Salon.com > Polyamory

The polyamory trap

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:59:00 +0000

Newt Gingrich may have scored political points by refusing to talk about an ex-wife's assertion that he asked that their marriage be “open,” but he also thrust polyamory into the national conversation.

This was new territory for many people, but not for LGBT advocates, who hear about it all the time. Won't legitimizing same-sex marriage lead to legitimizing polyamorous relationships too? If two men can marry one another, why not one man and two women? This argument is a favorite of former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, the so-called Christian right and the right-wing blogosphere.

Responding to these arguments is a challenge. On the one hand, I reject the tactic of distinguishing the good gays from the "bad" poly people. Further marginalizing the marginalized is just the wrong trajectory for any liberation movement to take. And it reminds me of the way that some mainstream gay activists have sold out transgender and gender-nonconforming groups. We’re the married gays who make neighborhoods stable and herald the arrival of cool coffeehouses; we're not those awful drag queens. This is all trash, it sells out members of our own community who deserve more than that, and it’s a punt, really, not an argument.

My mother, the Playboy Bunny

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:30:00 +0000

A version of this piece originally appeared on Rhonda Talbot's Open Salon blog.

It's impossible not to notice all the signs, billboards and ads for NBC's upcoming show "The Playboy Club." In fact, I can hardly go shopping without being confronted by a glossy photo of scantily clad girls wearing onesies, bunny ears and poofy rear-end tails, smiling as if it's fun to be pawed by sinister, alcohol-fueled men. I don't think that's how my mother remembers it.

I grew up in a splintered home. My mother was young and pretty, and since she had to make ends meet for her six kids, she took a job as a Playboy Bunny.

At the time, Playboy Clubs were common in the high-end areas of cities. We lived on the fringes of such wealth; we had so little of our own that my mother regularly lifted all sorts of items -- from glasses and plates to canned goods and oil paintings -- from her housekeeping jobs.

When Mom landed the Playboy gig, she was excited. She'd toiled as a secretary, housekeeper, baby sitter, factory worker and possibly a prostitute (that was never confirmed). We kids looked after ourselves, and I raised the younger ones.

Crystal Harris overshares about sex with Hef

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:59:00 +0000

Crystal Harris would like you to know she barely ever came into contact with Hugh Hefner's penis. On a Tuesday edition of Howard Stern's show, the Playmate, "Girls Next Door" star and woman who jilted Hugh Hefner just five days before their planned wedding last month divulged the intimate secrets of their not-so-intimate relationship. "He doesn't really take off his clothes. I've never seen Hef naked," she told Stern, a stunning admission from a woman who dated a man for two years.

But the details didn't stop there -- she told her host they'd only had sex once. And when Stern, in his typical prodding manner, asked, "Were you like, 'Aren't I sexy enough for this guy that he doesn't want to bang me?' Or were you like, 'Thank God?" she hastily assented to the latter. She also readily affirmed, with a squicked-out nod of the head, that she not only hadn't had an orgasm during what Stern described as a "horror situation" encounter, but that it only lasted "like two seconds." "Then I was just over it ... I just like, walked away. I'm not turned on by Hef, sorry." I think someone just got herself permanently exiled from The Mansion.

Heinlein and Asimov’s WWII adventures

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:20:00 +0000

Writers like to write about writers almost as much as moviemakers like to make movies about moviemakers. On second thought, maybe more. Considering only 20th-century books and films, the litany of famous directors who have created cinema about Hollywood is considerably smaller than the catalog of famous writers who have fictionalized fellow scribblers. From Thomases Wolfe and Mann, through Herman Wouk and Philip Roth, down to David Lodge and Jay Parini, authors like nothing better than writing about the glories and sufferings of themselves and their peers.

Many times the author protagonist is an emblematical invention, even if roman à clef elements might exist. But equally often, and especially of late, the ink-stained hero or heroine of such books is an actual historical personage, shanghaied willy-nilly into the living author's schemes. If Poe or Twain had heirs, there'd be identity-theft lawsuits galore!

Why do we still believe in monogamy?

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 16:01:00 +0000

It seems any time a high-profile public figure strays, someone steps forward to present open marriage as the solution. Sometimes it's instead dubbed swinging, "responsible" non-monogamy, polyamory or, as sex columnist Dan Savage does in this weekend's New York Times Magazine, "monogamish."

As we're continually reminded of the problems with monogamy -- most recently courtesy of Anthony Weiner and Arnold Schwarzenegger -- we seem to keep rediscovering this solution anew, or reinventing the marital wheel, if you will. There is at once a desire for a way to avoid the pain and humiliation of failed monogamy and yet resistance to actual alternatives. With these issues at the fore of the American subconscious, Times writer Mark Oppenheimer devotes his feature to detailing Savage's personal solution: deemphasizing marital monogamy in favor of total honesty. That philosophy can manifest itself in countless ways -- from simply refusing to let an affair destroy a partnership to agreeing ahead of time that sex with others is OK.

Five pop culture items we missed

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:16:00 +0000

1. Movie-themed nightclub of the day: Club Silencio, a new Parisian nightspot brought to you by David Lynch and based upon the Rebekah Del Rio room from "Muholland Drive."

It kind of looks like half the nightclubs in the Meatpacking District already.

2. Sex tape rumors of the day: LeAnn Rimes claiming that a video of her changing in front of a mirror doesn't count as a "sex tape." We are inclined to agree. She still wants to sue the guy who put the footage online, though.

3. Reneged runaway bride of the day: The Crystal Harris-dumping-Hugh-Hefner story of yesterday turned out to be part of a media plot involving Harris getting $250K. Guess we all fell for it. Now Harris is dating Dr. Phil's son? Couldn't have seen that one coming.

Hugh Hefner says Playmate called off wedding

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:13:30 +0000

Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner says his fiancee has called off their wedding.

The 85-year-old Hefner says in a Tuesday message on Chicago-based Playboy's official Twitter feed that 24-year-old Crystal Harris has "had a change of heart."

Hefner announced in December that he and the former Playmate were getting married, tweeting that he'd given Harris an engagement ring. He has said that the wedding was scheduled for this Saturday at the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills, Calif.

The marriage would have been Hefner's third. He divorced Playmate Kimberly Conrad in 2009.