California Reaming - A Woman's Adventures In Polyamory

My bisexual friend E was introduced to me by his wife of several years, D. She was also bisexual, which is how I met her - at a women's rap in Berkeley one night, around 1970. There were a lot of gay and bi women in the group, so it had a cruisey kind of atmosphere. D and I clicked as friends, she soon made it plain she hoped for more with me, but I am not into other blondes. She was pert, intelligent, looked nearly exactly like Sandy Duncan and drove a car like a man.

"Well, you'll have to come over and meet E," she said to me enthusiastically. It seemed we had a lot in common. My romantic intentions were focused on another newcomer there that night, a really gorgeous woman I have written about elsewhere. I was about to embark on entanglements with her and with this new person, my friend D's husband.

So I went over to their house in Marin for dinner. D sent me the menu ahead of time for my approval. She was really into cooking. I remember she got me started with escargots. It was a great meal. The house was great. It had been designed as a class project out of the Department of Architecture at U.C. Berkeley. Lots of wood and glass, nooks and crannies, a shower that looked out on the woods. You get the idea. D and E were living the the dream life, in Marin County, Land of the Hot Tub. In a great time to be in the Bay Area of San Francisco. relatively free of cares, financial or otherwise. They were yuppies before yuppies were invented.

It was easy for me to feel right at home here. E and I hit it off fabulously. D was quite alright with our moving together; she seemed, in fact, to almost be giving it her blessing.

We flirted a lot, and once we made a furtive attempt at sex. D came back sooner than expected, and fortunately we heard the car. She nearly walked in on us. There were no other attempts, at least not at that point in time. I was feeling a bit guilty about D, that may have held me back.

E's feelings toward men were of interest to me, so we had many conversations about how he saw himself as a bisexual person. It was an easy thing with him. He was from a wealthy enough background, educated enough to be comfortable with who he was; his life experiences had given him that, without too much difficulty. Other than the Swiss boarding school incident, which E spoke of with sarcastic good humor. He seemed to let it not bother him.

If people had any questions to ask him privately, he would be happy to answer them. He didn't make a big deal out of who he was. He did not see his parents very much. I got the impression he had been a trying boy before boarding school; this had simply been the last straw.

Now I know two people, male and female, who have been kicked out of so-called "fine" liberal schools for sleeping with members of their own sex. Is there a record for this somewhere?

At the time E was keen on this young strawberry-blond folksinger, male, who had a gig in a North Beach nightclub. We went down to the city one night to hear him sing. Later, he went out with E, D went out with her friends, and I babysat little B at their home. I heard the two guys come back later, I had already gone to bed. Then D came back from her night. The guys were stoned, and laughing and fighting over who was going to get the last of the box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers. For those of you not familiar with the trivia of the early 70s, this refers to the carmelized popcorn now known as Poppycock.

It was a crazy existence. But my curiosity about how E would be as a lover was going to have to wait. I was preoccupied with a lady love, whom E also knew, and that occupied me rather fully at the time.

TO BE CONTINUED

My first entry into the realm of the bisexual was in the late 60s, early 70s, and it came oddly enough because of males in my life.

One of them was E, from a prominent east coast family. He had been booted out of a prestigious prep school in Switzerland for fooling around with other guys. His father was very annoyed. He had made his fortune in railroads, and he was going to be damned if his now worthless son was going to get any more money than he deserved to indulge his new interests. So he put E on a budget of only $35,000 a year. In terms of 1971, this went a rather long way.

He basically lived without working at anything, in a house in the farthest reaches of the San Rafael woods in Marin County, California, with his wife of several years, D, and their year old son, B. I had actually been introduced to E through his wife, with whom I was already becoming good friends. But sadly, I did not feel the same interest in her that I did in him, as it turned out. She seemed to accept this with equanimity nonetheless.

E identified quite freely as a bisexual male. He seemed to have no hangups about it and I looked for that as a good sign at the time. It was an omen to me that the guy had some sense of stability about him. He freely admitted to needing men and women. But in terms of daily life, he did what many bisexual men do, they marry women and pretty much live heterosexual lives with their wives, with forays outside of the marriage for their male company. His wife was just discovering that she was a lesbian, and beginning the process of shedding her heterosexual lifestyle.

