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I'm not a spiritual person. Really, it's true! I'm quite pragmatic. And one of the biggest problems I find in the poly community is the abundance of Pagans, and a few Christians who have managed to justify polyamory with their own religious beliefs. It's not a problem in the sense that I can't get along with them, it's a problem when I try to find other sources to help me explain what polyamory is. Although religion and relationship structures can be intertwined, they are separate concepts, like love and sex, and love and marriage. So I struggle to find sources that talk about just the polyamory so that it will apply and make sense to everyone, regardless of what their personal religious beliefs might be.
So when I went back through Poly Weekly and found an interview with Oberon Zell Ravenheart, the founder of the Church Of All Worlds, I steeled myself for 20 minutes of woo-woo gobbledy-gook, much like the World Polyamory Association.
But I was pleasantly surprised. Oberon gives a wonderful interview. He is lucid and intelligent and articulate, and he knows how to separate the concepts and target his answers. His speaking voice is also very pleasant ... he sounds like a favorite great-uncle whom I might have enjoyed sitting at his knee to hear stories as a child, without the wandering side-tangents that tends to make family roll their eyes when an older member goes off on a story.
So, I've been in an ongoing debate on Fetlife about whether polyamory is swinging. There's a guy there who started the post who insists that swinging and poly are identical. Yes, not similar, identical. Actually, he separates polyamorous from polyamory. Don't ask, I don't get it. He's a nutjob.
So, I threw in my two cents, citing Morning Glory Zell as the coiner of the word as the basis for my assertion that swinging was never intended to be encompassed by the term (although I did insist in several places that this doesn't mean swinging is worse or less than poly, just different - both are valid forms of non-monogamy). I know some people claim polyamory has been used by people since the '60s, but unless you can cite your sources, the current use of the word comes from the first published record of the word, A Bouquet of Lovers in 1990 and the alt.polyamory group founded by Jennifer Wesp in 1992. Also in 1992, Morning Glory's article was republished in Love Without Limits, which has a very broad reach.
The (unsubstantiated) fact that someone, somewhere, once used the word polyamory in 1963 does not account for its use today. How linguistics work is that general society has to have had access to that word for that useage of it to count as starting, coining, or defining it. Morning Glory's article has that reach. Just as Shakesepeare is credited for coining a whole dictionary of words, it is possible that someone, somewhere, came up with some of those words before him. But his reach to the mass public is responsible for the word entering the lexicon and therefore, his definition is the "correct" one.
You can continue to call your cat a dog if you want, but you would be using the term incorrectly, as it is officially classified as a cat and continuing to refer to it as a dog will only confuse those to whom you are speaking and block communication. Words are tools of communication and you do not do yourself any favors by insisting on redefining terms that already have an established meaning. Even forgoing Morning Glory's definition, the root words have definitions dating all the way back to ancient civilizations that far predate any '60s hippie culture who might have thought "polyamory" sounds like a fancy way of saying "I have sex with lots of people" without sounding like slut. But I digress.
So, anyway, coincidentally at the same time as this argument is going on, I am working on my presentation for my Poly 101 lecture coming up this week at UCF and I found a picture of the Ravenhearts, which I used in my powerpoint. I mentioned this to someone who had never heard their name. So I did a quick Google search for their website and came across some youtube interviews with Oberon.
Once again, I find myself impressed with Oberon's interviews. So I'm posting them here, and I plan to include them on my website when I eventually add a page dedicated to video sources that explain polyamory, like interviews and my upcoming lecture. One of the things I particularly like about his interviews, is that Oberon intersperses his answers with examples of situations where non-poly people have the same feelings and the same challenges. And he does it all in a much less confrontational manner than I do. He just assumes that these things are true, so why shouldn't his audience also assume they're true? This is more like my actual conversational manner, when I talk about it in person. On my journal, I tend to get a little ranty, mainly because it's a venue for my frustration. But these videos are excellent and I recommend everyone watch them when they get the chance. They're all around 10 minutes or less.
Enjoy!
On The Origins of Polyamory
On Forming Intentional Communities
On The Challenges of Polyamory
So when I went back through Poly Weekly and found an interview with Oberon Zell Ravenheart, the founder of the Church Of All Worlds, I steeled myself for 20 minutes of woo-woo gobbledy-gook, much like the World Polyamory Association.
But I was pleasantly surprised. Oberon gives a wonderful interview. He is lucid and intelligent and articulate, and he knows how to separate the concepts and target his answers. His speaking voice is also very pleasant ... he sounds like a favorite great-uncle whom I might have enjoyed sitting at his knee to hear stories as a child, without the wandering side-tangents that tends to make family roll their eyes when an older member goes off on a story.
So, I've been in an ongoing debate on Fetlife about whether polyamory is swinging. There's a guy there who started the post who insists that swinging and poly are identical. Yes, not similar, identical. Actually, he separates polyamorous from polyamory. Don't ask, I don't get it. He's a nutjob.
So, I threw in my two cents, citing Morning Glory Zell as the coiner of the word as the basis for my assertion that swinging was never intended to be encompassed by the term (although I did insist in several places that this doesn't mean swinging is worse or less than poly, just different - both are valid forms of non-monogamy). I know some people claim polyamory has been used by people since the '60s, but unless you can cite your sources, the current use of the word comes from the first published record of the word, A Bouquet of Lovers in 1990 and the alt.polyamory group founded by Jennifer Wesp in 1992. Also in 1992, Morning Glory's article was republished in Love Without Limits, which has a very broad reach.
The (unsubstantiated) fact that someone, somewhere, once used the word polyamory in 1963 does not account for its use today. How linguistics work is that general society has to have had access to that word for that useage of it to count as starting, coining, or defining it. Morning Glory's article has that reach. Just as Shakesepeare is credited for coining a whole dictionary of words, it is possible that someone, somewhere, came up with some of those words before him. But his reach to the mass public is responsible for the word entering the lexicon and therefore, his definition is the "correct" one.
You can continue to call your cat a dog if you want, but you would be using the term incorrectly, as it is officially classified as a cat and continuing to refer to it as a dog will only confuse those to whom you are speaking and block communication. Words are tools of communication and you do not do yourself any favors by insisting on redefining terms that already have an established meaning. Even forgoing Morning Glory's definition, the root words have definitions dating all the way back to ancient civilizations that far predate any '60s hippie culture who might have thought "polyamory" sounds like a fancy way of saying "I have sex with lots of people" without sounding like slut. But I digress.
So, anyway, coincidentally at the same time as this argument is going on, I am working on my presentation for my Poly 101 lecture coming up this week at UCF and I found a picture of the Ravenhearts, which I used in my powerpoint. I mentioned this to someone who had never heard their name. So I did a quick Google search for their website and came across some youtube interviews with Oberon.
Once again, I find myself impressed with Oberon's interviews. So I'm posting them here, and I plan to include them on my website when I eventually add a page dedicated to video sources that explain polyamory, like interviews and my upcoming lecture. One of the things I particularly like about his interviews, is that Oberon intersperses his answers with examples of situations where non-poly people have the same feelings and the same challenges. And he does it all in a much less confrontational manner than I do. He just assumes that these things are true, so why shouldn't his audience also assume they're true? This is more like my actual conversational manner, when I talk about it in person. On my journal, I tend to get a little ranty, mainly because it's a venue for my frustration. But these videos are excellent and I recommend everyone watch them when they get the chance. They're all around 10 minutes or less.
Enjoy!
On The Origins of Polyamory
On Forming Intentional Communities
On The Challenges of Polyamory
