CBC: "Polyamory during a pandemic? It's complicated"

This article on the website of the CBC, Canada's public radio and TV network, is good enough that I think it deserves a post of its own. It's thoughtful, intelligent, captures a lot of us accurately, and isn't fouled by clickbaity SEO headlines and stuff. It's out this morning from Vancouver, one of the cities making up the Pacific Northwest's great cross-border poly zone.

Polyamory during a pandemic? It's complicated

With social circles tightened, people with multiple partners are forced to make difficult decisions

Daria Valujeva, seen in Vancouver on June 4, is only seeing one of her two partners while B.C. starts easing COVID-19 restrictions. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

By Alex Migdal, CBC News

In mid-May, Paula Hughes was ready to bring her boyfriend into her social bubble. Two months of texting and taking walks two metres apart due to COVID-19 restrictions, she said, had "really, really sucked."

But first, the 40-year-old bookkeeper had to discuss her plans with her long-term partner, his spouse and the spouse's partner — who happens to be Hughes's soon-to-be ex-husband. The four of them are polyamorous and share a six-bedroom home in Surrey, B.C. 

"I really needed a consensus," Hughes said.

The group acknowledged that allowing her boyfriend into their bubble posed a risk of infection. But given that he lived alone, they deemed any danger fairly small and acceptable. 

"If any one person had been uncomfortable with it, or said, 'No, I don't like that idea,' it probably would have been the end of it," Hughes said. "It's about everyone."

The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated many relationships, with physical distancing and social bubbles redefining intimacy, romance and sex. B.C.'s provincial health officer has recommended people stick to one partner and avoid rapid, serial dating to limit the spread of the virus.

That guidance has forced uncomfortable and sometimes wrenching decisions on those in the "poly" community, many of whom consider multiple partners not just a lifestyle but a fundamental part of their identity.

Relationship strain

"It kind of reminds me of elementary school —  if someone ever told you that you had to pick your top four friends ... how difficult that is for the social situation," said Cora Bilsker, a Victoria-based counsellor who specializes in polyamory. 

"People are having to make really hard decisions that don't necessarily represent where they're at emotionally."

...Polyamory plays out in many ways. A couple may choose to pair up with another couple and form a quad. One person may partner with two people who aren't attached, known as a vee; a triad means all three people are intimately connected.

Some of these arrangements are hierarchical — meaning a person may have primary, secondary or tertiary partners — while others operate equally. ...

     --------------------

      ● Polyamory challenges idea that monogamy is always the way to go

      ● For these young romantics, 3 (or more) is the perfect company

      ● Canadian polyamorists face unique legal challenges, research reveals

     --------------------

Nienke van Houten, a 45-year-old higher-education instructor who is polyamorous, said she has found the public health guidance unclear and largely focused on traditional households.

"This has left a big gap for people who don't have typical nuclear families," van Houten said, "or [those] who do have typical nuclear families and have polyamorous relationships." 

To clear up some of the confusion, a polyamory support group known as Vanpoly held a session in late May about forming "risk-reduced, ethical social bubbles."

"Lots of things still remain somewhat of a mystery," said Dr. Kiffer Card, a behavioural epidemiologist at the University of Victoria, who led the online session.

The best advice from the province so far, Card said, is found in its guidelines for sex workers. It encourages workers to consider erotic massages and stripteases, minimize kissing and saliva exchange and opt for sexual positions that minimize face-to-fact contact. 

"These sorts of practical things … need to be tailored in a way that's accessible to people broadly in the community," Card said, pointing to similar guidelines from New York City's public health department. ...

One idea raised in the poly community is "resetting" social bubbles. For example, someone has two partners they want to see but those partners live in separate households and neither want to be connected. That person could interact with the first partner, wait two weeks and monitor for symptoms, then interact with the second partner. ...

Bilsker, the counsellor, said polyamory requires lots of frank discussion around safe sex, which is why some polyamorous people are better equipped than monogamists to navigate risk during a pandemic.

 

"There's so much honesty," Bilsker said. "A lot of the conversations I've been having with people is how they can take skills that they already have into a really unknown situation and feel a little bit more prepared." ...

Alex Migdal is a journalist with CBC News in Vancouver. He's previously reported for The Globe and Mail, Guelph Mercury and Edmonton Journal. You can reach him at alex.migdal@cbc.ca.

Read the whole article (June 14, 2020).

 

Canada isn't as different from the US as people (on both sides of the border) often think it is... except when it is.

Update a few days later: Turns out that the article didn't get as good as it is by chance. When people in the Vanpoly group in Vancouver, BC, found out that the article was in the works, they turned seriously proactive. Steve Ks write to us,

 

Carole Chanteuse and I monitor the info@vanpoly.ca email address on behalf of Vanpoly. ... We felt that the reporter's initial request (on May 21) was respectful and well-meaning, but was couched in the usual misconception that poly is all about couples opening up or seeking a third. If floated in our group as is, we felt the request could receive a predictable backlash from people tired of that constant media misconception, especially from those who considered themselves solo-poly or relationship anarchists.

Carole diplomatically corrected the reporter, who was then happy to adjust their pitch.

In the past we've maintained a list of members who we knew were well spoken that we could refer to media on short notice. That list was getting out of date, so our group's admin team agreed to put a call out to people we thought could represent us well for those willing to be interviewed, and we would present a list of people the reporter could choose from. To make that easier for the reporter, and to ensure that a diversity of styles could be represented, we would confirm each and ask a few questions first.

The call was an edited version of the reporter's pitch, along with Carole's response. That resulted in a healthy discussion and a number of people who considered themselves solo or diverse stepping forward saying "we need to be represented". I contacted each who stepped forward or was suggested.

One of the people recommended was Nienke E. van Houten -- a B.Sc. in Microbiology and Molecular Biology and a senior lecturer at Simon Fraser University (near Vancouver). She's a scientist who has studied vaccine design. She's new to poly, but coincidently had organized an info session for the Vanpoly group about polyamory and COVID-19, with behavioral epidemiologist Dr. Kiffer Card, called "Building a Bubble While Poly".

In presenting our list to the reporter, I hoped they would pick up that we in the polyamory community treat safety very seriously in all aspects of our lives -- and as part of that we're doing a seminar on keeping ourselves safer during the pandemic.

I was happy to see that the reporter did pick up on the seminar. Here is the publically available information from that seminar that may be useful to others in the polyamorous community.

Pay attention. They showed how it's done.

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On NPR, "The New Sexual Revolution: Polyamory On The Rise"

It's been 10 years since Newsweek (then a major magazine) published a game-changing article calling polyamory "America's Next Romantic Revolution." Other media and commentators kept citing that article for years afterward. Now a headline like that passes without surprise.

