polyamory

Who's Your Daddy?

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:07:00 +0000

Postmodern indeed. As a single Black lesbian mother, I assumed that a resource like this wouldn’t yet exist. On searching, I discovered a literary road map to queer parenting and family that is current, diverse and mini-encyclopedic in its breadth. Reading this work made me feel as though I had added to my family of choice. Who’s Your Daddy? documents the adventures and challenges of queer parents, including the parenting experiences of single, partnered, co-parenting and polyamorous parents. Essays from more than thirty contributors detail recent aspects of queer parenting history, including legal victories and challenges in the United States and Canada, the experiences of queer spawn (look it up) as well as the personal parenting experiences of single and partnered individuals including transgender women and men, lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer mothers, parents, and fathers.

Who’s Your Daddy? is not only broad in terms of the contributors and the subject matter covered in the book, but in tone as well. An accessible quality is maintained in the majority of the writing in the book. Sections on the various routes to parenthood, family composition, history and social change, parenting challenges and the legacy of queer families are made even more engaging due to the personal experiences candidly communicated by young queer parents, queer children from transracial adoptive families, one lesbian’s experience of infertility, and dispatches from queer-identified straight children, involved donors and blended families. Contributions in the form of email exchanges, interviews and letters tell stories that are laced with humor, highlight injustices, and relay grave personal loss.

One generation ago, some queer individuals would not have considered parenthood feasible. However, this book shows the many creative ways families have been built and children have been nurtured outside of the nuclear, heteronormative ideal. Open adoption, the experience of queer spawn in schools, the ways in which queer parents challenge gender stereotypes in raising their children and the experiences of involved donors are discussed alongside a transgender man’s experience of being treated at a fertility clinic. A letter to an unborn child lists a mother’s intentions to parent equitably, regardless of the child’s gender, while another piece discusses the importance placed upon biological ties within lesbian-led families.

As stated by Epstein, Who’s Your Daddy? does not attempt to prove that LGBTQ led families are the same or “as good as” straight or nuclear families. The joys, challenges and experiences captured in this anthology display the richness of queer cultures and relationships, values we should treasure, validate, analyze critically and pass on to our children.

Written by: Ruth Cameron, December 12th 2009

The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:51:00 +0000

By Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy

Celestial Arts

They say that life doesn’t come with a handbook, but the authors of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures would disagree. Their new and improved text on how to manage your relationships is an excellent guide to running your sex life.

The authors, Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, released this updated text a decade after the first edition came out, and the reader is very aware of this passage of time. The authors write in a very personal, pop psychology voice and point out additions and edits along the way. The most significant one is the addition of exercises scattered throughout, so the reader has an opportunity to reflect on their own relationships and feelings alongside the authors'.

Clearly intended to serve as a soapbox for two women celebrating their sexual prime, there are hints of age and longing for times gone by peeking through. There’s an otherworldliness to it, as if they recognized the need for the update, but failed to break the barrier they laid for themselves.

The content itself is sound, almost motherly advice about communication and honesty—all of which is an excellent reminder of how to treat a lover like a person. Sometimes it spells things out a little too much; I sporadically had these “duh” moments. Then again, there were times when I completely commiserated with the authors and would hang on each and every word. It strangely depended more on the circumstances when I picked up the book than the specific content.

One thing that annoyed me, though, was the frame of reference they chose to continually come back to, simply because it is their own. For a guide on polymaory relationships, it seems slightly ridiculous to use examples from one style of relationship (having a primary partner and other lovers) over and over again. The limited perspective took away from the feeling of openness of the piece. It was as if they were saying that you can have lots of partners, but only if you maintain a primary partner (and fulfill the heteronomative niche).

This aside, the book makes for a great emotional refresher on building happy, healthy relationships and as an added bonus serves as window into the lives of old hippies. What more could you ask of a couple of ethical sluts?

Written by: Nicole Levitz, June 7th 2009

Must Read After My Death

admin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Directed by Morgan Dews

Familial dysfunction is rarely poetic, but archival footage can be visually stunning, especially paired with painfully honest audio recordings of diaries, intimate correspondence, and therapy sessions. After his grandmother Allis’ death in 2001, filmmaker Morgan Dews stumbled upon more than 200 home movies and fifty hours of tape-recorded diaries and Dictaphone correspondence which revealed a complicated story previously unknown to Dews. Until his discovery, despite his close relationship with his grandmother, Dews had no detailed knowledge of his grandparents’ fitful years together and the damage it caused his mother and uncles.

Allis and Charley’s union was unique for their time. After meeting in the 1940's while married to other people, they decided to have an open marriage, complicated further by Charley’s frequent and extended work-related travel, alcoholism, and stronger penchant for affairs than his wife. Allis, who had previously lived in Europe, began staying home in Connecticut to raise the children. The couple had their share of peculiarly imbalanced disagreements—Allis wished Charley would restrict his affairs to unpaid women, while Charley berated Allis for not keeping a tidier, more organized house—and at one point, physical violence erupted in front of the children. Looking for help navigating their unconventional marriage and the ways their idiosyncrasies affect their children, Allis and Charley hauled their family into psychotherapy in the mid-1960's.

A surprisingly feminist film, it quickly becomes obvious how much of the family’s suffering is unfairly attributed to Allis’ supposed shortcomings. Various psychotherapists repeatedly tell her to be more submissive, but not to abandon the family because while she is supposedly the one at fault, the family needs a mother figure. She is alternately praised for giving her children freedom while mothering them too much. These contradictory assessments create immense guilt for Allis, whose self-blame and sadness nearly engulfs her at times. She goes between wishing she could take the children somewhere remote to raise them alone and wanting to end it all—literally. Throughout the course of the film, narrated almost entirely by recordings of Allis’ innermost feelings, it is possible to hear her sanity slowly devolving.

Must Read After My Death is also often an indictment against the harmful early days of experimental psychiatry. Allis’ brutal doctors blame her for “damaging the whole family.” Much of the family’s communication ends up being filtered through doctors and therapists, and eventually, one son is institutionalized for unsubstantial reasons. Perhaps most revealing, after Charley suddenly passes away, the family abruptly ends all therapy and treatment. Allis’ subsequent silence, which lasts until after her own death, speaks volumes about her desire to bury the agony and trauma of those years.

At times reminiscent of Capturing the Friedmans for its intimate view into the personal lives of other families’ disturbing secrets, this film is captivating, depressing, and hauntingly voyeuristic.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, March 15th 2009