The Human Core: Pansexuality, Polyamory, and Relationship Anarchy

There are three aspects of the human experience that exemplify it's core values: Love, sexuality, and relationships. In this post, I will address those most essential elements of the human experience.

Let's start with a few quick definitions before we delve into the subject.

Pansexuality is a term used to describe undiscriminating choice for sexual and\or romantic partners. Most people are familiar with the term "bisexuality", which includes both "homo" and "hetero" partners for sexual and\or romantic affairs. Pansexuality extends beyond bisexuality, to include the sexes that are usually referred to as "others", including -but not limited to- transsexuals (people who undergone a sex-change operation) and intersexes (people who don't fall in either male or female profiles). I have expressed my admiration for pansexuality in previous posts, like this one.

It is worth noting that pansexuals don't have to actually be attracted to that full spectrum. A pansexual might be someone who is in fact heterosexual, but refuses to identify with that label because they would not repress any attractions towards someone from the same sex (if it happened), although they realistically know that they may never feel such an attraction. The same logic also applies to homosexuals who may or may not experience heterosexual urges.

Relationship anarchy is the practice of forming relationships that are not bound by set rules. Relationship anarchy has strong connections with open relationships, although being distinct from open relationships. It differs from other relationship models by postulating that there need not be a formal distinction between different types of relationships. Relationship anarchists look at each relationship (romantic or otherwise) individually, as opposed to categorizing them according to societal norms such as 'just friends', 'in a relationship', 'in an open relationship', etc.

Polyamory is the belief that it is possible to love more than one person at the same time. I have addressed this topic on multiple occasions in this blog. What follows are three posts that discuss the concept of polyamory:
- Can You Love More Than One Person At The Same Time?
- Polyamory: The Ethical Problems of Monogamy
- Dissecting The Concept of Monogamy


The questions that are at the core of this post are: In what ways are those three concepts connected? What are the common values that those perspectives share? And why I believe that those three concepts work beautifully well together that there is a good chance that someone who subscribes to one is likely to subscribe to the others as well?


Fluidity:
The first word that comes to mind to describe those three positions is fluidity! I believe that the common values go much deeper than that, but this is a good place to start. Pansexuality is about being fluid about your sexual preferences. A pansexual person is one who is not willing to limit his or her sexual preferences in a normative manner. This can to be contrasted with self-identified heterosexuals, who may have some homosexual urges, but choose to repress those urges in order to avoid a situation where they might have to question their sexual orientation. A pansexual would give themselves permission to act on their desire without feeling the need to question their attraction.

In a similar fashion, a relationship anarchist would not 'define' and consequently constrain their relationships with other people. They prefer to keep their relationships fluid, and hence lack the need to constrain themselves or others through rules, but even more importantly, roles!

And finally, let's address polyamory. Monogamy in this context can be seen as a limiting belief, that may cause a person to repress an emotional connection that is developing with another person, due to the fact that they believe that loving more than one person at the same time is somehow not 'real love'!! In the same way that a heterosexual might ignore feeling of attraction to someone of the same gender based on normative considerations, a monogamist might ignore an evolving emotional bond based on normative considerations of a similar nature.


Genuine Connectedness and Freedom of Expression:
In a very similar manner of understanding, those three concepts allow a person have have the freedom to express themselves, and allow others to express themselves openly and honestly. The outcome of an atmosphere of freedom is genuineness.

Since love, sexuality, and relationships are the most profound aspects of the human experience, the expression of those elements expresses the fundamental values of the personal identity. Our inner most values as humans are expressed through love, sex, and relationships. Any act that aims to censor or inhibit the free expression of those values hides away an aspect of our personal identify. The people we enter relationships with are a mirror to our inner most needs, desires, and values.

In order to maximize the genuineness of the interpersonal bonds with our fellow human beings, we need to maximize their ability to express their inner most selves genuinely without manipulation or censorship.

Pansexuality, polyamory, and relationship anarchy are effective tools to guarantee that yourself and others are free to express themselves in the most genuine manner...


