"The Invite" lowdown. "This Is Poly" TV series. We get 9 minutes on ABC's Nightline. And a friendly but very real examination of modern throuples' messes

If you think polyamory and ENM have slowed their 15-year sweep into mainstream fascination — nope, ain't happened yet.

So, at what point does this thing. . . go too far? Are we already there? Repeat after me: polyamory is not for everyone. Not even, perhaps, for most who are now rushing into it.

I say this having evangelized for the possibilities of group romantic love since even before the Zell nest invented the word "polyamory" at the end of the 1980s.

●  The movie The Invite, an indie fave at Sundance last January, is now being mass-released in megaplexes to solid early box office. (Spoilers coming:) Its tantalizing early publicity — that it would show polyamory addressing a fraught dead-marriage situation — was a tease. Near the movie's end the "invite" falls apart, and the story stops just where it could have begun. This is mostly a very well acted bad-marriage comedy — with Oscar potential, some reviewers say.

The ENM on offer is not love-centric polyamory but what you might call enlightened swinging. The upstairs couple tell of their sex clubs where you pick your kinks from a menu, and they are running something like that themselves in their poorly soundproofed apartment. And Hawk's black ring, pointedly fondled and flashed to the camera near the end, is swing-world insider code.

But ENM-wise the movie does represent a positive new twist, as Marie Claire magazine points out (July 4):

The Invite gives ENM [ethical non-monogamy] the nuanced portrayal it rarely gets on screen. The story follows two couples whose dinner descends into arguments, flirtation and, eventually, a proposition. Yet, for once, the open couple aren't the dysfunctional one. Instead, it's the supposedly "normal" monogamous pair (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen) whose relationship begins to unravel.

It's getting both good reviews (early Rotten Tomatoes: 9.8) and good audience-exit interviews. When I saw it the audience was sparse, but that was at 2 p.m. on a weekday. So far the movie is on track to become a summer hit.

A Guardian story (July 3) begins,

‘I feel both thrilled and ruined by this’: Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton on making sex comedy The Invite

Their movie about marital bed death is this summer’s buzziest, funniest film. ...

By Catherine Shoard

The good-example couple (right) offer something new to the fighting monos.

Earlier this week, Edward Norton took a night flight from New York to London and felt so dreadful the next day he decided to get a massage. “I hadn’t had one in such a long time,” he says. “And I almost started crying. You’re like: ‘Oh! Ah!’ ”

He has heard similar sounds from cinemas screening his new movie, The Invite, which is about the devastating impact of marriage on your sex life. “People are almost tearful. They’re like: ‘I haven’t had a good, adult laugh that made me feel seen in a long time.’ ” ...

Fanbolt says, How Olivia Wilde’s ‘The Invite’ Puts Polyamory in the Multiplex Without the Doom (July 10)

By Emma Loggins

Hollywood has spent decades treating non-monogamy as either a punchline or a plot device headed for catastrophe. ... The Invite lets an openly non-monogamous couple be the most appealing people in the room instead of a cautionary tale, even if the film itself gets cold feet before the credits.

...The marketing dangles an orgy the film has no intention of delivering, and once the night pivots from comedy into something closer to group therapy, The Invite pulls back right when it could have gotten savage. ...

So the framing that this is the film that finally makes polyamory the happy ending is not quite right. What it actually does is subtler and more interesting. It lets Hawk and Piña be desirable and emotionally intelligent rather than doomed, and it uses them as a mirror to expose everything calcified in Joe and Angela’s marriage....

The Cultural Moment Is Real, Even If the Film Hedges

...Intimacy experts keep pointing out that for a lot of viewers, movies and TV are their only window into what [ENM] relationships look like, so when the depictions are relentlessly negative, they warp public understanding of lives that are far less doomed than the screen insists. That is why a movie built to let a poly couple be the aspirational ones matters, even one that flinches. 

The Invite treats Hawk and Piña as people with something to teach rather than a threat to be survived, and that alone is a shift.

...The value here is in the framing, not the follow-through. ... That is a smaller swing than the trailer promised, and I wish the film had matched the audacity of its premise. But a mainstream comedy that can imagine a version of love not automatically ending in a single couple walking into the sunset, and that treats the alternative as attractive rather than tragic, is a real tell about where this is all heading.

Dozens more reviews.

 

●  Also new in mass-market media is (oh God) This Is Poly, a reality show on WeTV.  The trailer opens excitedly but turns cringy with "reality" drama (of course coffee is thrown with the perfect camera angle). Episode guide so far.

Confession: I don't watch reality TV, so find reviews elsewhere. And I don't trust AI, but this pithy summary of early reviews from Google's AI may save you time:

While intended as dramatic, trashy entertainment, [This Is Poly] is widely criticized for spotlighting dysfunctional, toxic, and non-ethical dynamics rather than healthy, consensual polyamory.

This from Reddit user Polyamorouspotato seems typical:

I just finished “This is Poly” and I have noted that every dynamic is entirely toxic. From “throuples” to harems. Rules and all the couples dating together. Also notes of poly under duress.

This show made me so angry lol. I understand the choices to show drama on tv but woof there isn’t a single example of ethical polyamory.

