See a good story I've missed? Email me at alan7388(at) gmail(dot)com.
June 23, 2017
Yahoo Style: "When Your Husband Comforts You After Your Breakup With a Boyfriend"
Here's an example of how easy it is to represent your poly life accurately in the media, if you do it in a way where your thoughts will come through clean and clear.
A woman in an open couple got connected with a writer for PopSugar and did what was clearly an email interview. This way you can craft your own text carefully at your own speed — and both you and the outlet know you have a written record, so there'd better be no question about misquoting you. You can ask for anonymity if you want, and you can send a sweet photo of your own choosing, like the one below. It's hard for an email interview to go wrong.
The reporter has two incentives to do it this way. They too have a written record in case of a dispute — and you do most of the writing work while they get the pay and credit!
How to get started? Find a likely outlet (small is fine), look on the staff list for a writer who has treated similar topics well, and send them a letter telling why you'd be an interesting subject for them.
In this case the heavyweight Yahoo Style immediately picked up the interview from its original site. There's a demand for our voices.
When Your Husband Comforts You After Your Breakup With a Boyfriend — 1 Woman Shares Her Polyamorous Story
By Tara Block
Ben and Sara
Sara and Ben (names have been changed) are a happily married, millennial couple in an open relationship. We reached out to Sara to share some insight into their journey to polyamory, the ground rules they've set, and what it's like to date other people — and maybe even fall in love with other people — when you're already married to someone you love.
...When did you decide to have an open relationship?
We started talking about being monogamish (which later evolved into full-blown polyamory, haha) about two years into our relationship. Seven years ago.
Who initiated it? How did the conversation go?
Ben is an open-minded person who has never been a big believer in social constructions or tradition. I am a bit more of a rule follower, but definitely liberal and nonjudgmental. He brought up the idea of him being comfortable with me casually dating other people early on in our relationship. He knew that he was my first boyfriend (I was 18), and he didn't want me to feel like I was missing out on dating. We talked about nonmonogamy in theory for a long time (two years?) before ever acting on it. In hindsight, I feel like this gave me time to get used to the idea and for us to build a solid foundation. One of my biggest takeaways from our relationship (and from hearing about other couple's open relationships) is that a successful nonmongamous relationship centers on honest communication and a strong connection between the couple.
...I was surprised by how nonjealous I felt. We took it really slow (lots and lots of conversation) and occasionally dated outside of our relationship. As time went on, the "casual" piece has become less and less important. I dated someone for over a year, and the consistency (and depth) was really nice. Ben was fully supportive — in fact, he prefers when I date someone longer term, because he trusts that I'm safe.... He has been seeing two women for about eight months, and again I am surprised by how normal it feels. ...
We shared a big laugh when we realized just how weird/unusual it is for a husband to comfort his wife about her breakup with a boyfriend.
Do you have ground rules? If so, what are they?
The biggest rule is communication — we try hard to balance respect for our other partners' privacy with open communication between the two of us. We are also always honest with the people we are dating. Everyone knows right off the bat that we are happily married, and thus not looking for a lifelong commitment. We also feel strongly about treating the people we date with respect and care (and expect to be treated the same). It makes me really happy (but also disappointed) that several of the women Ben has dated have said that he is the kindest, most respectful man they've been with. ...
Another big (and hopefully obvious) rule is condoms. ...
...Do your friends or family know?
My sister (who is also my best friend) and her husband know, which is extremely helpful. Finally telling them was a massive relief. I felt like I was living a double life for a while there, which I hated. We've also told a few close friends, all of whom have been awesome and supportive. The idea of telling our parents makes us both want to poop our pants. ...
This past year, we've been trying to tell new friends early on, because it is much less awkward. This has been a great strategy! We tend to attract open-minded people into our lives....
How has this arrangement helped your relationship?
I am 100 percent convinced that being in an open relationship has made our relationship better. We've honestly become closer through sharing our dating experiences with one another. We've always had an awesome sex life, and it's fun to be able to have sexual experiences outside of the relationship (it takes a lot of pressure for us to be all things for the other person). ...
