Queer & poly animals rewrite "natural law." Research on why ENM succeeds. What an AI thinks we look like. Poly & psychedelics, new compersion book, more.

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First, announcements:

♥  From OPEN: "The Open Workplaces Initiative is a project between OPEN and the Modern Family Institute to foster inclusive workplaces for all family and relationship structures. 

"We're thrilled to announce our new Open Workplaces Office Hours, held weekly on Wednesdays at 4 PM PST / 7 PM EST. ...Connect and collaborate with the OPEN team and other non-monogamous professionals. Join us to discuss workplace advocacy, career-building, and more!

"...Our newly updated V2 Open Workplaces Toolkit is packed with actionable guidance and template policy language.

♥  Also from Open:  "[Less than] FOUR WEEKS until we kick off the global Week of Visibility for Non-monogamy! July 15 - 21.

"We just published the global event directory, with over a dozen in-person and virtual events and more being added every week! It's not too late to organize something for your community, too. Check out the Event Host Guide for helpful guidance, then register your in-person event or virtual event to add it to the directory.

"Here are the awesome events and activities that members of the community have planned so far:

VIRTUAL EVENTS

• Panel: Identity & Inclusion in the Non-monogamy Movement. Tue. July 16: RSVP on Luma or Plura
• Panel: Peek Inside our Polycule. Tue. July 16: RSVP
• Workshop: Is There a Right Way to do Non-monogamy. Wed. July 17: RSVP on Plura
• Workshop: Creating & Evolving Non-monogamous Boundaries. Wed. July 17: RSVP
• Panel: Non-monogamy Myths and Misconceptions. Wed. July 17: Tune in live on IG
• Panel: Are You Out. Thu. July 18: RSVP
• Mass Media and Non-monogamy. Thu. July 18: RSVP
• More events being planned including "Current Research on Consensual Non-monogamy," "The History & Culture of Non-monogamy Panel," and more – stay tuned!

IN-PERSON EVENTS

• Poly Poly Oxen Free! Wed. July 17 at Brooklyn Art Haus in Brooklyn, NY: Get tickets.
• Picnic in the Park! Sat. July 20 at Edgewater Park in Cleveland, OH: RSVP on Plura, Facebook, or Eventbrite.
• Polyamory Picnic Social! Sat. July 20 at Victoria Park in London, England: RSVP.
• Naughty Gym Kayak Trip! Sat. July 20 at North Alabama Canoe & Kayak in Brownsboro, AL: RSVP.
• Sunday Rooftop Brunch! Sun. July 21 at Whiskey Business in Chicago, IL: RSVP on Plura or Facebook.
• More events being planned in Oakland, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; Indianapolis, IN; Martigny, Switzerland; New York, NY – stay tuned!

"Share your story:

"We're inviting you to share a story that highlights your experience with non-monogamy, and a photo of you and your partner(s) and/or family. By doing so, you'll be helping to create more visibility for real-life non-monogamous families, relationships, and individuals.... Or share online with the hashtag #NonMonogamyVisibility,"

♥  As always, you can find the next 12 months of polyamory/ENM conventions, campouts, retreats, and other regional gatherings at Alan's List of Polyamory Events.  Any missing? Let me know! Write to alan7388 AT gmail.com

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Now, on with Polyamory in the News.

● The Peacock Network is out with a fun 1-hour documentary, Queer Planet. Fun and important. Many hundreds of animal species are well documented to show homosexual and bisexual behavior and pair bonds — and also, sometimes, to form polyamorous family units raising their young. Nature is not just MF couples like you were told as a child.

So much for natural law, that 13-century concept originating from Thomas Aquinas justifying why governments should outlaw "unnatural acts." If it happens in nature it's natural by definition. Oops.

The trailer:

Some flamingo parents form triads and quads
to hatch and raise their chicks.

My wife Sparkle Moose has a zoology PhD. "Let me tell you about nature," she says with a grin. She gives talks.

This matters because at the US Supreme Court, the Federalist Society, and other centers of orthodox Catholic legal thought, there's talk of bringing back natural law (fundamental to Thomism) as a "non-religious" legal foundation for anti-gay and anti-poly laws. That lots of animals have gay sex was, in fact, one of the arguments presented to overturn anti-sodomy laws in the Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision. But that was then, this is now.

The purpose of invoking natural law will be, as always, to try to hide the howitzers of Catholic doctrine under secular-scientific looking camouflage netting.

As Moose can tell you, 13th-century biology is to modern biology as 13th-century astronomy is to modern astronomy. Earth does move, and bad facts still make bad law.

●  Here's a piece that's had a lot of internet notice: Why Are Non-Monogamous Relationships Thriving? A Psychologist Answers (Forbes, June 8)

"A surge in non-traditional relationships serves as an augury of
their appeal, despite the prevailing stigma. (Getty)"

By Mark Travers

Non-monogamous relationships have been gaining interest and popularity among people looking for love. ...

[But] a 2023 study published in the Journal of Family Theory and Review concluded that individuals in non-monogamous relationships are considered to be more promiscuous, perverted and untrustworthy than people in monogamous relationships. ... However, the glaring question remains—why are non-traditional relationships gaining popularity and flourishing despite unfavorable perceptions?

The following antecedents and consequences of non-monogamy help account for their surge, according to the study.

1. Why Do People Choose Non-Monogamy?

Several factors act as precursors to individuals preferring to stray from conventional relationship structures.