Almost all 63 commenters agree. One that didn't:

I LOVED it. It did not disappoint in the entertainment and cringe. I hosted a watch party of CNM folks which was the best way to enjoy the show. BQ and his friend Pauly may be my favorites for having the best douchiest lines of the show and providing me a ton of laughs. But the “999,000 bitches” roster girlies also brought the toxicity and the clipboards.

I Lost the Remote and Watched 'This Is Poly' — I Wouldn’t Wish That on Anyone (TV Fanatic, June 17).

One of the five polycules on the show told ShowBiz Cheatsheet what they underwent during filming: ‘This Is Poly’ Power Throuple on the ‘Pressure Cooker’ of Reality TV and the Importance of Hard Conversations (June 26). Trent admits the filming "was more than we bargained for." Says Nita (whose three DUI arrests and mugshot are now famous), "I feel like I could have [done] a lot better communicating through a lot of it." She could also have grasped that if you go on reality TV, of course your arrest record and mugshot will come to represent whatever you represent. Kami, having invested so much of herself in the show, tries to see the positive:  

...“One of our main goals for doing it was really to help people see that this is actually a really viable option and you can do it in a healthy way,” she said. “Yes, it might still be messy. There’s not a rule book for it, so it’s hard … it was really showing people that this can be a really beautiful thing. And it is something that if people really want to grow and expand and love, it is something that’s possible.”

●  On a rather higher level, the Presbyterian Church USA (the larger and more liberal branch of the split Presbytherians) just went through some tumult over polyamory, as has been happening in other churchs. A proposal to its recent General Assembly would have expelled ministers in non-monogamous relationships. This made the news.

From the Associated Press, in many newspapers: As polyamory gains visibility, monogamy faces a vote in the Presbyterian Church USA (via Religion News Service, June 12)

By Katheryn Post

A proposal that would require ordained clergy to be monogamous is on the docket at the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly this summer.

The overture, CON-10, has generated strong reactions online but not yet earned broad support from PCUSA groups. A separate proposal asks for theological studies on gender and sexuality, life-giving relationships and the Christian vocation of family that would support the denomination’s commitment to inclusion of different familial realities. Together, these overtures show that as polyamory gains visibility in broader culture, it may have policy implications, especially in theologically progressive Christian denominations.

“I think it is the next big conversation that most mainline denominations will have,” said the Rev. Claudia Aguilar Rubalcava, director of engagement for the LGBTQ-affirming nonprofit More Light Presbyterians.

 La Fabbrica Dei Sogni/ Unsplash/ Creative Commons

More Light Presbyterians released a statement last month, saying the proposal on monogamy targets queer communities. “It centers a single model of relationship as the only faithful expression of Christian life, ignoring both the breadth of biblical witness and the lived realities of many faithful people,” the statement says. ...

Last month, More Light Pres­by­teri­ans hos­ted a “Faith­ful Polyamory 101” train­ing that framed the Trin­ity as mod­el­ling the kind of mutual, over­flow­ing love that can be reflec­ted in polyamory. ... Chris­tian advoc­ates for polyamory often point to the range of rela­tion­ship mod­els in the Bible — though many con­trast poly­gamy, which often has hier­arch­ical implic­a­tions, with mod­ern forms of polyamory — and emphas­ize the import­ance of safe, con­sen­sual rela­tion­ships with clear bound­ar­ies.

...Aguilar Rubalcava told RNS that at speaking engagements, she routinely encounters polyamorous Presbyterians hungry for support. Kate Davoli, who serves as co-moderator on the board of More Light Presbyterians, told RNS they were dismissed from the denomination’s ordination process for being openly polyamorous. 

...As polyamory gains exposure, other mainline denominations have begun to confront their stance on it. At least three Episcopal priests have renounced their ordination vows due to tensions between their church roles and family structures, and in 2024 the Episcopal Church considered, but did not advance, a resolution intending to study diverse family structures. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada voted in 2023 to create national resources to support conversations that include “ethical non-monogamous relationships.”...

Two for the record:  God’s love is not scarce: A Presbyterian case for polyamory, by Dr. David W. Congdon (The Presbyterian Outlook, June 23). The other side: One flesh, one spouse: A clear standard for Presbyterian ministers, by Rev. Alexander Haines (same issue).

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

The outcome? The assembled Presbyterians punted. They voted 433-44 to send the proposal to a committee for more study.

You church-going polyfolk reading this (yes there are quite a few of you), please make yourselves known if you can. Your silence lets TV shows like "This Is Poly" represent you in the eyes of your church.

-- Lots more Poly and Christian coverage from a while back.

-- My own church, the Unitarian Universalists, voted overwhelmingly at its 2014 General Assembly to add "relationship and family structure" to its list of Welcoming Congregation protections. That drive was led by the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, which still lives on as a Facebook group: the UU Polyamory Alliance.

●  Just out is a landmark newspaper feature on the boom in people forming throuples and the emotional swamps they often mire in:  ‘They said to me, You were the best sex toy we ever had’: the pain, pleasure and paranoia of life in a throuple (The Guardian, July 12, in its US, UK, Europe, Australia, and International editions.)

This story is long, deeply informed, and friendly to us. But romantic triads have a reputation for being an especially hard dynamic to make work well for everyone, and the writer doesn't hold back about the crises she saw throuples going through across six months.