The video begins with yet another tale of a couple going poly because one of them issued an I'm-having-an-affair ultimatum. However, by the time the 8-minute discussion winds up, it's clear that all five people are now happy with the polycule they've formed and the larger network they are embedded in.
But a subtle air of self-absorption grates on me a bit. Is this a normal New York way of talking, or how the video was edited, or am I just seeing things?
If the video embed doesn't work, here's the link: Married, Dating Other People and Happy. "Exploring trust, jealousy and desire with nonmonogamous couples." (June 16, 2017).
The last time I reported on a Dan Savage column a furious reader unsubscribed, writing,
I have no quibble with his poly advice. However, Dan is a pretty bigoted dude across multiple axis, and has been known to harrass and denigrate employees that do not meet his standards for attractiveness. One of them devoted a chapter in their memoir to his fuckery. I find as I age (35 years as a poly full adult plus the pre-poly years) I have zero tolerance for people who have something I agree with to say along one axis, while they are affirmatively wishing me dead along another. ...
What's going on here? You can include links in the comments. Savage's Wikipedia entry has a controversies section that reports graphic death-wish fantasies against Republicans and their enablers, but I'm guessing this is something else.
A lesson for polyfolks is in his column just out: Don't wait until the second date for your poly reveal. Else your date may think you're the snake in the cartoon.
Savage Love: Sneakers
Joe Newton / The Stranger
I am a 34-year-old straight woman. I'm monogamous and have an avoidant attachment style. I've been seeing a guy I really like. He's just my type, the kind of person I've been looking for my whole life. Thing is, he's in an open relationship with someone he's been with for most of his adult life. He was sneaky—he didn't reveal he was in an open relationship until the second date, but by then I was infatuated and felt like I wasn't in control of my actions. [Uh-oh! –Ed.] So what I've learned is that poly couples often seek out others to create NRE or "new relationship energy," which may help save their relationship in the long run. I was deeply hurt to learn about NRE. What about the people who are dragged into a situation by some charmer? ... I feel like such a loser.
Sobbing Here And Making Errors
"One of life's hardest lessons is this: Two people can be absolutely crazy in love with each other and still not be good partners," said Franklin Veaux, coauthor of More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (morethantwo.com). "If you're monogamous and you meet someone you're completely smitten with who isn't, the best thing to do is acknowledge that you're incompatible and go your separate ways. It hurts and it sucks, but there it is."
This perfect, sneaky guy who makes you feel like a loser and a hussy? He told you he was in an open relationship on your second date. You knew he wasn't "your type" or "perfect" for you the second time you laid eyes on him, SHAME, and you needed to go your separate ways at that point. And I'm not buying your excuse ("I was too infatuated!"). ...
Veaux advocates ethical polyamory—it's right there in the title of his book—and he thinks this guy did you wrong by not disclosing his partner's existence right away. "Making a nonmonogamous relationship work requires a commitment to communication, honesty, and transparency," said Veaux. "Concealing the fact that you're in a relationship is a big violation of all three, and no good will come of it."
I have a slightly different take. Straight women in open relationships have an easier time finding men willing to fuck and/or date them; their straight male counterparts have a much more difficult time. Stigma and double standards are at work here—she's sexually adventurous; he's a cheating bastard—and waiting to disclose the fact that you're poly (or kinky or HIV-positive or a cammer) is a reaction to / work-around for that. It's also a violation of poly best practices, like Veaux says, but the stigma is a violation, too. Waiting to disclose your partner, kink, HIV status, etc., can prompt the other person to weigh their assumptions and prejudices about poly/kinky/poz people against the living, breathing person they've come to know. Still, disclosure needs to come early—within a date or two, certainly before anyone gets fucked—so the other person can bail if poly/kinky/poz is a deal breaker.
As for that new relationship energy stuff...
"There are, in truth, polyamorous people who are NRE junkies," said Veaux. "Men and women who chase new relationships in pursuit of that emotional fix. They're not very common, but they do exist, and alas they tend to leave a lot of destruction in their wake."
