NPR site: "A Cultural Moment For Polyamory"

On the homepage of National Public Radio today, and on the sites of some member stations, is an article explaining to the unaware that polyamory has become A Serious Thing.

A Cultural Moment For Polyamory

By Barbara J. King

The relevance of this iStock photo goes unexplained
in the article. Photographers, get busy!

The word polyamory, according to this FAQ page maintained by writer and sex educator Franklin Veaux, "is based on the Greek and Latin for 'many loves.' ... A polyamorous person is someone who has or is open to having more than one romantic relationship at a time, with the knowledge and consent of all their partners."

Lately, I'm seeing "polyamory" everywhere. It's not a new word or concept of course, but it seems to be having a cultural moment.

Some of the heightened attention to polyamory may be because philosopher Carrie Jenkins published a book about it early this year.

...Around the same time, an article in Salon magazine profiled people who participate in a monthly event in New York designed for the polyamorous.

And the topic is here, again, in New York magazine this month in an article citing a study that reports polyamory has been practiced by 20 percent of single Americans at some point. [One could dispute this depending on definition.]

It goes on to quote, at length, various notables about the flexible and varied nature of love, the myth of biologically ingrained monogamy, and other basic topics that most readers here know about. But whenever a mainstream-media intro like this appears, I'm surprised at the number of people to whom it's still brand new.

Advertising experts supposedly say that a new concept or product must "touch" people an average of seven times before they remember that they've even heard of it before. I would hope that the polyamorous possibility is arresting enough not to take seven exposures to register, but who knows?

The author concludes,

Polyamory, in other words, is just another expression of the behavioral flexibility that is the true hallmark of our species — and one that, as I have learned from my reading, is predicated centrally on openness and honesty.

Surely that's well worth a cultural moment.

Barbara J. King is an anthropology professor emerita at the College of William and Mary. She often writes about the cognition, emotion and welfare of animals, and about biological anthropology, human evolution and gender issues. ... Twitter: @bjkingape

Read the whole article (March 23, 2017). There's no audio and it wasn't on the air as far as I can tell.

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