Rant ahead: Now that we're squarely in the mass-market era of poly and ENM, way too many people try to glide past the steep standards that "ethical" actually requires here. Or, triads don't think to train up, as a group, in both speaking and listening fearlessly. This thing really is, as is often said, "graduate-level relationshipping." The good odds are for people who are brave, secure, and self-examining; and no-nonsense but genuinely good-hearted and motivated by poly ideals. And who are ready for big changes. Did we mention being naturally honest, clear about boundaries, and unusually emotionally intelligent? Such people are willing to let the relationships be what they are, un-mandated and unforced. Because no two relationships are ever alike, and that's okay.

And you don't have to be a naturally low-jealousy compersive meltyheart about your metas. But it helps.

Nevertheless, there are exceptions to every poly rule. You sometimes find happy, easy-functioning, long-term throuples who took every "wrong" approach and are doing great. People can surprise you. (Just not often.)

End of rant. I've been saying this sort of stuff ever since my Central Park bandwagon speech in 2008.

Excerpts from the throuple article:

From Hollywood movies to confessional memoirs, three-person relationships are everywhere. But is it really possible to keep everyone satisfied? Happy trios, bruised couples and rejected lovers tell all.

By Kitty Drake

Priscilla can pinpoint the moment she realised that her throuple was falling apart. Her fiancee, Kiara, had started kissing their shared girlfriend, Olivia, in a way that went on for just a little too long. One night, after the three of them had gone out for a romantic dinner in Savannah, Georgia, where they live, Olivia and Kiara started kissing in the front seats of the family car and it seemed as if they were never going to stop. About 10 minutes in, Priscilla tried to reach out and touch her fiancee’s shoulder, but her seat belt was buckled. Unbuckling and leaning forward felt intrusive. And, anyway, Kiara and Olivia seemed to have forgotten all about her. Watching the kiss unfold, squashed into the back with all the baby seats and toys, Priscilla thought about how by rights it was her turn to sit up front. She was always in the back seat. She felt a flicker of something competitive. “I worried, am I desired less than her?” she recalls now. “Will I be replaced?”

In the early days, Priscilla felt giddy with the excitement of being in a throuple. She and Kiara had been together for eight years, and adding a third person to their relationship felt like a way of exploring non‑monogamy without losing one another, because every new romantic experience would be shared. Olivia was an old friend, so Priscilla and Kiara’s children were comfortable with her. When the kids were in bed, they would walk to the beach holding hands as a three, to watch the sunset. At night, they would curl up to sleep together, and form a kind of cuddle chain. Priscilla would cuddle Olivia, and Olivia would cuddle Kiara.

Priscilla (left) and Kiara, who are engaged, had a shared girlfriend who
left them earlier this year. Kendrick Brinson/The Guardian

Sometimes in the night, Priscilla would wake up alone on one side of the bed, and see Kiara and Olivia cuddling without her – at first this didn’t bother her. “I felt a little left out, but I was happy that Kiara was happy,” Priscilla says. The problems really began when both Priscilla and Kiara moved beyond lust, and began to fall deeply in love with Olivia. “The thing about throuples is that when real emotions get involved, things get more complicated.”

In a throuple, three people commit to forming a romantic unit together – just like a couple, but with one extra person. In other forms of non-monogamy, you might have multiple partners, but you are typically only ever in bed with one partner at a time. Throuples are different, because they date and have sex and sometimes even raise children as a three. ...

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

On screen today, you see throuples everywhere. ... But as the throuple becomes more commonplace, there seems to be a growing backlash against this relationship structure. Recent research suggests that younger generations are rejecting the complications of polyamory and beginning to yearn again for the perceived safety of traditional coupledom. An analysis of sexual fantasies by the Kinsey Institute suggests that gen Z are turning away from polyamory, with 81% fantasising about monogamy instead.

Being happily polyamorous requires a daunting degree of patience and thoughtfulness, because you have to continually debrief with your lovers to check that their needs are being met – but throupledom seems to require even greater reserves of emotional maturity. Managing the desires and insecurities of three people at once is a feat, and even within polyamorous circles, throuples have a reputation for being fraught. ...

I have spent the last six months talking to people who have been in throuples that have gone spectacularly wrong (and some that are going spectacularly right) about how to manage infighting and rivalry in three‑person relationships. How can you make a throuple work? And what happens when a throuple implodes?

In The Ethical Slut, the authors write that in any menage a trois “there are actually three couples, A&B, B&C and C&A”. What makes the throuple unstable is that, at any time, the mini-couples within the throuple can become more estranged, or entwined, and there can be dramatic reversals in allegiances. In Priscilla’s throuple, it was initially she and Olivia who were the closer pair – and Kiara who felt excluded. In the first weeks of the relationship, Kiara discovered that Priscilla and Olivia had been having sex while she was at work. Sex as a twosome wasn’t technically against the rules of the arrangement, Kiara tells me, but “it was very hurtful and it broke a lot of trust”. ...

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

I speak to Alissa for the first time over the phone from her home in Connecticut, and we have to pause the conversation a couple of times because I can hear her teenage son coming in and out. Alissa and her husband, Rob, have got five children aged 14 to 22, and, while the older children are aware that their parents have experimented with an open relationship, they don’t know the details.

