Many upcoming polyamory events. Poly legal rights advance. Multi-love in cartoons and movie rescriptings. And, No Kings Day is June 14

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First: Here all the regional poly community events coming up in the next five months (that I know about). Conferences! Campouts! Retreats!

♥  OPEN march and booth at World Pride Parade and Festival

June 6 – 8, Washington, DC

♥  International OpenCon Catalonia

June 6 – 9, Galliners, Catalonia, Spain

♥  Colorado Poly Weekend Retreat, Summer

June 26 – 30, Breckenridge, CO

♥  Poly Big Fun

July 3 – 6, Bastrop State Park near Austin, TX

♥  OpenCon València

July 4 – 6, Alborache, València, Spain

♥  The whole Week of Visibility for Non-Monogamy

July 7 – 13, US and worldwide

♥  Polyamory Expo

July 12, Tukwila, WA (suburb of Seattle)

♥  Network for a New Culture, Summer Camp East

July 25 – August 3, Abrams Creek Retreat Center, Mt. Storm, WV

♥  Polywood 2025

August 8 – 10, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

♥  At Burning Man: Village of Poly Paradise

August 24 – September 1, Nevada desert

♥  Camp Menagerie (formerly PolyCamp Northeast)

Mid-late August (TBA), central New Hampshire 

♥  Camp Constellation (a spinoff from the above)

August 30 – September 3, southern Maine

♥  OpenCon Madrid

September 5 – 7, Ávila, Spain

♥  Polytopia

September 19 – 21, Portland, OR

♥  Colorado Poly Weekend Retreat, Fall 

October 16 – 20, Breckenridge, CO

♥  Midwest Love Fest 

November 7 – 9, Indianapolis, IN

More about all these events — and those for the next 12 months — is at Alan's List of Polyamory Events. 

Any missing? Write me at alan7388 (at) gmail.com

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And now to the news. It's not all grim.

●  From Canada comes another big, if partial, legal win for polyfamily rights: ‘Multi-parent’ families, like throuples, to be granted legal rights in Quebec (CTV News, April 30) 

By Rachel Lau

A recent ruling in Quebec has granted multi-parental families in the province the same legal rights as any other unit.

Diva Plavalaguna/pexels.com

A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled on [April 25] that limiting the legal affiliation of children to one or two parents is unconstitutional.

Lawyer Marc-André Landry, who represented one of the families involved in the case, explains the ruling does not apply to step-parents or other “modern” families that are formed after a child is born. Rather, it applies to a situation where a family has multiple adults involved in a relationship before the child’s conception.

In other words, Landry notes, the “parental project” needs to be in place prior to the child’s creation.

“It’s not about step-parents or other potential realities, it’s really about three people sitting together and saying, ‘We should have a child together,’ ” he explains. “No one should be treated differently because of their family status.”

Three families were part of the case.

The first constitutes a “throuple,” three adults – a man and two women – in a relationship, with four children among them.

The second involves a lesbian couple and a male donor who wished to be part of the child’s life as a father figure.

The third includes a woman living with infertility who allowed her husband to have a child with a friend, who asked to remain on as a mother.

“Those families do exist, no matter what people may think,” said Landry, calling the move a “major” change in our collective legal comprehension. “You have kids whose affiliation, from a legal standpoint, does not match their reality.”

Landry equates Friday’s ruling to the changing views of same-sex families during the 1980s and 1990s.

“It’s the same thing here. The law needs to evolve to match the reality of all Canadian citizens, and those babies who have not chosen to be born in multi-parental families. They must have the same protection, same rights as any other babies under the law.”

The Quebec government now has 12 months to amend the Civil Code to match the ruling.

 – As reported in the Daily Mail: Court grants THROUPLES the same legal rights as two-parent families (May 1) 

...'In these times when the right to equality is savagely attacked, it feels good,' lawyer Marc-André Landry, who represented the plaintiffs, wrote after the ruling.

...'The families are overwhelmed with joy,' Landry told DailyMail.com. 'They are being recognized and treated equally which is important for them but also more important for their children. ...

 "Toronto 'polycule', married couple Zoe and Rowan Knox with their lovers
Dani and Dame who were not part of the lawsuit."

