Category Archives: Relationships

Power Balance

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A reader sends me a link to this article discussing sex and consent in the modern era. The author is making the case that the sexual revolution has been a failure for women and, in their own words, made them less safe. It’s an interesting hypothesis, but undermined considerably by this statement:

Most importantly, we have learned that men almost always hold power in sexual situations with women and the subsequent narratives about those situations.

Anyone who thinks women don’t hold power in sexual situations probably shouldn’t be writing on the subject.

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One Side of the Story

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Something I’ve noticed about articles in which polyamorists tell their stories is they are all written by women. Here’s another, which I shall summarise thusly:

My husband Rob and I were together for twelve years before I decided to start shagging a guy called Mike who I knew in my twenties. Pretty soon he moved in with us, but Rob’s other women didn’t because reasons. Then Mike moved into my room and Rob took the shitty spare room downstairs for reasons that were entirely practical, oh yes. Our two young kids were completely unaffected by all this, and both men did the housework while I ordered them around. Mike and Rob got on well but for reasons I won’t explain Rob and I have now divorced, he’s moved out, and Mike and I are getting married.

I imagine Rob’s version would go something like this:

My wife stopped putting out years ago and announced one day she’d started seeing some guy called Mario, but she wanted me to stick around to pay the bills. I thought it might be a passing phase and my only other option was to lose the house and kids in an expensive divorce, so I reluctantly agreed. This Mario guy turned up and quickly moved in, and then the bitch told me I had to sleep in the basement. I’m now so pissed off I’ve filed for divorce and moved out, but I’m still paying for the house and there’s a strange man sleeping in the same room as my kids. Now I hear they’re getting married. Man, did I fuck up or what?

This, apparently, is a lifestyle we’re supposed to treat as positive. Just have a read of that article and bask in the sheer amorality of it.

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Polyamorous Families in Canada

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This was only a matter of time:

In the first decision of its kind in Canada, all three adult members of a polyamorous family have been recognized as parents of a child.

Two months ago, Justice Robert Fowler of the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court (Family Division) in the case of Re C.C., decided the adults would be named as parents of the child born within their three-way relationship.

I predict a full-on campaign to bring all aspects of polyamorous relationships on a legal par with monogamous marriages before too long. Those puff-pieces have been buttering us up for something, you know.

In the introduction to his decision, Justice Fowler described the unconventional St. John’s household:

“J.M. And J.E. are the two male partners in a polyamorous relationship with C.C., the mother of A., a child born of the three-way relationship in 2017. The relationship has been a stable one and has been ongoing since June 2015. None of the partners in this relationship is married and, while the identity of the mother is clear, the biological father of the child is unknown.”

The three adults brought a court proceeding asking to be recognized as the parents of A. after the Newfoundland Ministry of Service refused to designate them as parents, saying that the Vital Statistics Act allowed only two parents on the child’s birth certificate.

What always surprises me about these stories is how short the timescales are. Quite often middle aged women write about finally finding the love of their life two months ago. In this case, the kid is less than two years old, the relationship only three, yet it’s described unequivocally as “stable” by a judge. In terms of marriage and a family, that’s a blink of an eye.

In his ruling, Fowler observed that “the child, A., has been born into what is believed to be a stable and loving family relationship which, although outside the traditional family model, provides a safe and nurturing environment…. I can find nothing to disparage that relationship from the best interests of the child’s point of view…. To deny this child the dual paternal parentage would not be in his best interests.

Why? How is it in his interests to create future ambiguity? What, exactly, is the threat to his interests which arise from having the biological father on the birth certificate and the live-in boyfriend excluded? And does the child not have the right to find out who his biological father is?

It must be remembered that this is about the best interests of the child and not the best interest of the parents.”

The fact the judge has to labour this point suggests it’s a lot less obvious than he thinks. From where I’m sat, the birth certificate is being used more to describe the romantic arrangements of the mother at the time of conception than provide useful information as to who the child’s parents are.

Unlike bigamy and polygamy — which involve marriage ceremonies between the participating parties — polyamorous relationships are not prohibited by the Criminal Code.

At this point one wonders why polygamy is still illegal.