After 21 years of marriage, Rob revealed to Alissa that he was bisexual. Experimenting with another man together seemed like a way to cope with that revelation without it breaking their marriage. Initially when they met Michael, 33, who lived in a neighbouring city, Alissa felt anxious. She worried that Michael was only pretending to feel an attraction to her in order to get to Rob, and remembers one awkward early date where Michael was all over Rob in a cab, and the two of them barely looked at her at all. But as the relationship progressed, Michael and Alissa developed an intense bond, and Rob felt increasingly threatened.

One night when the three of them were in bed together, Alissa and Michael started kissing, and Rob became so distressed he had a panic attack. Alissa had put on new underwear, and Rob started interrogating her about why he had never seen this lingerie before. “He was, like, ‘Well, you haven’t put that on for me lately!’ – but the truth was that Rob and I hadn’t been having sex with each other because we saw Michael two times a week, and who is having more sex than that?”...

Initially, Rob hadn’t wanted to talk to me because he found the breakup too painful to revisit, but a few weeks later the couple call me together so that he can offer his perspective. “I was madly in love with this guy,” Rob says. “Head over heels.” He is speaking to me from his car speakerphone. He says that it wasn’t simply the case that he was feeling possessive over his wife; he also felt horribly rejected by Michael. ...

When a throuple is going right, the amount of love feels almost unquantifiable, because you are “chosen and loved by two people and have two people to love”, Rob reflects. “Having him as part of our equation, I could love her 150% and him 150%”. But when a throuple breaks down, you have to deal with the inverse of that exponential love: exponential rejection. At times, Rob says, he didn’t feel “chosen” by anyone.

Alissa says that her and Rob’s marriage has survived the whole experience, but only just. Sometimes she feels resentful because dating another man wasn’t originally her idea, it was Rob’s. “I was pissed because I had this little tiny seedling that I didn’t even want in the first place and I gave it all the sunlight and all the water, and then when it started to grow Rob was ready to end it.”

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

...The criticism of [Lindy] West’s memoir [Adult Braces this spring] was often cruel, but I think the intensity of the reaction speaks to a real fear many of us have that, as polyamory becomes more mainstream, terms such as “throuple” and “ethically non-monogamous” will be wielded by faithless partners who want to legitimise their desire to cheat. However, having spoken to real-life throuples, the picture looks more complicated because the dynamics in the triad chop and change. The wife who was initially reluctant might end up being the most adored and enthusiastic member of the throuple. The husband who initially begged for it might wind up desperate to leave.

Even within the polyamorous community, throuples are considered messy and potentially unethical – not necessarily because they disrupt an existing couple, but because [they have a reputation that] they exploit the third person who enters the relationship. On polyamorous online message boards, couples who post that they are looking for a third person to join their relationship are often criticised for being “unicorn hunters”. ...

...Caitlin, 31, from London, tells me [such] a story about feeling used and discarded by a couple she met while living in Marseille.... “You know what they said to me? ‘You were the best sex toy we ever had.’ ”

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

I spoke to happy throuples while I was researching this article, and most of them told me that when you feel intensely heartbroken or hurt by a particular member of your triad, the key is to acknowledge it. Rather than leaving the throuple, or exercising a “veto” because you feel threatened, you have to talk through the pain as it comes up.

Rachael, Aaron and Kasey, a throuple from the Tampa Bay area of Florida who have been living together for seven years, say that they attribute their success to diligent emotional housekeeping. The first time I speak to them is in early April on a video call, and they are in exercise gear, ready for an early morning workout together at the gym.

Steady as they go: Aaron, Rachel, and Kasey . . .

Rachael, who describes herself to me as a “type-A, high-achiever, highly organised person”, tells me that these qualities are very helpful in a throuple. “It’s just 33% more – more to schedule, more to plan, more money to divvy up,” she says. Rachael and Aaron are in their 40s, and were together for 20 years before they met Kasey, 35, but they have worked hard to make sure she has equal standing within the throuple. They have created a trust that outlines Kasey as a beneficiary, and have given her medical power of attorney, should anything happen to either of them. They apply the same organised, thoughtful approach to hashing out emotional issues in the throuple, too. “We joke that if monogamous couples talked half as much about their feelings as we do in our throuple, the divorce rate would plummet,” Aaron says.

...and outside their bunglaow in Gulfport, Florida.
(Zack Wittman / The Guardian)

The throuple have a weekly date night, but Rachael has a regular one-on-one night with Aaron, too. She also has a regular night with just Kasey. And Aaron and Kasey have their own scheduled one-on-one time. The idea behind the one-on-one nights is to make sure that all the individual bonds within the throuple continue to grow. Rachael explains that she usually leaves the house for the evening when Kasey and Aaron have their couples night, and that re-entering the home at the end of the evening isn’t always easy. She doesn’t feel jealousy, she says: “It’s almost more like I know that they’ve had a very connecting moment, and me coming back to it feels intrusive. It feels like they almost have to baby me and say, ‘Oh, come back in.’ ” Rachael has been completely open with Kasey and Aaron about these feelings. She has developed a system where, instead of greeting them when she comes back at night, she takes a shower and even considers sleeping in the guest room. Then they “wake up and have a fresh day as a three”.