Avoiding Self-Limiting Beliefs:
As has been explained in the previous section, adopting the social norms that create normative barriers to self-expression are self-limiting beliefs, that encourage the person holding those beliefs to not fully explore their inner-selves. It shuts down routes that may lead to experiencing life without any barriers.

However, it is my personal belief that the most gratifying relationships are with those who both are willing to be open and honest, and also have done the necessary self-reflection to actually know themselves deeply enough. After all, you cannot share your values if you have not done what is necessary to discover those values.


Acceptance and Celebrating Our Humanity:
Love, sex, and relationships are momentous experiences. Without them life would be dull, and frankly meaningless. When we experience love we feel joy. When we experience sex we feel joy. And when we have genuine relationships we feel joy. Any of those experiences calls for a celebration. It is a celebration that expresses our humanity. Humans are social creatures, and all those experiences exemplify the best aspects of our social selves.

Pansexuality, polyamory, and relationship anarchy demonstrates an acceptance and receptiveness to all those joys of life. It allows us to experience life to its fullest potential without having to feel guilt, shame, or internal conflict while expressing our values.

I shall quote from an article that expresses such concerns quite eloquently:

"[Monogamy] makes a person feel guilty about having a feeling that I consider to be one of the most important feelings of all. Our ability to connect with other people, to admire other people for their greatness, to be attracted to what we value (spiritually and physically), the ability to love – is probably our most vital characteristic in this life. Monogamy takes a somewhat controversial stance towards it – this property is considered wonderful in a person if he is single, but once he already has one romantic relationship, this very same property is labeled as extremely immoral and wrong. [...] So, basically, if you're in a monogamous relationship, and there's this other person that you realize is absolutely awesome, then you should feel somewhat guilty. You should reject this realization." (source)

And within this understanding, the goal is to celebrate our core human values without guilt or repression. To give ourselves and those we are in a relationship with the means to experience the joys of life.

What Is The False Self?

In this video, Stefan Molyneux explains the concept of "the false self".

The Disposable Male

Check out this video about the social double standards in regards to the treatment of men and women in society, and how men are also oppressed under "patriarchal" systems.



PS: If you find this video interesting, check out it's continuation here

Who Are You?

"To be yourself in a world that does its best to make you like everybody else, is the hardest battle to fight, and to keep fighting."

E. E. Cummings

Keep fighting... For your own sake!

The Untold Love Stories

One of my favorite songs ever, in full this time! [MP3 Download]

Matchbox 20 in "Hand me down":

Someday they'll find your small town world
On a big town avenue
Gonna make you like the way they talk
When they're talking to you
Gonna make you break out of your shell
Cuz they tell you to
Gonna make you like the way they lie
Better than the truth
They'll tell you everything
You wanted someone else to say
They're gonna break your heart, yeah

From what I've seen
You're just one more hand me down
Cuz no one's tried to give you
What you need
So lay all your troubles down
I am with you now

Somebody oughta take you in
Try to make you love again
Try to make you like the way they feel
When they're under your skin
Never once do you think that they would lie
When they're holding you
Then you wonder why they haven't called
When they said they'd call you
You'll start to wonder
If you're ever gonna make it by
You'll start to think
You were born blind

From what I've seen
You're just one more hand me down
Cuz no one's tried to give you
What you need
So lay all your troubles down
I am with you now

I'm here for the hard times
The straight to your heart times
When living ain't easy
You can stand up against me
And maybe rely on me
And cry on me, yeah

Oh no, no, no

Someday they'll open up your world
Shake you down to the drawing board
Do their best to change you
They still can't erase you

From what I've seen
You're just one more hand me down
Cuz no one's tried to give you
What you need
So lay all your troubles down
I am with you now

Lay them down on me
You're just one more hand me down
And all those nights don't give you
What you need
So lay all your troubles down
On me (mp3)

The Most Drastic Fear

My dad always tells me that I should fear nothing in life, and that he has no fear of anything. I believed him, but never understood the extent of what that meant. However, recently he told us somethings that showed me the extent of how much a man can fear nothing. My dad works currently in Saudi Arabia, not in a city, in a village secluded from civilization. My dad when he feels bored on weekends, he like to go drive far away. So he takes the car and drives away, and he does not turn back. No.... when the night hits, he parks a little off-road in the desert, puts a sleeping bag on the sand and sleeps.