Many National Public Radio stations aired an excellent 35-minute discussion of polyamory this week titled The New Sexual Revolution: Polyamory On The Rise. It was produced by WAMU for its talk show "1A" (think "First Amendment"), which is syndicated to other NPR stations; it replaced the immensely popular Diane Rehm show after she retired two years ago. Thanks to friends who were listening on Monday and told me about the topic.

The show's first half features Janet Hardy (co-author of The Ethical Slut) and sociologist Dr. Eli Sheff (The Polyamorists Next Door) talking with host Joshua Johnson. Halfway through they're joined by Ron Young, founder of Black & Poly ("Love. Family. Community."), and Crystal Farmer, editor of Black & Poly's website and online magazine. The host is intelligent and interested, and the guests were well chosen for insight and experience.

And here's a shout-out to those who sent the texts and emails about their poly lives that Johnson read on the air.

It's is 35 minutes long. You can listen here:

Or download it as an MP3 podcast.

From the show's webpage:

The New Sexual Revolution: Polyamory On The Rise

...For many people, “partner” need not be a singular idea. Polyamory, or ethical non-monogamy, “can involve any number of people, either cohabiting or not, sometimes all having sex with each other, and sometimes just in couples within the larger group,” The Atlantic reports.

And it might be more common than you think.

From Quartz:

What research there is suggests otherwise: a survey of some 8,700 US single adults in 2017 found that more than one in five engaged in consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lives, while in a 2014 survey 4%-5% of Americans reported currently being polyamorous.

Here’s what one poly woman told The Chicago Tribune:

“Polyamory isn’t for everybody and that’s OK,” said Topaz Steele, a Chicago native who has identified as poly for about 10 years. “I’m not here to say that everyone should try to be nonmonogamous or that everyone is capable of loving people in this way. I do know that being polyamorous works for me and my lifestyle and I wouldn’t push anyone to do it just because.”

Steele spent last Valentine’s Day out on a date with her two boyfriends. While out, the trio grabbed a bite to eat and spent time discussing their favorite videos games and anime shows. Throughout the date, she casually made a point to hold both of her boyfriends’ hands, either separately or at the same time. She said she couldn’t care less what people think of seeing the three of them out together on a date.

We’re breaking down how ethical non-monogamy works and the stigma some associate with having multiple partners.

...Guests:

Janet W. Hardy, Co-author, The Ethical Slut; @janetwhardyr

Elisabeth Sheff, Sociologist and relationship consultant; author, The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple Partner Relationships and Families; @DrEliSheff

Ron Young, Founder, Black and Poly

Crystal Farmer, Editor, Black and Poly Magazine; @crystalbfarmer

The original (Feb. 18, 2019).

● Also, on NPR's website two years ago: text article A Cultural Moment for Polyamory by Barbara J. King (March 23, 2017). That too came from WAMU.

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A great polyfamily TV report, with articulate kids

Ten or 15 years ago this TV report, which aired yesterday, would have been epochal for us. Now it's a new normal. The Calgary affiliate of Canada's CTV network aired a sweet segment about a local FFM triad polyfamily raising the five kids of both women. They've all been living under one roof for five years.

You know the producers are going to treat them well as soon as you hear the soothing background music, which runs throughout.



My favorite quotes come from two of the kids:

"I like it 'cause you've never really by yourself, you can always like, hang out with someone."

Another tells how she explains her family to friends and other people: "I just tell them it's like basically the same as having just a regular mom and dad except you have one extra, and they all love each other and they're all like in a relationship."

The moms met through a children's playgroup. The adults say they never planned this, it just naturally happened as friendships turned romantic.

My experience is that polyfamilies who weren't looking for such a thing, where it "just happened" naturally among friends, have a high rate of success.

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" ‘Boring and normal’: The new frontier of polyamorous parenting"

Toronto news reporter Jenny Yuen, poly herself, just ended a cross-Canada book tour for her new Polyamorous: Living and Loving More. More about the book soon.

Meanwhile, it seems to have prompted this very matter-of-fact article in today's Globe and Mail, Canada's largest-circulation weekday paper, about polyfamilies raising children. The Globe and Mail is often considered Canada's newspaper of record. Excerpts:

‘Boring and normal’: The new frontier of polyamorous parenting

Stephanie Weisner, left, and her husband Ian Hubbard, right, and Weisner's boyfriend Mike Wissink, second left, spend time with Weisner's and Hubbard's children Issac, 7, and Alice, 9, in their home in Moncton, N.B. (Darren Calabrese/Globe and Mail)

 
By Zosia Bielski

Sometimes Stephanie Weisner doesn’t know how two-parent families do it all, without a Mike in tow.

Weisner, 38, has been in a polyamorous relationship with her husband, Ian Hubbard, and her work colleague, Mike Wissink, for eight years. The three adults all live together in one home in Moncton, alongside Weisner and Hubbard’s two children, who are seven and nine years old.

The family keeps a joint e-mail account to sort out their household logistics. While Weisner and Wissink, 49, work shifts at their airline industry jobs, Hubbard, 47, home-schools the children. Wissink often cooks and cleans while Weisner does the groceries. All three pitch in with bedtimes and shuttling the kids to their various activities. This winter, the whole family’s going to Disney World.

“We’re very boring and normal,” said Weisner. “We’re not swinging from chandeliers.”

More Canadians than ever before are pursuing non-monogamy, according to a new book, Polyamorous: Living and Loving More, by Toronto journalist Jenny Yuen. Interviewing scores of poly Canadians, including more than a dozen parents, Yuen examines how those stepping away from the monogamous nuclear family hope to dispel misconceptions and be normalized in their communities. As more polyamorous parents come out, they are challenging society to redefine what makes a family – just as LGBTQ parents did before them, and divorced and single parents did years earlier. Many are calling for stronger legal rights, from guardianship to child support to family health insurance.

“Polyamory is still an unknown – it’s still misunderstood," Yuen said. “We have a long way to go.” ...

...In health care, some are also acknowledging polyamorous families. POLYBABES is a new, groundbreaking study from the McMaster Midwifery Research Centre that tracked poly Canadians’ experiences throughout pregnancy and childbirth. Co-investigators Erika Arseneau, Samantha Landry and Liz Darling are working to educate health-care providers about better helping poly families – from allowing more than one partner into the birthing room, to avoiding invasive, judgmental questions.

