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Didn’t Like It2 of 2 members found this review helpful “I just read Polyamory: A Guide For the Clueless And Hopeful by Anthony Ravenscroft for the third time in a month, hoping to find some redeeming quality lurking in the tiny type. At 45 years old, my nearsighted vision is not as helpful as it once was, and even with bifocals, this book is a...” see full review » see other reviews » |
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1 of 1 members found this review helpful“After slogging through it on-and-off for 18 months, I finally finished Polyamory: Roadmaps for the Clueless and Hopeful, by Anthony Ravenscroft. It is a disorganized, frustrating, pedantic mess. I only continued the slog because it is one of the few resources out there on the subject, and there were nuggets of usefulness hidden in the tangled thicket.
Careswen wrote this review Saturday, September 13 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
By disorganized, I mean, really. The editor in me wonders who the hell let this book get published in its current state. And because the discussion is not organized topically, many themes are repeated incessantly throughout the volume as the author wanders from one subject to the next. The book could have been cut down into half by correcting this. It really reads as a meandering stream-of-consciousness. His "roadmaps" are a tangled path through the maze of his anecdotes. The anecdotes are usually offered to illustrate a particular point, but often they veer so far from the path, I've stopped caring. Sometimes he doesn't even explain what his point was, and I'm left wondering, "WTF was that about?" When I give up contemplating the latest mystery, I find that he has wandered up onto another soapbox of the One True Poly Way. He's rather arrogant about his conclusions, and in general he spouts his beliefs and anecdotes as the arrogant pontiff handing down wisdom to the initiates.
Throughout the book, the author focuses on one version of polyamory, the intimate network, and warns the reader repeatedly that it is the the only form of polyamorous relating that won't end in bitter unpleasantness. He frequently derides closed triads or groups, on the basis of his personal experience, as doomed to failure. He may have some points, but there are plenty of other people with plenty of experience otherwise. As the hinge in a V that is not planning to expand anytime soon, I found many of his comments insulting or discouraging. But when he finally got around to explaining his definition of the intimate network (on page 237!), I said to myself, "Oh! Is that all he means? Well, I already have that." "That" being a network of trusted individuals (not necessarily sexual partners, not even necessarily polyamorous) with whom you share your life and love. If only he had said so earlier, I wouldn't have been mentally fighting him through 80% of the book.
He also spends a lot of time deriding pair-bond or "couple-front" relating, which he never really explains, but we know it's bad, because he says it's like monogamy. Or something. I read that chapter three times, and I still don't know.
There is some good stuff. It just takes hip-waders and a butterfly net to find it.
The author advocates a no-bullshit, high-communication approach to love, be it mono or poly. He emphasizes communication (and the difference between real communication and just talk talk talk blah blah blah) repeatedly. He thinks of people as real humans with real baggage, and gives ideas of how that baggage can be handled best. There is a lot of sensible relationship advice and discussion of the balancing act that a polyamorous lifestyle requires. There are heavy doses of reality.
Would I recommend this book? Reluctantly. With the above notes. And only until I find a better one.”2 of 2 members found this review helpful“I just read Polyamory: A Guide For the Clueless And Hopeful by Anthony Ravenscroft for the third time in a month, hoping to find some redeeming quality lurking in the tiny type. At 45 years old, my nearsighted vision is not as helpful as it once was, and even with bifocals, this book is a difficult read for me at best. Anyone with more serious problems with sight would find it impossible. But I am not surprised that no one objected in advance to the book’s inaccessibility to people with visual disabilities, it actually makes sense. Insensitivity to diversity is one of the main flaws running through the entire text.
Polly_217 wrote this review Thursday, February 7 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
This book is full of personal experience and anecdotes. The author does not provide any scientific basis for any of his claims, and seems preoccupied with people who idealize a system of polyamory different than the open network with which he is involved. While I tend to agree for myself that open relationships promote the greatest emotional benefit for the participants, I have also noticed that closed group relationships tend to last longer. Life-long committed triads are not uncommon among my peers (I am in my mid-forties), and Mr. Ravenscroft consistently derides them, especially FMF triads. I do realize I am coming from my own experience and only provide anecdotal evidence, but I’m not writing a book designed to clue in the clueless.
His discussion of age-appropriateness seems hypocritical. While he himself has been attracted to teenagers, and involved with females only slightly older, he warns young people that it is in their best interest to experiment with only their peers, and by extension warns the rest of us away from them. What is good for him is evidently off-limits for those of less evolved. I would find his concern more genuine if he had actually applied this suggestion to his own behavior.
I suppose what bothers me most about this attempt to define what polyamory actually is is the classism and assumption of resources to which the reader has access. From Wikipedia, the definition of polyamory is: “the desire, practice, or acceptance of having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved”. This standard accepted definition says nothing about community organizing or participation. Many, many people in the United States (such as myself) and elsewhere do not live within a reasonable driving distance of a major metropolitan area. Even if I did try to found a community in my town, (which, incidentally, I did do, with the help of meetup.com), people are so closeted here that no one will show up for a discussion or social group. Also, not everyone has a computer, and if they do, they may not have internet access. To make the assumption that we all have some sort of polyamorous community with which to be involved is arrogant at best; at worst it is the most atrocious kind of exclusionary identity politics I have ever run across.
If you have a trained eye for bullsh*t, then please, by all means, take the best and leave the rest. However, if you actually are clueless and new to the concept of polyamory, this is not a book I would recommend.”
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