The root of all evil isn't MONEY, contrary to popular belief. It's JEALOUSY. How so? Consider the greatest of all possible evils - MONOTHEISM - as expressed in the utterly psychotic statement: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me, for I am a jealous god." You may substitute "goddess" for "god" and the results are equally abysmal.
Just ask yourself this: if you were indeed the One and Only Deity in Existence, would you be constantly looking over your shoulder in anticipation of rivals or threats to your Absolute Status? In Barbara Hand Clow's nebulous tome, The Pleiadian Agenda, I was struck by a powerful quote attributed to the Prophet Isaiah: "Monotheism breeds fanatical anthropocentrism, which eventually destroys Earth." How absolutely and tragically true.
Such a jealous, spiteful, insecure, and vengeful deity can only engender generations of jealous, spiteful, insecure, and vengeful humans. The Old Testament records the first instance of murder in the story of Cain and Abel. The archetypal case of sibling rivalry wherein a deity plays favorites with two brothers over their ritual offerings and arouses a jealousy so intense it leads to fratricide. Fast forward to Abraham and his sister-wife Sara, whose greed and jealousy result in the unjust expulsion of Hagar, the servant who bore Abe his first-born son, Ishmael. Behold, the remote descendants of Ishmael (generically known as Arabs) to this day continue to be cruelly treated by the remote descendants of Sara's freak-birth progeny, Isaac (generically known as Jews)!
My savage punk wife Anoora is a real cutie... except when possessed by the demon, Jealousy. This demon she inherited from her mother, whose emotional insecurity was pathological to the degree that it drove two previous husbands to drink, distraction and, eventually, divorce. Anoora's ego insecurity very nearly drove me mad during the first few years of my sharing space with her. She couldn't even tolerate my having a conversation with another woman.Yet, as time passed, she reserved the right to ogle every good-looking young man who came to stay with us - and after a while became emboldened enough to openly flirt with them. I'm happy to report that in the last two or three years, Anoora has finally matured and relaxed to the extent that she's now open to befriending my female visitors - sometimes to the extent of attempting to hijack their affections. The day Anoora manages to entice another man with her feminine charms, I would consider my Henry Higgins experiment a complete success. There's nothing sadder than being married to a spouse nobody else would contemplate borrowing for a wild weekend or even flirting with.
Now jealousy is in itself a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that the person you proclaim to love - and whose exclusive devotion and sexual attention you demand - invariably begins contemplating the pleasures of strange flesh as soon as nagging suspicion begins to rear its ugly, deformed head.I can happily swear eternal allegiance, affection, and friendship to anybody who has won my heart... but to insist on exclusivity seems to me the epitome of insanity. Imagine vowing to eat at only one restaurant your entire life. That's an insult to FOOD!
The crux of the problem is that monotheistic religions have programmed their followers into believing there is only ONE way to be married, and only ONE interpretation of wedded bliss - and that's MONOGAMY!
My own parents were married for more than 60 years... but Dad probably had that many lovers on the side (and Mum quite a few too, though far more discreetly)... and most folks do indulge in a fair amount of "illicit" (read "unlicenced") sex, only problem being they have to be hypocritical and sneaky about their behavior - instead of being good-humored, honest, and open-hearted about their own testosteronal or pheromonal propensities. Of all the women I've known, perhaps only two or three were virgins before they met me - but I've certainly loved and cherished the others no less, and enjoyed them all the more for their sexual experience and emotional maturity.
I'm convinced that if POLYAMORY was included as another way to explore LOVE and HARMONY, the world would blossom into a spiritually wholesome and truth-valuing place - where deceit, hypocrisy, guilt, and vindictiveness cannot flourish, and destructive jealousy will be seen for what it is: an emotional disease!I feel sufficiently seasoned to declare myself a pantheistic pansexual. That's right, folks: everything and everybody is actually quite edible if your perception is pristinely unclouded.
Polyamory: The Next Sexual Revolution?
[First posted 7 January 2007, reposted 7 January 2011 & 11 September 2016]
