HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bbooth@x400gate.bnr.ca (Brad Booth)
Subject: Re: The TRUTH about Mormons (was Re: "infidelity")
Originator: bbooth@bcrks6
Reply-To: bbooth@x400gate.bnr.ca (Brad Booth)
Organization: BNR, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 14:32:25 GMT


In article <1992Dec14.192012.9560@ctp.com>, sthor@ctp.com (Sarah Thornburg) writes:
> Leaving aside questions of
> pre-marital sex (it's irrelevant in this situation I think) can I justify
> the fact that I *am* bisexual, that I *will* have other relationships with
> women, and that on occaision I *will* have sexual relationships involving more
> than one other person at a time. 

Who do you feel you have to justify it to?  It sounds like you already know
how you want to live YOUR life... there seems to be little need for 
justification.  But if it makes you feel any better, you're not the only
one living that type of lifestyle. :)

> How do I reconcile this?  What does the
> church allow, and what doesn't it? 

Who cares what the church thinks, it's your life, not theirs.

> What about if the other people I am
> involved with I also make some kind of life long pact of love with?  (I
> don't think that's realistic either in my case, but I'm throwing out
> suggestsions.) 

Good question actually.  When Diane and I started having other lovers,
we assumed that our relationship would remain primary even if the other
lovers were long term.  Then Mimi came along and all our previous ideas
of what a third person would mean in our relationship went out the 
window.  Soon, Diane will not only be married to me, but also to Mimi.
Something that we never conceived of happening 6 months ago.

> I'm just very desperate for some
> real knowledge on the subject, and I don't feel comfortable asking the
> sister missionaries, having to come out to them only for them to possibly
> tell me i am sinful and can't possibly be accepted into the church without
> repenting, etc.  And I can't.

We're all desperate for some knowledge.  The motto "Live and Learn" seems
to apply to this type of lifestyle.  There's not any real information
available... and there's no right way or wrong way in which to do this.
But practice makes perfect. ;)


Words of a sinner (and damn proud of it),

    __o     Brad Booth              | "If somebody feels really good
  _`\<,_    Bell-Northern Research  |  about who they are, they don't
 (*)/ (*)   Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |  feel threatened by what other
----------  bbooth@x400gate.bnr.ca  |  people are." - Dr. M. Rubenstein
From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: Intro to me and question for all
Date: 14 Dec 92 18:07:52
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
	<1992Dec11.194826.17404@microsoft.com>
	<MUFFY.92Dec11201307@remarque.berkeley.edu>
	<1992Dec14.233228.13409@u.washington.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: vicka@wrq.com's message of Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:32:28 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.233228.13409@u.washington.edu> vicka@wrq.com (the Littlest Orc) writes:
>Muffy sez:
>> I've never met anyone who found the term "monogamous" ambiguous.  Again,
>> please tell me how it is that it is ambiguous.

>Apparently, some folks (me, Phil, Aahz) can use it one way, and other
>folks (you, dan) only want to use it a different way. [...]
> This seems to indicate some ambiguity.

Any word can be misused.  That doesn't make it ambiguous (are you *sure*
you're a native speaker of English? - that's *two* words you don't seem
to know the meanings of).  Here are the definitions received so far for
monogamy:

**

*Personally, my definition of "being monogamous"  has always been that you are
*in a sexual relationship with only one person, which usually means you're either
*married or in a committed relationship (like the dictionary states)  
 
**

*when I say I am monogamous, i mean that i am dating ONE person, and
*having any physical relationship is kept to that ONE person. i do not go
*on dates with other people, i do not flirt with other people, and i most
*certainly do not have any "sexual" physical contact (meaning something
*other than a hug or a kiss on the cheek for a close friend) with someone
*besides my SO. i also find i don't even fantasize or think about other
*people, either....

**

*It means they don't have physical or romantic relationships outside 
*of the primary.  

**

*When *I* use the term monogamous, I am referring to definition #2 below. 
*When others use the term, I have no idea what they mean since as we are 
*about to see, everybody has different definitions.

