What Is C.B.G.I.?

by Ano and Omya Hanamana

CBGI (pronounced kuh-bi-gee) is an acronym for Clan-Based Group Intimacy. It’s a term we coined at GaiaYoga Gardens in the spring of 2019 to identify the particular form of intimacy and sexuality that many of us here are actively cultivating. GaiaYoga Gardens is pioneering holistic-and-sustainable culture -- we are re-evaluating all areas of life including diet, health, farming, child-raising, sexuality, family structure, communication, and more. Our intention is to sift through the myriad of cultures that have lived in the world and the consciousnesses that developed them, find understandings and practices that simultaneously reflect our primal human nature, our animal nature, our spiritual nature, our modern psyche, and our natural sociality, and integrate these into a whole cultural vision and consciousness. We often find that the most effective (need-meeting) way to live today deeply resonates with how we lived during the dawn of humanity - before we started altering our behavior from our inherent genetic expression. So, relative to intimacy and sexuality this begs the question, how did early humans handle intimacy and sexuality and how can we effectively re-integrate that into our current lives?

Let’s explore… Using GaiaYoga ® teaching terminology, there are five spheres of community: the intimate, personal, local, collective, and universal. Looking at the intimate sphere, let’s strip away the “flesh” from all the various ways intimacy has been handled and get down to the bare “bones” -- what elements are inherent to any intimate sphere? What is shared that makes it an intimate sphere? The main elements are sexuality, bed, vulnerable emotional expression, sleeping, food and meal preparation, home, money and decision-making, child-raising, and the co-management of the fundamental direction of the family. (We can share some of these elements outside the intimate sphere – for instance, raising children in community, making a meal together, or living in a form of group housing beyond our nuclear family. And of course we can have intimate experiences at workshops or meet someone and have a “one-night stand,” but these are not the same as an intimate sphere that is the core of one’s life.)

In the dominant culture (what we call “Domain 8,”) an intimate sphere is structured as two adults and their young children. But this isn’t the only way to organize an intimate sphere. And based on our research and experience, the isolated nuclear family structure is not in alignment with our nature. For the bulk of human history people lived in clans – bonded, multi-generational groups of 15 - 40 people, living together in continuity. Prior to the taming of fire, clans slept together every night for warmth, protection, and connection. We assume that sex occurred in and around other clan members and all the other elements of the intimate sphere were present in the group. There was no privacy as we think of it today. People’s intimacy was “clan-based.” Our sexuality and intimacy held the clan together, supporting survival, childcare, elder care, and the clan’s overall quality of life.

Just as bees live in hives, ants in colonies, or lions in prides, humans are designed to live in clans. We hold that it’s the way we most effectively meet human needs providing intimacy, diversity, practical support, ease with childcare, support with aging and death, continuity of togetherness, fun, etc. Over time people formed larger groups, what we call tribes, which contain many clans. Out of our increased use of tools and taming of fire, over time, close-quarters human cooperation was replaced with more advanced tools, industrialization, long-distance cooperation of strangers, cooking, and general manipulation of nature. These experiments have had huge impacts on us. While many innovations met more needs at first – such as efficiency, ease, food stability, increased autonomy and material power - inevitably, moving away from our natural social structure and biological limits had hidden costs that weren’t seen by the people at the time, (in the form of other unmet needs). The costs include more diseases from food manipulation, shame and subsequent perversion of our innate sexuality, externalized control, and increased technological dependence. This led to an ever-growing schism both from the natural world and between our fellow humans.

Relative to sexuality, in our history there has been a lot of deviation from the “norm” of heterosexual monogamy, with even more in the last few generation of humans. This includes homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender, androgyny, and all the forms of non-monogamy or multiple-adult intimacy, which includes serial monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, polyamory, and polyfidelity. These explorations are happening because many people are not content with the rigid structure of heterosexual monogamy. Monogamy doesn’t dependably support the living of our natural, innate sexuality; it’s led to the isolated nuclear family - which is a dysfunctional social foundation that includes contracts that prevent authentic expression of people’s life-force energy. However, the various forms of poly-sexuality have their own flaws (consistently unmet needs) and this is why we’ve coined the term CBGI to distinguish the approach that we believe is in full alignment with our whole nature and all of our lives.

So what are the differences between monogamy, polyamory, polyfidelity, and CBGI?...

Monogamy has many systemic issues (especially practiced as an isolated nuclear family in a city or suburb. 1) Sexuality and security needs are merged so it can be very risky to be honest with our sexual needs and desires that don’t align with monogamy. 2) The sharing of economics and childcare is limited primarily to the two adults in the marriage, which creates a sense of scarcity in meeting survival needs and is inherently inadequate at serving the many needs of children. 3) If divorce occurs, there is often no larger social reality that the mating pair can gracefully dissolve back into (a clan or tribe), so typically one or both lose a home, the children’s parenting system is wounded or shattered, and there’s general financial and emotional crisis and trauma for all involved. 4) We cannot meet all our intimate sphere needs reliably living with only one other adult, so we either suffer the unmet needs or engage ineffective or semi-effective strategies to fulfill ourselves. And 5) In old age we are not surrounded by a multi- generational community and typically end up in an “old folks home,” instead of being a valued elder in a clan/tribe.

