A made-for-TV quad speaks up, as poly awareness spreads

Quad on the Marty Riemer Show

When I started Polyamory in the News in 2005, I tried to cover every little scrap of it. The word itself was a rarity. Now there's too much, and I let lots of minor things go. Others I save in draft mode until enough similar ones accumulate to be worth a post, or until I get a Round Tuit.

So now this site has 128 posts waiting in draft mode.

Did you notice something about ABC's prime-time Wife Swap episode last week? It sort of assumed that mainstream, 8 p.m. broadcast viewers know what a poly family is. It gave a brief explanation at the beginning and then just used the term in the background, as if people know that these households are a thing.

When I spoke at Atlanta Poly Weekend last month and Poly Living last year, I said that our level of public awareness and understanding is only going to improve, and that the wind is with us. Eight years ago when I started doing polyactive stuff again, I made it a life mission to help accomplish one simple thing: to make the world know that happy poly relationships are even possible, and are actually happening. Few at the time knew they were. Hundreds of other people have been working toward the same goal, and it seems like we are getting close to a Mission Accomplished.

But it's easy to forget how far this thing still has to run! As the frontiers of poly awareness widen, they come into contact with wider numbers of people, so a wider amount of stuff happens. So I think each year is going to be more exciting than the last.

All this is by way of introduction to a couple of positive bits in the last few days that would have been a big deal ten years ago, but are now routine. I just didn't want them to disappear into draft post #129.

The first is a standard, upbeat, gets-it-right Poly 101 article in the print and online women's magazine eglove, Everything Girls Love ("balancing career and family in stilettos"):

You, Her, and Her: The Practice of Polyamory

By Aphrodite Brown

Through the course of our lives, we will encounter many people that we love. It begins with our parents and grandparents, love grows and evolves and extends to our siblings, our best friends, and our intimate partners. Human beings are fortunate that there is no finite amount of love that gets exhausted in our lifetimes. [If] our ability to love has no end... then a person’s ability to love more than one person at a time might be simpler to understand in that context.

Polyamory is the practice of having more than one intimate partnership at a time. All of the people involved have knowledge of one another and give their consent to the relationship. There are no late night creeps, or lies about whereabouts. Everyone knows, everyone agrees, and in many cases, everyone thrives....

Polyamory is about relationships, and community, and sometimes sex. One common misconception about this alternative lifestyle is that being “poly” means being sexually greedy and/or sexually deviant. That misconception doesn’t include the larger picture of living a poly lifestyle....

Read on (March 28, 2013).




The next is a poly quad appearing on The Marty Riemer Show, a professional radio broadcaster's popular off-air webcast in Seattle. Click above or watch it here (episode #383, March 29, 2013). Terry of the Vermont Poly Woodchucks says, "You need some patience to get to the interview of the quad [or just skip to 16:12] but it is worth it." They are a hoot and an eyeful for 22 minutes (ignore the ads that pop in) and are insightful spokespeople for the community's overall ideas and values. Niki (center left) is a poly researcher. Bookmark this to share with people curious to know what poly is about.

Lots of these things are spreading through the culture.

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