“I love you. And you. And you.” – A documentary review

I’m always a little leery before watching a mainstream documentary on polyamory, worried both that the the documentary itself might present a biased view, and/or that the examples might not be the best at explaining the poly ideals to a larger audience.  In many ways, I love You And You and You rose above both these traps … certainly, it seems that the filmmakers went in with a reasonably open mind, and I think in at least one of the families they profile, they’ve chosen excellent role models.  The focus on jealousy as a main and unavoidable factor in relationships was a place where the documentary falls into a familiar trap, but its a common one coming from a monogamous mindset, and while I wish they’d explored some of the ways jealousy is avoided in more depth, I think in the family of Scott, Larry, and Teresa they show that jealousy isn’t an issue that needs to come between people.

To me, Scott, Larry, and Teresa are an ideal example.  Well spoken and passionate about their lives, it was interesting to listen and watch Teresa try and convince the interviewer that she really was happy for Scott as he prepared for his date with another women … the incredulousness that she is met with (the interviewers constantly go back to that question of her being Jealous of Scott’s desire to find a new relationship) is typical I think, but I think Teresa does an excellent job of continually expressing her lack of concern.  One of the things that I think is highlighted throughout the sections with Larry, Scott, and Teresa is the equality of love that polyamory offers … through the expression of love for each other, and enjoyment at each other’s pleasure, they show the best side of a poly family, IMO.

To me, the more troublesome example was the family of Jerome, Francesca, Angel, and Linda.  Its clear from the start of their segments that there are far more jealousy issues in this relationship, and its hard to say with any certainty that the new addition to their family, Linda, is poly at all.  Comments like “I like my things to be my things, and that includes my boyfriends” seem to me to spell danger to any true poly relationship … it strikes me as specifically monogamous, and i truly wonder if she is in it for the right reasons.  More worrisome to me is that poly in this relationship seems to only go one way, as Jerome makes it clear that only he is allowed multiple partners of the opposite sex.  While there are many forms of polyamory, and its very hard to call any one form right or another wrong, surely one which allows the privilege selectively on sex must be justified in some way so as not to face charges of hypocrisy.  Unfortunately, to me, Jerome’s justification smacks of just that hypocrisy, claiming that he couldn’t handle the jealousy and competition of one of his women having an outside relationship.  While this is strictly my opinion, I find it hard understand how someone can ask others to go into a relationship they themselves are unwilling to accept … If he isn’t able to deal with his own insecurities, he has no right to ask that of anyone else, IMO.

Beyond that, my main concern with the documentary is that there wasn’t enough of an effort made to discuss the aspect of enjoying seeing your partner enjoy themselves, no matter what form that enjoyment takes.  To me, thats the key to any successful poly relationship … the notion that one of our expressions of love in a poly relationship is sharing the joy our partners get from other relationships.  I think thats the key to dispensing with jealousy, but its very hard to do without a very deep love for your partners.

One of the concepts that is rarely discussed in poly documentaries, and “I love you. And you. And you.” is no better on this count, is how romantic love CAN be polyamorous, when most of the world sees it as strictly exclusive.  The very language we use to describe love affairs … “Give me all your heart,” “you are my one and only,” etc … is based in the notion that once you fell romantic love for one person, its impossible to feel it for another.  Of course we know its NOT impossible … we say its wrong, or immoral, but we rarely examine WHY its immoral, or what differentiates an extremely deep friendship with a member of the opposite sex, and a romantic relationship (other than sex of course).  Society never expects you to have only one friend, but as soon as sex becomes involved in the friendship, exclusivity kicks in … one of the things polyamory needs to do to bridge the gap of understanding, IMO, is explain that relationship between friendship and love better.

As humans, we actually engage in many polyamorous relationships everyday, every one of us.  They aren’t sexual relationships, but they are cases where we have deep love for others that isn’t exclusive in any way.  With our children, we don’t have exclusive love.  When a second child arrives, we don’t have to divide our total love in two for the new arrival … the love we feel for the new baby is wholly different from that which we feel for other children.  There is no contradiction in loving 3 or 4 or 10 children at once … our love for our children in poly in that sense.  Likewise with our deep friendships.  We don’t have a huge number of deep, lifelong friendships, but we usually have more than one.  In general, these are people that we love in very real and deep ways, be they the same or the opposite sex … we see no contradiction in having several friends that we love and care for deeply.  Love itself doesn’t seem to have any exclusivity attached by default, and I think thats one of the key things that poly people need to get across when talking to the general public.

Overall, I enjoyed the documentary … any positive portrayal of poly in the media is a good thing and this one was largely positive.  I certainly think that Larry, Scott, and Teresa make an excellent example of the poly lifestyle, and I think there’s much to learn from that example.  Its definitely worth your time, whether you are already poly looking to see other examples, or interested in learning more about it.