–  Broader legal report: Quebec court recognises multi-parent families (International Comparative Legal Guide, May 1)

...Quebec now joins several Canadian provinces and territories that acknowledge multi-parent families. British Columbia allows up to three parents if there has been a written agreement prior to conception, while Ontario and Saskatchewan permit up to four parents regardless of conception methods. In Yukon, birth declarations can include "another parent" beyond the mother and father. 

However, the practice has yet to catch on in most other jurisdictions, with California and Maine being the only US states to allow three-parent birth certificates in some cases.

Elsewhere, both South Africa and Washington, DC, permit three parents to be named where the child has been born by surrogacy while, in New Zealand, the law allows for multiple individuals to have parental status under certain surrogacy arrangements, but currently, only two parents can be listed on New Zealand birth certificates.

No European country allows for more than two parents to be registered on a child’s birth records, although discussions are currently ongoing.

The judgment builds on the provisions of Quebec’s Bill 2, introduced in 2021 and enacted in June 2022, which introduced comprehensive reforms to the province's family law, particularly concerning filiation and civil status. 

...Traditional legal frameworks assume a two-parent model, but this no longer represents many lived realities, including families formed through surrogacy, same-sex parenting, step-parenting and polyamorous arrangements. In such families, multiple adults may share parental responsibilities and form emotional bonds with the child from birth. Denying legal recognition to all parental figures not only creates legal uncertainty, especially in areas such as inheritance, medical consent and custody, it is also unnecessarily cruel.

Unlike in the US these days, where often "the cruelty is the point."

●  And from New Zealand, Polyamorous throuple fight to keep their names on children’s birth certificates (New Zealand Herald, May 10)

...The Attorney-General’s crown counsel, Daniel Perkins, insisted the appeal wasn’t because of the family’s sexual orientation, but simply because it wasn’t possible to have more than two people listed in the system. ...

●  From Scotland, Firefighters’ union branch seeks rights for polyamorous people (The Times, UK, April 4)

The LGBT+ group within the union submitted a motion for discussion at the Scottish Trades Union Congress LGBT+ Workers’ Conference next month calling for the “stigma around polyamory to be challenged”.

“There are no legal protections for polyamorous people in Scotland, they can be discriminated [against] at work and in wider society,” it read.

●  The much-awaited Family and Relationship Structure Non-Discrimination Legislative Toolkit is new from the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, in the face of Trump and his federal goons plowing up Harvard. It's a guide for activists and lawyers who want to pass local non-discrimination ordinances such as pioneered by Somerville, Cambridge, Oakland, and Berkeley.

This Legislative Toolkit is designed to advance non-discrimination protections for diverse family and relationship structures. It serves as a resource to empower individuals and organizations who are passionate about creating more inclusive communities through local policy change.

Available in a PDF version and a mobile-friendly version, it's a 55-page slide deck that explains legislative processes, how to build your local support and get legislative sponsors, how to get your procedural ducks in a row (avoid newbie errors; involve the city or town government's legal office before it comes to a vote), and otherwise learn from proven routes to success.

The project was co-produced with four other organizations:

●  25 Years of Polyamory in Cartoons comes from Genevieve (centered below) of the Chill Polyamory YouTube channel. It's the latest in her "non-monogamy in film & TV" category, rating "who's messy and who gets it right."

She did serious homework. She examines episodes from The Simpsons, Bojack Horseman, Bob's Burgers, Young Justice, Steven Universe, Big Mouth, She-Ra, Rick & Morty, Carol and the End of the World, and many more. She plots them on a two-axis grid: for treating poly as a joke vs. seriously, and stupidly vs. poly-savvy. The two axes turn out to be only weakly correlated. She's smart, quick, has professional chops as a TV and film producer, and promotes excellent ENM values. Running time 1 hour 10 minutes, fast-paced throughout.

She's also done 30 Years of Polyamory in Sitcoms (37 minutes).

Here's a heart-to-heart interview she had on Libby Sinback's "Making Polyamory Work": Community Care with Genevieve of Chill Polyamory (May 24, 2024). They go deep.

●  And finally, humor in The New Yorker: Films That Have Been Rewritten Now That Everyone Is Talking About Polyamory (March 19). It's behind a paywall, but a ctrl-a,c flycast catches the fish. Excerpts:

By Janet Manley and Sara C. Hahn

“Anne of Green Gables” (1985)

...Anne embodies the best of chosen-family life and quickly becomes “bosom friends” with another puff-sleeve-coded girl, Diana. Anne and Diana each marry their high-school sweethearts and stay on the island but, after a cordial-wine incident.... 

