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KEEP CALM and THANK YOU

I moved to America in September 1999. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around I knew I was home. This holiday is different for me. It’s not about going home and spending time with relatives, and it’s not about dubious historical references. The idea of a holiday where people openly express their gratitude was never a part of my childhood. It’s not very British. For me, Thanksgiving is about finding my home, and my chosen family. It’s my American holiday. Although I try to be grateful every day, for one day of the year I feel surrounded and engulfed with it.

I can’t even begin to name names of the people who I am grateful for this year, because the world swelled up and supported me in a way I have never experienced before. I was emotionally held by friends, I was financially supported by kickstarter backers, and I was creatively supported by the volunteers at Mission Control and the local Kinky Salon chapters. As a stiff upper lip Londoner, allowing people to help has been the most frightening and rewarding experience of my life. My heart has opened and my life has become infinitely more fulfilling and productive.

I’ve always expressed my gratitude to my close friends–the people who really know me–but this year I feel grateful in a whole new way to the larger bubble of people who surround me. There are so many people now playing roles in this community whose participation adds it’s magic. From the bartender at Kinky Salon Copenhagen, to the person who took out the trash in Portland, to every single person who read my book. I have so much gratitude it’s overwhelming sometimes to think about.

So this year I’m putting out a special shout to all the people at the far reaches of this incredible labyrinth of experience called Kinky Salon.

I see you, and I love you. Thank you for everything you do.

Polly

x

The Moral Minority

 

Please don’t mistake my support for sex positive culture and alternative lifestyle as a lack of morality. In fact it’s quite the opposite. I have a set of personal ethics and a moral code which I take extremely seriously.

So who are the Moral Minority? They are the people who try to live ethical lives using their own self defined moral structures. They don’t subscribe to religions or self-help gurus or cults. They make it up as they go along. Then they *create* cults. Only joking. In all seriousness, folks, I would love it if this post inspired you to write down yours.  I have found that people who create their own moral structures, rather than relying on their culture or religion to tell them what to do, tend to be more invested in their own sense of morality.

Here’s mine:

“I believe in equal rights and personal freedom, and support everyone in creating lives which make them happy. I’m anti-censorship -although I’m confused why there is so much gratuitous violence in movies and TV and in general I choose to avoid it. I think art is the most powerful tool for evolving culture. I think our money systems are the root of most of our global problems. And I think that sex is good for you.”

As a side note: Western culture was built on the premise that sex is dangerous and distracting, so should only be considered as an option when you’re making babies. And even then it should be done behind closed doors, in missionary position, and you should probably feel terrible about it afterwards. The sexual revolution of the last 100 years has shifted that, and nowadays there’s a Victoria’s Secret in every mall selling lacy lingerie to housewives all across America looking to spice up their love lives. Oprah tells us we should have healthy sex lives. Dr Phil agrees. Middle America might still be wracked with guilt, but the coasts have pretty much accepted that sex is fucking awesome. My life has been dedicated to spreading this message. I would like to spend more of my time supporting the other points in my personal manifesto, but there are only so many hours in the day. If you hear of any opportunities in sex positive, equal rights, anti-censorship, alternative currency art projects please do let me know.

 

 

Erotic Economy

The word ‘erotic’ is derived from the Greek God of love, sexuality and beauty, Eros. It’s a binding principle of attraction, emotion and union. Erotic nature draws us together in pleasure, desire, and joy. Where Eros is feminine, Logos is masculine and refers to the rational mind, logic and reason. Western culture is built on the veneration of Logos, with knowledge and understanding being valued above intuition and feeling.

Carl Jung, Aspects of the Feminine:
“Woman’s psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest.”

Our current market economy is a perfect example of the logos principle made manifest. It is a ledger with numbers which do not require emotion to understand, and it allows us to make transactions without the inconvenience of building relationships. It satisfies the assumption that if I give something I want something in return. An Erotic Economy, based in the principles of Eros, is one that brings people together in community, and it loosens the binds on the steadfast logos principle that one plus one must always equal two. It allows people to build relationships and experience emotionally significant moments through their transactions. The Erotic Economy is based in the giving of gifts.

Lewis Hyde, The Gift:
“Unlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between parties involved. When gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of interconnected relationships in it’s wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges”

Giving an individual gift is different from participating in a Gift Economy- it’s a one off transaction with no expectation. When you give a gift you do not expect to get something in return. You give as an individual expression of your generosity, affection, or obligation. Culturally, there are all kinds of reasons to give gifts- birth, death, religious holidays, or to celebrate a child’s new teeth.