Boyd’s research found that people who identify as polyamorous, typically “reject the view that sexual and relationship exclusivity is necessary for deep, committed, long term relationships with more than one person on mutually agreeable grounds, with sex as only on aspect of their relationships.”

Similarly, second-hand car salesmen think they’re honest, journalists think they’re brave, and BBC comedians think they’re funny.

There is little doubt the recognition of three parents will be the least legally complex aspect of polyamorous relationships. Family law legislation across Canada now recognizes only one spouse’s obligation to the other. Current legislation will be difficult to apply in polyamorous relationships, especially if new partners become involved in the relationship and the relationship later breaks down.

All the more work for lawyers and judges, then. Kerr-ching!

(H/T: Fay)

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Polyfuckery

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Via reader Robert Harries, the world’s most pathetic male has written to The Guardian asking for advice:

My girlfriend and I have been together for more than a year. She told me that she wants a polysexual relationship because she feels something is missing from ours. Every time I say that I don’t want this, she gets upset. I love her and she loves me, but she also loves another person and he loves her back. She said that the only reason she loves this other person is because he reminds her of me. I want it to just be her and me?. ?What should I/we do?

No doubt his girlfriend has been reading endless media articles promoting polyamory, but tragically neither discovered this blog. The time he spent writing his letter should have been used to end the relationship; even The Guardian writer can see that:

Tell her to make up her mind. She may be genuinely polyamorous, but you clearly are not – so this situation is untenable.

It would be better to be clear about this now and avoid prolonged pain. Give her a choice: either monogamy with you or both of you move on.

I’d not be at all surprised if this whole thing is just a shit-test which the boyfriend has failed miserably. He’s probably wetter than a weekend in Wales and she’s been trying everything she can to get him to show some balls. Or maybe  he’s funding her lifestyle in some way and she doesn’t want to cut him out of her life? Either way the contempt she has for him is extraordinary; I’d be willing to bet he’s not had sex in six months, whereas she’s getting plenty, including while he was writing the letter.

The comments under the article are worth reading, and give me some hope that testosterone still lingers among British men, even those who read The Guardian.

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Sex and the City didn’t air on Discovery

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I often remark on here that rather too many women thought Sex and the City was a documentary. I’ve now found an article that shows I wasn’t exaggerating:

When the last episode of “Sex and the City” aired in February 2004, I hosted a viewing party for 200 guests. It was my swan song as well: Eight months later, I would move to New York, where, armed with my “Sex and the City” DVDs, my transformation really began.

Based on what I knew from “SATC,” I expected the city to sweep me off my feet. I envisioned nonstop brunching and shopping.

What always surprises me about these stories is the lack of friends and family who try to talk some sense into them.

I lived on food bought for me on dates and the occasional bodega tuna sandwich. For clothes, it was wrap dresses from Diane von Furstenberg sample sales combined with loans from designers who took pity on me — like Betsey Johnson, whom I’d interviewed at Fashion Week. Different men I dated gave me YSL shoes and status purses, just like Big did for Carrie on “SATC.”

She’s relying on “dates” for food and clothes. Yay for female empowerment!

I also subscribed to Carrie’s ethos when it came to men. There was no such thing as a bad date — only a good date or a good brunch story. In my writing, I gave my boyfriends nicknames (one was “Prom King”) just like Carrie and her friends did.

I went out with a prince: Lorenzo Borghese from “The Bachelor.” I even dated the British ex-boyfriend of “Sex and the City” creator Candace Bushnell — the original Carrie. He was one of a few men who comprised the composite character Mr. Big.

A common feature among women who spent a decade sleeping around is their belief that anyone is in the slightest bit interested in their exploits. Seriously, does anyone care who she was shagging in New York a decade ago? She didn’t even manage to screw a household name.

Between 2004 and 2011, I filmed nine TV pilots — many of which were reality shows, and all of which were a derivation of some kind of “SATC” role for me. I was always the Carrie. In one pilot, I hosted for Animal Planet; the premise was that your dog would choose whom you’d go out with.

One can’t honestly say at this point that getting the dog’s input is a bad idea.

Their core complaint about me was that I was a quote-unquote “fame whore.”

I suspect many of your female contemporaries thought that description contained one word too many.