“Clueless” (1995)

An aspiring matchmaker sets up two teachers at her Los Angeles high school and, when romance blossoms, decides to make it more interesting by adding a third. ... Cracks begin to show between Ms. Geist, Mr. Hall, and Coach Stoeger. An epic dodgeball battle ensues. ...

“Troy” (2004)

After Paris falls in love with Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, things almost come to blows, but everyone’s able to negotiate and agree that Helen can spend Tuesdays with Paris, and be with Theseus, Peneleos, Achilles, Deiphobus, and King Menelaus on the other nights of the week, but have Sundays to herself. It’s actually pretty nice to have some time apart and not feel completely beholden to a bunch of emotionally volatile men of Sparta.

“Love Actually” (2003)

...Anyway, it’s Christmastime, and everyone’s feeling flirty. ... [Eventually the situation] complicates things immensely for the couple’s therapist, who now has to fit three people into the forty-five-minute slot for the same price....

“Legends of the Fall” (1994)

On an isolated ranch in Montana, during the Second World War, a striking woman with untamed hair is brought to the homestead by her husband, the youngest brother of three. ... [Eventually] everyone agrees it would be best if she were to split her time between the haystack back at the ranch and her senator’s-wife life in Helena. ...

“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003)

Four brave, herb-smoking hobbits go on an epic journey to throw an evil ring into a volcano. ... With the ring destroyed, and trauma sustained, the triumphant hobbit wakes in his bed. The dropouts join him, and his primary looks on with a loving gaze. They all move into the most incredible, antique-filled burrow ever to exist in the Shire. No judgy hobbit can say anything, because they did save Middle-earth. ...

“Cast Away” (2000)

After the FedEx executive Chuck Noland crashes in the Pacific Ocean and washes ashore on a deserted island, the solo, poly businessman is very open to connecting with others. ... [learning how to make] clear enough smoke signals to convey what you want.

“Point Break” (1991)

...Can’t men figure this stuff out themselves? ... Bodhi, who runs the surfing gang and the Ex-Presidents, does not fall in love quite so easily, but a three-person romance begins to take shape. A game of flirtatious shark-and-surfer ensues.... [Eventually] they all handcuff themselves to one another and ride that wave. ...

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

And a public service announcement:

Saturday June 14 is No Kings Day nationwide!

It's shaping up as our biggest stand to save democracy yet.

June 14 is Trump's birthday. For the occasion (barely disguised by Flag Day and the US Army's anniversary), Trump will march his long-sought giant military parade through streets of the capital the way they do in Russia, China, and North Korea.

Trump says the parade will “blow everything away,” including the World Cup and the Olympics. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had this to say when Trump wanted the parade in his first term: “This is what dictators do.”

Dictators put on these displays not to impress foreign adversaries, who already know the military capabilities. The intended audience is the country's own subjects, who are supposed to be awed into quietude.

But in the US? At least 1,400 NO KINGS DAY rallies and events will also burst forth on June 14. Find yours here. Please show up for democracy's future.

Organizers ask: "Wave your flag like your life depended on it." Lots of American folx have more than one; there's still time to get your polyamory flag.

The centerpiece event of the day will be in Philadelphia, birthplace of American democracy. DC is deliberately being ignored.

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"How Polyamory Became the New Normal" (it says). "Monogamy? In This Economy?" goes on tour. Smart symbiosexual unicorns. Best poly games. Baaad cops. And more.

●  How Polyamory Became the New Normal is the grabby title of a feature article in Canada's national newsmagazine, Maclean's (September print issue; online Aug. 26). The cover line is more modest: "The Proliferation of Polyamorous Relationships."

The article consists of five profiles of Canadian polyfamilies and how they got to be where they are, presented as first-person accounts. Excerpts:

Carmen Cheung and Richmond Lam / Maclean's

Polyamory is suddenly everywhere—and it’s changing the face of love, marriage and even child-rearing. Five intimate stories of non-monogamy.