...In a way, people who form throuples are just braver than the rest of us. The fear of the third haunts most relationships. Throuples choose to invite the third into the relationship and live through all the difficult emotions the rest of us are trying to bury. Recently, Priscilla and Kiara told me that they are thinking about trying to form a new throuple. Kiara is wary, but Priscilla is excited. “We’re still discussing it,” she says. “But I think it will be an adventure.”

●  Meanwhile, happy triads continue to represent proudly in public. On ABC News Nightline last night (July 13) came this 9-minute video report: Throuple opens up about their polyamorous relationship. It's lovely!

The creators of “Camp Throuple” open up about their polyamorous relationship. Kevin Jankay, Alana Underwood and Megan Smith say their non-monogamous relationship is the best one they’ve ever had.  

They live in Colorado and are in their sixth year as a closed polyfi delta triad. What fine, great-hearted, smart people these seem to be. Watch and learn.

(If the embed above doesn't work here's the link. I don't find a transcript.)

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

Elsewhere in the world... The current changing tide of the Ukraine war shows how, when a free people don't give up, fortune may swing their way.

If you still don't get what this war means to our own future as free cultural weirdos — not to mention to the whole rest of the world — you need the long view.

BTW, the logo of PolyamoryUkraine:

 

...while in Russia, speaking up for "nontraditional sexual relations" is a crime punishable by up to 12 years in horrible Russian prisons under the "anti-extremism" laws. "Extremism" meaning whatever the emperor dislikes.

And BTW, The Invite's first international release was in Ukraine.

[Permalink]

For Polyamory in the News alerts, enter your email:

Happy triad home life. Two new books, more poly reality TV... and, polyworld perspective on the current crisis

Not much polyamory in the news lately with everything else going on. Such as, umm.... 

For a poly-informed take on the picture and our little place in it, scroll down and start at the Ukraine flag.

The tl;dr: When autocrats are overthrowing your country,  do not show fear; fear is contagious. Courage is contagious too, and it's better for you. Act accordingly.

Get the little handbook On Tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century. Connect with your local pro-democracy groups, now, to start building mutual support. Grow your community networks. Develop strategic thinking; the winners are the accurate far-seers. Buck up, as modeled in the videos from people in a harder spot than us. Find your own good place in the fight, and relish it. Snowflakes are miserable and get nowhere, but fighters have purpose and meaning, even fun.

It's only starting.

Yes we do, poly networks especially. Near the White House on January 18.
 (Jon Cherry/Reuters)

 ------------------------------

Meanwhile, back to the blog topic.

●  The oldest, most familiar type of polyamory coverage in legacy media is the local newspaper profiling a local polyfamily. Especially around Valentine's Day, especially if there are kids. So... this in from the San Antonio Express-News: 'Married' throuple living domestic life in San Antonio are 'powerhouse trio', Feb. 14.

These never grow old.

The triad pledging their mutual vows three years ago. "When they arrived at

the altar, they were greeted by a circle of friends and family — a seating

arrangement intended to symbolize the unification of their families."

Anthony Garcia / Jojodancerphotos   

By Rhyma Castillo

...“We like to call it ‘the power of three,’ ” said Delain, 44, who works in sales operations at a global tech company. “When we work together, we can knock out pretty much anything.”

 

The San Antonio throuple walked one another down the aisle in spring 2022 at a wedding ceremony in front of their closest friends and family.

    

...Blanca and Phillip met at San Antonio ISD’s Highlands High School in 1990. She was a freshman and he was a senior, and they began dating after two years of friendship. ...

[A quarter century later] “We started trying to meet other couples, just trying to date,” Blanca said. “For me, it was figuring out my sexuality. How much am I willing to explore with my husband there, and how open are we about having this conversation?”

Phillip says they weren’t looking for sexual relationships that night, but when they ran into Delain on one of their outings in March 2017, the couple was “intrigued” by her. 

Blanca, Delain, and Philip. "Certainly, we’ve lost friends along the way.
They can go (expletive) themselves."

It was at a Shovels and Rope concert at Sam's Burger Joint, Blanca said. She knew Delain through work, but seeing her in a different setting sparked something new — physical attraction. Delain was hot. “She’s very intriguing, very gorgeous,” Blanca said. “Phillip was like, ‘Who is that?’ So I introduced them, and we hit it off.”

 

“When I met Blanca and Phillip, I had no idea what polyamory was,” Delain said. She’d just made a post-divorce move to San Antonio with her two sons, now 24 and 14, and said she was on a date with someone else when she ran into the pair.

“I thought, ‘I can’t tell if these people are hitting on me, or if I’m making new friends,’” she said.

Within weeks, Delain confirmed it was the former when Blanca suddenly kissed her at a Sons of Hercules concert.

"We were in a grimy dive bar bathroom on the St. Mary's Strip," Blanca said. "Delain asked me how I stay looking so young, and I told her 'by kissing pretty girls like you.'"

"That's when I knew," Delain said. “That’s what broke the ice."

“We loved spending every moment we possibly could together,” Blanca said. “We couldn’t get enough of one another, and it didn’t disrupt (mine and Phillip’s) relationship. It just felt very comfortable and natural.”

