Chapter 85: “It’s not that simple.”

December 19, 2000, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

“Given the conversation we just had, and my judgment of your personality,” Doctor Chin said when I finished, “I believe it’s OK to be direct. May I?”

“Always,” I replied. “I do have to say, before you speak, that you did a very, very good job of not reacting to some of the revelations.”

“My first year of Residency was working with abused boys, ages six to sixteen. I opted to specialize in adults after that.”

“I think I can understand why,” I replied. “I know what dealing with abused kids has done to my friend Bethany. So?”

“I don’t believe I’ve met anyone with a sexual history even close to yours, and I don’t believe I’ve encountered a successful, long-lasting polyamorous situation similar to yours, either.”

I shrugged, “So what?”

Doctor Chin laughed, “I should have expected that response based on everything you said.”

“It’s like that old saw about jumping from a bridge if everyone else is doing it, only applied to society. Just because the howling mob thinks things should be done a certain way doesn’t make it right, and our system was set up to make it difficult for the howling mob. Sadly, the tinkering that’s been done with the Constitution and the courts has weakened the protections for the minority from the tyranny of the majority.”

“You don’t see any value in collective wisdom?”

“Not when it’s unfiltered! Running society by moral, or any other kind of panic, is a recipe for an Orwellian future. Take the notion of ‘hate crime’ which attempts to discern what a person thought about their victim and affix additional penalties if that view isn’t sanctioned by the howling mob. That’s nuts.”

“So no community standards at all?”

“None that interfere with consensual behavior between two consenting individuals. It’s none of anyone’s business if I have two wives and a girlfriend, so long as all of us are in agreement. The same goes for my son having two moms. Or our views on child-rearing, and so on. And, to put my view to you succinctly - there is no word that can adequately describe my level of indifference when it comes to how consenting adults choose to live their own lives.”

“So how do you know right from wrong?”

“By following the maxim ‘do as little harm as possible’.”

“An interesting take on the concept. Wouldn’t it be better to strive to do good?”

I shook my head, “As the proverb rightly says, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. By evaluating the path which creates the least harm or the least ‘evil’, if you want to call it that, you avoid the temptation to try to ‘do good’ and thus run roughshod over individual rights. The perfect example is ‘think of the children’ which usually results in adults losing rights in a futile attempt to protect children from things from which they can’t actually be protected. It is, if you’ll pardon the expression, insane to think anything can be made perfectly safe. And society knows this - we didn’t ditch cars when road deaths in a year passed 50,000.”

“I’m not sure that analogy works, but I get what you’re trying to say. I don’t think we have enough time to go into your philosophy in depth today, so I’d like to set another meeting with you at 10:00am tomorrow.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied.

Just as I said that, an orderly came in with my lunch, so Doctor Chin and I shook hands, he left, and I ate my lunch which was a chopped salad with small strips of roast beef.

Mary came by to check on me, and I spent some time reading or playing games until Clara arrived for our afternoon session.

“Any changes in sexual activity from the last time we spoke?” she asked after we’d greeted each other.

“More of the same, really,” I replied. “And it’s about on par with my history, allowing for what amounted to an eighteen-month hiatus.”

“How many new partners in the past year?”

“Call it fifteen,” I replied.

“Call it?”

“Fourteen, with one more being very likely.”

“Mary mentioned that she’d asked you to chart them, -1, 0, or +1, by your attitude at the time. Did you do that going back?”

“Yes,” I replied, and opened Excel on my laptop. “In order, +1, +1, +1, 0, +1, +1, +1, +1, -1, +1, 0, +1, -1, +1”

“And the potential one?”

“I believe it will be a +1.”

“You rated a pair of them -1, and a pair of them 0. So two where your attitude was negative going into the encounter, and two where it was neutral, right?”

“Yes.”

“And the others were positive?”

“Yes, but the reasons varied.”

“What led you to break the hiatus, as you called it?”

“Mostly commitments made in the past, either consciously or unconsciously. The first one was not something I saw coming, but which, in hindsight, should have been blindingly obvious. The next two were a girl I knew was hoping for an encounter, and another one who, although she’d never given any indication of interest, was not a surprise. After that, it just kind of went the way it always has - opportunities and desire on the part of the girls.”

