Samoa Setting a Bad Example With Law Changes?

Laws should work against abusive, predatory behavior and stop interfering in the relationship rights of consenting adults. Looks like Samoa, which is tinkering with "sex crime" laws, still has a long way to go. This report was at rnzi.com... [POSSIBLE TRIGGERS]

Showtime's The Borgias Season 3 Episode 3

Don't read this entry yet if you don't want spoilers.

Curt Wagner at redeyechicago.com reports on where the series is going and interviews Francois Arnaud, who plays Cesare. Thanks to Wagner and Arnaud for how this was handled...

Case in Georgia Highlights Arbitrary Restrictions

The age of consent in the US state of Georgia is 16. A girl who is 16 can legally consent to group sex with complete strangers, or sex with a 50-year-old man who has been her next-door-neighbor all of her life, or a 30-year-old cage fighting champion. But she can't consent to have sex with a certain someone she knows. Amanda Thomas reports at douglascountysentinel.com...

Zimbabwe Still Prosecuting Consenting Adults

I found this report at newsdzezimbabwe.co.uk and I had a difficult time believing it...

Cousins Patrick Zingwena, 24, and Josephine Muonde, 19, whose love for each other led to a sexual relationship have escaped jail and will have to perform 140 hours of community service.

They are consenting adults. Why should anyone care if they are cousins? First cousins can legally marry in many countries around the word, and such marriages are common. In about half of US states, the bigotry against marriage equality does extend to banning marriage between first cousins, but other states are more reasonable.

The two cousins, who were found naked in bed by another relative, were found guilty of having sexual intercourse within a prohibited degree of relationship by magistrate Tsatsawani Ndaba.

So another relative, probably jealous, ratted them out and Tsatsawani Ndaba went through with this farce of a prosecution.

Ndaba had sentenced the two to eight months in prison but suspended four months on condition of good behaviour while the incestuous relatives will have to refocus their sexual energies doing community service for the remaining four months.

Prosecutor Ernest Zhanda told the court that sometime last year, the two cousins were staying with their uncle Jefias in Kuwadzana when he was told that the two frequently shared the same bed.

So what???

The two admitted that they were in love and were having sexual intercourse regularly.

What's wrong with that?

The report then goes on to something with less priority...

Meanwhile, a Harare man who set his wife ablaze after pouring gallons of paraffin on her body was yesterday granted a $50 bail.

Sidwell Nyambirai, 38, was remanded out of custody to May 22 by magistrate Don Ndirowei.

It is alleged that on April 9 this year, Nyambirai set his wife on fire after having a domestic altercation with her.

The woman is said to have been rushed to Harare Hospital’s Intensive care unit where she died 10 days later.

Murder-by-arson takes second billing to consensual sex? 

Attention journalists: Domestic violence leading to murder is real crime. Consensual sex shouldn't be.

Attention lawmakers and law enforcement: Stop the absurdity of prosecuting and otherwise discriminating against adult for consensual sex.

Group Calls on New Zealand to Keep Evolving

New Zealand just adopted the limited same-gender freedom to marry, but as this article at stuff.co.nz by Kristy McMurray shows, there's more progress to be made.

A group is calling for the Government to consider legalising multi-partner marriages.

The group set up a Facebook page just before the Marriage Amendment Bill passed through Parliament last week, legalising gay marriage.

A statement on the page described multi-partner - or polyamorous - marriage as "responsible, adult, committed non-monogamy," and said all committed loving relationships between adults regardless of number should be respected and given legal acknowledgement.

I wasn't able to find the group. Usually, I'm pretty good at that. However, people could ask to join the Facebook group I Support Full Marriage Equality.

There is no good reason to deny that we must keep evolving until an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, monogamy or polyamory, race, or religion is free to marry any and all consenting adults. The limited same-gender freedom to marry is a great and historic step, but is NOT full marriage equality, because equality "just for some" is not equality. Let's stand up for EVERY ADULT'S right to marry the person(s) they love. Get on the right side of history!

