92 of 111 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A voyeuristic look into the life of a second-wave feminist with an entitlement mentality run amok., December 19, 2008
This review is from: Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage (Hardcover)
The Bookslut review nails it: [...]
I have no issue with the practice of polyamory. My issue is with the messenger. Jenny is a clever woman who easily wins people over with her warm demeanor and self-deprecating wit. However, I cannot take what she says at face value. Her book is supposed to be about open "marriage", but it has been (rather sheepishly) dedicated to her girlfriend. This subtle but cavalier gesture underscores the self-centered attitude that drives the story within.
We learn of Jenny's amazing power to attract youthful lesbian lovers who previously identified as straight ("whee"). We learn how she cheated on her spouse for the simple reason that she really, really likes having sex with other people (who doesn't?). And we learn how her husband is "the rock" in a marriage where he seemingly only exists to help her reach "the sky"... her girlfriend. How nice. I'm sure every spouse, male or female, aspires for such a role.
I agree with Jenny that our culture is overdue for a reexamination of monogamy. This simply isn't the book to accomplish it. Jenny is bisexual and has an arrangement that allows for male and female lovers if she so decides. However, other bisexuals practice a form of "gender monogamy" in which only partners of the same gender are allowed. Still others consider themselves sexually monogamous but engage in extramarital emotional relationships. Essentially, we can live as we please as long as it is for the betterment of everyone involved. Which is why it would be nice to hear the argument from her husband's perspective instead of exclusively from a person who is so gung-ho about wanting it all, at any cost.
If mainstream America is ever going to buy into this lifestyle, we need more than lip service and a ring on the cover. We need the whole story. As it stands, "Open" would make a better episode of "Desperate Housewives" than an instructional course in Polyamory 101. It may be a lurid and honest story, but it fails to persuade.
What value is honesty in the absence of honor? Not much, I'm afraid.
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65 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Stunning Memoir, June 5, 2008
This review is from: Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage (Hardcover)
Jenny Block has produced a stunning memoir in "OPEN: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage." In writing about relationships and marriage, Block writes what other authors rarely put into print. Her's is not a memoir about finding Mr. Right, nor is it a comic memoir about finding a string of Mr. Wrongs. This is not about her experiences going through an awful divorce, and it is not about how she discovered herself after leaving her husband. This is not a traditional coming out story, neither is it a tortured tale of her life lived deep in the closet. Jenny Block's memoir is about challenging conventional wisdom. This memoir is an attempt to shock the reader awake with the clear message that anything is possible, as a couple, as long as it is engaged in openly and honestly. She admits that her story could have been a more traditional one of infidelity and divorce had she lacked the courage to think in radically different ways. At the same time she acknowledges that her solution, a polyamorous marriage, may not work for everyone. What she is adamant about, in retelling her experiences, is that no one has to settle for the standard answers. When your marriage is on the verge of divorce, when the boyfriend whom you love dearly is just not satisfying you anymore, these are not merely times when one should despair, according to Jenny, these are the times when one should get creative and get honest.
This begs the question, has Jenny Block saved her marriage or destroyed it? How one answers this question, after reading this memoir, is really a testament to how one feels about monogamy. If one feels that monogamy is essential for a marriage then the only answer one may accept is that Jenny Block's marriage ended when she took other lovers. She may not have gotten divorced, yet she is certainly not still "married," because, committed monogamists would argue, marriage requires a monogamous relationship. In response she spends time in her memoir discussing the statistics on infidelity and the pain caused by the lying and deceptions which accompany the infidelities. The unwritten question asked in much of this memoir is - wouldn't we, as a society and a world, be better off if we spent less time hurting each other with lies and deceptions regarding sex? Throughout her memoir she challenges the reader to think about what is the worst thing that could happen in being honest with each other? Yet not wanting to dwell on the negatives, Jenny uses her life and experiences as she retells them, to argue that the best outcome is that your spouse or partner will be fine with you having other lovers.
And why not! Sex may not be just sex, and romantic entanglements may occur, but Block suggests that everything can be worked out as long as you and your primary partner are able to maintain open and honest communication. Block returns to the theme of honesty often in this memoir. It reminded me of Bertrand Russell writing in his 1967 autobiography about how he no longer loved his wife, "I had no wish to be unkind, but I believed in those days (what experience has taught me to think possibly open to doubt) that in intimate relations one should speak the truth." Which leads to the next most common theme in Block's memoir which is, speaking the truth is not easy. It requires each person in the relationship to really listen to each other and to speak with gentleness yet from the heart.