Finally, I cut my ties to New York and moved to San Francisco full-time in 2013. I tried being a tech columnist and writing a personal-growth book called “Experiments in Happiness.”

Which sits on my shelf beside Paul Gascoigne’s book “Experiments in Sobriety”.

These days I work as a change activist, mounting summits for world leaders and serving as an adviser to startups and entrepreneurs looking to better the planet.

So she’s found religion. Sadly she’s not locked herself away in a convent.

I’m finally living a life of integrity, and I’m attuned to my values. I never heard about values on “Sex and the City.”

Well, no.

I dated a woman for a while, a beautiful entrepreneur who was also jilted by New York — that’s definitely not something you saw Carrie do.

How edgy. No sign of mental disorder here at all, oh no.

But dating is not front and center in my life anymore, although it was all I talked about in my 20s. That’s pretty one-dimensional.

You think?

Last year, I ended a two-year relationship with a man who ultimately couldn’t commit and wanted to be polyamorous.

Heh! I suspect he could commit, only not with someone who spent a decade shagging random men in New York in return for food and clothes. And why wait two years? Desperation much?

Again, “SATC” and the “lessons” it taught me is the culprit.

It wasn’t supposed to be a lifestyle manual. And as Daniel Ream often points out, the book was far more realistic in its portrayal of single life in New York than the TV series was, and ought to have served as a warning.

The show wasn’t a rubric on how to find a lifelong partnership.

You don’t say!

If I was more grounded and had honestly assessed whether this man was a good partner for me, I don’t think we ever would have dated.

So it’s the fault of a TV show which concluded in her early twenties that she dated an unsuitable man in her mid-thirties? For all the talk of female empowerment, a lot of these modern women don’t seem to have quite grasped the whole personal responsibility thing, have they? Nor do they seem to understand that the choices you make in your twenties stay with you for life.

Crushed and needing to regroup, I took a sabbatical and lived in Bali for eight months on a healing journey.

Heh.

I was also celibate during my time there.

Much to the disappointment of knuckle-dragging Australian youths in beer singlets.

I do wonder what my life would have looked like if “Sex and the City” had never come across my consciousness.

I don’t know, but I’m confident if you got lost in the Arctic wilderness you’d blame Ice Road Truckers.

Perhaps I’d be married with children now?

Given your appalling judgement, immaturity, and lack of impulse control I’d say that’s highly unlikely.

Who knows, but I can say for sure that, as clever and aesthetically pleasing as the show was — and, as much as I agree with its value of female friendships — it showed too much consumerism and fear of intimacy disguised as empowerment.

Modern feminism is rather good at disguising all manner of vices and self-destructive behaviour as empowerment.

Whom you’re dating, what you’re wearing, or how good you look at that premiere — none of that s–t matters unless you genuinely love yourself. Solid relationships are what really matter.

Who knew?

Truth be told, I wish I had never heard of “SATC.” I’m sure there are worse role models but, for me, it did permanent and measurable damage to my psyche that I’m still cleaning up.

As useful a description of the effects of modern feminism as you’re likely to find.

Two months ago, I started seeing someone I never would have dated 10 years earlier.

A whole two months? How long to you think she can hide the disgust?

Back then, I wasn’t looking to get married or seek a lifelong partner, and that was a mistake. This man is a very reasonable choice, and I’m at a place in my life where reasonable is very sexy.

Two. Months.

Now, I feel like genuine me — I’m no longer a Carrie Bradshaw knockoff.

No, you’re now Samantha. Congratulations!

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Campaigning for Attention

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Via Simon Cooke, continuing a current trend:

Parliamentary candidate Zoe O’Connell, 37, is bidding to be Britain’s first polyamorous MP – which means she lives in a three-way lesbian ­relationship with her two canvassers Sarah Brown, 41, and Sylvia Knight, 39.

And if that seems to be as far fetched as a Tory manifesto, then consider this: Zoe and Sarah used to be MEN. And Sarah and Sylvia were once a straight married couple before her sex change.

But of course.

The complex personal life and happiness of her and her lovers is at the forefront of her campaign.

Because this is what matters to constituents.

She says: “We’re content together and that is what matters to us. I’m running for office to change things. Twenty years ago this would never have happened.