Polyamory, as it’s practiced in an urban or suburban setting, is primarily just a model for multiple-adult sexuality; it doesn’t intentionally address the care of children and elders or create greater stability and security through the container of a bonded personal sphere that the relationships are integrated in. Lovers might be spread around the country or world, which creates a split due to separation of intimacy and a hyper-focus on sexuality. We don’t think it’s possible for a human to sustainably participate in more than one intimate sphere at a time. Like an atom jumping between molecules, in order for intimacy to be sustainable, people need a single home/hearth. This dance between two intimate spheres or relationships can be done for a while, but eventually the atom needs to stand as a lone atom or become part of one molecule (either by merging all the involved atoms together into a single molecule or by giving up on including one of the atoms, settling for a smaller molecule.)

Polyfidelity (or group marriage) is about creating an expanded intimate sphere, where more than two adults are sexually fidelitous to each other. However, it doesn’t explicitly include an integrated personal sphere - a larger group that lives together and supports the other social needs we have. Polyfidelity is more stable and more effectively addresses the needs of children than polyamory, but there is a huge gap in bondedness and life rhythm between those inside and outside of the fidelity, so it’s much harder to enter or leave it gracefully. Moreover, if you get a group of similar age people to join up as a larger intimate sphere, they will lack a multi-generational support system to effectively handle support of children, elders, and overall life flow.

Clan-Based Group Intimacy is a design that holistically addresses all our human needs, not just our overtly sexual ones. This design is not some “new-fangled good idea,” it’s a recognition of our natural sociality that lives in our souls, bones, blood, and hearts. CBGI is inherently more stable, happy, and rich because… 1) We each have intimate home bonds with more than our sexual partner(s) and children. 2) Children have access to a multi-generational, integrated clan of parents. 3) There’s real purpose and care for elders. 4) We don’t have to choose between being authentic with our changing intimate/sexual desires and having security in our home and all that entails. Thus we can be intimate with whom we choose, transparently, with joy, and without shame or threat of huge repercussions. 5) There’s greater ease and effectiveness at meeting our emotional, intimate, economic, and survival needs because more people are deeply cooperating together in a shared vision and life rhythm. This stably supports greater freedom, joy, pleasure, fulfillment, and power amongst the group of trusted and bonded adults (and children).

When we live in a clan we are living as one human molecule so to speak, so if we are intimate and/or sexual with more than one member of the clan the energy nourishes everyone in the clan and the clan nourishes everyone in it. So there isn’t the fragmentation that is experienced in other forms of polyamory and certainly in affairs or divorce. The expanded intimacy is inclusive to those involved. It increases the well-being of the children because they have more mothers and fathers, it makes life easier to manage because there’s more adults cooperating together for survival, the competition within genders and the polarities this generates can resolve, and there’s more pleasure because we have more people to share juicy energy with.

Let’s be clear, CBGI doesn’t mean everyone has sex with everyone – it means there is a container that supports the natural expression of intimacy and desire that is larger than just a few people who want to have sex together. This larger social network meets the bulk of our social needs, so we don’t need to over-focus on our sexual relationships as the main source of deep social interaction. Without CBGI, most of our other social interactions tend to be less authentic, intimate, and integrated as we might see in a school, work-place, single-focus social group that meets weekly or monthly, farmer’s markets, social media, etc.

An example of CBGI might look like 30 adults and 10 children living together on a community-owned land. And amongst the adults there could be some people who are naturally monogamous, while others connect more fluidly, and other people in clusters of 4 to 8 in stable group intimacies. These group intimacies would do most everything together: sleep in the same room, care for the land, provide child-care, share finances and domestics, run communal businesses, share a kitchen and meal preparation, and all the major duties that running a household, business, and family entails. All that we’re used to sharing in an isolated nuclear family are shared in a larger social unit, which is much more stable and sustainable. Again, in CBGI no one is required or forced to be intimate or sexual with anyone, and no one is required not to be intimate/sexual with someone within the clan because of social contracts, jealousy, or perceived threat to security. Everyone is living in their sovereignty and being supported emotionally and spiritually if any competition, jealousy, and insecurities arise. Also “divorces” are way less impactful because no one “has to” leave the CBGI just because they want to be less intimate with a particular person in it.

CBGI is a fundamental restructuring of how we meet our intimate, sexual, and primary social needs, and how we get our needs around security, survival, home, and childcare met. It provides the stability people seek in a monogamous marriage, with the diversity people seek in dating, affairs, and polyamory, with the other social needs we have that are often sought in men’s and women’s groups, workshops, festivals, and other short-term gatherings. It also provides greater economic ease and power from many people combining resources, a safe space for children to have a much larger circle of daily playmates, real “social security” in our elder years, people to play and make businesses with, and more. WOW!!! It’s possible!

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