By Rosemary Counter

For proof of polyamory’s move into the Canadian mainstream, look no further than our easternmost province. In 2018, a judge in Newfoundland and Labrador ruled that a polyamorous trio of two men and a woman were all legal parents to their child—ruling against the province, which had refused to list more than two parents. “Society is continuously changing,” the judge wrote, “and family structures are changing along with it.” In 2021, a British Columbia Supreme Court judge issued a comparable decision on behalf of a similar “triad” relationship.

...Though throuples dominate pop-culture depictions, polyamorous relationships come in endless shapes, sizes and configurations, comprising people of all ages, genders, orientations and identities. ...

...We spoke to polyamorous people about how they make their configurations work in practical terms. How do they negotiate child care, date nights and sleeping arrangements? How do they deal with the jealousy and confusion that can arise? Here are five Canadian families on what polyamory means in their lives and how and why it works for them. ...

The Long-Distance Lovers
By Tara Lynne Franco

I discovered polyamory seven years ago, in my mid-40s, quite by accident. ... 

I met my current partner, André, on OkCupid in 2017. Neither of us identified as polyamorous at the time. About a month into dating, during an intimate moment, André playfully suggested that it would be helpful to have an “extra set of hands.” I replied, “That would be hot.” That night, we set up a joint dating profile to see if we could meet someone. ...

...From there we branched out, attending lifestyle clubs and parties—which fall more into the “swinging” category than into committed polyamory. We met couples and then dated others independently. ... What André and I realized early on is that open communication is the foundation for successful and secure polyamory—we got a lot of practice navigating new situations, like when I was jealous of a girlfriend of André’s who I felt was “cooler” than me, or when one of us went on a vacation with a partner on their own, or just seeing the other person having a really good time with someone at a party.

We learned a lot over the past seven years. Given that André is a sex-positive psychotherapist and I’m a life and relationship coach, it seemed a natural fit to teach others what we’ve learned. We started with a Facebook community, then developed some programs and services and now our Let’s Talk Polyamory Podcast. We love seeing people thrive in their relationships. ...

The Co-Parents
By Warren Baird

...I met Blue in 1996, just after graduating from university. We were never totally exclusive, and about a year into our relationship, we decided we would be polyamorous. I don’t want to own someone, nor have someone own me.... In 2007, Blue got pregnant with our daughter, Kaia.

At the time, Blue was also in a close relationship with another partner, Jbash. We knew the dynamics would transform when a baby entered the picture, and he knew he’d need to step back or step in. ... The three of us talked carefully before we made our decision: we merged to form a single family unit, and together raised Kaia.

Since 2007, we’ve all lived together. ... JBash and I earned good incomes, but Blue didn’t work outside the home due to some health issues. Two incomes to three people is a much better ratio than one income to two. Living together meant we could afford a bigger home in a nicer neighbourhood, and pool money for expenses.

And just as having three incomes is better, so are three parents.... To Kaia, Jbash, whom I consider a co-husband of Blue’s, is “Papa” and I’m “Dad.” She’s never felt the need to explain our lives to anyone, and rarely even mentions it—half the kids she goes to school with have split families, and plenty have step-parents living in different houses. We must have done something right, anyway—she just graduated at the top of her class as valedictorian.

The Full House
By Sarah Jean Stewart

...That night, she surprised me by telling me that she and her husband were interested in dating me as a couple. I was even more surprised by Adam’s reaction: if I wanted to explore their proposition, he said, I shouldn’t stop on his account. So, for about six months, I dated my friend and her husband. It was a beautiful experience, but it was their first foray into polyamory and it didn’t last. ...

Then we found Jenn and Josh. ...

...In the span of less than a decade, I had gone from knowing very little about polyamory to having multiple partners: Adam, Jenn, Josh, Nick and Chris, though he lives in a different city so we see each other less often. There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have considered that a healthy relationship, but being polyamorous has made me see that one person doesn’t have to fulfill all of my emotional and physical needs. It took me a long time to learn that. 

...Two years ago, we started looking for a house big enough to accommodate as many of us as possible, and last January, we moved into a big Victorian home near Ottawa. There’s me and Adam and our four-year-old son and my four daughters. There’s Jenn and Josh and their son Julian, who’s 21. And there’s PJ, a friend of ours who none of us are romantically involved with, but who’s part of the family. Adam and I share a bedroom, my teenage daughters share a huge room with bunk beds, PJ and Julian share a bedroom, and Jenn and Josh have their suite.

