Good polyamory in a TV series, Kwanzaa in a poly home, finding family, a holiday podcast marathon, and more

Happy holidays, dear people! In recent polyamory news,

● Teen Vogue comes through for us again, this time regarding one of the better plotlines on TV: The “Gossip Girl” Approach to Polyamory Is a Refreshing Step Forward (Dec. 9). Excerpts:

The relationship between Audrey, Aki, and Max is nuanced and evolving.

Evan Mock, Thomas Doherty, and Emily Alyn Lind embrace in Gossip Girl.

By Elly Belle

Polyamory is a complex relationship style that can be practiced many different ways to suit people’s needs and lifestyles, but thanks to poorly written plotlines in television and movies, it often gets a bad reputation.

Those who practice polyamory in our own lives have often begrudged shows and movies for representing non-monogamy explicitly as a sexual kink, or as something to try when you wish to “fix” your relationship. ...

While it will look different for each person who practices it, polyamory has almost exclusively been portrayed in media in a very limited way, showing disastrous throuple experiments and people with poor communication skills lying to each other or betraying one another. But that’s not actually polyamory, or at least not polyamory done intentionally. The new Gossip Girl takes a different approach with the evolving, dynamic relationship between Audrey (Emily Alyn Lind), Aki (Evan Mock), and Max (Thomas Doherty).

In the show, Audrey and Aki are a longtime couple. We meet them when Aki is only beginning to understand that he is bisexual; enter Max, a pansexual alpha type who is confident and sexually experienced... though, like many of us, reluctant to explore an actual relationship for fear of getting hurt. ...He’s emotionally intuitive and honest enough to be able to admit this, and communicates his feelings to Audrey and Aki. ... The show allows the characters to be vulnerable enough to ask for what they truly want and need. And the final episodes of the first season pleasantly prove my initial worries wrong....

...As sexually charged as Gossip Girl is even in the reboot, it still moves the needle of polyamorous representation towards one that shows the relationship style is not about sex but about powerful emotional connections. ...

Gabrielle Alexa Noel, a 29-year-old polyamorous woman, tells Teen Vogue “I am rarely, if ever, impressed by polyamory representation because it always ends up being used to uplift monogamy in the finale (like in The L Word reboot)” ...

The Gossip Girl reboot shows us what’s possible if we continue to speak up.... It shows that love triangles don’t have to be triangles, and no one has to “lose.” Connections that people feel don’t have to be purely sexual, but are often about deep emotional bonds. And last but certainly not least, it makes room for the truth that many of us live out in our lives each day: it’s absolutely possible to love multiple people at once without diminishing any of the relationships you hold. In fact, allowing yourself to ethically and honestly love and be with multiple people at once can and does strengthen your relationships — if you put the work in, and show up vulnerably, again and again, and again.

● In Newsweek comes a "My Turn" first-person story about a typical opening-up: My Partner and I Became Polyamorous After 8 Years Together (Dec. 19). Remember, a majority of adults in the whole Western world are coupled, so most people entering polyamory will be couples opening up. Help them get it right with good advice rather than just dissing them, please.

By Dana Hobson | As told to Jenny Haward

...Then, around eight years into our relationship, Daniel started asking more questions about why I believed we should be able to love other people as well as each other. He ended up really liking what I was picturing for our future.... I hadn't read about polyamory, it was just what made sense to me, and it started to make sense to him.

Daniel and I started exploring non-monogamy together in 2015, but it happened very slowly. For example, we agreed that if I met someone on a girl's trip to Vegas, I was allowed to do what I wanted. And I did kiss someone. That was as far as I wanted to go. It was fun telling Daniel about it and it didn't hurt our relationship. After that, little things would occur. We've had some level of relationship with at least three close friends and that's because I feel that friendships can go in that direction. ...

There are various different versions of non-monogamy and the ones I feel people are most aware of are swingers or open relationships where the agreement is centered around allowing sex with people outside the relationship. For us, polyamory is focused on falling in love with other people. It might end in sex or sex might become a big part, but it's more about caring, loving and being in a committed second or third relationship.

Something I have never liked about monogamous relationships is that when people find their "person" they don't seem to explore as much anymore. There are couples out there who are monogamous and still go out and socialise, but when I talk to them, it feels a little like a wall is up. ... It feels like a fear; that people are afraid of connecting with a new person because there may be a spark. That's sad to me, I feel like sparks are the best part of life.

Most people think Daniel and I are having lots of sex with other people, which is funny because we are both very slow moving when it comes to that. You could call it being demisexual; above all we're both attracted to people's personality, intelligence and the way they care about others.

...Daniel and I started out with a hierarchy; we were the primary relationship and any other person was secondary. Then I met a guy I wanted to be with and when we started a relationship, it was uncomfortable to call him my "secondary" partner. It took Daniel and I a while to figure out that a hierarchy didn't feel right. We didn't like making anyone feel that they weren't equal to us.

...Daniel and I started reading books about polyamory. That's when we started to understand why we felt the hierarchical scenario was wrong for us. It took us educating ourselves that way to realize, rather than doing something and seeing if it worked.

We have decided to be relatively autonomous but ultimately, we are looking for "kitchen table polyamory" which is where you're friends with your metamours—your partner's partners. We've been in a wide range of situations, but for the most part we've all been friends.

...We're also in a band together, Dana and The Wolf. ... He wrote an entire album about my relationship with my ex; about my polyamorous experience with another guy. It was beautiful. When he showed me each song, one by one, I couldn't believe that he was able to capture what I felt inside and hadn't been able to put into words.

I understand how people may see polyamory as an orientation, but I don't necessarily think that's it. It is a belief to me.

Dana Hobson is a musician living in LA with her partner, Daniel Wolf. You can follow them  @danaandthewolf or find out more at danaandthewolf.com.

● The Sunday Times in London ran a "Special Report" titled The rise of polyamory: sex parties, throuples and open relationships ("The pandemic has aroused a wave of sexual exploration"; Dec. 19). The story then appeared the next day in the Daily Mail under the title Kate Middleton's school friend behind sex club Killing Kittens says business has boomed because people want a distraction from pandemic gloom and more women than ever are seeking out threesomes (Dec. 20).

Turns out the story is not about polyamory (a Times headline writer apparently added it as an SEO word), but about a flood of newly adventurous people who seem to imagine they're living post-pandemic. Interesting bit:

[Kate Lister, author of The Curious History of Sex,] explained that people are turning to sex to celebrate life after experiencing a drop of libido due to Covid-19. 

She said that historically, the aftermaths of traumatic events such as the two World Wars, the Spanish flu and the Black Death have led to bouts of sexual Carpe Diem.

...As examples, she revealed that more soldiers caught venereal diseases during the first World War than any other ailment apart from the Spanish flu, and that religious [writers] denounced mass orgies and public sex happening during the plague in the Middle Ages.   

 
● In the Salt Lake Tribune, Utahns share why they have chosen polyamory over monogamy (Dec. 23)

Salt Lake Community College filmmaker explores people who have more than one partner.

Emery, Ben Gallegos, Allie Bullock, and Sabrina Gallegos

By Matt Didisheim

This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune, in collaboration with Salt Lake Community College, to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism.

Sabrina and Ben Gallegos had been married for a year when they met Allie Bullock in July 2014. The women were co-workers and became friends, so when Bullock and her boyfriend broke up, the Gallegoses offered her a place to stay while she sorted things out.