...A 2017 Canadian study asked 480 respondents who had been in polyamorous unions – a third living full- or part-time in homes with kids – how they think the rest of the country sees them. Most felt that Canadians do not view their relationships as a legitimate form of family, according to study author John-Paul Boyd, former executive director of the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family. More than half said outsiders still mistakenly treat polyamory as a sexual fetish or kink.

...Researchers have found that children of poly parents fare no worse than the children of monogamous parents, and in fact enjoy some unique benefits in their enlarged households, according to a 2015 analysis of previous studies compiled by Waterloo, Ont., sexuality educator Jacki Yovanoff, titled What About the Children?! Children in Polyamorous Families: Stigma, Myths, and Realities. (However, Yovanoff notes that some poly parents feel pressure to portray their families and children as “perfect,” anticipating that their detractors would be quick to blame any flaws, however minor, on their unorthodox lifestyle.)

In Weisner’s Moncton home, more hands on deck means the children get more attention. “There are more people to get you juice and more people to chat with,” Weisner said. “If you’re angry at Dad, you can go and find Mom or you can go and find Mike. There’s always someone who’s available.”

Their setup also gives the adults more free time. On Saturday mornings, Wissink, 49, takes one child to drama class while Hubbard, 47, attends a running clinic. When Weisner has a date night with one of the men, the other takes care of the kids. And when the two men, who are best friends, took a guys’ trip to Vegas, Weisner babysat.

Then there is the economic boon: “You can have two incomes and a stay-at-home parent, which is pretty sweet,” Weisner said.

Many poly parents believe that having more adults around helps socialize and build emotional maturity in their kids. Toronto pastry chef Emily Materick, 40, has three-year-old twins and maintains multiple romantic relationships. The children’s stepfather, Adam Riggio, sleeps over four or five days a week; another partner stays over once a week and Materick is also starting up a couple of new relationships. The mother believes that dating different people will yield more diverse perspectives for her kids, down the line.

Initially, Materick’s toddlers were possessive around dates who would come over. “If one of my partners had their arm around me, they’d try and take their arm off from around me,” she said. Eventually, the twins got more comfortable. “For a three year old, it’s not about, ‘Who’s having a relationship here?’ It’s basically, ‘Are you here and are you fun?’” Materick said.

...Kitchener, Ont., consultant Michelle DesRosiers is currently in three relationships. DesRosiers, 40, has chosen not to live with her partners; she shares her home with two sons, 8 and 10, from a previous marriage. “I watch and hear them,” said DesRosiers, who runs a poly parenting network on Facebook. “I go with their pace if they have questions.”

DesRosiers argues that her kids get to see what healthy, amicable breakups look like, versus combative divorces driven by infidelity.

...Polyamorists challenge another relationship myth – the one that tells us one spouse has to do it all: be our lover, best friend, co-parent, emotional confidant and work coach. Whichever way DesRosiers’ kids decide to live their lives, she hopes they’ll learn not to place too heavy a burden on their partners. “Go out and have some solid friendships and be sociable with other people,” she said. “Don’t make one person your everything.”

In Moncton, Weisner and Hubbard had many serious conversations before they opened up their monogamous marriage to Wissink in 2010. Not only was their relationship now shared with a third person, so was their parenting. While the married couple leans toward a child-led philosophy, Wissink comes from a stricter background. All three have adjusted their parenting styles: Wissink has gotten more relaxed around certain rules and expectations while the married couple will sometimes turn to Wissink when “gentle tactics” aren’t working. “We all have pretty equal say,” Weisner said, noting that family votes are easier with a third person serving as tie-breaker.

While Wissink serves as a father figure to the children, the family prefers to use his first name as his title: “The kids introduce us as their mom, their dad and their Mike," Weisner said. The parents have talked to their kids about their open family, sharing their philosophy that love is not a finite resource.

So far, no one has openly ostracized the atypical clan. “We haven’t had anybody be hostile,” Weisner said. “I think we’re very fortunate.”

...Elisabeth Sheff, an educational consultant and author of the 2013 book The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multi-Partner Relationships and Families, paints a vivid picture of how the kids of non-monogamous parents feel about their uncustomary households.

In a 2013 report co-authored by Mark Goldfeder, Sheff conducted in-depth interviews with 22 American children ages 5 to 17, who candidly divulged the perks and the pitfalls.

On the plus side, children said that more adults in the house meant more “ride availability” anytime to anywhere, more Christmas and birthday presents, more homework help and more attention. Some said they felt more connected to their parents than other kids did to their moms and dads, thanks to the openness and honesty in their homes. The children reported minimal social stigma, partly because their poly families could easily pass for blended families with step-parents.

At the same time, teens complained about crowded houses: too many people, too few bathrooms, too little privacy. They spoke of rivalries with their parents’ partners’ kids. Extra adults in the house also meant extra parental supervision: Lies were harder to maintain with so many adults watching. Some teens felt loss when their poly parents split with a partner they’d liked.

Sheff argued that many of these challenges weren’t unique to poly kids: children of divorced parents dating new people or building blended families face similar realities.

“Over all, the children seemed remarkably well adjusted, articulate, intelligent and self-confident,” the authors wrote. “These respondents appeared to be thriving with the abundant resources and adult attention their families provided.”

Read the whole article (December 2, 2018).

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"All you need is loves: the truth about polyamory"

The Guardian —a major progressive daily paper based in the UK but circulated worldwide — has run feature stories on polyamory for many years, and today it's out with another. I presume this means the topic is a click bringer. The story bobbles a couple of definitions (can you spot them?) but it's basically on-target and quite positive. It gets my Show Your Parents tag.

Following the main article, four people tell of their personal experiences.

‘There’s so much joy in being poly’: (l-r) Laura, Alex and Mike, who are in a ‘polycule’ along with William (not pictured). Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

 
More and more young people are abandoning monogamy in favour of open relationships. But is it really that easy to turn your back on jealousy? And what about all the admin?

By Sirin Kale

Alex Sanson is nervous. She is hosting a dinner party this Friday, and wants it to go well, because her lovers are coming – all of them. “Cooking for one person you fancy is hard enough, but three of them is even more stressful!” says Sanson, who has brown hair, an open, friendly face and a bookish air.

...Dinner-party jitters aside, things are going swimmingly for Sanson, who works in marketing. “There’s so much joy in being poly,” she says. “It’s lovely not to burden one person with all your stuff. You just spread it all out.”

Polyamory, also known as consensual non-monogamy, seems to be growing in popularity among young people, though with no definitive figures it’s hard to know how much of this is a matter of increased visibility. It comes in many shapes and forms, from open relationships (where in layperson’s terms you “cheat” on your partner, but they are aware and do not mind, and do the same to you), to solo polyamory, where you identify as polyamorous, but are not currently in multiple relationships. But all those involved reject monogamy as stifling, or oppressive, or simply not to their taste.

