More on Sex Addiction in Sex-positive Culture

I've been talking about this subject online in several different forums, and wow, does it make some people cranky - not only that, but some also outright reject the idea that sex addiction even exists. If only.

As irritating as it is to know how much criticism and false accusations are made toward we in the sex-positive world, it's easy to question the concept of sex addiction. But it's a very real emotional illness for a lot of people that eventually turns their world upside down. Many desperately wish they could stop but find that they can't. Instead they compulsively take greater and greater amounts of risk to get a very temporary sense of satisfaction that soon turns to guilt and shame. There is a general sense that if people *really* knew who they were, they would be rejected and ostracized.

This is not just true of vanilla mainstreamers but is also just as true for some in the sex-positive world. In many cases our more open attitudes is what draws sex addicts to the BDSM, swing and polyamory communities. It's a cycle that keeps repeating itself as feelings of shame cause anxiety to build which acts as a trigger to act out again. And around and around it goes.

The risks are significant:

• Getting STIs and bringing them home to unsuspecting partners;

• Being arrested having public sex or hiring a pro off the street;

• Getting caught surfing porn and masturbating at work and losing one's job;

• The financial drain on the family by paying for pros, porn, phone sex, etc.;

• Loss of time spent acting out needed for maintaining healthy relationships;

• Humiliation at having one's addiction publicly exposed - you don't have to be Tiger Woods or David Duchovny to have that problem - and to friends and family; and

• Risk of losing intimate partners who feel betrayed about what has been going on without their knowledge or consent.

Sex addiction is growing at a rapid pace due to the easy availability of sexual goods, services and hookups via the internet. Yes, we all know that these can be used in healthy ways. If you do any of this and it doesn't cause you problems, they you aren't a sex addict. You're sex positive - good for you!

Still, this affliction most definitely exists in our own communities, likely in much larger numbers than any of us suspect. It doesn't get talked about by the addicts because of fear of being ostracized.  Their partners don't talk about it due to the shame and self-doubt it raises for them about their own desirability. Codependence is rampant, just as much as with any other kind of addiction.

This is not to raise fear but instead awareness and compassion for those who suffer from feeling out of control around their sexuality, and for their partners who must find a way to deal with betrayal and doubt about themselves and about their partner's love and commitment. If you are an SA or the partner of one and would like to talk, confidentiality is assured, just drop me a line at anita.wagner@practicalpolyamory.com

Gaylen Moore on The Importance of Being Naughty: Exploring the Science of Erotic Diversity

Gaylen Moore is a graduate student in Cleveland who writes for examiner.com and styles himself the Cleveland Open Relationships Examiner. A few days ago he published a most excellent article, the title of which I reference in the title of this post. I highly recommend that you spend the time reading it. It isn't very long, he includes the latest scientific findings on what it is that drives us to pursue love and sex, and he puts much about the chemistry of love into proper poly context, if you will. The following two paragraphs are particularly enlightening:

One very interesting thing to know about prolactin [a hormone produced by both men and women during sex]: Scientists have discovered that proactin triggers stem cells in the brain to produce new neurons! If you see a headline saying "Sex makes your brain grow" – you can bet that prolactin is star of the show. People seeking treatments for victims of stroke and degenerative diseases like Huntington's, Parkinson's, and Alzheimers are hopeful that this research will lead to new treatment options. Advocates of more sexually liberal lifestyles are hoping that the good news about prolactin might lend credence to the belief that lots of good sex is a good thing, and thus liberal sexual lifestyles should not be stigmatized by prudish cultures. This is where polyamory, swinging, and "hot monogamy" come in.