A Gift Economy is something different- it is a system of commerce where goods and services are exchanged through the giving of gifts, where altruism and trust are rewarded by needs being met and a quality of exchange that becomes a gift in itself. Where our market economy begins with the question “what shall I buy?” the gift economy begins with “what shall I give?”. It turns the question inward to find value internally, asking where your personal gifts might be received, rather than putting value on external commodities. Unlike the market economy, when you find a place where your gift can be received, there is no expectation that the person you shared a transaction with will return something of equal value to you. Instead, a Gift Economy expects (but does not demand) that they give something of equal or higher value on to someone else. The gift keeps giving, bringing value, building relationships and becoming a binding principle of community. The inevitable outcome of this process is that soon someone will give you a gift, and the equation will balance out. But rather than a sense of entitlement, of being ‘owed’, when a gift reaches it way back to you it’s surprising and joyful.

In an Erotic Economy you put your gifts out into the world and let them leave your sight, without direct expectation of reciprocation, and then naturally receive gifts as a result of your abundant behavior, building trust and community through emotionally satisfying transactions.

But there are a few potential pitfalls for this kind of economic system. For those people with a specific purpose, or with needs to be met, it seems like a slow and inefficient way of doing things. A fearful voice in your head wants to ask “what happens if I give and give and never get anything back?”. The Erotic Economy focuses on the act of giving, with the act of receiving as a bi-product of the process and not the goal.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, the visionary and social pioneer describes sexual arousal as an evolutionary urge to procreate. The success of the species has been dependent on it, but in our present planetary circumstance we no longer need to increase our population to survive, and she suggests that the evolutionary urge has shifted from procreation to co-creation. We no longer need to create more people to be a successful species, instead we need to become more creative and collaborative, to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, each other and the planet we live on, to create sustainable life on Earth. She describes this urge to create together as ‘vocational arousal’. Where in the past we have had an evolutionary sexual urge to procreate, now we have a ‘supra sexual’ urge which drives an evolutionary desire to co-create.

When I meet someone who inspires me to collaborate I feel an arousal that is similar to a sexual urge. I want to join my thing with their thing and make beautiful music together. It makes me a little crazy, like the theia mania (“madness from the gods”) of the Ancient Greeks. I have to admit I have an uncontrollable urge to collaborate on creative projects! It get’s me HOT!

If you add this concept of the Supra Sexual urge to the Erotic Economy, things really start to get steamy. A community of people driven by an evolutionary urge to co-create, and a system of commerce that builds a sense of interconnectedness and community- the very act of participating becomes a transformational, evolutionary experience! Rather than being stuck in the fear that your needs might not be met, there is an outpouring of connection and creativity which fuels and drives future transactions. Finding a need that you can fill creates vocational arousal, and the act of giving satisfies your Supra Sexual urge. Giving becomes your goal, and receiving becomes an inevitable and ecstatic side effect of this process.

– The act of giving- A Supra Sexual urge to reach out
A sensation of release and surrender
A demonstration of abundance and generosity
A sense of being received for your gifts
Gaining trust in community

– The act of receiving- A Supra Sexual desire quenched
Having your needs met
A sense of gratitude and joy
Humility and relief
Building trust with community

The Culture of Giving

From the caves of pre-history to the utopian survival freakfest, the Burningman Festival, man has been giving gifts to build community. Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins talks about the culture of giving that existed in Stone Age life as being an expression of abundance. This is evidenced by the very fact that people shared everything they had with each other in times that we, in our modern reality of aeroplanes and computers, see as being a time that was extremely ‘poor’ with only basic survival needs being considered. And yet Stone Age Man was a giver. So why, when resources were seemingly so scarce, did he share? Because the act of giving kept the community strong and built stone age mans reputation. Being highly regarded meant that you were taken care of when times were tough. Back in the Stone Age it was important not to hoard when resources were flowing, because living as part of a group was an essential part of your survival.

Fast forward to the Black Rock Desert, home to the Burningman Festival, and a very modern take on the concept of a Gift Economy. At the festival, participants are not allowed to buy or sell anything, and must arrive with everything they need to survive for a week in the desert. But they bring more that that, and they do more than survive- they thrive. Massive art projects spring out of the dust, created by teams of volunteers, and camps with every theme imaginable are created for one week, and then disassembled and brought home, or burned right there in the desert. People meet in the middle of nowhere and share what they have with each other, taking joy in the very act of giving. Neighborly camps cook breakfast for each other and share costumes, shade and goodwill. A chance meeting between strangers might lead to the gift of a necklace or a button, with people building up their wearable trinkets as the week progresses, each one a memory of a connection made. Less tangible gifts of interactive playfulness might send one person on a treasure hunt, or a quest. Spontaneous performances erupt as people become players in ad hoc theaters. Musicians play, dancers dance, artists make art, and philosophers speak, even those who are highly paid professionals in their “real” lives, at Burningman they do it without any money exchanged.