The three grew close, and over a period of about seven months, the Gallegoses both decided they wanted Bullock to be more than a friend. As Utahns, their polyamorous “throuple” has been mistaken for polygamy on more than one occasion, but they are part of a growing number of Americans who practice this relationship style.

“I started to see this relationship blossom between the two of them,” Ben Gallegos said. “It was a deep friendship, it was a different kind of connection. I couldn’t help but admire [it], and seeing Sabrina fall in love with Allie, I kind of started to fall in love with Allie through her eyes.”

The concept of a relationship like this was new to him.

“I had no idea that ‘polyamory’ was even a term,” he said. “Looking stuff up online, there’s other people like us, there’s a whole community.”...

...Amy Peterson, a film major at Salt Lake Community College, made a documentary about polyamory this fall called “Love One Another: Polyamory in Utah.”

In her film, Utahns — including the Gallegoses and Bullock — share what polyamory can look like and how they believe it has helped them have healthier, more fulfilling relationships. ...

...Not long into their throuple relationship, Sabrina Gallegos gave birth to a daughter, Emery, in 2015. The new baby helped some family members to overcome their initial problems with their relationship.

“It’s just taken [them] a lot of time, a lot of years, a lot of interactions, a lot of opportunities ... to see our daughter and appreciate the young lady that she’s becoming,” Ben Gallegos said. “The person that [Emery] is today, [Allie] is one-third equally responsible for everything that that little girl is. ...Sshe’s just always had three parents.”

For Berk Forbes and Daley Yoshimura, both in their 30s and living in Salt Lake City, polyamory has been a deliberate lifestyle. They live together and have been together romantically since 2019, but they are non-hierarchical and do not call each other their primary partner. For them, the appeal of polyamory is the freedom to love and experience others outside the traditional boundaries of monogamy.

“Daley and I get to come together and be like, OK, this is what we want our relationship to be,’” Forbes said. ...

...For Peterson, whose film attempts to demystify polyamory and who identifies as polyamorous herself, it’s just as important that people understand what it is as what it is not. ... “It’s not something that’s trying to tear society apart,” she said. “So much of [polyamory] is about community and supporting one another. It’s about having this network of care and love and the capacity and the availability to love people. From a polyamorous standpoint, there is no limit to the amount of love that we can give.”

Read the whole thing. It's long. With a video.

●  Beyond the English-speaking world there's way too much happening for me to try to keep up. Just so we don't forget, here a sample: a 46-minute (!) TV interview from Argentina, Poliamor en Mendoza: "La trieja mendocina conformada por Nazareno Fernandez, Eliana Cuchietti y Maira Fernandez ha causado un revuelo inesperado a nivel nacional. Visitaron el estudio de No Culpes a la Noche para hablar de este tema sin tabúes. Recibieron también al sexólogo Germán Gregorio Morasutti."

Also while we're there, on El Nueve Argentina is Fuego Amigo: ¿Se puede querer a más de una persona? – Parte  1

 

 And Parte 2:

 

●  As we hunker down toward the holidays, How I Celebrated My First Polyamorous Kwanzaa (Your Tango, Dec. 22)

By Chanize Thorpe

When I joined my boyfriend and his wife to become part of their polyamorous family, I was delighted to be invited to celebrate Kwanzaa in their home with their children, friends, and family.

The experience was both educational and heart-warming.

I met the male hinge of what was to become a relationship with his common-law wife during a business trip to the West Coast. ... He told me he had a partner at home, and wanted to know me better and perhaps introduce me to her. I was taken aback at his honesty about practicing what he described as ethical non-monogamy.

...A few months from that first trip I was deeply in love with this couple. I’d already traveled back to their city and met most of their six combined children. It was during that visit that I was invited to come back in December to celebrate Kwanzaa. 

I was to join my couple, their family, and various friends, some of whom were also part of the polyamorous lovestyle, to officially welcome me as a “mama” in their home. I was honored to be asked to participate, but I had a few reservations. 

Unfortunately, the only real background knowledge I had about Kwanzaa was a few mentions here and there. ...

What I now know is that Kwanzaa is a week-long African-American holiday that begins on December 26th and lasts until January 1st.

Kwanzaa was created in the 1960s in America for Black and African-American people to pay homage to their African ancestors, values, and harvest festivals held across the continent.

Ungvar / Shutterstock

...On the first day of Kwanzaa, called Umoja (unity), we all gathered in the small living room. Each day, when everyone is gathered, someone greets the guests with the Swahili question “Habari gani?” meaning “What’s the news?” and all would answer aloud the day’s Kwanzaa principles.

For example,  “Nia,” the fifth day, signifies “purpose'' and happens to be the name of my partner’s daughter. The first of seven-colored candles (black, red, and green) called Mishumaa Saba, is placed in a holder called a kinara and then lit. ... We all talked about how we’d incorporated the principle in our lives. Then, one of the elder sons played the bongos with a riveting rhythm I felt through my soul. ...

...I came back with a new perspective about how I wanted to live my life. ... It’s finding family where you least expect it, learning there are many ways to love, and becoming open to continuing my education on the many lifestyles and traditions celebrated around the world.

●  And Poly Philia (Leanne Yau) writes us,

Happy Polydays -- podcast project

Over the last two weeks, I've been running a podcast project called the Happy Polydays series. For 14 days I spoke with a different non-monogamous public figure every day, and we had a lot of really interesting conversations and polyamory and race, religion, anticapitalism, cults, compersion, toxic masculinity, kink, relationship anarchy, and abuse. I covered some controversial and hard-hitting topics that the polyamorous community doesn't talk about often enough, so a boost would be great!

I'm still uncertain if this will be a festive event I'll bring back next year, but at any rate, Season 1 is complete so here it is. 

My favourites: episode 13 (from a closed cult to open love), episode 14 (polyamory and blackness), and episode 7 (queering compersion).

Links to all the episodes: https://anchor.fm/polyphiliablog

Transcripts (most of them are still being transcribed, but I really encourage you to read the one for Episode 13 on cults): https://www.polyphilia.blog/podcast

Video versions-- 

YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhwTGXO83jEcZRFN6u-1X37gl2AkV6kc_

Instagram playlist: https://www.instagram.com/polyphiliablog/channel/

Facebook playlist: https://www.facebook.com/watch/101638435114627/778555273104541

Leanne @polyphiliablog

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Polyamory en Español. And, help me gather the best poly sites and media lists in other languages!

"Poliamor," by Sonia R. Arjonilla

Alba C. in Bogotá, Colombia, who runs the Poliamor Bogotá Facebook page, points out that the "Español" tag on my site is woefully out of date! It's true — I stopped trying to keep up with polyamory in foreign-language media years ago, because it was just ballooning too fast.

Alba writes,

I publish articles in Spanish on all topics poly, researched from a variety of sources. I have also created a website for the purpose of categorising articles and translations: Poliamor Bogotá Website.

There are plenty of resources nowadays in Spanish, although not as many as in English. Some of my main sources are listed under the tab "Aliades" (meaning "Allies").

I am letting you know all of this since I noticed that your otherwise wonderful blog has the section in Spanish somewhat outdated. You might be interested in letting your readers know where they can find more information in Spanish.

And now two questions for you, dear readers:

What are the best poly sites in any given non-English language?

