The Two Big Waves of Polyamory in the News this spring

I've gone way too long without posting! I will speed up Polyamory in the News again. For now, some catch-up.

●  The wave of poly-rights legislation in Pacific Northwest cities (see previous post) caught the attention of, among many others, the New York Times. Which thinks it sees a long-term trend brewing. In the Northwest, Polyamory Finds Something New: Legal Protection (Feb. 28)

From big cities like Seattle and Portland, Ore., to small ones like Astoria, Ore., proponents of “nontraditional” romantic relationships are making headway in getting legal recognition.

By Anna Griffin

Under President Trump’s leadership, the country as a whole is swinging to the right on social policy. But the Pacific Northwest, as usual, is swinging its own way.

A wave of recent local ordinances in large liberal bastions like Portland, Ore., but also smaller communities like Astoria, Ore., which has a population of 10,181, would confer the beginning of legal protections to polyamorous relationships. The goal, pushed by a group based in California, is to establish legally protected family structures for groups of adults who are romantically or otherwise tied together under one roof.

...National Democrats might be trying to move the political conversation away from divisive social policies that helped cost them the White House in 2024, but proponents of the polyamory changes say Mr. Trump and his supporters have forced them to act. Adding protections for “nontraditional” households is a response to efforts to roll back rights for groups that already enjoy legal protections.

...Conservative activists say officials in the Northwest are using the language of nondiscrimination to foster broader cultural changes that have already run afoul of U.S. law, such as polygamy. ... “It’s ultimately an effort to recognize polygamous marriages and to do that by saying it’s discriminatory not to,” said Roger Severino, a vice president at the conservative Heritage Foundation and the architect of many of the first Trump administration’s social policies when he headed civil rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.

...In Portland, city councilors are considering a similar change in city ordinances, which they packaged as part of a response to hundreds of measures being considered in more conservative states to roll back gay and transgender rights.

At a hearing last week, they heard from more than 40 people supporting the addition of broader nondiscrimination laws that would include nontraditional family structures, including several speakers in polyamorous relationships who said clearer legal protections would help them feel more open when going about the day to day business of looking for jobs, renting homes, signing their children up for school or just engaging in small talk.

Brett Chamberlin, executive director of OPEN, the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Nonmonogamy... cited cases of polyamorous people being denied promotions or fired from their jobs, being denied rental applications from housing providers or being refused a sexually transmitted infection test because they’re listed on paperwork as married.

...“Chosen families take a lot of different forms,” said Ms. [Jessa] Davis, executive director of the Seattle Coalition for Family and Relationship Equity, who is helping with the Olympia [WA] ordinance.  “Even polyamory isn’t just about having sex with multiple people. It’s about what your community looks like.”...

Seattle's NPR station KUOW interviewed the article's author: Polyamorous people want to be Seattle's newest protected class (March 11).

As of May 31 the measures have passed in most of the cities named. But Seattle's City Council has still delayed introducing the legislation. Some advocates of the Seattle measure say councilors are wary of possible political backlash.

●  Almost two months after that Times story, The Guardian followed on at length: Polyamorous Americans are celebrating new laws establishing their ‘inherent worth and dignity’  (The Guardian, May 3)

 AzmanL / Getty

By Jake Thomas

Amy Nash-Kille knows that not everyone would choose a polyamorous family like hers. But she called it the “greatest blessing” of her life.

Nash-Kille said she has spent the last 17 years in a committed relationship with “two gentle, loving men”, sharing the costs and responsibilities of raising four kids.

But she’s concealed her family arrangement from her graduate school adviser, co-workers and even her hairdresser. She said someone harassed her family for more than a year, and she took out a restraining order to stop it before moving her family from a Colorado suburb to Portland, Oregon, in 2011.

In March, the city became the largest in the US to pass an ordinance protecting polyamorous people and multipartnered households from discrimination in housing, jobs and public accommodation. For Nash-Kille and her partners, it was “one of the greatest relief moments of our lives”.

...The new law, she said over email, “is helping to establish the inherent worth and dignity of people who have unusual family configurations when considered by society at large”.

Portland’s ordinance is the latest in a recent wave of cities including West Hollywood and Olympia, Washington’s capital city, extending civil rights protections to those in nontraditional family or romantic arrangements. Eight cities across Massachusetts and the west coast now have some form of legal recognition of polyamorous relationships.

Taken together, the efforts signal the emergence of a stigmatized group as a political constituency, as well as a challenge to the legal dominance of the traditional nuclear family – which has become the exception rather than the rule.

...“I’d like to get the government out of the business of evaluating our personal relationships,” said Diana Adams, an attorney who heads the Chosen Family Law Center and helped write ordinances in Massachusetts.

Adams said their bigger goal isn’t marriage for polyamorous people, but “unbundling” rights and benefits tied up in institutions that favor people in traditional relationships, including taxes, health insurance benefits and hospital visitation.

Brett Chamberlin – the executive director of the Oakland-based Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy (Open), which has campaigned for the ordinances – said polyamorous people are moving from being viewed as a “lifestyle oddity” to organizing into a movement.

Efforts are already under way for more ordinances in Pacific north-west cities such as Seattle, Eugene and Astoria, as well as Hazel Park, a small city near Detroit. Chamberlin hopes this will eventually create a tipping point where states and the federal government adopt protections for polyamorous people.

A more visible population

...Greater visibility hasn’t always come with greater acceptance. Open’s 2024 survey of nonmonogamous individuals found that 60% had experienced stigma or discrimination when dealing with healthcare, child custody or acceptance from their own families.

...After Portland’s ordinance passed, Skylar Cruz recalled her group chats lighting up with supportive messages. Cruz, a 33-year-old transgender programmer, said she has been in a polyamorous relationship for about a year after she and her male partner of six years added a trans woman to their relationship.

Skylar Cruz between her partners, Jordan Lewis and Robin
Bogushevich, in Times Square, New York. Courtesy Skylar Cruz

...“I feel like we’re at a crossroads in a lot of our political values here in the US,” she said. “And we ultimately have to decide whether or not people are worth protecting for being different. As somebody who is very different, I can’t opt out of being different at this point.”

...Despite the recent momentum for protecting polyamorous people, advocates say there are hurdles ahead. For instance, Seattle’s city council has yet to officially introduce the ordinance that local advocates have lobbied for. ... Davis said councilors in larger cities have privately expressed concern that adding polyamory protections to their municipal code could draw the ire of the Trump administration. ...

...For now, Cruz said, she was considering what the future holds after securing legal protections for her relationship, which she hopes lasts the rest of her life.

“I’ve got probably 50, 60 years left,” she said. “And in that time, I want to ensure that not only are we not being discriminated against, but that we are moving towards being seen as more ordinary, more common, more accepted.”

●  The religious right is taking alarmed notice.  Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.” (Time once called him), has a huge following – partly because he has earned a reputation as a genuinely thoughtful and kindly man.