...The three say they've managed the stresses with plenty of open, honest communication. “We wanted to make sure everyone felt comfortable, and we just fell into this rhythm,” Delain said.

After nearly a year of courtship, the triad merged households in May 2018. Quickly, the relationship dynamic switched from parties, concerts, gallery openings and Piñata Protest concerts to laundry, gardening and H-E-B runs. 

For Valentine's Day, the throuple plans to make dinner at home with their 14-year-old son — and to give one another copious amounts of flowers.

If that sounds pretty tame, well, it is. Blanca likes to thrift; Delain likes to garden and volunteer at the dog shelter; and Phillip has his art. They love to binge-watch TV, and they're revisiting "Top Chef" at the moment. 

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

...When Blanca, Delain and Phillip decided to be open about their relationship and lifestyle after moving in together, they were met with mixed reactions.

“Our kids were way more accepting of our relationship than we could have ever imagined,” Delain said.

One of the triad's children, Violet Luna, 24, identifies as polyamorous herself. She said her parents' relationship taught her important lessons about how to love with patience, compassion and understanding.

"They set an incredible example for me," Violet said. "I've learned so much through observing how they love one another."

"With Delain joining our family, I have two more siblings now — more celebrations, more birthdays, more dinners," Violet said. "I call her my 'bonus mom' because she's another mom to go to. I'm in a bigger community now with so much love."

However, the triad’s parents and a few of their now-former friends weren’t exactly convinced, they say.

“They’ve all managed to say something offensive at some point,” she added. ...

...[In 2022] they created their own marriage certificate, which all five of Blanca, Delain and Phillip’s children signed as witnesses.

“We all felt like this was a long-term, forever thing,” Blanca said. “It was important for us to feel like we were part of a unit.”

Polyamory Advice

For polyamorous partners in general, the triad agree it’s important to find community with those who love and accept you.

For Delain, that meant making changes so she could be open and honest about her relationship, which meant “questioning the community I was choosing to be in,” she said. “If I can’t be honest about who I love, then this isn’t where I want to be.”

Phillip said he's had to dispel doubts among his peers: At first, they thought “Oh, this is just another thing that he’s doing, it’ll pass. Let’s not pay attention to it,” Phillip said. “But then they see us and our dynamic, and they go, ‘Wow, what a powerhouse trio.’ ”

For Blanca, finding community meant being able to share her life with the people to whom she’s closest — without fear of shame or judgment: “I made it clear to my parents, siblings and peers that this is my family, and this is how you can accept us,” she said.

“Certainly, we’ve lost friends along the way,” Blanca said. “They can go (expletive) themselves.”

●  A surprisingly solid new book: Polyamory for Dummies.

Wiley's "For Dummies" series has a spotty reputation. After its early success, critics say the publisher expanded the line too fast and quality dropped. But if so, the long-expected Polyamory For Dummies, finally out, looks to be a stellar exception.

That's because of its stellar author, Dr. Jaime Marie Grant, PhD. She's a brilliant sex and relationship educator as well as a 15-year polyamory practitioner, a researcher, podcaster, and relationship coach and proudly queer. She was the primary investigator for America's first national survey on discrimination against trans and non-binary people (2011). She's now on a speaking tour.

Jaime M. Grant

She thanks her editor for, apparently,  letting her ignore some of the rigid directions to For Dummies authors. Maybe they've learned.

First-look impressions: The book is large, 352 pages. It's packed with easily findable information judging from the Introduction and Chapters 1, 2, and 3 and its very large table of contents and index. (If either link fails to load, click the "read sample" button under the cover pictures.)  I've ordered the book and will have more to say when it arrives.

●  Another new book: The Non-Monogamy Playbook: Exploring Polyamory and Open Relationships with Confidence, by Ruby Rare. She's a well-known UK sex educator, author  and podcaster. For the arrival of her latest book, the Daily Mail published a Poly 101 she wrote and titled it  I turned my back on 'normal' relationships and now I'm happier than ever in a 'polycule' with six sexy friends. This is my guide to non-monogamy... (Jan. 30).

Ruby Rare

...There’s often a presumption that in straight-presenting relationships, it’s the men who initiate opening things up.

But in my experience, it’s overwhelmingly more common for women to be the ones keen to do so.*  Lots of women have been empowered by the sex-positive movement to question their wants and desires. ...

...Rare is an ambassador for Brook, the UK-based sexual health charity, the National LGBTQ+ Partnership’s Women’s Health Week, and co-founder of life drawing collective Body Love Sketch Club.

She said: “ENM is a subject very close to my heart. It’s great to see a growing cultural interest in these less conventional relationship styles, and I can’t wait to share my professional insights and personal experiences. Expect a book that’s curious, encouraging and rooted in kindness and community.”

...Hayes said: "This book will be essential reading for anyone curious about exploring consensual non-monogamy, and how to navigate multiple relationships with confidence and compassion. Ruby is such a positive and empowering role model for cultivating loving, healthy connection." 

Table of contents, introduction, and Chapter 1. (If this fails to load click the "read sample" button under the cover picture.) Her first book was Sex Ed: A Guide for Adults (2020).