I got to be good friends with them all. I would babysit little B sometimes when his parents went out. At the time I rode a motorcycle, and I would make the now familiar jaunt up from Berkeley into Marin. I spent a lot of time with them as a couple, socially, and with E alone. We would drive around in his Mercedes, talking about our endless stream of topics we talked about, politics, travel, living abroad, and of course, relationships, gay relationships, hetero, bi. He was a triple Gemini, I am a native of that sign too, so we had much to talk about with one another. He was fun and attractive, in a big, burly, Oliver Reed kind of fashion, circa early O.R. of 1971.

And he was fun in the sack. I was fascinated to see how such a creature operated in practice. I was about to find out.

TO BE CONTINUED.

One of our friends, female, once remarked of Dave and I, that some people would indeed be envious of our relationship. "A lot of people would like to have what you guys have." By that she meant not so much the sexual peculiarities of our relationship, but our sense of openness and willingness to communicate.

We function best when we can just air everything out, as completely as possible. Of course this presupposes a certain amount of sang froid, or courage, if you will, to look at things closely and in detail in order to understand them and what you must do next. I've learned this over time, and it was one of the first things I inflicted upon Dave. I insisted that we always air things out as completely and as early as possible. This is the best policy, and he pretty much sides with me now on that.

Another one of our friends, also female, commented just recently that, of all her friends, we are the only ones who seem to be getting the poly thing right.

I had to think about that one for a bit too. What ARE we doing right, if anything?

For Dave and I, it helps that we keep the spirit of exploration and experimentation front and center as much as we can. I know this helped me early in our relationship, when I was not sure I even wanted to be in a relationship with a man. Like Samantha in Sex And The City, I was of the opinion that I didn't do relationships either.

But here I was, in one. My shrink gave me good advice going in. "Think of this as an experiment," she said to me. I took her advice and I am taking it still. The experiment is still ongoing. Maybe this gave me enough of a sense of independence that I could make it work, at least for me. Other people may have done it differently.

We have another thing going for us too, I think. A kind of built-in "safety valve" of sorts. Dave is really not that interested in other women, other than one or two he was casually involved with early on in our relationship. And I am really not that interested in other men, beyond the one or two I saw early on as well. So a lot of potential jealousy may have been eliminated at the outset.

Would it bother me if he really DID get keen on another woman? I don't know how that would play with me, it would depend on the woman I suppose, his reaction to her. And while he likes seeing me with other men, Dave would have some problems if I zeroed in on another guy.

So this potential source of trouble is contained, we feel. The playing he does with other men, and that I do with other women, is perfectly acceptable and never gives cause for alarm.

So we can say, rather truthfully, that we are indeed a poly couple as far as our same-sex relationships go. But so far we have not really explored in great depth the connections we could have with our opposite numbers.

It's not that I dream about this exactly, but I am aware I don't avoid it, either. It all depends what the genii in that magic bottle is shaking up next for us. If it's anything like he's served us up so far, well we should be quite happy.

- - - - -

The setting is Marin County, early 1970s. The main characters in our drama are Robert, Mariana and Clea. Robert is a surgeon, early 40s, married to Mariana with two children. He is a chronic philanderer, she has lived life somewhat in a bubble. Vaguely aware of his cheating on her, she prefers to hide her head in the sand.

Robert begins an affair with Clea, a rather independent woman who is an artist. Concurrently with this, Clea forms a friendship of her own with Mariana. The couple do not know of the other's interest in the new woman, until Mariana decides she would like to invite the "new" woman home to meet Robert.

Clea discovers her lover is actually married to her new friend. She finds this somewhat dismaying, although she does not let on to Mariana. Neither does Robert, who feels rather amused by the whole situation and he's determined to work the two women to his advantage.

Over a night of dinner and hot-tubbing, the mood turns more intimate, and the trio end up having a sexual encounter together.

The story develops into the love affair between the two women. Clea continues to see Robert, but the women decide to keep him distant from THEIR own little secret.

This continues for a while, until it can't anymore. When Robert discovers that his own wife is seeing Clea on her own, he is hurt and angry. What is sauce for him was not supposed to serve as sauce for his wife too.

The couple don't divorce, but the story ends with the wife reaffirming she will stay married to Robert, but continue her own separate affair with Clea.

"You can't have the love of both men and women," he tells her in the final scene.

"I think I can."

"No you can't, it's not possible."

"We'll see," she tells him, as we fade quickly to black.

This was the screenplay story that got me into the American Film Institute in the early 80s. It also got me my first agent.

And oddly enough, nowhere in the script does the word "polyamorous," or "bisexual," or "gay" ever occur.

How odd is that?

