A Pleasant Conversation with a Mature Poly
Interlocutor
The following is an excerpted and edited
version of a very pleasant correspondence that I had with a mature Jewish
person who has discovered Polyamory recently. It is reposted, anonymously, with
permission.
Interlocutor:
Shalom Doreen,
Me: Shalom Aleikhem (Peace be upon you)!
Interlocutor:
What a pleasure to hear from you!
Me:
Nice to "meet" you.
Interlocutor:
I sort of stumbled across some of your writings on Kosher Polyamory, Hebrew and
numbers etc…
Me:
Would you be kind enough to try to remember how you encountered
them? I'd really like to know how people come across my work. Were you searching for something
particular when you found this group?
Interlocutor:
I believe that if men were allowed to have more than one wife, what would have
prevented women (in a fare and balance society) to demand to have more than one
husband? Polyamory could have been only a natural evolution of that believe.
Me: I believe it will be a
natural part of evolution. We are still
evolving. Evolution has not concluded.
We are still in the process of it. I don't think that unions should be forever
and a day and I do not think that polyamorous unions should mimic marriage,
which has not proven itself to be a very happy state of affairs for so many. I
like the Celtic idea of handfasting, where a couple joined hands for a year and
a day. They could renew the union if they wished, or not. The children were not considered children of
"broken homes" if they did not renew their vows. Handfasting was done
for a couple, but there is no reason why it can't be done for a triad or a quad
or more or for one person who wants to be handfasted to more than one person
concomitantly. My father is Irish, so I guess I resonate with the Celtic
tradition.
Interlocutor:
I would be happy to brainstorm with you on starting a poly community in
Me:
Even in (where you live) meeting polies is hard?
I
would definitely prefer a poly community of spiritually grounded people.
Polyamory is a very advanced social form and as such easily degenerates into
chaos in the wrong hands.
Interlocutor: I went to some of these meetings and needless to say
I didn't meet anyone. It maybe it's me (I tend to be on the shy side in
new situations) but, I found most of the people there to be for the
most part the "drop out" of society and much younger than
I.
Me: The observation you make above is very important.
One of my major concerns is that Polyamory has been expropriated
by people making some sort of "fashion" statement or otherwise
acting out.
My vision is that it will not be a subculture, but rather the
norm of anarchic society practiced by just plain folks.
Nice, normal people like you can help.
Please, I reiterate, consider writing on message boards for
mature people. It is important that people know that there
are people like you who are in the Polyamorous state of mind.
I
was hoping to form a poly cooperative of some kind.
If
you haven't seen it, please read: http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/KibbutzPolyamoryAlmostHEB.htm
or the English version,
whichever you prefer:
http://www.geocities.com/dordot2001/KibbutzPolyamoryAlmost.htm
I
am of the opinion that polyamory cannot take on healthy forms in capitalistic,
greedy societies. It needs to be part of
a comprehensive, humanistic societal structure.
Otherwise, it easily degenerates into something cheap, ugly, and merely
for one's own gross gratification.
Thank
you for sharing something about who you are with me.
This
is the link to one of the ICQ message boards that I posted "Kosher
Polyamory Redux" on:
http://www.icq.com/boards/view_messages.php?tid=341&topic_id=736850
as you see, they weren't
tremendously receptive. I think their reaction
is pretty typical.
I
hope you'll help me toward those goals.
With
blessings,
DoreenEllen
Bell-Dotan,