Rhode Island Should Make a Bold Move For Equality

Rachel Weiner reports at washingtonpost.com on developments in Rhode Island...

In Rhode Island, an entire delegation to the state Senate backs gay marriage - and it’s the Republicans.

Rhode Island Public Radio reports that all five Republican members of the state’s upper chamber will support a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the state.

The state House voted in favor of gay marriage earlier this year; it’s now before the  Senate Judiciary Committee and could see a vote in the full Senate by the end of the week. 

Other states within the US are progressing, too, including Illinois, Nevada, and Delaware. In other countries, New Zealand just adopted the limited same-gender freedom to marry, France is coming online, and there is progress elsewhere as well.

Rhode Island is in a unique position for US states as far as adopting full marriage equality as it has no laws against consanguinamory. This means that there are currently consanguinamorous households existing in the Rhode Island without violating any laws. The citizens of Rhode Island in such relationships should also have their right to marry, if that is what they want to do.

The lawmakers of Rhode Island should adopt a law that reflects this policy...

An adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any and all consenting adults, without prosecution, harassment, or discrimination.

There are many reasons why they should do this.

Excellent Article on Polyamorous Triad

This article by Patrick Barkham at guardian.co.uk has been getting much notice in polyamory circles. It involves a FFF triad with a cisgendered woman and two trans women.

Zoe O'Connell, left, Sarah Brown, centre, and Sylvia Knight, who live together in a polyamorous relationship. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

The article starts with a young man and woman falling in love and marrying, and then says years into the marriage...

The young man became Sarah, now a chatty, self-assured city councillor who lives in Cambridge. A stereotypical way of describing trans women in childhood is to say they feel like "a girl trapped in a boy's body," says Sarah, but she believes few people think at that level. "As a kid, I assumed that everybody wanted to be a girl and some people were lucky enough to be born that way. Then it very rapidly became clear that this was something that we did not talk about and it got buried very, very deep inside."

Suppression brings pain.

Natural Consanguinity

Thanks to a friend of FME who sent me this article. Back in 2007, Heidi Ledford reported at nature.com about a study of a fish species revealing some interesting facts.

Timo Thünken

Given a choice, the cichlid Pelvicachromis taeniatus, often found in aquariums, prefers to mate with siblings nearly three times out of four.

Doesn't sound like the Westermarck Effect is present in them.

And males who shacked up with their sisters spent more time guarding their fry and less time fighting with their mate than unrelated couples.

Sounds like they are protecting their genes.

The end result was happy families and healthy kids.

Imagine that.

While a normal copy of a gene can sometimes mask a mutation, offspring that inherit two mutated copies lack any such protection. This can make inbred offspring less able to survive or reproduce.

But Timo Thünken and his collaborators at the University of Bonn in Germany found that inbred and outbred P. taeniatus had the same growth and survival rates. These results, together with recent studies in birds and other fish, suggest that the popularity of inbreeding in the animal kingdom may have been underestimated, Thünken says.

While I'm always cautious about applying what happens in other species to humans, I do find reports like this to be interesting when people insist that incest is not natural or that consanguineous reproduction will be problematic. Many humans experience the Westermarck Effect. Some don't. And, of course, those raised apart from their genetic siblings or genetic parents aren't going to experience the Westermarck Effect if they are introduced to, or reunited with them after becoming sexually mature.

The same phenomenon has been seen in some insects and other fish species says William Shields, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York in Syracuse. "We still deal with the overriding dogma that inbreeding is deleterious," says Shields, "but there's evidence from lots of organisms that inbreeding can have advantages."

Furthermore, it only takes three or four generations of inbreeding to purge the gene pool of many of the mutations that initially make it harmful, says Shields.

Perhaps the most common argument used against the consanguineous freedom to marry is Discredited Argument #18. But it just doesn't hold up, which is why it is discredited.