   –  Sexual demographics. People who are white, younger, members of sexual minority groups, non-binary or transgender are more likely to seek out non-monogamous relationships.

   –  Value-based differences. Individuals who perceive an abundance in romantic alternatives and hold liberal political and religious views are more open to breaking traditional relationship norms. ... Individuals high in openness exhibit a greater desire for non-traditional relationships, showcasing a preference for variety, change and new experiences.

   –  Unfulfilled needs also encourage individuals to gain diversity in their romantic lives. A 2020 study published in Current Sexual Health Reports found that 42% of participants believed their non-monogamous relationships provided the benefits of diversified need fulfillment. ...

2. What Do People Get From Non-Monogamy?

Non-monogamous relationships owe their popularity, in part, to the positive relationship and sexual outcomes they yield.

Individuals in non-monogamous relationships experience greater satisfaction and commitment than their monogamous counterparts. Non-traditional relationships result in greater satisfaction—boasting better communication, and more openness and need fulfillment than conventional relationships. A 2015 study published in Sexual and Relationship Therapy found that adults aged 55 and above were happier in non-exclusive, unconventional relationships compared to those in monogamous relationships. Non-monogamous older adults also reported more sexual frequency and better health than their traditional counterparts. ...

As society continues to evolve, it is essential to acknowledge and respect the diversity of relationship styles and the autonomy of individuals to choose the relationship that best suits them. It’s important to prioritize open communication, trust and mutual consent if we attempt to explore alternative ways of forming intimate connections. Engaging in thorough self-reflection and open dialogue can help establish clear boundaries and expectations. Ultimately, the success of non-monogamous relationships hinges on a foundation of honesty and empathy for all parties involved.

Two books

●  Writes longtime CNM researcher Marie Thouin to friends and colleagues,

I'm thrilled to announce the publication of the first-ever comprehensive scholarly book on compersion: What Is Compersion?: Understanding Positive Empathy in Consensually Non-Monogamous Relationships.

This book is the culmination of nearly a decade of research; I consider this book a hybrid between a scholarly text and a practical roadmap on compersion. While the book is heftily referenced, the bulk of the content is based on STORIES from the study participants I interviewed between 2018 and 2023. So, I trust this book will appeal to scholars, therapists/counselors, and non-monogamous folks alike (as long as they’re at least a little bit nerdy).

From the publisher's description:

Each chapter features compelling stories from real CNM people.... Thouin addresses the broader social context, explaining how understanding compersion is a groundbreaking step toward a world that supports relational diversity and freedom. By disrupting the idea that jealousy is the only valid response to intimacy beyond monogamy, the existence and practice of compersion builds the foundation for a completely new paradigm of loving relationships. ... Indispensable for CNM individuals, therapists, counselors, and scholars, this book is also invaluable for anyone curious to learn about positive empathy, intentional relationships, and radical love.

Thouin just did a podcast interview with the Multiamory crew (June 18, Episode 484, 1 hour).

●  And here's a book for therapists being newly republicized. The Many Faces of Polyamory: Longing and Belonging in Concurrent Relationships by Magdalena J. Fosse (2021). With polyamory a hotter topic now, the book's academic publisher (Routledge) is doing a fresh sales campaign. From their press release:

[The Many Faces of Polyamory] continues to inspire clinicians and patients alike... offering fresh perspectives and clinical insights into the longing to belong within concurrent relationships. The exploration of nonmonogamy within therapeutic settings is both complex and vital in a world where traditional relational norms are changing and evolving.

...Dr. Fosse is the current president of the Psychodynamic Couple and Family Institute of New England (PCFINE), and she is devoted to educating clinicians interested in developing skills and competence in couples therapy. 

...In The Many Faces of Polyamory Dr. Fosse offers  insight into understanding the dynamics of love, sex, jealousy, and compersion among those engaged in polyamorous and consensually nonmonogamous relationships. ... providing readers with a nuanced understanding of how to navigate these relationships....

●  And on another therapeutic cutting edge, or perhaps bleeding edge: Psychedelics and polyamory: an open marriage by Jules Evans (Ecstatic Integration, June 2, paywalled.)

We know that psychedelics can shift people’s metaphysical beliefs. What about shifting their attitude to monogamy?

Do psychedelics make people more open to polyamory? That topic is very much not on the research agenda at the moment, in fact it’s barely discussed. MAPS and other campaigners want to avoid all the controversies of the 1960s, and to show that psychedelics save marriages, strengthen the military, boosts the economy, and so on. The overlap between psyc… [paywall]

Much as I'm partial to psychedelics, mixing this mix is a mental-health explosive. Standard procedure in responsible psychedelic guiding and tripsitting, professional or amateur, is the agreement "No sexual contact during the session, except [maybe] between long-established partners."

This is for hard reasons. The 1960s counterculture, for instance, was famously lax about this mix, sometimes leading to emotional wreckage and the formation of abusive cults.

Evans himself writes on his LinkedIn page,

...Based on my informal survey, a far higher percentage of psychonauts are polyamorous or practice consenting non monogamy than the general public. Do psychedelics and psychedelic culture make one more open to non-monogamy? Over 60% of my survey respondents thought so.

But survey respondents and interviewees also told me of multiple experiences of boundary violations and ethical abuses in the world of psychedelic polyamory, including therapists and guides claiming their sexual touch in psychedelic sessions can heal traumatised vulnerable people.

