Ayn Rand married Frank O’Connor in 1929. In 1954, she began a passionate relationship with Nathaniel Branden. It is widely reported that both Any Rand’s husband and Nathaniel Brandon’s wife approved of this affair; thus, it would now be considered a polyamorous relationship.

In Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart deeply loved three men in her life–great men who could live up to her greatness. Francisco was her first teen love, whom she adored with a passion and who shared with her the knowledge that sexual love was something to be gloried in without shame or guilt; something which it was right for these two free-spirited youths (with world-changing destinies) to learn from each other.

Francisco loved Dagny his whole life long, though he spent many years apart from her pretending to be a playboy for purposes having nothing to do with romance and everything to do with Brains on Strike. She thought her relationship with him was over for many years and had found no other man worthy of her attention during that time.

Already in her 30s, her love was again IGNITED with top Industrialist Hank Rearden, a married man whose wife did not share with him nor support his devotion to his Steel business nor approve of his shameful need for sex with her. It was Dagny who helped him realize he had a right to delight in his sexuality and that his choice of her as his Lady was in complete alignment with the other excellent values that made him the Business Man she so respected.

Finally, there was John Galt, the brilliant inventor of a motor that could gift the world with limitless energy–at the price of respect for the mind that created it. It was to him she finally gave her heart and her body to the exclusion of Hank and Francisco who continued to love her and were compassionately understanding of this Highest choice of the man both of them loved and followed. A beautiful story… of ENTIRELY NEEDLESS sacrifices by characters who supposedly had learned not to make sacrifices, created by an author who knew better!

Dagny Taggart could have found John Galt, then realized that Francisco had behaved honorably in all the years they were apart, holding his love for her as a sacred fire within himself. Since Francisco loved and was deeply committed to John already, a triad between the three of them could have worked out perfectly. When Francisco found her miraculously alive in the Valley after believing she had died in a plane crash, she could have told him all that she felt with complete honesty, letting him know that there was room for both him and John to be her primary partners. Later, Hank could have been added either as a live-in lover for Dagny or as a beloved non-residential secondary partner always welcome in their home. No one gets hurt.

There was certainly enough of Dagny living, breathing, and willing to satisfy the desires of men who had lived mostly with only their fantasies of her to sustain them for many years. The love and respect all the men involved had for each other would make jealousy unlikely and (if it did come up) something to be dealt with like any other emotional illness rather than something to base one’s life on. Had John and Francisco offered her this option, she might have been too happily engaged in carrying it out that she would have stayed in the Valley her first time there rather than choosing to go back to a rapidly disintegrating world of looters who had taken charge of the US government, and who would not permit her to do what was needed to keep her railroad physically safe to ride upon for passengers as well as financially viable for herself and those who invested capital into it.

Dagny could even have had a child by John and then by each of the others if they wanted one. Additionally, John, Francisco, and Hank might want to consider spreading their excellent genetic materials (and their unbridled affections) to other fine Ladies who were available in John’s Gulch…

Think about it; limits on wealth and production were unacceptable, but limits on Love were unexamined and unchallenged. The very people who did not take what the Experts said to be so as a given in their businesses and their political lives had swallowed hook, line, and sinker the looting of that most precious aspect of living–romantic Love and Joy.

How many unexamined ass-umptions are you carrying around to mess up your life?