My skater friend 
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gracie-x/compersion-a-polyamorous-principle-that-can-strengthen-any-relationship_b_6803868.html
Clearly “compersion” ǂ is a real word, but what a load of tosh! Now, don’t get me wrong, this huff of mine merely means to say, polyamory is nothing new under the sun and definitely doesn’t warrant a word all to itself to give it more kudos!
Clearly, you don't need to go polyamorous to strengthen a relationship or retain your independence or get an ethics badge for sleeping around. As behooves a skater, this young man is being a young man with a penchant for challenges. Polyamory is not quite the soul's equivalent of an extreme sport, but it does ask you to pull some punches, take some shocks to the heart, and stay calm as the brain sparks off the charts. It will test your will-power when it comes to repressing pointless emotion, which sounds like it might build up some soul-muscle. Worth a try? Comes with a warning though: it could also stunt spiritual development altogether, as you mind-wrestling yourselves into love-fatigue.
My generation - not quite the hippy one - may not have put the word polyamory into circulation but we did spend a lot of time justifying it in order to continue the erotic liberties of the hippy communions, in more suburban and yuppy, middle-class environments.
It began as the ultimate freedom from conventional morality and institutions which don't serve the soul (heart) at all. Isn't it ironic, though, that polyamory shares much in common with polygamy, one of our oldest social insitutions?
In polyamory, it seems, only the positive sides of relationships are allowed. Then it can very quickly all boil down to one thing, and that is MY pleasure. The new idea that another can derive something from that pleasure is also not new. Women have been doing it for years, loving their partner’s orgasm despite not having one themselves.
Selfless-love (without jealousy and possessiveness) is beautiful. But is it found in polyamory or through the practice of this "compersion", which seems to be abundantly present in polyamory? If you still feel fuzzy about the joy your partner derives from their sex-life after they have decided to have sex with everybody else except you, then I think you passed the first endurance test of the soul. Or if you manage to get through chemo while she's sleeping around, full points for mangnaminousness go to you and your chillaxed state of mind.
I am wondering though, if polyamory is not a get-out-of-nymphomania-free card, or a community chest in which to bury all shame. What is left of the passion when spread thinly between many delighful beds? It could be the spice of any dull marriage! But love and passion is a very intricate tango.
In all fairness, I have to ask myself if polyamory may not actually be the new way forward for love-relationships. I can't say I ever met or heard of more than a handful of couples who celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary, still entirely in love with eachother. So, okay we all grow a little tired after a while, and love is a high-energy spiel. But how long can you stay passionate about one person? How dare you even suppose they can meet all your needs for ever and a day, consistently, at the drop of a hat: they have a life of their own to live, after all.
Why not have living-arrangements with one person, long-weekends abroad with another, go to the movies and have a quicky with the next? If you are still not jealous and insecure or feel like second-best then you must be nearing satori! Who's to say that in this type of relating to others who agree polyamory is for them, there is not more true passion than in any other format?
I don't mean the kind of passion that gets excited to hear of your partner's escapades (which is little more than a pornographic indulgence and cannot belong to that empathy that is compersion - see! no new word required); nor the thrill that stays fresh because of the way you keep cleansing your palet with other little tapas. But the passion in "suffering"(see the Latin) which is to undergo the life of the other as if it were your own. Their joy, their pain. I am not sure how you are going to fit all of that doubling up on life in, though...
Self-less love?
The point of relationships is bridge building, creating net-works. There is no room for petty, poor me who feels misunderstood. It's live and let live! However, what you guys call polyamory, sounds to me, less of that good loving and more of hard work on your selves. Fair enough, but it's quite a bit of self-love and a little low on self-less living in the now with dedication, compassion, and discipline - that should not be churned out in response to sexual desire.
Let’s get real. Young people have erotic needs. This is their way of getting their True Self to poke through all the astral turbulence. This astral level we share in common with the animal kingdom. It is this commonality that makes sex a taboo in religions, because it can get out of hand, and turn bestial. The extreme case is sexual perversion or satanic-magikal sex practice, etc, but I am not even going there.
