RE: CoHousing Conference | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: mtracy (mtracynetcom.com) | |
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 94 20:54 CDT |
On Mon, 15 Aug 1994 Catherine Kehl wrote: >Hmmm... What kinds of hidden sexual agenda have you (or other people) run >into? I mean, I can think of several way this could apply, but... > >Are you talking about conflicting sexual mores, or something more >intrusive (the difference being -- in my mind -- between what someone does >with someone else, and what someone tried to do with you...)? > > Catherine Two examples come quickly to mind. In one community (three adjacent group houses, about 8 households total) we tended to take our lovers from within the community. There were a few couples in long-term relationships, but the rest of us drifted in and out of relationships every few months, just like the entire population of Santa Monica. Eventually, everyone was an ex-lover of someone else, and jealousies and bad feelings about past breakups entered the dynamics of the community, which lasted about three years. Staying in a community where you meet your ex-lovers on a daily basis, and see them happy in a new relationship, takes an enormous amount of understanding and working it out with your former lover. Sorta like the rule not to take on lovers who work in the same office. In another instance, we tended to take our lovers from outside the community (about ten people in a small trailer park). When one of us fell in love, either they would disappear for ten weeks or so, or else we would suddenly find ourselves with a relative stranger in our midst who, more often than not, did not share our values. Or worse, who had the hidden agenda of taking someone with them and away from the group. Falling in love almost always diverts energy away from community and into a two-person relationship, even if both people live within the same group. Many communities recognize this. The most successful long-term communities (monasteries which last hundreds of years) practice celibacy. Others, like Oneida (mid 19th century), encouraged members to take many lovers within the community, but weren't permitted to have orgasms. Kerista (San Francisco) practiced sexual rotation (if it's Thursday, you must be Thelma), but discouraged falling in love. ZEGG (about 200 communitarians, many of whom have been living together more than five years) freely engage in sexuality, but will confront couples who have fallen in love and are ignoring the needs of the community. In groups like these, the sexual agenda are more or less visible. In cohousing, which recognizes and supports individuals who wish to separate themselves from the community from time to time, the sexual agenda may be less visible. It is possible to avoid ex-mates and ex-lovers for a while, and for both partners to find support during a difficult separation. Nevertheless, at some point, any hard feelings have to be worked out by all concerned, which is practically everyone. -- Martin Tracy mtracy [at] netcom.com Los Angeles, CA
- RE: CoHousing Conference, (continued)
- RE: CoHousing Conference Nancy E Wight, August 19 1994
- Re: CoHousing Conference Hune Margulies, August 25 1994
- Re: CoHousing Conference Deborah Behrens, August 25 1994
- Re: CoHousing Conference Deborah Behrens, August 25 1994
- RE: CoHousing Conference mtracy, August 27 1994
- CoHousing conference Bob Trachtenberg, April 7 1995
- Cohousing Conference Donna L. McDaniel, June 26 1995
- Cohousing Conference Barbara Lynch, April 28 2006
- Cohousing Conference John Goldberg, June 8 2012
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