“It’s not as complicated as people make it sound,” Sanson insists. If you are unsure whether polyamory might suit you, try this simple thought experiment: does the thought of your partner in the first flushes of romantic ardour with another person fill you with contentment, lust, indifference, or murderous rage? If it’s the last one, best to swerve polyamory. (There’s a term for the warm feeling polyamorous people experience when seeing their partners with someone else: compersion.)

...“The thing I’ve always disliked about monogamy and marriage,” Sanson adds, “is the idea of owning another person and them being your other half or somehow completing you, like you weren’t complete before you met them. What I love about polyamory is that I’m my own person and no one owns me. I don’t own any of you, either. We’re all free.”

Polyamory is having a cultural moment right now, with celebrities such as Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith speaking about being non-monogamous, and the BBC drama Wanderlust depicting a middle-class couple as they open up their relationship.

...“Things are changing rapidly,” says Janet Hardy, the co-author of the polyamory handbook The Ethical Slut. “More people are getting the idea that it’s possible to be happy and healthy without being monogamous. What I’m seeing among young people is that they don’t have the same need to self-define by what they like to do in bed, or in relationships, like my generation did. Everything’s out on a big buffet, and they try a little of everything.”

Polyamorous people reject the end game of romantic monogamy, and disdain so-called “relationship escalators”.... Still, being polyamorous isn’t just a carefree romp. It requires you to unpick the messy yarn of human emotion, and that most familiar knot of all: jealousy. Perhaps the biggest myth of all about polyamorous people is that they don’t feel jealousy. “Jealousy is a part of human nature,” says 27-year-old William Jeffrey, a member of Sanson’s polycule. “You still feel it. But I’ve found with every jealousy I’ve ever had while being polyamorous, I’ve been able to trace the jealousy back to an insecurity about myself. When I figure out what the insecurity is, I can overcome it.”

...Is jealousy only ever the result of insecurity? “I’d say that’s too simplistic a view,” says Hardy. “I don’t think there’s one emotion you can call jealousy. I think jealousy is an umbrella we put over all of the emotions we find difficult that we want to quell by changing someone else’s behaviour.” In her introduction-to-polyamory workshops, Hardy asks participants to write a thank-you note to their jealousy. “It exists for a reason. Jealousy tries to protect you from something.”

...The polyamorous people I interview effortlessly manage packed schedules. Jeffrey, for instance, will meet once a week to play a Buffy the Vampire Slayer role-playing game with Scoins and the fourth member of their polycule, Laura Nevo. He also has a weekly date night with his live-in partner, as well as seeing Sanson and Nevo once a week.

While shows such as Wanderlust depict polyamory as a tumescent bonk-fest, in reality polyamorous people spend most of their time doing the deeply unsexy business of talking about their feelings. Sanson credits polyamory with giving her more emotional self-awareness. “Polyamory has allowed me to be more introspective, think about the motives behind what I’m doing, identify emotions more accurately and be explicit about how I’m feeling about things.”

...And monogamous people can learn from polyamory. Twenty-three-year-old Aliyah, who uses they/them pronouns, was polyamorous, but is currently in a monogamous relationship. They credit polyamory with giving them a healthier outlook on monogamy. “The way I was taught monogamy wasn’t healthy,” Aliyah says. “I’d have this constant paranoia of being cheated on.”

Polyamory made them better at monogamy. “I learned that monogamy doesn’t have to be as strict as we conceptualise it growing up,” they explain. “Before I felt that deep love should only be reserved for romantic connections. But being polyamorous taught me I have so much love for my friends, and that doesn’t have to be explored in a sexual context.”

As polyamory becomes more visible, it won’t be seen as such a tear in our social fabric, but as an ordinary and unremarkable thing. ...

Read the whole article (Sept. 15, 2018). It's also in today's print edition, under the title "The Rise and Rise of Polyamory," with a promo box at the top of the front page:

● Here are three previous articles that appeared in the Guardian this year:

'What were her knickers like?': the truth about trying an open relationship (September 8).

My son is trans and polyamorous – here's what I learned from him (February 9).

‘Discovering my true sexual self’: why I embraced polyamory (January 20).

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Media enthuse over what poly can offer everyone else

Eleven years ago when the polyamory movement was beginning to get serious mainstream attention, Pepper Mint posted a widely noted essay, "The Strange Credibility of Polyamory." Compared to other non-mainstream sex and relationship practices, why was poly going un-demonized?

Pepper

Pepper offered several ideas (and so did I): polyfolks' obsession with ethics, our often privileged social and educational backgrounds, our gender equality, the focus on love and relationships more than sex, and as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "All the world loves a lover."

The trend continues. In the last four years I've posted dozens of articles that bubble about how useful the poly community's messages are for anyone, the wisdom that monogamous couples can draw from us, and how poly values transformed someone's life for the better. See my roundups number 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1, in reverse chronological order (with no claim of completeness).

Last week I wrote about the new Time magazine article online What Monogamous Couples Can Learn From Polyamorous Relationships and promised a new roundup.

So, enjoy! What do you think these pieces get right, and where might they overstep? Remember, poly isn't for everyone. But relationship choice is.


● Could Open Marriages Save Monogamy? This came out a few days ago in the online parenting magazine Fatherly (September 2, 2018)

A group of cutting edge researchers, advocates, and writers believes that consensual non-monogamy should be a more considered option for couples.

By Adam Bulger

...As Beth and her husband’s sex lives grew to involve more people, a funny thing happened to the two of them: Free of any fear or worry about potential cheating, they treated each other with newfound trust and openness. Beth even helped her metamour, the term for her husband’s girlfriend, get a job at her company. Beyond having to explain to co-workers why her husband kissed two women when he visited the workplace, the stress drained out of their relationship.

“It saved our marriage,” Beth said. “But that’s probably only because there was something to save.”

An open marriage isn’t for everybody, but as Beth’s story shows, it can work very well for certain people. A growing number of Americans are reconsidering whether monogamy is a necessary part of a relationship, and consensual non-monogamy (CNM), has become more accepted and widespread. ... A group of cutting edge researchers, advocates, and writers believes CNM should be a more considered option and might even define the future of American marriage.

...In 2017, influential social psychologist Eli Finkel urged members of book clubs across America to question their preconceptions about CNM. ... In his best-selling book The All or Nothing Marriage, Finkel explored the historical evolution of marriage and found that today’s most successful marriages are far more fulfilling than those that came before. ...

...“We see relationship-structure diversity as the next wave of where we hope [psychology] goes in terms of raising our collective consciousness about the way this population is being stigmatized,” says [Heath] Schechinger [behavioral health psychologist at UC Berkeley]. ...

