From: chil@fraser.sfu.ca (Keith Lim)
Subject: Re: Golden Rules of Polyamory
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Distribution: world 
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 12:06:44 GMT

Have to echo Curious Of All Natures here: watch the distribution line!
Despite the "usa" dist., the post made it to Canada; I might not have seen
it otherwise. (Yes, I've reset the line.)

jessica@wrs.com (Jessica Hart) writes:

>2) Avoid people who are in a long-term monogamous, or
>advertised as exclusive, or legal relationship, lest you
>end up as the evil person who tried to break them up.

Uncanny! This is exactly what I've been doing for some weeks now, for fear
of inadvertently becoming an "evil person." It turns out that this wasn't
exactly the best thing for me to have done. :(

The above rule may work well in some cases, but it's not all-encompassing
enough to be a "general" golden rule. It plays safe by assuming a worst
case scenario (poly person tries to get involved with one or both of the
people in a exclusive relationship, causing it to break up, resulting in
pain and misery for all--pardon any exaggerations, I'm using very broad
strokes in this painting.) Then it advises on how to avoid that result--
do not get involved at all.

This is just one possibility. There are others. Many factors also must be
considered, for example, known attitudes about sex/friendship/love/
monogamy/marriage/etc. on the part of those involved in the mono
relationship, existing relationship between poly person and the people
in the mono relationship [this is getting boring to type; I'll abbreviate
it as PITMR. BTW, this includes people where it is not known for certain
that they are in an exclusive relationship, but where this can be assumed
with a high probability of accuracy, e.g., they are married or engaged.]

That long parenthetical phrase has really screwed up the flow of the 
sentence, so I'll begin anew. :)

Other factors are: ...existing relationship between poly person and PITMR
(e.g., close friends, not-so-close friends, ex-lovers, work colleagues,
acquaintences, acquaintences-just-becoming-friends, and so on), general
openmindedness of PITMR towards polyamory (even if they don't choose it
themselves, they could be openminded about it), whether the PITMR know 
about poly person's poly choice, etc., etc., etc. Lots of other factors.

My point is that it isn't a given that one should avoid people in an
exclusive relationship. It is surely possible to strike up a (platonic)
friendship with one or both of the PITMR. That may lead to something more,
and maybe it won't. But to avoid the PITMR entirely is to eliminate the
possibility of starting up (or maintaining!) a perfectly good friendship
with those people. Something fulfilling, and which would be a source of
pleasure to all concerned would never happen if this rule was applied
strictly, and that would be a pity.

I want to say again that I do not think this rule is itself bad. Indeed,
there will undoubtedly be cases where not getting involved is the best
choice to make. But such cases are only a subset of all possible cases;
there will also be situations where becoming involved will do no harm,
and there will be situations where getting involved will benefit all.
The advice in this rule is too specific to be a general rule. While
preventing the occurence of potential hurt arising from becoming involved,
it also eliminates all possibility of potential benefits that *could*
arise from the very same action. If it is to be a "golden rule", there
should be a whole long list of caveats attached to it (including, I guess,
the stuff I wrote above.)

A brief word on becoming involved with PITMR. This sort of thing has probably
been covered in other threads in this groups (which I would have read myself
if I kept up on my reading. :) ) Read the "other factors" partial list I
typed in above. Do you know the people well enough/Are you close enough to
them to be able to bring up the subject of getting involved? Are they
willing to give the idea a thinkover (even if they have never encountered
it before and/or do not choose polyamory themselves)? Do they know about
your own polyamorousness? [bleah! what a word. Any linguists want to draw up
the paradigm of "polyamory"?] Would you be able, or willing, to continue in
a purely-platonic relationship if you could not be "involved"?

And so on and so forth. If you do not know the PITMR well enough to be able
to make an informed decision on whether or not to make the first move in
getting involved, perhaps you might try asking (very cautiously) friends
of the PITMR. Actually making the first move with the PITMR should also be
done very cautiously too, and at every stage, everyone should be able to
back out of any developing situation cleanly and quickly, and in such a way
that no one gets hurt. (Tall order, eh? Such is life.)

Yes, and the bit about honesty (mentioned in #3) cannot be overemphasized.
If there's any attempt to become "involved" with the PITMR, both (I'm
assuming it's a couple) people should know of what's happening. Attempting
to become involved with one of the people without the other one knowing is
a no-no.

My story. (Is everyone still with me?) As I wrote in my first paragraph
after the quote, I've been deliberately been getting not-involved with
a person whom I would actually dearly love to get involved with. She's
involved in what I know to be an exclusive relationship. She also knows
of my polyamorousness...polyamority...opinions on polyamory...damn! where's
that paradigm of the word! :) :) Anyway, knowing that about me, it would
certainly be easy for her to think that I would not care about the status
of the relationship she's one half of, and that I would have no qualms
about trying to become involved with her anyway. (And if I were to deny
that, how easily would that be believed, since one of the beliefs I have
is that exclusive relationships are silly, and that belief would still be
held.)