This stricked me as something only a truly fearless man would do. He can sleep in the middle of the desert, when he could have just as easily turned back and eventually sleep at home. And it makes me think how much my life could have been different if I were as fearless as my father.

I have contemplated on my own fears, and was very conflicted when I tried to see if I had so many fears, or so few of them. I could not understand whether or not I have too few or too many fears. However, in a moment of clarity, I saw the answer to my question. I have conquered all fears, including the fear of death.

However, there is still one fear that tops it all: The fear of disappointing myself. My only fear is that when I see my end, and death would be near, I would take a look back at my life... similar to the flash backs they say a person has when he's dying, say falling from a tall building. So I only fear for my future self, to witness such a flash back and be disappointed. Every other fear I have conquered, except this one!


PS: As a postscript, it is also worth mentioning, that I fear for myself only those few moments before death, but no concern at all for anything after that, because death would be the complete inexistence of my conscience, so there is no me to be concerned about. I also don't fear sudden death, where I would not have seen that flash back. And from this I understand that I don't fear death itself.

Cheating

"Everyone has that first date. And the object is to hide your flaws, and then you are in a relationship and its all about hiding your disappointment, then once you are married its about hiding your sins."

Adelle DeWitt / Dollhouse

Purity

Lady Sovereign in "Love Me or Hate Me":

If you love me then thank you!
If you hate me then fuck you! (Full lyrics)

We don't need no faces, it doesn't need to be complicated...

Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 3: Public Nudity

As I explained in Part 1, people are usually more honest about issues relating to physical attributes rather than emotional attributes. Exposing one's physical or emotional attributes makes them feel vulnerable. This feeling is completely understandable and justifiable. Nonetheless, we need to understand that dealing with our fears and points of vulnerability makes us more mature and stronger in general personality. As humans, we need to learn to accept ourselves whether in terms of physical form, or emotional build.

The more important issue, that we should recognize such acceptance and exposure as a point of strength, and something for the good of the individuals and the society as a whole. It might not be the choice of everyone, but it should still be recognized. Since it is tough for people to open up emotionally, many societies recognized their capacity to open up and accept their physical attributes. Such step can be recognized as an intermediate step to open up both physically and emotionally. What I am talking about here is the nude societies.

Public nudity is deemed unacceptable in many societies, and down right offensive in others. It is pathetic that such societies find themselves helpless next to the idea of exposing their physical attributes. What is even more dangerous, that such societies impose on others to follow their policy of denial. It can be understood that some people might feel uncomfortable exposing their physical attributes and feeling vulnerable at the possibility of that happening. But they cannot setback those who feel strong enough to accept their physical forms. It is no wonder why such societies are so emotionally locked up, as they are unable to unleash whats even more basic form of honesty.

I believe this deep rooted dishonesty, which is even enforced and strengthened by the social norms, is part of the reason we fail in building up straight and honest relationships. Please don't confuse the reason with the effect. People are dishonest by their nature, and that's why social norms are the way they are now. People created the social norms for their own convenience (and the inconvenience of others).

In this series:
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 1: The Premises
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 2: Elaboration
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 3: Public Nudity

Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 2: Elaboration

Honesty is the opposition of fear. People hide what they fear, what exposes their weaknesses, and what they cannot handle. On the other hand, once the information in question is well-understood, its complications are manageable, and its exposure doesn't threaten their holders, that information become a candidate for publishing. The motives for any party to publish any piece of information varies greatly according to the field and type of information. For example, scientific advancements (that doesn't pose dangers on security of countries) are published so that other scientists can use them in other scientific researchers to form a kind of scientific collaboration. It is even sometimes businesses are established upon publishing of information, like journals and newspapers.