“I’m standing up because I don’t think anyone should be treated differently because of gender or sexuality or the way they choose to live their private lives. We live together.

“We’re in a relationship and we’re not ashamed of that.”

So running for office is simply a way to publicise your relationship? And why would you want to do that?

But they’ve all been on a long and difficult journey to reach their unorthodox domestic bliss.

Okay, but as the following paragraphs show, the difficulty mainly lay within their own heads over who they were and what they wanted to be. Nowhere is it suggested they were prevented from doing as they pleased, as they might have been a generation or two ago. So what are they publicising it for?

Zoe is more concerned that increased attention will be levelled at [her chidren] on a national scale if she becomes an MP.

Then maybe don’t do it?

She says it is “inevitable” that she will become a flagbearer for gay and transgender issues if elected, and will fight to have them included in any equalities legislation that is passed during the next parliament.

What legislation? You have a woman and two trans-men living together in a polyamorous relationship, one of whom is running for elected national office. Isn’t this proof of how open and tolerant Britain is, why do we need single-issue lunatics campaigning for more legislation? Do they want to make it compulsory?

But while Zoe likes to think the best of everybody, Sarah says she fears national politics will expose her partner to abuse from bigots online.

“There are people who will go for you if you’re transgender and you stick your head above the parapet,” says Sarah. “They’re not very nice people.

Then why’s she running for office? She doesn’t seem interested in representing her constituents, only in being a “flagbearer” for gay and transgender issues.

But Zoe, who is contesting her family home constituency of Maldon, Essex, against sitting Tory MP John Whittingdale – certainly isn’t frightened of how people react to their relationship.

I expect what terrifies her most is that people will roll their eyes and largely ignore it. This whole thing looks to me like an exercise in attention-seeking which, as it happens, is a useful description of most polyamorous relationships.

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Normal Polyamorists

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Via Tim Worstall, another polyamorous relationship profiled in the media.

A polyamorous trio who are engaged to each other – and all share the same king size bed – insist that there’s nothing unusual about their relationship.

I’d agree there’s nothing unusual about their relationship insofar as polyamorists go: they’re pretty much walking stereotypes. The only surprise is they live in Tennessee not Brooklyn.

Nic, who was born male and initially lived as a transgender woman, but now identifies as gender neutral and prefers the pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them,’ has always been mainly polyamorous – first dating multiple people during high school.

Then, around a year ago, the TV station worker met delivery driver Rachel, who is a transgender female, through OKCupid, a dating site.

Initially, the pair dated monogamously – or as a ‘closed couple.’ Then Nic met Xander, a transgender male, through work, and the trio now live together and share a king size bed.

One thing I have noticed, though: these polyamorous groups being profiled in the media increasingly involve transgendered people. It was common enough to have a bisexual thrown in there, but I suppose that’s just not edgy enough these days. And maybe that’s why my book sales are so low? I should have given Katya a dick, shouldn’t I?

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Polyamory done right

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Regular readers will be aware I take a generally dim view of those who promote their polyamorous lifestyles in the media, noting that most who engage in the practice look like the south end of a cow heading north. It appears there are exceptions, however:

Football legend Ronaldinho is to marry TWO women at the same time, according to reports in Brazil.

Oh. So what do they look like?

I’ve got to say, they don’t look like the normal types who show up in these stories. For a start, neither has turquoise hair.

The two women have been living “harmoniously” with the former Barcelona star since December at his £5million Rio de Janeiro mansion, according to reports.

Ronaldinho started dating Beatriz in 2016, but is said to have continued his relationship with Priscilla, which began several years earlier.

But what’s in it for them?

According to reports, both lovers receive an “allowance” of around £1,500 from the footballer to spend as they wish.

Ah.

Both Priscilla and Beatriz are from Belo Horizonte, the city where the footballer played with Atletico Mineiro, leading the club to its first Copa Libertadores title in 2012.

…

He will marry the two women at a private ceremony inside the Santa Monica condominium, in the upmarket Barra da Tijuca district in Rio, where he has lived since 2015, according to the columnist, from Brazil’s O Dia newspaper.

