I had this incredibly open conversation with a new friend who for the life of him could not understand how my wife could accept our lifestyle. He was convinced that I had blackmailed her into it our life together by saying "This is how I am and this is how we will be or we can't be a couple." He just wouldn't be convinced that she accepted our lifestyle because it interested her and because she loved me and understood me and desired that side of me. Sometimes young straight people can be so THICK! I eventually had to break it down to him and say "She's into it. It makes her hot." We were talking more about open relationships and not about BDSM. He still didn't get it.
The conversation had started around discussing Neil Strauss' The Game and why I would be reading that book or need social dynamic training to pick up women. The book simply fascinates me and I love Neil Strauss and the bibliography of the book. Of course people who Play in the BDSM community are totally different from the PUA community who feel they need to game the system to increase their success ratio. Don't get me wrong. I love the transformations of some pick up artists who are tired of being lonely and want to be able to create a connection with women. I just felt by the end of the book that there was something missing because they had no end game and had trouble finding the one woman they wanted to be with. There also wasn't a chapter on creating open relationships so that all parties were completely honest about how many people they were dating so that potentially they could still see each other and see other people.
I have a severe problem with pick up artists who just treat women like objects and treat them like crap because they are still pissed about how badly they were treated by men and women in high school and college before their self-transformation. But I digress.
My friend, after two hours of talking, still wasn't buying it. It didn't help that he was having a hard time finding one partner to share his life with let alone nine.
In a world where same sex marriage is becoming very mainstream I still feel very much in a closet of my own creation despite how many of my friends know about and accept my lifestyle. Professionally I feel the need to stay in a closet because my movement can barely handle the rabbis caught sleeping with a congregant other than their wife or husband. They are fully open to monogamous hetero or homosexual rabbis (as long as they are married to a Jewish partner), but haven't even begun dealing with the circle of rabbis in open or alternative relationships who are some of their most powerful and successful rabbis out there today. They can't understand that we succeed because we can relate to every person who comes into our office for counseling or conversation.
One of my partners on the West Coast sent me an incredible article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Married and Dating. I was outraged by Rabbi Eliott Dorff's, the rector of American Jewish University in Los Angeles and a longtime champion of gay inclusion in the Jewish community, statement:
“First of all, the depth of the relationship is much greater if it’s monogamous,” Dorff said. “The chances that both partners are going to be able to fulfill all the obligations of a serious intimate relationship are much greater in a monogamous relationship. I would say the same to gay or straight couples: There should be one person you live your life with.”
I think he doesn't know what he's talking about. True, most people can't handle one fully actualized relationship let alone more than one. But he speaks of something he knows nothing about. I love each of my partners individually and differently. I am capable of expressing my love and devotion in completely different ways than I do with my primary partner. But I wouldn't still have a primary partner if my wife didn't feel my love, affection and devotion at her desired level. True I can't make her happy if she can't make herself happy. And conversely, she can't make me happy if I can't make myself happy. Any actualized person knows this. Our biggest issues are domestic. Raising the kids, cleaning the house and scheduling. Sexually we wish we had more time (who doesn't) but our open relationship and our BDSM proclivities don't hinder or lessen our love and devotion to each other and our ability to love and welcome other people into our lives.
Dorff hasn't done any studies to prove that the depth of any relationship is much greater if it is monogamous (other than his own). He hasn't interviewed hundreds of poly or alt people to discover if his hypothesis is accurate. He is just throwing out his biased opinion based on his personal experience and what society has trained him to think without any accurate research or first hand experience.
The choices I made to change how I lived and loved at 27 have allowed me room to re-open key relationships with old partners who accept me as I am now and my lifestyle. Their love, acceptance and place in my bed/dungeon have changed my life monumentally and made me a better primary partner in gratitude for the quantity of play and love in my life. I am more loving and more romantic at home than I ever would be if I was shut down and lived most of my romantic life in my mind rather than with the partners who make my life so rich.
I pray for the ability to someday have a congregation of poly and alt lifestyle people who are open to all expression of life, love and living (straight and gay monogamists are welcome too I guess). I want to be surrounded by Jews (all like-minded non-Jewish partners and those generally interested are welcome too of course) who are tolerant and accepting of all people and all lifestyles. There is no shame in living our own lives how we see fit to live them as long as everything we do is consensual among like-minded adults. Without us the world would be conformist and beige. No color, no rainbows, no excitement and really nothing to talk about. Be yourself we were always taught. Be proud of who you are. Love yourself in order to be able to love someone else. Shema Yisrael, Hear O' Israel, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai Echad, Adonai, Our God, Adonai is One. We are one. We have always been one. We've spent thousands of years getting back to being accepted for who we are and our oneness.
You are not alone. I am not alone. I love that you are all out there so that when I stand on my Bima, closeted from all my congregants who adore me, I know that I am not alone and that I am accepted for who I am somewhere out there.