Stuff Poly Folks Hear

Here's a sample conversation that many polyamorous people can expect to have with those prejudiced against polyamory...

Prejudiced Person: "Oh, polyamory? So you want to sleep around on your wife and you want her to say she's OK with that? You are so selfish. You just want to have a harem."

Polyamorous Husband: "Actually, my wife has two other partners and I have one."

Prejudiced Person: [pause] "You're sick for wanting her to have sex with other people and making her do that."

Polyamorous Husband: "I didn't make her do anything. She's an adult who makes her own decisions. Actually, she's the one who told me she's polyamorous. She very much likes the way things are."

Prejudiced Person: "So the two of you will sleep around with anyone? Casual sex is emotionally damaging you know."

Polyamorous Husband: "This isn't causal sex, and no we don't sleep around with just anyone. Both of us formed strong emotional bonds with our partners before sex was involved."

Prejudiced Person: [longer pause] "So you're not getting the job done, eh? You're not giving her what she needs. She must be getting ready to leave you."

It won't matter to the prejudiced person if the polyamorous couple has been married for twenty years, during which the prejudiced person has married "monogamously" three times and divorced twice. To many prejudiced people, the only acceptable relationship is a closed, monogamous, legal marriage between a cisgendered man and a cisgendered woman of the same race. Forget about LGBT relationships, or polyamorous relationships, or interracial relationships. And for heterosexuals, according to these prejudiced people, it is out of the question to be happily single, date without seeking a legal marriage, live together without having a legal marriage, have a ceremony without a legal marriage, or involve anyone else through anything from polyfidelity to casual threesomes, from swapping to swinging to open marriage. No, only the way they claim to do it is the only way anyone should do it.

Isn't it interesting how they know what is best for you?

April 19 is the National Day of Silence in US

GLSEN's National Day of Silence takes place Friday, April 19.

It's a day of silence, especially in schools, to bring awareness to the prejudice and inequality suffered by LGBT people. Along with all allies, I also think poly people and consanguinamorous people should participate. Everyone should have the freedom to be themselves without being bullied. Every adult should have the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY and ALL consenting adults, without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination. LGBT, poly, and consanguinamorous students and faculty still have to deal with hateful policies and attacks, but with your help, that will continue to change.

Good for New Zealand! Keep Evolving

New Zealand has adopted the limited same-gender freedom to marry, and congratulations to our monogamist LGBT friends who will finally be free to marry in New Zealand. We want to see New Zealand continue to progress to full marriage equality, so that an adult is free to marry any and all consenting adults.

Are you paying attention, US Supreme Court? Don’t let the US fall further behind. Make a bold statement for the rights of all adults.

Welcome Michael Brown Readers

In an opinion piece where one anti-equality Christian author/talk show host by the name of Michael Brown vents his disapproval of the actions of a progressive Christian Reverend, Brown links to many places, including this blog.

This blog is not about religion, and certainly not about squabbles within Christianity. I am happy to welcome all people, regardless of which, if any, religion they claim. I welcome Theists, Deists, Pantheists, Polytheists, Atheists, and anybody else who wants to learn more about why they should support relationship rights for all adults, or learn that they are not alone in their own situation.

If you read what Dr. Brown wrote closely, he didn't explain his objection to full marriage equality or what I've written at this blog. It appears to be that his religious beliefs do not support it. Well, OK, he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, and neither do you. You don't have to marry anyone you don't want to (even if your church pressures you to.) But should you have the right to deny other adults their consensual relationships? That is imposing your religion on them. I've addressed arguments you might have heard against marriage equality. Please take a read. You can still hold your religious beliefs and recognize that other adults should have their freedom of association.

You should also read about people who love each other very much who are being hurt as long as full marriage equality isn't in place. Why would you want to hurt them?