And, where are the lists of poly-in-the-media in those languages? I know people are keeping them — sometimes as an "articles" page on a general-purpose national poly site.

I would love to post and maintain a permanent meta-list of poly-in-the-media lists in Spanish, Polish, Japanese, Hindi, German, Swedish, Tagalog, and whatever. If this project takes off, it could be a great global resource and help poly activists communicate across cultures (yay Google Translate).

Help me out here. Email me at alan7388@gmail.com with any you know.

Thanks,

Alan M.

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TV update on a triad and their baby

TV-3 EntreLínies (Spain)

Remember the TV coverage of Juliette Siegfried and her partners Laurel and Roland, near Barcelona, when Laurel was pregnant? The three invited the TV program to come back and check on them after the kid was born. Well, the TV people did, and have aired their report (11 minutes, in Spanish and Catalan). There are now four in the family, and they're all adorable.

If someone tells you that TV can't possibly cover polys accurately and sympathetically, point them here.

From the accompanying article (translated):

Share the Love

A year ago we met Roland, Juliette and Laurel, poliamorosos; which is to say, all three had a romantic relationship that was sexual and stable.... Now, 365 days after our first report, they have carried it to its ultimate expression of living together, because they are parents....

Maya was born in January by natural childbirth. Her biological mother, Laurel, explains that this way Juliette could fully participate in the event.... Now, Maya has a father and two mothers who share the common tasks of home, working at home, and care of the little one. At first, Roland explains, Juliette felt a little displaced because [Maya] was really the baby of Laurel, who was more required. Now that Maya has expanded her types of food, Juliette has been integrated better and feels more useful. Both mothers agreed that mothering increases their shared dedication to the girl.

...Regarding the legal issues in connection with the girl, because all three cannot be recorded as parents, they have ended up making a will saying that if anything happens to the biological mother, Juliette will assume the role of the legal mother....

Read the article (here's a rough machine translation by Google Language Tools), and watch the show (Sept 29, 2009).

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Spreading poly awareness in Latin America (updated)

Revista Semana (Colombia)
El Ciudadano (Chile)
Radio Tandil (Argentina)
El Argentino
El País (Uruguay)

How well does the poly movement, built and shaped mostly in the U.S., carry over into different cultures?

The idea is certainly enticing — and as we know too well, it practically begs for misperception and misuse to rationalize bad behavior among people who don't get it.

So, could it turn into another piece of American cultural imperialism, wreaking havoc in cultures that don't handle it well? Call me paranoid, but I'm always expecting unintended consequences....

In Latin America, at least, the core concepts and values are getting communicated to at least some audiences very accurately, judging by media coverage there.

In Colombia, the weekly magazine Revista Semana published a long article that went up on its website last weekend. Translated:

Love one another

TRENDS -- The belief that it's possible to love two people at once is the basis of poliamor, a growing trend in several countries. In the United States it already has over half a million followers. [That number, BTW, is lifted from last month's Newsweek online article. I've yet to learn where the Newsweek writer got it.] Terisa Green is a 41-year-old filmmaker and actress who started a relationship with Scott 12 years ago. Then Scott met Larry and invited him to join the couple....

According to the Polyamory Society, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, United States [which actually seems to exist only as someone's website], "Polyamory is a nonpossessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice that emphasizes consciously choosing how many partners one wishes to be involved with." The website Poliamoría.com defines it as intimate relationships between several people at once, with each of those involved giving full consent to what is happening.

Although love among several people is not something many do these days, since the late-60s boom touted by the free-love hippies, the topic has been formalized and some have defined polyamory as the new romanticism. On Facebook there are 136 groups registered with this word, and there are movements in countries with strong Catholic influences such as Spain and Mexico.

Unlike swinging, where the relationship is based solely on sexual satisfaction, polyamory is based on deeper emotional commitments....

...Polyamory covers a wide range of relationship forms: some people are married and live with another without all sleeping together; others have occasional outside partners whom the other member of the couple may not see but knows about the relationship's existence. There are also groups where all members have sex at once, and others where sex is restricted to specific members of the group.

Criticisms of this model have not been lacking.... For Ernesto Martín, an expert in clinical family psychology at the Universidad de la Sabana, "Blurring love between several people can be ambiguous, and what happens is that it gets confused with feelings such as custom or friendship." Others think that having more than one partner decreases love.

However, for Yves-Alexandre Thalmann, psychologist and author of the book Las Virtudes del Poliamor, "Love cannot be conceived as a quantity, but as a quality of being human. A mother who has several children does not love one more than another." So too thinks Janet Hardy, coauthor of the book The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory. She compares love to "a muscle that the more you use, the stronger and more flexible it becomes." To Nancy Prada, a philosopher with a master's degree in gender, love is not a cake to be divided into several pieces; she says that on the contrary, what we have is an "expansion of the capacity to love."

Nancy Prada is perhaps the person who has done the most to spread polyamory in this country, through her blog Sexo de Sofía [on the site of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo]. More than two years ago she decided to explore different forms of relationship. She currently has a relationship with someone she met in Europe. "I was unhappy in monogamous relationships and decided to seek other alternatives. In addition, I had an academic preoccupation to explore the issue."

According to Juan Luis Álvarez-Gayou, director of the Mexican Institute of Sexology, the interesting thing with this type of phenomenon is that it puts the crisis in the current couple-model out on the table. "Monogamy has a reason that's economic in nature," he says. "There is the concern to create a home, have children, and ensure a legacy. But the emancipation of women has allowed them to decide on their romantic relationships, to propose more equitable unions, where the woman no longer depends on the man."...

Psychologist and sexologist José Manuel González believes that it's still early to catalog polyamory as the ideal model. "This is not to say that one model is better than another. The interesting thing is that there is a new option, that the idea of marriage is evolving and is attacking the culture of machismo."...

Read the whole article (Aug. 15, 2009).

In Chile, meanwhile, a blogger for Santiago's lefty El Ciudadano ("The Citizen") muses at poetic length on poly's wider personal and political meanings:

Points for considering Polyamory in our lives

By Diana Neri Marina Arriaga

...Surely this is a unique opportunity, to love and live in the honesty of non-monogamy — a clear alternative to the emotional conflicts of couples living in a realm that has absorbed the heterosexist fruits of marriage — with implications for family and everything that comprises the institution of love.

...Love is not just appropriate to the private sphere.... Are we able to start a complex process of redefining our cultural schemes, deconstructing and questioning each item that we carry in the controversial concept of human nature?

...If we look at the various possibilities and probabilities and start rethinking the way we love, we would, for example, address the social fallacies that create a trap for our fears....

...if I've translated that right. She includes a poem by Borges. Read the whole article.

Update August 24: Another one just popped up. In Argentina, Radio Tandil (LU22, 1140 on the AM dial) just posted a glowing article on its website, though with an incendiary headline:

Polyamory threatens to extinguish monogamy and the infidelity taboo

By Brenda Focas

A movement born in the United States and spreading to several countries is increasingly militant about this way of life. In Argentina it is still sheltering in Internet forums, but it's proudly claiming honesty, respect and love involving more than one relationship with the consent of the parties involved. It members say that monogamy is hypocritical or an [unrealistic] ideal, and in many cases, that polyamory has helped them strengthen their couple relationships.

