RE: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Rob Sandelin (floriferousemail.msn.com) | |
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 09:12:32 -0600 (MDT) |
I have found that lifestyle (sexual preferences) issues are directly supported in cohousing by how people deal with it. Thus cohousing typically directly supports monagamous couple relationships because that is what is tacitly "approved of" by the way people relate and react. So saying that a cohousing group does not have the capacity, or inherient in cohousing is nothing to do with lifestyle approval is not true. Its just below the direct level of your group awareness. Pay attention to how people who are not like you are talked about and referred to. This is why some homosexual and poly relationships stay in the closet. It's not that they are outright banned by some community agreement, its that they risk the disapproval of their neighbors. Yes, the OFFICIAL community represented by the bylawish, board/membership meeting process does not take any OFFICIAL postiion on peoples sex lives, but the around the dinner table, sidewalk gossipers form the community positions on many many issues you never actually talk about in an official meeting. This unofficial process defines many of the cultural norms you will find in your communities. Confronting this can be a good excercise in community growth. How people raise their kids is a classic issue. Have anyone in your group that spanks their kids? I doubt there is any official policy of your community to forbid spanking, but I bet it would cause uproar and such from parents that do not. Odds are high, its an almost unanimously dissaproved of parenting style in your community, and I will also wager that you have never talked about it in a meeting. I was involved in an intense mediation once regarding sex in a community. The official groups statement and position was that it was none of anybodies business. The unofficial group sentiment represented somewhat widely was outrage at the sexual practices of a particular subgroup (partner swapping) and it took quite a bit of work for the group to own up to their unofficial gossipizing and disapproval. In the meeting it was all smiles and statements of acceptance, in private it was all frowns and dissaproval. This dichotomoy, between the public arena, and the private arena is very interesting to pay attention to, you can learn a lot about a community when you examine the difference between the two. Rob Sandelin Northwest Intentional Communties Association Building a better society, one neighborhood at a time
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING, (continued)
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING administration, October 19 1999
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Fred H. Olson, October 19 1999
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Stuart Staniford-Chen, October 19 1999
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Unnat, October 19 1999
- RE: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Rob Sandelin, October 20 1999
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Deb Smyre, October 20 1999
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Lee Irwin, October 20 1999
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Hans Tilstra, October 21 1999
- Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING Michael McIntyre, October 21 1999
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