Mohler has been distressed by the rise of polyamory since at least 2009. After the New York Times story, he called on red-state legislators to urgently pass laws banning their "blue dot" cities from protecting us from fear of being driven out of our jobs and homes: A Page Out of the LGBTQ Playbook: Liberal Activist for Polyamory Reveals Gameplan – This Should Be a Wakeup Call for State Legislatures (March 12).

This from a kindly and thoughtful man – in his own closed world.  Said Voltaire, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

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●  But the biggest polyamory-in-the-news event of the last two months has been something else: comedian Lindy West's memoir Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane. And the flood of contrasting media reactions to it, and the reactions to the reactions. The tl;dr: Some feminists called her a sellout. Others defended her choosing the life she wants. The right pounced. The mainstream clucked. 

West was already famous as a brash voice of millennial feminism and fat pride. Adult Braces tells how a case of Poly Under Duress, pushed on her by her spouse, morphed into her more than four great years now in a happy triad. The book is her story of that transformation, centered on a fraught road trip thrashing it out with her spouse  (who identifies as nonbinary and goes by either he/him or they/them), as they drove from Seattle to Florida. Hence the subtitle.

A New York Times headline sums it up: She Wrote a Book About Her Throuple. The Internet Lost Its Mind. (March 31)

By Elizabeth Spiers

...Lindy West has written a 336-page memoir, “Adult Braces,” that, among other things, describes her polyamorous marriage to her husband, Ahamefule Oluo, and their relationship with another woman, Roya Amirsoleymani. Ms. West is a feminist writer and comedian who first gained notoriety for her take-no-prisoners work at Jezebel over a decade ago. She is, therefore, something of an internet character, at least of a certain vintage, with a yearslong trail of writing and posting where she hashes out her ideas and gives readers a sense of who she is.

Sam Whitney/New York Times

Now much of the current-day internet has decided she either isn’t who they thought she was or is lying to herself in saying she’s happy in a throuple. The resulting discourse has ranged from concern that she was coerced into agreeing to nonmonogamy to accusations that she has betrayed feminism.

She wrote an earlier memoir, “Shrill,” which was turned into a TV show starring Aidy Bryant. Ms. West has written searingly about being a fat person in a fatphobic society, reproductive rights and her abortion, and refusing to define herself by how men see her. I picked up “Adult Braces” in part because she has written so well about these issues.

In a recent interview with The Times, Ms. West said she was at first devastated by her husband’s request to open things up. “Our initial conversation was a lot of me crying and being like, I don’t want anyone else,” she said. But after much soul searching and a road trip from Seattle to Florida, she accepted the situation and eventually formed her own relationship with her husband’s girlfriend.

Any discussion of polyamory reliably generates strong opinions. ...

Much of the reaction to Ms. West’s new book has been focused on adjudicating whether she can be truly happy in a throuple when nonmonogamy was her husband’s idea and whether her happiness is consistent with her feminism. Voices on the right claim she is a victim of millennial feminism run amok, and voices on the left claim her situation is a consequence of her feminism not going far enough. Both claims rely on a caricatured idea of what feminism is. 

...Actual feminism is not a neat list of dos and don’ts; it’s simply the idea that women deserve the same agency and rights as men. That includes the ability to decide whom they want to be with and how they choose to conduct their relationships. ...

There’s another element that makes this discourse catnip: She’s not performing marriage the way some would apparently like. People often bring insecurities about their own relationships — what would they do if their partner wanted a third? — to their evaluations....

...Ms. West insists she’s happy. Many of her readers insist she isn’t. But there is no one way to be happy, just as there’s no one way to be a feminist or to conduct a marriage. ...

●  There's been so much media about this that I won't even begin to list it! Here's the lengthy list from Google News (very incomplete) as of the time you read this.  

●  West gives the details of how it began in a podcast with the New York Times' "Modern Love" columnist, Anna Martin: Lindy West Thought She Couldn’t Handle Polyamory. She Was Wrong (March 4). The tl;dr: She and the other woman fell crazy in love, and it has lasted.

Lindy West

...West: It becomes clear that the next thing we need to do is hop on a call and discuss what the heck is going on. Aham [her spouse] and Roya [his new interest] video-called me. There was definitely incredible tension in the air. I think all of us were like: “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” And also I don’t want to make it sound easy, because also there’s still the part of me that’s terrified. And so it’s like, inside me are two wolves; one is having the time of her life and is so electrified by this. And the other one is definitely terrified. ... And I’m using my new skills to stay in the moment with what’s actually happening in front of me, which is that I’m feeling really connected with this person, who’s beautiful and sweet and kind and funny and smart, and who loves Aham, and I love Aham. It was a very complicated video call.

Martin: And let’s just say there’s nothing more electric than finding out someone has a crush on you. How did that make you feel?

West: It was very powerful. I was immediately like, “Oh, I like her a lot more all of a sudden.” She had just been this big cloud of mystery and suspicion, and I was like, “How do I know that she’s not trying to get rid of me so that you guys can be together?” And she’s not out there thinking the vile stuff that is happening in my head. She’s out there thinking: “Oh, Lindy’s beautiful. And she seems so smart and interesting. I would love to get to know Lindy.”

And I am processing my changing feelings about Roya while I’m on the road trip. And I think I started to feel so soothed by that feeling of safety. I liked the feeling of not having a stab of panic when Aham brought up Roya’s name. And all of a sudden I wasn’t having that anymore. And I was like: “What is this new place? I want to stay here.”

Martin: The circumstances of Aham and Roya’s relationship haven’t changed. If anything, they’ve intensified, right? So the safety you feel, that’s you. You’ve created that safety, no?

West: Yes. Absolutely. And that’s why it was different, I think. So the trip continues, and I’m talking to Aham more and more about Roya. And I believe Aham sent me a sexy underwear pic of Roya with her consent. And I was like, “OK, you can tell her that that’s a beautiful photo.” I’m such a dork.

...I suggested, “Why doesn’t Roya come up to Seattle, and we’ll see what happens?” I went by myself to pick her up. And she was instantly captivating. Like she was just so pretty and so sunny and smiley. And then we went to the show, and Roya and I held hands. Then we went to a bar, and Roya and I were sitting next to each other talking, and some drunk guy came up and grabbed her arm. And I was like, “I’m going to [expletive] kill that guy.” And I kind of bodied him away from us. The feeling I had was like: “That’s my girlfriend. Why would you think you can just touch her?” And then we went to the hotel, and we [all three] had sex, and it was really fun.

...Martin: In 2022, you, Aham and Roya announce what’s happening in your relationship. Can you tell me about that?

West: We were a romantic triad. We didn’t really know how to launch. Because it felt intrusive and stressful, and I felt resentful about it. Like why do I have to explain my life to people? But it really was eye-opening to me how angry people are about non-monogamy. And I think it’s because everyone thinks that if it becomes normalized, then their husband is going to say, “Now I need to have a girlfriend.” And I just want to say that you don’t have to do that. I wasn’t looking for it, but it found me. And I too had that fear, and it came true, except what I found on the other side was a way better life than before for me.

Martin: Why? How?

