If your five favorite clients/providers and four of your same-sex fellow hobbyists/colleagues all agreed to join you in a closed, polyamorous tribe, assuming polyfidelity, would you give up the P4P life?
Assuming that your standard of living would remain basically the same and your expenses to the tribe would be less than both the client's hobbling budget and the provider's business costs, would you find such an arrangement preferable to what your life is now?
Assume further that "closed" only means sexual exclusivity, and you would not need to give up family or existing friendships. Could you be faithful to the group or tribe? Or would you still feel the need to sneak off on new excursions?
Obviously the odds of ten people all choosing each other are greater than ten to the tenth power, so the question is strictly hypothetical.
and what will it be called?
At some point I would get tired of fucking them, the same way that you married guys get tired of fucking only your wife. I guess it might take five times as long, but I'd still get tired of it.
Oh, I and I would have ZERO interest in sharing these five hypothetical women with even one guy, much less four other guys in this proposed little tribe of the OP.
I have found that it is not something a lot of folks adapt to easily - so based on that experience -
I would prefer such a "tribe" only if everyone involved had previous experience and had handled it well -
I've never much cared what a lover of mine did with her body when I was not around as long as she was both discrete and safe, and the understandings we had in place were respected. And permission was sought for any variances (that goes both ways of course...)
this would also by its very nature become my "personal life" and my PL is characterized by a bdsm lifestyle so that would be an added layer of complication, putting such a tribe together from the general population of TER....
I've had just the right "tribe" in the past a couple of times but these things eventually tend to fall apart as well so not sure that at this point I would want to re-invest.... I am actually very happy screwing my girlfriend, my administrative assistant, and visiting k-girls.....
Also, polyamory that grows organically out of who you meet in life would certainly be preferred to trying to fit something together like out of Legos.
I'm not sure if longevity of any relationship is an important indicator of success. Or what would be an important value going in. But such a tribe would allow for mutual caring about each other, treating each other respectfully and lovingly. All of that might be found on occasion in P4P, but true closeness is by nature prohibited, because we all need to keep each other out of the rest of our lives, our private lives.
Also, it sort of reminds me of communes back in the 60's. The people who gravitated to them, who most eagerly embraced that lifestyle, were people who couldn't get along at home with their parents, couldn't make a marriage work, couldn't even deal well with a roommate in college. In general, the people who had never been able to function successfully with living with others. So...maybe it was be the same catch-22 with restrictive tribal polyamory. You think?
exactly --- I had never planned in advance to be a part of such a relationship in the past - it just happened that way.... and it was the result of a number of individual choice -
the freedom to *leave* such a relationship is foundational as well - I agree that success is not measured by longevity but by the quality of the relationships, how you grow and learn and what you take out of them....
I am in a sort of a polyamorous relationship even now :p - I've got a long term thing going with my administrative assistant and her husband knows about it. It is a condition of the continuance of their relationship actually - I don't think he has much say in the matter..... and honestly I don't think he gets much either :p
I wonder what it must be like for him, knowing that his wife goes to work without panties on, with suspenders and stockings under her dresses, to afford me quick access.....
I would prefer such a "tribe" only if everyone involved had previous experience and had handled it well -
I've never much cared what a lover of mine did with her body when I was not around as long as she was both discrete and safe, and the understandings we had in place were respected. And permission was sought for any variances (that goes both ways of course...)
this would also by its very nature become my "personal life" and my PL is characterized by a bdsm lifestyle so that would be an added layer of complication, putting such a tribe together from the general population of TER....
I've had just the right "tribe" in the past a couple of times but these things eventually tend to fall apart as well so not sure that at this point I would want to re-invest.... I am actually very happy screwing my girlfriend, my administrative assistant, and visiting k-girls.....
If one walks in, I'm gone!
Unless we could have another tribe or two over for a party now and then. Then yes.
Assuming that your standard of living would remain basically the same and your expenses to the tribe would be less than both the client's hobbling budget and the provider's business costs, would you find such an arrangement preferable to what your life is now?
Assume further that "closed" only means sexual exclusivity, and you would not need to give up family or existing friendships. Could you be faithful to the group or tribe? Or would you still feel the need to sneak off on new excursions?
Obviously the odds of ten people all choosing each other are greater than ten to the tenth power, so the question is strictly hypothetical.
Heinlein (the SF author) wrote a lot about polyamory and more specifically, line marriages (look it up on wikipedia...). What you are proposing is similar but NOT the same in a very important way.
I think that the problem with what you are proposing is that the relationship is sex activity based (kind of like a book club) rather than family based. I can't believe that would be stable and given the parameters you are proposing - I think I would end up sneaking away from the book club because there's no emotional investment in it.
