Chapter 28: Guest Lecturer

MEL

My dear friend Sarah was teaching two summer classes at the university. Each was a sociology class – one undergrad and the other a graduate level class examining the various ‘tribes’ in urban and suburban settings from a sociological point of view.

Sarah asked me to speak to a combined class, because I was articulate about the open relationships that I shared with Dave, Cindy, Trish, and more recently Wendy – and then the others members of the Sex Club, too, including Sarah. (I must use the word ‘group’ and not Sex Club!)

The class was two hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Sarah said, “I’ll get you started with some questions and then the students will take over. I’ll be watching to see how they’re doing about understanding the finer learning points that you’ll make. When you are ready to quit, just signal me, and I’ll take over.”

I wasn’t too nervous. I’d been on the debate team in high school, and taken public speaking in college and belonged to Toastmasters. I knew and lived the subject matter at the core of the talk, and I wasn’t afraid to say ‘I don’t know’, so I was set to go.

Tuesday morning, I joined Sarah and we went into her large classroom – auditorium seating in tiers looking down at the teacher or guest (me). There were forty students in the combined group spread out across more than twice that many seats. Bridget was one of them. She gave me a supportive wave and took a seat in one of the seating tiers.

As I looked around the class, I also recognized another face that gave me pause: Jeff from the toga party about eight weeks earlier. We nodded and smiled at each other and he also gave me a polite little wave of acknowledgment. I’m sure we were both thinking about the epic fuck and orgy that we participated in. I wondered whether any of that would come to the fore during the class session. Heck, Bridget had been there, too.

Sarah took command of the class and introduced me. She gave my background bio and talked about my current job selling real estate. She then explained that those didn’t cover the landscape about who I was. I was risk-taker, a leader, and a nonconformist. I had the courage to think and act out of the box. I broke traditional paradigms, including in my relationships. I was in an open relationship with my husband, Dave, and we’d formed a polyamorous family that also included our two young children.

After that, she gestured and I stood and joined Sarah at the front of the class. I’d dressed to the nines, and was wearing the five-inch CFM heels so I might come up to the height of some of the others in the class.

Sarah said, “To get things started, Melissa, why don’t you describe your family and the open relationship.”

To my surprise about half the class hitched forward, prepared to hang on my every word. I started by saying that I hadn’t set out to be any of the things that Sarah had said about me, except to maybe be a real estate agent of note.

I wasn’t trying to be a risk-taker, leader, nonconformist, or nontraditional thinker or doer. It was just how I coped with what the world put in front of me. I quoted Otis Maxfield, ’Fate is what the world gives you; destiny is what you do with it.’

“I married Dave Janson in a traditional way and we expected to be a traditional family from then on. We’d dated traditionally and came from traditional and rather ‘normal’ families, if I can use that word in this class. You all know there’s no such thing as ‘normal’ by now, right?

“Anyway, call it the seven-year itch or whatever, but I got the feeling that there had to be more in life than a husband and two kids and a job. Something bothered me, and I knew that I had to change it up – to shake it up.

“Dave and I found that our close friends felt the same way. They, too, came from traditional roots and beginnings. We shared our feelings and even challenged each other in some unique ways to try to help break us out of our mold.

“One of the key elements is that we all became vulnerable to each other. We opened up to each other about parts of our lives, our family, and our relationships that we had never shared with others.

“In turn, that led to a new intimacy between our group at that point. While to outsiders, it could be misunderstood; to us it became a new normal. We extended the love that we felt to more than just our ‘nuclear’ family. We learned that we could truly love more than one person in mind, body, and spirit.

“Maybe it was us or what we were doing, but our family became a magnet to other open thinkers. We weren’t constrained by how others behaved. We stopped buying into the memes we’d been raised with, at least without closely examining them to see whether we wanted to keep them intact. Yes, we were talking and sharing a lot.

“Another person joined our family, and then another. Several others also became that close with us. Interestingly enough, our children just took it for granted that they belonged in our growing family.”

I looked out across the class at the eager faces there. Bridget and Jeff were smiling and nodding. Further, way in the back in the upper-most tier in the shadows, I saw Dave smiling back at me. Ken. Ashley, Jim, Cindy, Trish, Wendy, and Mandy were all seated in the same row paying rapt attention.

“I’ve talked enough in my opening monologue. How about you ask me questions for a change?”

Several hands went up. I pointed to a young co-ed in the second row. She asked, “When I hear the term ‘open relationship’ I think of it as a permission to have sex with anybody I want outside of my usual relationship. Is that accurate?”

