Discovering Polyamory and Being Empowered

Ichi Vazquez writes in “Love Without Boundaries” about what polyamory has brought to her life.

I spotted my boyfriend coming toward me with open arms, sweeping me up into a fierce hug.


“You have no idea how long I’ve been planning this,” he said, laughing with relief and happiness. I pulled him into a deep, sweet kiss of gratitude. Through the frenzy of hugs and happy chatter, I saw my secondary partner, who had driven hours up to the city to stay the weekend and be a part of the surprise. Thrilled that he was there, I kissed him lovingly.


I turned my head and rested it on his chest as my eyes found my boyfriend’s gaze near the front of the room. He stared at me adoringly as I was being held by my other partner, and my eyes silently sent him waves of joy and love. I felt so immensely cared for - the combination of being held by one man I adored and receiving space to enjoy myself from the man I loved. This was pure happiness…

She was raised to be monogamous and not find out if she was fully compatible with the one man she was supposed to marry; the only man with whom she was supposed to have any affection.

These social rules governed the way I looked, felt and interacted with others. But when you don’t know that it is your birthright to love and express your emotions in whatever way your heart desires, how is one supposed to discover that there are infinite choices?

We will all be better off when people can freely choose the relationships in which they can best function/

Discussing which rules I wanted to follow in my relationships gave me a greater sense of freedom, empathy and empowerment — not just in my connections with others, but also within myself. I was an equal on a team, a life adventurer — not a subordinate or a passive participant. For the first time, I truly felt like I was living out subconscious curiosities that were coming from the deepest recesses of my heart.

It can be very empowering to find the relationships that fit you, rather than trying to be something or someone you are not.

Stop Denying the Polygamous Freedom to Marry

In Botswana, Tshepo Sepora asks. “Is Polygamy An Option?” This was asked because the writer saw “Sister Wives” on one of the BBC Channels.

Look at it in this way, the man in the reality show Sister Wives lives with all his wives and children under one roof and cares for them, loves them and provides for all of them. But yet people find this so ungodly and so wrong but yet there are a whole lot of men who have children with four different women and most of them don’t even take care of these scattered children. Even so, there’s no law that imprisons these kinds of people, only until the mother sues the father for maintenance and that’s it.

There are no regular police checks on men who have kids with different women and extra marital sexual relationships, so they can live in constant fear! What is our government and law trying to portray? What are we the youth supposed to learn from this?

That it’s right to have a whole lot of kids with different women and not marry them or love them, but it is so wrong to marry all these women and provide for your children and be a happy family?

Polygamy is an option. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults. If someone wants to be married to all of the mothers and fathers of their children, we should never discourage that.

It is good to see that “Sister Wives” is getting people in other countries to think, too.

GSA Yahoo Group Goes Private Again

To protect participants, the Yahoo Group for Genetic Sexual Attraction has gone private again. Anyone who wants to see the discussions will have to join. Anyone who wants to join needs to ask to be added, and then the moderator of the group will decide whether or not to add that person. Given legal and social realities, people experiencing GSA need to take certain precautions. It's too bad that people have to deal with ridiculous laws and prejudices against affection between consenting adults.

Polyamory Around the Web: Desk Clearing

And now, some desk clearing. Here are some items of interest dealing with polyamory.

Deborah Anapol, Ph.D., author of Polyamory in the 21st Century, had another article at psychologytoday.com adapted from her book. It is "Group Marriage and the Future of the Family." She asks who will take care of the children. She says...

Neither two-career nor single-parent families offer children full-time, loving caretakers, and quality day care is both scarce and expensive. Nanny's are a luxury out of reach for most families making up the 99 percent. Even at its best, full-time institutional care (including public schooling) cannot provide the individual attention, intimacy, flexibility, and opportunity for solitude that children need to realize their potential. Serial monogamy presents children as well as parents with a stressfully discontinuous family life. Meanwhile, an entire generation is at risk, as divorce is increasingly common fact of life.

So what to do?

