Guest post: A Poly Book in the Human Library

A friend of mine recently participated in a local event called the Human Library. Apparently this idea has been catching on for some time, and you can read more about the concept of people as "living books" humanlibrary.org.


Here's what she had to say about her experience as a book about polyamory:

I was part of a human library event that was two days long a couple of weeks ago. The event required me to take a vacation day from work, but it was a vacation to remember, so I am glad to of used the time. First of all some back ground on how it worked. The entrance way to the university library had comfy chairs and side tables where we could all take our readers to talk. We sat in chairs to one side behind a desk where there was a binder of all our book titles and an intro. People would come by and look at the binder and decide who they wanted to know more about.

Topics ranged from California same sex marriage laws to someones experience moving from Ontario to Florida during a tornado... and someones experience of ageism on campus to another who was experiencing what it was like to be a Chinese person come to school in Western Canada ...very diverse. I was by far the most taken out book it turned out. Exhausting! My friend was there for a time also talking about poly but from the intro kind of angle and she left early so I was it for the afternoon.

It was so much fun and so interesting what people wanted to talk about. I was willing to share about my experiences as a mistress/domme, my journey of discovery of my sexuality and my journey to get to where I am today in my poly relationships... most people were into hearing about the latter although there were definite over laps. I talked a lot about my experiences as a younger woman and how I created my goals for family and how I began making my dreams come true... true to me, no one else and how we can all do whatever our creative minds decide... there is room for all of what we want to do, regardless of what it is...

What I found most interesting were the students from abroad that were interested in and thought poly made sense, but didn't know how to normalize it for themselves. Why students from abroad I have no idea. I talked a lot about jealousy too and how to handle it. There were some people that just plain looked confused and defensive and that brought up odd feelings for me as I felt myself feeling less assured that I am "okay" and noticed I started closing down. Instead of doing so I asked them questions and brought out their relationship style and marketed the concept of we are all different. That seemed to work.

It was fascinating to be taken out by people who didn't know me and who were brave enough to engage in a process like that. When they flipped through the book they had no idea who they were going to get when they looked a the assembly of people sitting there. It was a bizarre feeling... we all wore shirts that made us all look the same... they said, "don't judge a book by it's cover" on them. They were all "man" shirts. Very unflattering... heh, seriously though, why can't they make a shirt that is unisex. Could they not of had womens t-shirts made? That was my only complaint.

There is a plan to do this event next year and I will be really excited to do it again... look out for it!

Creating Poly Community & a Wish for 2010

The topic of poly community has been a hot one recently, both in the media and among my friends and acquaintances here in British Columbia. As a networker and someone who enjoys getting people together (I need very little excuse to do this, btw -- a good dinner will suffice!) facilitating the growth of poly community poses challenges and also rewards for me and my fellow poly organizers. Learning as I go along, I've gotten to thinking about what keeps a community strong yet flexible enough to accommodate change.

I started up the Victoria Poly 101 discussions as a way to both meet people who were interested in responsible, honest, multi-partnered relationships and as a way to help provide information about this relationship choice. What I didn't expect when I started hosting meets was the overwhelming sense of "community" that would grow between the very diverse members of the group which gathered every month to discuss a rather limited topic.

This got me thinking about the role of diversity within communities, and how it can lend strength if it exists in the right proportion to the sharing of a common goal or interest. While VP101 is a diverse group, it's also becoming a strong community -- one that shares the goal of self-exploration and growth as well as learning about what it means to be polyamorous. Learning about ourselves, no matter how diverse we may be, is the other common thread in our community, and this, more than any other shared passion, is what keeps our diverse group going strong. After all, there are (as we are fond of saying in all our discussions) as many ways to be or practice poly as there are people.

I want to thank every person who has come out to a Poly 101 meet in the past year -- each of you has contributed a unique and strong piece to the larger puzzle of our ever-changing community. As we continue to grow and change as individuals and as a group, I think we can feel confident it will always provide a place to explore not only the challenges of different relationship structures, but a haven for the diverse, the loving, and the courageous of our community at large.

Happy 2010!

~Kiki