We’ve got the living arrangements down, but time management is a different story. We have a half-dozen Messenger threads going at any time and logistical meetings every day: where are the cars going? Who has what work to do? ...

It’s helpful to have so many people to share the financial load, but the biggest benefit is the sense of community. ... We’re surrounded by epic love, and that supports us through times that might otherwise decimate us. Living this way, and bringing up our families this way, is incredible. Even if we took the romance out, I wouldn’t go back.

The No-Secrets Polycule
By Silver Olatunde

...There was no big conversation about polyamory at the time. I knew he had other lovers; he knew I wanted to keep exploring. ... We also dated people together.

...Three years ago, we met Acintya and Pierre-Yves at a music festival, where Chris was doing sound and I was building outhouses. They were running the first-aid tent. ... It took a year and a half, but eventually we were all going out. We’re subtle and slow, so it took a while. Now we’ve met their children—five of them, from seven to 20 years old—and they’ve met my daughter.

...In the past, when we’ve gone through rough periods, we’ve made a point of not expanding our polycule—expansion means accommodating other people’s needs and desires, and if that isn’t happening in the primary relationship, it’s not likely to work by just adding more. If the timing isn’t right, we’ll wait. ... The primary relationship comes first—and we have a “no-secrets” policy, if only because we don’t have the capacity to lie.

Today, in addition to Chris and Acintya and Pierre-Yves, our polycule includes Chris’s Wife 1, albeit platonically. There’s also Chris’s previous lover Bexxie, as well as our newest love, Liah. We’ve known her for years, and it took her a long time to accept this side of herself. But it’s so important to allow people to be themselves on their own timeline. You make your own polyamory, and you define it every day.

The Reformed Monogamists
By Kristie Courtnell

...Denis’s profile said, “Full disclosure: I’m still living with my ex-wife, and we’re still friends.” That might have scared some people off, but to me it seemed refreshingly honest. ...

...We talked at length and tried different relationship dynamics to make things work—until eventually, he suggested monogamy. So, we closed the relationship and, for six months, we really tried. But it changed things. We were reluctant to express attraction to other people.... We couldn’t be ourselves. ... He gave me the monogamous relationship I thought I wanted, but it turned out I just wanted to know that our love was secure, and that I was enough. Two years ago, we opened it up again. We live together, so he’s my nesting partner, but we’re also dating Heather, with whom we’ve formed a throuple. She’s intelligent, athletic, well-travelled, free-spirited and beautiful.

Everything is different now. My insecurities are manageable. Denis gave me what I thought I wanted, only for me to realize that real security doesn’t come from any one relationship style. It comes from understanding ourselves and maintaining open communication with our partners.

●  Another good article with an overclaiming title: The story of Gen Z and the rise of polyamory; How values, openness, and digital savvy are transforming modern relationships. It's in WeHeart, an online magazine "exploring the intersections between art, design, lifestyle and travel." (Aug. 28)

It’s official: Gen Z is rewriting the rulebook on love, and monogamy is getting the boot. [Nope, monogamy will always be the right choice for many, maybe most. –Ed.]  Consensual nonmonogamy, an umbrella concept that includes polyamory, is gaining traction as it allows individuals to pursue multiple intimate relationships with the full knowledge and consent of all parties involved. The rise of polyamory is in full flow. ...

It goes on to be a long, helpful Poly 101, including smart warnings to newbies and not-so-newbies, but again it skips the promised cultural hows and whys.

● Two new books are just out:

Monogamy? In This Economy? Finances, Childrearing, and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamory, by Laura Boyle (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). Boyle is starting a multi-city book and speaking tour.

This, I predict, will become the must-have book around the house for polyfamilies and other cohabiting polycules. At 190 pages it's a condensed, outstandingly practical, often blunt handbook telling how a wide variety of poly households navigate the realities of living together with various different degrees of sharing. Boyle is an energetic and diligent writer (her first book was Ready for Polyamory, 2021) and a blogger, podcaster, activist, and personal coach. She has lived the non-mono life for over 17 years, has "built a large and caring local polyamorous community here in Connecticut," and is currently living solo while co-parenting her kids.

She didn't just draw on her own experiences. She surveyed 468 people who were or had been living in households of three or more adults, then did deeper-dive interviews with 128 of them. Their wide variety of experiences and solutions sometimes surprised even her.          

