There is a fine line, in the world we live in, between the love of a spouse and the love of nearly anything else. Whether it be for religious, societal, ethnic, or purely physical reasons, the love that one has for their legally bound partner is normally placed, depending on one’s views, directly below the love one has for their deity, or for we atheists, the beloved scientific process.

However, there are a growing number of people who believe that love, like any other personal or emotional possession of mind, is not only as limitless as we see it ourselves, but malleable, a dividable entity we can distribute as we see fit. I will not cheapen it and call love a commodity, but instead a resource, a resource that in our minds is not to be hoarded and used for one, but distributed to as many as are willing and able to accept what we have to offer them.

Polyamory is not a new concept, to even call it old is also a falsehood. It is an ancient practice our ancestors before us used not only as a form of personal happiness, but as a means of propagating the species when the gene pool was limited, and single mate life partners were simply undesirable for the continuation of a non-incestual DNA base.

Mind you, that is simply the biology, if polyamory as applied to early man’s struggle to survive and thrive. The deep emotional aspects are the truly enlightening thing to it. Case in point, a man and a woman (although this works for every heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and pansexual composition available) love one another. Not a fairy tale love, where all is sweetness and light, but a true love, one of passion and anger, compromise and trust. They both feel this love and you, at some level personal to each of them, something is missing. Maybe it is the desire for an opposite/same sex pairing, a cultural or spiritual pairing, sexual compatibility, or just more love to give than one person can receive, and a depressive air when it cannot be shared enough.

It is not a single one of these things listed above that may mean you have a desire for a polyamorous relationship, but a combination of some, most, or all of those listed and the nearly countless others that are not. Before I go on I must say this, desiring another partner purely for sexual gratification, while not wrong in the slightest, is not polyamory. Some people who say they desire polyamory merely seek an open relationship with their partner. Never confuse the two.  Heartbreak and agony will always result.

When you and your partner discuss perhaps having a polyamorous relationship, make sure, above all else, that you are honest in all things. If you begin with deception over feelings and actions, then all that you begin to build with your partner and possible future additions to your love, is a lie, and will eventually come crashing down and hurt each and every person involved. Do not be ashamed to speak of sexual curiosities, possible jealousy issues, limitations, boundaries and even parameters you both agree on. Writing things down does not somehow cheapen the experience by any means. A written record always helps to remind all parties of their state of mind when the papers were written, despite any positive/negative changes since.

There are nearly infinite variations to a polyamorous relationship. The numbers do not have a cap and it is not necessary for one person to share your love for one another. The point is that all can love all or all can love one or, again, an infinite amount of variations in between. It is truly a wonderful, open, limitless and deeply personal situation and decision.

As an example of the variations in the world of polyamory, I will give you my wife (read: legal spouse) and my current configuration. As I said, I am married, but also have a woman who I am deeply emotionally committed to and love as much as my wife, and she shares the depth and detail of these feelings. My wife and her love one another as well, but on a platonic level. My wife is currently seeking a deep, loving and committed relationship with another man similar to the one I have, as well as an experimentally sexual, with possible long term commitment, with a woman. I am also exploring my sexuality and, while not actively looking, am willing to experiment sexually with another man. We are also both, as a couple, looking for a couple for a sexual and emotional relationship.

The number one question I get asked, after the ignorant masses ask to fuck my wife as if she were a whore, is what we tell our children, if anything, about our lifestyle choices. For starters, I do not lie to my children, about anything. That being said, I do not tell them every detail either. They are young, which means they purely, in the depths of it, want that security all children do. They want to make sure Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to be gone when they wake up in the morning. I tell my children that Mommy and Daddy love one another and always will, but they also love other people as much as they love one another. This not only succinctly answers their question, but assuages their, like all children, irrational fears of abandonment.

What I have just written is in no way designed to be a complete guide to anything. It was just a few thoughts I thought I would share on the subject from my viewpoint, and my viewpoint alone.

Love All You Can
Love As Much As You Can
Love As Long As You Can

There was a time in the American culture when women like Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Rita Hayworth, and Lana Turner were the epitome of what a sex symbol was. They were the bombshells and the goddesses that we ogled from near and far, and there wasn’t a man in the country who didn’t have a pinup of them somewhere in their garage.

Do you know how we refer to these absolutely gorgeous women today? Do you know how we revere their memory and honor their beauty?

We call them fat.

The idea of what beautiful is has changed so drastically over the years that the women mentioned above would never be the superstars they were, but instead they would have to deal with magazine covers and delightful names like “Wide Load” “Big Girl” and, if you are not in the US, straight out things like “Fat Ass” and “Pigilicious”.

This breaks my heart. I did not grow up with Marilyn Monroe as an idol, I am a bit young for that, but I did grow up loving women of every shape and size. As I was educated by school systems and myself, I realized that the shapely woman was the form that mankind worshipped for 500 generations before Twiggy came along and destroyed the ideals of beauty forever.

That’s right, I said worshipped. Fertility statues, such as the Venus of Willendorf, were what mankind looked for in a woman in times past. Full hips, large breasts and a larger frame inferred that the woman would be an excellent mother. A mother, without which our species would have dwindled down to nothingness 50,000 years ago on the frozen plains of Europe.

For those of you wanting a more recent example, take the works of Peter Paul Rubens, this man, who the word rubenesque was invented in honor of, showed women the way they both truly were, and were desired to be. Large breasts, wide hips, and a soft and plump body is what was considered beautiful.

Where did we go wrong?

I wish I could pinpoint a date, and then go back in time and make everyone love one another the way it ought to be. But unfortunately, it was a series of events over the course of decades that gradually focused the eyes of the males of the world on the smaller waist and frame as a beautiful, as opposed to the larger.

I am not against women of any size, I am against the labeling of what size of woman is unattractive due to forced societal norms. It is asinine and cruel, and for the most part, largely American in origin, as well. Since America never shuts up, and screams the loudest in every conversation, we seem to push the beauty ideals for a great swathe of the world.

This makes me incredibly sad. I am delighted to be a admirer of plus sized women. I am pleased to say I prefer a larger waist, stomach and breasts than nearly all of my peers. I love women, I worship them for the true progenitors that they are. They are mother; they are life, and I refuse to believe that Nicole Ritchie is the face of beauty and perfection when we have women like Adele, Tyra Banks, and Mia Tyler.

So my friends, we have lost our way. We have gone from seeing women as goddesses and beings of immense beauty, to seeing them as fragile, broken things that need to be nearly emaciated for us to call them them whole, real, and beautiful.

How do we get back?