Posted on 05/08/2009 10:13:24 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
First came traditional marriage. Then, gay marriage. Now, there's a movement combining both—simultaneously. Abby Ellin visits the next frontier of nuptials: the "triad."
Less than 18 months ago, Sasha Lessin and Janet Kira Lessin gathered before their friends near their home in Maui, and proclaimed their love for one another. Nothing unusual about that—Sasha, 68, and Janet, 55—were legally married in 2000. Rather, this public commitment ceremony was designed to also bind them to Shivaya, their new 60-something "husband." Says Sasha: “I want to walk down the street hand in hand in hand in hand and live together openly and proclaim our relationship. But also to have all those survivor and visitation rights and tax breaks and everything like that.”
Maine this week became the fifth state, and the fourth in New England, to legalize gay marriage, provoking yet another national debate about same-sex unions. The Lessins' advocacy group, the Maui-based World Polyamory Association, is pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships. This community has even come up with a name for what the rest of the world generally would call a committed threesome: the "triad."
Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That's closer to bigamy. Instead, triads—"triangular triads," to use precise polyamorous jargon—demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other. In the Lessins case, that can be varying pairs but, as Sasha, a psychologist, puts it, "Janet loves it when she gets a double decker." In a triad, there would be no doubt in Elizabeth Edwards’ mind whether her husband fathered a baby out of wedlock; she likely would have participated in it.
There are no statistics or studies out there, but according to Robyn Trask, the executive director of Loving More, a nonprofit organization in Loveland (yes, really), Colorado, dedicated to poly-education and support, about 25 percent of the estimated 50,000 self-identified polyamorists in the U.S. live together in semi-wedded bliss. A disproportionate number of them are baby boomers. (Paging Timothy Leary: Janet Lessin claims on her Web site that she's able to travel astrally.)
As with a couple, the key to making a triad work is communication. The Lessins' group specifically advocates something called "compersion": taking joy in another person's joy. Thus, they know how to process jealousy. “We don’t have anything take place off-stage,” says Sasha Lessin. “You witness your lover making googly eyes and you share your feelings. It’s not difficult for most people to be compersive once they feel they’re not being abandoned.”
Like most people in the poly community, the Lessins, who also helm the school of tantra (they take pleasure of the flesh quite seriously), take great pains to discuss pretty much everything. Some people even write up their agreements like a traditional prenup, detailing everything from communal economics to cohabitation rules. And buoyed by an increasing acceptance of same-sex unions, others want more legal protections. "We should have every right to inherit from each other and visit each other—I don’t care what you call it, we’re not second-class citizens!” says Janet Lessin. “Any people who wish to form a marriage with all the rights and duties of a marriage should have the legal right to. The spurious arguments of marriage being for procreation of children is ridiculous.”
That said, Valerie White, executive director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal-defense fund for people with alternative sexual expression in Sharon, Massachusetts, says she believes that triads are actually a great way to raise a family. "Years ago, children didn’t get raised in dyads, they got raised with grandparents and aunts and uncles—it was much looser and more village-like," says White. "I think a lot more people are finding that polyamory is a way to recapture that kind of support.” For a year, Loving More's Trask and her then-husband were both involved with another woman, who was a part of the family. Trask's three children knew all about it. “I’m totally out,” says Trask.
Many others aren't. Larry, Rachel and Andie would only talk to me anonymously, due to the fact that Rachel, 47, works at large, traditional financial institution in Manhattan. Larry, 56, met her on a commuter ferry two years ago. At the time, Larry was a member of Poly-NYC, a polyamory group in New York; on their first date, he told her about it. Rachel had just gotten out of a year-and-a-half-long relationship with, unbeknownst to her, a married man. “I was so overwhelmed with Larry’s honesty," she says, "I said to him, ‘I need to look that up and understand it.'"
A few months later, they met Andie, 56 at a poly retreat in upstate New York. Andie has been has practiced "multi-partnering" since the early '90s, and was giving a talk on the subject. Rachel turned to Larry and said ‘Wow, that’s someone I would turn poly for!’ “She was so elegant and classy. I just felt she was a beautiful person.”