*>2.  The state
*>of having one mate for life.  

**

*Commitment.  Sex with one person only.

**

No one seems to think that having two lovers would fit. 

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                      | ~Can you tell me how much bleeding/it
muffy@mica.berkeley.edu            |  takes to fill a word with meaning and/
"amorous inclinations"? Aha! I'm   |  how much how much death it takes/to give
not "not straight," I'm *inclined*.|  a slogan breath?~ - Bruce Cockburn
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: Could anyone be poly?
Date: 14 Dec 92 07:55:57 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Dec12.232400.7483@u.washington.edu> omaha@hardy.u.washington.edu (Omaha Sternberg) writes:
>
>	I love how most people can take jealousy to mean one thing and
>one thing only. Unfortunately for most people jealousy has different
>aspects.

    I think this is going to boil down to a question of definitions,
like so many other subjects on recent threads.  Basically, I'm using
the word "jealousy" to refer to a slightly narrower range of emotions
that you are.


>	I say that I am a jealous person when my SO jumps into bed(or
>any other place) with one or more other people and I am not involved.
>The reason I am jealous: I can't be there to enjoy the fun.

     This I would call "envy", not "jealousy".  Basically (and these
are personal definitions, but they work for me), envy refers to
objects (in the case above, sex), while jealousy refers to people.
I do envy all the time - I haven't ever done jealousy, to the best
of my knowledge.


> However, it
>was not too long ago that I was jealous for an entirely different
>reason, and this jealousy was quite different from the one I experience
>now. I was afraid at that time that any body by SO went out with beyond
>me would eventually pull my SO away from me.

    Yup - this I would call jealousy.  It's based to the concept that
the amount of love that a person has to give is finite - by loving
another person, your SO must love you less.  (Omaha, I'm sure from
the following text that you understand this - this is just general
commentary and babbling from me.)


>[long story deleted]

      Thanks much for sharing this - I wonder how many others on
the group have had similar experiences, so I'll ask:
      How many of you have had similar experiences?


>	So you see, jealousy is truly multi-faceted, and you can never
>really understand it until you realize this.

     This is where discussion on this subject gets a little weird
for me - I don't understand jealousy at all.  I never have.  This
has actually led to trouble in past relationships - the question
"Why aren't you jealous?" has come up more than once, with the
other party seemingly hurt because I failed to feel this
particularly insidious negative emotion as the result of some
action of theirs.
     I don't know if anyone else works the same way that I do.
Basically, though, for me polyamory is a natural state, not
a learned one.

					-Phil
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
From: paul@vax.ftp.com (Paul Selkirk)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: Intro to me and question for all
Date: 16 Dec 92 21:06:34 GMT
Reply-To: paul@ftp.com
Organization: FTP Software, Inc., Wakefield, MA
Nntp-Software: PC/TCP NNTP

In article <MUFFY.92Dec10103358@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:

    For example, if I was a lesbian, that would presumably not be a surprise
    to my lovers, but if I spent all my time in public being affectionate
    with men, then the people around me would not *see* me as a lesbian.
    
Actually, Francie and I went out for a while with a woman who
identified herself as a lesbian.  When we broke up, it was not
because she didn't want to sleep with men, but because, at the time,
I didn't have sufficient experience or dedication to make a poly
relationship work.

Again, it's a matter of stating preferences.  It would have been more
technically correct to say that she was a Kinsey-5 (where 0 is
completely hetero and 6 is completely homo), but who wants to have to
explain that all the time?  Should she have called herself "bisexual"
even if her attraction to men was by far the exception?  Should I
call myself a bisexual, or should I call myself a heterosexual who
occasionally sleeps with men?  And why should I spend time and
network bandwidth worrying about it?  Language is an imprecise
shorthand, but it lets us get on with our lives without too much
needless introspection.

				paul
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
From: borah@cs.cornell.edu (Vicki Borah)
Subject: Re: terms for SO, lovers, ect
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:46:00 GMT

A silly aside: At one point, I had a primary, long-term lover who was
male, and whom I occosionally referred to as SO, and another lover who
was female, and who insisted on calling herself my 'insignificant
same'. (She isn't insignificant, though.)