But your assumptions about how NRE works are wrong, SHAME. Seeing your partner in the throes of NRE doesn't bring the primary couple closer together; it often places a strain on the relationship. Opening up a relationship can certainly save it (if openness is a better fit for both partners), but NRE isn't a log the primary couple tosses on the emotional/erotic fire. ...
I'm with Veaux on the timing. Announce your poly-ness before the first date. If it's a deal-breaker, move on. Only a neurotic or a scumbag would waste time and hurt on guaranteed date failure — and the decent way to find out is to ask.
Three men register their polyamorous marriage in Colombia. That doesn't mean they're legally married.
This story has been going all around the world for the last six days, but much of the reporting has been superficial or misleading.
Here, from Gay Star News, are the basics that you may have seen:
Three men have first polyamorous wedding in Colombia
'We wanted to validate our household... and our rights, because we had no solid legal basis establishing us as a family'
Victor Hugo Prada, John Alejandro Rodriguez, Manuel José Bermúdez. (Photo: Facebook / Manuel José Bermúdez Andrade)
By Shannon Power
Three gay men have become the first polyamorous relationship to be officially recognized in Colombia.
Victor Hugo Prada, an actor, ‘married’ sports instructor John Alejandro Rodriguez and journalist Manuel José Bermúdez in Medellin on Saturday. The thruple – three people in a relationship – signed legal documents with a solicitor officially recognizing their relationship.
The men have been in their polyamorous relationship – known as a trieja in Spanish – since 2013. They did have a fourth partner, 25-year-old Alex Esnéider Zabala. But Zabala died from stomach cancer in 2015.
‘When Alex died, we did not have any documents and it was a difficult process to reclaim his social security and assets. So these papers protects us against anyone who wants to make any claims of this kind,’ Prada told W Radio.
‘We are based on a matter of coexistence and solidarity. Here there are no powers, there are no roles, you have to negotiate. Here we all come under the same conditions.’
Bermúdez told Colombian media that they wanted to make their relationship official.
‘We wanted to validate our household… and our rights, because we had no solid legal basis establishing us as a family,’ he said.
‘This establishes us as a family, a polyamorous family. It is the first time in Colombia that has been done.’
LGBTI lawyer and advocate, German Rincon Perfetti, said the attention the thruple have received has been important for the visibility of polyamorous relationships. He said while many polyamorous couples [sic] exist in Colombia, the men’s was the first to be made official.
‘It is a recognition that other types of family exist,’ he told AFP.
Here's the catch. As the story reports, but does not explain, the three "officially registered" their relationship. This does not mean they are legally married. It means they swore out a document, and had it notarized and recorded, declaring themselves to be a family unit with shared finances. People can do this in Colombia, as in Brazil where polyfamilies have made world news by swearing out similar documents attesting to their "polyaffective union." These affidavits are intended to carry legal weight in determining rights such as inheritance and government benefits, and in the case of couples, they do.
In other words, the three have made a legal statement. The government has only recorded the statement. How much legal weight it will carry for a group of more than two remains to be tested.
A reporter for Queerty failed to get this:
I do, I do, and I do! These three men just got legally married to each other
By Graham Gremore
Actor Victor Hugo Prada and his two partners, sports instructor John Alejandro Rodriguez and journalist Manuel Jose Bermudez, just signed papers making them a legally married throuple.
...The papers were signed on Monday with a solicitor in the city of Medellin and establish the men as a family unit with inheritance rights.
They are the first legally recognized polyamorous family in Colombia.
Lawyer and gay rights activist German Rincon Perfetti tells the AFP [Agence France-Presse], “It is a recognition that other types of families exist.”
...Now that the papers have been signed, the trio says they’re planning a marriage celebration, which they promise will be an “artistic and cultural event.” Then, of course, comes the honeymoon!
In contrast, the libertarian magazine Reason reported on their actual legal situation:
Colombia Sees First Gay Polygamous Marriage. Sort Of.
Three men declare themselves wed. It’s not clear if the government will recognize it.
By Scott Shackford
...If the authorities legally recognize their marriage, it will be a first for Colombia. But that's a big "if."
