compersion - a love story.

totally lifted off the TSR boards, here.

"In the growing American poly demographic, a language and culture is starting to sprout. One of the new terms that has been invented and is going around is "compersion".

Compersion was invented as a term for what could be roughly considered the opposite of jealousy. It has been described as "knowing that your partner is getting it on with their other partner down the hall, and feeling nothing but happiness that your partner is having a wonderful time". So that is, ideally, what one gets out of one's lover's polyamory: the knowledge that they are getting their needs met, are having a great time, and are generally happier for this being in their life. One would assume that one would like to see one's beloved happy in all possible ways, yes? I would assume that would go especially for those whose submissive lives center entirely around one's beloved.

Of course, in order to achieve compersion, you have to first be able to look at your own needs and figure out which aren't getting met. Some you may be able to get your partner to help meet ("I really need for there to be one sexual activity which is special for us") and some you will probably have to work on purging. The big demons in the latter category are usually social programming. We are told, by our culture, that sex is the coin in which we are paid to show how much a lover cares about us and is committed to us. In polyamory, that coin doesn't have that value any more (which means that it tends to become time and attention spent instead), and people often have to go about deconstructing that social/mental construction.

One also has to give up on the Cinderella/nuclear family/people in pairs like shoes and socks romantic myth. As in, give up on it entirely. Kiss it goodbye. Let it go. Mourn it. Have a funeral for it, scream and cry and bury the fucker. Realize it for the social construction that it is, realize its purpose in being constructed, and that you do not need it. Acknowledge also how much of a hold it has over you, from the little girl in the bride gown pretending to get married and live monogamously ever after to the mystique of "going steady". Then, when you're done mourning it and you've uncrossed your fingers behind your back (where you've been pretending that you didn't really need to let it go), start thinking about what Love really is. Look at your relationship and say, "Is there enough love here to make it work even without that dream?" You'll probably be surprised.

Then find yourself a new coin and ask your lover to pay you in that. Time and attention? Special privileges? What says "primary" to you that isn't bound up with monogamy? Stretch your thinking. Then, when all this is done, you can start to work on compersion - see how happy it makes your beloved to have both of you. Not her, not you - both of you. Love it because it makes him so happy.

This is the only road out of that hell that I know of."

-Raven Kaldera