While Larry, on the other hand, was not especially attracted to Andie, he was fully supportive of Rachel exploring her attraction. She didn’t, but ran into Andie at a few other events. Andie, in turn, began noticing the quality of the relationship between Larry and Rachel. “They didn’t just go to those meetings and do what happens to other poly partners, that they disappear from each other,” she says. “They stayed together.”
Three months ago, they reconnected at yet another retreat, and this time the three bonded on an emotional level. So they decided to figure out how to make a three-way relationship work. This involves weekly conference calls where they discuss the tenets of the relationship (honestly, respect, communication, jealousy) and agree to undergo blood tests for STDs. They talk about what they want out of life, and each other. “There are people who’ve been married 20 years and never had these kinds of conversation,” says Andie. “I feel blessed.”
Akien MacIain and his wife, Dawn Davidson, have been counseling dyads, triads, quads and once even a quint, in San Francisco for over a decade. On their Web site, they offer tips for creating agreements—among them, “Use Time Limited Agreements Where Needed” (i.e., two weeks, two months, and so on) and “Check in Periodically; Renegotiate if Needed.”
“A triad is a series of dyads, but it’s more complicated because if I’m in a relationship with one other person, there’s my relationship with the other person, her relationship with me, and the relationship that each of us has to the couple,” says MacIain. “When you make it a triad there are four factorial connections. It’s very hard.”
And yet some make it work. Doug Carr, Robert Hill, and Paul Wilson have been a happy threesome for 29 years. The three men, who live outside Austin, Texas, share a bed, a checking account, and joint real-estate properties in each of their names—“a left-handed form of cementing the relationship in a legal context,” says Hill, 69, a retired financier (because of their arrangement, they, too, requested I use pseudonyms). Their ranch is split three ways; they call themselves “husbands” and wear matching wedding bands. Back in 1980, when they met at a furniture store in Dallas, Hill and Wilson were a confirmed dyad for 10 years. Carr, now an assistant dean at a local college, fell for both of them; they developed a friendship, which soon turned to love.
Wilson, 61, a consulting engineer for the health-care community, admits that initially he was less gung ho. “I thought, how is this going to turn out? You can’t read an article in Readers Digest, ‘Twelve Ways to make a Triad Work.’" He finally saw the light on a trip to Vienna the three men took. “I decided to go for it. I turned to them and said, ‘I love you,’ and I love you,’ and let’s make it work.”
They held a commitment ceremony in 1984 for 20 friends, and then a reception for 200 in their house, where we “introduced ourselves to the world as a triad,” says Carr, 49. They would like to marry legally, though they are not holding their breath that it will happen any time soon.
“As far as we’re concerned, in the eyes of God we’re already married—and from an economic standpoint, we’ve taken that as far as we can, ” says Hill.
Despite the fact that they are also “Dad, Daddy and Pappa” to the 4-year-old quadruplets Carr sired with a lesbian couple, they actually see themselves as quite traditional. “We’ve patterned our relationship on the relationships of our parents,” says Hill. “So many gay people throw away all the values they learned at home. Some are worth throwing away, but a lot are not."
“The crux of all this,” he says, "is commitment.”
Of course I wouldn’t deny them the right of contract.
I would limit them to the legal right all the rest of us have.
That is a different subject, and agruable.
Did Clintons behavior with Monica harm me and my family? Yes. It affected the attiudes and behavior of my grandchildren. Just as it did yours and nearly everyone elses.
;-)
Well that's mighty big of you.
I would limit them to the legal right all the rest of us have.
And what pray tell are those exactly?
These people are harming no one, except perhaps themselves. If they do that they're the ones who will have to pay the legal fees to dissolve this partnership.
What bothers me more than what these people are doing is the other posters here who think that this behavior is something the Federal government should be involved with somehow.
Instead of liberal fascism they'd give us conservative fascism. I'll have neither thanks very much.
As I said before, these people are harming no one. It's none of my business, and it's none of your business.
L
What are those rights?
The right for a man to marry a woman. All of us have that right.
Do you mean 'harm' or do you mean 'offend'?
Could you demonstrate the 'harm' you suffered in a Court of Law?
While you're legally protected from being harmed, there is absolutely no legal protection from being 'offended', nor should there ever be.
L
Which Amendment specifically enumerates that Right?
Where is the word 'marriage' found in the US Constitution?
I purposely made that reply separate, as I am not talking about the legality of his actions, but the morality of his actions.
His immoral behavior, while in a position of authority and that of a role model, caused great harm to our country.
To demonstrate just one issue, his assertion that oral sex isn’t sex was quickly picked up by school children across the country.
What these people do, unless they keep it hidden from others, often does, in fact, affect the rest of us.
You obviously do not believe sexual degenerates are harmful to children in a ‘home’. With granting sexual degenerates the’right to marriage’, you also grant to them ancillary aspects of the traditional home, such as adoptions. Stick your ‘go along to get along’ libertarian crap where garbage is supposed to be kept ... can you.
You are asking me lawyerly questions. You will win that part of our argument hands down, so I will leave that to the more legal oriented minds among us to argue my side of the legal aspect.
However, do you dispute that limiting marrage to a man and a woman has been the norm for the United States for over 200 years?
What happens when hubby wants a wifey #2, and wifey #1 doesn’t like the idea? Does that make her a homophobe?
Along those same lines, the guy subbing for Rush yesterday suggested that maybe those who want something other than the traditional marrage between a man and a woman should allowed to incorporate.
Define the 'harm' and maybe we can have a civilized conversation. The lesbian couple who live across the street from me have raised two of the finest young ladies I've ever met.
When contrasted with the 'Christian' married couple down the street who have raised 1 son who is in prison for armed robbery, 2 daughters who are both under 20, unmarried with one child a piece, and another JD who's on his way to prison I'll take a block full of the 'sexual degenerates' thank you.
you also grant to them ancillary aspects of the traditional home,
Oh so now these fine neighbors of mine don't even enjoy the Right to own property. Quite the little fascist aren't you. What's next? Would you like to confiscate their bank accounts and make them wear pink stars? Maybe a nice burning at the stake?
Stick your ‘go along to get along’ libertarian crap
You go stick your faux 'conservative' fascism where it belongs. I suggest Nuremburg about 1939.
Nope. And one human being owning another as a chattel slave was the norm for a hundred years. You sure you want to go down that road?
Legally speaking these people are doing no one any harm. They're all consenting, informed adults with adequate legal representation. What they're doing is quite simply none of anyones business but their own.
L
Typical, try to argue the exception makes the rule. Are you a homosexual also?
I’d say you have wandered onto the wrong website. I said nothing about property rights, and in fact you have tried to play the fallacy of the undistributed middle on many occasions. Very Bagalaesque. Defending degeneracy is typical of your closet ilk.
The guy subbing for Rush yesterday suggested that maybe those who want something other than the traditional marrage between a man and a woman should allowed to incorporate.
If that's what wife #1 and husband #1 had done, adding wife #2 would be considered a merger.
Adding husband #2 might be consider and unfriendly takeover. At least by husband #1. However, then adding wife #3 would be easier, since there would be enough 'resources' to go around.
Let me ask Mrs L and Lurker, Jr real quick. "Honey? Son? Am I a homosexual?"
Mrs L replies "Most definetely NOT, honey!"
So I've cleared that up for you.
I’d say you have wandered onto the wrong website.
Well since I've been posting here for well over a decade I'd say you're quite wrong about that, too.
I said nothing about property rights,
Actually you did and I quoted you on it.
So tell me, should I refuse to have anything more with the nice lesbians across the street? Should I tell them they're no longer welcome in my home or over for the BBQ we're doing tomorrow?
Should I embrace the criminals and unwed mothers down the street instead?
Should I allow those people to be the role models for my kid instead of the stable law abiding family across the street?
What to do....what to do.....
There is far more religious and historical support for polygamy than homosexual marriage. If you don’t draw the line with homosexual marriage, there is zero reason not to support polygamy.
I don’t mind going down that road at all. It is down that very road that valuable lessons can be learned.
Owning slaves was opposed by many of our Founding Fathers, and most of that opposition was based on Biblical principals. Ignoring those Biblical principals has caused our country enormous pain, suffering, loss of life, and has destroyed the hopes of an entire race.
I notice you have resorted to the legal asspect of this, have you conceded the moral argument?
“We might as well make this as stupid as possible...until someone starts to grasp the whole game being played out.”
Can someone with multiple personalities marry their self (selves)??
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