The most stunning argument presented by Block is that no one should be insecure if they can't fulfill 100% of their lover's needs and desires. "I began to think" she writes "it was unfair-ludicrous, really-to expect my husband to fulfill me on every level. Outside of the bedroom, I don't have those standards for him. We have different friends for different things." When I read this, I immediately realized the truth in what she was writing. Block's approach is a much more mature and loving way to think about ones spouse or partner. When teenagers date they date obsessively. They need to do everything together and being apart even for a short time can seem like they are loosing the one they love. As we mature in our ability to love we realize that the people we love are their own individuals and that they have their own needs and wants. Space, and the ability to be ones own self, is not only important but can be crucial to maintaining a relationship. Wives give their husbands the space to go golfing while husbands give their wives the space to attend yoga classes, and their happiness as a couple increases when each can engage in these fulfilling activities. Block's radical, and truthful, approach is to ask why do we not behave the same way with regard to sex. If one partner wanted oral sex and the other did not, would not the relationship be happier if the one desiring the oral sex could find satisfaction with another? In theory, we all have to recognize that the relationship would be happier. The problem with agreeing with Block on this point is that no one wants to imagine that it is this simple. Block would be the first to agree that open and honest communication is difficult and that there are pitfalls to an open relationship which must be avoided, but, if there were any motivation for writing this memoir, it was to demonstrate that it is possible to work through and around these difficulties and to achieve happiness and sexual fulfillment.
Now to my criticism of the book.
If relationships are about more than one person then a memoir about living in an open marriage must represent more than one voice. Up until Chapter 3, Just Pick Someone Already, Block was fine writing solely from her perspective. From the point of her marriage onward the book would have been better, had we as readers, been able to hear, at least sometimes, from her husband's perspective. The one page letter that Christopher contributes at the end of the book is not sufficient to overcome this glaring omission. I think that the book would have been given more credibility if they had written about opening their marriage as a couple rather than solely from Jenny's voice. Writing only from her voice opens the prose up to the criticism of being too self-centered, a criticism that is enhanced because it is Block, herself, who desires the additional sexual relationships and her husband who seems content without them.
When Block's lover Jemma is added to the picture in Chapter 7, You Can't Run Out Of Love, her voice too should have been added to the prose. If living in a polyamorous marriage is about maintaining an open and honest dialog between partners, then Block missed an opportunity by not showing us, the reader, that dialog in action. The inclusion of Christopher's one page letter at the end of the book stands in stark contrast to the missing letter from Jemma.
If anything these omissions leave Jenny standing alone to face her critics accusations that her husband and girlfriend are not really OK with the situation.
The omissions may not be that troubling, however, if one can accept that not everyone is ready at the same time to tell their story. While Jenny Block may have been ready to proclaim her open relationship to the world, Christopher and Jemma certainly may not want to be that public. Should we distrust Block's motives because of this, no. Is the book less compelling, yes, but marginally so. Block herself does not shy away from writing from her own truth. The fact that she is only one, of three persons in this relationship, able to be so open and honest should not lead to criticisms of her or distrust for her. Instead, it should lead every reader to recognize the courage it took to write this book and to value more, her lone voice.
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33 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Inappropriately and unnecessarily heavy on feminist dogma, August 9, 2009
The feminist propaganda in Open is downright offensive. Having an open marriage is not exclusive to feminists (or bisexuals or Republicans or Democrats or blacks or whites, for that matter). For Block to propose that a marriage in which a woman is devoted to her husband (the author cites Iris Krasnow and the tv shows thirtysomething and Leave it to Beaver, and many, many more supposedly anti-feminist references, to a nauseating degree) undoes "years of fighting for women's rights" is preposterous. Marriages must be nurtured in order to survive the ordeals of parenthood and more. No one is saying that it is the woman's job alone. The book also contains enough unnecessary and ancient statistics and quotes from other books to make you rolleyes. These statistics are supposed to open our eyes to the shocking truth (!) that monogamy may not be innate in human beings. I mean, COME ON!! We've known that for decades now.
Trust me when I tell you that you want to trade Open for the most succinct version of Block's story. Read One Big Happy Family, by Rebecca Walker. It contains a pleasantly condensed version of Open, one that does not beat us about the head with hate for women who do not require a feminist label in order to feel empowered.
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