A rave review of the book comes from possibly the best-qualified person in America to pass judgment: Kathy Labriola, poly for more than 50 years and a specialist polygroup relationship counselor in Berkeley for most of those decades. She has seen it all. Many times.

From her review on her website: 

Anyone considering moving in with their polyamorous partners should read this book FIRST! In addition, those already living together in a polyamorous triad, throuple, quad or other polyamorous family unit could benefit from Laura Boyle’s no-nonsense approach. Her very practical book provides guidance on navigating the choppy waters of space, money, privacy, noise, landlords and rental agreements, shared mortgages, housework, parenting and custody arrangements, breakups, and ex-spouses.

These are key issues which have proven to be deal-breakers for countless polycules! So the sooner the better for each person to think these important core issues through, get clarity on what their needs are and what they can and can’t live with, and decide whether this particular group of people are compatible to live together as a family. Unfortunately, many poly configurations do not realize their areas of incompatibility until after they move in together and things quickly blow up.

(A wide-ranging interview with Labriola is up on the Evolving Love Podcast, Polyamorous for 50 Years: Kathy Labriola. [Aug. 16; 1 hr 06 min.])

Another review of the book comes from Amy of the Coffee and Kink site, including chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. It concludes,

All the way through, Boyle’s insights are peppered with real-life stories from some of her hundreds of interviewees. These bring the theory to life and show some of the real-world challenges, joys, and problem-solving that takes place in polyamorous families.

I found this book to be a fairly quick read, with mostly relatively short chapters. Plenty of subheadings break it up into bite-sized chunks. They also make it easy to find the exact information you’re looking for. Boyle covers a hell of a lot of ground in this relatively concise book. She also signposts to other resources where appropriate.

●  Next new book:  More Than Two, second edition: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity, by Eve Rickert and Andrea Zanin (Thornapple Press) 

When the first edition of More Than Two appeared in 2014 it became the polyamory movement's biggest hit since The Ethical Slut in 1997. By 2021 it had sold almost 200,000 copies, even as co-authors Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert went through a fraught and exceedingly public breakup. It left Rickert with second thoughts about some of the book's content and overall direction. And, in these ten years, the whole CNM landscape itself has changed a lot.

Her updated, second edition is just out, co-authored with Andrea Zanin, a queer and kink consent expert and activist and fellow Canadian. Its new direction is indicated by the new subtitle and symbolized by the cover art. 

In her introduction Rickert writes,

This book could not have existed without [co-author Zanin]. While the bones of the original are there, we've revised every bit of it, and added significant new content. The book you hold in your hands now is the culmination of ten years of unlearning and relearning, grief and heartbreak, unravelling and breaking and remaking. It's a triumph and an apology, an attempted righting of past wrongs and a prayer for the future, a tiny — and, I hope, humble — contribution to the vital project of love.

What's changed in its approach? In the "Finding Your Compass" chapter, Rickert and Zanin write

As nonmonogamous communities have moved toward more flexible models that prize autonomy and flexibility, some have arrived at a hyper-individualist, even capitalist approach wherein everyone is responsible for their own feelings, anyone can walk away at any time, and people are perceived to have no, or almost no, responsibility to others, even their closest intimates. This framework has been called poly libertarianism, and to be quite honest, a lot of it was encouraged by parts of the first edition of this book.  We believe that while some of these ideas are rooted in good principles, when they are not balanced with responsibility, they can lead to a lot of harm. 

In parallel, much of the organized poly world in the last 10 years has leaned toward the same shift in philosophy.

●  And a book on the way. You knew it was coming: Polyamory for Dummies will be published this December.

The publisher's description sounds like it might actually be okay. A good sign is that the author is Dr. Jaime M. Grant, a radical queer and sexuality book author, podcaster, and former policy institute director at the National LGBTQ Task Force. But the gigantic For Dummies franchise, owned by Wiley, has a reputation for very uneven quality. After the early Dummies books became a financial success, critics say, Wiley expanded the series way too fast at the cost of poor quality control.

Fingers crossed. It'll be hefty, 352 pages. 

● The local-polyfamily newspaper profile is a genre that never grows old. In the Minnesota Star Tribune: A gay, multi-ethnic, chicken-farming family is part of Minnesota’s emerging polyamorous community (Aug. 20, registration walled). The StarTrib, based in Minneapolis, is the state's largest newspaper and the eighth largest-circulation daily paper (digital plus print) in the US.