● Canada's CTV News interviews family-law mediator John-Paul Boyd on gaps in Canada's laws that leave multipartner families stranded. Do laws need to change as polyamory increases? (May 3, five minutes). Boyd has been studying this issue for years. You may remember him in the news for, among other things, his 2017 research report for the Vanier Institute of the Family, "Polyamory in Canada: Research on an Emerging Family Structure".

●  Says Vanity Fair, The Summer of the Throuple Is Upon Us (June 21). They mean movies and TV.

Hot girl summer is over. This year, it’s all about the ménage à trois. ... What is most thrilling is that these new throuples are also marked by power dynamics that may be even more subversive than the sight of three people sharing a kiss at the same time. ...

●  A solid Poly 101 in yet another women's fashion mag, Grazia: Here’s What Polyamory Is Like From Women Who’ve Tried It (June 14).

●  And in the makeup-and-shopping mag Allure, What Exactly Is a Polycule Anyway? (June 21). Surprisingly good, considering.

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●  And now, I'm kind of astonished. I've heard lots of people's polyamory songs on YouTube, almost none of them radio quality. So how would an AI songwriting program do, based on prompts by someone who knows the subject?

Better than most! Joreth Innkeeper prompted for a song to be titled "Solo Polyamory" done in "gritty blues rock." She adjusted the lyrics and posted the result on YouTube:

Color me impressed. Joreth has presented at many polycons over the years, and the song does seem to capture her attitude. Any giveaways that an AI did it? Well, the music hardly grows any more elaborate or varied as it goes on. Easy fixes: Tell it to overlay a second, then third and fourth voices verse by verse. Alternate the voice additions female and male. Add a horn section behind the final chorus.

Gee, that was easy to type! Maybe I have a future in music.

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That spookily good result got me wondering. What would an AI think polyfolks look like? Image-generating AI gets its "ideas" from what is online and in archives. So then, would an AI portray an average of how the real world thinks we look?

I went to Canva and asked it to draw "typical polyamorists today." After a few incoherent jumbles it caught on and presented...

EDIT: Google Blogger deleted the image, apparently as "misleading." Because it showed AI-generated people? In a story about AI??

Use this QR code:

...dashing hipsters. Could be worse. It even made the woman look central and powerful. How'd it know to do that?

Never mind the monster-hand hallucination draped over her shoulder. To generate images that are both creative and convincing, a neural net uses the same universal perception algorithm that psychedelics act upon in your brain.^[1] Sometimes it shows.

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^[1] Okay, here we go down this rabbit hole according to me. Skip if not interested.

Neuroscientists, using new technologies, have been finding out fascinating things about how  brains work, and these findings have shaped artificial-intelligence strategies.

Running all the time in your brain are neural feedback loops that compare bottom-up inputs, such as from your senses or subconscious thought fragments, against top-down "priors", assumptions built up from past experience or habits. These feedback loops test an input against priors for its likelihood to be real and, if so, worth noticing. The loops then either extinguish it as being unreal or irrelevant, or approve it and pass it up to the next, more complex level of processing and reality-development. And if it's approved, the process will often adjust some of the priors to let it pass easier in the future. The process repeats at increasing levels of complexity and abstraction, up and up. All this happens very fast far below consciousness.

These neural loops have actually been found to continuously implement the Bayes formula, the famous equation in statistics for calculating a greatest likelihood from multiple pieces of uncertain or partial information. Bayesian processing is apparently built in at a fundamental level. Reportedly, if you put a few of the pyramidal neurons from a brain's cortex next to each other in a dish, they will find each other and start implementing the Bayes equation right there in the dish. It's what they do.

In this way your brain creates, and continually updates, its best-estimate internal model of the world around you. Evolution has powerfully selected for this reality-judging mechanism, since it gives any creature with a brain its best odds to survive and thrive as it moves through the messy outer world.

These countless Bayesian feedback loops self-adjust on the fly to try to keep up with changes and new things around you. (The term is "active inference.") The loops run at all levels from the lowest and simplest, such as flagging lines and edges in a visual field, all the way up to the complex and abstract: "This thing is a dog", "That thing is a house", "Bob's barbecue party has started next door, because voices." The loops have been measured to run very fast, at speeds of some tens of milliseconds per feedback cycle.

Next point: This model-making process creates both your conscious perception (your experience of the world around you) and your interoception (your experience of your body and self).

The reason your brain has to create models, inside your skull, of the world and the self is so the brain can work with them at all. Because the neurons you think and act with are there inside your skull, not outside of your head in the dog or the house or your toe.

Key point: These internal models feel to you like just they are the real world, and like a distinct thing that is a body and a self -- merely as a shortcut to not waste brainpower having to map the model to reality piece by piece consciously in real time.

This algorithm has, at least, become the hot working hypothesis in the consciousness-studies field. And it's why implementing the Bayesian algorithm in a machine can make the machine act spookily as if it "sees" and "understands" like a human. Though often imperfectly, with hallucinations mixed in.

This scenario of multilevel Bayesian neural feedback loops, IME, also explains many psychedelic phenomena. Simply posit that the thing psychedelic drugs do is to re-weight the feedback loops, at all levels -- either by strengthening the force of the bottom-up inputs, or by weakening the top-down priors and filters that control what's allowed up to the next level. Or both.

