"Canada’s ‘polyamory’ community to descend on Vancouver for convention"

The Province (Vancouver)

Canada's first PolyCon starts this evening (Friday) in Vancouver — and today, people walking by newsboxes and checkout counters all across British Columbia are probably doing double-takes at this family portrait of PolyCon organizer Zoe Duff and her two longterm guys.

Tickets for PolyCon were nearly sold out as of two days ago, says Zoe. I hope the organizers are requiring good boundary agreements from reporters who want to attend. The PostMedia newspaper chain sure is taking an interest. Its flagship paper, the National Post, published the previous two articles that I excerpted here. The Province is part of that chain.

The article itself seems factual and basically correct. The paper, though downmarket, seems to be old-school about separating news and editorializing.

The article's original headline when it went up on the paper's site last night was Three’s not a crowd: Canada’s ‘polyamory’ community to descend on Vancouver for convention. Under that headline it became the second most-read story on the site. This morning it was reposted online under the headline below.

Group seeks the 'right to love'

Vancouver convention focuses on culture of multi-partner relationships

By Ian Austin

Samantha Fraser calls herself a poly advocate.

That's short form for promoter of polyamory — an emerging trend of multi-partner relationships, or as Fraser likes to call it, "ethical non-monogamy."

But she doesn't pretend it's easy. The question is put to the 33-year-old — are there issues with jealousy?

"Absolutely!" she says without a moment's hesitation. "Being non-monogamous requires a lot of work. There are people who want to try it out without doing the work, and people end up getting hurt."

The Torontonian — originally from England, raised in Nova Scotia — isn't naive or dogmatic about her lifestyle choice, and freely dishes on the positives and pitfalls of having more than one partner.

"I know families of three, and families of six, and families of 10," says Fraser, who says she and her husband are free to entertain other partners.

"Sometimes we have serious relationships, sometimes we have casual relationships."

Her lifestyle candour will be on display this weekend in Vancouver at "Polycon — Claiming our Right to Love."

It's a convention organized by the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association, and Fraser's keynote speech is entitled Living Honestly and Creating Change....

The group has incorporated a "whatever-works" philosophy - as long as the participants aren't getting hurt, anything goes.

"We believe every adult should create their own relationships," reads the group's website — polyadvocacy.ca. "No loving, life-enhancing possibility is out of bounds.... "Our relationships are custom-made by those in them, without preset roles."...

There's a nice sidebar about Zoe:

Polyamory is tough

Zoe Duff knows a lot about love.

She has to — she has six children, two step-children, four grandkids, and two ex-husbands.

But it doesn't stop there — now she's living in a triad with her current partners, Jayson Hawksworth and Danny Weeds.

"Polyamory is hard work, but I think any type of relationship is hard work," says Duff, who's running this weekend's convention.

"It's wonderful, but it's definitely not for everybody. It works for those who are willing to work at it.... My experience with monogamy and polyamory are completely different. We're forced to communicate or it's not going to work. The honesty has to be two-way."...

iaustin@theprovince.com
twitter.com/ianaustin007

Read the whole article (May 31, 2013). Here's a piccy...

...courtesy Samantha Fraser, in the pic.

Several hundred miles away, the article also appears today on the website of the chain's Calgary Herald.

A version also ran in the city of Victoria's Times-Colonist: Three isn’t a crowd when it’s a comfortable triangle.

Also, local polyactivist Kiki Christie and a partner were on Early Edition on CBC Vancouver Radio this morning. "That went well," she says. Listen here if the link works where you are; forward to 2:01:15.

PolyCon is being put on by the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association (CPAA), which did such a great job of essentially winning the decriminalization of poly relationships in Canada in 2011.

[Permalink]