Breaking the Myths Around Polyamory

 

‘In All Our Loves – Journeys with Polyamory in India,’ Arundhati Ghosh challenges the common misconceptions of polyamory. She reveals the complex and often difficult reality of those who practice it 

By Shevlin Sebastian 

The first lines in the introduction of Arundhati Ghosh’s book, ‘All Our Loves – Journeys with Polyamory in India’ begin like this: ‘Unlike Emily Dickinson’s “hope”, love is not “a thing with feathers”. It has fangs and talons. It bites, it stings, it makes you want to end your life. And, it makes your life totally worth living, with all its dangerous, complex, seductive possibilities. In short, love is hard. 

‘But love that attempts to cross boundaries is harder. Loving in ways that the world considers wrong could make one liable to suffer mental abuse, bodily harm, and even death. Anyone who has fallen in love with those socially declared as the ‘wrong’ gender, caste, colour, race or religion, knows the price that has to be paid for such transgressions.’ 

Today, polyamory is the last taboo. Arundhati defines it as ‘being in love, with or without sexual intimacies with more than one person simultaneously with the consent of all.’ 

One of the reasons she wrote the book was that in India, most people learned about polyamory by reading Western books. But Arundhati argued that the Western experience was completely different from the Indian one. We have a multicultural society, and family and community press down on the individual with fearsome force. It is the rare person who can break through the conditioning and launch out on their own. 

This book delineates the various aspects of polyamory. In one section, Arundhati focuses on its misconceptions. 

The stereotype is that all polyamorous people are promiscuous, predatory, desperate and amoral. They are easy and cheap. Many believe polyamory is a mental disease. They also conclude that all relationships are shallow and of limited duration and it’s all about the sex. ‘In reality,’ writes Arundhati, ‘many polyamorous people I know are asexual, or while being sexual, do not consider it the most important aspect of romantic relationships.’ 

One reason people opt for polyamory is to explore desires that cannot be expressed in a monogamous relationship. Polyamory is the only way to express that aspect of themselves. Arundhati writes: ‘I am polyamorous because my heart sees beauty, courage, kindness, and compassion in more than one person and desires to connect with them. The same reason for which anyone would fall in love with just one person, I fall for more than one person. I just refuse to say, “Stop. Your quota is done.” 

One of the most interesting insights Arundhati shares is that despite having many partners, you can still end up feeling lonely and alone. So when somebody is going through a bad time there may be no partner around to provide solace or love. You have to battle the demons on your own. This happens in monogamy too. One friend told Arundhati that ‘one of the most desolate places in the world is to sleep lonely on one side of the bed shared every night with the same person for years.’ 

As Arundhati describes the various complexities that arise from polyamorous relationships, one danger always lurks thanks to mental conditioning from a young age. So, participants can drift into emotions like jealousy, a sense of possessiveness, and the fear of being cast to the side. They can also suffer from shame, guilt and denial. As a result, many relationships break up. 

And there are other dangers too. Women being mistreated by men under the facade of polyamory. Arundhati talked about a couple, Jane and Amit who lived four years together in a live-in relationship. One day, Amit said that he wanted to bring a male friend into the relationship. In other words, he wanted Jane to take part in polyamory. 

A confused Jane said they should go to counselling, to have a better understanding of the situation but Amit refused. She was given no choice but to accept or reject the idea. It made Jane feel vulnerable. Wrote Arundhati, ‘Across all of polyamory’s ways of being, there is never any compromise on a person’s dignity and self-worth.’ 

After hearing many stories like this, Arundhati has said people should be careful when engaging in polyamory. ‘This warning is especially relevant for women, queer people, those already marginalised by caste, race, religion, and more, because it is easy to take advantage of them amidst the unequal power balances of the world they inhabit,’ wrote Arundhati.  

There are happy stories, too. Arundhati did an interview with media professional Revathi and her husband Subir (both pseudonyms). While Revathi is in her forties, Subir is in his fifties. Both have had relationships with other people for a long time. Revathi said, “While I have had sexual connections with many of Subir’s lovers, he has only rarely had that with my lovers. It is a veritable tightrope-walk at times, but it has led to a sense of a deeply-felt freedom.” 

She continued, “Sometimes, people like us miss the emotional part when it is too sexual and miss the pure ecstasy of sex when we get emotional. A balance is desirable.” 

Subir said, “I derive a lot of sexual pleasure from talking to her about her individual experiences. It can be very stimulating for me….

“I like to watch her being pleasured by another man or woman. I also like her watching me having pleasure and having pleasure together.” 

Like any couple, they suffered from jealousies and insecurities and have worked through those minefields. 

Asked whether they are honest with each other, Revathi said, “Honesty is different from being transparent and pouring out all the details… It is one thing to know that your partner has just slept with someone else but it’s different when one goes into the details of the sexual encounter.”  

One of the takeaways from this book is how much we are conditioned by our parents, schools, friends, and society to think the way we do and adopt social and cultural practices. Or as interviewee Shankar says: “We shouldn’t take the ‘one size fits all’ that society wishes on us. Children grow up with this mindset; it is indoctrinated in them. They think you have to be on a relationship escalator – like one thing must lead to the next. Dating, falling in love, marriage, babies – that’s life. The only life. That’s how insidious the social programming is.”   

It comes as a shock to realise one’s value system has been implanted from outside us, especially when we were in the most vulnerable and innocent – our childhoods. It opens us to the possibility that the life one lives is the life that has been prescribed by society. 

We have not stopped to think whether this is the way one should lead our life. Is there anything original in our thinking and behaviour? Sure, people veered from the norm, sometimes destructively, like psychopaths or killers. But for the most part, members of society tread the same path previous generations have walked. So what’s original about one’s life? The painful answer: ‘Nothing.’ We have lived the life of a robot. 

If you are a believer in polyamory or a practitioner, this book will act as a soothing balm, a gentle friend talking to you in the deep well of loneliness and isolation that you may find yourself in, because of this powerful emphasis on monogamy in mainstream culture and society. 

Arundhati, who practices polyamory, has provided great value and importance to the subject with her path-breaking book. Kudos to her. 

(Published in kitaab.org)