I've been trying to be the nice guy by deliberately staying away from her,
since I know I'll find it hard to not flirt with her or otherwise hit on her.
(This happens a lot of the time anyway.) Apparently--or so I hear from one
of her best friends--she's rather upset that I no longer phone her, talk to
her, or visit her (all of which I used to do somewhat often.) She may think
that I no longer want to see her or that I don't care about her anymore.
There's even an incident to support such a belief: she cancelled a date we
had arranged, to meet with the parents of her SO. I was disappointed, of
course, but it's just one of those things. Nevertheless, that might have
caused her to think I was actually disgusted with, or felt insulted by her,
or was otherwise "actively" upset with her, and couldn't stand to see her
again because of that. Entirely not-the-case, yet something that may have
happened because I stayed away from her--because I assumed the worst, and
played it safe.

I wish I had know about what she was thinking sooner; we had (have?) a
pretty good, easy-going kind of friendship. Guess it's scraping a few rocks
at the moment. Rather obviously, I should clear up any misconception over
the cause of my avoiding her as soon as possible. This is something I find
difficult to do because I don't know her views on polyamory. On the one hand,
she knows all about it as a concept, and in fact, I once was part of a
(fairly intelligent) argument over poly vs. non-poly, where she and I were
both arguing on the same side (against another friend who didn't think
poly relations were good or workable). As an abstract concept, she agrees
that it can certainly be a very sensible, workable, and a great source of
pleasure to all involved. On the other hand, this is not her choice when
it comes to her own relationships, which are monogamous (and she has made
this clear to me.) (Nothing hypocritical about this: one can believe a
general principle without actually having to live one's life that way. Not
very consistent, no doubt, but not itself hypocritical.)

This is what is causing me to have to think a lot. "Clearing up the
misconception"s is almost certainly going to have to involve me telling her
(in *some* detail, at least) my feelings toward her, some of which have
arisen only fairly recently, and which she is probably not aware of--though
she may well suspect them. To reveal them explicitly is to force her to
deal with them; to keep them hidden (as I have been doing) is to allow her
to pretend they don't exist, and carry on comfortably with her relationship.
For me, I can assume she doesn't have similar feelings for me (which would
kill the idea of any sort of relationship beyond that of friendship anyway.)
Makes things simpler for both of us.

There's a whole potential can of worms just waiting to be opened if I tell
her anything about how I feel toward her. Do I take the chance that it's
actually there, and that I'm the one who's going to open it? Another
complication is that I have no idea at all how her SO feels about the idea
of polyamory, whether as an abstract concept, or applied to the relationship
he's involved in.

This is something I'm going to have to figure out for myself, but I feel
better for having written about it in this forum. (Didn't mean to; only
meant to respond to, and comment on, the "golden rules". Oh well. Thanks
for being there, everyone.)


And now for rule 3 :)

>3) Avoid people who are not honest; who claim one thing
>and act another; who are not sure what they want (not
>honest with themselves).

Some caveats here. I don't like the way that people "who claim one thing
and act another" are described as "not honest". This seems an unnecessarily
harsh term to use. There is also an undercurrent of impatience, even
intolerance, toward such people, as well as people who "are not sure what 
they want". This latter group is not the same as the former group (the 
"people who claim one thing and act another.) I will write about these two
groups separately.

First, the people "who claim one thing and act another". Well, there's
the general rule vs. personal choice thing I mentioned in a paragraph above 
(as being "not hypocritical"). For example, I might believe that smoking
is bad for you, increases chances of getting lung cancer, pollutes the air,
annoys people, etc., is just generally not a good thing to do...and still
smoke myself, because other factors, or things happening in my life, make
the option of smoking a more attractive one than that of not smoking.

Another example. I could believe that physical exercise is good for you,
playing sports, jogging, etc...and yet do little to no exercise. It could
be that I am happy with my current level of fitness and don't care about
getting more fit, or that I can't find enough time, or whatever, and simply
not act according to something I believe.

Please be clear: I am *not* saying that believing one thing and acting a
different way is not hypocritical. It certainly *can* be, and probably *is*
in a majority of cases. All I'm saying is that is isn't *necessarily*
hypocritical. People who do such a thing are not *necessarily* not being
honest with themselves.

Second, regarding people who "don't know what they want". There can be many
reasons for this. They may not know enough about a particular view to be
able to decide whether or not they want it as part of their personal life.
(Back to the general vs. personal thing, as above.) They have heard two
opposing viewpoints, but don't have enough info. or arguments for either
of them to be able to decide. They may have heard many arguments for one
side of an issue, but few for the other side, and are unwilling to make
a judgement call on lopsided evidence. They may even have heard lots of
arguments for both sides of an issue, but because there were equally good
pro and con arguments of *each* of two opposing viewpoints, they *still*
are unable to make a decision, still do not know what they want. The supposed
uncertainty could simply indicate a fear of publicly admitting that one
holds a particular viewpoint (societial pressures can be very strong; don't
we all know that.)