That does it. It's no coincidence that the classical psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, etc.) are known to work by altering the input and output rates of those cortical pyramidal neurons.

So your "doors of perception" when tripping are not so much "cleansed," as Aldous Huxley famously put it in 1954, as reset to run freer -- to form looser, more directly bottom-up-driven constructs of reality. At every level. Which may then trigger, like a sudden revelation, the same "feels real" shortcut mechanism.

This includes accepting and amplifying loose inputs from normally unrelated parts of the brain itself, and from random, low-level neural noise. Both of those would normally be extinguished but can spur unexpected novelty and creativity when passed higher up.

I can even observe the "feels real" mechanism suddenly switching on and off when looking at a hallucination: going from "That pile of laundry looks like a weeping face" to "Goddamn, there that entity is, right here in the room with me just a few feet away!" This is the same reality-making process as in gazing at art painted on canvas, or pareidolia in clouds or tree trunks, or looking inwardly at hypnogogic images ("eyelid movies") that turn 3-D, or lucid dreams.

Next step: This same Bayesian model-making algorithm also creates, using your interoceptions, a working model of yourself.

Which also feels real, like a separate conscious being-- not what it is, just an emergent phenomenon of neural activity: a model. Which, again, comes with the useful working shortcut illusion that you're seeing a reality directly.

For me, grasping this scenario has made pretty much everything on psychedelics more understandable, easier to work with, and often even adjustable on the fly. Which I take as a sign that this is indeed what the psychedelic mechanism actually is.

Including that sense of expanded consciousness. By weakening filters, the drug allows you to see things going on at deeper levels in your brain that would normally be suppressed so as not to distract you from the job of operating effectively in the real world.

But knowing this comes at a cost!  Me, Alan, I, am revealed as not the captain of the Ship of Alan as it navigates in the world, but as merely an internal neural model of a self -- which, again as a shortcut, feels like a real, distinct thing. It's as if the Ship of Alan turned transparent and I look down and see the machinery in the engine room that's actually driving it and creating me -- plain, material-world neural machinery that has spun off this subjective experience of an "Alan" as a byproduct, a wraithlike emergent phenomenon. Its evolutionary role is to efficiently pass best-judgment data from the instruments on the ship's empty bridge to the engine room.

This suggests that the experience of consciousness is a useful spinoff, which evolution strongly selected for as soon as it emerged, because it provides motivation -- experiences of horrible pain and ineffable reward, desperate fear and driving hope -- whereas something that is unconscious like a robot doesn't care. And thus won't be motivated to try so desperately hard.

Talk about existential crisis! When people tell you not to take psychedelics frivolously, listen to them.

And yet, what an incredibly rich, complex, meaningful social-reality world we emergent phenomena have created! Our species' strong experience of being a self became the most important thing about us and enables us to dominate the Earth. How amazing is that? Don't forget, emergent phenomena themselves are real things. . . but abstract derivative things, not the first-order entities that our souls feel to us like they are.

Outright illusions are also things. I've concluded that you cannot grasp what psychedelics do without fully grasping the fact that that the external reality, and our experience of external reality, are two utterly different orders of being.

Confusing the two, I've also come to realize, is the cause of so many human misconceptions, delusions, and dead-end false beliefs.

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The weakening of the Bayesian loops' priors and filters about choosing what is worth spending brain power on, relative to the power of upwelling input material, also explains other effects.

One is how psychedelics famously send ordinary, philosophically uninclined people into experiencing revelatory plunges though ultimate philosophical rabbit tunnels -- mystical experiences of insights into matters that might even be ultimate truths of some kind -- which would normally be extinguished as seizing too much brain attention away from effective functioning in the real world. Think of the stereotyped acidhead mumbling and gasping about life, the universe, and everything as he wanders out into traffic. Millions of years of evolution have selected against that kind of thing. 

Therefore, we find ourselves lacking the words or tools for understanding, or working effectively with, deep possible realities beyond the world and body that we simply never evolved to handle. 

(The usual Ukraine stuff will return next post.)

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Finally, a genuinely poly movie coming (queer too). The last word on the "Challengers" movie. Six new fiction books for summer reading. The AARP gets it. And, many upcoming events.

But first, four announcements:

♥  It's just six weeks to the annual Week of Visibility for Non-Monogamy July 15 - 21. This ambitious project is inspired and coordinated by OPEN, the 2½-year-old Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy.  Start your planning.

Last year's single Day of Visibility, the first, was a surprisingly large success. Thousands of people gathered for celebrations put on by local folks in over a dozen cities and/or opened up about their non-monogamous identities online. The people and communities who held these events told OPEN in followup brainstorm sessions that they wanted the day expanded to a week. So it's happened.

"The Week of Visibility is a movement-wide week of action dedicated to amplifying non-monogamous voices, identities, and experiences in order to dismantle stereotypes, promote acceptance, and celebrate how far we’ve come!"

OPEN suggests the following coordination of daily themes for people with the flexibility to do it:

Monday, July 15: History & Culture
Tuesday, July 16: Identity & Inclusion
Wednesday, July 17: Myths & Misconceptions
Thursday, July 18: Public & Private
Friday, July 19: Law & Advocacy
Sat-Sun, July 20-21: Action & Events!

Plan what you or your group might do, large or small. Go to OPEN's How To Participate page. And get on their mailing list if you're not on it already.