Western reporting indicates that the three men have signed legal papers with a lawyer in Medellin in an attempt to establish themselves as a family with inheritance rights. That's not the same as saying they are legally married, and Google Translate's version of the original news coverage from the Columbia-based Semana doesn't clear up the confusion. It's clear they've submitted a notarized document declaring themselves a family. It's unclear whether it's legally enforceable and whether a court will recognize it.
We do know they can't be punished for polyamory, and that may be driving some ambiguous reporting. Colombia struck down its laws criminalizing polygamous relationships in 2001. That's not the same as legally recognizing polyamorous marriages as valid. It just means you can't be arrested and imprisoned for it. ...
Wonder Woman's real-life poly origin movie, "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women," to open in theaters October 27
Now that the Wonder Woman movie has turned into a surprise hit, with sequels all but guaranteed, things look mighty good for Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, an indie biopic on the polyfamily who created her in 1941. News just came out that Annapurna Pictures will release it via Sony on October 27th.
We may hope that it'll be reasonably true to reality. I'm guessing it will bear about the same relation to the truth as the cartoon above does to actual photos of Wonder Woman's creator triad:
Seated from left are Olive Byrne (note the bracelet), Elizabeth Holloway Marston,
and William Moulton Marston, demonstrating his invention the lie detector in 1938.
Wonder Woman's bracelets were no coincidence.
In case you're not up to speed: Harvard psychologist William Moulton Marston was, for his day, a utopian feminist — convinced of women's superiority to rule civilization if they could break the psychological and cultural chains of male bondage. He also had a thing for the liberating power of sex-bondage play, based on a well worked out psychological theory of power and control.
No ordinary college professor, Marston was an outspoken character who had trouble keeping a job. He was also an inventor and promoter with at least a touch of the con. After he married the groundbreaking female academic and lawyer Elizabeth Holloway, they set up a lifelong triad household with a former student of his, Olive Byrne. All three played a role in sneaking Wonder Woman into existence in 1941 — under the guise of civilizing superhero comics to mollify disapproving authorities. Their real mission was to spread the message of women's rights, freedom, power and goodness. Especially to girls.
Marston died in 1947 at the relatively young age of 53. Holloway and Byrne remained partners for the rest of their very long lives.
There are many ways this story could be played wrong, as were many later incarnations of Wonder Woman herself. The whole tale was long swept under the rug, known only to serious comics-history buffs and, of course, parts of the poly community. But growing attention to it in recent years culminated with New Yorker writer Jill Lepore's book The Secret History of Wonder Woman, which was widely reviewed and remarked when it came out in 2014. If Professor Marston and the Wonder Women messes up the story now, it'll never get away with it.
If you've seen Wonder Woman in a theater in the last couple weeks, you may remember this brief teaser for what's coming:
a lesbian filmmaker who previously directed the underrated 2004 movie D.E.B.S. It’s cool that this material is going to be explored from someone who doesn’t come from Hollywood’s default setting: a white male.
● While we're at it, last Sunday (June 11, 2017) National Public Radio's "Sunday Morning" replayed a "Fresh Air" segment that first aired in 2014 when Lepore's book came out. Here's some of the accompanying article. The audio and full transcript are at the link below.
The Man Behind Wonder Woman Was Inspired By Both Suffragists And Centerfolds
..."I got fascinated by this story because I'm a political historian and it seemed to me there was a really important political story that had been missed that's basically as invisible as Wonder Woman's jet," Lepore tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.
Marston... was interested in the women's suffrage movement and in Margaret Sanger, the birth control and women's rights activist — who was also his mistress's [Olive Byrne's] aunt.
A feminist icon, Wonder Woman was an Amazon who forced people to tell the truth with her magic lasso. She was a controversial figure in the 1940s because of her overt sexuality and her link to bondage. Her costume was inspired by Marston's interest in erotic pin-up art.