Full marriage equality is inevitable. Please stop trying to deny other adults their rights and instead direct your efforts to something useful, like fighting predators, feeding the hungry, providing shelter to the homeless, etc. Every minute you spend fighting equality in futility is a minute you could have spent fighting against sexual assault or molestation, or caring for people who need help.

Jillian Keenan is an Ally For the Polygamous Freedom to Marry

Jillian Keenan writes at slate.com that polygamy should be legalized, and this is drawing much attention.

Sister-wives Valerie, left, and Vicki serve breakfast to their children in their polygamous house in Herriman, Utah, in this file photo from May 30, 2007. Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters

While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.

Thank you!

But legalizing consensual adult polygamy wouldn’t legalize rape or child abuse. In fact, it would make those crimes easier to combat.

Exactly!

Right now, all polygamous families, including the healthy, responsible ones, are driven into hiding (notwithstanding the openly polygamous Brown family on TLC’s Sister Wives, that is). In the resulting isolation, crime and abuse can flourish unimpeded. Children in polygamous communities are taught to fear the police and are not likely to report an abusive neighbor if they suspect their own parents might be caught up in a subsequent criminal investigation. In a United States with legalized polygamy, responsible plural families could emerge from the shadows—making it easier for authorities to zero in on the criminals who remain there.

The focus of this piece is polygynous or plural marriage in the Mormon tradition, but let's not forget traditional polyandry and various forms of polyamory.

Diane Rinella Explains Why She Wrote Love’s Forbidden Flower

Thanks to a friend of FME, I was pointed to a recent blog entry by author Diane Rinella about what inspired her newest book, Love’s Forbidden Flower. She explains about seeing a counterculture film, and then finding the novel on which is based, and then deciding to write her own novel taking a different approach. (This entry was bumped up because I want more people to see it.)

As I did research along the way I learned numerous things, the most noteworthy were; romantic, consensual sibling incest is not a rarity, 10-15% of college age adults have had a relationship with a sibling, and the books that tackle the subject either contain justifying circumstances or are erotica.

That’s just people in their early 20s. The percentage increases as the years ago by, as separated genetic siblings are reunited or introduced, as people explore their sexuality, as siblings care for each other or comfort each other after a death in the family, divorces, breakups, or illness/injury; as siblings overcome their irrational fear of seeking what they really want and realize how compatible they are; as siblings share a residence initially out of need or convenience; as siblings look after each other in their golden years.

As romantics, we dream of the person we can share everything with. We exchange vows, some even prick fingers and share blood. What if you already shared something deeper with your soul mate on the most personal of all physical levels? Isn’t that beautiful?  We are told no, and I found that reality sad.

Yes, very sad.

Along the way I learned more about societies biases. Many say that consensual incest is illegal because of birth defects.

Yes, we call that Discredited Argument #18.

Let’s challenge that for a second. The birth defect rate of products of siblings is 7-12% higher than that of two non-related individuals. Most women give birth in their late 20’s to early 30’s. According to babyzone.com, a woman between 30-34 has a 3% chance of birth defects. With siblings, that increases by 7-12%. A woman of 44 (my mother’s age when I was born) has a 35-45% percent of defects. So if we base the bias on birth defects, should we not sterilize women when they hit 40?

Yes the argument is ridiculous. We don’t deny people we know have serious genetic diseases their reproductive rights, so why deny those rights to people without any serious genetic diseases?

Of Bus Sightings and Thrones

Writing at policymic.com, Ethan Case brought up issues of solidarity between those seeking the same-gender freedom to marry and those seeking the consanguineous freedom to marry. It involves SPOILERS of the "Dark Wings, Dark Words" episode of Game of Thrones.

The question is, did wrong Jaime as pro-gay hurt gay marriage? (Thanks for a FME reader for pointing me to this writing.)

