t their sister be a wife, too? When someone gets married, nobody from the government asks if this will ruin their friendship or their business, and it should not ask if it will ruin their fraternity, either.

Some people do also apply this to same-gender relationships. Friendships, these people say, become potential sexual relationships; it confuses relationships because men are supposed to be friends and not lovers, they say. If that is the limitation people want to place on themselves, they can. They should not be able to place such limits on other consenting adults.

When people are functioning socially in their biological roles, sex would create an additional bond. For some who are not functioning socially in those roles (as is often the case with Genetic Sexual Attraction), that bond may not exist in the first place and this is a way to form one. It should be up to them what kind of a relationship they're going to have.

People who are related through birth, adoption, or marriage (stepfamily) may or may not get along. They may be cruel towards each other or they can be best friends. The law can't force adults to love each other, regardless of their relation, and it shouldn't stop them from loving each other however they mutually agree.


There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (and any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/p/discredited-invalid-arguments.html

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #16

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Consanguineous) Love #18 

National Sons Day

In the US, Saturday, September 28 is National Sons Day.

Celebrate sons. All sons, regardless of sexual orientation or relationships. 

Whether they are cis, trans, fluid, or whatever their identity, if they are sons, it is their day.

Are you a son?

Do you have a son? If you have a son, it's time to think about the good things he's brought into your life and what you can do to show your support and appreciation.

Are you celebrating?

Do tell in the comments below.

If you have something to share or ask you don’t want in the comments, you can write to Keith at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com