Posted on 05/08/2009 10:13:24 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
First came traditional marriage. Then, gay marriage. Now, there's a movement combining both—simultaneously. Abby Ellin visits the next frontier of nuptials: the "triad."
Less than 18 months ago, Sasha Lessin and Janet Kira Lessin gathered before their friends near their home in Maui, and proclaimed their love for one another. Nothing unusual about that—Sasha, 68, and Janet, 55—were legally married in 2000. Rather, this public commitment ceremony was designed to also bind them to Shivaya, their new 60-something "husband." Says Sasha: “I want to walk down the street hand in hand in hand in hand and live together openly and proclaim our relationship. But also to have all those survivor and visitation rights and tax breaks and everything like that.”
Maine this week became the fifth state, and the fourth in New England, to legalize gay marriage, provoking yet another national debate about same-sex unions. The Lessins' advocacy group, the Maui-based World Polyamory Association, is pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships. This community has even come up with a name for what the rest of the world generally would call a committed threesome: the "triad."
Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That's closer to bigamy. Instead, triads—"triangular triads," to use precise polyamorous jargon—demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other. In the Lessins case, that can be varying pairs but, as Sasha, a psychologist, puts it, "Janet loves it when she gets a double decker." In a triad, there would be no doubt in Elizabeth Edwards’ mind whether her husband fathered a baby out of wedlock; she likely would have participated in it.
There are no statistics or studies out there, but according to Robyn Trask, the executive director of Loving More, a nonprofit organization in Loveland (yes, really), Colorado, dedicated to poly-education and support, about 25 percent of the estimated 50,000 self-identified polyamorists in the U.S. live together in semi-wedded bliss. A disproportionate number of them are baby boomers. (Paging Timothy Leary: Janet Lessin claims on her Web site that she's able to travel astrally.)
As with a couple, the key to making a triad work is communication. The Lessins' group specifically advocates something called "compersion": taking joy in another person's joy. Thus, they know how to process jealousy. “We don’t have anything take place off-stage,” says Sasha Lessin. “You witness your lover making googly eyes and you share your feelings. It’s not difficult for most people to be compersive once they feel they’re not being abandoned.”
Like most people in the poly community, the Lessins, who also helm the school of tantra (they take pleasure of the flesh quite seriously), take great pains to discuss pretty much everything. Some people even write up their agreements like a traditional prenup, detailing everything from communal economics to cohabitation rules. And buoyed by an increasing acceptance of same-sex unions, others want more legal protections. "We should have every right to inherit from each other and visit each other—I don’t care what you call it, we’re not second-class citizens!” says Janet Lessin. “Any people who wish to form a marriage with all the rights and duties of a marriage should have the legal right to. The spurious arguments of marriage being for procreation of children is ridiculous.”
That said, Valerie White, executive director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal-defense fund for people with alternative sexual expression in Sharon, Massachusetts, says she believes that triads are actually a great way to raise a family. "Years ago, children didn’t get raised in dyads, they got raised with grandparents and aunts and uncles—it was much looser and more village-like," says White. "I think a lot more people are finding that polyamory is a way to recapture that kind of support.” For a year, Loving More's Trask and her then-husband were both involved with another woman, who was a part of the family. Trask's three children knew all about it. “I’m totally out,” says Trask.
Many others aren't. Larry, Rachel and Andie would only talk to me anonymously, due to the fact that Rachel, 47, works at large, traditional financial institution in Manhattan. Larry, 56, met her on a commuter ferry two years ago. At the time, Larry was a member of Poly-NYC, a polyamory group in New York; on their first date, he told her about it. Rachel had just gotten out of a year-and-a-half-long relationship with, unbeknownst to her, a married man. “I was so overwhelmed with Larry’s honesty," she says, "I said to him, ‘I need to look that up and understand it.'"
A few months later, they met Andie, 56 at a poly retreat in upstate New York. Andie has been has practiced "multi-partnering" since the early '90s, and was giving a talk on the subject. Rachel turned to Larry and said ‘Wow, that’s someone I would turn poly for!’ “She was so elegant and classy. I just felt she was a beautiful person.”
While Larry, on the other hand, was not especially attracted to Andie, he was fully supportive of Rachel exploring her attraction. She didn’t, but ran into Andie at a few other events. Andie, in turn, began noticing the quality of the relationship between Larry and Rachel. “They didn’t just go to those meetings and do what happens to other poly partners, that they disappear from each other,” she says. “They stayed together.”