West: I just feel so much more freedom for myself. I have two people who love me instead of one. And it’s really just three people that live in a house instead of two. And we all help with the dishes.

Martin: That sounds kind of nice.

West: Yes. So we’re all three together, still. We’re into year five.

●  The kerfuffle has spread worldwide. Just one example, a friendly one in Ukraine: A Prominent Feminist Opens Up About Polyamory and How It Transformed Her Marriage (112.ua, a news site promising "independence, impartiality, and only verified information," May 19).

Translated from Відома феміністка випустила мемуари про поліаморію: як це змінило її шлюб, which talks about polyamoriyu without explanation as if readers already know what it is:      

By Shostal, Oleksandr

According to Vox - Feminist writer and activist Lindy West has released her fourth book, 'Adult Braces,' a memoir detailing her journey into an open marriage and her experiences with polyamory. The book has sparked lively debates online, particularly around themes of honesty in relationships and the evolving dynamics of marriage.

Polyamory Within Marriage

In 'Adult Braces,' West recounts how she and her spouse, Aham—a nonbinary individual who uses he/him and they/them pronouns—navigated the shift toward polyamory. The memoir also explores her relationship with a third partner named Roya, who moved in with West and Aham. This new relationship structure challenges conventional ideas about marriage and partnership.

The book has received mixed reactions on social media, where readers are actively discussing the issues West raises. ... West also emphasizes that 'she has autonomy, and it’s her choice.' These statements highlight the importance of personal agency in relationships—a central theme of the book.

Ultimately, 'Adult Braces' offers more than just a personal narrative; it contributes to broader conversations about relationships, marriage, and polyamory, drawing attention from a wide audience.

This memoir marks a significant step in expanding understanding and acceptance of diverse relationship models, as polyamory becomes an increasingly common topic of public discussion. It raises questions about traditional views of family and partnership, encouraging readers to rethink their own perspectives on love and commitment. The relevance of the issues explored in 'Adult Braces' reflects a growing need for new approaches and openness to experimentation in emotional connections.

More catching up on the news coming soon. 

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Speaking of Ukraine...  as I said in the deep dark cold of their recent winter with bombed power plants, these people don't give up. Now the changing tide of the war shows that, if you don't give up, fortune sometimes swings your way.

And if you still don't get what this war means to our own future... you need the long view.

BTW, the Telegram logo of PolyamoryUkraine:

 

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And another city! Berkeley just banned discrimination for "family or relationship structure"

Berkeley City Hall (City of Berkeley photo)

Last night Berkeley, California, prohibited  landlords,  schools, businesses serving the public, city officials, or "any person or agent or employee thereof" from discriminating "against an individual on the basis of that individual’s family or relationship structure."

The Berkeley law applies to, and defines, four areas for this protection: housing, educational institutions, city and city-supported facilities and services, and use of business establishments. It also specifies some exceptions. Here is the law's full text (starts on page 6).

For decades this kind of discrimination has plagued people in polyamorous relationships, costing them their homes, jobs, and other things as found in surveys of the poly community. Two-thirds of polyamorous people say they have experienced discrimination because of their relationships.

Berkeley joins neighboring Oakland as well as Somerville and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in enacting similar measures in the last 14 months. 

The Berkeley group PolyActive had tried to pass something like this starting seven years ago. City Council member Terry Taplin, the bill's author, said PolyActive "played a pivotal role in the advocacy for the initial 2017 bill and continued to support the current efforts. Their local insight and community mobilization efforts underscored the immediate need for legal protections within Berkeley."

Members of PolyActive on July 15, 2023, OPEN's first international Day of Visibility

But the big credit goes to the legal and policy whizzes at the national Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition (PLAC), who crafted the law. In addition, the international Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy OPEN) helped PolyActive mobilize the local community. The groups worked proactively with the Berkeley City Attorney's office to ensure that there were no legal glitches in the legislation. The City Council approved the bill unanimously on "first reading" May 7th, then again on "second reading" May 21st, thereby enacting it into law.

In December 2017 PolyActive got a similar measure past first reading in Berkeley — it would have been the first in the country — but that one didn't make it to second reading. This time, with experience and PLAC's expert legal work, the ducks were in a row.

Where will be next? Contact PLAC if you'd like to try to get this measure or something like it passed in your city or town.

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As it happens, Sparkle Moose and I attended a reception put on by PLAC at the Harvard Law School last Saturday evening. The six PLAC principals were just off their second annual high-intensity, in-person planning retreat, hosted by Harvard Law's LGBTQ+ Legal Advocacy Clinic. They were full of plans and ideas — for non-discrimination ordinances in more cities, involvement in other areas of the legal system, recruiting more lawyers and volunteers for various projects, building out their anemic social media presence and website, and hiring office staff. They are beating the bushes trying to fundraise for all this.

Five PLAC principals celebrating outside the Somerville, MA, City Council chamber
on March 23, 2023. From left: Kimberly Rhoten, Heath Schechinger, Alexander
Chen, Diana Adams, and Andy Izenson.  (Matthew J. Lee/ Boston Globe)

The larger picture here goes beyond polyamory and non-monogamy. The ordinances also protect traditional multigenerational families living under one roof, single-parent families, platonic co-op households of mutual support, and others. With housing in cities becoming ever pricier and in shorter supply, and with the isolated husband-wife-kids home becoming an ever smaller fraction of reality, alternatives must be allowed to grow. Polyfolks have kick-started these legal initiatives but will be a minority of those who benefit.

A new force in this direction will be the Modern Family Institute, a project of Heath Schechinger and others that seeks to raise $5 million for research and policy efforts over the next three years. It is explicitly about this larger picture:

MFI logo

Families and relationships come in all shapes and sizes.

But our society is not designed to support how people are structuring their families and relationships today. 

Our laws, built environment, and cultural norms were established to support a monogamous nuclear family structure that does not reflect the needs of families and relationships today. Families that don’t center two married adults often face significant infrastructural, legal, and financial hurdles, as well as stigma and discrimination.

The Modern Family Institute seeks to bring about a world where families and relationships are defined by their function, not their form. 

Our vision is to improve relational, mental, and physical wellbeing by ensuring everyone has access to resources and systems of care supporting their unique family and relationship structures. Our research drives systemic changes in legal, financial, housing, and social systems through supporting media representation, policy reform, and professional practices that help people build and sustain flourishing communities of care. 

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●  OPEN just put out a press release:

The good news just keeps coming! ...

Our gratitude to Berkeley Councilmember Terry Taplin, who sponsored the bill, and to our friends at the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, which drafted the ordinance. Coalition partners also included PolyActive... The Modern Family Institute, Chosen Family Law Center, Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Legal Advocacy Clinic, and Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, and the many community members who added their voice.

...There can be no doubt that this is our moment, and that the future of this growing movement is bright.

But let's be clear: the population of these four cities represent a fraction of a percent of the total US population. The unfortunate fact is that most people are still not protected from stigma and discrimination on the basis of their non-monogamous identity or their family structure. There is much more work to do...