"I am poliamorosa. My husband and I believe you can have more than one romantic relationship at a time, with love and honesty among all. We do not want casual sex, or groups, or swinging," says Juliet. She calls herself adept at this practice, based on assumptions that today could be thought of as almost existential: love, fidelity (with established commitments), honesty and respect toward each of the members. The point, ultimately, is to maintain a lasting, loving relationship with several people simultaneously, with full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

In Argentina, although there are no activist groups as in the U.S., Britain or Spain, many people take it as a way of life, compared to what they consider the "hypocrisy" of monogamy.

..."For me it is much easier to live my day to day life with the freedom to form relationships, and to share everything with my husband. The last time I was with a woman his eyes shone, and it felt good for him to talk to me of that special moment," says Marina naturally....

...The poliamantes even tend to raise children as a community, to learn the values of free love, and they often belong to the financial elite or artistic, cultural or intellectual vanguard....

The article goes on to quote several approving academics and authors. Read the whole article.

Update August 27: And another, this time in El Argentino (Buenos Aires). This one is a Spanish translation of the July 29th Newsweek online article. You can read it here (Aug. 26, 2009). As of this moment there are no comments yet! Be the first.

Update September 7: Some tongue-in-cheek commentary from El País in Montevideo, Uruguay, which apparently ran the article that was reprinted at Radio Tandil:

The rise of polyamory

In the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Spain there exist today — increasing year by year for the last twenty — groups of highly evolved people disposed to eliminate from the marital dictionary two words that only serve, in their conviction, to destabilize the relationship between marriage partners, as well as practitioners of concubinage: hypocrisy and infidelity....

Here's the whole article (Sept. 9, 2009).

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Here are all my entries tagged Latin America. There must be many more items I've missed. Links, anyone?

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Unveiling poly in Mexico

Various media

A glowing account of polyamory as an alternative way of life has appeared in several mainstream Mexican newspapers and news sites. The article is supposedly from the major national newspaper El Universal, but I don't find it there.

Translated:

Poliamor: to love several people at once

Mexico City — Is it really possible to love two people at once? Is it promiscuous? Perverse? Those who love multiple partners at once say that to the contrary, it is healthier than hiding relationships that can hurt third parties, or fourths, or fifths.

These are polyamorists, and polyamory means having several consensual relationships at the same time, where all the people involved in the relationship are fully aware of the existence of one or more others. These relationships are not necessarily sexual.

The characteristics that determine poliamoría — a term coined in the late 80s by a pagan priestess, Morning Glory Zell — are communication, ethics, honesty, love and loyalty above fidelity. Capabilities, in many cases, quite opposite to those found in a traditional relationship.

...Poliamoristas or poliamorosos say their philosophy is only an acceptance of human nature. They say the enemy is not pure and natural sex, only deceit and betrayal, according to a study published in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality on what polyamory is and isn't.

...Polyamory is just beginning to be known in Mexico, with a national website (poliamoria.com), a Yahoo discussion group, and three groups that gather to share experiences, meet others with the same preferences and make friends.

Those who live this way of love do not want the world to become "poly," as they are called, but to accept the possibility that monogamy could become an outdated option that is not keeping up with change and with modern life that needs relationship forms to evolve.

According to data from the Mexican Institute of Sexuality in Mexico City... the marriage rate is declining and although young people do not dare say they will not marry, making that decision may take decades.

There is disillusion and a crisis in the institution of marriage and monogamous marriage. Paulina Millán, a psychologist and research for Imesex, says the rule in polyamory is there are no rules; "each partner brings their own. One couple can open to a third person, or be a family of five. There is always a primary, which is the deep and close bond, and secondaries, which are satellite links."

Millan says that "we can not find everything we like and makes us happy in a single person. You can find satisfactory relationships with different people."

Included is a sidebar about a survey of 700 Mexicans taken in 2004; 64% said humans are naturally polygamous, and 51% of both men and women said it is possible to love more than one person at a time.

A second sidebar lists some pros and cons of polyamory and some psychological requirements. A third describes varieties: triads, group families, intimate networks, open couples, and polyfidelity. A fourth is titled "Poliamor vs. Swinger."

Read the whole article (in Metro Noticias de Tamaulipas, July 5, 2009, under a photo of the "Big Love" cast together in bed).

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More poly en Español

La Capital (Rosario, Argentina)

Argentina has modernized a lot since the fascist horrors of 1970s. Here, a newspaper reviews a new book on the future of love, sex, and gender. (But it's too bad the paper had to use Photoshop to get two men and a woman into a poly triad!) An excerpt, translated:

Bye-bye to just one partner; on polyamory and bisexuality

A study speaks well of a "revolution in relations."

...This study predicts that in the near future, tender and loving bisexual relationships will be common currency. [The book is] La cama reb/velada: Pasado, presente y futuro del sexo y del amor (Editorial del Nuevo Extremo). The author, Regina Navarro Lins, is a renowned Brazilian psychoanalyst and sexologist, author of several books on the subject and a former professor at the Pontificia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro.

She asserts that "the range of choices of love is expanding" and presents a detailed analysis of love, marriage and sex throughout history and across cultures. She concludes that the assumption of people "being satisfied with one single partner is weakening, leading to the hypothesis that it is possible to love more than one person at a time."

The study speaks of a true "revolution in relationships," with paths to new forms of loving bonds among human beings. One new configuration that is gaining ground in connections among lovers is "polyamory."

...On the sexual level, one manifestation of polyamory is bisexuality. To explain how this can grow into bonds among men and women, the researcher mentions the North American doctor Alfred Kinsey... who claimed that what with the fluidity of sexual desire, for every heterosexual there is at least one person with varying degrees of desire for both sexes....

Read the whole article (June 15, 2009).

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Another item: in Spain, canal Odisea (Odyssey Channel) presented eight TV documentaries on "new family models" (in cooperation with the BBC, CBC Canada and Chello Multicanal); one was on "the polyamory alternative." It was titled "I love you. And you, and you too." Description:

In a world where one of every two marriages ends in divorce and a high percentage of couples have adventures, many people seek alternatives to monogamy. Among those alternatives is polyamory: multiple relationships, but stable and durable. For many people this is taboo, for others a fantasy, but for some it is a reality. Odyssey invites you to follow families with several men and women, and explains the operation of this kind of life. We introduce a world where personal relationships are different than what we are used to, and consider the difficulties involved. (47 minutes.)

Here's the listing, with a winsome photo. The show was broadcast last February and was rebroadcast June 1, 2009. I don't find it online.

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A Poly Spokesman in Mexico

Universia México

Rolando Díaz-Loving, a highly accomplished psychology professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University (UNAM), had a press release issued by the university in which he describes polyamory and its moral and psychological basis. The press release was picked up by, among other places, the Mexican edition of Universia, a publication of university news and resources with editions in many Spanish-speaking countries. Translated:

By nature, a person can love more than one without any guilt

Polyamory is what this feeling is called, said UNAM professor Rolando Diaz.

Every human being has the capacity to love more than one person; it's in their nature. So this raises the possibility of having multiple relationships without guilt or misfortune; it's called "polyamory," said Prof. Rolando Díaz Loving of the UNAM School of Psychology.

According to the polyamorists' philosophy of life, simultaneous relationships must be dealt with openly, and their members should be aware that they form a part of these. "A characteristic of human beings is that they are social and gregarious; they require the presence of others to live," he said.