"There's no simple story here," Lepore says. "There are a lot of people who get very upset at what Marston was doing. ... 'Is this a feminist project that's supposed to help girls decide to go to college and have careers, or is this just like soft porn?' "
..."It's so bizarre. I think they thought it was very funny. In a certain way it is very funny — like that they're putting one over on everybody. The funniest thing of it all to me is [they have] this really triangular family arrangement, but in the '30s [Marston's mistress] Olive Byrne takes a job as a staff writer at Family Circle magazine writing advice for housewives. Family Circle, which starts in 1932, [is] a giveaway at the grocery store [and] the stories that she writes are sort of a "how to raise your children" in the most conventional possible way.
...Marston has all kinds of ties to the early progressive-era suffrage and feminist and birth control movements ... [They] begin when he, as a Harvard freshman in 1911, is caught up in a big controversy on campus. In the fall of 1911, the Harvard Men's League for Women's Suffrage invites the incredible Emmeline Pankhurst to campus to speak in Sanders Theatre, which is like the largest lecture hall on campus. The Harvard Corporation is terrified — women are not allowed to speak on campus ... so [eventually ] Pankhurst is banned from speaking on campus. And this [is] kind of a big fracas across the country.
...One of the things that's a defining element of Wonder Woman is that if a man binds her in chains, she loses all of her Amazonian strength. So in almost every episode of the early comics, the ones that Marston wrote [Marston stopped writing Wonder Woman in 1947], she's chained up or she's roped up ... and she has to break free of these chains. ... That's [what] Marston would always say — "in order to signify her emancipation from men." But those chains are a really important part of the feminist and suffrage struggles of the 1910s that Marston had a front-row seat for.
...[During the suffrage movement], women chained themselves to the gate outside the White House in protest. There were suffrage parades, women would march in chains — they imported that iconography from the abolitionist campaigns of the 19th century that women had been involved in. ...
Chains become a really important symbol. Women in the wake of emancipation in the aftermath of the Civil War really turn to the imagery of chains and enslavement and the language of enslavement to talk about the ways in which they have not yet been fully emancipated.
The whole article, with the transcript and 45-minute audio (originally aired Oct. 27, 2014).
Comic book fans have been waiting a long time for a Wonder Woman movie. Now it seems they’ll have two as an independent film about the unconventional trio who created Princess Diana of Themyscira heads into production.
In addition to “Wonder Woman,” the 2017 Warner Bros film starring Gal Gadot, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions has just bought “Professor Marston & the Wonder Women,” a biopic about William Moulton Marston, the psychologist and inventor who created Wonder Woman for DC Comics in 1941 with the help of his wife, psychologist Elizabeth Marston, and Olive Byrne, a former student with whom the couple shared a polyamorous relationship.
Written and directed by “True Blood” writer Angela Robinson and executive produced by “Transparent” creator Jill Soloway’s Topple Productions, the feature will star Luke Evans as William, Rebecca Hall as Elizabeth, and Bella Heathcote as Olive. The film, which was packaged by WME Global and first reported on by Deadline, will depict how Elizabeth and Olive’s feminism influenced the creation of the iconic character. During his life, Marston was forced to defend his superheroine against charges of 'sexual perversity' while concealing his own unusual home life. After William died in 1947, Elizabeth and Olive remained living together until Olive’s death in 1988, raising the four children he had, two with each of them.
Wonder Woman’s sexuality has long been a matter of speculation among her fans -- after all, she hails from an island paradise free of men. Last month the character’s current writer Greg Rucka confirmed that Wonder Woman is officially queer, telling the website Comicosity, “Diana has been in love and had relationships with other women.”
...It’s time that we in comics stop feeling uncomfortable with the circumstances of her creation, and the lives of her creators....
The era of the obligatory closet is over, even in media traditionally aimed at children. We know that Where the Wild Things Are was created by a gay man, and that Goodnight, Moon was written by a bisexual woman, and we know just as certainly that Wonder Woman was the creation of a polyamorous family.
Perhaps because of a certain immaturity in comics culture, or because polyamory is still more controversial that queer identity, we like to downplay it. We need to stop.