On social and personal levels, honesty comes as a balance of self-acceptance and expected acceptance of others. That is to say, people are usually honest about issues that they themselves have accepted, and (when applicable) how accepted that would make them among their peers. The harsh fact is, our societies lack honesty at serious levels. People in general are far more accepting of nicely wrapped lies than facing honest truths. While some might find that to be totally unalarming, it is in fact a problematic issue. Don't misunderstand what I am saying: It is perfectly normal for people to hide information, and maybe it is wise in certain occasions. The alarming problem is when (legitimate) honesty is perceived as a criminal offense. When people go to trial for expressing their opinions, or they are being abandoned for stating what is an ugly truth.

This concern also extends to interpersonal relationships where lack of honesty is the overwhelming trend in most interpersonal relationships. The consequence of this lack is that most relationships are seriously shallow since they all lack transparent communication. It is a fact that all of us are emotionally hindered to open up about our personal issues to others, even our significant others. The matter of fact is: we fail to transparently communicate ourselves even when we intend to. This observation comes as an indication of our severe disabilities in self-growth, especially self-acceptance! Yes, that right, it all boils back to our failure to accept our own! Conventional parenting as well as the conventional path of developing relationships in our current societies leads to severe discouragement of self-exploration, self-discovery, and self-development... This impacts our egoistic selves in the first place, and the general society in the second place where the individuals are less advanced in counterpart open societies.

In this series:
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 1: The Premises
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 2: Elaboration
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 3: Public Nudity

Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 1: The Premises

Complete honesty is probably not a feasible goal; Everybody is concerned about a minimal set privacy... Our egoistic nature implies that we wouldn't give unnecessary power to anyone, especially those we don't trust. As many people recognize knowledge is power, and therefore giving out information for free is an act of empowering others (possibly) against our egoistic purpose. The matter of fact is slightly more complex: Our social constructs implies that certain benefits are shared among the society, which implies that collaboration leads to a greater benefit that even extends to our egoistic needs. In short we can see that sharing of information leads to a case of "selfish unselfishness" that many people can recognize where sharing comes with a benefit.

As you might have realized I am an advocate of opening up the doors of information, because as I believe knowledge is the power that drives our lives to its ultimate potential, and that's when our societies will bloom with technological advancements we have not dreamt of. Those words I have spoke of before and wikipedia is one of the prominent organizations that recognize the supremacy of sharing of knowledge. Blogging also comes as an important anchor to the more profound goal of universal public sharing of information. It is for those reason this blog stands against all forms of censorship and withholding information. This post is meant to take that premise to further extents.

Information comes in many forms: It might be scientific fact, an idea, a proposition, even a sound or a shape!! As any satanist, we can recognize that even the most trivial pieces of information can lead to great discoveries. Consider the famous Newton's apple example: A really simple incident of a falling apple has lead Newton to reshape science with his famous gravitational field theories. So now it becomes clear why even the most minor or trivial information does make a difference!

Taking this discussion to a more personal dimension, we can add two premises to our initial premise. Lets first define "honesty" as the readiness and willingness of a person to share information. The first premise is the intuitive recognition that personal-level honesty has higher potential than public-level honesty, that's to say that anyone is more likely to share certain information with a select number of people rather than provide that information to the public. The second premise - that might be less concrete - is that material honesty has higher potential than emotional honesty, which is to say that a person in general is more likely to share non-emotional details rather than personal emotions-related details.

If we take the two above-mentioned premises we can reach the conclusion that for any person in general, that person has more potential to be honest about non-emotional issues with a select number of people than being honest about emotional issues with the public. Taking a quick glance at our daily life can verify those inferences.

In this series:
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 1: The Premises
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 2: Elaboration
Public Openness And Personal Honesty - Part 3: Public Nudity