...According to the website poliamoria.com, the two essential ingredients of the concept are "more than one" and "loving"; that is, it is expected that more than two people can, at the same time, be interconnected emotionally and mutually in multiple dimensions....

Read the whole article, en Español (June 9, 2009).

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Poly in Mexico, Chile, Brazil

Opción Bi; Terra; Folha da Região

Based in Mexico City, Opción Bi is an online magazine by and for bisexuals. It has published a long interview with Gabriela Granados, a journalist specializing in alternative sexuality for over 15 years, titled El poliamor es otra cosa, aquí no hay seguridades (Nov. 4, 2008). Partial translation:

Polyamory is something else, with no guarantees

...Opción Bi: What is the reason for the cultural resistance against accepting [things like] polyamory and bondage?

Gabriela Granados: The problem with polyamory is a widespread myth, and it may not be a myth but the truth for many people, that love can only be real for a couple. As if the arrival of a new child inevitably reduces the love I have for the previous one. But I think it's a fact that opening up possibilities beyond the couple does make things more complicated (not necessarily more difficult), what with the insecurities of human nature.

The comfort and safety that swingers have in their polysexual adventures come from trying to reserve affection to within the couple, which shares the most important things in life. With this clear limitation, they are free to exploit their potential for physical pleasures.

But polyamory is something else: there are no guarantees. Literally anything can happen, including falling in love with someone else and ending the existing relationship. It's more risky. Much more. The opportunities are certainly greater, endlessly so, but not everyone will accept such a challenge....

Read the whole article.

Granados gives a plug to the website Polyamoria.com, which in turn describes several local groups in Mexico and one in Spain.

Another article appeared in Opción Bi on November 8th: Bisexualidad, infidelidad y poliamor.

Also on the site is a Spanish translation of a classic article from 2003 by Derek McCullough and David S. Hall: El poliamor, lo qué es y lo qué no es.

Also in Mexico: last August, El Universal TV broadcast a five-minute report on polyamory on its news show Código 2008.

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In Chile, an article just appeared in the newspaper Terra (in the women's section) titled Amantes experimentan el 'Poliamor' para huir de la monogamia.

Lovers try 'polyamory' to flee from monogamy

By Verónica Lavado

Imagine maintaining several relationships at once, with the approval and loyalty of each of your partners. If you've dreamed of it, be assured that many people consider that love should be shared — without any kind of ill will, and with full freedom.

Some men and women in the world have adopted a new form of relationship; being tired of maintaining a single partner, they have dared to share their lives with more than one person, leaving behind the concept of infidelity. Because what characterizes this movement is that everyone is aware of the other relationships, and therefore there is no place for jealousy or reproach.

This system is called polyamory, because the number of lovers is greater than two, rising to three, four, five or six pairs simultaneously, who may or may not be of the same sex, because for them the concept of love is so broad that there is no limit. They can share the same home, keeping certain rules of coexistence for everyone to live in fullness....

...For psychologist Sergio Vega Valencia, this trend has to do with the desire of some people to love and live in a different way....

Read the whole article.

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And in Brazil, the newspaper Folha da Região (in Araçatuba, SP) presents an article titled Possibilidades de amor (Dec. 17, 2008):

Nowadays, the phenomenon called 'Poliamory' is growing worldwide and has also won fans in Brazil....

(A subscription is required to read it; 30-day free trial available.)

And here are some other articles and poly links in Portuguese.

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Compartir l'amor: A triad in Spain

Entre Línies, Canal Tres TV, Barcelona

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First, a personal digression:

If things on this site have seemed slow lately, it's because a couple months ago Sparkler and I adopted the city of Nashua, New Hampshire, as a home away from home where we could campaign for Barack Obama on nights and weekends.

From August through last night, I knocked on 835 strangers' doors in and around the city. Sparkler specialized in phonebanking and the feeding of volunteers. Yesterday I was up at 4:45 a.m. I arrived before dawn at an elementary school (where 150 voters were already waiting in line before sunrise) to start a nine-hour shift as a poll checker: marking off names on a voter list as people showed up and voted. Then in mid-afternoon off I ran, literally, to join Sparkler in the knock-and-drag until closing time.

Knock-and-drag: if a voter who's known to be on your side hasn't voted by the final hours, you knock on their door and drag them to the polls.

To give you an idea of how organized the Obama campaign was, those of us who would be dashing around after nightfall were issued glowsticks to wear around our necks to help keep cars from hitting us, and little flashlights to help spot house numbers quickly in the dark. So much for Rudy Giuliani mocking Obama at the Republican convention by saying, "I don't know what a community organizer does." Now they know.

New Hampshire became a safe Obama state a few weeks ago, thanks in part to such work. But we kept at it anyway to help make sure. And so that someday, when we have grandchildren learning American history, we can tell them how we helped to turn a new and better page.

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Now back to Polyamory in the News.

Several items have piled up, and I'll get to them in the next few days. First up:

I learned of two Spanish-language TV reports on polyamory earlier this year; you can watch them starting from here and here. Now there's a third, thanks to Juliette Siegfried and her triad in Spain. Juliette writes,

"A few weeks ago we did a TV report on Canal Tres in Barcelona with another man, Santi, who is also polyamorous. [The show is also available on YouTube at lower quality.] Here is a rough translation. Some of it is in Catalan, which I don't know, but the rest is in Spanish."

Juliette: It doesn't matter to me if she cooks better than I do, or I sing better than she does. He loves us for who we are individually, so there's no competition.

Narrator: They have simultaneous, long-term, sexual relationships, with the full consent and knowledge of everyone involved. This is called polyamory.

Roland: We are a couple that's very much in love, we've been in love for 13 years, and we believe we'll be together all our lives and that we have a long, happy future together.

Narrator: Juliette and Roland are married, but their relationship is far from conventional. They consider themselves polyamorous, with the ability to have additional loving relationships with the consent of everyone involved. In their case, Roland also has a relationship with Laurel.

Juliette: Hi!

Roland: Hello!

Laurel: How are you?

Juliette: Good! Hungry. Where are we going to dinner?

Narrator: Santi also considers himself to be polyamorous. However he doesn't believe in marriage. He does believe in having multiple relationships at the same time, with honesty. He does not believe in living together nor in exclusivity.

Santi: I respect you if you say you want to be exclusive all your life. But I don't respect you telling me that I have to, or anyone else. If you choose to be monogamous, that's your life but you can't tell another person to be. I think the best thing in life is falling in love, for everyone. So once you're in a couple, you'll never be able to do that again in your life. I believe in falling in love all your life. So, if I'm with someone, and I really love her, I will even encourage her to fall in love with other people, to live a very full life.

Juliette: But, I got something in my teeth and she said, maybe you need a metro card...

Roland: ...anyone else telling them, well, it's kind of like polyamory, we don't want people telling us what to do or how we should love.

Narrator: Roland is a computer programmer and Juliette is a translator, both Americans who live in Barcelona. Laurel, a homeopath, visits often.

Laurel (dubbed): Soon after I met Roland, we began a loving relationship. It was interesting coming into the relationship of Roland and Juliette who are married. I didn't feel the least bit awkward, I was actually surprised, because Juliette has made me feel like part of the family from the very beginning.

Narrator: They believe that it is nearly impossible to be faithful for a whole lifetime, and to avoid cheating, they decided to become polyamorous. They have overcome jealousy issues, and (can't translate the rest of the sentence). At the moment neither Roland or Laurel has other partners, but Juliette has one.

