Sons and Daughters Day

It’s National Sons and Daughters Day, at least here in the US. 

Do you have reason to observe or celebrate?

If you’re an ally to your son or daughter, or you have a double bond with them, comment below and tell us about it. You can comment anonymously or signed-in. 

Starting or Joining a GSA at Your School

Not only are school years a time for intense personal discovery and growth, but they are usually a time of intense pressures, including the pressure to conform, and bullying.

For those reasons, Gay-Straight Alliances, or Gender and Sexuality Associations, or Diversity clubs are critical.

If your school doesn't have such an organization, consider starting one. See here and here. As another school year ramps up, don't let your school be without such an organization!

If you school already has one, consider joining and/or supporting it. Student, faculty, and parental support are all needed.

Whether starting or joining, please do what you can to make the organization welcoming, inclusive, and accepting of all whose identity, sexual orientation, relationship orientation, or existing relationship (or that of their parents) makes them a target for discrimination or bullying.

Anticipation of Participation with a Sibling Relation

People in consanguinamorous relationships are everywhere, though consanguinamorists tend to be closeted. Fortunately, some are willing to be interviewed for this blog. As a result, Full Marriage Equality has featured scores of exclusive interviews with lovers are denied the freedom to be open about their love and are, by law, denied the freedom to marry and have that marriage treated equally under the law.

This is probably a first for this blog. This time, we're interviewing someone who is planning to inaugurate physical consanguinamory into their relationship.


*****

FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Describe yourself.

Anonymous: I’m a 25 year old woman living in Tampa, Florida. I work as a hotel manager of sorts. I’m not there yet, but my boss sure does like to give me all the work related with the job title. I’m Hispanic and Jewish, which is not what most people expect, and my favorite hobbies are dancing, laying on my hammock, and yes it counts as a hobby, and watching soccer games just to hear the announcer say "Gooooal!" I like reading Russian literature, planting trees, Ikebana and collecting currencies of countries that no longer exist. 

Why Men Choose Polyandry

Ruth asked at a Big Internet Portal's question-and-answer service...

Why do men choose polyandry(a woman with multiple husbands)?
What's the appeal? Is their jealousy? How does sex work? Is it akward knowing that the other husband has had sex with your wife?I'd like to understand how polyandrous relationships work, especially from mens point of view. Could you handle your wife having another husband?

Why do men choose a monogamous marriage? Why do men choose not to marry at all? Why do some men choose a polygynous marriage, or a group marriage? It’s going to be different for different people, but you can find some common reasons that pop up frequently. It is a combination of needs and wants, including social, emotional, financial, sexual, etc.

A man may choose polyandry because he is bisexual, or because he enjoys seeing his wife with another man, or because his wife has a higher libido than he does, or for reasons that are entirely nonsexual.

You can see the very good Best Answer if you keep reading.

An Open Letter to Mackenzie Phillips

Dear Ms. Phillips,

Congrats on the role in Orange is the New Black. A recent article by Keryn Donnelly at mamamia.com.au about your role was headlined with what I call the "i" word, because it gets a lot of attention. In fact, almost all of the article was about your past, rather than what you're doing now as far as acting and show biz. Your longevity in show biz is quite impressive, especially considering what you've endured.. I do remember watching your earlier roles, and I'm glad you're on such an esteemed show.

Here's what the article, which I'm assuming accurately quotes you, contained that caught my attention.

Many members of Phillips’ family have not forgiven her for exposing her relationship with her famous father. When she released her book in 2009, some spoke out against her and claimed it was unfair she had come forward with these allegations when her father was not around to defend himself.

It seems to me you were unfairly attacked.

If you were abused, then it was your story to tell regardless of whether your abuser was still alive or not.

If you were not abused, it was still your story to tell and you spared your father undue attacks while he was still alive.

But let's continue...

But Phillips says she’s made peace with her past.
“I have to say that I loved my father, and I still do. I’ve been trying to come to terms with this very difficult past,” she told Winfrey.
“I can’t be the only one this has happened to. Someone needs to put a face on not only non-consensual incest, but consensual incest, and I know that I can’t be the only one who’s lived through this. So in finding this redemption, maybe I’m helping someone else.”

You are exactly right.

Someone needs to speak up about both these two very different things that are often conflated: abuse by a close relative and consanguinamory. They are two very different things. It is our contention that the stigma and even criminalization attached to consanguinamory hinders effective prevention and prosecution of cases of abuse. It is also unjust to interfere in the love lives of consenting adults.

Because of your book and subsequent interviews, you've probably heard secrets people have, both about abuse and about consanguinamory. You've probably heard such secrets from celebrities and from fans, maybe even complete strangers you just happened to encounter.

Maybe you should be involved in raising awareness? Or maybe you just want to connect with people who don't lump all sexual activity between close relatives into the abuse category. Please feel free to reach out. As with anyone else who contacts me, I never share what someone tells my privately (even with their own lover) unless they grant me permission to do so.

I can't know for sure if your physical relationship with your father was abuse, consensual, or a mix of both. I'm not even sure if either of you could know for sure, given the mind-altering substances you both were using. I do reject the assertion that some people make that any sexual relationship between an adult and their parent is abuse by the parent. I do know that there are adults who do have consensual sex with family members, whether on a recreational level or a spousal level. I have seen it myself. Whether you were abused by your father or you consented to and initiated everything, it makes little sense for anyone to attack you about it. The attacks can be abusive!