* That contradicts a YouGov poll in 2021 about non-monogamy interest among 23,000 U.S. adults. YouGov polls are not throwaways despite being internet-based; they have a rep for scientific methodology and, in elections at least, they're usually in line with live polls.

 

      

Perhaps the contradiction is explained by a famous poly-couples trope: The men push for it first, then freak when faced with real people rather than fantasies. Meanwhile the women discover they like the real-people part, take over and make it work.  

●  Is this reality? The TLC network claims big things for the first would-be committed triads on its reality show "90-Day Fiancé."  TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé” is making history with the series’ first throuple (New York Daily News, Feb. 14).

The setup:

Why does the publicity still give me a sinking feeling?

Using a 90-day fiancé [K1] visa, overseas fiancés will travel to the US to live with their partners for the first time. Each couple will have just 90 days to decide to get married or send their international mate home.

From a TLC press release,

...The threesome has been dating for over a year, and now Matt, Amani and Any are looking to make their relationship permanent. To do so, however, means Matt and Amani must divorce to move forward with the K1 visa, allowing one of them to marry Any and finally bring her to the U.S.  First, they will travel to Mexico to spend more time with Any's family and friends and confirm they are making the right decision in their relationship journey.

It's a classic unicorn setup, but don't judge too quick. Unicorn triads starting with a couple sometimes do work well for all concerned — if each person fully grasps the famous pitfalls of this structure, if they're fearlessly clear with themselves and each other about what they want and expect, and if each knows how to protect their personal boundaries, interests, and agency while also living from a generous heart.

Will that be these people? My bet is no. This is a reality show, designed for drama.

●  Not unrelated: Coincidentally, sociologist Eli Sheff just wrote about a too-frequent situation she has observed where things all go wrong at once: The Polyamorous Perfect Storm, "an interaction pattern that can spoil long-term multiple-partner relationships."

Elisabeth Sheff

[My] Longitudinal Polyamorous Family Study has followed a group of respondents since 1996 as they raise their families in multiple-partner relationships. It focused on the well-being of children raised in polyamorous families and the ways in which polyamorous relationships impact adults across their lifespans. Among the fascinating data this study has produced, some repeated patterns of interaction have emerged in the findings. One of these is the "perfect storm."

The perfect storm pattern begins with a long-term polyamorous relationship in which the partners have been together for years or perhaps decades.... It is usually their deepest, longest-term, and/or most intimate relationship.... These devoted partners often develop a pattern where they rely on each other for emotional and practical support, intimacy, and perhaps sex. If something traumatic happens in their lives or they simply have a bad day, their beloved partner is the first one they go to for support.

[Example from her data:] Morgan and Kai have been polyamorous for 15 years and, while they have had their ups and downs, it has been pretty great overall. Then something bad happens to Morgan—they lose their job, hair, figure, beloved parent, mobility, or something that has a lasting negative impact. ...While Morgan is dealing with aftermath of the event, Kai meets JP and they really click, with lots of chemistry and exciting conversations. Morgan’s needs for comfort, attention, and support go up just as Kai’s attention is drawn to JP.

Kai and JP ... do not mean to neglect Morgan, but they are simply captivated with each other and might fail to notice how much Morgan is hurting. Morgan then becomes increasingly upset, angry, and insecure, which makes communication even more difficult. This can be compounded if JP is somehow “better” than Morgan—at least in Morgan’s imagination. ...

...Another respondent had just had a baby and was feeling insecure about the changes to her body and upset with sleep deprivation. Her beloved’s new partner was a semi-professional dancer who spent hours in the rehearsal studio working out and enjoyed dancing socially. ... The new mom felt stuck and compared herself quite negatively to the dancer....

Managing the Aftermath

Depending on how everyone handles it, the relationship might implode spectacularly, or the people involved may address the issues in an effective way that allows them to move forward together even stronger and more resilient than before. That second outcome is far more likely to happen when the people involved have deep trust in each other, great communication skills, and excellent self-soothing abilities.

When things go poorly, the relationship can disintegrate completely. ...

When things go well, everyone involved in the perfect storm is able to have effective conversations where they listen deeply to each other, empathize with each other’s feelings, and are able to negotiate equitable agreements that meet everyone’s needs to the greatest extent possible. ... but Morgan and Kai’s discussions are the most critical because that is the root of the issue. ... 

It can be especially helpful if Morgan already has a significant support network and/or other partners that can increase their support. ...

●  Being a natural low-jealousy person certainly helps with polyamory, but it's not required. A CNN Health podcast interviews poly/ENM coach Dr. Joli Hamilton about her own struggle: Jealousy is trying to tell you something. Five tips for handling it with grace (Feb. 17). Audio and transcript.

“I made every mistake possible when I shifted my own relational paradigm from monogamy to polyamory 15 years ago,” she said. “I made this switch for a reason; I knew it called to me … but it hurt so much. Jealousy was a big part of why it hurts so much. And my way of getting out of problems is to study. So, I thought I have to learn my way out of this. ...”

And watch Hamilton's TedX talk on compersion.

●  From the other side of the world: Marriage Is Dead, Long Live Open Relationships? The Radical Shift in Millennial Love. (MSN.com, Feb 12.) Picked up from TimesLife.com of India.

Aside from the overclaiming false headline, it's an example of a decent mainstream orientation for newcomers.

