This is a followup to my True Love blog (if you couldn't tell by the title).

A few people (meaning SJG) brought up some excellent points about potential problems with my situation that I hadn't really thought about. The first is children. We have a sort of unspoken agreement that none of us want kids, or at least not right now, and/or not with one another. So I hadn't really given it much thought. I can certainly see how bringing children into the picture could complicate things (hell, it does that in monogamous relationships). 

But, having given it some thought, I think it could actually still work. In fact, in some ways I think it would be better than two parents raising a kid alone. Unorthodox, sure (and society's rules to blame for that), but if you think about it, it's really no different than a large family all living under one roof. Like the Waltons. The kid would still have his mommy and daddy, but also have aunts, perhaps uncles, maybe even brothers/sisters/cousins living with him in the same house. That would be pretty awesome, if you ask me. 

Some might say the kid would be psychologically damaged by such a thing, but I disagree. Again, I compare it to growing up in a large house with much of your family all under the same roof. Kids coming out of households like that aren't damaged or traumatized or anything like that. Really, the only reason the kid should even be bothered by it is if he's taught that it's wrong.

Now, I know that he'll probably encounter that at school, kids with "normal" families picking on his for being different, and it's certainly very difficult to teach a child that his peers are mindless sheep who accept anything they're told without questioning it, and that he needs to think for himself and to question things. I'm sure that would be an issue we'd have to deal with, but I hardly call that traumatizing. Who the hell DOESN'T have deal with other kids picking on them in school while they're growing up? 

Another issue is the desire to feel unique, special, "favorite", above and superior to all others in the eyes of your mate. I can certainly understand that, though I question whether it's really necessary to feel unique and superior. Special is good enough for me. All my kittens are special to me, and I'm sure I'm special to them too (and perhaps they're even special to each other). I've never missed feeling like I was elevated above everyone else in a girl's eyes. In fact I never really noticed it was gone. But maybe that's just me. Perhaps this only seems perfect to me because it's perfect for my needs, and the needs of others may dictate that an arrangement like mine is not ideal for them.

Several people insisted that the situation I'm in is too good to last, and that it's inevitable that it will fall apart. I suppose what they mean is that people will get attached and they'll want me to themselves (or I'll want them to myself) or something along those lines. I disagree. The very foundation of this arrangement is the recognition that those kinds of feelings, the desire for exclusivity, and the jealousy experienced if a relationship is not exclusive, are both unnatural and ugly. They were taught to us. We were indoctrinated from the time we were young to believe that that is what love is, and the way love is supposed to be. And it's those very feelings, spawned by the limitations and restrictions that society places on love, that are the source of the pain and misery people associate with love. Love, as I see it, is not something that can be betrayed. "Cheating" on a lover, without society's rules to hold love back, is in fact quite impossible. Not getting enough attention can be an issue I suppose if you have just one or two partners but they both have many. But really, none of us have ever had that problem. And besides, all of us are free to seek extra attention elsewhere if we want it. 

Some people mentioned disease, so I'll say it again. My girls and I are clean. I'm not concerned about STD's. Some of them date sometimes, but they use protection and we all get tested pretty frequently. And before anyone asks, some of them put our relationship on hold while they're dating, others don't, and insist that they want another guy like me who's ok with open relationships and that if the guys they date can't handle it then they don't want to date them. But back to the subject, again, I'm not concerned about STD's. 

And I feel like there's one more I'm forgetting. I'll come back and edit this if it comes back to me. That's all for now.