Compersion (pronounced kom-pur-zhuhn or kom-pur-shuhn)
(1) The positive feeling of joy, happiness or empathy an individual experiences when their romantic partner(s) form new romantic or sexual connections with others; vicarious joy associated with seeing one's partner(s) have joyful romantic or sexual relation with others.
(2) By extension, in general use, the wholehearted participation in the joy of others.
1970s: A neologism coined by the Kerista Commune a mid-twentieth century polyfidelity community. The word is a portmanteau, the construct said to have been comp(assion) + (conv)ersion. Compassion in this context was used in the sense of “feelings of empathy and concern for the well being of others and sharing in their happiness” while conversion was co-opted to convey “change or transformation” specifically the transformation of the typically expected (in the circumstances) jealousy or insecurity into positive feelings of happiness and joy for one's partner's experiences. Etymologists have speculated the word may be derived from the work of the French ethnologist & anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009), notably The Social Use of Kinship Terms Among Brazilian Indians in American Anthropologist, volume 45, number. 3, July-September 1943. In that case the contract would have been the French compère (partner) + -sion (as a verb-forming suffix), based on an earlier use of the French compérage to denote the practice of brothers-in-law sharing wives as observed among Tupi people of the Brazilian Amazon.
In the tradition of utopian visions, the Kerista Commune was a communal living experiment founded in 1956 in New York City by John Presmont (formerly Jake Peltz, aka "Brother Jud" (although his birth name was thought to have been Jacob Luvich) 1923-2009). The inspiration for the community apparently came from “a visionary experience” Brother Jud enjoyed in 1956 during which “an entity” instructed him to create a sexually experimental international community although it wasn’t until another experience in 1962 there was another vision of an island called Kerista and at that point, the name was adopted. However, even before the revelation in 1956, Brother Jud had become a devotee of the works of Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) a US-based Austrian psychoanalyst with a difficult past who believed sexual repression was the root cause of many social problems. Some of his his many books were widely read within the profession but there was criticism of his tendency towards monocausality in his analysis, an opinion shared by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in his comments about Reich’s 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), a work the author had dedicated to his fellow Austrian. Freud sent a note of thanks for the personally dedicated copy he’d been sent as a birthday present but, brief and not as effusive in praise Reich as had expected, it was not well-received. Reich died in prison while serving a sentence imposed for violating an injunction issued to prevent the distribution of a machine he’d invented: the orgone accumulator.
There are many (and varied) descriptions of the Kerista commune and it was a loosely structured concept rather than a distinct entity, its membership, practices and “rules” changing dynamically as people came and went but its core characteristics were based on the principles of communal living, polyfidelity, personal fulfillment and artistic self-expression. By far the most discussed aspect of the commune was the acceptance of polyfidelity, something which aroused the suspicion and mistrust of the US establishment almost as much as the Marxist-sounding “group councils” with their collective decision making which, on paper, was soviet-like in theory if not practice. Interestingly, while the group councils were concerned with things like trash management and vegetable production, there were parallel "intimate councils" which dealt with personal relationships within the community and it was this body that the concept of compersion emerged. Compersion was less the process of polyfidelity than a description of the correct state of mind one should adopt in its milieu. What the Kerista did however stress was that their ethos of group sex, partner swapping, and "bisexual bonding" was not a “swingers club” or mere “free love” but a community in which members existed in a relationship of "complex marriages", multi-stranded arrangements formed by romantic and sexual bonds which involved permanent, devotional obligations on a many-to-many basis.
Although obviously able to be depicted as a subversive, Brother Jud seems not to have made any attempt to transform the Kerista community into a political movement and never did fulfill his wry promise (given in an interview) that he would supplant “the 10 commandments with 69 positions” but he did reduce his political agenda to a succinct 25 propositions, some of which have actually become legal orthodoxy in much of the West:
Legalize group marriage. Legalize indecent exposure. Legalize trial marriage. Legalize abortion. Legalize miscegenation. Legalize religious intermarriage. Legalize marijuana. Legalize narcotics. Legalize cunnilingus. Legalize transvestitism. Legalize pornography. Legalize obscene language. Legalize sexual intercourse. Legalize group sex. Legalize sodomy. Legalize fellatio. Legalize prostitution. Legalize incest. Legalize birth control. Legalize Lesbianism. Legalize polygamy. Legalize polyandry. Legalize polygyny. Legalize homosexuality. Legalize voluntary flagellation.
Like many communes (and subject too to external opposition), internal tensions led to factionalism and although Kerista Communes were created in Oregon and California and Oregon, the conflicts proved too much and the lst of the communities was dissolved final . However, the community ultimately disbanded in the 1990s due to various internal conflicts and disagreements.
In general use, in English the word has come to be used to as an antonym of jealousy, Schadenfreude (from German meaning “taking pleasure in the misfortune of others” and adopted in the English-speaking world with joyful relish) or the rare epicaricacy (a word of Greek origin with essentially the same sense as Schadenfreude). It’s thus not necessarily (and presumably rarely) specifically applied happily to celebrate polyfidelity as did the Keristaists but, filling a gap in English, is there to be used to describe feeling pleasure when others, known or not, enjoy happiness or good-fortune. Although dour, miserable English lacked such a word, other languages recognise the emotion and it must be part of Jewish tradition because the Hebrew firgun and the Yiddish Naches both convey the sense. From the Pāli and Sanskrit there’s also मुदिता (muditā) which while sometimes used generally to mean “joy”, is most often used to convey the sense of a vicarious joy, the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being, a pure happiness unadulterated by any self-interest.
Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.
As the glossies, socials & tabloids gleefully documented, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton (b 1981) had their differences but Ms Lohan’s recent announcement she was with child seemed to elicit from Ms Hilton some feeling of compersion, a congratulatory note quickly sent and earlier she’d expressed similar feelings when, from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ms Lohan announced her engagement. Having recently become a mother, Ms Hilton will presumably be also a source of helpful tips.
Also helpful in many ways is Ms Hilton’s recently published book Paris: The Memoir, which while genuinely a memoir is interesting too for the deconstruction of the subject the author provided in a number of promotional interviews. There have over the years been many humorless critics who have derided Ms Hilton for “being famous merely for being famous” but the book makes clear being the construct that is Paris Hilton is a full-time job, one which demands study and an understanding of the supply & demand curves of shifting markets; a personality cult needs to be managed. She displays also a sophisticated understanding of the point made by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) who once explained the abstraction of a personality cult by pointing to his huge portrait and saying “…you see, even I am not Stalin, THAT is Stalin!” In the acknowledgments, Ms Hilton thanked the ghostwriter who “helped me find my voice.”
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