JWW: Burton discusses the special added pleasure for the females of being able to make love to two males simultaneously, and adds that he and Sam are strictly heterosexual, feeling that bisexuality on their part would be incompatible with their male roles in the group, although, interestingly enough, both had experienced a certain amount of homosexual activity during adolescence. He suggests that love between sisters lends itself to sexual expression, while love between brothers is strengthened by abstaining from such expression, and presents various arguments for this conclusion.
We are unsure what the ultimate size of our group will be. If it remains at five forever, none of us will have any complaints. Rimmer says that two couples or three couples is ideal. Another writer in a novel that is an obvious imitation of The Harrad Experiment says that a group can function better with an uneven number of members — five or seven — and holds that there should be an extra man. The idea seems to be that with an even number of men and women, people tend to couple up, to the detriment of the group. I do not know whether this should be true or not, as our group, first three and now five, has never had an even number of members. In any event, we are in no rush to change things, and if we do grow to six or seven ultimately, I suspect the individuals involved will have more to do with the success of the group than its precise numerical makeup.
You invited me to go on at great length, and I’ve done just that. If there’s anything else you want to know, feel free to write at any time...”
JWW: My next letter to Burton raised several points which he answered as follows:
November 28, 1971
Dear Jack,
It was good to hear from you. Everything is going well here. The group remains at five. We have been considering adding another couple but are in the process of deciding against them. The general feeling now is that there would be a sacrifice of intimacy if we enlarged, and naturally we wish to avoid this at all costs...
Do many people know of our group marriage? Our close friends in the area know, and other persons are aware that the five of us live together in communal fashion, although they probably are unaware of the precise nature of our relationship or that we feel ourselves to be committed to a permanent life together. Of course, on a college campus there is a far more tolerant attitude toward radical life styles than we could expect to find in the “real” world. Fortunately, the nature of our vocational interests is such that we will all be quite comfortable spending our lives in this sort of environment, and should have no trouble supporting ourselves through teaching, writing, etc. Our ultimate goal is a farm in the area. While we are realistic enough to know that subsistence farming is a difficult if not impossible way of life for most people, it would be ideal if we did not have to depend upon it for economic survival. The prospect of getting fresh milk from our goats, growing organic fruits and vegetables, is very attractive to us, and should not be hard to realize. This attitude is by no means ours exclusively. Most of the people we know have one version or another of this dream, whether or not they are sympathetic to the idea of group marriage or communal living. It is all bound up in the idea of being physically responsible for your own existence, learning crafts, getting close to nature, and living a sane life in an obviously insane world...
No, we anticipate no problems as far as children are concerned. As a matter of fact, we are presently awaiting medical confirmation of Janet’s pregnancy. Sam and I fathered the child. No, that’s not a typographical error. When Janet decided that she wanted to be pregnant, the two of us made love to her jointly, both of us offering a gift of sperm to this girl whom we love. Unless the child resembles one of us strongly, we will never know whose sperm was accepted. This was a deliberate choice; we want the child to have not one father but two. The same procedure will be followed if and when Nan and Kitty decide to get pregnant... We are all confident that our loving household will be a far better nursery than is provided in the standard American monogamous marriage...
JWW: A final exchange of letters in the course of preparing this book brought assurance that the group is still intact and going strong, that Janet is rejoicing in her pregnancy and is the envy of Nan and Kitty, that the group is almost certain to remain permanently at five, and that several other group marriages have begun to take shape in the college community, largely inspired by their example.
JWW: I do know of one group marriage which constitutes more an adaptation to circumstantial developments than the pursuit of a philosophical ideal. It involves three couples who live separately and raise their children separately, which makes it a substantially less tightly knit form of group marriage than Burton’s. The nature of the relationship is such, however, that I feel it is closer to group marriage in structure and concept than a trio of swinging couples.
My personal knowledge of this group is limited by the circumstances under which I acquired it. I was stuck overnight in a Midwestern city when my flight home was canceled because of weather conditions. I took a room at a nearby Holiday Inn and spent the evening in the bar. Somewhere along the way I began drinking and chatting with a fellow who had been similarly stranded and who was similarly morose about it. Conversation established that I was a writer, and what sort of things I wrote about. “I could tell you something you wouldn’t believe,” he said. I told him to go right ahead, but he grinned and changed the subject.
After more drinks and more talk, he began telling me about the relationship he and his wife had with two other couples. We went on drinking until the bar closed, and the next day I nursed a hangover at thirty-thousand feet. It was several days before I got around to jotting down some notes of what I recalled of our conversation. What follows is thus a less precise reconstruction of what I heard than is usually the case, as I can’t recall his conversational style and have no doubt forgotten some minor facts. I never did learn the names of the principals, and while I must have known his first name, I’m damned if I can remember it. For convenience, let’s name the couples alphabetically as Abner and Ann, Ben and Beverly, and Chuck and Cynthia. Abner’s the narrator — if his real name had been Abner, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have forgotten it.
“I might as well tell you this. You don’t know my name, or where I live, and we’re never going to see each other again, so what the hell.
“There are six of us, three couples. We’re all of us the same age, early thirties, and we’ve all been married just about ten years. Ben and Chuck and I work for the same company. We all went with this company shortly after we got married, and we were all from different parts of the country originally. We got to know each other because we were all living in the same apartment complex. This wasn’t a great coincidence — it’s not that large a city, and young couples starting out in our type of situation, young executives, no children, there are only two or three places you’re likely to live.
“The six of us became very friendly. The three guys would drive to work together, splitting the driving. The wives would get together during the day to go shopping or have coffee or look at television. We were all in a new place where we didn’t know anybody and had no ties whatsoever, so we became closer than we probably would have under other circumstances.