--Vicki B.
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
From: jessica@wrs.com (Jessica Hart)
Subject: Advice Wanted
Organization: Wind River Systems, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:46:46 GMT



Hi. This is my first posting to this group, at least in a long while.

I would like some advice on how to approach a new person for a possible
polyamorous affair.

Several folks on this group seem very experienced and successful, whereas
I have had a little experience, which was not very successful (well OK,
it was a disaster!)

So I would appreciate anyone's experience/advice on this problem. The situation:

I am a woman married to a man. We have no other lovers at this time, but
my husband knows I am interested in polyamory and, while he doesn't
seem as interested, he says it's OK.

There is a guy I am interested in. This guy is our age, and is engaged
to a girl. The first time I saw him, and every time after that, I just
feel like I'm going to faint. He is so attractive! I don't know why,
but I just get this feeling of intense lust. Also, I like him and
he is actually pretty friendly with my husband.

The problem: I spoke with the fiancee a bit (so much easier to ask
the woman out to lunch alone than the guy! thanks to societal
rules about what is appropriate). We talked about lots of things,
including my interest in polyamory (I would like to build an
extended family). She did not act shocked, in fact said that they
once went to a talk given by the Kerista folks, but she said they
do NOT practice polyamory.

She wasn't overy emphatic or frantic about it, just mentioned,
"Oh, that's interesting that you do that. We don't, but we did
go to this talk once..." etc.

Is there anything I can do? He sure seems interested, at least I am
feeling a "vibe". Maybe I'm the only one feeling it, but I haven't
had a chance to discuss anything with him alone. Should I invite
him out to lunch? Should I explicitly say, "I need to talk to you
about some pretty personal stuff?" Should I try to talk to him alone
at all? Should I just phone up and talk on the phone? Send a letter?
What if she got it? Ack!

He is a very blunt sort of person who always asks personal questions
and speaks his mind instantly. For example, once at a party some
acquaintances came up, a married couple, and he opened the conversation
by saying, "So, how's your sex life these days?" He often mentions
how much he enjoys sex. He is a very physical person. Maybe that is
why I am attracted, since I am a more intellectual person.

Any advice on what to do? I'm not sure I can stand to just
do NOTHING. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Help?
jessica@wrs.com

(but I'm only a contractor, so don't blame wrs!)
From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: accepting poly* in partner means being poly?
Date: 12 Dec 92 20:16:03
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: an1691@anon.penet.fi's message of 12 Dec 92 00:36:57 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.075629.27597@penet.fi> an1691@anon.penet.fi (Christina) writes:
>This is something that has confused me a lot.  The idea that accepting a 
>poly partner/SO/lover/whatever means that you yourself are poly.

It doesn't mean that "you yourself are poly," but it does mean that you
are in a poly relationship.  Certainly, no one is going to force you to
have other relationships just because your partner wants them (or, for
you, it seems that the reverse situation holds...*smile*).

There is another situation, though - when a person wants to have
multiple relationships but does not want their partner to do so.  While
people can agree to any sort of relationship they choose, this seems
unreasonable.  So, I think that if one partner is allowd to have
additional relationships, then both should be *allowed*, even if they
don't both want to.  As happened with you:

>[...] I wasn't totally aware of or dealing with or accepting my
>polyness when we got involved -- but we had a sort of openish kind of
>relationship -- like some sex play outside the relationship would be okay
>but no real 'relationships'.

People's feelings on the subject can change.  One of the nice things
about a polyamorous relationship is that you *could* never have any
other partner, but there is no requirement one way or the other.