♥ June 4, this Tuesday, brings OPEN's next Town Hall online meeting, for activists to learn more about what OPEN is up to and get a say in it. One hour long. Starts at 4 pm Pacific, 7 pm Eastern. RSVP to join or to get a copy of the recording.

"Town Halls are an opportunity for [OPEN] to share updates about our work advancing rights and acceptance for non-monogamous families and relationships. But more than that, it's an opportunity to connect and share your own ideas with a community of passionate people advocating for diverse relationship structures."   

♥  June 15: Online poly education/discussion fundraiser, featuring about 20 of our poly-movement public figures, to raise medical aid money for the ongoing civilian catastrophe in Gaza, population 2.2 million with no escape. The event is hosted by the UK's Leanne Yau, the prolific good-poly advocate and social-media star known as Poly Philia. Says Leanne, "The event itself is about polyamory education, but all proceeds go to Medical Aid for Palestinians."

Register here. You choose what to donate. The session will run from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (UT minus 4 hours).

♥  As always, you can find the next 12 months of polyamory/ENM conventions, campouts, and other regional community gatherings at Alan's List of Polyamory Events.  Any missing? Let me know! Write to alan7388 AT gmail.com

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And now, on to polyamory in the news.

●  National Anthem is, at last, a genuinely poly movie that's soon to release. Trailer is up! "A queer love story plays out in a country western setting in... Luke Gilford's story about cowboy Dylan (Charlie Plummer) meeting a polyamorous couple. (Mashable, May 14)

This indie movie, which premiered at the 2023 SXSW Festival, "opens in select theaters from July 12 and nationwide from July 19." IMDb page.

From Mashable's review, A glorious portrait of rural queer Americana

By Kristy Puchko

...Co-writer/director Luke Gilford found inspiration in his experiences as a queer kid coming up in a rodeo family and his professional photography capturing queer rodeo. National Anthem is a tale not of culture clash but of culture combining. Through the story of a lonely young man, this drama explores a side of Americana that is rural and rhinestones, true grit and truly gay. There, he will not only find his first love, but also himself. 

Charlie Plummer stars as Dylan, an introverted 21-year-old cowboy who... meets the burly Pepe (Rene Rosado) and the breezy Sky (Bros' Eve Lindley). 

Deep down a dirt road in New Mexico, this polyamorous couple owns a ranch called House of Splendor. There, they live with their found family, which includes gay and trans members as well as a nonbinary drag queen with a fairy godmother vibe (The Sandman's Mason Alexander Park). From day one, Dylan can't help but stop and stare in awe of these free spirits, who ride horseback in shimmering gowns, dance about in their underwear unashamed, and laugh loud and proud like no one in his home has ever. But it's radiant Sky who steals his heart. 

As the group welcomes him into their fold — and to the queer rodeo where they compete for shiny belt buckles — Dylan begins to come out of his shell. A bit of blue eye makeup there, a no-judgment conversation there, and soon he's happier than his mom has ever seen him. This raises her suspicions....

The screenplay... is light on plot, focusing half-heartedly on Dylan's infatuation with Sky — and to a lesser extent, Pepe. They will flirt, fuck, and share their feelings.... The chemistry between this threesome is heady and hot, reminiscent of European movies of the '60s and '70s, with a glossy polish of perfectly gorgeous leads and a warm color palette that relishes flushed flesh. However, this movie is bigger than their romance — and is not concerned with labeling its characters within the LGBTQ spectrum.

The film gives voice to its reticent protagonist, the kind of cowboy too often overlooked in country western culture. Dylan's longing isn't hidden among the subtext of gunplay, like in Howard Hawks' Red River. His desire has neither twisted him into a vengeful parody of hetero-machismo, like in The Power of the Dog, nor bent him into a muttering, miserable figure of tragedy, as in Brokeback Mountain. And it hasn't instantly transformed him into a glittering gay cowboy icon, like Lil Nas X in Old Town Road.... Surrounding Dylan at the rodeo, there is only love — in a dizzying montage of crop tops and cowboy hats, burly bears making out as their belt buckles bump, while a resplendent Black drag queen in a sequined gown and crisp ten-gallon hat sings the national anthem. ...

While many, many narratives of queerness in America — especially those set in traditionally conservative spaces — center on tragedy, National Anthem is about queer joy. ... It's not a rallying cry, but instead a firm declaration of existence and the pursuit of happiness.

National Anthem actors  (IMDb / Corey Nickols)

●  Speaking of movies — here, in stark contrast, is the last word on the Challengers movie: It's poly-baiting! Leanne Yau (Poly Philia) nails it cold in one minute:

●  Elsewhere: NPR's "All Things Considered" airs a three-minute report on the poly civil-rights protections that passed in Oakland and Berkeley: Polyamorous families are recognized and protected in Oakland, CA (May 31). ATC talks to attorney Diana Adams of PLAC, Oakland poly household member John Owens, and on the anti side, California Family Council vice president Greg Burt. 

●  Thinking about polyamory? You’re not the only one. So says Canadian philosopher Carrie Jenkins (University of British Columbia) in an article on The Conversation (May 22) that's being reprinted in various media. The Conversation is a site where academics post popular articles about their work that other publications may reprint for free.

Carrie Jenkins

Polyamory — being open to having more than one romantic partner at the same time, with everyone’s knowledge and consent — is on the rise, particularly among people below the age of 45.