You might be able to get this kind of coverage just by calling your local paper and asking if they're interested!

In this case the reporter's interest was apparently piqued by the annual MNPolyCon in July.

"Bryan Demeritte, a Unitarian pastor and farmer, center, stands with his husband,
Deron Demeritte, right, and Joshua Rodriguez, left, on their Loving More
Farmstead in Waseca." (Nicole Neri / Minnesota Star Tribune)

By Richard Chin, feature reporter

Bryan and Deron Demeritte and Joshua Rodriguez don’t exactly make up a stereotypical rural household.

It’s true that they hunt and fish and raise chickens, fruits and vegetables on their 10-acre farmstead in Waseca, surrounded by fertile rolling fields of soybean and corn.

But Bryan, a full-time farmer and a part-time Unitarian pastor and seminary professor, describes Deron and Joshua as his two husbands.

Think of it as Green Acres, nonmonogamy style. Or polyamory among the chickens.

Bryan, 52, is white, a former teacher who grew up Baptist in Missouri. Deron, 38, is Black and originally from the Bahamas. He works as an industrial and commercial HVAC foreman and has been legally married to Bryan for 11 years. Joshua (who plans to change his last name to Demeritte) is a 24-year-old restoration company project manager. He’s mostly Latino and grew up in Boston as the son of immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.

Joshua has been in a committed relationship with Bryan for five years. He and Deron consider themselves as brother husbands. ...

The three recently moved into their five-bedroom ranch house in the small southern Minnesota town as business and relationship partners in what they’ve called Loving More Farmstead.

Their spread includes three barns, a field of corn, four small vineyards, an apple orchard, a couple of geese and 72 juvenile Heritage chickens that will earn their keep laying eggs for market. They’ll be adding a market vegetable garden and begin raising sheep for lamb meat next.

There are other farmers of color. And other gay farmers. But Bryan said he doesn’t know of any other gay, nesting, polyamorous, multiracial farming households.

So far, the Loving More trio said they haven’t had any problems fitting into their rural community. “Were the happiest we’ve ever been,” Bryan said. “I think people in this Minnesota sense are very welcoming, but they also just leave you alone.” ...

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

...The local nonmonogamy group called MNPoly reports its membership has grown to more than 4,000 members, up from about 1,000 in early 2020. More than 100 people attended the nonprofit’s fifth annual convention, MNPolyCon, held this summer at a community center in St. Louis Park. ...

...Bryan Demeritte led a session called “Non-Monogamy 101″ in which he said terms like “ethical nonmonogamy” and “consensual nonmonogamy” are giving way to a simpler, nonjudgmental umbrella term: nonmonogamy. ...

Demeritte is writing a book to be published next year called “The More Love the Better,” which he said will describe nonmonogamy in the 21st century from the theological perspective.

“Someone you know is nonmonogamous,” Demeritte said. “It is becoming more and more mainstream. It’s time to let people be who they want to be and live the way they want to live.”

● Some lively family-of-origin drama made it to Reddit's "Am I The Asshole?" section and went a bit viral. On BoredPanda: Man Rejects Bride’s BFF’s Polyamorous Partners To Prevent Family Backlash, Receives An Ultimatum (Aug. 20). Spoiler: Amid the uproar, the AH admitted fault and it ends happily.

●  6 Best Games With Healthy Polyamorous Dating Options (GameRant, Aug. 23). "Not many [computer] games have managed to depict polyamory without bias, but a few titles take big strides in this regard. ..."

The chosen top six (with reviews) are the Hades franchise,  Pathfinder: Kingmaker,  Baldur's Gate 3,  The Waylanders,  The Sims 4: Lovestruck,  and Pumpkin Days. 

 
●  A discussion in the growing CNM-studies world has been started by Daniel Cardoso, longtime academic researcher and conference organizer from Portugal. Reframing the role of communication in consensual and/or ethical (non)monogamies: A proposal for a change in academic terminology (ver. 1) Online Aug. 5, 2024.

I argue that naming conventions are some of the most important – and dangerous – tools and acts that researchers have at their disposal and, thus, should be employed with the utmost care.