Muffy


--

Muffy Barkocy                      | ~Can you tell me how much bleeding/it
muffy@mica.berkeley.edu            |  takes to fill a word with meaning and/
"amorous inclinations"? Aha! I'm   |  how much how much death it takes/to give
not "not straight," I'm *inclined*.|  a slogan breath?~ - Bruce Cockburn
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
From: mbr2@quads.uchicago.edu (Curious Of All Natures)
Subject: G. R. of P.: not knowing what you want 
Reply-To: mbr2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Universtiy of Chicago
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 00:04:50 GMT

Hey, I really enjoyed that post, Keith.  Thumbs up to it all.

Something to add about people who "don't know what they want"...  not
knowing what one wants about this or that is common and healthy.  It's
important, IMHO, to give yourself *permission* to not know what you're
after, or how you feel, if that in fact seems to be so for you.  To
cover your genuine uncertainty with fabricated direction is another kind
of self-deception.  

I think the spirit of "people who don't know what they want" intended in
the original "rule" was more like "chronic non-deciders/non-informers" -
folks who, perhaps, do in fact really know what they want wrt most
things, but are insecure about it or otherwise conflicted, and thus
overoften can't make this clear to themselves or the people around them.

Now that I look at this again, I think it may fall under the basic
honesty clause as well.  But I think it's a mistake to assume that there
is certainty or clarity *in* someone about something, or even that there
should be.


-Matt Ryan, who lives his theories and knows not certainties,
mb-ryan@uchicago.edu                Curious Of All Natures
==================================  ====================================
If I'm dreaming, never let me wake. You'll never see the end of the road
If I'm awake, never let me sleep.   When you're traveling with me.
               -old chinese fellow                        -Crowded House     
==================================  ====================================
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Subject: Re: Could anyone be poly?
Originator: elf@halcyon.com
Reply-To: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 10:11:23 GMT

In article <71769@cup.portal.com>
     HeroSoftware@cup.portal.com (Bits of Magic) writes:

>Omaha sez:

>>   I say that I am a jealous person when my SO jumps into bed(or
>>any other place) with one or more other people and I am not involved.
>>The reason I am jealous: I can't be there to enjoy the fun.

>My term for this is "Envy", as in "I want to be doing that".  Jealousy
>implies, to me, "It's my RIGHT, not theirs, to be doing that".

   More to the point, examining the terms in use, 'envy' is something I
feel of Omaha's lovers because they're giving her something I cannot.
Despite what everyone _here_ seems to think of me, I am neither
terribly romantic nor otherwise ept.  Omaha's lovers can take her out
dancing, for example, whereas I would rather clean the floor of Grand
Central Station with my tongue than dance...

   I envy them that ability to give her a pleasure I... I can't say
"can't."  But I'd still rather not.

         Elf !!!
--
Elf Sternberg.   (elf@halcyon.com)
Due to a bureaucratic error, you are offered the job of county coroner.
You seriously consider accepting the job because it offers:          __
A. Unclaimed watches and wedding rings.                              \/
B. Gold fillings and bridges.
C. Free blood.
D. A constantly changing array of new friends who aren't at all stuffy
   about what happens to their genitalia.
From: spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: Intro to me and question for all
Date: 15 Dec 1992 18:34:37 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley -- ERL
NNTP-Posting-Host: zion.berkeley.edu

Somebody in some newsgroup I don't read said:

> when I say I am monogamous, i mean that i am dating ONE person, and
> having any physical relationship is kept to that ONE person. i do not
> go on dates with other people, i do not flirt with other people, and
[..] i also find i don't even fantasize or think about other people.

Jesus.  Not even any flirting or fantasizing.

I'm really glad nobody's ever tried to hold me to *that*
standard of monogaminity.  (Or any other standard for that
matter, but particularly this one...)

Is the premise that if you start flirting and/or
fantasizing, then without further volition you'll likely
end up in bed with somebody?

Steve
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
From: vicka@wrq.com (the Littlest Orc)
Subject: Re: Intro to me and question for all
Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:34:28 GMT

Muffy sez:
> Any word can be misused.  That doesn't make it ambiguous

If the use is a natural, native-speaker one, and if it is comprehensible
between a pair of native speakers, then the word ain't "misused", regardless 
of what the dictionary or yer third-grade English teacher or soc.couples may
say.  If, however, they are not comprehensible between *all* pairs of native
speakers, then ambiguities or variant usages exist.