Talking About Consanguinamory

There aren't a lot of a good places to seriously discuss consanguinamorous relationships that are FREE to the user and not full of "adult" images. Forums are often overrun with spam, trolls, and other noise; abandoned by the administrators; littered with actual or wanne-be predators; or lacking in worthwhile discussion as users sit around silently waiting for someone to post something that will arouse them.

Kindred Spirits forum continues to have an overall climate of active, quality discourse. That is because of the administrators and the rules they have, and the participants they have attracted. Anyone who wants to read the discussions there had better immediately read and follow the rules.

Here are more examples of the content found there.

Polyamorous Consanguinamory in the Caribbean

By my count, this is the twentieth ongoing relationship I've covered through exclusive interviews in which the lovers are denied by prejudices from being open and honest about who they are and who they are to each other, even though these lovers have a spousal relationship.

Ed is a 22-year-old white male from the US state of Pennsylvania, living in the Caribbean. He has an older sister, Jamie, 25 and identical twin sisters, Megan and Stacey who are 20. His mother, Kara, is 41. They all live together. (All names have been changed to protect them from bigotry.) Ed’s family enjoys consanguinamorous polyamory. Ed is active on a certain Big Online Portal question-and-answer service, answering question from the perspective of his relationship experience.

Read this interview with an open mind and ask yourself if there is one good reason their rights to love each other the way they want should be denied.

(The language gets mildly explicit in a couple of places.)

*****

FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Describe your background.

ED: My father died when I was 4 so my sisters and I grew up with our mother with a substantial fortune he left us. We had a lot of freedom. My father died when the twins were 2 so my mom was busy with them and still worked.

Misrepresenting Polyamorists

All too often headlines are written in a way so as to impugn polygamy or some form of polyamory, like "Polygamist Arrested for Murder" or something along those lines. We never see headlines like "Monogamist Arrested for Murder." Whether someone commits crimes are not is usually not related to whether they person is a monogamist or a polyamorist of some sort, including being a polygamist.

A recent example is a criminal case of out England involving someone portrayed as a polyamorist. It's a good thing that some people are speaking up about this, like Charlie Hallam who wrote a great piece published at newstatesman.com...

Consanguineous Marriages in Ancient and Recent History

Katrina Majkut wrote an interesting article that is mostly about cousin marriage, but also deals with other forms.

Laws preventing consanguineous marriages still exist, but more-than-friendly brother-sister relations still occur like out of a V.C. Andrews novel. The latest international news story was about a German couple in 2001: As a result of their amorous affection, they bore 4 children, 2 of whom have disabilities, did hard time, and love still survived.

Yes, and other couples who not related beyond the degree that any of us are related also have children with disabilities. Two of the four children in that case don’t have disabilities.

While today sibling relationships are both taboo and illegal, there was a time when it was widely practiced, and even encouraged in order to prevent the tainting of royal bloodlines. Before Mark Anthony, Cleopatra VII was married to her brother Ptolemy XIII, and she was the offspring of a sibling marriage as well. While technically illegal during Roman times, it is said that Roman Emperor Caligula did the deed with all three of his sisters, Julia Livilla, Drusilla, and Agrippina the Younger. And no story of incest would be complete without the tale of Oedipus, who brought shame and ruin to himself and his city for marrying his mother. These tales were (and still are) told to children to impart lessons on morality, civility and health.

A lot of things are told to children that shouldn’t be. Children are made to feel bad because of their innate feelings and normal activities.

She goes on to write about the concept of the Westermarck effect, Genetic Sexual Attraction, the marriages of European royalty and other people who married cousins, inheritance, and affinity marriages before wrapping it up.

Despite religious condemnation, legal disapproval and social discontent, history has shown that the practice was generally accepted among some of the world’s greatest leaders, thinkers and poets…The question of its morality is not what’s being debated here, this dialogue is to bring attention to the fact that by treating consanguineous marriage as abnormal and taboo, we fail to recognize it as a pervasive component in history, and in doing so only half the story will ever be heard.