Juliette: We started little by little, without having sexual relationships. They were more than friendships but less than lovers. During those 6 years, it was a process of communicating about what was happening, any jealousy, how you feel about what's happening with someone, and doing a little more or a little less so that everyone involved is comfortable. Now it's the culmination of years of work together.

Narrator: Juliette and Laurel are good friends. [Can't translate next sentence.]

Juliette: If we want to make a schedule or a plan, if she wants to go away for the weekend with him, we talk about our plans to coordinate them, between what I want to do and what she wants to do, as well as the things we want to do together too. It's a good opportunity to look at the calendar and organize everything.

Narrator: The fact that they do a lot together can create confusion for those around them.

Juliette: They believe that we are in a three-way relationship, which isn't the case. They usually focus on sexual "threesomes", and in our case that's not what we do. There are triads that do.

Narrator: Their sexual relationship can seem even more confusing.

Juliette: They ask me, "How can you stand the fact that he sleeps with another woman? What happens if she's better in bed than you are?" This is a very strong and common idea people have, but what happens is that all of us, polyamorous and monogamous, have had better and worse lovers in our lives. We're not with someone just for that. It doesn't matter if she cooks better than I do or I sing better than she does. He loves us for who we are individually, so there's no competition.

Roland: I am affectionate with each of them, sometimes one after the other, and people notice that it's a little different. But I'm not in a bar giving one kiss to her, and then one kiss to her. It's not like we feel like everything has to be exactly equal. I can be holding her hand without holding Juliette's, and later maybe put my arm around Juliette, but it's not like I have to have both of them on my arms together.

Santi: The women thought I didn't love them, they've made me think I'm a bad person. Now I know that I'm not. I've realized that I'm not selfish, you know? I like to give and receive freedom, and I realize it's not incompatible. Just because my girlfriend has someone else in her life that she loves, I'm not going to love her any less. I love her when she's with me and for how we are together.

Narrator: Santi is 37, and is [can't translate].

Santi: The last relationship I had was years ago, many years ago now. I had other relationships, met people, and I had affairs. I was caught, and I lost them. So my last girlfriend was years ago, and now I don't want to do that again. Polyamory is about love. I don't defend sleeping around, no way. It's about love, I want to love. And when I found polyamory I thought "Wow, its me!"

Narrator: [can't translate].

Santi: One thing that happens to me a lot is I start going out with someone, and it's great, they seem to understand it perfectly, but as soon as you find another partner, they leave me, and I'm really hurt. In the end, who ends up suffering?

Narrator: Four years ago, he had a son.

Santi: The first thing I will tell him is that the first person to tell him that she is his partner for life and that he can't have anyone else ever, isn't worth it.

Narrator: [can't translate].

Santi's friend: It's not a bad thing, in fact it's very good, but I know that people are jealous and if one day I have another partner I dont know if he will understand. If it's someone like Santi, that knows, then great. But I don't know if I can find another person who understands.

Narrator: Santi didn't hesitate to explain polyamory to his family.

Santi's mom: You're thinking, what are you saying, is this crazy? How does this work? Later, after explaining it more, I began to understand. I mean, it has its good points, at least it seem that way. It has its good points because we have too much control over each other in a couple. I have been married for 43 years, I've gotten used to it so there's no problem. But if you think about it, it's a bit like slavery.

Narrator: Roland, Laurel and Juliette have made an important decision. They are looking for a place to live together.

Juliette: We've looked together with her to find out about her tastes, and if they are like ours, I'm sure they won't be exactly but more or less, and also because we're all pretty easy-going and I can give up something, all of us can give up a little if needed.

Girls: Oh look! A Jacuzzi!

Juliette: Yeah, we understand each other.

Laurel: [can't translate dubbing.]

Narrator: Their search has gotten more urgent.... [Had to cut the YouTube video off; it ends shortly after saying that Laurel is pregnant with Roland's child.]

Thank you Juliette, Laurel, and Roland! Watch the full show, 10 minutes long. (Dated September 22, 2008.)

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More great Spanish poly coverage: El poliamor los tiene 'atrapados', and others

El Mundo; La Vanguardia (Spain)

Spain's largest and most established newspapers, the conservative El Mundo and the liberal El País, have both been preparing long feature articles on polyamory, including profiles of the Barcelona triad who have become Spain's very public poly spokespeople. The El Mundo article appeared in the paper's Sunday magazine section on July 20, 2008. The article by El País is still in the works, and because they got scooped, they may hold it back for a while.

Juliette Siegfried (aka ktylove) of the Barcelona triad sends this translation of El Mundo's first several paragraphs:

Polyamory has them "captured"

By Loreto Marmol. Photography by Chema Conesa.

A man in the arms of two women who are devoted to him and fight for his attention could be the dream of any man, or a portrait of Roland Combes. Juliette Siegfried is spontaneous, joyful and passionate but, except for the name, has nothing in common with Shakespeare's [Juliet]. She doesn't believe in eternal love nor would she be willing to die for it, not even for what she feels towards Roland, her husband of 10 years. And she is not the only "Juliet" he has eyes for. Roland is also devoted to his girlfriend Laurel Avery. They met during a move, and from the beginning there were sparks. They just celebrated their first anniversary together.

Juliette, 41, greets us barefoot in the Barcelona apartment she shares with Roland, the same age, and where Laurel, 42, visits often. First dispute: how to sit together on the sofa. They don't want Roland giving an image of a king, so Juliette decides to sit in the middle. And if it looks like someone always loses in a love triangle, right then; their cat Deci sits between them both.

No jealousy nor possession

They consider themselves a polyamorous family, with the possibility of loving multiple people at the same time, without feelings of jealousy or possession (or at least they work to manage these). The fundamental values are respect and non-possessiveness. According to the French psychologist Yves-Alexandre Thalmann, author of The Virtues of Polyamory: The Magic of Multiple Loves [Las virtudes del poliamor: La magia de los amores múltiples], in this concept "the equality of the sexes is a given and even promotes feminine emancipation." On the other hand, remember that polygyny (one man married to several women) and polyandry (one woman married to several men) assume a dominant/dominated relationship.

In September they will move in together. They are looking for a home in Sitges with three bedrooms (the current one has two). They are looking for an apartment, not just rooms, because they are not bisexual and don't [all] sleep together. When it comes to sex "We take turns," they explain. And if they both want him at the same time? Juliette says the night is long [laughs]. "To the one who's waiting, I say, 'Just finished, on my way!' he jokes. "No, we can wait a night," the women say.

It's not for sex

The objective of polyamory is not to form a harem. They are no more interested in sex than anyone else: "Sexuality is not a determining aspect of polyamory; its principal content is love," confirms the expert. People usually think polyamory means having several girlfriends, "but there's not time to go from house to house. For us it's more important to have long lasting, deep relationships," explains Roland.

They are also looking for a larger apartment because Laurel is pregnant. Is it Roland's? Juliette pauses and says, "Definitely." Laurel, a homeopath, hadn't thought of having children until she met them. During her youth she saw how her mother, single, had to work very hard to get ahead.