Yet at the same time, we’re told that younger people are increasingly turning away from romance and dating. On the face of it, these trends appear contradictory. Does Gen Z want multiple partners or none at all? What is going on?

Seen through the right lens, however, they are really two symptoms of the same underlying cause. A fundamental change is underway: our society is learning to respect more diverse visions of a “good life.”

We can break this down by looking at each trend on its own terms. ... Both represent approaches to life that do not presume or prioritize a traditional relationship. ...The only relationship style that does come with a prescribed formula is monogamy.

 ...We should not be overly optimistic about this. Nuanced representations of polyamorous relationships and single life are still lacking, and the stigmas are still very much a reality. It’s also expensive to live alone, and most of our social and legal structures are still designed around the assumption that all relationships are monogamous.

[But] the two apparently contradictory trends — young people being more likely to choose polyamory and more likely to choose being single — give me optimistic feelings that the kids are alright. Taken together, these trends suggest young folks are increasingly resistant to the pressure to be in a “normal” relationship, and that they are finding value in a more diverse range of lives and loves.

Existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir tells us that authentic love must be grounded in an appreciation of each person’s full selfhood: their freedom to become who and what they choose. She said that in 1949. Perhaps we are starting to listen.

●  Also from Canada, on CBC Radio: Ontario Today with Amanda Pfeffer: Why does polyamory work for you? (51 minutes, May 29).

 "Ontario Today is joined by two guests: Stacey Smith? (sic) is a mathematics professor at the University of Ottawa in the faculty of science. She's a polyamorous trans woman and runs a polyamory meetup in Ottawa. We're also joined by Samantha Manewitz. Samantha is a Toronto-based registered social worker and sex therapist. And specializes in sexual diversity and LGBTQ issues."

●  Are you getting their mail yet? The AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, starts hitting your mailbox at age 50 retired or not. Thirty-eight million people get the chatty, advice-filled AARP Magazine, the largest-circulation print publication in America. Its website claims 22 million unique visitors per month.

The website, at least, interviewed several of our best authors and educators for the article below (April 26). It presents dutifully researched, realistic advice that's good for any age.

Valero Doval 

By Robin L. Flanigan, AARP

...Monogamy isn’t for everyone. ... Twenty-five percent of men and women age 40 and older engaged in consensual nonmonogamy or polyamory [at some point], and 29 percent report that having sex with more than one person at the same time is their most common sexual fantasy, found AARP’s “Ageless Desire: Relationships and Sex in Middle Age and Beyond” report, published in September 2023.

But most older adults interested in open relationships aren’t looking for one-night stands, says Kathy Labriola, author of Polyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships [2022]. Rather, they’re searching for an ongoing, casual, sexual or romantic relationship that allows them to feel comfortable and emotionally safe.

Those relationships aren’t easy to manage, says Labriola, a nurse based in Berkeley, California. ... “A nonmonogamous relationship requires ... your time, your energy, your willingness to be vulnerable and take risks, and your willingness to communicate — a lot — with your partner and any other partner you get involved with.”

If an open relationship is something you’re engaged in already or considering, it’s important to think through and communicate with your partners what you want out of it.

Here are six tips for starting and maintaining a healthy open relationship.

Ask yourself why you want an open relationship.

This act of self-reflection is critical, experts say. “The biggest problem I see is that people sort of stumble into these situations not really knowing what it is they’re looking for, or what they hope to gain from it, or what they hope to experience,” [Labriola] says. ...

Communicate with your partner clearly and gracefully.

Be clear about your expectations from the get-go, but do so with sensitivity ... says Los Angeles-based Tristan Taormino, author of Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. One way to “get into the pool through the shallow end” is by mentioning you read an article about it online, she says.

You can also ask open-ended questions, says Robert McGarey, founder and executive director of the Human Potential Center in Austin, Texas, and author of Polyamory Communication Survival Kit: The Essential Tools for Building and Enhancing Relationships.

Some examples: How do you feel when you think of that? ...

Both partners, he says, should practice self-awareness and active listening — hear and then respond in an attempt to understand — and bring a win-win attitude to the conversation.

McGarey proposes summarizing with, “Let’s work together as a team to craft a relationship structure that really, really works for us.... [Let’s] get creative to see what’s possible.”

As with all relationships, once in an open one, honesty and steady communication remain necessary to avoid discomfort and pitfalls. ... Good communication also is necessary for the more practical side of things, including age-related sex challenges, side effects of medications that affect sexual desire, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

Start off slowly – maybe with swinging...

Focus on equity, not equality...

A lot of people focus on making sure everything is equal in relationships, but successful open relationships tend to focus more on equity, says Devine, who is based in San Francisco. ...“It’s about what each person needs and wants,” Devine says. ...

Be prepared to deal with jealousy...

According to Taormino, jealousy often is about an unmet need. ... 

Bottom line: Think about love as always expanding, not limiting.

...“Don’t approach nonmonogamy thinking, This is going to take away something from my life,” [Taormino] says. “It should actually create closeness for everyone."

“There is a certain freedom that comes with aging,” she says. “You’ve had all these life experiences and you have all this knowledge, and also you’re still willing to grow and change. Nothing is ever ‘too late.’ And you may actually, throughout your life so far, have found that monogamy doesn’t work for you.”