Nowadays, having sex is as much a measure of how okay you are as your intake of fresh air and vitamins or your heart-rate and BMI. Good health must include good sex. Polyamory will second this and steamroll over any prudish reservations telling you otherwise. Nobody need take offense, really, anyway. There seems to be a general vibe of putting respect first, which makes sense if you just wanna have fun and not get into trouble over having multiple partners (in a basically one-on-one world).
Also, polyamory provokes the question, why make a bigger deal about sexual pleasure than, say, eating or swimming - which you don't always do together as partners, either, do you? The reason most of the rest of us do, however, tread more gingerly around the topic, might also be a clue to what makes sex such a multidimensional subject, something "exceptional", and in need of even more respect than it currently receives. This respect would speak openly about it, include the many types of love (see the philosophy of Plato), strip it of sleeze, aggression and degradation, and preserve under 14 year olds from it almost entirely (to allow sexuality to arise naturally at the right time, which will vary per individual child).
Perhaps, polyamory hopes to pull away from the negatives attached to sex, by taking a more detached attitude. After all, what's the difference in meeting up with a friend for a coffee and having sex with them? Currently, an average spouse will (politely) listen to your coffee morning fun, but be overwhelmed and go through any array of emotions after hearing you had sex with the plumber that morning. Is this to say these partners are selfish and hysterical? Limited by their own fears and inability to let go and live in the now? I think to suggest that would rub a lot of decent, liberal-minded, and possibly wise people the wrong way.
If it is not strictly a male thing, like polygamy certainly once was, polyamory is always going to be easier for men than women. They will always be able to make more use of the deal (just think of female cycles, pregnancy, breastfeeding, childcare). At any rate it feeds into a masculine need to define and test the self. The feminine route is wiser and looks to share and care with a more communal spirit from the get go (sympathising, empathising) without the incentive of sex. The female initiative is less reward-based and has less of a direct target.
Whatever it is to whomever, polyamory cannot and must not be deemded a path of spiritual training as such. You may be training yourself up as you also engage in polyamory. There is a difference to be had in that.
Let's TALK about sex
Men and women being polyamorous is fine, but it, too, will play itself out again, some day, so that we can finally bump ourselves up the evolutionary ladder and become spiritually in control. (We hope.) For the moment women are joining men, becoming ever more masculine (some call it emancipated, I don't), mainly in an effort to not get crushed.
In the meantime, it's all about sex, although polyamory will debate that and claim they are launching a counter initiative: isn't the word "amor" emphasised? Still, collectively we are having too much sex without falling deeply enough into that state of love, that adores and is devoted to another being. Can't we be devoted to the plural? Well, there always is the Pleroma.... But it's not that we can't love many, only I question the dedication that has already proven to be split by engaging in polyamory. There is a spiritual reason why we have come up with the challenge of the monoistic relationship: to resist the temptation of creating a monopoly or developing monomania with a bit of help from a friend.
On the other hand, one may begin to question, what makes a man and a woman at all remotely compatible, and why would they want to share lives, at all, if they don't have a child in common? What's wrong with having a harem? Or renting a gigolo once a month when the urges get too steamy? Actually, it would be extremely beneficial to world peace if we really sat with that question before we embarked on making any connections with eachother through sex.
Isn't everyone polyamorous these days?
What makes polyamory so different to a series of one-night stands, or the mistress every French or Italian president keeps on the side? Even if it would have much less to do with the chemicals doing the talking than casual relationships on Saturday nights, how is the polyamorous person different to any other young, free and single individual looking to hook up? I secretly suspect that ALL singles would prefer to be in steady relationships, espcially when they are young (and quite frankly still need to live out mother-father patterns somehow). If it wasn't just about the sexual urge you can't repress, then why wouldn't all steady partners gradually "expand" and share their loving with someone else too?
It would be too lame to confess: I just get bored and want to move on, but I don't want to be all alone, or inbetween jobs (sexual)partners. Perish the thought.... So the polyamorous have more to say and they may even state you can be Platonically polyamorous. Now, doesn't that sound elevating!?