For their recent study “Harmful and Helpful Therapy Practices with Consensually Non-monogamous Clients,” published in the Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology, [Amy] Moors and Schechinger asked hundreds of CNM couples about their experiences with therapy. ...

Currently, Moors and Schechinger are looking for volunteers to join the Task Force for Consensual Non-Monogamy they’re organizing for the American Psychological Association’s Division 44, which specializes in the psychology of sexual orientation and gender. With the Task Force, they hope to create new research and resources and advocate to include CNM relationships in psychological research and education. In addition, they’ve persuaded the American Psychological Association to include searchable term of consensual non-monogamy in the APA’s therapist locator system in hopes of connecting CNM couples with therapists attuned to their needs. ...

“So if you want to find a therapist who specialized, or at least had working knowledge [of CNM], you can go into that space without worrying about being belittled having to do a lot of explaining to a therapist,” Moors said. “Instead you can find a therapist with working knowledge.” ...

● 12 Principles Of Polyamory That Can Totally Benefit Monogamous Marriages Too, in Your Tango (May 4, 2017)

By Dr. Jeana Jorgensen

A friend recently shared "The 12 Pillars of Polyamory" (by Kenneth R. Haslam, MD) with me, and I thought, gosh, these ideas are just too good to keep to myself. No matter what kind of relationship(s) you’re in, you will benefit from pondering these principles and figuring out how they apply to your life.

1. Authenticity. ... Knowing who you are and what your needs and desires are. ... If you can’t be honest with yourself, how can you be honest with anyone else?

2. Choice. ...If you approach your relationships with choice in mind (“I choose to be here” rather than “I have to be here”), how might that change your outlook?

3. Transparency. ...
4. Trust. ...
5. Gender Equality. ...
6. Honesty. ...
7. Open Communication. ...
8. Non-Possessiveness. ...
9. Consensual. ...
10. Accepting of Self-Determination. ...
11. Sex Positive. ...
12. Compersion. ...

● 13 Ways Non-Monogamy Has Made Me a Better Partner (and Person), in The Greatist (Sept. 26, 2016)

By Maya M

...The problem with the concept of “the one” is that it undermines each and every human’s capacity to love many different people in many different ways.

After I decided to try out non-monogamy with a former girlfriend, I realized how the standard concept of monogamy erases the complexities of sexuality, passion, and romance. Though I still loved her as deeply as ever after opening up the relationship, I also learned to love another person on a completely different level. With my girlfriend, the love was deep, full of history, and adventurous; with my second partner, the love was fiery and playful.

... What I've been most grateful for is how non-monogamy has made me a much better partner and person. Here's what I mean.

1. I’m not as jealous. When someone hits on my girlfriend or when I see her express interest in someone else, I actually get excited for all the potential thrill and adventure that relationship could bring. ... And when I do feel jealous, I handle it better than I used to. ... If you’re someone trying out an open or non-monogamous relationship for the first time, know that it’s totally normal and OK to get a little envious. I like to sit down with my partner the moment I start feeling this way and ask some questions: Where is this coming from? Is it a little irrational? How can we work together to fix the problem now and avoid it in the future?

2. I see partners as humans — not people I can control. People in monogamous relationships often say things like “that’s my girl” or “you can’t talk to my man.” This reduces your partner to property....

3. I’ve completely stopped slut-shaming. As I've come to understand that my partner’s body does not belong to me, I’ve become opposed to policing others' bodies. ...

4. I find joy in others' happiness. ...Compersion can cause an immediate surge of endorphins and arousal in sexual situations, but I’ve learned to translate the feeling into non-romantic and non-sexual situations as well. By embracing other people’s joy, I’m able to feel genuine excitement for their accomplishments (instead of jealousy) and happiness for their successes (instead of bitterness).

5. My sex life is way richer because I'm more open-minded. ...

6. I can connect with diverse groups of people. As a queer, non-monogamous woman of color, it’s sometimes hard to stumble upon communities who share all my identities and can intimately relate to my trials and triumphs. But when I do, the feeling is magical. ...

7. I don't take my relationship for granted. ... When I opened up my relationship, I treated all the time we spent together like a gift and not necessarily an expectation. Despite what people may think, we didn’t spend significantly less time together. But on the nights she would be on a date with another person, I would have time to reflect on how much I loved her (and missed her!), so I was better able to cherish the time we spent together.

8. I’m a lot better at talking about my relationship. ...

9. I’m not quick to judge others. ...

10. I understand my own sexuality (and others') better. ... When I was 17, I came out as a lesbian and understood my sexuality to be strictly one that aggressively favored women. But as I opened up my relationships and started sleeping with men, I found that though I still prefered women over men in every way, there was definitely room for men (both cis and gender non-conforming) and people who don’t identify within the binary. I started identifying as queer and learned that my own sexuality can be very fluid. Understanding my own sexuality helps me talk to my partners about theirs and ultimately helps me create safe spaces for friends and family to discuss the issue with me as well.

11. I take better care of my physical and reproductive health. ...

12. Saying “no” — without hurting someone's feelings — has become much easier. Since I go on a lot more dates, I’ve become much better at sensing when I’m not compatible with someone. Because of this, it’s easier for me to tell people that things won't work out, which spares a lot of hurt feelings.

13. I’ve become more loving and open-minded overall. ...People who are non-monogamous often seek to better their relationships with their primary partner and lead more understanding, open lives.

● Out last Tuesday: Is The Poly Life More Honest? on IntoMore.com by Jamie Windust, nonbinary activist and editor of Fruitcake magazine. Although, what they describe is more precisely called Relationship Anarchy.

...After meeting a fellow non-binary person who, in an incredibly millennial manner, slid into my DMs on Instagram, I opened my eyes, brain, and emotions to the concept of romantic and sexual polyamory, and I’m never looking back.

At its core, the concept means not putting romantic and/or sexual relationships on a pedestal or giving them a hierarchy, and seeing them all on an even playing field. It’s being honest with yourself, and with the people around you, and realizing that though you may have different levels of relations with certain people, each relationship you have with each person doesn’t negate the other, no matter how intimate, sexual or emotional it is. The pressure to know what’s happening between two people in terms of labels is eradicated, and the actual significant connection between the two people is what matters. ...

● What You Can Learn from Polyamory, in Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center (Feb. 13, 2017. Reprinted in Mindfulness magazine the next day.)

juainproject/Adobe Stock

A 20-year study of consensually non-monogamous adults reveals seven lessons for anyone who wants to keep love alive.