Children and finances

"I'm very happy that they are both going to be parents of my child," she says. And she believes that this will offer more love, time, money, and resources to care better for the child. "In a society like ours things are easier with three because we can combine our incomes," points out Roland, a programmer. Juliette, a medical translator, things it is better because they will be able to share the work of caring for the baby. In her opinion, two is not enough: "It's our way of growing our family," and is the only circumstance in which they wanted to have children. Thalmann advises polyamorous parents not to share the details of their love lives with their children: "Let them know about your polyamorous nature, yes; but tell them details about your encounters, no."

They meet twice a month to review finances, and they have a joint account for expenses. Their individual purchases are made from their own accounts and if they are expensive, they consult with the others first. However, dates and dinners out are their biggest expenses. "If cheating is expensive, being honest is cheaper," says Juliette....

This is the conservative paper? There is a sidebar with the obligatory warning from a psychologist:

A Risky Game

Pilar Varla, psychologist and author of Pure and Lasting Love (Amor puro y duro; La Esfera de los Libros, 2004) believes that "you can't be in love with two people at the same time." Therefore, this expert in loving relationships distinguishes between the love that underlies connections of protection, gratitude, living together, economics, comfort, caring, and romantic love.

"Not having sexual exclusivity with the one you love causes a lot of pain and a feeling of fraud," she warns.

According to the psychologist, maintaining multiple relationships is an "inconvenient formula" and she doesn't recommend it because it "rarely works." Varela points out that normally there is no symmetry: "One proposes it and the other tolerates it, one commands and the other agrees, one enjoys more and the other less and even suffers in silence. The fewer external interferences in a relationship, the happier they will be with the relationship and with themselves."

Here's the whole original.

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And here's more from Spain.

• La Vanguardia, the largest newspaper in Barcelona and Catalonia, has a column titled Urban Pathologies ("Ultrasonography of an unstructured society"), whose author recently wrote a column on polyamory, "a trend that emerged a few years ago but now seems to have an ever greater media and social presence" (July 24, 2008). He explains the concept well and is much more sympathetic to it than the title of his column would suggest! He also gives a mention to the new book by Yves-Alexandre Thalmann, Las virtudes del poliamor.

• Also in La Vanguardia: an article on the growth of internet sex communities devotes two paragraphs to polyamory and, again, gets it right (July 15, 2008).

Poliamor report on El Universal TV

El Universal TV from Mexico broadcast a wonderful Spanish-language report about polyamory, five minutes long, on its news show Código 2008 on August 3, 2008. El Universal TV is a branch of Mexico's largest newspaper and is on Cablevision in parts of the U.S.

Watch it here (may require Internet Explorer or a Firefox plug-in), or on YouTube.

From the show's program guide (translated):

I live with my two boyfriends

Polyamory refers to the lifestyle of people who have intimate and loving relationships involving more than two persons, with the full knowledge of those involved. Diana, Israel and Sergio are a case that breaks away from the hitherto traditional Mexican family. Let's take a look at their banquet of loving.

Sunday August 3, 22:00 hrs.
Proyecto 40, or Channel 140 on Sky and Cablevision
On the Internet: www.proyecto40.com.mx [for subscribers].

The entire 49-minute news show, including the poly segment near the end, is also available on the Proyecto 40 site (choose Internet TV, then Código, then 3 de Agosto de 2008).

Amores múltiples: poly in Spain (and new book)

ADN

Juliette Siegfried and her triad in Barcelona, who are very much out as poly spokespeople, appear in a newspaper article in their hometown. Here is the original article in Spanish (June 20, 2008). Below is Juliette's translation.

Note the reference to the book that came out last month, which is said to be the first in Spanish on polyamory. Can somebody review it?

Multiple Loves

by Anna Lladó, ADN

Photo: Roland Combes, Juliette Siegfried and Laurel Avery, in the apartment of the first two, last Monday.

"I can't understand how you could love two women at the same time and not go crazy," said el bolero. Polyamory, an emotional concept that means maintaining more than one loving relationship at a time, has an answer to this dilemma. And for it, you have to have total trust with your partner(s) and leave jealousy behind.

Juliette Siegfried, for example, feels absolutely no jealousy when her husband Roland Combes goes out to dinner or the movies or to bed with Laurel Avery, his girlfriend of a year. "When he comes back to me he loves me just as much as ever, and with Laurel each day we're better and better friends," says Juliette. "To overcome jealousy you have to have a lot of communication, and tell everything to your partner," adds her husband. Within polyamory the term compersión has been created, which means the happiness caused by knowing your partner is happy with someone else.

Juliette, Roland and Laurel, the women from the US and he English, have all just passed 40 and are now looking for an apartment together in Barcelona. They chose polyamory while fleeing from the "hypocrisy" they say is in monogamous relationships: "It's more acceptable to cheat than to be sincere," they lament.

"Polyamory offers transparency in the couple, which reduces the stress that can cause cheating," says psychologist Yves-Alexandre Thalmann, author of The Virtues of Polyamory [Las virtudes del poliamor: La magia de los amores múltiples, Plataforma, May 2008], the first book on the topic in Spanish.

The limit on the number of people who you can love at one time is determined by "the time you have to give and how demanding your partners are," says Roland. Thalmann compares it with maternal love or friendship, which don't have quantity limits.

Don't confuse polyamory with casual sex with other people. "Don't even think that it has to do with looking outside for what you don't have at home," insists the French author. The pool of people that are interested in polyamory is very limited.

Often, the most difficult thing is managing these relationships day to day. "We have two bedrooms, and Laurel and I take turns sleeping with Roland, without a strict schedule," explains Juliette, who brings her boyfriends home with no problem. When her husband is with her, Laurel doesn't call; when he is with Laurel, Juliette doesn't bother them.

Roland assures us that when he is with one of his two women, he only thinks about her. His family and friends are growing to understand their unusual relationship little by little. If they end up having children with Laurel, as they would like to, things will get more complicated.

"Poliamor, otra forma de amar"

Informativos Telecinco 5 (Spain)

"Our triad and another couple did a TV interview in Spain this week," writes the enthusiastic Juliette Siegfried (a.k.a. Ktylove). "Here's a translation of the accompanying article."

Is it conceivable to love various people at a time and be able to sincerely tell your partner? That's what polyamorous people do. They have emotional and sexual relationships with more than one person, and don't hide it. They maintain that the difference between their relationship and those of the rest of the world is that in their relationships there are no deceptions, lies, or betrayals.

Polyamory arose as a concept in California in the 60's. In Anglosaxon countries it's much more common than in our country, where for religious and cultural reasons, it is not as socially accepted.

However we've found various couples in Spain that have no problem introducing themselves as polyamorous: they have nothing, they say, to hide. They simply have another way of relating, more open, they explain, more honest, and as respectable as any.

Roland is British and 40 years old, and he has lived for 10 years with his wife Juliette, an American of the same age who is his "primary partner." He also goes out with Laurel, also American, and 8 years younger. She is his "secondary partner". Juliette and Laurel are free to have relationships with other men, and in fact, they both have.

Between Laurel and Juliette there is friendship and respect. They make decisions together, and, as surprising as it seems, both assure us that they do not feel jealous. Jealousy, they say, is a product of fear.

Polyamory puts no limits on the number of partners nor in their sexual orientation. In fact, the other couple we introduce here are two bisexuals: Kimberly and Sergio. In their case, it is she that has various loves, although in the case of one of them he might like Sergio too, and they are open to sharing.