The basic problem with long-term monogamy is that after a few years with the same person, the frequency of sex dwindles down to a trickle. If, in fact, an active sex life is good for your physical and mental health, then it seems that traditional monogamy might not be the best choice for long-term health. The problem with long-term monogamy is well-known to science, and there is even a term for it: the "Coolidge Effect." Scientists (who, as we know, love to study rats) have observed that after a lot of copulation with a particular female, a male rat will lose sexual interest in her. But if a new female comes along, he’ll perk right up and be happy to service her. It is well-known that the same effect applies to humans – and not just to males. Both men and women find it difficult to maintain a high level of sexual interest in their long-term mate. (If you have never heard the joke that is said to be the origin of the term "the Coolidge Effect," click here.) The problem generally is not that couples no longer love each other; the problem generally has more to do with the complex chemistry of sexual desire.

Love that Coolidge effect story, one that always amuses me whenever it is referenced.

I've written here before about the role of brain chemistry in how we love. I've sung the praises of research anthropologist Helen fisher, who continues her quest to understand how we love, and why. To more fully understand his premise, be sure to view the video at the bottom of Gaylen's post of a segment of Dr. Fisher's presentation at the TED conference in 2008 - it will be 16 minutes well spent. She will help you understand what it is about sexual and romantic love that drives us to such distraction as for many of us it in large measure is the source of our humanity and what makes our lives worth living.

As a polyamory advocate and educator, I sometimes find it vexing to try to explain what it is about we poly people that makes what we want a valid choice, especially to those who disapprove of us. There is more evidence to confirm what many of us know, that we polyamorists are frequently condemned for being naturally who we are. Understandable to a point, especially when one considers that who and what we are flies in the face of everything westerners have been told they ought to be.

If you agree with the evidence at hand (as do I), then despite the vehement disagreement even amongst polyamory advocates as to whether polyamory is choice or identity, it is clear that though some may choose polyamory and be just as capable of choosing and being happy with monogamy, for others of us polyamory is indeed who we are in the most human biological terms.

Our greatest hope for finding acceptance and understanding from those who require proof positive is the work of researchers like the awesome Helen Fisher. Perhaps the time will come when our preference for keeping long-term lovers while adding new ones instead of choosing serial monogamy will be better understood and even embraced by a more significant segment of society. Certainly it will if Helen Fisher has anything to do with it. One can always hope.

When Polyamory Looks Like Swinging but Isn't

The difference between swinging and polyamory is one of the first questions polyfolk are asked by people who are unfamiliar with polyamory. Recently a subscriber to a yahoogroup we are both on wrote me privately. He and his wife are still working on defining polyamory for themselves and their life. He wrote to me in an attempt to clear up confusion about why another subscriber's frequent reports of having sex with a potential partner the first time they meet qualifies as polyamory. To him and his wife it looks like their idea of swinging.

I can understand why he is confused. There are a fair number of poly people who begin their poly relationships with sexual interactions. These tend to be people who are very sex positive and have no problem with being sexual for fun with someone new. I've even heard some say that they like to know up front whether there is sexual compatibility before taking the relationship further.

OTOH, some of us (myself included) prefer to get to know potential partners a bit before we become sexual with them. I'm very sensitive to people's energy and have learned that I don't feel good about being sexually intimate with someone only to find out later that there is something about their character or personality that turns me off. At this point in my life I favor sexual experiences that are heart-centered. It's possible for that to happen on a first date, but for me usually not.

I imagine the sex-first fellow would say that he does get to know his potential partners, who he usually travels to see, by e-mail and phone before they are sexual. Regardless, I've come to recognize and accept that some prefer to handle the sexual aspects sooner and some later. Those who prefer sooner differ from swingers in that they are specifically interested in developing a long-term, romantic, bonded relationship with their new partners, where swinging is a couple-centric activity that rarely leaves room for an ongoing emotionally intimate relationship. Most (but not all) swingers are sexually non-monogamous and emotionally monogamous. They tend to focus on the sex as a source of recreation and pleasure, and for them that's where it all stops, except perhaps that they may develop friendships and even platonic familial relationships with their swing partners.

Lest I offend any swingers with this description, I'm on record as someone who is very supportive of swinging as a valid choice. Occasionally swingers will also embrace polyamory, and vice versa. It's all good.