And we're here to do that work. OPEN is collaborating with coalition partners to develop new tools and resources to help community members like you bring these protections to your city or town. We're speaking with community leaders and elected officials in multiple cities to keep the momentum going. We're talking with the media to spotlight this issue and the growing power of our movement.  ...

And, they too need money.

●  The local Berkeleyside published a long article on the measure's passage, highlighting an eight-person co-op family that, with multiple incomes, can afford a house in the pricy Berkeley Hills neighborhood, ranked as one of the most desirable locales in the state: Berkeley law extends legal protections to polyamorous people and non-nuclear families (May 22)

Housemates Steph Tranovich (left), Lily Lamboy, Alexei Savtchenko and Kmo Mogg
chat in their co-op kitchen before dinner. (Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight)

By Ally Markovich

...Dave Doleshal... began organizing conferences on polyamory in Berkeley at a time when it was less accepted than it is today. ... Being open about his polyamorous identity, he was often turned down by landlords. At conferences, he heard stories of people being evicted, fired or passed up for promotions at work based on their relationship structure. With other polyamorous people, he considered advocating for a law to protect their rights, but didn’t get far.

Over time, Doleshal has seen polyamory and other diverse relationships become more accepted in Berkeley. “People who were polyamorous a long time ago, just gradually have started talking about it and being more visible,” said Doleshal, who has lived in Berkeley since the 1990s. He said the ordinance was a major step forward, making other legal protections possible. ...

...The Berkeley law has limited purview. It doesn’t extend to other areas where polyamorous people face discrimination, including the workplace and courts, which would need to be addressed at the state or county level.

...Advocates behind the new law said they hope it starts conversations about the way that monogamy and the nuclear family structure are baked into the legal and social fabric, from healthcare benefits to hospital rules. Eventually, they aim to bring a nondiscrimination bill to the California state legislature.

●  Slate, in anticipation of the Berkeley law passing, published a look at the larger polylegal picture:  L G B T… P?  (May 6)

Polyamory is everywhere these days—except protected under the law. But some advocates have an idea about how to change that.

 Slate/ Tingey Injury Law Firm/Unsplash/ Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty

By Abigail Moss

In case you hadn’t noticed, polyamory is all the rage right now. ... And, lest you think all this hubbub is some ginned-up PR campaign, consider that 4 to 5 percent of people in the U.S. are in consensually nonmonogamous relationships (not always the same thing as polyamory, but pointing in a similar direction), which is comparable to the number that identify as LGBTQ+. Research from the Kinsey Institute shows that as many as 1 in 6 people are interested in exploring polyamory.

For polyamorous folks like myself (I’m in a throuple), there’s definitely a feeling that the tide is changing. ...

Yet, despite all this social progress, the law hasn’t been as quick to catch up with the rise of these kinds of “nontraditional” relationships. And that’s a big problem, because major, negative misconceptions persist among the non-poly public, most of them stemming from the reduction of these relationships to a sexual kink. This, in turn, leads to the belief, for example, that a polyamorous environment is not a safe one for a child, or that a poly relationship is not a serious or valid family structure. For those on the outside, polyamory can still seem like a wild and irresponsible lifestyle—and unfortunately, it’s people on the outside who are making laws and policy for the rest of us.

Indeed, legally, we polyamorous people find ourselves on very shaky ground. ... Depending on where they live, a polyamorous person could be evicted from their home or denied housing because of their relationship style—I know firsthand that private landlords may be less likely to want to rent to a throuple, for example, than a monogamous married couple because of false assumptions that a polyamorous group will be inherently unstable and unreliable. And a poly person could be fired or denied promotions at work due to bias against polyamory (whether that’s the stated reason or not) —without the company facing the same legal ramifications they likely would if they terminated someone’s employment on, say, the basis of sexuality.

Which raises an interesting question: Should polyamory be recognized as a sexuality under the law? And what might be gained, or lost, by such a recognition? There is a lot of debate in the polyamorous and LGBTQAI+ community as to whether poly should “count” in this way. But with so many poly folks believing that their polyamory is not something they chose, but rather an innate part of themselves, running a legal gauntlet on an everyday basis can feel exhausting and more than a little censorious. 

...Dr. Eli Sheff is a sociologist and expert witness on cases involving families who have unconventional setups, including polyamorous ones. She explains that while the legal changes happening at a local level are an important step in the right direction, there are limits to how much they’re impacting polyamorous people’s lives nationally:  “The changes in Somerville, for example, only apply to city employees. Somerville can’t legislate that a national corporation must recognize your polyamorous relationship. So poly people remain extremely vulnerable.... On the national level, it’s wholly inadequate.”

Andy Izenson knows firsthand how this feels. “It’s been an expensive year,” they say, referencing medical bills that they and their two partners have all had to deal with after suffering different illnesses. They faced limitations on how much they could claim from their insurance companies because they are not in a more traditional relationship. Izenson, the senior legal director at the Chosen Family Law Center, is an attorney and mediator specializing in representing queer families, including polyamorous ones, and transgender people. I asked how polyamorous people might begin to advocate for themselves. Izenson explains that often, dealing with situations in a personal, one-to-one way is best. “For example, if three parents need to be able to pick their kid up from school, going to the school, speaking to the principal, trying to work things out that way is sometimes the best. You have to think about what systems in society you really need to be interacting with.”

...[In states ] such as Florida and Alabama, polyamory is effectively criminalized through bigamy statutes. And considering cases of parents losing custody battles because of their polyamorous relationships, a person might rightly think very carefully before coming out to a school principal, boss, or co-worker.

This is a shame, because we really don’t have anything to hide. Dr. Heath Schechinger, co-founder of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition... [asked] 175 people engaged in nonmonogamous relationships to list the benefits of their relationship structure. Responses included gaining a greater social and support network, fostering greater honesty in their relationships, and having greater autonomy and independence in their lives. Sex-related benefits ranked as only the eighth most-cited reason. Polyamorous people such as myself already know this—my partners and I argue over what to watch on Netflix and remind each other to feed our cats, just like any married couple. But while these misconceptions persist, they’re a major blocker to legal reform.

Schechinger says that although it may not be possible for everyone, visibility is a vital first step in improving rights for polyamorous people: “I think if you have the privilege of being able to come out as polyamorous, it’s important to consider doing so,” he says. “We are in an era where we’re on a precipice of significant change.”

...Schechinger feels that the dam is about to break. “We are putting together a packet that people can take to their city councilperson and advocate for similar policies to be taken up in their city,” he said. These materials will form a toolkit that will be available in the coming months, and have been created in collaboration with the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy, Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, Harvard Law LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, and the Chosen Family Law Center. The toolkit will include relevant research and educational information, case examples, legal insights, and advocacy strategies.

...“It’s comparable to where LGBTQ advocacy was in perhaps the early ’90s,” says Schechinger. And people are getting behind this advocacy in droves.

