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Tangled up in You and You and You…

topic posted Thu, April 17, 2008 - 5:23 PM by 
Did anyone read this article in this month's Portland Monthly Magazine?

www.portlandmonthlymag.com/this_issue/

"If you think swinging went out with the bell-bottoms and keg parties, you’re right. The buzzword for today’s lotsa-lovin’ lifestyle is “polyamory”—Latin for “My wife thinks you’re cute”—and Portlanders are getting in on the action."

If so, how was it? (I can't find a copy of the article online. If you have a link to such, please post it.)
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  • Rich
    Rich
    offline 176

    Re: Tangled up in You and You and You…

    Fri, April 18, 2008 - 11:49 AM
    I was pretty dissapointed in that article. It starts OK but then they declare lovetribe to be the central organizer for polys in Portland which (while I really dig those folks and what they do) is off the mark because they are not really a polycentric organization. Also the article is mostly centered on the writers inability to deal with any sort of poly situation as oppossed to putting it out there from a unbiased or (gasp) even positive point of view. I mean he freaked out at the thought of joining in at a snuggle.
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    • Myriad
      Myriad
      offline 95

      Re: Tangled up in You and You and You…

      Tue, April 22, 2008 - 2:48 PM
      Jeebus, if you can't handle snuggling you shouldn't be trying to write about poly. Sheesh.
      And Rich is right. While an overwhelmingly large percentage of Lovetribers are poly we don't actually organize "poly" events, though we DO through barrier mandatory play-parties that are, IMHO, much more fun and friendly than places like Ace of Hearts (which might be why we're so popular with the poly community!). Of course, you could just as easily say that the local Burner community is a poly hub. There's nothing about being a Burner that requires you to be poly, but a lot of us are.
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      • Re: Tangled up in You and You and You…

        Tue, April 22, 2008 - 3:06 PM
        "Jeebus, if you can't handle snuggling you shouldn't be trying to write about poly."

        I'm not sure that's a fair characterization. It does sound as though this particular person probably wasn't the right person to write this piece, but group snuggling and polyamory are unrelated, despite the Venn diagram overlap among some adherents.

        That's like saying, "If you can't handle wife-swapping, you shouldn't be trying to write about poly," or, "If you can't handle BDSM, you shouldn't be trying to write about science fiction."
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        • abbie
          abbie
          online 9

          Re: Tangled up in You and You and You…

          Tue, April 22, 2008 - 4:00 PM
          I just got done reading the article, and while it does share some of the ideology behind polyamory, the author has such an aversion to anything but monogamy there was really no way for him to write the story without it coming out poly-phobic. In a way I'm stoked that the article is out there, but in another I'm disappointed. I understand that the link made between being poly and being a swinger was a way for him to help describe the lifestyle, but I wish he would've made a better effort to hide his bias. It's already hard enough to explain when you are asked or accidentally outed without having the negative press veiling polys as indiscriminate sluts, sex fiends, or creepy weirdos.
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