Group marriages can mean a higher standard of living while consuming fewer resources. Intimate partners are more likely than friends or neighbors to feel comfortable sharing housing, transportation, appliances, and other resources. Even if partners don't live communally, they frequently share meals, help each other with household repairs and projects, and vacation together. This kind of cooperation helps provide a higher quality of life while reducing individual consumption as well as keeping people too busy to over-consume. Multiple partners also help in the renewal of our devastated human ecology by creating a sense of bonded community. Group marriage may help provide siblings for children who would otherwise be lonely, only children. It can offer childless couples a low tech solution to the ever more common challenges of infertility. Multiple adult families can soften the ticking of the biological clock by providing older women the opportunity to raise and mother children conceived by a younger sister-wife. At the same time, polyamory helps overcome the apparent design flaw which mismatches ideal age range for pregnancy (20's) with ideal maturity and energy level for parenting (40's). As indigenous peoples know, it takes a village to raise a child!

Something to think about. Much more...

A Polyamorous Married Couple Explains

Melissa Chapman wrote about polyamory at lifetimemoms.com, and includes this disclaimer...

I'll be the first to say this; I can't imagine being in a marriage in which my husband and I slept with people outside of our union.

That doesn't stop her from looking in to polyamorous married couples and writing about it, specifically with a question-and-answer session.

Can you be out about it with your family and friends?

We don't flaunt it, but we don't necessarily hide it. How we handle it also depends on who we are dealing with. My mom is a very conservative Christian who never understood. However, my 23 yr old daughter is aware and understands as well as my brother.

Allies are great people.

Do you feel it's an unfair stigma placed on you as well as other couples who choose this married lifestyle?

Somewhat, yes. Because being poly is so socially out of the norm from the monogamous minded population, it is often unimaginable to them. People tend to believe we love each other less if we are willing to allow our spouse to love someone else. I think it means we love each other more for the same reason.

Perspective can make all of the difference. Chapman asks for the four biggest misconceptions about "the sexual married life you have chosen"...

1. Being polyamorous is the same thing as swinging. It is not. Swinging is typically casual, short term and non-committal. Being poly is realizing you can love and commit to more than one person. If you have a child, you will love that child with all your heart. When you have second child, can you not love that child with all your heart as well? Different as night and day they may be, but you love them tremendously for who they are. Love is not finite.

Read the rest here. More people are learning about polyamory, and that's a good thing.

Game of Thrones Returns

The second season of the television show Game of Thrones is upon us. Articles about the show invariably mention the consanguinamorous siblings and their secret affair. Do you watch the series? What do you think?

Young Love

Coleen Nolan’s advice column at mirror.co.uk got a question about whether or not something was incest…

My cousin and I are both 17 and were virgins until our holiday with his parents at a villa in Barbados.


He’s very handsome and as I fancied him. I deliberately made him sexually excited by asking him to rub sun oil over my body while we were sunbathing in the garden.


His parents were out, so no one could see us.


I pulled off his trunks and dared him to swim naked with me in the pool.


After telling him I was on the Pill, he realised what I had in mind and minutes later we lost our virginity, which felt wonderful.

Some would have us believe he did something wrong and “took advantage” of her. But isn't it better that they shared this experience with each other, people they care about and trust?

The next day when we were left alone again by his parents, we couldn’t resist doing it again when we were at the beach.


We had a good time together and are longing to see each other again, but my friends think sex with a cousin is incest and is wrong.

Her friends have adopted a ridiculous prejudice, or are jealous. They are free to not have sex with their cousins, and their cousins are free to turn them down. They should respect her choices, and her ability to seduce her cousin.

The response…

War Veteran Sent to Prison on Incest Charges in Indiana

Once again, not enough information has been provided by journalists, and probably not enough was provided by the authorities, too. From tribtown.com comes Aubrey Woods’ report on the sentencing of Michael B. Buckner…

A 36-year-old Seymour man accused of fathering a child with a teenage relative in 2010 received a 10-year prison sentence Friday in Jackson Circuit Court.

“Teenage” can mean 13 or it can mean 19. That’s a big difference.

“You took advantage of a situation,” [Judge Bill] Vance told Buckner as he was imposing the sentence.

And…? A 36-year-old, whatever gender, can “take advantage” of consent for sex from an adult of any age, of whatever gender, without it being a criminal matter, or necessarily a bad thing. Vance no doubt “took advantage” of access to law school.