Review: Swingtown

The much anticipated debut of the CBS series Swingtown has finally happened, and I can't wait to see the next episode (this Thursday at 10:00 p.m. EDT). If you missed it last Thursday and need to be brought up to speed, you will find CBS's synopsis here.

The lives of the Swingtown characters were instantaneously recognizeable to me, and I'm sure CBS is counting on attracting many of we babyboomers. The most fascinating part of the story for me is that the swinging neighbor couple, Tom and Trina Decker, appear for all the world to have a very affectionate, loving, dare I say solid relationship. CBS didn't give in to temptation to paint them as troubled or morally defective or that they are in any way heading for a marital train wreck. Such temptation is understandable, since historically it has been safer to demonstrate how behavior that is traditionally viewed as immoral will lead to personal disaster. I imagine that our generally sex-negative society made this necessary in order for the network not to alienate a great many viewers.

But hooray, it seems that the times, they are a-changing! At least so far, CBS has presented this subject in non-pejorative terms. In fact, of the three couples who are the central characters, in addition to Tom and Trina, pictured here to the left, Susan and Bruce Miller (in the middle) are clearly very happily married and evenso have the capacity to receive the idea of swinging with an open mind.

Jane and Roger Thompson, on the right, are a different matter, though. Poor Roger is the long-suffering husband of a frigid, priggish wife who runs screaming from the room when she inadvertently discovers what's going on at the Decker's party. She immediately insists that she, Roger and the Millers leave the party, but the Millers elect to stick around. In a subsequent scene Jane is seen to be frantically scrubbing the kitchen, declaring that the house is a pig stye (it's clearly already perfect, since Jane is the model wife and mother) and saying in an angry tone to Roger "Don't touch me!" when he tried to reach out and comfort her.

Another fascinating aspect of Swingtown is the sexual exploring, coming-of-age experiences of these families' teenagers. Their stories are just as important and compelling as the stories of their parents.

There is a lot of drug use portrayed (coke, weed and quaaludes.) I'm sure there are lots of conservatives who were just as scandalized by that as by the open sexuality. I recall that aspect of that time as well and think the story wouldn't be authentic if that part of life back then weren't also referenced. It is essential, in fact, as it is another example of our cultural desire in the 1970s to experiment and break away from the strict moral and social standards with which we had lived for many years prior.

I very much enjoyed being taken back to the mid 1970s - the music, the clothes, all of it. I was a young 20-something married woman at that time, a child of the 1960s and the sexual revolution, but not quite yet a mom or living in an affluent suburb, though that would soon follow. I don't recall living across the street from anyone like Tom and Trina, though I do recall some flirtation and making out with some neighbors we were close to - let's see, his name was Ralph, and hers was Sharon. Then there were Bud and Sandy, who came to our halloween party dressed as love bugs, those kind of cute but annoying, car-paint-peeling insects in central Florida that fly in swarming, procreating pairs. To this day it was the most clever couple's costume I've ever seen.

Ah, those were the days, and what an exciting time it was. Hopefully Swingtown will succeed and continue to take us back to this time of great social change that laid the groundwork for the next chapter in the sexual revolution.

So the polyamorist says to the monogamist “POLYAMORY IS NOT BETTER THAN MONOGAMY.”

Someone who wished to remain anonymous recently sent me a response to my June 7 post, Identity Poly-tics in which they accused polyamorists in general of "trying to foist their opinions on other people." This person, who I’ll call Jo (gender neutral) said, “In another blog post, dated June 7th, Anita compared polyamory, once again, to gay marriage.”

I’m a bit confused, since I said nothing in that post about gay marriage. Jo went on to say,

“ I am so, so sick of hearing this. It really makes me mad. You aren't gay, so quit comparing yourself to people who are.”

Does being bisexual count? (Small grin.)

“The other day, I attended a gay rally, and a goth girl showed up wearing a collar with spikes 2 inches long. She was riding a bike (I wonder if you know her?) “

Wait! Is this one of those assumptions people make along the lines of, "Hey, you're from Tennessee? (Population 6,000,000) My uncle lives in Tennessee - do you know him???"

The visible polyamory community is pretty small and incredibly far flung, so I very much doubt that I do. Also, many people live poly lives whose social circles do not encompass the polyamory community itself, especially polys who are gay, lesbian and/or kinky. Some of their communities make space for them as poly people and as a community subset, and they are content with that.

“On one side was a sign that read, ‘Lesbian bed death - in your face – Polyamory’ and the other side read, ‘Queer as f* - High Femme - Kiss my a**’ It ticked me off, but it was nothing I hadn't seen before!”

“When polyamorists direct such offensive language to 'monogamists' as you label those of us who believe in two-person relationships- the first time I've ever actually been offended by a label- can you guess what the reaction is?”

How horrid of me! How dare I?!?! (Sorry, but I just can't help poking a little fun at Jo's assumptions - s/he speaks as if s/he really believes that all polyamorists are determined to make sure same sex couples can't marry.)

As to the term "monogamist", Microsoft Word’s spellcheck doesn’t even blink at it – I think that means it’s a common term and mine was fair use of it. Mirriam-Webster agrees:

mo•nog•a•mist
Function: noun
Date: 1651 : one who practices or upholds monogamy

“Can you guess what I wanted to scrawl on her sign with the cans of spray paint sitting so temptingly nearby? It's incredibly offensive, and 'lesbian bed death' is also completely untrue. It makes me mad. I don't know why 'polyamorous bed death', 3 or 4 people who are bored with each other, isn't an equally possible scenario, or how poly is somehow a 'cure' to a bad 2-person relationship. It's utterly ridiculous.”

No poly activist I know says anything remotely like what is assumed here, i.e. that polyamory can be a cure for a troubled dyadic relationship. I would never and have never recommended such a thing. I've never heard of poly bed death, but I expect that it exists for some poly people, just like it does for the rest of the population, gay, bi, trans and straight.

I did use the term “monogamist” in the Identity Poly-tics post, in which I was discussing how some polyamorists don’t want to be referred to as such. I said that *to me* the term “polyamorist” is a simple term which I use to describe one of the two sorts of people who engage in long-term, committed intimate relationships. The others are indeed monogamists, and the dictionaries clearly agree. I didn’t imply that one is better than the other, but that’s what Jo heard nevertheless. And Jo is certainly not the first person I’ve encountered who gets hot under the collar at the perception that someone is trying to label them.

What I don’t think I said but will happily say now is that I do not consider polyamory to be any better than monogamy – it’s just different. Monogamy works for many people, and so does polyamory.

“To my mind, this little goth girl's definition of polyamory is polygamy, or "swinging". I'm sort of thinking it is your definition, too.”

I've not had much luck with trying to get an accurate impression of someone's personal definition of polyamory as they practice it by reading their t-shirt and noting their style of dress. And though I don't identify as a swinger, I fully support swinging as a legitimate form of sexual expression, and I've spent enough time socializing with swingers to have a pretty good idea that there aren't too many goth girls hanging out with them. Neither have I noticed signs of goth culture invading mormon polygamous compounds - if it has, it's their secret! We do see a bit of gothness here and there in the polyamory community, and lots more of it in the BDSM/kink community, where there are also lots of polyfolk.

I do make references to being sex-positive in my 6 June post, which some people hear as code for promiscuous. For the record, I do not identify as a polygamist nor a swinger. I support polygamists (when all partners are adults and have equal power of choice) and as I said above, I also support swingers as well, each in their preferred method of partnering. I believe that theirs are valid forms of intimate relationships, too.

“Anyway, everyone in the Universe now except for most gays is lumping polyamory in with gay marriage, and it has me steamed. Do me a favor and quit trying to tie yourself to me and drag down my chances of getting gay marriages formally recognized in the US as they should be under our Constitution.”

Ah, so now we get to the heart of the matter and what has Jo so steamed. In my next post I’ll elaborate on the history of the conflation of same sex-marriage and polyamory, by whom, and how hostility between same-sex marriage proponents and polyamorists is exactly what the enemies we share hope will happen.