By Elisabeth Sheff

...I studied polyamorous families with children for a period of 20 years, and I discovered their relationships can be intense, complicated — and fulfilling.

I also found that polyamorists have developed a set of relationship practices that can serve as lessons to people in monogamous relationships. Divorced parents and others in blended families may find them especially relevant, because they offer insights into dealing with challenging family communication among multiple adults and co-parents. ...

1. Spread needs around. Expecting one person to meet all of your needs — companionship, support, co-parent, best friend, lover, therapist, housekeeper, paycheck, whatever — puts a tremendous amount of pressure on that relationship. ...

2. Don’t leave too soon. In serious relationships, giving up without trying hard to work things out can mean prematurely ending a good relationship that is simply having a difficult period. ... Polyamorous relationship require even more of this kind of work, because of their complexity. My participants report developing the skill to stay with a difficult conversation, even if it is uncomfortable. ... People in polyamorous relationships are also more likely to seek support from others, something that could benefit and sustain serial monogamous relationships as well. When things get rocky, we’re prone to hide the trouble from friends and family. Polyamorists suggest an alternative: reach out to friends and community members for sympathy, support, and advice. ...

3. Don’t stay too long. In what can be a delicate balancing act, polyamorous people find that it is important not to drag things out until the bitter end. ... From this perspective, gracefully ending or transitioning to a different kind of relationship can be a celebration of a new phase instead of a catastrophe.

4. Be flexible and allow for change. Polyamorous people sustain their relationships through these changes in part by being willing to try new things. ... This can mean shifting expectations and letting go of former patterns, which can be both invigorating and frightening. ...

5. Support personal growth. Polyamory is emotionally challenging, no question. Jealousy, insecurity, and other negative emotions are all a part of any romantic relationship. Instead of trying to avoid painful emotions, however, polyamorists try to face them head on. ...

6. De-emphasize sexuality. ...Emotional attachment is the glue that holds families together anyway, and while sex is good and helps people feel connected, it is not enough by itself to sustain a long-term relationship. Polyamory emphasizes that the end of sex does not have to mean end of relationship.

7. Communicate honestly and often. ...Gentle honesty may break well-established monogamous rules about hiding things from a spouse, but the outcomes of greater trust and intimacy can be well worth it!

● Polyamory could revolutionize the way we look at relationships, in ThePlaidZebra.com (May 5, 2017)

By Elijah Bassett

...The fact that polyamory has become this much more visible probably says something about how we’re currently relating to mainstream notions of how romance and intimacy ought to look. While monogamy tends to come with an implicit set of restrictions that don’t need to be explained because of how culturally ingrained they are, polyamory and its growing acceptance may speak to an interest in more individually determined relationship models rather than one that carries historical and ideological baggage.

● One benefit that's rarely spoken aloud, offered by Poly.Land blogger and book author Page Turner: The Scariest Thing About Polyamory Is Also One of the Best (Feb. 8, 2018)

...“It’s about something I’ve never really heard anybody talk about in relation to polyamory,” she says.

I wait for her to finish.

“Polyamory has a way of demonstrating who you should really be with,” she says. “And it’s not always who you think you should be with, going in.”

I nod. “We’ve both been in poly circles for a long time. Seen so many relationships open up to new partners. And you never know, for sure, whether any one couple will make it. ... We all have this big fear of the game changer relationship. The partner who comes into our life and turns everything upside down. But it’s funny. When it happens, it’s usually for the better.”

“It is,” she says. “At least in the long run. ... Maybe you should write about that. How the scariest thing about polyamory is also the best: It has a way of shedding light on compatibility.”

“Or incompatibility.”

● What Monogamists Can Learn From Polyamorists, by the founder of the online couples' magazine Together (February 2018)

By Erik Newton

...I tried polyamory once and made a complete hash of it. It’s just not for me, but I do have great respect for the polyamorous. ... The polyamorous are on the cutting edge of [sexual] self-expression, and of relationship development.

...We monogamists have a lot to learn from the polyamorous. They have exponentially more relationship dynamics to deal with than we do, as they are responsible not only to their own partners, but to the partners of their partners, and so on. The quality of communication necessary to keep this structure operating is extraordinary.

...So when they talk about relationships, I listen. Here’s what I’ve learned:

– Tell the truth. ...
– Don’t sacrifice your individuality. ...
– Experiment. ...
– Admit that our partner is already free and that you are ultimately alone. ...
– Take part in community. ...
– Get a little friendlier with jealousy. ...
– Remember that love is an infinite resource, but time is finite. ...

● Also in Together: How [a mono can] Love a Polyamorist (undated).

By Ghia Vitals

... As a polyamorous person, I’ve seen up close how a monogamist handles such a situation. I dated someone who had a monogamous wife. She was easily one of the best metamours I’ve ever had.

A monogamist in a relationship with a poly person must come to terms with the following realities....

– Polyamory is about your partner’s individuality, not you. ...
– Don’t bother investing any effort in trying to fix something that isn’t broken. ...
– You will never be their one and only, and that’s okay. ...
– Your poly partner’s love for someone else doesn’t negate their love for you.

Together, mostly for monogamous couples and run by "a reformed divorce lawyer," has many other articles touching on poly.


● A long first-person story in Good Housekeeping, the magazine your grandmother always read: "Polyamory has made me a better woman." (Jan. 20, 2017).

By Audra Williams

I'm in a Relationship With 3 Men — And It Makes Me Feel Healthier

...I initially felt worried that my partners' other relationships would lead to my being alone, but eventually I realized that I feel more secure in knowing that we're all collaborating in a community of relationships. ... It makes sense that each relationship helps me heal from different parts of the trauma I've carried around for decades. We are different parts of ourselves with different people, and each new relationship has the potential to shake something to the surface.

● What [The] Polyamorous Can Teach You About Your Own Love, in Entity magazine (for "Woman That Do". Undated.)

...As you can probably imagine, polyamory can get increasingly complex. This is why transparency plays an important role in such complicated relationships. In the same way that monogamous relationships have certain expectations and agreements, poly folk talk to their partners about what they can and can’t do. Who is everyone allowed to have sex with? Is one of your partners a regular sex partner while another one is someone you live with? And most importantly: What is everyone comfortable with?

In polyamorous relationships, the traditional rules and boundaries of monogamous intimacy get thrown out of the window. Because of this, each set of relationships need to establish separate expectations.

In an article on Bustle, Emma McGowan interviews 36 polyamorous people for relationship advice for their poly friends, as well as things that “monogamous people could learn from polyamorous people in order to make relationshipping just a little bit easier.”