“So you weren’t actively seeking those relationships?”

“No. I believe I told you last time, that with one obvious exception, that’s not how it goes. I only purposefully pursued one girl on my own volition, and that was with active discouragement from my closest female friends. That was Kara. I actually set out to have sex with her from the start.”

“Only Kara? No other?”

“Not where I made an active, affirmative decision to do it. Some people would point to a girl named Becky but that was instigated and encouraged by a female friend. And if I ever felt I made a significant mistake, it was Becky. That relationship was so complicated and far too intense for two kids who were fourteen or fifteen. Had we both been a bit more mature, things might have turned out very differently.”

“Those were both fairly early in your history.”

“That’s true for Becky, but not Kara. By the time I chose to pursue Kara I’d already had around thirty-five lovers.”

“Why Kara?”

“She was the de facto leader of the ‘Holy Roller’ contingent in my High School, and also the most beautiful girl I knew. Call it the supreme challenge, but it didn’t work out the way I’d expected. I thought if I could get her into bed we’d have a hot and heavy affair for a few months, then I’d go off to college and it would be over. In the end, we’re married and have two kids together, plus we have Jessica and her two kids. And you know about the other two women and three kids.”

“You met the mothers of your children, except for Jessica, when you were seventeen or younger, right?”

“Yes. I was thirteen when I met Jennifer, sixteen when I met Elyse, and seventeen when I met Kara. I didn’t meet Jessica until I was nearly twenty-two.”

“You say that in a way that makes it seem as if you were much older.”

“Given my life experience, and my philosophy, Jessica WAS much older. She was twenty-three when we met compared to the other three who were fourteen to sixteen when we met. I don’t recall if I told you that I was thinking seriously about who my wife might be by age thirteen.”

“Why was that, if you know?”

“Looking back I’d say it was mostly because of the lack of love I’d had at home and it was a way, in the future, to escape what amounted to an abusive childhood and young adulthood.”

“How do you separate those?”

“In the way humanity did for all of history until after World War II - puberty. Most, if not all, rites of passage in history took place at ages twelve to fifteen. The idea that teenagers were children, and not able to control their own lives, developed from child labor laws, which, in principle, I support, at least conceptually. And from there we’ve gone continually downhill, as a society, using moral panics and demagoguery to declare teens no more than large toddlers, with the loss of freedom and self-determination that comes with such a designation. It’s going to destroy the country in the long run, because insane, irrational, and overprotective laws do not allow teens to have proper life experience before they are, in theory, on their own. The consequences in about fifteen years are going to be devastating, and the downward spiral will be unstoppable unless society returns to the norms of the previous 5000 years of recorded history.”

“But don’t teens have suspect decision making?”

“So do you!” I chuckled. “And so do I! That’s common to the human condition! And collective decision-making is the worst, unless it’s heavily moderated, filtered, and limited in scope, which, of course, was the intent of the US Constitution. We’ve ignored that at our own peril, and now have so many laws on the books that impact our daily lives nobody can know what they are. And all too often, such that I’d say it’s not just common, but the norm, the cure is worse than the disease.”

“Example?”

“Illinois is increasing the time required to get a driving license for ‘teen safety’, and if you look at the trend, the goal is to, in effect, deny sixteen-year-olds the ability to drive, thus taking away their freedom. The next step will be against seventeen-year-olds. An effective driving license age of eighteen works in Europe where society is more compact, if you will. It does not work for the farm kids in downstate Illinois. Heck, it doesn’t work in the Chicago suburbs because zoning laws have made having a car an absolute requirement to get anywhere or do anything. Public transportation is a joke because it’s inefficient because of zoning and other poor choices by our elected officials. Even in our largest cities it only kind of works. All delaying driving licenses does is isolate teens and prevent them from gaining necessary life experience.”

“You’re arguing that saving lives is less important than freedom?”

“In the general case, yes. It’s not the government’s job to protect me from ALL injury, and, in fact, not only can they not do it, the courts have ruled they have no legal obligation to do it, even when they appear to take on that obligation. To paraphrase the Founders - trading liberty for security is always a losing proposition. Americans used to believe that; they no longer do and our republic is in serious danger of collapsing into an Orwellian dystopia because of it. But I think we got WAY off topic there!”

