Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Respectability & poly-whatever

[Mmariner (Mmariner]

This is a good, close-to-the-bone thread about how intimate human
relationship effects/affects the community -- within and without.

Outside the community:  I agree with folks who have said not to worry about
what the outside world thinks -- that items posted here won't discredit the
whole movement.  

Inside the community:  now, in the 1990's, with so many other aspects to
learn about living cooperatively, I'd tend to take fewer risks with elaborate
intimate relationships -- at least until the community is strong and
resilient.  For now, isn't it enough to nurture deep friendships with your
fellow community members?  Maybe learn to walk before becoming gymnists??

Sometime in the future (say, by 2050?) I'd bet that many communitarians/
cohousers might evolve to be polyamorous without guilt/jealousy and without
de-stabilizing the community.  (Even, then may hearts prevail over theories.)

Can anybody speak to the experience of the Danes -- do mature Danish
cohousing communities tend to encourage/support poly-relationships?  Or do
they simply evolve strong, long-term friendships without sexual
relationships?  At the Boulder coho conference a couple years ago, Jan
Goodman-Hoyer seemed to infer that marriages were still pretty conventional
(monogamous) in his community which had been together 20 years.  I remember
him saying that there were fewer divorces than in society at large, and even
when a couple split up, the estranged spouse stayed in the community and kept
parenting the children.

Part of keeping one's life simple is having clear relationships.  In 1995
America, it seems that the cultural default is defined as I have sex with my
(current) partner and otherwise, I have close non-sexual relationships.
 Rudimentary and simplistic, but pretty clear easy to follow.

Frankly, for me the above was all purely speculative.  I'm still back in the
stage of learning how to stay emotionally available for one woman.  Next
incarnation maybe....

=Mike M, Planet Boulder