...As more women have become fans of superheroes in recent years, this sexualization has come in for criticism. Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman, repeats some of the objections in a recent review of the new all-female Avengers title A-Force. Lepore looks at the A-Force cover, stuffed to the brim with superheroes from She-Hulk to Dazzler, and notices a certain similarity. “They all look like porn stars,” she complains.
...Wonder Woman’s creator, though, had a different take. As Lepore notes, Marston, his wife Elizabeth, and their polyamorous lover Olive Byrne, wrote a letter together in which they explained: “This family believes [pornographic magazines] furnish splendid material with which to teach children that the most lovely and sacred thing in the world is a real woman’s body.” Marston believed that looking at women’s bodies was a healthy, pleasurable and even sacred activity – and not just for men. In that softcore Julius Caesar novel, Marston referred to lesbian love as “perfect” – in his scholarly books he argued that women who slept with other women were superior lovers and mothers. Marston lived in a polyamorous relationship with two almost certainly bisexual women. Eroticized images of women, for him, were never just for men.
Lepore sees eroticized images as ridiculous, unpleasant and opposed to women’s interests. For Marston, though, the problem with comics was not eroticism but “blood-curdling masculinity”. Sex, for Marston, was great; the downside of superhero comics, though, was that they featured lots of men hitting each other.
Wonder Woman was meant, deliberately, to undermine both the masculinity and the violence. Her magic lasso was later downgraded to a lasso of truth, but originally it was a lasso of control – whoever was bound by it had to do what the wielder said. The original Wonder Woman comics (drawn by artist Harry Peter) mostly eschewed fisticuffs; instead, they featured vertiginous bondage romps, in which Wonder Woman tied people up, and then got tied up in turn, and then tied those other folks up again. The lasso itself, Marston explained, was a “symbol of female charm, allure, oomph, attraction” and of the influence that “every woman has … over people of both sexes”. Since the lasso is also a fairly glaring yonic symbol, the message is clear; Wonder Woman battles evil not with violence, but with erotics. She is, literally, super sexy.
...Lepore seems to think that sex and heroism can’t go together; that if women are presented as erotic or attractive, then their heroism is automatically undermined. Allure is not power, Lepore insists, but “the absence of power”. When superheroines are sexy, she says, “their bodies are not their own. They are without force.” But that default assumes that the only kind of force that matters is violence, and that sex or love are automatically less valid, less interesting and less ennobling than hitting people. Superhero stories often present that as truth – but, as you’d think Lepore would know, Wonder Woman had a different vision.
● And to close, here are some totally obvious bondage scenes in the original Wonder Woman comics, at MoviePilot.com (August 13, 2015).
Tabloids can't get enough of polyfamilies — and treat them decently
Tabloid media are ever eager to feature happy polyfamilies for their perhaps incredulous audiences. The UK's Daily Mail published a piece today that it picked up from Daily Mail Australia, which got it from a TV show called "The Project" on Australia's Network Ten. The full video from that show is unviewable outside Australia, but here's a 20-second clip from it:
The blurb on the segment's webpage (June 14, 2017):
Polyamorous Relationships
A new wave of adventurous Aussies diving into the sex-flavoured waters of 'multiple-partner relationships'. Or, as they're apparently known: Polyamorous Relationships.
Here's the Daily Mail's story. Note that it introduces asexuality to its readers factually and non-judgmentally.
Is this the new face of modern love? Married man reveals what it is like to be in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and her best friend - and insists no one gets jealous
● Man with wife and girlfriend spoke about his life in a polyamorous relationship
● Michael and his wife both have extra partners but still share a loving connection
● They appeared on Project TV alongside Michael's girlfriend to share details
● He insists he does not get 'jealous' and strives to make all his partners happy
By April Glover for Daily Mail Australia
A man in a polyamorous relationship has revealed he enjoys having both a wife and a girlfriend - and insists he never gets jealous of his partner's boyfriend.
Three lovers named Michael, Maddie and Angel shared fascinating details about how the trio live together in polygamy in a revealing interview with Network Ten's The Project.
Michael and Angel, who are husband and wife and have been together for 15 years, appeared alongside Michael's girlfriend, Maddie.