See, polyamory can work, provided you’re a multi-millionaire celebrity, you select a couple of waifs from the provinces, and you’re the only one shagging around. But it’s not all roses:

During the Rio carnival this year Ronaldinho hired a VIP box in the sambadrome to watch the processions and took both women.

According to reports, everything was fine until ex-girlfriend Juliana Diniz, who the footballer dated in 2011, showed up.

Showbiz insider Leo Dias claimed that the climate became frosty as Priscilla and Beatriz didn’t hide their jealousy of the woman.

At least not for the girls; I imagine it bothered Ronaldinho not one jot.

I wonder if this story will get a puff-piece on female empowerment in the New York Times?

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Template Matched

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Via reader Fay, a story of a woman in her late thirties looking for love:

Nearly three decades later—even though my career as a UN aid worker had seen me bounce all around the world and have all sorts of trysts—I was yet to meet this fictional man. And yet, thanks to my over-active imagination, he’d amassed an ever-growing list of wonderful qualities.

Where-oh-where was this romantic man, this tall and intelligent Indiana Jones, who also happened to be funny, clean, gainfully employed, multilingual, emotionally astute and incredibly deep? An old soul who exuded confidence, honesty and patience, and didn’t feel an iota of insecurity around a woman who had likely travelled more than he had?

Him? He got married while you were gallivanting around the world with the UN having “all sorts of trysts”.

I’d looked for him in bars, in airport lounges, at second hand book shops. I went on blind dates, where my anxiety over my apparently dwindling marriageability and fertility led me to trying to talk myself into suitors who I would never have considered a decade earlier.

Well yes, that dating pool does tend to dry up, just as Grandma warned. So she gave up, but what to do instead? Emphasis is mine:

Once I made the decision to end the punitive (not to mention addictive) search for romantic love, once I decided that I was enough on my own, everything shifted.

…

My soul-searching took me deep into the wilderness, from meditating and studying Ayurveda at an ashram in Kerala, to working on a farm on Mount Etna, to going on a solo-safari in southern Tanzania.

During that time, I focused my time and energy on, well, me, developing a heightened sense of self-awareness. Stepping away from the demands of modern city living and social pressure to couple up induced a total spiritual transformation – a journey on which I decided to give myself permission to pursue happiness and meaning in nontraditional ways.

As I said a few weeks ago:

For most people, “travelling” – as opposed to simply going on holiday – is something you do in your twenties before settling down into a proper job and/or family life. But for single women, it’s something they do well into middle-age and perhaps beyond, usually going to exotic locations where they talk in lofty terms about spirituality. There must be a pretty big market for this: reasonably wealthy women who have nothing else to do during their annual holidays but jet off somewhere exotic for a few weeks or months of “finding themselves”. I don’t think they’re going abroad to get laid, but they do seem a bit lost, as if going to a nice location will help fill the gigantic hole in their lives back home.

…

I’ve noticed you don’t see many middle-aged men going “travelling”, it’s nearly always women, and always alone.

Heh. On several occasions I’ve had women like this yell “You don’t know me!” when I’ve given them a brief, unsolicited assessment of their life situation. Alas, it seems I do. Fortunately, in this case there’s a happy ending:

We need to be enough on our own, and to realise that in the end, we’re never alone if we are connected to the deepest part of ourselves. That’s why at the end of my journey, I married myself – on a beach in Zanzibar, of course.

Which just leaves one question: tabby, Siamese, or tortoiseshell?

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Incentives Matter

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This is probably a good thing:

Women are backing out of divorce cases because settlements are becoming less generous, experts have said.

Fewer wives are being awarded income for life and they are increasingly having their divorce settlement limited to a few years.

This is making some of them back off from going through with a split, law firms say.

In a landmark case in 2014, the High Court ruled that judges should prioritise a “transition to independence”, even if this involved “a degree of (not undue) hardship”.

Back around the time of the global financial crisis, I heard somewhere that the divorce rate had dropped in London as women found their husband’s asset pile, and by extension their expected payout, was suddenly worth a lot less. As Tim Worstall is fond of pointing out, incentives matter and it has been obvious for a long time that many women initiate a divorce in the hope of securing a hefty settlement rather than working to save the relationship. The law now recognises this, hence the divorce rate at the margins has fallen.

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