ballard1: I was mad for him - shoulder length brown hair, big brown eyes, a surfer's body, great chest, legs, arms, beautiful smile, a quiet kind of guy. I wanted to go to bed with all that at least once and now it is every night. I finally broke down and confessed my feelings and he panicked. We didn't speak for three days and it was killing me then he quietly knocked at the door. "You gotta show me what to do…"
Just ran into this old topic, but felt a need to say thanks for it. I had not heard of the documentary, which I will investigate, but thought there was generally good sense and illumination until someone got carried away. There is no single rule for human behavior and what works for one does not necessarily work for another. The quoted incident is one of the most sweetly romantic stories I've ever heard, and I'm grateful for that sharing and insight.
The only polyamorous couple I know involved a male and female who were mock married and were shocked to discover it felt exactly like the real thing, at least in terms of its effect upon them. Later, another man joined in and they became a triple. Far as I know, the men are not interested in each other physically and I believe don't much frolic as a group, but are not so possessive as to deny the other two their happiness and pleasures. That certainly is not a standard arrangement, but it works for them.
There is a brilliant movie, El Diputado, by Spanish director Eloy de la Iglesia, very much a product of the cultural explosion that took place after Franco finally died and stayed dead. The man is a leading left member of parliament, is married to a beautiful woman, and falls in love with an attractive young man. The wife accepts that and they become some sort of marital unit, symbolized by a splendid three-way kiss that is tender and beautiful. While their hearts are true, they are still subject to turmoil and treachery around them, however.
It seems to me that male couples often do advertise for other partners, sometimes insisting that their partner is fully informed, sometimes requiring that both partners participate in any third-party contact. Could be entirely natural for someone to slip into a more privileged position than the passing trick to the point where bonds may, unexpectedly, be discovered, as life and possibilities unfold and to the extent circumstances and preconceptions allow.
Students at the college level, and well below that age as well, often do hang out in gangs or packs or cliques as a function of long-term consanguinity, shared academic, sports, cultural issues, and so on. Birds of a feather flock together, etc. When there are shared and compatible sexual interests as well (among gay men, for instance), close friends spending lots of time together could, at least in theory, develop beyond casual friendship, and at this point, is it really true that it is more difficult for three men or women to associate romantically than it was for a same-sex couple to find each other and make it work in the face of a violently hostile society that still has not accepted that the world is changing around them– partly because they are forced to see things they previously could ignore. Campus radicals often treated women as the cooks and scut workers. Other races are often invisible, hence in the US an astonishing level of shock and debate about "white privilege," apparently as invisible to some as it is a central and dominating fact of life for others, who in a supposedly great democracy cannot even reliably expect the right to vote. And so on.
Yes, the world shifts around us and demography is busy speeding things up as well, but partly what is happening is that we are being forced to notice stuff that not everyone likes. Equal pay for equal work. Or that women may do better in school than men of the same age. These can be catastrophic rattlings of a lifetime's foundation. And check out the Olds when it comes to technology and the way it is the wired young who are in constant digital contact with each other, but often not the person having coffee with them in person.
In any case, the impediments to gay couples that once existed are evaporating, and legalize marriage and adoption, gays and transsexuals in the military, are having a normalizing effect the pioneers of the Mattachine Society would have found literally inconceivable. To have childhood chums stay linked as three rather than pair off doesn't sound like such a radical thing for those who are so inclined.
Personally, because I found the love story that started this thread, so reassuring, so sweet, such a hopeful sign of possibilities and the power of love, that I hope no casual interest in alternatives gets in the way of deeply protecting and treasuring what already exists.
Perhaps I'm inclined to think about the matter also because I just saw a movie, available as a torrent here, called eCupid, where one of two partners signs up for a sort of dating ap to find the perfect lover-- free and guaranteed. After much comic incident and heavy misunderstandings, it turns out they already were the perfect couple and just did not realize it until it was almost too late. Fun movie.
And, so, for the most part, has been this thread for me to read through-- interesting, moving, intelligent, educational. Thanks to all.