"Maddie (left), Michael (middle) and Angel (right) spoke about their experiences in a polyamorous relationship."
The husband-and-wife duo, who were high-school sweethearts, say they wanted try new experiences but did not want to break up.
The polyamorous lovers claim they are not in a three-person couple, otherwise known as a 'thrupple' [sic], but share sexual and romantic connections with people outside of a traditional relationship.
'But that doesn't mean what Michael and I have is a superior or a primary relationship, it is just an extra relationship,' Angel said of her husband's girlfriend.
Angel's connection with her husband's girlfriend is non-romantic and non-sexual, and calls Maddie her 'best friend'.
Maddie told host Waleed Aly that she and Michael do not have sex and says she is an 'asexual' being, meaning she has no sexual feelings or desires for another person.
'It's just a really intense relationship,' she explained.
When asked the inevitable question about jealousy, Angel told the Project she was initially jealous of her husband's extra partners.
'Early on, I got very jealous, I realised that jealousy is a manifestation of insecurity and for me it was a red flag,' she said.
'I worked through it with Michael and my other partners. I still get jealous sometimes, although certainly nowhere near as much.'
But Michael, who juggles a wife and a girlfriend, says he rarely ever feels jealous of his wife's or other partners' sexual relationships.
'I don't suffer jealousy. I don't feel jealous, typically speaking so I spend most of my time making sure my partners aren't feeling jealous.'
A columnist for Yahoo Lifestyle thinks that Michael's public displays of knee-touch affection looked awkward: Awkward interview with polyamorous trio (June 15, 2017). Does she have a point, or is this just a case of you can't please everybody? I've always advocated public displays of triad affection while on camera, because body language speaks louder than words. But body language is subtle — and the subtleties are totally visible on TV.
"Polyamorous Australian parents juggle lovers with family life"
The tabloidy news treatment of polyfamilies that was the norm a decade ago — the happy, upbeat "look at the weirdos" approach — is still the norm in actual tabloids. This story appeared Saturday in Australian newspapers owned by the Murdochs' News Corp, and it was reprinted in the UK by News Corp's The Sun.
Polyamorous Australian parents juggling lovers with family life
By Winnie Salamon
A TYPICAL morning in Scott and Amy’s house goes something like this: Cook breakfast, make school lunches, yell at the kids to brush their teeth before school. Amy reminds Scott that it’s his turn to watch the kids tonight while she goes on a date with one of her several lovers. Scott gives his wife a kiss before rushing out the door. He needs to get to his girlfriend Ruth’s house so they can ride the train into work together.
If you thought polyamory was for sex-crazed twenty somethings and creepy cult leaders, think again. ... The reality is that most polyamorous people have jobs and bills and chores and perhaps most controversially of all: children.
Meet Pete. A warm, intelligent 57-year-old who works in education IT. ... Pete’s ‘coming out’ to his children wasn’t planned. It just happened. ... “My daughter just shrugged and said, ‘That’s cool. Some of my friends do that.’ She would have been about 15 at the time.”
Pete’s son wasn’t so accepting. “My son joined a fundamentalist Christian church when he was 13. He worried that I was doing the wrong thing by my partners, that both women were getting the short end of the stick. He’s 29 now and 100 per cent supportive,” he said.
Models pose for a stock picture (Getty)
Scott and Amy, in contrast, are in the thick of parenting. Now in their mid-40s, the couple met when they were 16 and have two daughters, aged seven and 10. They also have at least 10 lovers between them, impressive considering they only discovered polyamory three years ago. As Scott wryly puts it, he and his childhood sweetheart are now polysaturated.
“Polyamory was something Amy and I talked about for a long time before we acted on it,” Scott says. “It was a conscious and thought-out decision. Looking back on my life I think I’ve always been poly, but I thought I was just being a stereotypical male. Always wanting more.”
Parenting in a poly family isn’t without its challenges, but Scott and Amy believe being open and honest with their children is crucial.
“Our oldest daughter understands we have sex with other people and she knows it’s not ‘normal’. But a good portion of her friends are from divorced families and their parents have other relationships. There are single parents, blended families. In that context it’s not so different.
