Sex Stories: Polyamorous Ideals by Natasha Ragsdale
“Utopia or drama-inducing sexcapades?”
"Sex Stories" is a regular NAILED column in which all kinds of people write about sex. Read the previous "Sex Stories," here.
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It was late in January when I started receiving Christmas cards. Perils of living “abroad” what they are, Christmas lasts until February usually, with the drizzling stream of packages and letters trickling in. I was excited to hear from my friend Ema in Paris. She always sends the most beautiful cards brimming over with love and eccentricities. What I did not expect was to receive TWO cards from my friend. One was a delicate, artistic looking piece signed “Bisous, Ema et Franck.” This was, of course, the all-encompassing husband and wife card that one would expect. The second was a slightly more rustic looking card that came from the United States. It was embossed with a “Merry Christmas, with love, Ema and Thomas.”
With these two cards, I suddenly realized, a bold statement had just been made by my dear, brave friend. Something had shifted in her world dramatically. She had come out as polyamorous.
I was immediately fascinated and called her to congratulate what was sure to be a momentous occasion in her life. She had been speaking of poly lifestyle for quite awhile, I knew she divided her time between two men, but to send two cards? This was a statement. A statement about something I had been so curious about, but unable to tangibly understand. I had seen the eye-rollingly, self-important TV show “Polyamory: Married and Dating” on Showtime. I suffered through these narcissistic asshats having picnics and deep conversations, watched them lying, crying, and dropping words like “triad” and “pod” and “mono,” all the while doing things that seem so “camera ready” like lathering each other up in showers, cooking erotic foods, and carrying on with dramatic arguments longer than any reasonable person would endure. And loads of fucking. My goodness, how many actual assholes could Showtime get into a shot? It was like a naked Chinese fire drill of genitalia of which mostly belonged to perfectly formed, young California women and really rather creepy men.
This couldn’t be the polyamory my dear friend deemed so enlightened by. Is it really about just getting your rocks off and creating drama?
Turns out there is a hugely philosophical and political side to all this that I have found quite inspiring. Polyamory, broken down, loosely translates to “many loves” and Ema, Franck, and Thomas believe this to be something that transcends sex.
“It means that a person can love one person and love another without diminishing or taking love away from the other person,” explains Ema, Skyping me from the colds of Michigan as she packs her bags for Europe. “We love the individuals and honor what they uniquely bring to our lives.”
“Alright, I get that. I love you; you are my dear friend. Does that mean I am polyamorous?” I snark.
“Maybe,” she says coyly, folding a sweater.
I deflect her with a question because I am not sure I want to go down that path. “What was Franck’s reaction to all this?”
“In the beginning he was pretty French about it. The whole ‘have as many affairs as you want, just ignore that it is happening’ thing. He couldn’t understand the need for honesty and forthright discussion. But he was always working and I was missing this element in my life. He finally came around to it by saying, ‘I don’t want to know about it.’ And after awhile he has completely warmed up and is now talking about having vacations for the three of us.”
I asked her how it works.
“It is all about the rules and agreements that you create within your family. Some poly friends I know have been in triads or pods for decades and are allowed to date only if the rest of the family agrees to it. Others are exclusive. Basically it is creating your own perfect happiness with people you love, but it goes deeper than that. Once I started thinking with a poly mindset I was amazed how much deeper my relationships got with all my friends and family. You start seeing and loving people more deeply and for who they really are.”
This seemed completely an unattainable Utopia to me but a fantastic concept. What if we could nourish our heart’s desires and spend our lives giving and receiving love? Of course then I thought how I would feel if my husband suddenly wanted to bring someone else into the chaos that is our daily lives. My first thought was jealousy. My second thought was, “Well if he or she is a damn fine housekeeper, why not?”
I feel like we are programed for ownership, from the first men selling their daughters for lands to the prenups of our modern day. We expect value from our marriages and relationships but even more so we demand to be valued. Legally. By one person. Forever. We are marching in the streets to give the basic human right to legally fuck and own each other’s lives to same sex couples. Exclusively. I get really excited whenever I see that another state has passed that legislature, even if I don’t live in the US and am not, for all intents and purposes, gay. But really we are celebrating ownership, are we not?
I am married. I chose to be married. Guess what, there are a lot of perks to being married. I also deeply love many people in my life and I know that if something were to happen to them, I would not have any legal rights. A friend of mine who is a wonderful writer and artist happens to be a heroin addict as well. She deliberately wrote me into her will as executor because she only trusts me with the remains of her body. So then, is that polyamory?
By Ema’s definition, it is. By the media’s definition, I would have to scissor her first. Do I believe that Ema has the right to love Franck and Thomas? Absolutely. Do I tell anyone else they must do the same? No way. And neither should you.
When it comes to sex and love we, as a society, need to recognize our primal instincts, but we also need to acknowledge our sophistications. It is a delicate balance, a teeter-totter of morality. Perhaps it should be as simple as my high school biology teacher’s class rules: “Don’t hurt anybody and don’t abuse the equipment.” That said, if you are having an orgy, the second one might fall by the wayside.
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Header image courtesy of Diego Gravinese. To view a gallery of his photorealistic paintings, go here.
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Natasha Ragsdale is an expat with five cats, a hedgehog, and a husband, who all live on the island of Okinawa in a formidable, yellow house overlooking the East China Sea. For now. She hopes to, one day, own a monkey and give it business cards to hand out. Then she will know she has made it. In the meantime, she devotes herself to traveling the world so she can steal everyone’s local recipes and dance with them! She also is an actress, theatre director, soccer hooligan, painter, zombie aficionado, daydreamer, cook, avid snark, wine enthusiast and gypsy. But mostly, she writes.