Three months ago, they reconnected at yet another retreat, and this time the three bonded on an emotional level. So they decided to figure out how to make a three-way relationship work. This involves weekly conference calls where they discuss the tenets of the relationship (honestly, respect, communication, jealousy) and agree to undergo blood tests for STDs. They talk about what they want out of life, and each other. “There are people who’ve been married 20 years and never had these kinds of conversation,” says Andie. “I feel blessed.”
Akien MacIain and his wife, Dawn Davidson, have been counseling dyads, triads, quads and once even a quint, in San Francisco for over a decade. On their Web site, they offer tips for creating agreements—among them, “Use Time Limited Agreements Where Needed” (i.e., two weeks, two months, and so on) and “Check in Periodically; Renegotiate if Needed.”
“A triad is a series of dyads, but it’s more complicated because if I’m in a relationship with one other person, there’s my relationship with the other person, her relationship with me, and the relationship that each of us has to the couple,” says MacIain. “When you make it a triad there are four factorial connections. It’s very hard.”
And yet some make it work. Doug Carr, Robert Hill, and Paul Wilson have been a happy threesome for 29 years. The three men, who live outside Austin, Texas, share a bed, a checking account, and joint real-estate properties in each of their names—“a left-handed form of cementing the relationship in a legal context,” says Hill, 69, a retired financier (because of their arrangement, they, too, requested I use pseudonyms). Their ranch is split three ways; they call themselves “husbands” and wear matching wedding bands. Back in 1980, when they met at a furniture store in Dallas, Hill and Wilson were a confirmed dyad for 10 years. Carr, now an assistant dean at a local college, fell for both of them; they developed a friendship, which soon turned to love.
Wilson, 61, a consulting engineer for the health-care community, admits that initially he was less gung ho. “I thought, how is this going to turn out? You can’t read an article in Readers Digest, ‘Twelve Ways to make a Triad Work.’" He finally saw the light on a trip to Vienna the three men took. “I decided to go for it. I turned to them and said, ‘I love you,’ and I love you,’ and let’s make it work.”
They held a commitment ceremony in 1984 for 20 friends, and then a reception for 200 in their house, where we “introduced ourselves to the world as a triad,” says Carr, 49. They would like to marry legally, though they are not holding their breath that it will happen any time soon.
“As far as we’re concerned, in the eyes of God we’re already married—and from an economic standpoint, we’ve taken that as far as we can, ” says Hill.
Despite the fact that they are also “Dad, Daddy and Pappa” to the 4-year-old quadruplets Carr sired with a lesbian couple, they actually see themselves as quite traditional. “We’ve patterned our relationship on the relationships of our parents,” says Hill. “So many gay people throw away all the values they learned at home. Some are worth throwing away, but a lot are not."
“The crux of all this,” he says, "is commitment.”
LOL!
EVERYBODY POLKA!
Of course laws impose moral standards on the populace. it doesn't follow, however, that those moral standards flow from any one religion and thus cannot be said to promote religion. One can write a law against murder without turning to any particular religion for guidance. Marriage is another matter. Various religions define the term. The Left now wants to impose their religion's definition of the term on the rest of society This violates the 1st Amendment's establishment clause.
I don’t want to put words in your mouth that you didn’t say, so I will pose a question: Are you saying that what Clinton did with Monica was moral?
I didn't know Allen Iverson was in the closet... :-P
When will dogs be able to marry cats?
Absolutely not.
It's absolutely immoral for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that Hillary didn't know about it. Then there's the fact that he lied to the entire Nation about it. And then there's the fact that he lied about it in Federal Court while under oath.
Having sex with another person without ones spouses knowledge, consent, or participation is absolutely immoral.
Now I'll pose a question. What does that have to do with these three people discussed in the article? I don't see that one has anything at all to do with the other.
Do you mind if we stay on topic?
So now “Conservative” must mean forcing miserable couples to remain married no matter what?
Ok, on topic. In your opinion, is what these three people are doing moral?
My opinion is irrelevant. But for the record this doesn't offend my sense of morality in the least.
They're all consenting adults. They're availing themselves of the legal system in a responsible manner. Their behavior isn't costing me a single dime.
They're not whining to the Government for money, in fact they're taking steps to see that their financial affairs are handled legally and privately.