Considering the ongoing discussions – both inside and outside of academia – around the terms “consensual non-monogamies” and “ethical non-monogamies”, this essay proposes a novel solution to help create less morally-slanted, and overreaching... umbrella terms.

And speaking of terminology, 

●  New word!  Symbiosexuality: New study validates attraction to established couples as a real phenomenon (PsyPost, Aug. 28).

Recent research published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior has identified a phenomenon called symbiosexuality, where individuals find themselves attracted to the dynamics within existing relationships. These findings offer a new perspective on human desire, suggesting that attraction can be more complex than we previously understood.

The concept of symbiosexuality emerged from observations in cultural and academic discourses that some people are drawn to the relationships between others rather than to individuals themselves. Despite this, the phenomenon had remained largely unexplored...

“As part of the polyamorous community, I have heard people talk openly about experiencing attraction to established couples,” explained study author Sally W. Johnston....

These findings... challenge the ongoing invisibility and invalidation of and stigma and discrimination against such attractions, within both the polyamorous community and broader mononormative culture.

In my experience, healthy "conscious unicorns" (of any gender) — who not only fall in love with a couple and their dynamic but also know how to look out for their own interests — are fairly common. An example: Caroline Giuliani wrote in Vanity Fair, 

When a couple invites me into their bed, I not only get welcomed into the midst of their preexisting connection, but also get to forge a new one with them based on their trust that I will respect the boundaries of their relationship. This is a vulnerable position all around: for the couple in opening their connection to a newcomer, and for the unicorn in entering a power dynamic where they are the only one without an established teammate.

So don't be prejudiced, folks.

The research paper itself came out last April, and the term symbiosexual originated¹ back in 2021. But now it's suddenly getting news attention: in the New York Post, Daily Mail, MSN, Toronto Sun, HuffPost UK, Deutsche Welle in Germany, the Hindustan Times and NDTV in India, more. Looks like it's here to stay.

1. Johnston, S. W. & Schoenfeld, C. (2021). Symbiosexual: Introducing a term for sexual/romantic attraction to couples. Poster presentation, Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

●  ACAB is an ugly overstatement, but this sure doesn't help: Lawsuit claims Kansas dad targeted by police after ending polyamorous relationship with officer (KCTV-5 News, Kansas City, Aug. 28)

...The complaint filed on Wednesday... claimed Smith attempted to end his part in a polyamorous relationship with Officer Eric Windler and his wife, after which he was ruthlessly targeted. [It alleges] the arrest was the result of a “deeply flawed investigation and a gross misuse of police authority.”

Smith was arrested and convicted for allegedly making off with his ex-wife's car despite "the facts around the ownership of the vehicle in question," says the lawsuit.

... Alongside DA Howe and Officer Windler, the lawsuit names officers Christopher Tritt, Kevin Curry and Brandon Fox. ... Smith argued his arrest, confinement and prosecution were intentionally orchestrated despite clear evidence of his innocence. ...

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Finally, because this situation is absolutely not going away,

    

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

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

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

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

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

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, stacking courts, 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, linking up at home and abroad, is rising and sees freedom and liberalism and social tolerance as weak, degenerate, delusional — inviting easy pushovers. As Russia thought it saw in Ukraine. The whole world is watching what we will do about it. Starting with China, with its eyes on Taiwan.

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

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

Need a little help bucking up? Play this. Another version. More? Some people on the eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war is awful.) Maybe your own 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 1941 through early 1943.

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

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PS: Ukraine should not be idealized as the paragon of an open democratic society. For instance, ‘A Big Step Back’: In Ukraine, Concerns Mount Over Narrowing Press Freedoms (New York Times, June 18, 2024). And it has quite the history of being run by corrupt oligarchs — leading to the Maidan Uprising of 2013, the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and Zelensky's overwhelming election in 2019 as the anti-corruption candidate. So they're working on that. And they're 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. It's been keeping them going  to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

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Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But in the last generation the ideal of modern European civil society has become widely treasured. The status of women has fast advanced, especially post-invasion. More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions — including as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, snipers, and infantry. 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 material backing for as long as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and future. Continue to speak up for it.

                                     

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

Women defenders on our world's eastern front

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

Update August 28, 2024: Two years later Vidma is still alive, still with her mortar unit, still at the front, and posting TikToks.  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.

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