As far as homosexuality is concerned (something one of the responders mentioned) - it would be something that the individual participants would want to do - or not want to do. While I don't swing that way myself, I am not subject to homo-panic either - which some posters apparently are..... Must be a real problem to have a disability like that. There are, as it happens, some research indicating that homo-panic is due to suppressed latent homosexual desire.....
I could conceive of being in a long term committed relationship between a group of people both male and female - but what you have proposed isn't that.
After all - if we are going to have homosexual marriages - why NOT polygamy...
I'm familiar with Heinlein's story, though it's been decades since reading Dune. 2 things-- today, the tribe would be as much of an alternative approach as it really wouldn't fit with the over-culture norms. That leaves it underground to an extent, at least for some of the participants. I think that without the family aspect, and approaching it as a sexual arrangement could be very emotionally fulfilling.
A larger problem has to do with the word love and its connotations. We tend to imagine that love is something specific, not a way of viewing every relationship in life. A husband and wife are, we feel, supposed to feel a very particular way about each other, rather than understanding how they actually feel, and finding what kind of love exists in that.
Think of friendships. You don't feel the same kind of feelings toward all your non-sexual friends. What you like about them differs not only in degree but in kind. You respond to a teacher differently than to a pupil than to the guy who sells bagels in the deli than to the drinking buddies at the bar, etc. But you're friends with all of them.
Just like what turns me on about Scarlett differs from what excites me about Betty. The feelings might be entirely different, but I enjoy sex with both of them.
And yes, the idea is that the tribe is a heterosexual group, and although it would be difficult prohibit any homosexual activity, the given would be that the tribe is about male-female intercourse and interaction.
I didn't think out the parenting aspect of possible children born into the group. Guess I assumed that that would not be an element either, but it might not go that way.
What's interesting to me about the posts so far are issues of passiveness and jealousy that I see cropping up in very unexpected places.
And as variety, that's easy to understand, but such a group as an experiment would be a new experience and, to my reckoning, another variation of how to relate to women and the sexual energy and feelings between us. I'm kind of surprised that few of the men see it that way. In P4P, we share each woman with hundreds if not thousands, if that's important, but somehow that's easier to accept it seems than "sharing" with four.
Good thinking about the topic though. I appreciate what you've said and need to think about it some more before settling on any conclusion. Thank you.
I think that the problem with what you are proposing is that the relationship is sex activity based (kind of like a book club) rather than family based. I can't believe that would be stable and given the parameters you are proposing - I think I would end up sneaking away from the book club because there's no emotional investment in it.
As far as homosexuality is concerned (something one of the responders mentioned) - it would be something that the individual participants would want to do - or not want to do. While I don't swing that way myself, I am not subject to homo-panic either - which some posters apparently are..... Must be a real problem to have a disability like that. There are, as it happens, some research indicating that homo-panic is due to suppressed latent homosexual desire.....
I could conceive of being in a long term committed relationship between a group of people both male and female - but what you have proposed isn't that.
After all - if we are going to have homosexual marriages - why NOT polygamy....
But I would give up p4p for a single SO. I'm not here for variety or polyamory.
We all have carte blanc, no questions asked, inside the group. So far no guy guy yet 
. All met at Desire in Mexico and became lifestyle partners. We all still look for new friends as none of us live in the same city. We are going to a 'lifestyle" party tonight, in the Chicago area. Hope to make some new friends.
I like P4P because of a kink, so I wouldn't give that up.
I think I had that same question on a college math exam. The answer had something to with cosines or exponents or integrals or something like that. I didn't get it right. I was too distracted fantasizing about the hot girl who sat in front of me in lecture and the test. ... Where is she now? I wonder if she has a grown up daughter
You would get bored after some time. Even with a line up of regular providers you need a new one once in a while.
To tell you the truth, it sounds like a hell of a way to live.
One day Bev and I ran into a few folks who lived in a commune and were even raising all their kids together being parents to all of them.
The gal had a funny story about going to parents night at their kids' school and getting the oddest looks from the teachers when a whole bunch of the kids' parents showed up.
She seemed to really have her shit together and Bev and I were wishing we were 30 years younger and able to go that route from the get-go.
I'd like to live in a society where all had the right to freely associate as they please so long as it's all safe, sane, and consensual. (or maybe two out of three 8o)
I found this neat old home movie footage too.
I'm the guy having the bum trip.
I was at Woodstock. The only bad stuff there was the water.
Try being Dom Deluise for awhile. People will find you more interesting.
-- Modified on 7/26/2014 7:20:46 PM
-- Modified on 7/27/2014 9:09:33 AM