Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: write on January 20, 2006, 08:11:10 PM
-
some call it polyamory, some call it 'free love' or a religious movement or 'swinging'...
http://www.polyamorysociety.org/howto.html
http://www.lovemore.com/home
http://www.polyamour.net/English/en_support_poly.htm
( http://www.uupa.org/
was affiliated to my last church which you have all seen me leave and find fault with as TOO liberal/ no boundaries/ abusive )
I raise this topic as I had lunch with a friend this week who also raised the topic: newly single, out on the town she met new friends, they had great fun joking, and guess what they wanted her to do next....?
This is HOUSTON, TX, a very conservative town.
I find it hard to believe people find emancipation through sexuality when it isn't apparent anywhere else in life; the same with abuse: I wonder if polyamory will be the next big Narcissist arena?
-
Wrong! Yuck! Sick! Ick!
Just my two cents.
mia
-
:(
Oh, god.
For what it's worth, I am totally grossed out by polyamory .... (to me it's just swapping partners dressed up in a philosophy...likely small groups of hippies, now in their 50s and 60s...)
It's the downside of tolerance. Consenting adults and all that, but it's no more mainstream UUism than the polygamous families in the desert are mainstream Mormons or people who beat themselves bloody in mortification are mainstream Catholics or Muslims who practice jihad are mainstream Muslims or super-Orthodox Jews who won't educate women are mainstream Jews, etc...
There are fringe, weird, extremist, creepy subgroups in most religions, somewhere.
There's lately been a huge scandal about Amish boys raping their sisters and cousins.
I would run from a congregation dominated by "polyamorists" as well.
However, in the name of free choice the denomination won't drum them out. If somebody wants to dress up in bunnysuits and call themselves UUBunnies, so they can. (The rest of us will be groaning in embarrassment, that's for sure.)
If one examines the UU denomination as a whole, however, it is dominated by mostly liberal people who care about social justice. However, we also have conservatives, a UUChristians group (ours are some of my best friends in church), etc, etc. Lots of room in the tent, though I'm thankful that in being a very involved member or friend active in 5 UU congregations over 25 years, I have not met
one.
single.
polyamorist.
Bleaaahh.
Hops (PS--I did however go to a nude beach in France once.) :oops:
-
from the web site:
UUPA is an independent organization, not affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Seems like it's a new wrinkle, just since '99 (you had such bad luck running into them, Write):
In the Summer of 1999, several UUs became increasingly aware that many people who think of themselves as polyamorous also identify religiously as Unitarian Universalists. Some of these UUs then created an email list called UUPoly, for people who were both poly and UU or are interested in both. Conversations on the UUPoly list led to the idea that we should form a national organization...
Just for the sake of parsing it:
several UUs became increasingly aware that many people...
Hello? How does "becoming aware..." prove anything about "many"? It doesn't. It's one of those manipulative statements that people use to give the impression of large numbers when there are none. Like I said, in 5 congregations in 3 states in over 25 years I never met one (don't wanna, either). Sounds as though a few of these icky people found each other in a UU church at a coffee hour, got all fired up and decided to start an email list...and went through the motions to attach themselves to the denomination.
Again, bleahh. I wish they hadn't.
But they ain't chasing me away! I love my church.
Hops
-
One more attempt and I'll let it rest...also from the site:
Several local chapters of Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness have been extablished. Chapters may be formed by three UUPA members who are also members of a UU congregation...
Three?? (Then under that is the list of chapters in the U.S. There are six chapter leaders. So presumably, there are at least 18 UUs who call themselves polyamorists. And if they're into that, let's assume they each have at least two pals (dunno if they'd be UUs or not). But, conservatively...we could assume there are 36...
Maybe there are 360. I doubt it, but I guess it's possible.
But the denomination as a whole has 218,000 members: http://www.uua.org/aboutuua/statistics.html
Whew. I feel better. Sort of. Sorry I'm being defensive but the generalization is painful to read.
I'm terribly sorry you had that HORRIBLE experience in a UU church, Write. I always pipe up when you talk about it...but I just feel compelled to try to correct the generalization. I'm not dismissing your hurt and anger at all though. Just want other readers to know it isn't "the church." It was that toxic and dysfunctional congregation you landed in.
If I could only share the hundreds of good decent inspiring ... anyway, you'll get my drift.
Maybe someone knows of a good Presbyterian or mainstream anything church that also had a congregation that went toxic and hurt people? I hope not, but I am just grasping for understanding...
Hops
-
well, if it becomes a new 'self-expression' at least we are prepared for it.
I personally won't give it any attention: it's the last thing I need a group with no boundaries, whether or not they claim it's a wonderful thing.
-
ps. nude beach in France: I spent time on a nudist beach in spain about 11 years ago.