“Yes, and no. Remember, I’m a licensed clinical psychologist in addition to my PhD work on sexuality and my OB/GYN board certification. I’ll compare notes with Doctor Chin to create a composite analysis. Let’s go back to discussing this year. All of the girls approached you?”

“In one way or another, yes. In nearly every case, some event brought us together, and things developed from there. The shortest time was about twenty-four hours. The longest, excluding one special case, was just over three years.”

“I actually think it might be valuable to see you in a social setting, but I’m not exactly sure how something like that might be arranged, because your behavior would change knowing you were being observed. Do you flirt?”

“An interesting question. What I do is simply be myself, which I think, in general, puts people at ease. I like to joke and tease and generally enjoy conversations. According to some close female friends, the congenial behavior combined with being in good shape, having what they call ‘killer bedroom eyes’, and the vibe I give off, attracts women. Someone suggested pheromones, but that’s questionable science given our anatomy. That said, there are some studies which indicate that men respond to women ovulating.”

“I think that’s probably true, though, to date, no study has shown either the mechanism or strong statistical correlation. And you know that correlation without understanding the mechanism is weak evidence.”

“The old saying ‘correlation is not causation’, or in classical terms, a «post hoc, ergo propter hoc» error in logic.”

“This ‘vibe’ as you call it, can you control it?”

“Only by suppressing my natural social style and personality, and that’s hard work.”

“You could be taught cognitive techniques to make it easier, though I suspect you would object because your natural style is very effective for business.”

“Not just business, but for making friends and converting people to my viewpoint.”

“Traits which are common amongst populist politicians, populist religious leaders, and cult leaders.”

“Those last two are effectively the same,” I replied. “It’s simply a matter of where one draws the line. There’s a wide difference between the Dalai Lama and Jimmy Swaggart, but in a sense, both are ‘cult’ leaders. But even those two are different from, say, Jim Jones or Charles Manson. And don’t forget Pope John Paul II, who probably has the biggest global populist following of any type of leader, bar none.”

“But don’t you put them in different categories, even without the cult label?”

“Sure. JP2 and the Dalai Lama are spiritual leaders; Swaggart and his ilk are charlatans; Manson and Jones are murderous psychopaths. What they believe is irrelevant; what they DO is. That is, in fact, the point of the First Amendment protections for speech, religion, and assembly. I have a group of friends who meet about twice a month which I call my ‘band of subversives’. We don’t all see eye-to-eye except on the foundational American principle of being left alone by the government and society.”

“Have you had sex with the female members of this group?”

“Most of them, yes.”

“And how does that affect your relationship with the guys in the group?”

“If they can’t handle it, they don’t stick around. The ones that do reap the benefits.”

“Sex with some of those girls?”

“That’s one benefit, but there are other much more important benefits.”

“Such as?”

“Mentoring, and deep friendships.”

“You said when we talked before that you’re friends with every girl you’ve ever slept with, with perhaps one or two exceptions.”

“That’s not an entirely accurate representation - I said that I am friends, or parted on friendly terms, with nearly all of them. The few blowups were later reconciled, including what amounted to a virtual divorce.”

“You didn’t mention that before.”

“It’s something I’ve been trying to digest, but I think it’s true. Her name was Michelle.”

I went on to describe the relationship in detail, including the ‘divorce’ papers I’d been served with, and our eventual reconciliation, at least to the point of being polite to each other. What I didn’t mention was that she was the one impediment to seeking spiritual nourishment from Jesse’s church. The last thing I wanted to do was barge into her ‘space’.

“I’d say your analysis is probably accurate,” Clara said when I finished. “There were warning signs you missed, but you acted in a way which was consistent with your own thinking and logic. You also identified those things after the fact, and I believe learned from them. Have you had another relationship like that?”

“Yes, though if we follow the divorce analogy, it had an amicable ending to our sexual relationship based on a pre-nup. That said, she didn’t ever think we were married, just that we could have been, had circumstances been different.”

“I’d be careful stretching the analogy that far - if this other woman went into it knowing it couldn’t end the way she preferred, it’s a far cry from what Michelle did in going into a relationship and trying to force the issue to end in her desired way.”

“I suppose that’s true; I was trying to compare how they felt about me, though their approaches were obviously different.”