People often cite a power differential as to why such relationships should not be considered consensual. It is Discredited Argument #20. Where does the power differential end when it comes to parent-child? Is it different between father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, and father-son? What if the parent is 50 years old and the child 33? What if the parent is 70 and the child 53? What if the child was raised by someone else? Why not just let consenting adults do what they want when it comes to sex?

Thank you for saying what you did. If that's as far as you'll go with this, that's fine. However, I would welcome your contact, encouragement, or general support in helping to make consent clear, and honored. Abusers need to be stopped. And nobody should be rejected by family or abused, especially by their own government, for consenting to love, sex, residence, or marriage with a close relative.

You are welcome to join our forum under a screen name, where you can compare your own experiences to those of others.

-Keith Pullman of Full Marriage Equality

National Sisters Day

Apparently it is National Sisters Day.

So, to all of you sisters out there, happy you!

As always, feel free to comment with appreciation for your sister.

We've heard from, and about, some wonderful sisters since we started this blog, including sisters who are allies and sisters who are lovers.

Northern Ireland Needs Full Marriage Equality

Northern Ireland is the only region of the UK that doesn't even have the limited monogamous same-sex freedom to marry. This is currently making news.

Like the rest of the planet, Northern Ireland should get full marriage equality so that an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, will be free to marry any and all consenting adults, without fear of prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

We Get Hate Mail - UPDATED

In our latest bus sighting, an anonymous comment came in to this blog’s sister Tumblr. The comment and response are here.

UPDATE: Jane has shared her reaction.

We Get Questions

I answered a bunch on Tumblr.

We're on Tumblr, Too

In case you don't already know, this blog has a sister blog on Tumblr. Sometimes, we answer submitted questions, like this one. Take a look and bookmark us, follow us, whatever works for you.

Equality, Life, Liberty, & Happiness

Today is Independence Day in the US, considered our country's birthday. Connected to the day is the Declaration of Independence, which touts equality and notes that we have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

When the Declaration of Independence was written, equality was reserved for white, landowning, heterosexual, Christian males. Great strides have been made to extend equality to everyone else. As we know, equality just for some is not equality. In recent times, we have seen the death of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" for military service and we saw the burials of Prop H8 of at least part of DOMA, followed by many pro-equality court rulings ever since, now made even better with the Supreme Court ruling for the nationwide limited monogamous same-gender freedom to marry.

More people are coming out of the closet, and more allies are coming out in support of equality. More people are getting married, and now we have more polyamorous and polygamous people speaking up for their rights.

But we’re still on our journey. Equality, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness are, in many places in the US, and at the national government level, still denied to LGBT people. Even more so, these rights are denied to the polyamorous and the consanguinamorous.

Let’s keep moving forward so that an adult, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender, is free to pursue love, sex, residence and marriage with any and all consenting adults, and not be denied liberty, employment, housing, or anything else.

This isn't just a philosophical thing or a principle. There are people, good people, who are hurt by ongoing discrimination, prejudice, and ignorance. There are people just being themselves, hurting nobody, and people who are in loving, healthy relationships who are being denied their rights, who have to hide who they are or their love for each other, who constantly endure people proclaiming that the love they share is sick or disgusting or makes them worthy of being subjected to abuse or death. There are teenagers who have simply behaved as normal teenagers with each other and haven't hurt anybody (including each other or themselves) who are being lied to and told that nobody else is like them and they are depraved. That's no way to have to live, it certainly isn't liberty, and it squashes the pursuit of happiness.

They need to know they are not alone, and there's nothing wrong with them.

We need independence from hate and ignorance. So let's keep evolving America, and encourage other countries to do the same.

We Get Angry Letters

In a recent entry we pointed out that adults having their basic rights isn't child abuse. To that, we got an angry comment. Like and comment with expletives, we won't be printing it unedited, but we wanted you to see the reasoning being used.

You are full of s---!! Adults are children... and at different stages of life they become more children like. Adults abuse other Adults and manipulate for their own good and purpose when the abuser has been abused as a child. When an adults has had trauma in their childhood life they don't have a clear mind nor scene of what is being spoon feed to them from the abuser, because the abuser is so good in doing the abuse as an adult to many other weak and traumatize adults. For the abusers benefit.  

But if both adults are with out trauma in childhood life and knows as a child that they are different and think differently and still in the adult life feel the same way then it should be okay. But that way only.

The entry was about how adults having their rights isn't abusing children.

All adults were children before. Does this comment mean they are now, as adults, incapable of consenting to their relationships because they used to be children? Or does that only apply to people who were traumatized as children, or does it also apply to traumatized adults? How much is too much?

Abuse, including "grooming" a minor, is not what we're talking about here. And if an adult is incapable of consenting to relationships because of trauma or any other condition, that's something else as well. On the other hand, it is cruel to automatically say that anyone who has been traumatized in the past can't consent to a relationship now. In general, adults should be free to have the relationships to which they mutually agree. There is no good reason to deny such basic rights.