-
8)
I am sooo relieved to hear that.
I spent the entire day facedown in the dunes and had a VERY sunburned bum...
:shock:
-
But what about germs????!
Plucky
-
Heh heh Miz Plucky... :P
What I found sort of fascinating actually (I was around 21)...was that during the day on the beach, the group of us (male and female) really did not leer at each other, nor was there any groping. When we weren't dozing we sat and played cards. I found it quite lovely, as there were old and young people, fat and thin, scarred and beautiful (well, I think everybody's beautiful). I remember an old man doing Tai Ch'i facing the ocean at sunset and thinking how lovely it was to be able to watch him.
But here's the funny part: in the evening, we'd get all dressed up with the makeup and perfume and tight little clothes and go to the "boites" (nightclubs) to dance...and then seduction was in the air all over the place.
Humans. :)
Hopalong
-
Hop,
I know what you are talking about. I went to a nude beach once. The thought of going was tintillating, but once you get there, it is not really a sexually charged situation. There were all kinds of people there from kids to seniors and very skinny to very fat. I think it is what we don't see, what is covered up that creates desire. The whole lingerie business is built on that idea. Suggestion and anticipation.
-
I'm terribly sorry you had that HORRIBLE experience in a UU church, Write. I always pipe up when you talk about it...but I just feel compelled to try to correct the generalization. I'm not dismissing your hurt and anger at all though. Just want other readers to know it isn't "the church." It was that toxic and dysfunctional congregation you landed in.
I think what struck me the most was that so many people thought it was acceptable, in theory at least.
Same with many wrong things at that church.
And not one person except me I heard speak out- though I'm sure people did vote with their feet, many left too.
Not very Unitarian.
I found the whole place very disturbing, and apparently they now have a cross-dressing member for the edification of the young people.
A friend said her kids were sniggering, which she didn't like, but also she felt they were too young to go into issues of gender and sexuality.
I had the same issue with mine and 'what's gay/lesbian/transgendered and bisexual?' Do we really have to use these terms in front of the children? What's the point in teaching tolerance to all if it's at a price of making the most tolerant uncomfortable.
It's just not what you expect in church- to have to protect centuries old traditions of acceptable behaviour.
***
I didn't find nudist beaches erotically-charged places either, and in that situation nudity or semi-nudity is quite comfortable.
However I have been to a nudist evening here ( in the middle of winter ) and it was laughable that anyone thought it was in any way comfortable, pleasant or natural.
( I kept my clothes on I might add- one thing my Unitarian experience has taught me is Them Emperor's New Clothes Ain't For Me! )
-
it was so weird to have my son ( then 8 ) tell me: 'mummy this is a strange church, I don't like it'...and to recognise that his discomfort was entirely healthy.
Thank goodness I didn't buy into The Unitarian ' total acceptance' philosophy right then.
Because he was leading the way- it was a lightbulb moment especially for a person with bipolar.
'I can't hang out with swingers because...' 'my own boundaries are already compromised'.....
-
Force ain't tolerance.
However, it is good to be passionate about principles you hold dear.
Jesus had a hissy fit and threw over the moneychangers' table in the temple.
He wasn't always meek and mild.
I do admire persuasion a lot more than ranting, shrill judgment, all that.
Sometimes a passionate argument that isn't personal, but an explanation of why one views things the way one does, offered by sharing the depth of one's feeling (but WITHOUT a hostile attitude toward the unpersuaded)...can persuade.
And even if it doesn't, I feel honored when people share with me why they feel so deeply that something is right. Especially when their purpose is to connect by sharing with me something essential about who they are....rather than to make me feel wrong. There's a reaching across differences thing, that some people can do, in a way that makes you feel embraced by them regardless of your differences.
Hopalong
-
Hi there Hoppy and her fellow bohemians,
actually I meant germs while having sex. Nudity is ok with me. I think there is too much made of it. Violence is much more obscene.
Plucky
-
I dunno. You mean sex on the nude beach or the nightclubs?
I just meant there was "sex in the air" in those evenings, the
flirtng games, etc.
Me, I had no sex during my bohemian adventure.
I was just dancing...a little goggle-eyed voyeur.
30 years ago. Wow. :shock:
Hops
-
Hey Hoppy, you wild woman you,
I wasn't talking about you at all. I meant the polyamourous people, or whatever they are called. Now you, who think taking a night off from fetching tea and biscuits to a barmy old bat, to go to a chick flick with your buds, is a wild time, I hardly think of as germy nor yucky. Sorry to disappoint!
Plucky
-
:lol:
thanks for the laugh, Plucky!
You so often give that gift and you have no IDEA how much it's appreciated!
Here's one for you:
I'm realllllllly reallllly wild...I went to the chick flick alone. Woo HOO!
:)