Forms of Love
“Polyamory without ethics is not real freedom”
What is the correlation between love and freedom? What role does respect play in the constellation? And to what extent can love for more than one person break with traditionalist and hierarchical ideas? We talked about these questions with Deb Barreiro, cultural manager and coach for free relationships in Argentina.
Even as a child and teenager, Deb Barreiro critically observed her surroundings, her parents’ relationship and her own at that time monogamous and successive relationships. At 19, it was already clear to her that she could not possibly love only one person for the rest of her life. Since then – Deb is now 30 – she has had polyamorous relationships. In them, she always tries to reconcile the freedom of choosing a partner with love, a willingness to compromise and ethics. Based on her experience and professional training, Deb also accompanies other people on the path of free love.
What is polyamory and what is it not?
Let’s think of a big umbrella called “free love” under which many forms of relationships are possible. Free love means: no possessiveness, honesty, consensus, mutual consent. We usually speak of free love in contrast to monogamy, because in free love there is a tough struggle against marriage and adultery, among other things. But actually, the values of free love are applicable to all family and friendship relationships. Basically, free love means breaking with the paradigm of romantic love as we see it presented by Disney, with the love of the mononorm – the compulsion to be monogamous – with love in abusive relationships and also with love in non-monogamous relationships without ethics.
Under this big umbrella is also polyamory, which means loving more than one person on the basis of mutual consent, honesty and in accordance with all the values of free love. It is not only about love, but also about a lasting, strong connection. This means that there are agreements in polyamory. Even in a completely non-committal relationship, for example, when partners only meet for sex, there is an agreement to be considerate of each other in that encounter. And in polyamory there are a lot of possibilities: For one person, the relationship with oneself has priority, another has a hierarchy among their various relationships and yet another has closed relationships like in a love triangle. There are an incredible number of variations, depending on what arrangements are made.
What understanding of freedom forms the basis for the theory and practice of polyamory?
One hundred per cent freedom is unattainable, and here I base myself on leisure theory: We cannot be one hundred per cent auto-conditioned or one hundred per cent hetero-conditioned. We have a tendency to be free, to try to auto-condition ourselves, but the external environment will always permeate to us because we are not hermits, we form relationships with other people. If we tend to the other extreme and act like robots, we allow the environment and other people to tell us what to do and how to do it, which often happens in capitalism, for example.
The quest for freedom is to decide what I want, and for that we need information, the will to change, the willingness to weigh up the available options. People are free to choose monogamy; what’s important is whether they actually choose it or just don’t want to swim against the tide. Even for those of us who question monogamy, it’s very valuable to keep revisiting our choices, because we humans are always changing; our freedom is related to deciding what we want, but that can change. Of course, we also come up against limits in our decisions because freedom has consequences that can benefit or harm me or other people.
What compromises does this understanding of freedom require of people in polyamorous relationships?
The key word is ethics. Many people say, “what ethics when we’re free, when freedom is not coercion?” But it’s not about coercion; it’s about choices. You decide what responsibility you take upon yourself. If you choose to live in an open relationship, that means taking the responsibility to make an agreement about how it will be talked about if one of the people involved wants to have a relationship with another person one day. Whether it will be talked about or not, what kinds of new relationships can be entered into, etc. And these agreements have to be negotiated. For me, compromise has to do with being true to myself and what I say. No one forces me, I take responsibility for my decision and for its possible consequences. Culturally, there is a perception that boundaries are the opposite of freedom. But for me they’re not. Boundaries are necessary because engaging with another person with the intention of harming them is not freedom.
There are people who believe in free love and freedom in a way that for me it has more to do with licentiousness, with entering into relationships without taking responsibility or compromising. I have come across people who have suffered a lot because of it, and others who will stop at nothing. People who say “free love is great for me” but lack ethics because they decide to enter into a relationship with someone else without telling you, or who decide not to see you again but don’t write or let you know. Where’s the responsibility there? Where’s the mutual consideration? Therefore, for those of us who practise it, free love is free love with ethics, with consideration, with responsibility.
Being honest about one’s own vulnerability seems to be a constant in polyamorous relationships. How does this relate to individual freedom?
Vulnerability involves trust, and that is a fundamental part of relationships. Sometimes it scares us that others might take advantage of our vulnerability, but if we assume that we want to build healthier relationships where there is consideration and responsibility, then it is ideal to have a person on the other side who shows openness, empathy, the need to understand what is going on with me. So ideally, it’s someone who doesn’t say, “if you’re jealous, that’s your problem,” but who talks with me about it. My most important task in coaching processes is to develop assertiveness in communication.
In your opinion, what is the social potential of polyamory, for example in breaking power dynamics and outdated patterns?
Polyamory is only one form of relationship. Free love has greater influence because it’s related to the feminist struggle, to a striving for change on a social and cultural level that can take many paths, like veganism or various social struggles. Free love has to do with all relationships, with the way I stand by what I do. For me, love is giving; offering something through actions, offering something that benefits others and that makes them happy.
Related links
Deb Barreiro on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/debbarreiro/