- - - - - -

Right after the Academy Awards ceremony, the New York Times in its March 7th, 2006 edition ran an interesting, long story on married heterosexual couples who are not what they seem on the surface. They referred to them as "Brokeback Marriages," drawing on the recent film, "Brokeback Mountain."

For those of you who have been in Outer Mongolia recently, enconsed in your yurts, you've missed the hottest "date" movie of the year, and the odd thing is that it's a "gay cowboy" movie. "Brokeback Mountain" is a film about two cowboys who fall for each other, but are pretty hetero otherwise. They marry and father offspring. But life is not swell. They still have feelings for each other, so the illicit relationship continues over time, over wives, over children.

So the Times dropped in behind the slipstream of this marital brouhaha, and discovered - lo and behold, wonder of wonders - that our brave cowboys are not alone. Many couples share their predicament. The husband discovers he has a bisexual streak and he wants to diddle a boy or two. The wife gets all freaked out and can't handle things. Often she ends up feeling hurt and angry, and from there it is but a hop and a skip into divorce court.

As the readers of this column may have noticed, I am inclined to take a different viewpoint. So I sat down and penned a letter to the editors at the Times. Basically saying, I was terribly saddened by the reactions of decent, well-meaning people. Is it to be assumed automatically that every married man having illicit sex on the side with other men is gay? Why is there no room for a bisexual option? That was my point. So much unpleasantness and outright misery could be avoided I think if people can really look at the situation and see accurately and in detail what is really going on there. Because that is the only way a path to communication can be opened up that is meaningful.

When I hear stories like the Times reported, I feel so incredibly lucky I met my partner Dave. I knew going into the relationship that he was bisexual, and active, whereas I was bisexual but had been inactive in recent times. We were both ok with that.

To the point where I even contemplate, and dare I say, look forward to, him bringing a guy home for the two of us to entertain.

For me, the fact I can even contemplate doing this would blow away a lot of the women in the Times article. But that's the charm of our relationship, we share love mates at times as part of the process by which we affirm our tie together.

I want to sit these women down and talk to them, and suggest something radical to them: you can have the same.

- - - - - -

Is there a perfect state of polyamory? Yes, I would think there is, probably among a group of like-minded people. My perfect scenario would be a handful of compatible people, along the lines of six men and maybe three women. For some reason, I like the group to be topheavy in the male department. Maybe because I visualize the men getting along better, therefore we'll add a few more of them. Women do not get along so well, in my experience, so I tend to want fewer of them. But the other two in the group besides me will be really "cherce," as Spencer Tracy remarked once about Katie Hepburn.

Of more importance though I feel is having a common group goal, or interest going on, that everyone in the group pursues, in some form or another. I think this makes for more harmony. My "ideal" polyamorous situation would probably look like the Bloomsburys did. This was a group of English literary and artistic figures, who coalesced at the turn of the last century. They practiced their art together, and their sex lives too. Some were bisexual, others appeared more gay. A few were even hetero. They may not have actually lived under one roof all the time, but they did hang out together a lot, and everybody's dirty laundry got washed in the general washing that went on a lot in their circle. No secrets among friends, as they say.

Having a common goal is a really important thing when we talk about planning perfect polyamorous situations. People need to be focused on something outside of themselves. The Bloomsburys probably achieved more fame as a group with their social activities than they did as artists individually. But art can offer such a coalescing situation. Sport would be another. I enjoyed my days competing in swimming and cycling, because the teams hung together and it made life more interesting. Not that we pursued further sexual agendas, but we could have. The seeds were there.

The Living Group, as I am want to call it now, would also have a variety of ages. I foresee older and younger people being together, as well as male and female. Children? Well, that might work, although I think they complicate life, and in my ideal state I would prefer the kids to be elsewhere.

So what sets this apart from any other commune of the late 60s or early 70s? Is this like a commune? Having gone through that era myself, I found communes to be vastly overrated and susceptible to many problems. Most communes seemed over-whelmingly hetero, and whatever promise they may have shown early on probably got trounced just by economic realities. A lot of communes try to pay their way by working the land, but it takes a great deal of time and energy to make a living from farming. The leader of the Sivananda Yoga Farm, which was located near Grass Valley in the 70s, told me that. They tried to grow crops and raise goats. Goats are cute, I think, but they are a pain in the ass. Just ask the farm's neighbors, who spent a lot of time chasing the critters away from eating their grass, and crops, when they got the chance.