“One of the problems, one of the beautiful problems, that my colleagues and I have right now is that there are countless numbers of people reaching out and asking how they can get involved and asking how they can offer support. Up until now, a huge part of their lives and their identities was going unrecognized. Finally, now there’s hope for progress. It’s only a matter of time before we see this start to scale.” And after all, what is poly if not the belief that things like understanding and love are capable of growth?

●  Also in anticipation, Yahoo News 360 rounded up opinions pro and con: Should the law recognize polyamorous relationships? (last updated May 20)

(Cute graphic, but how does this thing work?)

By Mike Bebernes

People in polyamorous relationships could soon have new legal protections in the San Francisco Bay Area if a bill currently under consideration by the city council in Berkeley, Calif. is passed. ...

Why there’s debate

The words “family” or “partnership” can mean myriad things to people colloquially, but when it comes to the law, they have very specific definitions that typically only allow for two adults in a relationship.

Poly advocates argue that laws limiting a family or domestic partnership in this way leaves those outside that mold vulnerable to discrimination. Nearly everywhere in America right now, there's nothing to stop a polyamorous person from being fired, denied housing, or blocked from receiving certain benefits — like health care — because of their relationship structure. There are also examples of poly people missing out on inheritance or even losing custody of children.

...Though public perception of polyamory does appear to be shifting, that same YouGov poll found that a majority of people still believe polyamory is morally wrong and oppose legal recognition for poly relationships. Opponents frequently suggest that poly relationships are inherently unstable and may be especially turbulent for children in multi-partner households. Many also argue that recognition of polyamorous relationships in things like housing law would be merely the first step of a larger campaign to expand marriage beyond two-person couples.

Perspectives

The question of poly rights is too important to be ignored

“Limited definitions of family are all over the legal system. Laws for domestic violence, rent control, insurance, and … inheritance rely on narrow understandings of the term, which often prioritize biological and marital relationships, and relegate other kinds of relationships.”  — Michael Waters, The Atlantic

The law is built around harmful misconceptions about how poly relationships actually work

“For those on the outside, polyamory can still seem like a wild and irresponsible lifestyle—and unfortunately, it’s people on the outside who are making laws and policy for the rest of us.”  — Abigail Moss, Slate

Society doesn’t have to legitimize every relationship style people conjure up

“Polyamory’s proponents censure those who remain unconvinced that mainstreaming such sexual perversions serves the public interest. We must celebrate each and every sexual aberration green-lighted by the academy, but condemn and exclude any whom the gatekeepers declare persona non grata for their sins against wokeness.”  — Casey Chalk, American Conservative

Denying poly people rights isn’t going to make them go away

“I think it's just important for mainstream audiences to recognize that just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are people who are capable of having multiple romantic connections at the same time, and that is just a thing that is always going to exist, whether you like it or not.”  — Leanne Yau, polyamory educator, to USA Today

Polyamory poses a very real threat to traditional two-person relationships

“We are at risk — culturally and legally — of monogamy becoming a continuously negotiated agreement between partners rather than a universally understood axiom of marriage. When that happens, monogamy gets harder for everyone to ask for and expect; it gets easier to question and devalue. Marital monogamy will recede along with the benefits it offers families and society. That’s a price we don’t want to pay.”  — Alan Hawkins and Daniel Frost, Deseret News

All poly people want is to legitimize the commitments they’ve already made

“If people want to take legal responsibility for each other, that’s a good thing.”  — Alexander Chen, lecturer on LGBTQ+ civil rights at Harvard Law School, to Boston Globe

Without legal protections, polyamorous people have to hide who they really are

“This lack of social and legal acceptance has compelled many polyamorous people to hide their true identity from their coworkers, family, and even closest friends. The danger of living openly means that … polyamory hasn’t found a foothold in mainstream culture, which in turn has created a cascade of confusion about it that needs to be corrected.”  — Caroline Rose Giuliani, Vanity Fair

Poly relationships are fundamentally unstable

“Jealousy is not an emotion invented by men in the 1950s or 1800s to control women. Both men and women are jealous creatures, especially about romantic partners, and we have been since the beginning of recorded history. … This is why every polyamorous community throughout history … has failed. Polyamory just doesn’t work.” — Conn Carroll, Washington Examiner

●  Canada's national CBC News reports, Polyamorous relationships are on the rise in Canada. The law is still catching up (May 8).

"...In 2018, three unmarried adults in Newfoundland and Labrador were declared the legal parents of a child born within their polyamorous family — a legal first in Canada, CBC News reported. Then in 2021, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered that all three members of a polyamorous triad should be registered as parents of the boy they were raising together as a family.

"Put bluntly, the legislature did not contemplate polyamorous families [in designing current law]," Justice Sandra Wilkinson said in the decision. ..."

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"The polyamory capital of England." Three-dad families. NPR's insightful guide for the polycurious. OPEN takes off. And, Ukraine and us.

●  Jeopardy! record holder is trans, poly, and very interesting. Fans of America's favorite TV game show know Amy Schneider as the most-winning woman in the show's history ($1,382,800 in a 40-game streak). In her new memoir she tells of her life as a polyamorous neurodiverse ex-Catholic psychonaut transwoman with a radical view on multi-relationshipping. In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life is getting lots of media attention this week as she goes on tour.

For instance, the Los Angeles Times: ‘Jeopardy’ vet Amy Schneider runs the board on drugs, polyamory, transphobia and more (Sept. 30):

By Christina Veta

...It helps to be “addicted to learning,” writes Amy Schneider. ... “Learning was my first drug, my oldest form of self-medicating.”

[The memoir] mines Schneider’s history — acid trips, polyamory, marriage, gender transition and a spontaneous night with a sex worker — before her history-making moment on “Jeopardy!”

...Among the key takeaways,

The Boy Scouts helped Schneider realize she was trans.

In hindsight, the only thing she learned from her “nightmare” experience in the Boy Scouts was that “I’m not a boy.” She found it “disgusting and disturbing.” It didn’t help that she was pressured to watch a boy vivisect a live crawfish with his pocket knife. ...

...‘Daria’ saved her life.

Ahead of her senior year at the University of Dayton, “while suicide held no appeal for me, staying alive didn’t seem that tempting, either.” The Ohio native credits MTV’s animated show “Daria” for helping her persevere. “If Daria could survive this Sick Sad World, then so could I,” she recalls.

...“I realized that being trans in public carried responsibilities. To hide my voice began to feel like a betrayal to my community.”

She thinks everyone should be polyamorous.

...“I think everybody should be poly,” Schneider writes. “Most people do not agree with that, and that’s okay.” [One of the book's chapters is "What Is Polyamory?"]

...ADD may be the secret to ‘Jeopardy!’ stardom.

The trivia phenom credits her laziness and ADD for her success on the show. Spending years learning about several subjects briefly, only to give up and move on to the next thing, helped her accrue random facts — like the name of a Finnish distance runner from the 1920s. “Not that there’s any remotely conceivable reason you should know that.”...

 ●  "How Margate became the polyamory capital of England." Sky News, a major UK TV outlet, posted this story last Sunday and it's being picked up many other places. The UK's Times just did its own version (Oct. 7, paywalled).