Here are some things people have said:

J: Sacrifice brings you all towards the lowest common denominator. Honest communication and negotiation bring you all closer to optimal happiness.

Mogli: Work to find the solution where everybody wins.

Judah: ... A more acute awareness of managing finite resources (time, attention) versus non-finite resources (love). More focus on the notion of no individual having to be the end all/be all with their partner, avoiding the trope of the “one true love that completes me.”

Nicole: Communication skills especially regarding what you both feel and want. How to love a person without feeling the need to be possessive of that person.

Maxwell: Jealousy is a natural human emotion regardless if you are poly or not. It’s what you do with those feelings and how you communicate them that defines your experience in the relationship.

● 4 Things Polyamory Taught Me About Love I Wish I Had Known When I Was Monogamous, on Kinkly (Nov. 29, 2016). She then talks about 6 things:

By Anabelle Bernard Fournier

...There are many things that being polyamorous forced me to face that I wouldn't have faced in a typical monogamous relationship; and those things have challenged me to rethink a lot of my assumptions about how to relate to others....

– Friendship Is the Best Foundation. ...
– Healthy Relationships Don't Just Happen. ...
– Love Is Just One Part of a Functioning Relationship. ...
– Your Partner Isn't a Mind Reader. ...
– Sex Is Just Another Form of Intimacy. ...
– Love Is Work. ...

● 8 Ways Polyamory Helped Shape My Monogamous Relationship, also on Kinkly (Sept. 20, 2016).


Okay, that's thirteen, enough for one post. More to come.

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TIME mag: "What Monogamous Couples Can Learn From Polyamorous Relationships"

This article makes my cut on several counts. Time magazine is a truly mass medium, it's important and influential, your friends and family might see this story, and it's good.

We'll soon find out whether it'll be in Time's next print issue, when 2 million copies go to subscribers and newsstands.

Essential parts:

What Monogamous Couples Can Learn From Polyamorous Relationships, According to Experts

Pakorn Kumruen / EyeEm—Getty Images

By Samantha Cooney

...Experts who have studied these kinds of consensual non-monogomous relationships say they have unique strengths that anyone can learn from.

Consensual non-monogamy can include polyamory, swinging and other forms of open relationships, according to Terri Conley, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who has studied consensual non-monogamy. While there aren’t comprehensive statistics about how many people in America have polyamorous relationships, a 2016 study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found that one in five people in the U.S. engage in some form of consensual non-monogamy throughout their lives.

But these relationships can still be shrouded in stigma. And people in polyamorous relationships often keep them a secret from friends and family.

“Often they’re scared of losing their jobs, not getting a job, losing family or friends who won’t respect them anymore or scared that their children will be taken away,” says Carrie Jenkins, a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia and the author of What Love Is: And What It Could Be. ...

...Still, experts who study relationships say polyamorous relationships can provide useful lessons for monogamous couples. Here are a few areas where, researchers say, polyamorous couples are particularly successful:

Communication

Successful monogamous relationships require communication about desires, needs and problems, says  who studies monogamous relationships. And this is one area where polyamorous couples excel.

A May 2017 study published in PLOS One noted that people in consensual non-monogamous relationships communicate to “negotiate agreements, schedules, and boundaries, and to work through the kinds of problems that emerge when negotiating polyamory, amongst the typical relational problems that can emerge in any relationship.” ... According to Benjamin Karney, a professor of social psychology at UCLA ... “Consensually non-monogamous couples might have a lot to teach everybody about negotiating desire and competing interests.”

Defining the relationship

Polyamorous partners often define boundaries and form agreements about what each relationship should look like, and Conley says these agreements can be beneficial to monogamous relationships, where partners might assume they’re on the same page about what monogamy means. When deciding to enter a relationship, “There might be a conversation beyond that about what that means: does it mean we’re monogamous? What does it mean to be monogamous?” Conley says. “For some people, even mere thoughts of attraction to someone else can be defined as cheating. For other people, anything but intercourse is OK.”

Polyamorous relationships can take many different forms. Sometimes, partners will know each other and form a family-like network sometimes called “kitchen table polyamory”, according to Kate Kincaid, a psychologist at Tucson Counseling Associates who works with polyamorous couples. Another style, known as “parallel polyamory,” means that all of the partners are aware of each other, but have little to no contact, Kincaid explains.

Kincaid says that she works with couples to figure out which model is best for them — though she often recommends kitchen table polyamory because it’s often more efficient for all parties to communicate directly. ...

Practicing safe sex

A 2012 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that individuals in polyamorous relationships were more likely to practice safe sex than those who cheat in monogamous relationships. ...

Kincaid says that she works with clients to fill out a questionnaire about what sexual acts they’d be comfortable with [partners] doing with other partners to make sure they’re on the same page. ...

Amy Moors, an assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University who conducted the 2012 study with Conley, says ... “They have to navigate the sexual health of a bunch of people. Implicit in that is that there’s very clear conversations about sexual health that are happening in consensual non-monogamous relationships that may not be happening in [supposedly] monogamous relationships.” ...

Managing jealousy

...A 2017 study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science ... found that people in consensual non-monogamous relationships, including those who engaged in polyamory and swinging, scored lower on jealousy and higher on trust than those in monogamous relationships.

“People in monogamous relationships were really off the charts high on jealousy. They were more likely to check their partners’ phones, go through their emails, their handbags,” Moors says. “But people in consensual non-monogamous relationships were really low on this.”

...Joanne Davila, a professor of clinical psychology at Stony Brook University, says, “they see what feelings arise and actively work to navigate them in a proactive way.”

Maintaining a sense of independence

Another area where polyamorous couples tend to excel, according to Kincaid, is allowing their partners to maintain a sense of independence outside of their relationship. ... “The biggest thing that I appreciate about poly people is that they focus on knowing what their needs are and get their needs met in creative ways — relying more on friends or multiple partners instead of putting it all on one person,” Kincaid says. ...

Karney says that he could also see how having your needs met by others might strengthen consensual non-monogamous relationships.

“If we’re a married monogamous couple, we have to figure out what to do about our problems. We’re either going to avoid them, resolve them or break up,” Karney says. “But if I’m in a non-monogamous relationship and I have the same problem, I might not have to resolve it if I’m not getting all my needs met from you.” ...

Read the whole 1300-word article, with many links (online August 27, 2018).



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NY Times Mag profiles an extraordinary queer teen triad

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has a stunning beautiful story in this Sunday's "Love City" issue (online early). It's about three Brooklyn high school students in love, and the happily genderfluid youth world they are embedded within.

You've got to read this. Excerpts to get you started:

THREE KIDS
Hanna, Beaux and Harry: A Love Story

Hanna (right) with her boyfriend, Harry, and her girlfriend, Beaux, at Hanna’s house in Brooklyn.