Whether or not they're offending someones sense of religious morality doesn't enter into my thinking. Some people find dancing immoral. Some people find drinking alcohol immoral.
I'm sure some of the things Mrs. L, I, and our friends do in the privacy of our own home offend someones sense of morality somewhere
Those people can kiss my a**.
While I may or may not find their living arrangements and sexual habits 'moral' at least they don't have their hands in my back pocket demanding I pay for what they're doing.
The proper 'conservative' position on this arrangement these people have is not to have a position.
They're not asking Government to forcibly take one dime from me to pay for what they're doing. They do not pose any clear and present threat to the safety, health, or peace of their neighborhood.
Therefore it's none of my damned business how they chose to set up their arrangement.
L
That was awkward.
It doesn’t. Europe, Rome, here we come.
Well, for now they’re all consenting adults.
But why stop with consenting adults? What about consenting adults and consenting children?
Or do the children even have to consent? They ARE children, after all.
Who said it is better? You’re jumping to conclusions. After all, you quoted me.
You failed to address my point.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Divorce, at times (as pointed out in Scripture), is necessary, unlike homosexuality or any other deviant form of relationship.
I must ask, are you gay or a polygamist? If you are, this may explain why you did not address my post.
You're drifting off subject. we are talking about what people do in public.
Since you find what these people are doing in public moral, but what Clinton did in private immoral, I'm stumped.
It seems like a double standard.
Either marriage is a vow a couple makes before God and men to be together “for better or for worse”, til death. Or it’s just an arrangement that people get into with each other because it was in their interest to do so at the moment, to be dissolved when no longer in their interests.
If it is the former, then it is a sacred institution of a man and a woman that God meant it to be. If it’s the latter, then I can see no rational argument why two men or two women can’t have the same arrangement, and why 3 people can’t have the same arrangement.
And that is not to say the divorces are never to happen with no exceptions. There are always extraordinary circumstances. But for too long this society have tolerated easy divorces outside of those rare cases, and that is what began this slippery slope.
We treat marriage vows like dirt, and then get high and mighty about how it’s a sacred institution when a gay couple asks for it, and then act all shocked when they call us hypocrites.
I would hope it means expecting people who freely make a vow to God try to keep it.
Nobody is forced to say the words “for better or for worse”, if they never meant it they should not say it.
Well, maybe in a few years I’ll finally be able to make an honest woman out of my gal...
Inflatable woman
You’re the gal for me
Inflatable woman
You are so sexy
Hide her inside my closet door
She’s the rubber doll that I adore
She’s got artificial tonsils too
She’s got two fine vinyl eyes of blue
Now woman
Don’t deflate
Inflatable woman
Patch you with duct tape
Inflatable woman
You’re the gal for me
Inflatable woman
You are so sexy
Sprung a leak at a real bad time
My frat brothers found you - they know you’re mine!
Miller Lite cans hid your eyes
‘Til they found you by surprise
Now woman
They stole you!
Inflatable woman
Where did they take you-hoo?
Inflatable woman
You were so grand
Inflatable woman
Now I use my h-, uh never mind...
And these women who enter Islamic harems will never be heard from again. Name one Muslim female historical figure between the time of the Prophet and the twentieth century. I can’t. You can’t. No one can.
Feminists like to talk about “the patriarchy” as if it were one monolithic worldwide force “oppressing” women. But off the top of my head I can name hundreds—thousands, even—of female historical figures in the West from the seventh to the twentieth century: Queens, princesses, consorts, mistresses, authors, saints, martyrs. Muslim women, nothing.
Today we know the lives and thoughts and names of contemporary Muslim women for one reason only: Because in the 150 years ending in the early twentieth century, the Muslim world was more or less conquered by the Western powers, and was forced to adopt Western social customs. Once Western polities have been done away with, those customs will once again disappear.
If the Muslims ever do take over the world, it will be as if women ceased to publicly exist. They will have lives and names, but their thoughts will be no more known to history than those of domestic animals.
What's 'public' exactly about what goes on in their home? Are you paying for their home? Is the State paying for their home? What exactly makes their decision 'public'?
but what Clinton did in private immoral,
Clinton lived in the White House at taxpayer expense. Monica Lewinksi, while unpaid, was still a public employee. Clinton then lied about the relationship in an open Courtroom while under oath. How exactly is any of that 'private' in any way?
For a seemingly smart person you sure have a screwed up idea about what is public and what is private.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.