I was amused the other evening to find this article listed on msnbc news:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/209164

Yes, polyamory has moved from something that SF weirdos dabbled in to a cultural phenomenon so large that it is being written about in news magazines with no condemnation, disbelief or catcalls except for that very last one. Makes me laugh.

I am quite aware that lifestyle discussions are the bane of academic Heinlein devotees. I am also quite aware that living a "Heinlein life" is pretty widespread, whether or not he's credited with massively spreading the idea.

In coming times, pooling resources might become a survival strategy, much as it is in Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's probably good that the topic is going mainstream, all things considered.

Tried to post this in the Ongoing Centennial area, only to find it's locked.

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When I went to one of these at the Centennial, the "moderator" annoyed me greatly by summarizing Heinlein's use of alternative marriages, and then asked each person what alternative they'd lived. I was not terribly happy to talk about that inasmuch as Pati had died the day before. She would have had a more entertaining time than me being personal -- I was a LOT more interested in Heinlein than in me!

First Worldcon I ever went to, as a visiting panelist, I manned the HS table with Bill for a few hours, and ended up chatting with a young woman who began to explain about her polyamorous lifestyle. She recommended I read "The Ethical Slut" -- very strange book, which said, more or less, that that lifestyle takes a lot of effort and trust. My response was that my own monogamous life took so much effort and trust I didn't know how anybody could handle more than one.

Speaking as an academic, I have no trouble discussing the interactions between fiction and reality, and influence is a fascinating topic.

Robert

I tried reading The Ethical Slut once. Sorry as I am to admit it, it was a slow slog and I never finished it -- too much stuff I already knew.

I lived a poly life for almost 8 years, and it was easier than reading that book. One of my spouses referred to it as leading "a Heinlein life". It was surprisingly easy to do -- talk about your blueprints, Heinlein really provides one. MIAHM has some pretty good guidelines in it. Others in this area thought that the way we did things provided a blueprint. There are at least four thriving polys still in KaCSFFS.

All you have to do is walk around acting as if what you are doing is totally normal.

Oh I am *well* aware of how lucky we were -- and how unusual.

Only one of these has been childless. Surprise. But then, the methods used here are pretty workable, and the kids are no different from those of historical extended families where aunts, uncles and grandparents lived in a residence with children and siblings, and families were anything but "nuclear". That particular pattern came out of the 1950's USA where men were being moved around the country to train for executive jobs, or to climb the corporate ladder.

The kids seem to thrive in these odd households because they get a lot more adult attention. Someday off the board I'll tell you about our particular offspring.

To reply to two birds at once:

The Dyer-Bennett clan in Minneapolis is into its third decade and has stably evolved over time. I would expect it to outlast the charter principals.

It is, however, not unfamously childless.

Wow, thanks Bill. You just WROTE the article I was speculating about! Brill.

Had Heinlein stopped with Lazarus and Tellus Tertius, I would not be starting this paragraph.

Unfortunately, he continued the theme in less savory aspects in To Sail Beyond the Sunset.

Brian Smith is downright icky. The teens, Donnie and Priscilla, who reappear on Maureen's doorstep are stupid, and in no way a discussion of adult choice and breaking the mold.

Like Ted Sturgeon writing "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let Your Sister Marry One?", I believe that some of Heinlein's stuff was purposefully transgressive. I had this discussion with Jim Baen one time, and he admitted he thought that Heinlein mistakenly assumed that incest was taboo because of lack of thought, and not the deeply revolting topic that most people judge it to be. It didn't matter that he danced around the topic of genetics -- most people still find it revolting to consider. And the topic was also pervasive. Joe and Yeeta. Lazarus, Brian Smith, Two more of his offspring with "Westchester Weekends". All in all, it is not so simple that an Olympian explanation can satisfy.

We have to remember that Heinlein HAD no children.

He really did not depict children realistically and he did not seem to spend much time with many average children. He mentions his teenage pen pals (who were probably NOT average in that they wrote him at all!) but he does not really depict pre-adolescents much if at all (as far as I know - I could have missed some).

If children are brilliant teenagers who already worship you then it follows that he may not feel the same way about incest with kids because he really did not understand just how vulnerable and idiotic even the brightest kids can be.

Just my two cents worth....

Also as far as polyamory I would think it would be more attractive to people who are NOT "young, thin and beautiful" those people can always find someone to at least spend time (or more) with.

But having never experienced that I cannot really make an intelligent assessment except to say that it is certainly no one else's business. And there are families with young children with "extra" adults who live at the house and seem to serve a parental role for some of the clients I work with and we certainly do not ask for detail. (Once child had 4 parents listed in the application - we just run off more copies) And in fact if a functioning family that allowed something like the extended family that children used to grow up in to actually existed that would probably be beneficial for the kids. (What happens to the kids when the adults split up - esp if the primary caregiver was not biologically related at all?) Or in cases where three are more are related to the child (egg/sperm donor, etc)?

Anyway the rambling point here is that you cannot assume that if a character does/advocates something that the author also does/advocates that thing- even if we would really like that to be the case for our own reasons.

Audrey

I would assume we would be distinguishing between child abuse, which is quite often incestuous and quite damaging, and an act which was voluntary on both sides?

I point out that in all the incestuous instances between parent and child in Heinlein's work, it is the child that initiates the contact....or attempts to....

Actually, they tend to fight it off for quite some time, until it becomes clear -- as Bill has pointed out more than once -- that there will be no damage or negative consequences from the act....