●  On Book Riot, 2024 is the Year of Queer Polyamorous Books, and I’m Here for It writes Danika Ellis (May 30). "The dynamic between three (or four, or five, or…) people is so much more complex and fascinating to read about than a romance between two people." 

She gushes about about Really Cute People by Markus Harwood-Jones, Triple Sec, a romance by T. J. Alexander; Boyfriends Volume Two, an anime graphic novel by Refrainbow;  Death’s Country by R. M. Romero ("a queer, polyamorous, Latine YA retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice set in Miami");  Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender ("a queer, trans, polyamorous YA book set at a magic school"); and Evocation by S. T. Gibson ("a psychic lawyer has to team up with his ex-boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend’s wife to fight an ancestral deal with the Devil that is closing in on his soul.")

●  In LGBTQ Nation: Therapists are blaming polyamory for patients’ problems. These researchers want to change that (May 28). It's about the American Psychological Association Division 44's Committee on Consensual Non-Monogamy (new just a few years ago), its work to educate therapists, and its co-chairs Heath Schechinger and Amy Moors.

According to one study of 249 individuals in various forms of ethically non-monogamous relationships, therapists suggested, among other things, that their relationships were the direct cause of mental health issues and parroted misogynistic tropes such as “women can’t do non-monogamy.” ...

One-fifth of participants said their therapists had little or no active knowledge of consensual non-monogamy and that they had to spend a lot of time trying to educate them.

●  Poly/ENM fascination is spreading not just in North America but throughout the English-speaking world, the only part of the world I can follow. For instance, a long piece in the New Zealand Herald and/or its local affiliates: 'Situationships', 'throuples', 'ethical non-monogamy': The shift in modern relationships (May 18). It also mentions an upcoming national TV report. 

By Carly Gibbs

Five years ago, ethical non-monogamy was a blip on the sexual radar in New Zealand. Now, thanks to the growth of social media and taboos around sex dropping, there’s increased ‘permission’ to be sexually curious.

Anna... a Bay of Plenty singleton, [describes the current] usual male dating profile. In the ‘more about me’ section, [the man will] be upfront about his marital status and that his partner knows he’s seeking another woman’s companionship.

“Some of them, it’s not just sex for fun; they’re looking for genuine second partnerships with other women and still have their first partners,” she says.

...NZ sex therapist Jo Robertson [says] she sees some clients who feel prudish if they aren’t permissive. “There is this subtle theme of needing to be open and exploratory all the time and some negative connotations with doing the mainstream. I spend a lot of time with clients establishing that it’s okay to say ‘no’ to things.”

Ethical non-monogamy, opening up, or adding others to “play” to reignite or keep erotic excitement between a couple, is a “high-risk” relationship practice for feelings of betrayal or pressure, Robertson says. 

...[Tauranga sex therapist Terri] Ewart agrees, saying the mistake too many couples make is adding in a third to save their relationship.

...Alternative relationship configurations can work, but Ewart says it often depends on robust conversations beforehand and a person’s attachment style (secure, anxious, disorganised, or avoidant).

“You’ll find that most people who go into this space generally live in the most securely attached portion of our population.”

[Says Sophie, in her late 30s] “As a woman, we are often socialised to be preoccupied with our partner’s sexual needs – and here I was given full consent to explore my desires.”

“For those curious, please don’t just wing it,” she says. “Educate yourself.”

Her advice is to develop care, communication, consent skills, and good time management skills to navigate the complexity of multiple dynamics. ...

Four days later in the New Zealand Herald: What is ethical non-monogamy? From throuples to open relationships, everything you need to know (by Michelle Kasey, May 22, paywalled).

●  From Nigeria, a triad interview: Love Life: We Went From an Open Relationship to Polyamory (Zikoku, May 30)

Dumebi* (27) and Oyin* (24) met and started dating in 2022. They decided on an open relationship three months later, until he met Peju* (26). In this week’s Love Life, the three talk about falling in love with two people, how easy it was to transition into polyamory and what it’s like to be a throuple in Nigeria.

●  Another country heard from: I Have A Partner And So Does My Husband: Woman Details Polyamory In Malta (Lovin Malta newspaper, "your inside track to everything about the Maltese Islands," June 1)

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Meanwhile, the struggle maybe starts to turn Ukraine's way...

    

...as described by Russians here. We can hope they're right, after more than six months of the pro-Putin half of the Republican Party starving Ukraine of essential war supplies — to all appearances, in hopes that this free, newly Europe-oriented country would be overrun by the Russian conquerors.  Because authoritarians should rule everywhere. The congressional list of shame. Their logjam is now broken.

Here is why I've been ending posts to this polyamory news site with the Ukraine situation: I've seen too many progressive movements die out, or get wiped out, because they failed to scan the wider world accurately and understand their position in it strategically.

We polyamorous people are a small, weird minority of social-rule breakers. Increasingly powerful people call us a threat to society — because by living successfully outside of their worldview, we expose its incompleteness.

Our freedom to choose our relationship structures, and to speak up for ourselves about the truth of ourselves, is just one way we depend on a free and pluralistic society that respects people's dignity to create their own lives, to access facts, and to speak of what they know.

Such a society is possible only where people have reasonably good power to govern themselves, combined with legal structures that are at least supposed to guarantee the rights of all.

Innovative people, communities, and societies who create their own lives, and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights that enable them to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the authoritarians who are growing in power around the world and in our own United States. Now with direct mutual support, which is increasingly unhidden.