How about we stop treating people badly or as second class citizens because of the people they love? Then the full story will be told.

Response to Jeremy Irons: So What?

Actor Jeremy Irons commenting on the limited same-gender freedom to marry, asking if fathers might marry their sons to tax purposes.

So what if they did? To me, it sounds like the problem could be in how the taxes work. This blog is NOT about tax policy, so that's all I have to say about that. This blog IS about freedom of association and relationship rights, including full marriage equality. So, if a father wants to marry his adult son, for whatever reasons, it shouldn't be anyone else's business.

My response to Irons and anyone opposing equality:

What's wrong with letting consenting adults have the relationships they want?

No, gay marriage is not the same thing as incest. Most consanguineous relationships are between heterosexuals, after all. But there are gays and lesbians who'd marry a close relative if they could. We should not forget that, not fail to stick up for their rights, too.

Consanguineous Relationships Might Provide Medical Cures

A friend of FME alerted me to this dailymail.co.uk article by Amanda Williams about an interesting scientific finding in Ecuador.

They are completely free of two of the most debilitating illnesses - diabetes and cancer.

Now scientists hope a community of dwarfs living in a remote corner of Ecuador could hold the key to a cure for both.

The Laron dwarfs, who have a condition believed to be caused by inbreeding, appear to be completely immune to cancer and other age and lifestyle associated diseases.

People who inherit the genetic defect are in perfect proportion but grow only to an average height of 4ft.

For more than 24 years, endocrinologists Jaime Guevara-Aguirre (top left) and Arlan Rosenbloom (top right) have tracked a population of Ecuadorians dwarves who seem to be immune to cancer

Does this mean anything for others? Well, it might...

Now scientists are developing a drug which they hope will do artificially what the genetic defect in Laron syndrome does naturally - protect against DNA damage that fuels cancer growth. 

There's a lot more to this interesting story.

The fact is, inbreeding isn't always detrimental. There can been good results or bad results from inbreeding because recessive genes could have beneficial or detrimental effects. While this blog is here to support relationship rights for all adults, including full marriage equality, we neither encourage nor discourage close relatives from having genetic children together. But we do discourage ignorant statements about the children of close relatives (most of whom are healthy), and we think whether or not adults have children together is decision that should be between them, and whichever medical professionals they choose to involve.

Welcome Bill Muehlenberg Readers

If you read what Mr. Muehlenberg wrote closely, he didn't explain his objection to full marriage equality or what I've written at this blog. It appears to be that his religious beliefs do not support it. Well, OK, he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, and neither do you. You don't have to marry anyone you don't want to (even if your church pressures you to.) But should you have the right to deny other adults their consensual relationships? That is imposing your religion on them. I've addressed argument you might have heard against marriage equality. Please take a read. You can still hold your religious beliefs and recognize that other adults should have their freedom of association.

You should also read about people who love each other very much who are being hurt as long as full marriage equality isn't in place. Why would you want to hurt them?

Full marriage equality is inevitable. Please stop trying to deny other adults their rights and instead direct your efforts to something useful, like fighting predators, feeding the hungry, providing shelter to the homeless, etc. Every minute you spend fighting equality in futility is a minute you could have spent fighting against rape.

We're Closely Related But That May Be Changing

Steve Jones reports at telegraph.co.uk on the reality of the human race, and how closely we're related in some cases, but that the trend is towards an increase in genetic diversity.

Islanders, from the Orkneys to the Adriatic (together with natives of the Americas, which was, until Columbus, the biggest and most isolated island in the world) have lots of such things – evidence of plenty of sex within the family, no doubt because no other option was available.

Across the world, such patterns match those of surnames. A fifth of all Chinese – three hundred million people – share three names, evidence of how connected lineages have become since the titles first appeared millennia ago. In France, the average number of bearers of a particular surname is 17, and in Britain it is 28. In China, the number is 70,000 (which almost reconciles me to being a Jones).

