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SEX-POSITIVE COMMUNITIES
by Sasha Lessin, Ph.D.
worldpolyamory@aol.com
Communities that celebrate both sexuality and multiperson
relating blossomed partially as a result of the cultural
panic associated with AIDS. Bisexual and polyamorous
communities typically encourage multipartnering and the
skills that help this practice to evolve love-based, safe,
consensual, mutually-enhancing, respectful modes of
relating. These can contribute to saving the planet by
creating healthy and sustainable erotic communities where
emotional resources are shared. In our experience,
sex-positive communities often vet prospective participants
in a network of lovers before engaging in sex as a way to
protect the community’s heath. Groups typically continue to
monitor and ensure each member’s good health.
Significant practices in our community exemplify this. For
example, at the World Polyamory Association’s annual
conferences, we teach Voice Dialogue Centering (Stone 1989
and 1998). Centering overcomes the either/or matrix. In the
workshops, we show prospective lovers how to see and accept
the opposites within themselves. We teach how to appreciate,
coordinate and meet the needs of our inner opposites.
We choreograph the dance of our subselves from inner
parents vs inner children,
inner masculine vs inner feminine, critic vs inner sloucher,
giver vs inner taker, logician and vs inner psychic."
We focus poly neophytes on what they dislike or overly
admire in other people. They often discover they’ve
projected parts of themselves–their own precious disowned
personality potentials–on those they judged. The newbie is
then encouraged to interview the inner voices he or she
projects on other people. The more a newbie accepts him or
herself, the more tolerant this person becomes of others and
this cures the either/or separation syndrome that affects a
person’s health.
When we employ the Stones’ Voice Dialogue along with
Marshall Rosenberg’s style of compassionate communication
(2003) and Dieter Duhm’s work on the Zegg Forum (2007,
2008), we discover and encourage each of our unique
identities and learn from each other by the interplay of our
differences. In an atmosphere of trust, compassion and
commitment, we tell our lovers what concerns us most when we
relate to them. When we share our feelings towards them and
ourselves and reveal thoughts we’ve withheld, we build
absolute trust. We express annoyance, anger, resentment or
negativity but keep talking until we feel close again.
We accept our lovers’ problems as signals for their growth
and avoid getting caught-up emotionally in their dramas. We
stay vulnerable with each other and let our lovers influence
us, yet we don’t depend on them to make us happy. We make
ourselves happy. We accept each other’s imperfections. We
let conflicts show us our own childish attitudes so we can
reprogram ourselves to enjoy each other more. We stop
reacting to our lovers like they were "Mom and Dad." We
probe each other and learn what we really need. We request
what we want for ourselves, for one another and for the
dyad, triad, quad, pod, or other kind of group, network, or
erotic community. We choose the extent to which we are
willing to commit to these requests. Then we express our
positive feelings, appreciations and love; we count the
blessings in any of the relationships. Finally, when we feel
complete compassion for each other, we make love.
We hope that these examples inspire every soul to make the
world more loving. May this model, and other similar ones
emphasizing choices beyond monogamy and monosexuality that
are non-violent, loving, and sustainable, become the
paradigms for the new politics of love and for the physical,
emotional, and planetary health the world needs today.
References
Duhm, Dieter. 2007. Future Without War: Theory of Global
Healing. NP: BoD Publishers.
______ . 2008. The Sacred Matrix. NP: Verlag Meiga.
Lessin, Janet Kira. 2006. Polyamory: Many Loves.
Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.
Rosenberg, Marshall. 2003. Nonviolent Communication: A
Language of Life. NP: Puddledancer.
Stone, Hal and Sidra. 1998. Embracing Our Selves: The Voice
Dialog Manual. Nataraj: New World Library.
______ . 1989. Embracing Each Other: How to Make All Your
Relationships Work for You. NP: Delos Publications. |
World Polyamory Association 