So is this really the UK's Seattle? Or more like its Provincetown?

The Sky News article also notices the gentrification and class divisions bubbling under the queer and poly influx.

"Seaside towns have always had a reputation."

Dreamland/SkyNews

By Serena Kutchinsky

British Ibiza. Shoreditch on Sea. Camden of the southeast. For a small seaside town, Margate has an impressive array of nicknames. Now, it seems there is another to add to the list, because this Kent hotspot is the unofficial polyamory capital of England.    

...Abundant art galleries, fancy boutiques, artisan cafes and trendy bars. ... In summer, it plays host to one of the hottest parties on the south coast — Margate Pride, where rainbow flags fly proudly. Drag queens and allies dance on tables. '90s pop queens strut their stuff. And tourists and locals party till dawn.

...In a small town like Margate, where the population is just over 60,000, [a large poly community] means there is a real risk of bumping into people your partner is dating. But this doesn't have to be awkward, says sex educator and Margate resident Ruby Rare, the co-host of E4's Sex Rated.

Ruby Rare and hometown snaps

Her reaction is to share a hug rather than a death stare. "I wouldn't look at them and think 'oh God, that's my partner's partner'. Instead, I'd go 'Oh my God that's a lovely person who is in our wider friendship group'."

As a result of its newly minted hipster status, house asking prices in Margate have... increased on average almost 50% faster than the rest of the country in the past five years from £245,199 to £317,036 — a rise of 29% according to Rightmove. "It's the fastest wave of gentrification I've ever seen," says Francesca*, a polyamorous person in her mid-30s, who lived in Margate from 2019 until last winter.

...Ruby, alongside some friends, has just started the town's first official meet-up for Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM) people. "There are lots of polyamorous people, it's a lovely, open community," says Ruby, who migrated from south London almost three years ago. She adds that while there is a really fun time to be had in the "pockets" of Margate that are "queer heaven", it's a seaside town that is still very "economically divided".

The intimacy of small-town life, experts like Ruby say, helps the success and visibility of polyamory in places like Margate. Being open and honest about who else you are dating and sharing that with your partners is central to non-monogamous relationships. "It's much harder to be an a**hole in a small community," she laughs. "It's easy to treat people in a more disposable way in a massive city where there's a good chance you'll never see them again."

Kent local Genevieve Pepper, 45, is a writer and performance artist, whose comedy alter ego is a dominatrix called Jezebel Pye. After her marriage ended several years ago, she started using the dating app Feeld which caters to those seeking unconventional hook-ups. Its popularity in the UK has grown dramatically, reporting an almost 250% rise in active UK users from January 2020 to 2022. To her surprise, she discovered a whole new world of sexual adventure on her doorstep.

...While the [area] poly community has welcomed Genevieve, she says there are class divisions that run deep. While out on a recent date, she was accused by other locals of being a Londoner. "We dress a bit funky… challenging the stereotype that local people are cave dwellers who didn't have any style until the Londoners turned up."

...There is a "sense of privilege and resentment", Genevieve says, among some local people towards the gatekeepers of the Margate scene, who are often ex-Londoners. "There is a bit of blindness because it's so lovely in Margate and Cliftonville [the town's trendiest district] for people that can afford it. "But if you're working a double shift and struggling to feed the kids it's hard to feel part of that. I'm more likely to be serving them coffee than I am to be invited for coffee with them."

-------------------------------

...While the visibility of small-town life can make some people more respectful, it can also create pressures of its own. ...Says Genevieve, "People lie, for a start, particularly men…. They'll say they've told their girlfriend and don't realise this [new] woman is going to see their girlfriend on the school run."

...Francesca echoes Genevieve's view. "Whatever man you're dating, there will be five women in the town who are upset with him," she says. "It was hard to find a man who didn't have a trail of devastation behind him."

The close-knit nature of the scene has helped [Ruby] practise an open relationship style called Kitchen Table Polyamory. "Everyone involved is able to sit together at the kitchen table, have a cup of tea and chat," she explains.

... As gentrification continues apace, there are moments of culture clash as locals and new arrivals work out how best to co-exist amid the surge in property prices and the cost of living crisis. ...

●  OPEN, the California-based Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy, is on a roll. They're working to expand the number of cities that have enacted protections against anti-poly discrimination in housing, policing, and employment (at least city employment). With funding help from The Polyamory Foundation, they're working to get the American Psychological Association, medical organizations, and other professional groups to better understand and respect non-monogamous life and partnership choices among their clients and employees. 

They organized the coming-out Day of Visibility for Non-monogamy in July, with national publicity and public gatherings. They intend to make it an annual thing.

They've made outreach to the swinger world and its organizers and businesses, a much larger community than ours, to help develop consent standards and collaborate on shared interests regarding legal rights and protections.  

They're developing resource material regarding end-of-life care for polyfamilies who are dealing with the medical system. Last month they held a seminar for interested parties to help develop plans for this and set the agenda going forward.

Next Tuesday they're offering a free webinar to introduce their Open Workplaces Toolkit. Their invitation to the community:

Hi ______,

The workplace can be a precarious environment for non-monogamous individuals to be open about their non-monogamous identity. Stories of professional repercussions – even loss of employment – are all too common.

We're out to change that. We are excited to invite you to an upcoming webinar to present our "Open Workplaces Toolkit," a resource designed to empower employees and employers alike to create more inclusive work environments for non-monogamous individuals:

Open Workplaces Toolkit Webinar
Tuesday, October 10
4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET
RSVP to join or receive the recording

It's crucial that today's workplaces reflect and accept the full range of family and relationship structures and identities. Our toolkit offers actionable guidance for advocating for and implementing policies that support consensually non-monogamous employees – whether you're a non-monogamous professional, an employee, or a corporate leader working to create a more inclusive and accepting work environment. Here's a glimpse of what we'll cover:

• How creating space for diverse family structures benefits the majority of American households.
• Why organizations that proactively support diversity will attract and retain top talent.
• The economic and mental health benefits of promoting inclusivity in the workplace.

By promoting inclusivity, you can help create a workplace where individuals feel safe and supported, reducing anxiety, isolation, and fear of exposure. This webinar is your opportunity to learn more about the "Open Workplaces Toolkit" and discover how you can play a role in fostering inclusivity in your workplace. Consider sharing this invitation your coworkers, people/HR team, and non-monogamy or LGBTQIA+ employee group!

Hope to see you there,
Brett Chamberlin, Executive Director

And another free project of theirs:

Peer Support

Join our monthly Non-Monogamy Support Circles led by our friend Professor Playtime, a.k.a Bridget Ryan. Each month, OPEN is pleased to offer two fantastic opportunities for you to connect, share, and gain knowledge within a safe and inclusive community.

Non-Monogamy Peer Support Circle: RSVP HERE

Date: Thursday October 12th

Time: 5:30pm - 7:00pm PT / 8:30pm - 10:00pm ET

Location: Virtual (Zoom link provided upon registration)

Non-Monogamy 101 Support Circle (for people new to non-monogamy): RSVP HERE

Date: Thursday October 19th

Time: 5:30pm - 7:00pm PT / 8:30pm - 10:00pm ET

Location: Virtual (Zoom link provided upon registration)

Why Join Our Support Circles?