I thought, ‘Good start and very perceptive’. I said, “Think of an open relationship really as a spectrum along which you can add new activities or delete old ones as you see fit. Having one, is not a binary choice between one set of activities and another. Sex is just one of those activities.

“In my own case, sex does play an important role in my life. I need the sex for various reasons to feel like a complete person. The sex allows me to connect in a deeper and more meaningful way with others that I choose; it provides me validation that I am a worthy and loveable person. I can also explore the lusty and hedonistic side of my personality, occasionally doing crazy things just to try them and see how the fit. I get a charge out of them. In a traditional relationship, I would not be able to do most of that, at least without a truckload of guilt.”

A young man asked, “How did the rest of your family, if you have any, react to what you and your family have formed?”

I laughed, “Good question. The answer appears to be that they’re not all that happy, but I think that comes from being worried that my husband and I will split because we drift apart, and thus their grandchildren will suffer in many ways from a broken home. The reality appears to be quite different.”

“How so?” he quickly asked.

“Well, instead of one mom, our kids have me and three others living in the house, and all sorts of aunts, uncles, and cousins that they see almost every day. Their performance in school and their teacher comments indicate that they are ahead of the game and acting more mature than their cohorts. The important component in our home is love – L. O. V. E. – and the children feel and live in that ocean, as do the rest of us. It’s truly wonderful.”

Another student said, “That sounds idealistic. Don’t you argue and vie for attention.”

I turned to Sarah, “Have the students studied transactional analysis?”

Sarah shook her head. “Not yet, although the graduate students should have come across it.”

I turned back to the class. “You can respond to another person as an Adult, a Child, or a Parent. As a parent, if there’s a disagreement, you scold the other person and maybe even punish them in some way, perhaps by withholding affection. As a child, you’d do the equivalent of a tantrum or something until you got your own way.

“As adults, which not all adults are, by the way, you talk about what you want, you negotiate, you show tolerance, you collaborate, you compromise, you trade this for that. Amazingly, our Congress seems to have lost that spirit. Next time you see someone speaking, test whether their acting as a parent, child, or adult – either side of the aisle.

“So, to your question, we encourage adult behavior in our family – even our children, in our house, and in our larger group of friends. Incredibly, our children are starting to behave in the same way. We try to deal with them as adults rather than as overbearing helicopter parents. It seems to be working. They’re both mature beyond their young ages.”

DAVE

I was grateful to Sarah for sneaking us into the back of the large classroom where Mel was speaking. Some of the others in our group wanted to come, too, including our extended family, and a few of our closest friends. Mandy got wind of it and asked me whether she could attend. She was new to the group and I thought this might give her more insight into what we were like and how we thought. Mel and I talked about the subject matter beforehand and I asked all the nasty questions that I could think of.

Mel was amazing and articulate in my book, but I’m tremendously biased in her favor. I’m her biggest fan, and vice versa.

To capture the event, there was a projection area looking over the top of the classroom. I’d set up my camera in the darkened booth recording Mel at the front of the room. I hoped the sound pickup was working. I didn’t have a separate microphone.

We sat quietly watching the magic she wove with the class. I thought that if we were a cult, then Mel would make a worthy cult leader. I think many in the class felt they wanted to sign up right that instant. They were absorbing the kool-aid by the second.

Our friend Jeff from the PTR orgy asked Mel whether she’d ever had worries about the path she was on. She said, “Yes. I still have all those old tapes from the traditional relationship patterns playing in my head. I worried about my husband, kids, marriage, and our parents’ views on all we’re doing. Eventually, I realized that WE were doing fine and so were all the things I worried about. Well, maybe not the parents, but that’s going better than we expected all things considered. Remember that old adage, being a pioneer means you occasionally have arrows being shot at you.”

Mel was the feature for the entire two-hour class. She announced that she’d take further questions through Sarah, and answer them to the best she could. She also referenced a few books that were known to address the topic well: Open Marriage and The Ethical Slut, being two of them.

As class actually ended, there was rush by about eight students to see Mel and talk further to her. She was polite and I could see her allowing Sarah to intervene. Bridget came up and gave her a hug. Jeff was one of the students; he shook her hand and told her that it was probably the best and most important class that he’d ever attended or would ever attend in his life. I heard him say, “You changed my life forever. Now, I just need to find other people that think the same way.”

Those of in the upper tier snuck out the back the same way we’d come in. I collected my camera and was pleased with a test, that the audio wasn’t all that bad. The room’s acoustics worked in our favor.

We fanned out and went to work, our internships, classes, or what not. I knew that Mel was headed to her office. I sent her a text praising her two-hour performance.