Still, that doesn't do away with the biggest flaw implicit in polyamory, namely, the decrease of intimacy. It is the loss of intimacy that hurts married couples the most when they discover they are being "cheated on"; and it is not so inextricable from sex, as the young may think. Quite literally an adulterated partner will have been let down by a breach in contract that exists solely for the preservation of intimacy, which is trust plus loyalty plus priority. A marriage or fixed partnership is an outline and memo to self about what you value most in your life. You share values and priorities and outlooks (not hobbies, taste in biscuits, or even families). This is not to say that these qualities are most valuable to everyone. (The young generally don't give a hoot about these things that only really start to matter when you have kids of your own -or a business for that matter.) If you aren't a romantic, still, being the most special person in another person's life simply makes good common sense. On a good day you may not give a second thought to the emergency services, but when you're stuck at the bottom of a well....
This brings me to the sneaky suspicion that if you are into polyamory you have intimacy-issues. Let's put up front, that anyone under 28 is not going to be very good at intimacy, anyway. It requires a tonne of self-rule and trust in others. It involves surrender and sacrifice. Hard come by, these days! So, quite frankly, to me, polyamory sounds like it might be defining another subculture of mild masochists, i.e. persons who are afraid of commitment, intimacy and attachment. People who are into bondage either crave restriction or want to face their fears of oppression. People who are into polyamory may have similar issues they are trying to confront creatively.
More disconcertingly, though, is the possibility that a large portion of polyamory is fed on fantasy and a mistaken notion of freedom. Being fancy free is hardly being responsible, committed and dependable. Most notably there is a lack of true understanding of the other's needs (which a lover would bend over backwards to try and fulfil). It suggests your one lover is not "enough" (tricky word) or more likely, you aren't whole-enough, which indicates a need to become more wholesome. Lots of us feel that need to shape up the love organ to better manage the unruly sex drive. It goes hand in hand with the other tweaks (fads) of whole-foods and daily exercise programmes, mindfulness, yoga, positive affirmations (and that compersion-exercise). I purposely put love and organ together and leave it up to you to figure out where the genitals come into this.
If I give you a cake I baked and witness you enjoying it, thanks to the art of compersion, I will be very happy, but would it not feel akward to you if you weren't to offer me a slice?
Of course, I could be specifically unable to eat that cake of yours; it's okay then, that you enjoy the cake by yourself. I'll eat it through you vicariously; your joy is my cake. You get this scenario when partners are terminally ill, and actually want to find a replacement of themselves for their loved one. Living vicariously, however, is not a real life experience, but an experience of loosening the emotional-desire body from the physical one. Compersion is actually the word for the state of mind that witnesses this process.
Is there any reason not to be polyamorous, if you are all in agreement?
The straight-laced people will object to the plurality of this set up on numerous accounts. But where being in accord is the clue to any successful relationship, this is not the fundamental problem. As a concept, I have no problem with the poly-side; as long as you decide to be so openly, up front, go for it and see what happens next. It will ALWAYS be messy, that I can tell you in advance, but you've all got mothers somewhere who will tell you the same.
Youth is for social-experimentation. Every generation tries a variation on the same theme. Nothing new under the sun.
But mark well:
- You will still be after the key ingredient of exclusivity.
- Beware of becoming too detached. You are unlikely to be a Zen monk.
- Some kind of Consciousness-work can be going on, even while you create a mess. Stay mindful to feel rather than justify your way through it carefully. Auto-suggesting a false-Self to yourself is the last thing you want to end up doing. (This is an Asura's dream come true!)
- All around the world women have agreed that polygamy is practical when you live in a male dominant society where there is not much room for getting in touch with your feminine side. Make sure you are not repressing that side, which must learn to communicate without the penis (or clitoris) reaching for its monosyllabic self-affirmative "yes".
- Don't end up using eachother for ego-diminishing work. This will only fortify the ego surreptitiously.
- Remember always: being happy is just a measure of how far you have come (into your Real Self). You can't just go out and seek happiness. You can go out and find yourself happy. There is no single formula, also not the perfect relationship set-up to guarantee it.
Abumbi II, the 11th fon, or king, of Bafut, Cameroon, has close to 100 wives.
Perhaps, I sniff a little at the word “amor” in polyamorous, rather than the - to me personally - unattractive quality of promiscuity (it's just a bit yucky energetically, with a psycho-spiritual swirling of one unrinsed paintbrush in multiple paint pots, but also physical cross-contamination of bug-households). I understand you don't need to have a lot of sex with a lot of different people for polyamory, and you may only be seeing a couple of others in the course of a year, and seldom all at the same time. Notwithstanding, with polyamory you are stating flat out that your relationship with one I is not enough.
Then again, perhaps, this borders on a highly spiritual intuition. It must underlie that wide range of orgiastic temple worship and sex on the altar, even if it never came to any good through suchlike channels. Aren't we all connected in one big Brotherhood of Man? Isn't loving everyone the ultimate aim? Starting on a few in your own hood has to be a good thing! However, for this hooking up with multiple souls simultaneously to be truly spiritual quite a bit of more advanced work needs to be done, prior to getting amorously involved with people in passing. The relationship aspect is relevant on many levels. Consider how, usually you won't end up sleeping with your partner's best friend or sister, or mother (let's be really open minded here), because it would complicate things. Be it because the rest of the world is not ready for polyamory, or because you missed the spiritual point of sex....
I think we all agree, polyamory is not about letting eachother do as you like and pretending nothing can offend or hurt you while the other goes off to give, give, give to X, Y, Z, while you go without altogether. But then how is it fairly arranged? What does it ultimately benefit if not your self and nobody else but yourself (and that goes for all the selves involved)? Does it create any new kind of sense of unity (community)?
Polygamy would make a surer deal. Go figure: suppose you yourself are hideous and your partner so saintly she doesn't care. In a polyamorous relationship she goes off to pull a dozen others, while you would have to pay for it if you wanted some more. Polyamory has to have parameters that exclude such unfair scenarios. I mean, you would be doing all the soul work of compersion in the empty flat, while she comperses for you having lots of fun.
Designing a fool-proof polyamory that leaves everybody free, but gets everybody all they want will be hard to do, and that's the point right there, in the word "design"; I would say, despite man not being naturally monagamous, there is something artificial about polyamorousness - at least, in the way the word is currently being used to promote sex with multiple partners while remaining in one stable relationship.
Love does not come into it,
if you are an emperor with a concubine of over a hundred females. It makes for a very lonely old ruler in his impotent years. The practice of keeping up to five wives, as suggested for a muslim (in some versions of this faith, and encouraged only in some countries) - or let’s not forget our Mormon tradition - still invites love through a respect and courtesey towards the wives and all their children. One will not let one’s wife and the children starve. And let’s face it, what more can a husband really hope to do to show his love? Other than “servicing” her? - although, actually, that’s just a “preference-expression" of his own lust (if seldom even that, in arranged marriages).
Polyamory is fundamentally not that different in that it, too, is based around lust. If it were true, undying love, we'd be talking of something entirely different and extremely delicate. Polyamory as it is now trending, emphasises the desire body, which as we all know, is an egoist. Children are necessarily selfish (self-explorative). However, if you want a mature soul, you’ll have to come to a different understanding of sex as tool or better still, a language.
If all souls involved merely love (without sex) there can be no jealousy or imbalance on any level. This is the ideal of a brotherhood/sisterhood, or commune. Love is love, punto. The rest of the emotional spectrum is you working through issues. Fair enough, just don’t call it love. It’s what your average matrimony serves to manage. Mini therapy centres.
Why would a soulmate not be polyamorous? It is possible to love more than one person, right? As any remarriage or mad-cap affair testtifies to. A soulmate most assuredly could love two or three souls simultaneously with the same level of intensity, and may incidentally even have “a sexual conversation” with them. Since we are living in a phsycial world with physical, gravitational field laws, this type of intimacy, however, will effect the energy pool that a partnership (of two hallowly wedded souls) has formed.
To be married as soulmates is a spiritual institution (which may sometimes involved legal documents but not always). You thereby “bind” two spirit-cells into a nuceleus. The sacredness of that sexual energy pool will be compromised if not very, very, very careful decisions are made about who gets to attach themselves to this mother-pool. In this mood of love, one has to have a mature and self-less I. It will rejoyce in the joy of the soulmates but only for the unique position their soul takes in this constellation.
Until you find yourself involved in such a ménage à trois (or four or more) you cannot speak of loving multiple people in a spiritual formation. You are just fooling around, learning the ropes of life. Also good! (For a while). Let's not make too much of a public song and dance about it though. It gets too tacky, too soon.
ǂ Compersion: The feeling of joy associated with seeing a loved one love another; contrasted with jealousy.