Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Musings on polyamory thread

[Bitner/Stevenson (lilbert]

> 
> A couple of people have mentioned what a controversy this whole polyamory
> thing has stirred up.  Maybe I'm not getting some pertinent posts, maybe
> I'm just dense, but it seems to me to have stirred up relatively little.
> Perhaps things are rumbling under the surface, perhaps there are some
> heavy discussions in private mail.
>
> When I wrote my rather long winded post, I did so knowing that I wasn't
> the only poly person on the list, and knowing that some of the poly folk
> were afraid of mentioning the fact here.  I also knew there were some poly
> people in various cohousing communities.  I figured that I'd pretty
> thoroughly outed myself about the whole thing on this list five years ago
> or so, so I was in a good position to speak, where others might not be...
> and I'd never been entirely happy with how the last conversation went, so
> I was also motivated to.  I kind of wonder now if I said too much, and
> shut other people up.
>
> What suprised me was how much private mail I've gotten over the last
> couple of days.  Some interesting factoids: there are a lot more poly folk
> on the list than I realised.  Oh, we're still probably talking about a
> pretty small fraction of list membership, but it was a suprise to me.
> There are more poly folk in cohousing communities than I realised.  Most
> people seem to be afraid to talk about it in this forum.
>
> (A couple people have asked if there are poly friendly intentional
> community forums -- I'm looking around a bit, if anyone else knows of any,
> I'd appreciate it if you'd drop me a note.  If there does seem to be a
> need in this area, I know some folks who'd probably be happy to host
> such....  personally... well, I guess an additional resource might be
> useful, but I certainly won't be unsubscribing from this list any time
> soon.)
>
> In my experience a lot of people become interested in polyamory for some
> of the same reasons people become interested in cohousing -- a sense of
> wanting a closer community, an extended family, and so on.  A lot of
> people play around with one idea or another for a couple of years, and end
> up deciding it's too much trouble to deal with.  Some people stick with
> it.  I suspect that if cohousing continues, and polyamory continues, poly
> folk will keep showing up in cohousing forums for some time to come.
> (From my vantage point, it seems like the poly community has been slowly
> growing for the last several years.  Hard to say if that's true -- there
> are certainly more resources available than there once were.)
>
>     Catherine
>
>
I think that, like other people who used to live in isolated pockets, poly
people (sounds like some multi-universe phenomenon!) have found, through the
internet, that they are more widespread than they thought. It also presents
an opportunity for interested people to get more information.

I can't really understand why people get their knickers in a knot over this.
The older I get, the less I care what other people do in bed. Snore. And as
far as kids are concerned, it couldn't be any worse than some of the
divorced families I've seen, even in cohousing. And it may be better.
Acknowledging the changing nature of personal relationships and being
committed to your children anyway has to be better than hearing "Daddy's
moving away because we're not in love anymore. Oh, and by the way, you'll be
seeing a whole lot less of him, too." In this way, cohousing and polyamory
are both ways that people choose to keep their families close, even if they
are not paired off.

I had known there were poly people in cohousing, but this discussion has
been a real eye-opener about the issue. Thanks to everyone for giving such
well thought out replies.
--
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California