Buckner received two five-year prison terms after pleading guilty to two counts of incest, a Class C felony. The state agreed to dismiss a third count. He also received 284 days credit and 284 days of credit time.

Notice the charges were incest, not rape. If this was rape, he should have been prosecuted for rape. If this was consensual sex, this criminal case should never have existed in the first place.

Buckner said he was not a bad guy and that he wants to try to make things better for all involved, including the child he fathered.

Prosecuting someone for consensual sex no way helps their child. Notice that nothing is written about the child having any problem due to the consanguity of the parents.

Buckner said alcohol and post-traumatic stress from his time in Iraq with the military were factors in his actions.

If this was consensual sex, he should not have to offer any explanation.

The age of consent in Indiana is generally 16, though if Buckner was considered a custodian or guardian, he could be prosecuted if she was 16 or 17. But we don’t know her age, other than her been a teen. We only know that he was charged with “incest,” not any form of assault or molestation. That makes this look like consensual sex, in which case any prison sentence, especially ten years, is ridiculous. Is this any way to treat a war veteran?

Netherlands Marriage Equality Update

The way this is reported, it sounds like The Netherlands, known for progress in relationship rights equality, could be making a potential step backwards, although a minor one.

Marriages between cousins remain permitted in the Netherlands. Such marriages will be invalid only if they are forced, the cabinet decided Friday.

The cabinet plans to restrict marriage between cousins because it says often they are forced. However if there is no demonstrable element of force, the marriage can go ahead, the cabinet said on Friday.

Adults should be treated equally. No marriage should be forced, whether consanguineous or otherwise.

Marriages involving minors will be invalid. Marriages which took place abroad are currently recognized in the Netherlands. In the future, only if both partners have reached the age of 18 will these marriages be legal.

Age of consent laws are not the focus of this blog, other than that age of consent should be applied equally regarding marriage... if someone is at the age of consent in a jurisdiction, they should be free to consent regardless of sexual orientation. There are US states where, for example, a 17-year-old may legally marry, and it is disappointing that the Netherlands would not recognize such a marriage.

There will be limitations on polygamous marriage, whereby one man has several wives.

That's polygyny, just one form of polygamy. Polygamy can be three or more people of one gender or any combination of genders.

If a polygamous marriage that took place abroad is recognized in the Netherlands only the 'chief wife' is entitled to an automatic residence permit.

Families should not be split up by outsiders.

The Netherlands (and any other country) should take whatever reasonable steps to make sure no marriage is forced, while also adopting full marriage equality so that an adult is free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults, without discrimination.

Zimbabwe Continues Discrimination Against Consenting Adults

From Zimbabwe comes news that a man was criminally sentenced for consensual sex with his cousin. That's right... his cousin. Even in the US, we don't prosecute for that, though many states still deny cousins the freedom to marry. Just how exogamous does a relationship have to be before the sex police in Zimbabwe leave it alone?

They have a child together now.

They both plead guilty and he was given community service (better than prison, but still ridiculous), but her sentence was put off because of the baby, according to the article.

Why were resources wasted interfering with this relationship? They should be encouraged, not prosecuted, and if they want to be married, they should be allowed.

For Those Who Need Help

I've added a page for anyone who needs help because of who the are or share love with.

If you have anything to add to the page, please let me know.

British Columbia Government Says Anti-Equality Ruling Strong Enough

As Jeff Lee reports at vancouversun.com, the Canadian province’s authorities say a recent court ruling denying the polygamous freedom to marry is strong enough.

In a statement Monday Justice Minister and Attorney General Shirley Bond said the province believes the current laws banning polygamy are strong enough, based on a ruling in November by Chief Justice Robert Bauman who held up the constitutionality of the polygamy section of the Criminal Code.

After the ruling the province considered appealing the decision to the Supreme Court in the hopes of obtaining a stronger ruling that would apply across the country.

But Bond said that after reviewing Bauman's "comprehensive and compelling" decision, the government has decided against referring it to the higher court.

Abuse and involuntary confinement of innocents should be prosecuted.

Relationships between consenting adults should not be subject to prosecution, nor denied equality. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults. One day, Canadians will look back and wonder that full marriage equality was denied.