As Angela always says... "Mr Monarch, You are Incorrigible..." I COULDN'T RESIST the question... Steve Pavlina on Polyamory...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh9xTfZqWuA
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Steve Pavlina on Polyamory, Episode #137
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11 comments:
I love the TV shows and listening to you and Angela have a good time.
When speaking to people not close to the camera, it is sometimes very hard to hear them. If you could get them closer or a speaker close by that would help a lot.
It is hard to hear Steve on this #137.
Just a suggestion.
Kathryn
I find it rather telling that Erin wasn't in the room discussing how happy she is with the polyamory arrangement. If this is a choice they want to make, why does it have to have a label? As soon as I went to Steve's website, I noticed his commentary about this choice in his "about me" blurb. I found it off-putting then, and off-putting now. I don't feel the love that supposedly is espoused in this life choice. I have met a number of men who have approached me, and they mention that they are in a polyamory type relationship, that their "committed" relationship comes first, and that I would "fit in" to this situation like some piece of furniture. The discussion usually doesn't get past the word/label polyamory, which I find disingenuous, to put it mildly. And why is it that the MAN is the one discussing this status? Honestly, in my experience I don't hear women bringing that up, and if they are part of the discussion, they have the tepid, embarrassed grin in the background. Perhaps this is one of the few ways I am old-fashioned, but I get suspicious about this label. "Big Love" is often a "Big Lie".
oh come on. I don't think Steve has it all figured out. I think his wife is probably not happy with his choice to "interact with more people'. In fact seing his wife it is clear there are issues she is working through. The tour of their house left me strangely empty. I have not seen a house so free of personality and bland in a long, long time. The Sears catalog has more interesting vibes. So, awkward at best for this episode guys...but very revealing and perhaps in ways you did not expect.
I loved the way Angela was fiddling with her engagement ring when she and Steve Pavlina were talking about Polyamory. I felt very uncomfortable with this subject too, eek.
Great episode. I love Matt's questions and how he pushes the comfort button on his guests to get some really awesome content. I think it's very easy to become judemental of others' choices especially when they hit a painful area in our own life. For those who haven't listened to Steve and Erin's podcast on polyamory I highly recommend it. You will hear BOTH of their perspectives. I do believe polyamory requires a high level of communication and if one has not evolved to a certain level in a monogamous relationship polyamory will be a disaster. As far as the sexual aspect of poly goes, swinging is what we call that ;)
I actually feel so sad when I come across this kind of stuff.
I have lots of friends who feel the same as Steve and all I can say is that from the deepest part of my soul I believe we are born to be pair bonding mammals.
The feelings we feel when our mate is bonding with another (emotionally or physically) are there for a reason...they can be 'worked through' they can be supressed, they can be twisted...but when we sensitize then we feel it in our heart and in our belly...
I truly believe we are pair bonding mammals just like we are raw fooders...
I have lived in the communities that practice the variants of this sexual/emotional model and the results are not what are promoted.
Believe me the feelings for many of jealousy and suffering are still very present (or in some supressed and twisted but you can see this in their faces)- they are just glossed over in public.
I believe we need to find a way to create deep spiritual monogamy, which I think is our most natural state...
Anyone who has felt really deep feelings of heart and soul connection with another will know how deep these feelings go...then you just do not have the need to find emotional or sexual fullfillment with another - in fact it just feels like betrayal in the heart....
But if Steve feels happy with his choice then good for him, but I have seen first hand the effect that this concept can have on others who come across it and they can feel really stupid and gulity if they have the normal and powerful reactions to the bonding hormones of vasopressin and oxytocin which create powerful feelings to bond with one mate and one mate alone.
Yes we are 'all one' in spirit...but this concept is a bit boring and I am tired of it being used in this way.
love Dustins comments...
"swinging is what we call that" indeed!
There is something sacred about a union between 2 people. A freedom that cannot be caputured by more. There are not many life partners in this multiple partner lifestyle that "last" for life. Love takes on many roles. A person should have healthy non-physical intimate relationships outside of marriage, but sharing your soul physically with your spouse only is the way to stay life long lovers and friends.
How interesting, I was just writing a post about this video, and I thought to check Matt's blog to see if Steve's idea that raw foodists are more open-minded was correct.....
There could be a dozen reasons why Erin wasn't in the room at the same time, including the fact that the intention of the interview was to talk with Steve. Matt admits he threw that question in there out of his curiosity. Maybe Erin just wasn't there, or maybe she didn't feel like jumping in.
My husband and I have been together for 16 years, and poly for almost 4. Our friends have told us for years, and continue to tell us, that we're their models for what an awesome relationship should be. While our marriage has thrived, we've watched others wed, divorce, couple up and fall apart. Monogamy does not have all the answers; it's a model, like any other.
Communication is the key, but so is respect, caring, and the willingness to put someone else's feelings before your own. I applaud Steve for speaking out about this. Greg and I did it on Oprah, and watching people's minds snap shut so fast they practically pinch their own fingers is disheartening, to say the least.
At least the numbers of people that hide their judgements behind anonymity is revealing - how many of them would put their own relationship up for an examination of its stability, communication, and caring? Not too many, it appears. It's emotionally safer to put down a relationship that works on so many levels as impossible, than to cope with the idea that they've never had it.
The notion that if you love one person you can't love another as deeply, or that the second love somehow betrays the first - if that were true, we'd each only have one friend, and we'd only ever have one chid. People who need to cling to the idea that everyone has to be monogamous (this is very different than making the *choice* to be monogamous out of thoughtfulness rather than fear) do so because they've bought into an idea that they themselves are lacking, and only one other person will complete them.
Try on instead the idea that we are all whole people, that we are complementary to each other in a myriad of ways, and that loving with integrity doesn't have to mean loving just one person. It CAN, if that's your choice, if that's preference, if that's what feels best to you. But if something else feels best to another person, and that person is able to have their relationships with honesty and fulfillment, don't deny its existence out of your own fears and prejudice.
Erin is right there behind Matt in the beginning of the video.
i think the majority of people aren't spiritually ready for polyamory. it takes a high level of responsibility, love, truth, and communication. the biggest issue is the ego, and its endless want to control, label, and mold genuine love. it took alot of realizations for me to see that it is in fact a high road, many are not ready to walk. i feel that many of the commenters mirror their fears and anxieties of polyamory, and project that onto this interview.... it seemed to me that erin was in the room, steve was looking right at her.... and you can probably be dam sure steve would not talk openly about polyamory unless him and erin had both come to a consensus about it... i see steve as a very honourable man, why would you assume otherwise? man "polyamorists" simply wish to be that way for the purpose of more gratification of the self, mostly physical. true polyamory is not about that at all....
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