San Francisco today is revealing a city trying out new living arrangements. "TICs" are the new wave. Tenancy-in-Common, they are called. Where people buy space in a communal type of loft arrangement. This is not intended to further polyamory, since each "unit" is separate unto himself or herself. But again, the seeds are there if the occupants care to pursue them.

I had a group of interesting friends in the early 70s, so these thoughts came up often for me. We talked about it among ourselves, but as far as actual steps....well, those we never took. Our life arrangements were already pretty well etched out.

Like the Bloomsburys, we hung out a lot together, but in terms of our living space, we pretty much kept our separate existences.

- - - - - -

I met J about six months after I started prowling around on Craigslist. Prowl being the operative word here. Because she was my first real female in a long long time, I probably exaggerate her impact on me. But she had an impact. I find I miss her, and think about her often. It stunned me that I would meet such a quality woman so early in my life as part-time dyke.

J had nearly everything one could want in a woman: a fine brain plugged into the world and curious about everything; a ballsy kind of personality that was rough but engaging, somewhat butchy but always fully remaining a woman; she got sarcasm, especially my sarcasm. This especially is important to me.

I'm like Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" that way. When I joke about cooking lobsters, I want my new girlfriend to laugh. If she doesn't get my humor, well.....Well. Then I am afraid our relationship may be called into question.

The first picture she sent me showed her standing below deck on a yacht, in a sundress with her arms upraised, as if to say, "So?" I took one look at that picture, and I said, "Mischief." The woman had mischief written all over her features. I liked her look immediately. The feeling was mutual.

J had even gone to Berkeley as an undergraduate, as I had, although she came along over ten years after I did.

J also provided the physicality I had always been looking for from another woman. But I wasn't really sure what exactly I wanted sexually because I had never seen it. Even if I felt sexually attracted to women, I was still unsure in my mind if the experience would be as compelling to me as sex with a man.

J overcame that hurdle for me. There was a strong physical chemistry here. I was attracted to her, in large part because we mirrored each other physically. She was nearly exactly my size, about 5'6", a few pounds more than my 120. She was fit and she had muscles. This sort of blew me away, at first. A girl who could actually wrestle with me. A girl with muscles too, and a love of the outdoors.

J was in her early 40s, over fifteen years existed between us. But that barely mattered. We seemed to click. We met in Berkeley on a Friday night for dinner in the spring of 2004. I broke a tooth that night on an olive pit. It was probably a foreshadowing of things to come, I don't know.

But before we could climb all over each other, we had some dealmaking to conclude first. I believe they call it the "negotiation process."

We parked in her car outside her health club on that first night, and we negotiated. What did we want from this relationship? It went more like that than it did, "Who's going to be the top/bottom whatever." It wasn't about the sex, although we did both agree that safety was paramount.

J wanted to make sure we both understood and were clear. No U-hauls. No unpleasantness. No commitments. We would enjoy each other without feeling a need to build castles about it.

I found it all fascinating, since I have never sat down so formally and negotiated stuff like this before. You get to live like that when you're a Child of the 60s. We grew up just doing things. Like sex. Who ever thunk it that you would have to negotiate over sex?

No more falling into bed willy-nilly. What you lost in spontaneity you (supposedly) gained in the certainty that unwanted damsels would not be parking the U-haul out front of your door the morning after.

Is this really progress?

- - - - - - -

As I see the Big Picture, it's all the fault of those damned vegetables. Especially the zucchinis. I could have been nearly the world's best dyke, if it weren't for my rather early discovery of the joys of Veggie Sex. From there, it was just a hop and a skip to men and THEIR vegetable gardens, as it were.

It was by accident that I discovered my mom's vegetable drawer in the fridge. I did not give two whits about cooking. I went in there prowling around, looking for the thing with the perfect shape that would turn the trick.

What inner prompting led me there? How did I know what to do with the damn thing? No one had told me anything, I somehow pieced it together on my own. Through my reading (I continually had books jammed against my nose at this time) and my own bodily feelings, I had come to the conclusion that I wanted something up my vagina. And hurry it up, dammit.

I discovered the zucchini. The perfect instrument of impalement for a young lass of 12 or so. No one told me what to do with the damned thing. I somehow figured that out on my own. Some instinct told me, it belongs right HERE.

Before I discovered the zucchini, I had experimented with other "objets d'art." One afternoon I deprived my parakeet of his water tube. It was so long and shapely, and I discovered I could heat it up first by filling it with hot water. He wouldn't miss it for a few minutes or so. And if he did, well, tough. Yet another item for yet another male to get over.