I rather suspect it has something to do with being free and equal individuals....

I struggled with this topic for many years in my distaste and disgust....and still do...

But then, my mother wasn't Maureen....

RJ

True, Dan -- incest doesn't have to be physical. I suspect there is far more emotional incest occurring than physical, as when one parent puts the child into a role better suited for an adult....

Damage comes in many forms....

I started to reply by saying, "Ewwwww!! Ick!!!" but then I realized that would be juvenile.

I have no idea why Heinlein included "friendly incest" in some of his latter novels, other than shock value. I can't buy that there is any legitimate literary excuse. On the other hand, Sail is one of my favorite reads.

Well, I've known at least three instances of a parent turning a child into their "partner" without it becoming physical, to the best of my knowledge. I've heard more than one psych person refer to "emotional incest" as a term of description.

I have no formal training in the field, of course, other than a bunch of reading....'

R.

If one were to use the simple term "offspring", the pairings would be rife, and include Ira/Hamadryad, possibly Ishtar/Tamara, Brian/Nancy, Lazarus/Maureen//Laz//Lor//[Dora]. The possibility of a Deety/Jake child is also mentioned, but not dwelled on at length. In Cat Who Walks Through Walls it seems that such a child is a family member.

Oddly enough, he depicts sibling incest as negative [Pris/Don], while all occasions of parent/child are depicted as benign [ok, ok -- the visual of a Teddy Roosevelt Brian "licking his lips" over Nancy is just one visual too much]. In the real world, the power imbalance usually makes parent-child negative -- that and the fact that it seems to start way too early in childhood rather than waiting until the offspring are teens. I'd be curious what sort of experiences self-reporters discussed -- and I wonder how many would consider a parent a benign experience.

P.S. Almost every oldest Boomer child was made into a little grownup as mom and dad continued to spawn madly. It Was Not Fun. I was ready to be emancipated by the time I was 10, and my parents essentially handed me my freedom when I was 14.

Well, for those of us who know fundamentalist Christians, there's a strain of them who are happier accepting that Adam and Eve's children committed incest than accepting evolution....

According to fundamentalists, of course, we're all related and committing incest, just at a safe remove...except for those people in the south with the funny names and bad hair...

And it's all relative... I was surprised to hear the term 'jailbait' used so much when I came to America, because it was virtually unknown in Britain, where the age of consent was (still is, I suppose) 16. And there was a much more laissez faire attitude to what went on even a couple of years younger than that. But in the USA, and especially now, the moral outrage over anything going on before the magical age of 18 is so palpable.

And what's with the jail on statutory rape (that term doesn't exist in Britain, why call a consensual act rape) for the teachers who seduced 17 year-old boys? Years ago we had a different word for boys who were bedded by older women... we called them "lucky".

It's not quite that bad. The cops have a totally laissez-faire attitude toward sex between partners who are two years apart in age. Crossing the magic 18 line can make one of them an adult, but with an ongoing relationship, the cops still don't care.

Others may care, but in MO the law is clear -- partners who are close in age get a free pass legally.

Something about the relationship in Door Into Summer seems to have been overlooked, or at least bypassed in the general context of this thread: NOTHING about the relationship between Dan and Ricky is "incest." They aren't related. He is "Uncle Danny" only as a family courtesy; Ricky is his longtime friend and partner's daughter.

So the issues with age difference are there, but not incest.

I have a hard time seeing little Ricky Ticki Tavi as jailbait. The relationship only seems a little wierd in the context of what Heinlein wrote much later. Eh?

Y'know, I'm not sure if we aren't missing a cultural strain we've let go, because of the creep factor. There are any number of movies and books from that period (twenties through fifties) wherein an older man plays the game of being the "boyfriend" or "fiancee" of a much younger girl. True, these days we go "ick" and take the child away, but back then, when sexual abuse was largely left out of the public discourse, it was seen as charming and normal to have that kind of relationship.

It still floats up here and there -- my daughter used to tell everyone she was going to marry me when she grew up, until she discovered that wasn't allowed.

I think it's more likely Heinlein is playing with that fairly common event, and as he so often did, carried it to its logical limit (and beyond).

One might also consider that these two people were the only ones who were in a trusting situation, where they weren't betrayed by each other. They're both hurt by Belle and the marriage....

I still find it unsettling that an 11-year old decides on the course of her life with such certainty, but then, they do that...until reality intrudes. But the object of her crush disappears, and this prevents the natural process of growing out of it. Rikki lives her adolescence with an idealized lover, who isn't around to disappoint her, and whom she might have compared each boy her own age with unfavorably, as there was no opportunity for comparison with the real thing, only her idealized image.

Now, none of that's in the book, and I am more unsettled by Dan saying it's what he wants...but then, he's turning to Rikki precisely because of the unconditional, asexual nature of the relationship. It's love he wants, not sex; in no way does he violate the taboos Heinlein always followed between minor and adult. Rikki is a free agent when they reunite, and she could have turned him down then....

That said, and given all the conversation about the nature of this relationship, I have to suspect Heinlein did this all deliberately, to get his readers pondering the nature of adulthood and love, and all the other things we've kicked around....

This would be a perfect example of what I was talking about. It also runs the opposite way, so to speak, when you have grown men describing their mothers as their "best girl."

Again, it may be a gay thing now, but back in the twenties through the fifties, you find straight men saying it in movies. Gary Cooper, "Pride of the Yankees", for example.