Such rulers and would-be rulers seek to stamp out other people's freedom to choose their lives — by intimidation, repressive laws, inflammatory disinformation and public incitement, weaponizing police abuse and stacking courts, or eventually, artillery.

For what it's worth, Polyamory in the News received more pagereads from pre-invasion Ukraine over the years (56,400) than from any other country in eastern Europe.

You can donate to Ukraine relief through this list of vetted organizations (last updated Oct. 2023). We're giving to a big one, Razom, and to a little informal one, Pizza for Ukraine in Kharkiv, the project of an old friend of my wife.

But that is only the start. For those of us born since World War II, this is the most consequential war of our lifetime. Because we have entered another time when calculating fascism, at home and abroad, is rising and sees freedom and liberalism and social tolerance as weak, degenerate, delusional — inviting easy pushovers. As Russia thought it saw in Ukraine. The whole world is watching what we will do about it.

Background: "The United States has a much higher stake in Russia's war on Ukraine than most people think."  More: "If we stop supporting Ukraine, then everything gets worse, all of a sudden, and no one will be talking about “fatigue” because we will all be talking about disaster."

The coming times may require hard things of us. We don't get to choose the time and place in history we find ourselves born into. We do get to choose how we respond to it. 

Need a little help bucking up? Play this. Another version. More? Some people on the eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war is awful.) Maybe your granddad did this from a trench against Hitler's tanks — for you, and us, because a world fascist movement was successfully defeated that time, opening the way for the rest of the 20th century.

But the outcome didn't look good for a couple of years then, either. Popular history remembers the 1945 victory over the Nazis and the joyous homecoming. Less remembered are the defeats and grim prospects from 1941 through early 1943.

Remember, these people say they are doing it for us too. They are correct. The global struggle between a free, open future and a fearful revival of the dark past that's shaping up, including in our own country, is still in its early stages. It's likely to get worse before it gets better. The outcome is again uncertain, and it will determine the 21st century and the handling of all its other problems.

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PS: Ukraine should not be idealized as the paragon of an open democratic society. For instance, ‘A Big Step Back’: In Ukraine, Concerns Mount Over Narrowing Press Freedoms (New York Times, June 18, 2024). And it has quite the history of being run by corrupt oligarchs — leading to the Maidan Uprising of 2013, the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and Zelensky's overwhelming election in 2019 as the anti-corruption candidate. So they're working on that. And they're also stamping hard on the old culture of everyday, petty corruption.  More on that.  More; "Ukraine shows that real development happens when people believe they have an ownership stake in their own societies."

Now, writes US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic, 

Here was a country with a tragic history that had at last begun to build, with great effort, a better society. What made Ukraine different from any other country I had ever seen—certainly from my own—was its spirit of constant self-improvement, which included frank self-criticism. For example, there’s no cult of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine—a number of Ukrainians told me that he had made mistakes, that they’d vote against him after the war was won. Maxim Prykupenko, a hospital director in Lviv, called Ukraine “a free country aspiring to be better all the time.” The Russians, he added, “are destroying a beautiful country for no logical reason to do it. Maybe they are destroying us just because we have a better life.”

They have a word there, with a deep history, for the horizontal, self-organized, mutual get-it-done that grows from community social trust: hromada. Learn that word. It's been keeping them going  to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

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Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But not bitterly so like often in the US; in the last generation the ideal of modern European civil society has become widely treasured, and social progressivism has room to thrive. The status of women has fast advanced, especially post-invasion. More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions — including as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, snipers, and infantry. (Intimidating video: "Thus the Witch has Said".) Ukraine has more women volunteering in combat positions than any other armed force in the world.

  
Some LGBT folx in the armed forces display symbols of LGBT pride on their uniforms, with official approval, whereas in Russia it's a prison-worthy crime for even a civilian to show a rainbow pin or "say gay." A report on Ukraine's LGBT+ and feminist acceptance revolutions. Another. Another. Another. War changes things.

And in December 2022, Russia made it a crime not just to speak for LGBT recognition in Russia or occupied Ukraine, but to speak for "non-traditional sexual relations." Belarus, a Russia subject state, has followed suit. Pre-invasion, Russia had a visible polyamory education and awareness movement.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full material backing for as long as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and future. Continue to speak up for it.

                                     

A Russian writer grieves: "My country has fallen out of time."

Women defenders on the eastern front

PPS:  U.S. authori-tarians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, are saying that allowing women in front-line roles is a woke plot to weaken America's armed forces. Ukraine puts that shit to bed. Do you have a relative who talks like that? Send them this video link to Vidma, who commands a mortar platoon, recounting the story of one of their battles near Bakhmut.

Update June 17, 2024: Almost two years later Vidma is still alive, still with her mortar unit, and posting TikToks. They are now at the front in, it looks like, the battle to hold Chasiv Yar, an afternoon's walking distance east of Bakhmut. A young girl who looks high-school age showed up to join them. Another vid. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on us. 

And maybe our own? Says Maine's independent Senator Angus King (Jan. 31, 2024),

Whenever people write to my office [asking why we are supporting Ukraine,] I answer, 'Google Sudetenland, 1938.' We could have stopped a murderous dictator who was bent on geographic expansion…at a relatively low cost. The result of not doing so was 55 million deaths.

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