Went to a polyamory movie Tuesday night.

I should have blogged about this Wednesday, but I got lazy --

So, like a week-and-a-half ago I realized I hadn't been visiting any new neighborhoods/sites in the city lately, and so I decided to look up the hours on a local immigrant settlement house museum, only to discover that they were sponsoring a 2-times-a-month film series about crazy sex topics followed by a discussion group hosted by a local (female) BDSM activist (mostly, as I found out, because back in the late 19th c. they were early advocates of sex ed).

So, since the upcoming movie was on polyamory, I went, even though no one I knew wanted to go, though I sure as heck enjoyed asking practically everyone I know, including mild acquaintances I'd run into on the street.

Beforehand, I stopped at a local diner close by the venue, since I had seen it before when driving in a semi-industrial area; the place was founded in 1939, but now run by Mexicans and staffed by Mexican and black waitresses (the clientele was black, white, and some Mexican), and the menu said, "New - oxtail soup" on it. I had beef stroganoff, and decaf coffee.

In terms of the film and discussion group, I guess a few things were surprising -

1) Very few members of the audience took the movie seriously, since it was about this nerdy anglophone Canadian couple who were living in Montreal -- the husband was thin and kind of Jewish-looking and liked model trains, the woman was squat with big glasses and a wandering eye, both a real one and she looked at other men -- and so since he wasn't interested in polyamory but she was, they decided to make a movie about her quest to love more than one person and how it affected their relationship...

Everyone laughed a bunch, a lot of times at them. Luckily, I sat next to this young 20s black lesbian with a pierced tongue who talked during the movie, like when this woman whose husband was sleeping with the fat Canadian woman confronted her and said something like, "Did you set out to break up our marriage? because that's what you're doing," she actually snapped in front of me and was like, "Sna-ap," loudly.

Another time when the confrontational woman was on the screen, she was like, "She bipolar," and later when it turned out that the woman actually was bipolar, I asked her how she knew that, she was like, "I'm a psych major."

Also, another time when the fat Canadian woman said she wasn't sure if she was polyamorous, she was like, "And I say, I don't want to be black."

2) I didn't realize this, but polyamory is basically a bunch of (ugly) sci-fi, Lord of the Rings-loving nerds who found out they liked to fuck, but lack drama in their life or people who will casually sleep with them, so they make it into this romantic idealist quest to fill up their lives with these 5-hour long conversations between like 3 or 4 people where everyone asks each other if they're okay and if they really mean that they're okay and are they sure etc. before 2 of them go off to fuck. The word itself was coined by a member of the polyamorist Ravenheart clan in the late 70s, and the OED actually called up this one member Morning Glory for a definition a few years ago.

(Because it's a new word, I was thinking they must have calqued it in Spanish as "la muchamoridad", though, as I discovered, it's actually translated as "poliamor".)

Like a bunch of times in the film, the filmmakers went to polyamorist conventions, and it was nothing but (white) skinny guys in black t-shirts with long dirty hair and goatees hugging a couple (white) (ugly) fat women, and there were drum circles too.

So, afterwards there was a discussion group, and since there was this one late 40s woman there with dyed blonde hair and a fake tan and tall black boots and a short skirt, and she was sitting next to her husband/partner/whatever with wavy dyed brown hair and leather lounge shoes and a purple shirt open to show a big medallion on his chest, and there was an open seat next to her, I decided to sit down there.

The (stick thin but somehow blocky) (ugly) BDSM hostess girl started off the discussion, and this dude named Steve over in the corner who looked kind of dorky started off, and it turned out he was from the local polyamory community. Then there was something else someone said, then the woman next to me raised her hand.

"Before I start, I just want to say, 'Hi, Steve'", she was like, and waved to him over in the corner.
He didn't do anything.

"Do you remember me?", she was like, not needily or even that curiously, but just to establish a fact.

He didn't do anything.

He didn't do anything again.

I was in such shock (but somehow I seemed to be the only person to notice this!) that I don't even remember how she then began her comment, but she did, quite normally, knowing that he didn't recognize her not affecting her at all in any way.

Later, this dude with a long ponytail and a leather jacket spoke, and he was a member of the local polyamory community. He used to work for the government at one point and had a picture of himself and his wife and two girlfriends on his desk, and a female coworker got in his face about it once and asked him if his wife knew.

"Of course she does," he was like, "They're her friends, and it's kind of hard to take a picture all together if she doesn't," and he then asked her if she had ever cheated on her husband, and she had, twice, and so he was like, "And what, I'm a bad guy since I'm open about it?"

Later, this one blonde self-identified actress who would make unasked-for improv-type jokes and comandeer the conversation and was new to poly said she had a hard time getting along with people she met at conventions, since she doesn't read science fiction.

Also later, this one white gay dude around my age with a high voice and a white wifebeater on underneath a white mesh shirt said something about how he didn't understand why everyone talked about feelings, since if you have an open relationship, it's about you and you just go sleep with someone, and he didn't know what they meant, and while he was saying this all the poly people raised their hands up aggressively to pile on and correct him, including the woman next to me.

Since someone said that you always have rules, like you don't sleep in the same bed with one partner as another if the other minds is a common one, by the time they called on the woman next to me, she was like, "Rules are very important; for example, [her partner's name, the lounge guy, I can't remember his name] and I always sleep with other people in the same room, since we like to watch each other."

Like five minutes later, as I had been doing for the past thirty minutes, I thought of her "Hi Steve" thing and started laughing/smirking, so I covered my mouth with my hand as if I was resting my chin. Then, I had a bright idea, and to cover my laughter, I was like, "I can't believe that guy, and it was funny, it was totally like poly death match with everyone trying to correct him," and that struck her as funny and she laughed, so I think I made her think I wasn't laughing at that whole thing with her and Steve.

Later, this one fat white mid-20s girl with big glasses and limp hair who was obviously a gamer/fantasy girl, but wore a short skirt so everyone could see her fat thick legs though no one wanted to, had this interminable comment with no real point (though maybe the point is that she wanted everyone to know that she has sex?) about how she had friends and they're friends, but they like to sleep with each other and they consider themselves polyamorous "but not polyfuckerous", and as the comment was going on, I nudged the woman next to me, who in her earlier comments had established herself and her partner as swingers, which are different from poly people, though they themselves are different from most swingers, since most swingers only sleep once with someone, whereas they form part of a group of four couples who are close friends, "And then it goes out from there," as she would say, holding her hands in front of her and waving her fingers -- so, anyhow, I nudged her and was like, "I think the difference between poly and swingers is that with poly, you have to be self-serious and over-verbal."

"Really," she was like, and she meant it.