“That said, I think you can find many parallels in your relationships with Becky and Michelle.”

“I think I’d agree with that assessment.”

“Are there any relationships you truly regret? I mean to the point of wishing you had made a different decision?”

There was one - my sister - but I couldn’t discuss that with anyone, no matter what.

“I think the whole ‘What if?’ concept is pure BS because you have no idea how things would have turned out. That said, I understand what you’re asking, and it would be my relationship with Elyse. I never truly understood it until it was too late, so to speak, despite her trying to make it clear in her own way.”

“The mother to two of your boys?”

“Yes. But again, change one little thing and suddenly I don’t have my daughters, Albert, or Jesse. And whatever I might say about my errors in the past, I can’t trade my kids for any other theoretical timeline in the multiverse.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I believe it’s a possibility, but I don’t let that belief affect anything I do in THIS timeline!”

“Are you uncomfortable at all with your sexual activity?”

“Only in the sense that it might be a sign of imbalance. If it’s not, then no.”

“Is anyone close to you uncomfortable with it?”

“Jesse,” I chuckled. “He’s actively avoided doing what I did, and certainly not for lack of opportunity!”

“Your eldest son?”

“He believes in serial monogamy. He doesn’t approve of my choices, but he does freely agree that they are mine to make.”

“What about the other kids?”

“Neutral, generally. Matthew, Albert, and Stephie are already in their lifetime relationships. Michael and Ashley aren’t particularly concerned about it.”

“You didn’t mention your eldest daughter.”

I chuckled, “You mean the one who printed coupons to hand out to select older friends offering an ‘expert deflowering’ by her dad? That daughter?”

“You’re joking!” Clara gasped.

“I’m deadly serious. Fortunately, I caught her before she handed out more than one!”

“She’s twelve, right?”

“Yes, and she is very much Kara’s and my daughter.”

“She actively encourages you to have new sexual partners?”

“It’s not quite that easy to explain. I think in this case she knows my history, and knows some of her older friends are interested, and that was her way of letting them know it was ‘OK’ to ask.”

“How old was the girl she handed out that one coupon to?”

“Fifteen.”

“And did you honor it?”

“Yes, but only after speaking to her mother.”

Clara shook her head, “This just gets stranger by the moment! You actually asked the mother of a fifteen-year-old girl if you could take her daughters virginity?”

“I didn’t TAKE anything! It was offered, enthusiastically and with zero inhibitions or reservations! She actually told her mom what she wanted. And that was a result of her mom finding the coupon in a birthday card from my daughter.”

“Your daughter came up with this on her own?”

“Sort of. Kara and I made a joke once about Birgit selling tickets to her friends to have sex with me and she took it from there.”

“What did you do? I mean besides honor the coupon?”

“Birgit was grounded for a bit, though I did tell her about a time back in High School when I gave a girl who was desperate to have me deflower her what amounted to a coupon or promissory note that committed me to having sex with her on her birthday. It actually said ‘Good for one Expert Birthday Fuck’ and was valid only on her birthday.”

“Why would you tell Birgit about that?”

“So as not to be a hypocrite, and to point out the difference between me giving someone a coupon like that and what Birgit had done. My theory is that if your kids know you were like them at one time, they’re more likely to listen to what you have to say and to understand why you do things the way you do.”

“That’s a fairly radical attitude towards raising children.”

“And a successful one. Society is wrong; common practice is wrong; the ‘experts’ are wrong. All of them have been effectively brainwashed by the combination of infantilization of teens, insistence of self-esteem overriding life lessons, and a refusal to properly address teen issues, especially sexuality, from the teens’ point of view, rather than their own prudish and warped point of view. We’ve taken the wrong course as society and that needs to be fixed, fast, or we’re doomed.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that. One of the hallmarks of a cult, in the popular meaning of the term, is that the corrupt world is going to end and be replaced by a better one.”

“So, like mainstream Christianity?” I asked with a slight smirk.

“Yes, but imminence plays a big part in it, such as with the Branch Davidians, the original Jehovah’s Witnesses, and so on.”

“The actual doomsday cult at Waco was the ATF, egged on by Janet Sterno. The record clearly shows that the local Sheriff was on good terms with the Davidians and that Koresh regularly left the compound. There was no need for the government to move in and murder everyone.”