I tried bananas too, they had a softness that felt good, but more often than not they would split open. Retrieving banana goo from your innards can be a hassle. No fooling! So I was happy to tumble on to the crisp firmness of the zucchini. I could put it in a glass of warm water and away I went.

The new "toys" brought new situations into my fevered little pre-pubescent brain. When I was on my back with the zucchini, I definitely visualized myself as a female, no doubt, and I loved every minute of it. I was accompanied in my dreams here by a variety of male people. "Group sex" was probably forming too in my head. It was all so easy.

But I discovered I also liked having the zucchini inside me as I lay down on top of it, and most definitely then I felt myself as a male. It was powerful. It was fascinating. And the "people" I was on top of were women people.

I liked where my head was at, although sometimes I wished my feelings to jack myself off were not so intense. I loved school, and now it was interfered with sometimes by these new thoughts. I would sit in history or English classes, my favorites, and start fantasizing about what fun I would have at home if only this damn class would end already(!)

Given the great time I was having with my new "homework," I naturally assumed every other girl out there was doing exactly as I did. Penetrating themselves with the world of objects. Such of course was not the case. I found this out much later, starting with my middle sister. To my amazement, I learned she did not even THINK about touching herself, with fingers, until she was 18. That was when her periods started. Mine started much sooner, at 12. While this annoyed me no end, I also realized my sex drive probably kicked in much sooner too. That was a good thing.

By the time I left home for good and headed for Europe at 21, I felt I knew my own body rather well. Even though I was still a virgin in not having been to bed with a man, I suppose technically speaking I no longer was. I never had the pain or unpleasantness that so many women seem to have with their first times.

That's also when it dawned on me that I was rather different from other women. They waited for the men to deflower them. I took the bull by the horns and did it myself.

And having done that, I knew that men were out there, somewhere, and more experiences were coming. As it were.

- - - - - - -

Last week Dave and I visited our friend A in San Francisco. We met him through his monthly bisexual "massage" parties that he holds in his apartment near the U.C. Medical Center. A is a really super fit older guy, and we have coveted him for a while. We played with him at the first party we attended, and we wanted more. Today we figured we would hit the new De Young Museum, grab a bite and play with A. He sounded quite willing.

Off we went, for a bowl of soup and sandwiches first in a place near A's apartment in the upper Haight. Then we walked over to the museum and mingled with the tourists. Sight-seeing can take it out of you sometimes. The walk took its toll, particularly on A we discovered.

Once back at A's tiny one bedroom, the mood seemed mellow and relaxed. Naturally, being men, the two men left it up to me. I wasn't sure where the vibe was exactly, but I thought we could proceed into erotic play. So I suggested that.

Clothes came off, the guys amused themselves massaging me. Then Dave went down on me and got me off pretty quickly. Then we started fondling one another, I got up on top of A on the massage table and proceeded to ride him for a bit. Dave played with my ass from behind, but he hesitated getting up on the table. They weren't made for three people.

We migrated onto the sofa, then into the bedroom. But as we moved along, it became apparent A was not fully engaged. He tells us that normally at this time of day he takes a nap. Great. The more Dave and I were ramping up, the more A seemed about to fade into oblivion. His mood seemed far more touchy-feely. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we were here for the main event, if you will.

A was being affectionate and dreamy about the whole thing, we were being intense and erotic. Two different wave lengths. Dave told me later that he sensed it might not work with him and A. Both tend to want to be bottoms.

"I kept trying to overlook the fact he has white hair and a beard," Dave told me later. He was trying to get up the wherewithall to fuck A, but it just wasn't going to happen.

"I think I scared him," says Dave later. Men have trouble saying "no" sometimes too, I realized later. If we had interrupted his naptime, he should have said something. People who can take naps in the middle of the day I find...well, odd. Maybe I am just jealous. I have to be really really tired to nap during the day. During vipassana meditation retreats was the only time I could nap, because they keep you so close to a sleep-deprivation state. A few minutes and I could nod off.

But A seemed to be in another place. I should have realized that when I first laid eyes on him in his tie-dyed T-shirt. "So, you've been over to Berkeley," I was going to say jokingly.

That defined the day perfectly. He was back in the era of Flower Power. We on the other hand were faster than a New York minute.

No hard feelings, and we seemed to part on pleasant terms. But it was disappointing. We are discovering, Dave and I, that we tend to be more sexual than many of the people we are meeting at these little events. We knew A liked us, and we liked him. But sometimes, even that is not enough.

You still need to catch them in a "perfect" moment.

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