 
Text by Elizabeth Weil | Photographs by Isadora Kosofsky

HANNA, AGE 17, WOKE up from under the “Dear Evan Hansen” poster she’d duct-taped to her ceiling, pulled on her good jeans, brushed some glitter across her cheeks, ran her fingers through her rainbow hair and walked with her mother, a rabbi, down Church Avenue, in Brooklyn, to shul. Her boyfriend, Harry, was already there, 16 years old and newly manly in his purple button-down shirt. The two sat down in a fluorescent-lit room, ate bagels with schmears and discussed their coming Advanced Placement exams, disappearing into each other in that calm, fractal way of a couple inside a bubble of love that is itself floating deep inside a sea of love. Then they joined a classroom of 7-to-9-year-olds to help the religious-school teacher explain how Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

...In the synagogue, during the services that followed, Hanna and Harry sat in the back, his fingers tapping on her knee, her head resting on his shoulder, their chins occasionally tipped toward God as they sang prayers like show tunes. ... Everybody stared and smiled at them with the confidence that all was right in that tiny corner of the world....

Two by two may have worked for Noah’s animals in the (heteronormative!) Bible, but these are people — specific, glorious, teenage people — and their hearts are much bigger than anyone could imagine. As congregants spilled into the temple foyer and wished one another “Shabbat shalom,” Beaux, Hanna’s girlfriend, appeared — her face tough, tender, searching, critical, defended and vulnerable all at once. She wore boots, baggy jeans, shark-tooth earrings and a silk camisole, and her head was shaved.

...Over lunch at a big round table in the temple basement, Beaux looked at Hanna and said to the world, but mostly to Harry, “She’s so pretty!” Harry and Beaux shared a moment of mutual appreciation over Hanna’s adorable nose freckles. Now, at the end of 11th grade, the three teenagers moved with a flowing intimacy — their bodies melting, looping and reconfiguring like the liquid in a lava lamp. A 10-year-old girl, watching them, became so mesmerized that she inserted herself in the middle, on Beaux’s lap.

Beaux was patient and kind but did ask, “Don’t you have other 10-year-olds?”

“I also have feelings,” the girl said.

Hanna, meanwhile, stood behind Beaux, rubbing Beaux’s head with such tender affection that an older woman nearby asked, “Is she being blessed?”

Beaux (right), Hanna and Harry at a playground in Brooklyn.

 
On the rainy walk back up Church Avenue to Hanna’s house, Hanna, Beaux and Harry cycled through those seemingly profound topics that teenagers have been discussing forever.... Hanna floated between Beaux and Harry. She’s the quietest of the bunch, and her heart seems almost miraculously whole and unbroken, like a cake hot from the oven before the surface cools, contracts and cracks. This is perhaps a result of the fact that Hanna is a person who falls in love with one thing and then falls in love with another thing and then, instead of letting go of the first, just adds on. She loved all the Harry Potter books, and then she loved all the Percy Jackson books, and she still rereads them both. ... And so it was with Harry and Beaux.

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

...Harry [had] handled Beaux’s request extremely well. He was a mensch already and had been friends with Hanna in ninth grade, when she talked about almost nothing but her love for Beaux. He did not want to be the kind of boyfriend who kept his girlfriend from chasing her bliss.

When they arrived at Hanna’s house after shul, the three kicked off their shoes and flopped together on the wide, tawny brown couch in the living room. Beaux pretended to whisper in Harry’s ear and then licked it instead. I lost track of their limbs.

“No one in New York is straight!” Beaux texted me a few weeks earlier. “ESP not high schoolers.” She was not entirely kidding.

Harry extracted himself from the girls and sat up. “If our life is a sitcom,” he explained, “I’m the token straight guy.”

Beaux has a theory: San Francisco is the capital of white gay men. New York City is the center of queer youth. “When you are queer, that becomes like a huge part of who you are,” Hanna told me, “because you just start to be like, Damn, I’m so gay, constantly.” You’re sitting watching “Castle,” and Stana Katic comes on-screen, and you’re like, Damn, I’m really gay!” ...

But the city is not all one big sparkly unicorn of love. Hanna and Beaux are lucky, they know that. ... Hanna’s house is where a bunch of Hanna and Beaux’s friends plan to come if they get kicked out of their own homes. The space is a monument to comfort, supersaturated with chairs, books, blankets, snacks, humanity, tea bags, extra beds and warmth. ...

Go read the whole thing (online June 7, 2018), then share it.

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Atlantic video, "Couples Speak Honestly About Open Relationships"

Yes it's couple-centric, but that's because most of society is. A month ago The Atlantic put up a nice 6-minute film of people talking about their open and poly relationships. It's part of a collection of independently produced videos that the magazine curates. It seems to have grown legs, with 66,000 views so far. Several people have forwarded it to me.



From the text with it, Couples Speak Honestly About Open Relationships (March 30, 2018):

Polyamory. Ethical non-monogamy. Open relationship. There are many ways to describe the consensual choice a couple can make to live a non-monogamous lifestyle — and ever more ways to navigate it. Maria Rosa Badia’s new short film Polyedric Love [an obsolete spelling of polyhedric, many-sided] features honest conversations with couples about the rewards and challenges of their unconventional relationships.

“We’ve always been told that there’s this one way of being with someone, and if you retract from it, it’s not right societally,” says a woman in the film. “But if it’s right instinctually…”

Making the film was an eye-opening experience for Badia, who came to see non-monogamous relationships as an inspiration. ...

Amy Gahran, author of Stepping Off the Relationship Escalator, posted her evaluation:

Pros:
- Racially diverse
- Accessible to a mainstream audience
- Nicely produced
- Defines unfamiliar terms in a graceful way
- Addresses some negatives along with positives: supports believability.

Cons:
- Opposite-sex couples only.
- No age diversity; all subjects appear to be in late 20s-early 30s
- Completely couple-centric; reinforces the stereotype that polyamory = couple+
- Only pre-existing couples that had "opened up" are included. Other partners not included.
- No solo poly representation.
- Mentions hierarchical polyamory, but no egalitarian models.

Also, to the cons I'd add the irrelevant clickbait cover illustration that someone at The Atlantic stuck onto it: a matchstick demonstration of sex positions. This is a cynical treatment for heartfelt interviews about loved ones that contain barely a mention of sex. More evidence that that's the only thing some people can think of when seeing a nontraditional relationship.

I find this trivialization especially insulting because Badia dedicated the film to the life and memory of Yuanyuan Wang-Fiengold, who briefly appears in it.

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