    🌈 Inclusive and Safe Environment: Both groups offer a space without judgment, where you can be your authentic self without fear of being misunderstood

    🗣️ Share Your Experiences: Connect with individuals who have faced similar challenges and experiences. It's an opportunity to be heard, validated, and gain insights from one another.

    🔒 Confidentiality Assured: We highly value your privacy. What's discussed within our circles remains strictly confidential, and sessions are not recorded

    🎙️ Valuable Resources: Our support circles include knowledgeable guests, fellow non-monogamy enthusiasts, and resources to delve deeper into this subject.

Spread the Word! If you know someone who could benefit from joining us, please share this message with them. Let's build a network of understanding, acceptance, and personal growth together!

A vigorous, activist poly/CNM nonprofit like this has been looong overdue! Join their Discord server to keep up and participate.

●  NPR show aces what to know if you're exploring non-monogamy. National Public Radio's Life Kit podcast just did a refreshingly intelligent job of telling toe-dippers what they need to know if they think they're interested (September 28; 25-minute audio). Bookmark this is one for forwarding as needed.

Among the unexpected work new folks will need to think about,

– Instead of having healthy, clear communication with just one partner, you need to be communicating with, and anticipating the needs of, multiple people. 

– You constantly have to be saying a lot of the things that in monogamous relationships, you keep to yourself because it's awkward and you don't have to bring it up.

– What kind of maintenance is needed? 

brooklyngrace/Unsplash, Sindy Süßengut/Unsplash, Kaz Fantone/NPR

First and foremost, you have to check in with everyone. Frequently. Also having maybe a specific time and place to check in, since things can shift. ... If it helps, you can actually be pretty regimented about it. Like, say you're going to meet every other week on Sunday afternoon and talk through what feels good, what feels bad, you know, take away some of that awkwardness and fear.

And when you're checking in, that's when you want to bring up any of those icky feelings that have come up for you. "Maybe that's jealousy, or insecurity. And as you're discussing those feelings, that's when you'll paraphrase [saying back to the other person what they said] to just make sure you're hearing what your partner is saying. And try to connect to what you can about what is being said. There are some exercises that can help."...

●  A long, good Poly 101 in Women's Health: What Is Ethical Non-Monogamy? How To Tell If ENM Is Right For You And Tips To Practice It, Per Relationship Experts (Sept. 1). The article starts simple and generic but then gets going into depth. For example,

Quoting Joli Hamilton, 

“Typically, I hear clients use the label ‘polyamorous’ to describe themselves if they are intentionally creating multidimensional love-based relationships,” says Hamilton. “People might feel more comfortable using the term ‘ethical non-monogamy’ if they are not open to forming long-term relationships, or if they are focused on sexual connections rather than emotional bonds.”

From Libby Sinback:

 “Spend some time reflecting on your values, and [your goals for] romantic and sexual relationships. Reflecting on this, and the role that those types of relationships play in your life, can help you figure out if non-monogamy is truly aligned with who you want to be and how you want to live.”

Hamilton again:

Before exploring with others, ask yourself these questions:

• Are you willing to question your assumptions?

• Can you self-regulate when you feel triggered?

• Do you have the bandwidth to read and listen to relationship-learning resources?

• Are you willing to be curious about what works for the people you are relating with?

Checking off these boxes will make it easier for you to explore ENM joyfully, says Hamilton. “If you have a solid sense of why you are exploring and you’re willing to invest energy in the process of experimenting, you may find that there is a style of ENM that works great for you.”

And it has some warnings that are a little subtler than usual:

1. Get ready for a paradigm shift.

“If you’re already in a [monogamous] relationship... it’s important to know that going from monogamy to ENM is not a process of small tweaks but instead a major restructuring of the entirety of your relationship,” says [Liz] Powell. “Part of being successful in ENM is unpacking the assumptions and norms of heteronormative, mono-normative culture.” For example, the assumption that each person has a soulmate, or that someone meets “The One” and settles down, happily ever after.

2. Familiarize yourself with relational tools and practice them.

“When opening an existing relationship, folks will often try to create agreements or rules that are designed to help alleviate their fears, anxieties, and insecurities,” says Powell. “[However,] these kinds of agreements and rules don’t tend to work out well in the long run as they are structural solutions to emotional problems.” Instead, think about what you would want in certain situations and figure out what emotional or relational work you need to do to get there, they advise. ...

3. Plan for dysregulation.

“Change, even desired change, is dysregulating to your nervous system,” Hamilton says. As a result, she suggests learning some nervous system regulation techniques....

4. Remember your self-worth.

“So much of the drama of ENM comes down to [people’s] fear that if a partner turns their attention to someone else, it must mean [they] are lacking in some way,” says Hamilton. “[That's why] developing a strong sense of self-worth is invaluable.” ...Be sure to pour into your friendships, says Hamilton. And of course, you can always ask your partner for reassurance when you need it. ...

●  Elsewhere, Dating Couples: A Beginner's Guide (Vice, Oct. 6).

...But while it's true there are more couples looking for a one-night threesome than ones looking for long-term loving triads, it’s also true that it’s not always the couple doing the looking. Sometimes, magic happens and unicorns spring from Welsh lakesides unbidden. Sometimes, three – or four – people just catch a vibe…

...For their first date, Laura walked all the way from Kentish Town to Green Lanes in London: “I had a shot of tequila before I left. I listened to La Roux on repeat to hype myself up while I walked.” She needn’t have worried. Despite feeling like she’d dived headfirst into unknown territory, Laura immediately felt comfortable with the pair: “From the start that summer, everything was so easy.”

...“A single person interested in dating a couple should first start with some self-reflection to truly understand their motivations and desires.”

...“Understand the principles, communication skills, and challenges involved, and be honest with yourself – consider your emotional availability, time, and energy to invest in multiple relationships.” This is, quite literally, doubly important if you’re in a couple looking to date other couples.

...Ah, the good ol’ buzzword: boundaries. The term has attracted a bit of a bad rep recently, what with Jonah Hill and others tossing around therapy-speak to justify shitty behaviour. But, when it comes to dating an established couple, or dating as one, it’s best to lay some ground rules before anyone gets their heart broken. ...

...“Do your own research on unicorn hunting to avoid unethical behaviour, coercion and power dynamics. Remember that you have an established relationship, which means inherent power over the third person newly joining.”

If you’re in a couple, looking to date other couples, expect the dynamics to be even more complex. ... Couples therapist Kendra Capalbo recommends nurturing individual connections alongside the group dynamic.

...“Managing jealous emotions is a big effort, but it’s worth it,” Graff stresses. However, he also suggests that jealousy can sometimes signal this type of relationship dynamic simply isn’t for you. “You might then need to come to terms with the fact that it might still be good for your partners, and learn to respect and accept their differences.”