Polyamory is not partner-swapping, nor is it casual sex, which doesn't interest them. It has to do with finding compatibilities with various people and maintaining them, allowing for feelings and not putting up barriers. All with the full knowledge and approval of all the members of the relationship.

The only conditions of polyamory are defined by the group: honesty, sincerity, love, passion, and solidarity. It is another way of loving.

Read the article in Spanish and watch the video.

And if your Spanish is good, add to the article comments.

What wonderful people they all look and sound like. Words are one thing, but for impressing skeptics, there's nothing like seeing for believing.

"El poliamor, uno para todos, y todos para uno" (with translation)

Público (Spain)

Público, a new daily newspaper in Spain with a left/progressive orientation, has just presented a first-rate introduction to polyamory and its enthusiastic advocates in Spain. Juliette Siegfried of Barcelona, whose triad is is profiled in the article, is known on English-language poly discussion sites as Ktylove. Here is her translation of the article:

Polyamory: One for all and all for one

by ANTONIO GONZÁLEZ — Madrid — Dec. 26, 2007

A new emotional concept suggests the possibility of romantic, long term, honest relationships with various people, but without getting married.

Roland has been married to Juliette for more than 10 years. At the same time, he has maintained a romantic — and sexual — relationship for some months with Laurel, with the complete knowledge and approval of his wife, who gets along very well with her husband’s new girlfriend.

Both women can also have other relationships and Roland, apparently, doesn’t mind. No one would say that American Juliette Siegfried, 40, Britisher Roland Combes of the same age, and American Laurel Avery, 32, form a typical family (as they themselves affirm), but instead they are an ideal example of polyamory.

This concept, born in California in the 1960’s, describes an emotional relationship between various people, and is based on honesty and mutual sincerity, and in which jealousy, they say, has no place. Polyamorists are clear that their relationships are not merely sexual, as happens with swingers (partner-swapping), but instead involves relationships with an emotional connection.

The three have decided to go public in Público to help make this lifestyle known, which is quite the minority in Spain, where those confirmed to be polyamorous number around 500 but are expanding.

Juliette, who runs an internet polyamory group, has lived in Spain with her husband for almost five years, and she proudly confirms that in Barcelona, where they have lived since June, more and more people attend the monthly group meetings. However, Roland sees Spaniards as reticent about this new lifestyle and notes that “For many, the main obstacle is jealousy.”

No Secrets

Roland says that there is no “approval process” for someone to enter into a polyamorous relationship with them. “If Juliette falls in love with someone, that person will usually begin coming to our meetings or going out to eat with us. I will never say to my wife “I don’t like him,” because we have a natural confidence that we’re not going to choose inappropriate people or people that will be very bad for us,” Roland explains.

For Juliette it’s essential that there are no secrets, although she notes that in her case, she doesn’t want to know every detail of every encounter. Other polyamorists are interested in that kind of detail, and there is no standard model of a polyamorous relationship. Along the same lines, there are groups in which all the members are sexually involved with each other, particularly if there are bisexuals, and other groups in which all members are not physically involved, as in the case of Juliette and Laurel.

Juliette says that “There are no limits” to the number of people in a polyamorous relationship, but that it is impossible “to have time for many people,” particularly, notes Roland, “if you want to have a stable, loving, quality relationship.” “The fundamental concept is honestly, and the rest is very open,” says Roland, and he concludes by saying that he believes the government should support this type of union.

Along with the emotional aspects, polyamorists have to confront the consequences in terms of daily life and sexual health, of having multiple partners at the same time. Polyamorists maintain that the risk of suffering a sexually transmitted disease may be less than that of a monogamous couple, since, in their case, they have more frequent STD tests. In addition, all the partners know about the other partners, which doesn’t usually happen in traditional relationships.

“We are tested regularly, much more often than monogamous people,” says Laurel, who believes that in Spain, many women are not surprised about the possibility that their partners are being unfaithful. In any case, Juliette says that it’s “fundamental” to always use condoms or appropriate barriers with partners outside the primary couple, to avoid problems. Her husband Roland affirms “honesty protects us better than the hidden sex experienced in many monogamous relationships.”

In terms of children, Roland, Juliette and Laurel don’t have any, although they know polyamorous families that do. “We love the idea of raising children in households of more than two adults, in fact we don’t want to do it with only two, because it’s too much work. Family groups with children do very well,” says Juliette.

The Battle Against Prejudice

The majority of Spanish polyamorists only fully share and develop their way of life among those who think similarly. They keep it secret from their families and work environments, for fear of the possible consequences.

“There is a lot of sexual hypocrisy. If you know it will upset your parents or that they’ll criticize you at work, you keep quiet. We’re not trying to upset anyone or damage our professional credibility,” explains Ana (a false name), a 42-year-old physician from Madrid, who believes that there are “many more polyamorists than it seems.”

Ana has been married for 21 years to Juan, a 40-year-old graphic designer who also did not want to share his real identity, and who confirms that in the majority of monogamous couples, “they lie; they don’t tell the other what they are doing.”

For her part, Patricia, a 25-year-old bisexual sociologist who also prefers to give a false name, believes that all structures can be valid in polyamory. “There are trios, quads, and all can be involved with each other. However there are other groups that are more like a network based on one primary couple,” she explains.

Juan wants to be clear that polyamory is not some sort of sect, particularly since “there are no fixed norms” other than “honesty above all.” Regardless, he says, “jealousy can arise, but this also happens with monogamous couples.”

“Love without Limits”

For model Lilian Kimberly Jeronimo, from the Canary Islands, who has no problem revealing her identity for the cause, polyamory is “love without limits.” Lilian has a primary partner, with whom she has a 4-year relationship, and a secondary partner, a monogamous man with whom she’s been for a year, since they began living polyamorously.

At the same time, she has relationships with two special friends, with whom she maintains a friendship that is “deep and sincere, and can go beyond friendship.” Her dream is to build a “polyamorous family in the future,” and she doesn’t rule out having children.

Lilian Kimberly, who is also an animal rights activist, believes that polyamory in Spain could develop similarly to the gay movement, and she is willing to fight for it. The model, who recognizes that before becoming polyamorous she was “rather possessive,” concludes that when there is excellent communication between partners, jealousy disappears.

See the original article. Spanish speakers, join in the comments there!

Juliette in the article invites people to check out her Spanish-language polyamory site:

A few years ago I started a Yahoogroup in Spanish [Poliamor]. It has grown to include a couple hundred members, although not all in Spain — Central and South America are represented as well.

It's gone well enough that I am working on a new website in Spanish: www.poliamor.net. There is currently a HUGE demand for information in Spain, so I'm hoping it will be a valuable resource to offer.

She asks for volunteers to help with the sites.

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MEXICO

There's also an active Spanish-language Yahoo group Poliamor en Mexico.

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PORTUGAL / BRAZIL

Following Ktylove's example, antidote73 posted:

I would like to leave here some links and info pertinent for all poly-people or poly-interested living in Portugal or in portuguese speaking countries or who would like to share and discuss in portuguese:

Poliamor (http://www.poliamor.pt.to/): main portal, in portuguese, spanish and english, redirects to all other information resources.

Poly Portugal Yahoo group.

We are trying now to make a very concentrated effort to bring most of the polyamorous people living currently in Portugal in the mailing list so that organisation and information of parties, discussions, meetings, dinners gets easier and more convenient.