Beyond Polyamory: Other Sex and Relationship Issues in
From: Joani Blank (jeblankic.org)
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 04:54:01 -0600 (MDT)
I'll bet some of my fellow/sister listers are just itching to hear what I
have to say on this subject, since some of you will remember that I
initiated the last go-round on a closely related topic which turned into
this topic several years ago when I was a cohousing newbie.  Well now I'm
older (62) and wiser, but my ideas about people's sexual choices have
gotten much younger.

I plan to say little this time about polyamory in or out of cohousing
before expanding the thread, but I cannot resist a couple of sentences.
Polyamory is NOT adultery, promiscuity, swinging, cheating, philandering,
deception or casual sex. It ALWAYS requires trust, honesty, flexibility,
keeping agreements, respect, discretion and, believe it or not, love. 

Let's face it, in cohousing, although we often tout that we have all the
privacy we want, most of us choose to live in cohousing because we want to
be less isolated, and we voluntarily open our lives to each other to a much
greater degree than do folks living in a conventional neighborhood.
Therefore,  we typically know much more about our neighbors than those who
live outside of cohousing.   We know who in our community is allergic to
peanuts or hates onions, what several peoples's favorite colors are, how
almost everyone's front room is decorated and  who leaves very early for
work and comes home very late.  We also know whose mother back east is ill,
who is tearing out his or her hair about a teenage child's behavior, who is
about ready to quit her job, who's pregnant or wishes she were, which
couple is at war,........you get my drift.

So of course we know---or can make pretty well informed guesses even if no
one ever volunteers info--about people's sexuality and intimate
relationships as well. How about broadening the recent thread to  sharing
the ways in which you as an individual or your community handles or might
react to one or more of the following scenarios or situation.  I'd also be
interested in hearing how folks think they might explain any of these
things to their kids.

1. A  young single mom is dating someone from outside the community
steadily. He often spends the night at her house, and most weekends she is
with him while her son is with his father.

2. A couple who is not married is living together. (Don't laugh. When I was
growing up, this was considered quite immoral by some.)

3.  A man in the community has a collection of erotic art hanging in his
home. 

4.  A single woman has two or more boyfriends who often spend the night
after an evening date with her. 

5. An older man is visited weekly by an attractive young masseuse, who some
suspect or assume to be a professional sex worker. 

6.  An older woman is in a committed relationship with a man 22 years her
junior--the same age as her grown son. 

7. A  male couple socializes a great deal with a half dozen other gay men. 

8. A lesbian couple has one child and another on the way. 

9. An adult in the community is overly affectionate with the children  to
the point where parents are uncomfortable about having their kids spend
time with this adult. 

10. There is a very effeminate man or masculine woman or someone who openly
identifies as transgendered or transsexual in the community.

11.  You have reason to believe from the sounds issuing from one house that
the monogamous, married couple who lives there engages in somewhat "kinky"
sexual practices. 

12.  Several people in the community know that an ostensibly monogamous man
or woman is having a "affair" unbeknownst to his or her spouse.  

13. Some parents in the community think it is okay for kids to learn a lot
about sex uality at a young age, or to see sexually explicit videos when
they are in elementary or junior high school; others do not. 

14. The gay couple occaisionally walks through the common area arm in arm
and  have been seen greeting one another with a kiss when returning from
work. 

15 A couple with a 16 year old daughter lets the daughter's boyfriend spend
the night  at their home with her. 

Of course, any of these scenarios can be observed in at least some
conventional  neighborhoods---well, maybe not #14 except in San Francisco.
But  in cohousing, virtually everyone knows this kind of stuff about others
in their community. I think we have a lot of consensus that "what people do
in the privacy of their own bedrooms and who they do it with is nobody's
business." But  none of these f'rinstances says anything about who is doing
what in bed with whom, does it.  What do you think. 

Joani

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