...“Non-monogamous relationships often require flexibility, empathy, and a willingness to adapt as feelings evolve,” sex and relationship expert Charlotte Johnson affirms. “It's possible to navigate these situations successfully with ongoing communication and a focus on ensuring that everyone's emotional well-being is prioritised. This may involve redefining the relationships, allowing them to develop naturally, or finding individual solutions that work for everyone involved.”... 

●  How the “One-Penis Policy” Became the Most Hated Thing in Polyamory (GQ, Oct. 4). "And why it might not always be so bad."

...“The caricature of this setup is some controlling, insecure misogynist has established this policy and his girlfriend or wife is reluctantly going along with it to please him, despite not really being attracted to other women herself,” Sprankle says. According to that caricature, “This can stem from fearing his penis will be second tier to other penises his female partner will encounter in the wild. He may fear that he could easily be replaced by a penis that is larger, firmer, or doesn’t curve too far to the right."

OPP is also frowned upon because it could indicate that a couple doesn’t view sex with other women as equal to sex with men. ...

...“It’s not my preference to hook up with couples that only date or sleep with other women. Those couples tend to be the most closed-minded and have the worst communication,” says Carly S. a 36-year-old queer woman who runs the blog Dildo or Dildon’t. ...

But no stereotype is always true. 

Sometimes the one-penis-policy, particularly threesomes with two women and one man, are the gateway drug to [positive] open relationships that allow for couple swapping, sleeping with men, orgies, or even full-on polyamory. Other times, the woman is really, really bisexual, and feels that she gets plenty of dick from her primary. She’s down with OPP because when she’s going to take a night off work, sleeping, or away from friends to fuck someone else, she wants to sleep with a woman.

...There’s a relationship format for every couple [sic]. Ethical nonmonogamy is bespoke, not off-the-rack. 

●  Legal Recognition of 3-Plus-Parent Families Slowly Expanding (Above the Law, Oct. 4). "Many families looking for legal recognition of more than two parents do not involve polyamory."  Ellen Trachman, a Denver attorney specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, interviewed the Three Dads and a Baby triad for her law podcast.

●  Another three-men-and-baby triad tell their story: We're a gay throuple who split chores, costs, and parenting roles 3 ways — more people should consider similar arrangements (Insider, Oct. 3)

So here are the three of us: Mitch works in finance, Ben works for a beauty company, and Benjamin owns an e-commerce business and runs a store.

Two of us, Ben and Mitch, had been together for 14 years before we met Benjamin on the Atlantis gay cruise in February 2019. All three of us got ceremonially married in Kauai, Hawaii, in September that same year. At the same time, two of us — Benjamin and Mitch — also got legally married.

We're all parents to our 18-month-old daughter, Tegan, whom we adopted last year. We're expecting our second child in December through surrogacy. Our family lives together in our home in Los Angeles.

While our family looks different from most, our challenges are similar to those of most two-parent families.

Here's a look into what parenting with three dads looks like and why we think more people should consider similar arrangements.

We all contribute to our family finances, proportionate to our income. With rising inflation and the increasing cost of living, we think polyamorous relationships will be something that more people look at.

Having three incomes, three parents to tend to our kid, and three minds to set goals makes us so much stronger than couples.

For example, when it comes to parenting, we take shifts. We take turns with who gets up in the middle of the night when Tegan wakes up. The same person does the mornings with her, which means feeding her breakfast, doing the diapers, and handling her playtime — so that the other two get two nights of sleep.

We split our chores between us, too: Ben does more of the cooking, while Benjamin does more of the yard work. 

Ben is the more playful one with Tegan — he's the one that makes her laugh. Mitch is the motherly one who is most in tune with her health, food, and how much sleep she gets. Benjamin is the practical one, who loves showing her activities and essentials such as walking downstairs and getting out of bed.

We get to be different things to Tegan — even when we're bickering over how much noise we should allow Tegan to make.

The important thing is that we're aligned on the things we grew up with. This means we're on the same page about things we wish could've been different in our upbringing — including the kind of support we needed to become who we are.

Ultimately, we wouldn't recommend jumping into a throuple just because you saw an article or YouTube video about it. Becoming a throuple means you have to understand two people at a time, and you need to take time to know their triggers and wants. It's a journey that's going to involve a lot of hiccups and uncomfortable moments.

●  I thought this title was snark, but turns out it's for real: 400 Questions to Ask When Entering a Polyamorous Relationship (by Jahrine Okutsu, Upworthy, Oct. 5).

Of course not all 400 will apply to you. But they're thoughtful and worth skimming to spot ones that do that you hadn't thought of. She groups them by category and subcategory. For instance,

Questions to Ask Yourself:

     Self Reflection

     Emotional Preparedness

     Personal Boundaries

     Time Management

     Personal Development

     Future Goals

     Social Fallout

Questions to Ask Your Partner(s):

     Relationship Definition

     Communication Expectations

     Emotional Responsibilities

     Partner’s Boundaries

     Partners’ Other Relationships

     Conflict Resolution

     Safe Practices

     Future Goals

     Social Consequences

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile...

Why have I been ending posts to this polyamory news site with Ukraine?

Because I've seen many progressive movements die 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.

One couple, many hands. "A new mural painting in Kyiv dedicated
to Ukrainian volunteers. If you have helped Ukrainians during this
year and a half, you may consider yourself to be one of them."

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 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.

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, abusive police power, 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 or many others. We're giving to a big one, Razom, and to a little one, Pizza for Ukraine in Kharkiv, the project of an old friend of my wife (story).

But that is only the start. For those of us born since World War II, we are seeing 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. Now the whole world is watching what we will do about it.

The coming times may require hard things of us. We don't get to choose the time and place in history we are born into; we do get to choose how we respond to it. Buck up and be ready.

Need a little help bucking up? Take perspective. Play this. Another version. More? Some people on the eastern front helping to hold onto an open society, a shrinking thing in the world. Maybe your granddad did this across a trench from Hitler's troops — for you, and us, because a world fascist movement was successfully defeated that time, opening the way for the rest of the 2oth century. Although the outcome didn't look good for a couple of years there.

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, see If Ukraine Wants To Stand for Liberty and Democracy, It Should Rethink Some of Its Wartime Policies. 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. 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 getting them through  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.

Social attitudes in Ukraine tend traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church, but not bitterly so like often in the US; the ideal of modern European civil society is widely treasured, and social progressivism has room to thrive. The status of women is fast advancing, especially since the 2022 invasion (pre-invasion article). And a reported 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions, including as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, and snipers. (Intimidating video: "Thus the Witch has Spoken".)

  

Ukraine's LGBT military unicorn.
The thorns and barbed wire
represent old restrictions
now being cut away. 
 

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 current 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, but to speak for "non-traditional sexual relations." Until last year Russia had a polyamory education and awareness movement.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our continued material aid for however long as it takes to win. Speak out for it.

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

Women fighters in a trench in the Donetsk region

PPS:  US authoritarians (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 tale of one of their battles in Bakhmut – the Verdun of this war.

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