By Nikita Kanyal

...The marriage rates have been consistently falling for many years, with millennials taking the forefront in remaining unmarried. ...

Why? ... Divorce rates scared them off ... Financial uncertainty [versus] expensive weddings ... 

While marriage is on the decline, alternative relationship styles are booming. Open relationships, polyamory, and “situationships” are becoming more mainstream, fueled by social media, dating apps, and cultural shifts.

– Monogamy vs. Freedom: The Great Debate...

    – The Case for Open Relationships...

    – One person doesn’t have to be your “everything”...

    – Fosters communication and self-awareness; non-monogamous relationships often require deep conversations about boundaries, desires, and expectations.

– The Case Against Open Relationships...

    – Jealousy is real. ...

    – If you’re seeking other people because you’re unhappy, it may just be avoidance. ...

    – Most societies still value monogamy. Non-monogamy is still widely judged, which can create social stigma. ...

Some believe this shift is just a phase, while others argue we’re witnessing a permanent transformation of modern relationships. ...

●  And here's a boost for a warning on Threads, posted by alltheroadworks:

If a man is actually "teaching you about polyamory" ethically,  he'll be pointing you towards a stack of well-respected books on the topic, taking you to poly community meetups, getting you to join online poly discussion groups, and introducing you to other poly people who will tell you when he's talking shit, rather than just feeding you his own opinions. ...

Replied infinitepolyam,

If you date men and are new to polyamory or consider yourself not very experienced, please please please beware of polyamorous men who claim to have a good understanding of polyamory or have been polyamorous a long time, ready to teach you how.

I’m not saying don’t date these men, but I suggest being cautious with what they tell you. If they say/do something that feels a bit off and tell you something like “That’s just how polyamory is,” please view that for the likely red flag it is.

Pass it on.

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

Well doesn't this seem prescient now.

(BTW, get on the 50501 mailing list.)

    

Bolton: Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin in Ukraine negotiations (CNN interview). John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor, traveled with Trump to that weirdly subservient meeting Trump had in 2018 with Putin in Helsinki.

Another of many: Trump gleefully announces he’s back to being Putin’s lapdog (Daily Kos).

I've ended these polyamory posts with Ukraine for almost three years now. At first some of you didn't get it. Now that Russia's socio-fascist, patrimonialist allies have seized power in America and elsewhere, more of you do.

The 80-year postwar consensus is dead. We've entered a world struggle for whether free and open societies, or brutal illiberal oligarchies, will rule the 21st century. What's happening in America is only a part of it; authoritarian rulers around the world have been linking up with direct mutual support that is stated out loud.

And the events in Washington, planned and carried out by Americans, resemble nothing so much as a decapitation strike.

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

Such a society is possible only where people have agency to create their own lives without fear, 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, who "choose to live within the truth," and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the world's authoritarians. 

Such rulers and would-be rulers seek to stamp out other people's freedom to choose their lives — by censorship, intimidation, inflammatory disinformation and public incitement, stacked courts and agencies, legal erasure, shifts of wealth to the super-rich, and sometimes, 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.

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. All sides worldwide now are watching what we will do.

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 here. 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. 

Here's an easy start: Get on the 50501 email list: https://www.fiftyfifty.one/. It stands for 50 states, 50 protests, 1 movement. The next national action is March 4th. USA Today article on its who and what.  Pix.  Also: Join your local Indivisible, or at least download its guide for practical good-citizen strategies and tactics.

Stop moping and buck up. Play this, and this, and this, by people heading into a scarier part of the fight than you or I will face. Eight thousand more, sorted on just that one song by Shadow Phoenix. (lyrics)

Some people on the Western world's eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war is awful.) Maybe your granddad did this from a trench facing 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 1939 through early 1943.

Some Americans have felt called there, because they were more able than most. They will be remembered forever as heroes for goodness and humanity. By comparison, the rest of us have it easy.

Remember, the Ukrainians say they are doing this for us too. They are correct. The global struggle between a brighter future and a fearful revival of the dark past that's shaping up, including in our own country, is still in its early stages. The outcome is again uncertain, and it will determine the 21st century and the handling of all its other problems.

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

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. 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 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."

Wrote US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic early in the war, 

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. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

It's this tough.  "You've lived your life — go to the front!"
Army recruiting pamphlets for oldsters at a kiosk
in a train station.

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

Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But in the last generation the ideal of modern European civil society has become widely treasured. The status of women has fast advanced throughout society, especially post-invasion. More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, not just in support roles and as drone pilots but as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, snipers, and infantry. 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.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full support for them to win their security, freedom, and future. Speak up for it. Like, right now.

                                     

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

Women defenders on our world's eastern front

PPS:  U.S. authori-tarians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, say that allowing even the most capable women into 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, a junior lieutenant who commands a mortar platoon, recounting one of their many battles.

Update Feb. 13, 2025: More than two years later Vidma is still alive, still at the front, and posting TikToks. Her mortar unit has graduated to heavy artillery. A young girl who looks high-school age showed up to join them; another vid with her. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on us. 

And maybe our own? Says Maine's independent Senator Angus King,

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.

                                          

[Permalink]

To get Polyamory in the News posts, enter your email: