A Humanist looks at polyamory

Humanist, Nov-Dec, 2004 by Valerie White

There are two words that I apply to myself which, considered together, probably place me in one of the smallest categories of humanity. Those are polyamorous and Humanist. There is no way of knowing what percentage of the population engages in an open, responsible, and respectful multi-partner lifestyle, although it is likely that the number runs quite high and accounts for hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. But let's estimate that it's 2 percent (a number I found bruited about on the Internet), and that Humanists comprise less than 10 percent. That would put me in the class polyamorous Humanist, which comprises 0.2 percent of the general population. Of course, I think there is a correlation: I think it's probable that Humanists are more likely to be polyamorous and that polyamorists are more likely to be Humanist than the rest of the population.

I knew I was polyamorous and I knew I was Humanist before I knew the words.

Raised by atheist parents, I never had any god belief to lose and I've never acquired any, either. Being churchless in the 1950s wasn't an easy thing for a child to cope with, though, and it was with a sigh of homecoming that I discovered Unitarian Universalism when in college in 1962. I don't remember hearing the word Humanism until the mid 1980s, when my mother, who lived with me then, was a subscriber to the Humanist. I joined the American Humanist Association, publisher of the Humanist, on my own soon afterward. Ever since then that's what I've called myself.

I learned the word polyamory a few years later in 1994.

Among this readership I shouldn't need to explain what Humanism is (but an apt definition appears on the inside front cover of the magazine). But I expect it would be useful for me to define polyamory, which is living by the principle that it is possible to love more than one person at a time without deception or betrayal.

I've known since my late teens that monogamy wasn't natural to me. Judging from the amount of garden variety cheating, swinging, and serial monogamy that goes on in our society, many many other people aren't naturally monogamous, either. I understand there may be people who, after they commit themselves to a partner, never feel a stirring of romantic or erotic interest in anyone else, but I'm not one of them. Heck, even Jimmy Carter admitted to lusting after other women in his heart.

"Well, of course" you say. "You can feel an attraction to someone besides your partner but you don't have to act on it? Maybe. An awful lot of people do act on it, however, and consequently a lot of marriages break up over adultery.

   Without polyamory my choices would be:

   1. cheat, lie, betray, deceive.
   2. engage in agreed-upon recreational sex,
      swapping with other couples
   3. eschew committed relationships
   4. embrace celibacy
   5. chafe in resentful frustration.

I find all five of these alternatives unacceptable. I live my life in a relationship in which each of us accepts that the other may have additional loving relationships. I can't imagine living any other way. This lifestyle is predicated upon the assumption espoused by Humanist science fiction writer Robert Heinlein that "love doesn't subtract; it multiplies" It is perhaps most melodically expressed in Humanist Malvina Reynolds' beloved song:

   Love is something if you give it away,
   Give it away, give it away.
   Love is something if you give it away;
   You end up having more.

   It's just like a magic penny;
   Hold it tight, and you won't have any;
   Lend and spend it, and you'll have so many
   They'll roll all over the floor.

Poly people believe that the deep, mutual love that glows in a longstanding relationship isn't necessarily destroyed by the energy that kindles in a new one.

What is the biology of polyamory? Is it hardwired in the genes? Nobody knows. I suspect that many, perhaps most people, have the capacity to love multiple partners. An awful lot of people have had more than one lover. Many other species in the animal kingdom are poly, including humans' close cousins the bonobo chimpanzees. Even supposedly monogamous animals like swans turn out to hatch eggs fathered by multiple males.

In humans, however, is an instinctual drive for multiple partners only hardwired for males? Can it be true that the evolutionary advantage for men is to spread their seed as widely as possible and for women to cleave only to one? I doubt it. Why wouldn't it be evolutionarily advantageous for a woman to have more than one man who was willing to beat off saber-tooth tigers from her and her baby--and have a selection of men to mate with in pursuit of better offspring?

To polyfolk, loving more than one partner comes as naturally as loving more than one child: you don't stop loving your firstborn when your next child comes along. In fact, you may feel that your first love is given new dimension when a new love enriches your life.

But a life of this kind requires honesty, openness, respect, self-confidence, trust, and, above all, communication. It's hard work. It can be painful. But I find it worthwhile. And it is completely congruent with my Humanist values. Doesn't choosing to love more than one person honestly and responsibly derive from these core Humanist principles found in Humanist Manifesto II of 1973?