Economist Bernard Leitaer tells us “the origin of the word ‘community’ comes from the Latin munus, which means the gift, and cum, which means together, among each other. So community literally means to give among each other.” ( from an interview with Bernard Lietaer by Sarah van Gelder). So the idea that you give within your community is built into the very entomology of the word. And yet for most people the concept of giving gifts is something you do during the holidays, and only to your close friends and family. So what has happened to this circle of giving which started at the beginning of man’s cultural roots in the stone age? In some places it survives, with Amish Barn Raising, Native American Potlatches, and even Open Source Software, but it certainly isn’t the norm.

The most surprising thing about the lack of giving in our culture is that most people will say it feels really good to give. So it feels really good, it builds community and it meets people’s needs, and yet we don’t do it. Why? Because the message that we receive from the media tells us that there just isn’t enough to go around and that someone, somewhere is going to have to go without, and in order to ensure that isn’t you (and your family) you should save up for a rainy day, keep your resources close in, not rely on anyone, and not give anything to anyone without getting paid. We are given the impression that to give a gift is naïve, and that people who give will be taken advantage of.

Looking back at all these successful examples of gift culture, it begs the question- what are elements that exist in these models which can be transferred into modern culture, loosening people’s grip on scarcity and giving them first hand experience of how good it feels to give?

Shared goals
Stone Age man wanted to survive, and that goal lead them to share what they have. Amish people join together and share resources to build barns. At Burningman, camps collaborate on creative projects, and share the bigger vision of creating a temporary city in the desert. Having a shared goal means that you are likely to have shared values, and therefore you can feel good about giving your gifts.

Reputation Building
Although your gift is given without expectation of a direct exchange, if you give freely and openly to your community, your reputation will build and elevate your status. Even if you are not intentionally giving to gain reputation, the only way to avoid it is to give anonymously. If a person gives within their community, then it will inevitably lead to people having higher opinions of them.

Trust Building
Some people need to know that when they give a gift, it’s received by someone who they consider to be worthy of it. They are afraid they they will be taken advantage of, and so need to build trusting relationships within their community in order to give.

Gathering together
Giving gifts is a reason to gather, and being in a physical space together means that we can fully experience what it is to give and to receive. Community is strengthened when we celebrate together, and get to know one another.

Creativity as Currency


We don’t need money to live rich lives- we are surrounded by wealth beyond our wildest dreams! I’m not speaking metaphorically here, this is a fact. I look around at my community and I see a surplus of creativity, an excess of beauty, an overflow of treasures. The problem is not lack of riches- it’ all just about perception.

Money isn’t wealth- it’s just an agreement about how we exchange. When none of us has money, then we all feel poor, but it’s an illusion! We all still have things to share, we just need a new agreement about how we exchange.

It’s a myth that money makes the world go around; in reality, its people’s creativity that really puts a spin on this planet. If we based a currency on our creativity, then it would be limited only by our imaginations.

Email to Bernard Lietaer, economist.

Dear Mr Lietaer,
although I am not an academic, or an economist, I am inspired by your theory that our economy is a reflection of the repression of the Great Mother archetype in society. I have read your ‘Fairy Tales that could come true’ on transaction.net, and I think they are absolute genius.

I am writing to you because I have a very different perspective from you and I think you might find it interesting. Like I said, I am not an academic- I barely finished school- but I have become a well respected community builder, event producer, instigator of creative culture, and a self appointed social scientist. My partner and I have spent the last seven years studying successful communities and what makes them tick. The simple answer is …(you know it already)- make it easy for people to share their stuff.
Which is economics, right? Haha
And that’s why I am emailing you!
We have a theory about modeling a new kind of trading/ gifting system, that’s based in the general idea of a LETS, but with a focus on creativity and creation, where value becomes a fluid concept, rather than a fixed price. It’s a way to get your practical needs met within a tough economy, but it also gives you the tools to instigate creative projects, giving you not only the means to exchange, but also the reason.

This isn’t just an abstract theory, but a fleshed out system which we have developed and tested in real communities. The system itself is as unexpected as the people who created it – it looks like a GAME. A really fun, compelling, creative, colorful game based in customizable trading cards. It’s cell phone enabled, connected to your social networks, and totally web 4.0. It gets people out in the world being creative, collaborating, and making stuff happen.
We think a system like this could change the world, unleashing a new social model of CREATOR CULTURE. We might be eternal optimists, or we might be right!
Would you be interested in meeting with us over coffee to talk about all this stuff? Our brains don’t work the way yours does, but we think they may be complimentary.