There are lots of other similar reasons why a person may not know what they
want, perfectly good ones too, yet the golden rule just says avoid, avoid,
avoid, as if such people were some sort of pariah. It's not a crime to not
know for certain what you want. The advice given is simplistic, and (as
mentioned), there's a nasty hint of intolerance in the way it's worded.
Hasn't everyone had enough of intolerance?

A word on societal/cultural expectations and the pressure to conform. These
can be very strong. It takes a great deal of courage to stand up for, and
defend your personal views, especially if these views go against the
societal/cultural norms. Some people simply prefer to conform, rather than
to "be themselves". This is not particularly admirable (IMO); still, it's
their life. Avoiding such people doesn't help anyone, though. By avoiding
such people, by making yourself unavailable to them, you cut off from them
a source of an alternative viewpoint. That isn't doing them any favours.
They lose opportunities to listen to, and argue about, alternative viewpoints.
This is not a good thing, generally speaking. Besides which, someone may
find the strength to live his/her own life the way he/she wants to live it,
through having a good role model.

Avoiding someone can be done after it becomes clear that no good will come
from being with that person. Avoiding someone purely on the basis of that
person supposedly not being honest by believing in something and acting
differently, without first finding out the reason for that apparent
hypocricy is something entirely uncalled for, and often unjustified.

Remember too, that because of the societal/cultural norms that exists,
viewpoints that go against those norms are often "suppressed" [I use this
term very loosely; no conspiracy theories, please], or else given little
publicity. Such publicity as is given to such views is all-too-often given
an overtone of being unsavoury, or in dubious taste, or destructive (of
family values or whatever), a generally negative overtone, in other words.

Some people who don't know what they want are that way simply because they've
never ever thought about what they want; they just passively accept what
they're spoonfed. "Their" personal values may simply be the cultural norms
which they made their own without thinking about them, and they may not
be priciples that those people would, or could, be happiest with. It is my
view that holders of alternative viewpoints are doing the rest of the
population a favour by exposing them to those viewpoints. Do not avoid them.
Take every opportunity to talk to them. (But do not *ever* cause them hurt.
In other words, if the result of talking to them about alternative views
is likely to cause some hurt, then *don't*. Perhaps *this* should be a
golden rule.) For example, the breakup of an existing, good, working
(exclusive/monogamous) relationship causes hurt. If this is the likely
result of "getting involved", or even telling about polyamorous views, then
don't do it--avoid, stay silent.

In telling people about your alternative view, make sure that they don't
simply reject it out of hand by viewing it through their societal-norms-
filtering glasses (thanks for the analogy, Elf). Tell them to (try to) be
objective, to think for themselves, to work it out for themselves [the most
blatently anti-religion part of Monty Python's Life of Brian, IMO :) ]


Ok, to summarize. I think rules #2 and #3 are pretty far off-base. Avoiding
people is entirely unsuitable as a general rule; doing so *can* cause
problems that wouldn't arise otherwise. Pain and hurt may be avoided, but
so can a lot of potential pleasure and happiness; every situation should be
judged on a case-by-case basis to see which is more likely, the choice to
avoid or not-avoid should be a decision made specifically for a particular
situation, not as a general principle.

Many other factors must be taken into account. Existing relationship between
people involved in the little drama, existing knowledge about participants'
own views and attitudes toward polyamory or whatever, participants' knowledge
of each other's views and attitudes, for example. There are others. Again,
a case-by-case basis.

People often do not know, or else are not quite sure, what exactly they
believe in. This may be due to them having little, or no, information or
even knowledge of, alternative viewpoints. This is, in part, due to the
way the media tends to reflect only what is the current societal/cultural
norm. People who *do* hold alternative views should not stay silent, nor
avoid people who don't. Instead, they should take every opportunity to tell
people about their opposing views.

Covering this is my "golden rule": Don't hurt people. If the likely result
of your telling people something is to cause them hurt, then it's probably
better not to do it. Otherwise, "spread the word". Sow the seeds on fertile
ground, try to get people to think about ideas objectively, instead of
simply comparing them to already-held views and opinions and ideas.


Whew! That was long. I don't usually write so much, so (the usual plea),
please forgive any spelling and grammar errors, etc., etc.

-- 
Keith_Lim@sfu.ca   Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C., V5A 1S6, Canada
** Hon Cog Sci  Min Psyc  Senate  URC  FARSIDE  LEAD  CCCS  COCP  PSU  **
These opinions are mine. Mine!! ALL MINE!! No one else's! NO ONE ELSE'S!!

"Kitchen utensils and vegetables! Yesssss!!" --"S.S.", on the new Purity Test



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