{"id":358,"date":"2005-01-24T20:34:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-24T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=358"},"modified":"2005-01-24T20:34:00","modified_gmt":"2005-01-24T20:34:00","slug":"358","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=358","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Is polyamory<\/a> required?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The publication of this article<\/a> in Sunday’s Denver Post<\/em> lit up the biggest Colorado Pagan e-mail list.<\/p>\n

Of course, we recognized a pentagram ring–and the reference to reading Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land<\/em> rings a big Pagan-history bell, about the founding of the Church of All Worlds in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

But now people are asking, “Is monogamy subtly put down in the Pagan community? Is there pressure to be polyamorous<\/a>?”<\/p>\n

One poster, a divorced mother with a steady boyfriend, notes, “When I was married, I found it hard to find support for monogamous relationships in the community. The implication seemed to be that if you were monogamous, you were really just repressed and needed to get with the program.”<\/p>\n

The high priestess of a Boulder coven, married 25 years, talks of people assuming that she must be polyamorous. “When potential initiate\/students come to me on a first information-gathering chat, they often ask if it is required to sleep with the [high priestess] or [high priest].” The answer for her is no, absolutely not.<\/p>\n

It’s an aspect of Pagan life that isn’t discussed too often outside the arena of plain old gossiping. When your religion–many forms of Wicca, at least–is heavily erotic in its symbolism, does that symbolism cross over into personal behavior? Like Carrie Bradshaw<\/a>, I will leave the question hanging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is polyamory required? The publication of this article in Sunday’s Denver Post lit up the biggest Colorado Pagan e-mail list. Of course, we recognized a pentagram ring–and the reference to reading Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land rings a big Pagan-history bell, about the founding of the Church of All Worlds in the 1960s. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-358","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4380,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4380","url_meta":{"origin":358,"position":0},"title":"Ten Pagan Authors Interviewed","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The editors of The Wiccan\/Pagan Times have taken ten interviews with contemporary Pagan authors and published them in ebook and paperback format. Presented here are some of the\u00a0many memorable interviews we have published over the last 13 years. We have taken 10 of these interviews and put them together with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1203,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1203","url_meta":{"origin":358,"position":1},"title":"The Pagan Census, revisited","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Three researchers are working to update Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States, originally published in 2003.Helen Berger, one of the researchers, writes, \"This survey builds on an earlier one completed over twenty years ago, primarily in the United States, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1570034885","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10351,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10351","url_meta":{"origin":358,"position":2},"title":"A Survey on Pagan Metaphysics and Ethics","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This comes from Gwendolyn Reese, whose work has appeared several times in The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. She writes, The purposes of this study are to explore the relationship between how the metaphysical and theological beliefs held by Pagans\/Witches\/Heathens relate to each other and to beliefs about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1189,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1189","url_meta":{"origin":358,"position":3},"title":"Pagan Content on Patheos: John Muir was Pagan??","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"USA Today's religion blogger, Cathy Lynn Gross, visits the Patheos religion web site and discovers (shock!) that it has a Pagan portal with actual Pagan content.The article that catches her attention is \"John Muir was a Pagan.\"I admire John Muir, but I do not see him as a capital-P Pagan,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":322,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=322","url_meta":{"origin":358,"position":4},"title":"Canada's First Pagan Conference Gaia\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Canada's First Pagan Conference Gaia Gathering, billed as Canada's first national Pagan conference, is planned for May 20-23, 2005, at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Panel discussions include topics such as Pagan paths, Paganism in the various regions of Canada, interacting with the mainstream community, forming 'churches', marrying rights,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11233,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11233","url_meta":{"origin":358,"position":5},"title":"Conference on Current Pagan Studies 3: Harper Hall","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1: The Southwest Chief Part 2: Holing up in Claremont It was a 20-minute walk from the hotel to Claremont Graduate University, where the Conference on Current Pagan Studies rents space during CGU's winter break. CGU is one of the seven \"Claremont Colleges\" \u2014 five undergrad, two graduate schools\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/black-phillip-at-pagan-conference.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}