He goes on to discuss genetic diseases. 

Democrat US Senators, Uruguay Evolve Towards Equality

The good news just keeps coming. Individual Democrats in the US Senate have been announcing, one after the other, that they support marriage equality, or at least the limited same-gender freedom to marry. now the country of Uruguay is poised to adopt the limited same-gender freedom to marry. We continue to make progress in the right direction. Keep evolving, Senators!

Here's what I suggest as an announcement in support of full marriage equality...

An adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any and all consenting adults, without prosecution, harassment, or discrimination.

It is important to remember that, in the US (and much of this applies in other countries as well)...

When Monogamy is Expected

Most people who aren't actively trying to deny reality know that people are born with their gender-sexual orientation (whether there is some flexibility to it or not), whether that is heterosexual, gay or lesbian,  bisexual, etc. Relational-sexual orientation is the same way. There are people who are monogamous, people who are polyamorous, and just as there are bisexuals, who can be fulfilled being with either a man or a woman, there are also people who can be fulfilled whether they are in a monogamous relationship or polyamorous relationship. I haven't discovered the term for that yet. 

Many people now understand that one of the harms caused by discrimination against LGBT people has been some people hiding their sexual orientation to the point where they involve someone else who is unaware. Think of gay men who have married women who did not know that their husband was gay, and the pain that has inflicted on both of them and others.

To some extent, the same thing has happened with some people who are polyamorous and need polyamory. They may have committed to monogamy, may have a great partner our spouse and many be great in return, but they still seek, say, emotional relationships with others to the point where the other partner feels cheated on, or that they're the victim of an emotional affair.

Ideally, people would gain enough self-understanding about their own sexuality and relationship needs before entering into commitments, but in addition to the pervasive discrimination against LGBT people, there has been similar discrimination against polyamory and polyamorous people. Monogamy, or at least pretending at it, has been presented as the only acceptable relationship model in so much of the world, perhaps allowing for non-committal "hooking up" when not in a relationship. The problem is, very few people are, on a lifelong basis, monogamous both physically and emotionally. And with the pressure to conform to monogamy, some people enter into relationships with promises they can't keep, or come the realization that they are at least poly-curious when they are in what was agreed to be a monogamous relationship.

I got to thinking about all of this because of a letter written to Miss Lonelyhearts at winnipegfreepress.com that presented a common problem.

My new girlfriend wants me to try a polyamorous lifestyle. I admit I met her at the last fetish ball in town, but I had no idea she was that far along the track. I don't mind anything we do together as a couple, but I am not the least bit interested in other people. OMG! I am a pudgy nerd of a guy and it scares me (and would embarrass me) to get undressed to do anything sexual, except with my lady. But it is hard for me to find a girlfriend.

This fellow is insecure, unfortunately and very self-conscious. That is a big reason he finds it difficult to find a girlfriend.

 

I wonder just how "new" of a girlfriend she is, and if she either waited too long to explain she is polyamorous or poly-curious, if he's calling her "my" girlfriend too quickly and she is telling him as soon as he needed to know, or if she just became curious? We have no way of knowing.

 

But we do know she has told him what she wants. He's afraid of losing her, but if someone is unwilling or unable to give a boyfriend or girlfriend what they want, they're usually going to lose them anyway. He should not agree to be polyamorous if he truly needs monogamy, but it sounds from his letter that it more of insecurity issue instead. Whether this woman continues to see him or not, he needs to address his feelings about himself.

There are "pudgy nerd" guys (and girls!) who are happily in polyamorous relationships, and are very much valued by their partners, some of whom are not pudgy or nerdy.

The larger issue presented in the letter is that we need to allow people to be themselves, without trying to force them through a narrow, hetero-monogamous doorway. Allowing people to be themselves and to have the relationships in which they'll best function will leave us all better off. That's one reason I stand up for full marriage equality.