Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: ROMANTICIZING COHOUSING

[Catherine Harper (tylik]

Therapeutic cooking is a wonderful thing...  one pumpkin pie (with an oat
pecan crust that I'm particularly proud of) later, and I'm feeling much
better, and better disposed toward replying towards this thread.

First off, Allen, polyamory has come up before on this list.  You might
want to check the archives and see what was said then.  (At least some of
it was filed under "sexuality" IIRC.)

On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Deb Smyre wrote:

> Allen, your examples remind me of communes in the 60s.  Free love, flower
> power, groovy baby.  Swinging - the 60s term for polyamory/serial monogamy
> - isn't really romance.  It's an alternative lifestyle that can be
> destructive to relationships in the long term, and I wouldn't choose to
> live in a cohousing community that supported it.

Ouch, Deb.  Care to tone it down a little?  I'm going to assume that
you've had some kind of bad experience with something along these lines in
the past.  I can understand that, my one and only monogamous relationship
really sucked hard, and I'd rather be a nun than go back to such (okay,
that might not all have been from the monogamy, but it has bad
associations for me). How about I'll not generalize if you won't? 

Lesee here.  First off, I think you could make a fairly good argument that
"free love" and "swinging" are conceptually different.  Either of these
and serial monogamy certainly are -- serial monogamy refers to people who
have numerous relationships over the course of their lives, but strictly
one at a time.  Polyamory has some overlaps at least with the first two,
but is also conceptually distinct.  Don't overplay the overlaps -- by most
polls I've seen, somewhere between one third and one half of monogamous
relationships are not entirely (a statistic that boggles my mind), and yet
the cultures at least seem to be distinct.  If you happen to be
interested, you might check out www.polyamory.org to get a reasonable feel
for what the community tends to be about. 

Then we get to the not really romance part.  Which I just can't see how
you're in a position to judge, but, well, you're wrong.  Hmmm...  maybe
the best way to demonstrate this is to talk about my life.  I have two
lovers.  The more recent of the two -- my lover of, oh, six and some years
now -- is my husband, the man of my dreams, the raging stallion of my
bedchamber, with home I share hearth and home, professional support and
plans for the future (including at some time, children).  I am -- we are,
really -- also involved with a woman.  Her and my relationship is also
romantic, though it tends more towards a best friends and confidants sort
of thing.  (And she's married, and they both have other lovers, and yes
there are children in the extended poly family, and yes everyone is very
careful about STDs and uses a lot of latex...  but I don't want to be
explaining the details all night, and our end is the quiet end of things.
Both my husband and I are only involved with one other person, and it
happens to be the same person.)  

Perhaps this all sounds terribly exotic, but really, we're just your
average bunch of techies, own homes a few miles away from eachother (it
was supposed to be closer, but the right place didn't present itself when
they were looking to buy) work too much, and generally muddle on through
life more or less like anyone else.  Back when we worked in adjacent
buildings, I ate lunch with my girlfriend's husband pretty much every day. 
Used to be I was in a social club with her other boyfriend, and of course
many of us all went to school together back when, and everyone pretty much
knows everyone fairly well.  (And when I'm speaking of the general social
circle, not everyone is poly.  Half maybe?  Hard to say.)  We spend a lot
of time together, cook for eachother (which is a very good thing -- if I
were only cooking for two I'd go nuts), babysit for eachother's kids and
pitch in when help's needed.  It's community. 

Okay, now we're on to destructive to relationships in the long term.  

Some relationships last.  Some don't.  This is true of both monogamous and
polyamorous relationships, except that there are more social constructs
that are supportive of monogamous relationships, and when monogamous
relationships break up people don't tend to take it as proof that the
whole concept is a bad idea.  I know people who've had some sort of
non-monogamous relationship going for the last thirty years.  My
girlfriend and her husband have been together for...  almost ten, I think.
She and I have been together for much of that.  Maybe that's not long term
enough, but I'll take my chances.

I guess the other question that is lurking here is *whose* relationships. 
At least where I live, it's considered really bad to get involved with
someone who is supposed to be being monogamous with someone else.  Icky
stuff there, don't want it touching you (IMHO, it still is that person's
job to be faithful, not mine to make them faithful, but I don't want to
get anywhere near that kind of dishonesty, and frankly would think less of
anyone who did). Personally, I'm a) not on the market (frankly, two is
plenty for me with my work schedule...) b) not inclined to get involved
with folks who aren't only poly but have been poly for some time and c) 
unlikely to start sleeping with a neighbor.  Okay, the last hasn't been
put to the test, but from long experience in communal housing, I know I'm
uncomfortable getting involved with a housemate, and I expect the same
dynamic would apply. 

There is often an assumption that poly folk are predatory.  While there
may be some folk who call themselves poly who are predatory (as there are
some folk of any known denomination who are assholes) most of the poly
folk I know are pretty suspicious of the idea of getting involved with
people who don't have a poly track record (something that poly newbies
aften complain about).  And there's a ton of ettiquette around and about. 

Then we get to the idea of communities that support poly relationships.  

Now personally, I expect that claims of inclusivity aside, cohousing
communities will tend to form up with people of similar interests and
values.  So if you want to find a community that can't deal with the idea
of polyamory and live there, I won't live there, and we'll both be happy.  

But at another level that statement makes me feel pretty sick to my
stomach.  What does it mean for a community to support one kind of
relationship and not support another.  If we were to get involved with a
cohousing group, when should we tell them we're poly, and what does it
mean if they aren't supportive of it?  Will they say we shouldn't be part
of the community?  Will we be told that we're welcome into the community
because inclusivity is valued, but they don't want us near the children? 
Or that they just don't want to hear about it?  (BTW, I don't make a habit
of talking about my sex life, but in most communities who is romantically
involved with whom is pretty well known.) Or that whatever we do in our
bedrooms is our business, but houses are only going to be built to support
nuclear families? 

(BTW, at one point my husband, our girlfriend, her husband and I talked
about getting a big place together, but eventually decided that we had
irreconcilable standards of cleanliness and media penetration.  Just in
case you were wondering.)

Yikes.  Scary stuff.  I'll admit, recently most of my personal interest in
cohousing has been because a bunch of us have been thinking of trying to
put together an IC in a few years, and I figure anything we can glean from
the collective wisdom of this list is all to the best... and of course my
mom's at Puget Ridge.  (And I almost was, too, but we kind of ran out of
space.)  But we might be looking at some of the other communities in the
area, either those that are forming or those already built, too.  I don't
exactly stay up at night wondering if out polyamory will be a barrier to
some of the other community things we're interested in, but I can't say it
hasn't crossed my mind, either. 

                                Catherine