> (are you *sure* you're a native speaker of English?

Yes, quite certain, thanks.  (I'm also a researcher in linguistic neurology,
and I have a pretty good idea of what the terms "native speaker" and 
"natural usages" mean.)

> [definitions of "monogamy" from soc.couples]

....which describe roughly the kind of relationships I prefer.  Which is,
after all, why I use that term.  


John Clark sez:
> I thought that the 'disagreement' started with an individual's self
> identification as 'monogamous' and yet had 'lovers' outside of the
> monogamous relationship.

This is the crux, I think.  I am a monogamous person.  I do not have
a "monogamous relationship" just now, and strictly speaking didn't have
one even before I acquired my second lover: my lover-the-first is poly.

> Where does that leave the basically monogamous relationship whose
> members digress from the standard of exclusiveness? I think these
> individuals are still 'polyamorous' but similar to others whose
> sexual behavior evoces societal outrage, they are 'closeted'.

*ahem* "Closeted" implies secrecy.  I ain't exactly secretive about
this, and I don't presently have a "basically monogamous relationship" 
from which I might be considered to digress.  But multiple lovers are
still not what I Really Like -- and therefore I have a hard time 
describing myself as a polyamorous individual.


MdF sez:
> What *I* dislike about protestations of *monogamy* is that the word usually 
> means, "I'm sexually active but virtuous. I screw only according to the 
> socially accepted rules".

Let me try this one more time.  "I'm sexually active but prefer my 
partners one-at-a-time.  I therefore call myself monogamous.  I don't
consider this a virtue; if anything it's something of an nuisance, but
it's still the way I feel.  I don't give a flying fuck for socially-
accepted rules of screwing; my life doesn't conform to them regardless."
The moral high-handedness around here seems to belong to that set of
poly-folk who want to equate a liking for multiple partnerships with
the virtue of tolerance and an open mind; these seem to be independent 
qualities as far as I have seen.


cheers,
--vicka							vicka@wrq.com

	"Language is a tool for getting ideas from one
	 head into another without surgery." -- Mark Amidon
From: webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber)
Subject: Re: Ambiguity
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 04:54:06 GMT

Do you suppose it's possible to have safe sex discussions without
talking in conundrums?

Bob

-- 
Bob Webber, webber@world.std.com ===========================================
==========================================================  Laurie Anderson:
I dreamed I had to take a test in a Dairy Queen on another planet...
Xref: sparky alt.polyamory:2095 alt.feminism:5894 soc.women:21381 soc.men:21016
From: foy@aero.org (Richard Foy)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory,alt.feminism,soc.women,soc.men
Subject: Re: "infidelity" (was Re: Back Again To Father)
Date: 11 Dec 1992 22:07:03 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aerospace.aero.org

In article <jay.21.724099507@UUSERV.CC.UTAH.EDU> jay@UUSERV.CC.UTAH.EDU (Jay Deuel) writes:
>
>Good perception!  I left out that part because I was just responding to the
>statement, "Mormons have problems with the state of Utah over polygamy".  
>Also that a manifesto was issued banning the practice, prior to 1896, in 
>response to the [then] government delaying statehood.  They still belive it 
>is an eternal principle, though few women around here like to discuss it. 
> _________________________________________________________________________
>|                  |_    _|  |_    _|                                     |
>| Jay Deuel          |  |______|  |______  PHONE:  (801) 581-8343         |


There was an article in the OP/Ed section of the paper some time ago
by a Mormon woman lawyer explaining why she thought that the husband
having several wifes was great. I don't recall if the several women
were married to the man or not or if they had an informal agreement. 
They were living in one household. It was not in SLC but close enough,
as I recall, that she could practice in SLC.

Richard Foy  Redondo Beach, CA         Standard Disclaimer



Newsgroups: alt.polyamory