“We only introduce the kids to our more serious partners,” Scott continues. “They definitely don’t meet every person we sleep with.” ...
Scott says that answering questions in an age-appropriate way has ensured that his kids are as happy and healthy as any other child with two loving parents.
If you think juggling work, kids and one partner is tough, Scott has some advice:
Google calendar.
“You have to be organised. Amy and I make sure we get two date nights a week while the other watches the kids. We swap weekends but also make sure we have every third weekend together as a family,” he says.
“I think our girls are lucky to grow up with an array of amazing, strong adult role models who love them. Sometimes our partners even help with babysitting, and that’s always nice.”
"For a very conservative outlet it was surprisingly nuanced, particularly around families. However once again it was annoyingly couple-focused, and completely disregarded third-party voices (whom I know they interviewed.) As appears to be a growing trend in media, it contributes to the idea that polyamory is a mild extension of white middle-class monogamy. In part that's because many of us (me included) who do polyamory differently declined to be interviewed for this outlet, not trusting we'd be reported accurately."
Last Tuesday the news show Chicago Tonight on WTTW, the city's PBS TV station, featured a thoughtful, 11-minute (!) interview with three fine spokespeople: Chicago Polyamory Connection co-founder Caroline Kearns and poly-friendly therapists Rami Henrich and Jennifer Rafacz. This comes after the first-ever Chicago Non-Monogamy Conference three weeks ago.
It wins my "Show Your Parents" tag.
Caroline Kearns says, "I thought it went fine -- very limited time, was able to get a very basic sum-up of poly in without it being sensationalized. Overall, I feel pretty good about it."
That New York Times Magazine cover story three weeks ago was what prompted the show. Tim of Chicago Polyamory Connection writes, "The PBS station reached out to Rami first, saying that they wanted to do a small-panel segment after [that] article came out. She's pretty visibly poly in Chicago as a part of Lifeworks. Rami asked if any of us at the CPC would want to join her in the panel, and Caroline reached out."
Continues Tim, "The reaction in the local community was really enthusiastic. We also saw a big spike in web traffic at polychicago.com after the segment aired. I wonder if we'll have a bunch of new people at Poly Cocktail night in two weeks."
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Here's the segment's webpage at the TV station, including the video and a longer text interview with Henrich and Kearns (May 30, 2017). This extended interview goes into topics that weren't aired on TV.
For instance, the part below caught my eye — what with the ugly history of an abuse/consent crisis in Chicago's BDSM world, which spread to split apart Chicago's poly community a few years back. Kearns was part of the rebuilding from that, with a firm foundation now of consent awareness and an ethic of community enforcement. Did someone tip off the TV host?
Host: When a community is marginalized and its members are afraid to seek help, it can make it easier for predatory people to operate within those communities. [The BDSM crisis in a nutshell.] Do you find that to be the case in the poly community?
Caroline Kearns: Poly ends up being very empowering to women, and that can counteract a lot of that behavior. Being open and transparent is always going to help mitigate abusive behavior, as well as having a strong community. But the immediate reaction I got to talking to people about poly was “of course men would want to sleep with you, and all they’re going to want is to sleep with other women” – the thought is that it’s all about the male partners exhibiting predatory behavior. [That thinking] is based on a lot of outdated assumptions that men are always the most sexual member of a heterosexual couple, or that sexual desire is inherently difficult to control and monitor, or sex is sinful and will always lead to corrupt behavior.
But in the reality of the bubble of the polyamory community, women tend to hold equal power and (often) more options than the men do. The women are sought after, they’re respected, they’re feminist, sure of themselves, committed to a culture of consent, able to identify predatory behavior, empowered to voice accusations of assault, and supportive of one another in more transparent polyamory communities.
Of course people of all genders have to be careful, just like anyone would if they go to a bar on Saturday night or meet strangers on Tinder or OKCupid. ... Polyamory is so much about communication, honesty, and being open — the moment I see someone trying to be dishonest or cagey or like they are hiding something from a partner, huge red flags go off and I run in the opposite direction.
