Friday Polynews Roundup — Happy-poly media as a two-edged sword, quarantine tales and recommends, a date for 'Trigonometry', and more.

It's Friday Polynews Roundup again — for April 24, 2020. Welcome back.

● Is good media treatment of poly a double-edged sword? Public-relations experts say that the way you get the public to grasp a new concept is to tell them, "It's just like this thing you already know, but with one new twist." For instance, gay marriage.

But if the new thing actually requires a deeper paradigm adjustment to get it right, is that just asking for trouble? Might you leave people stranded on the wrong shore? Think of the stereotypical unicorn-hunting couple.

The thoughtful Ready For Polyamory blog comes from Laura Boyle, a relationship/sexuality educator and presenter at polycons. She and her polycule had a mostly positive experience being featured in one of those countless happy-polyfamily profiles that the British tabloids keep cranking out. (For instance. More.) Yes, she writes, media treatments like that help to educate the public about who we are and to destigmatize us — including, I might add, to our relatives, friends, employers, and other people who really matter. But the narrowness of such treatments can make them a double-edged sword. This week she writes about the sword's other sharp edge: Advertising Polyamory (April 20).

I have a deeply complicated relationship with all the press (especially tabloid press) that polyamory has received lately. It’s a necessary and positive step to have Super Wholesome Polyamorous People in articles and on video as Very Happy, with maybe a throwaway line that “jealousy happens but hardly ever anymore and we work through that.” [It's] really important to public perception. [Eventually], one of the crappy attempts at a polyamory show like You Me Her (all offense meant, that show was AWFUL) is going to be a little better, take off, and be our Will and Grace, made of all delightfully presented stereotypes, run for too many seasons, and make moms in the Midwest who think they’ve never met one of us realize it won’t be so bad when they do. Or, when we come out to them, they won’t panic; they’ve “heard of this.”

“Laura,” you might say, “that’s all good news. Why on Earth would you have a problem with that?”

Well, I’m in the awkward position of having done this long enough to know that the formats easiest to understand on TV are the hardest to make work in real life, and I worry about what that does when we don’t meet our stereotypes. ...

[In 10 or 20 years] do we get our mothers going “Ugh, you can’t do monogamy right, you can’t do polyamory right, when are you going to find a nice couple and settle down?” Do the long-chain, wide-network-polycule types get ignored and forgotten, and parallel[-poly] folks get treated like shit, when monogamy+1, and two couples getting together to make a quad, become acceptable? Like out leatherfolk got treated at some city’s pride parades in 2019, because we need to be more family-friendly now? Or is it ok because those [big poly] networks still have chunks where people are small-polycule-family-units in appearance, and my mother can still hope I’ll find a stepdad or two for my kid, and my place as the end of a chain is just a phase? ...Those questions bother me both personally and on a grand scale.

Logically, I 100% understand that change is incremental, and that public perception change is the most so. ... So, when members of my polycule were approached to do a tabloid video a couple years ago, I didn’t say “Oh my gosh, don’t do it!” — I said, “Please include me.” I wanted to show that people can have happy family lives and still have outside partners. It still came out as super wholesome, it still got a bunch of views and media attention, mostly positive, and it seems to have landed as similarly easy to understand, even if there were some problematic editing choices. I think incremental change needs to include those slightly-off-expectation expressions, or there’s going to be a lot of confusion when people try polyamory and realize triads aren’t equilateral every moment of every day and every year; that quads usually aren’t all perfectly bisexual people with perfectly equal feelings for each other.

...A wave of “getting people into the idea” with media that says “Oh, equilateral triads are amazing and how this happens” is going to land a lot of people in bad situations that leave them with a bad taste in their mouths, or in a lot of community rejection, which I think is just as bad as having been ignorant about it. Feel free to disagree, because incremental change among people who still will never try it is important to public perception; but I worry about internal community impact, and that’s potentially ugly as a side effect.

See also her recent take on Maintaining your relationships and your polycule in a pandemic (April 6.)


● Oh yes, we're back to isolation in the pandemic. Lots more of it this week. On NewNowNext, Polyamorous and Quarantined: How Are These Couples [sic] Making It Work? (April 17):

“You’d think there’d be a ton of sex with the three of us living together, but no one is ever in the mood."

By Zachary Zane

Before coronavirus (COVID-19), Simon, 46, had never lived with both his husband Alex, 45 and their shared boyfriend Jack, 38. While they expected new challenges as they transitioned to a quarantined throuple, they weren’t prepared for what actually happened: one partner feeling excluded, even though they now spend every waking moment together. “My biggest fear is that the stress of this all is going to cause further rifts for us because we spend so much time together,” says Simon.

Getty stock photo

...When you’re polyamorous, you don’t just have to navigate the feelings of one partner, you have to consider the needs of multiple. This can prove challenging when you’re self-isolating with one lover and not the other(s). It can be even worse when you’re the one who’s self-isolating alone. Or, like with Simon, the dynamics grow complicated when all parties are suddenly together 24/7, an abrupt change in pre-COVID-19 boundaries. ...

...Simon also made clear that Jack doesn’t speak on his behalf. Jack had mentioned something about the “three of us forever,” which frightened Alex, especially since they’d all been dating only six months before the quarantine. Simon iterated that he... knows their relationship with Jack might not stand the test of time.

...“From the beginning of the pandemic, things got really complicated for me and my other long-term partner,” says Jessica, 29. She’d... decided to self-isolate with the partner she’d been with for three and a half years and not the partner of nine months.

“We had this incredibly sad and difficult day where we went for a walk, not touching and maintaining six-feet distance the whole time. I told him that, because of the quarantine, I was going to be ‘flu-bonded’ to my primary partner.”

...Daniel, 37, is self-isolating in the Caribbean with one of his primary partners, Josh, 28, who he’s been seriously dating for three years. They flew there for a music festival in early March and decided to stay. While isolating abroad, Josh and Daniel grew closer, though Daniel still says his romantic life is in shambles. Two of his partners back in New York City have contracted COVID-19, one of whom is a mother of two children. While he tries his best to check in on all of his partners regularly, he feels helpless; they’re sick with a potentially life-threatening illness, and there’s nothing he can do from hundreds of miles away. ...

● Eli Sheff, on her long-running Psychology Today blog The Polyamorists Next Door: Polyamorous During the Pandemic (April 21). Kinda states the obvious, but....

This is the first in a series about polyamory and COVID-19, and it addresses the advantages and disadvantages of being polyamorous during a pandemic.

Advantages

...More social support during a difficult time. ... This includes not only intimate partners, but more importantly the larger network of non-sexual polyaffective relationships that make up the web of relationships that Koe Creation named a polycule.

Many of the other benefits depend on residential status....

Living Separately

These poly folks already have the skills in place to stay connected with each other, even when they are physically remote. ...

Living Together

Most obviously, it can be more fun to be on lockdown with a built-in crew for board games, cooking, socializing, and support. Social isolating with more people is less isolating!

...Having more grownups around to help wrangle the kids who are home all day. ...

...Pooling resources... Residential polycules with multiple incomes might have more financial resilience if one partner loses a job. ...

Disadvantages

...The polycule... is vulnerable to infection both because of its large size and its permeability. ...

Living Separately

...Seeing the other person on a screen ... can be especially unsatisfying for lovers who really miss each others’ touch.

...Being prohibited from visiting can stir up issues of relationship power and hierarchies....

Living Together

...Being cooped up together can be incredibly painful for people who are having conflict with their partner(s). ... People who are anxious and afraid (and who isn’t right now?) tend to fall back on less healthy behaviors or relationship patterns. ... Worldwide there has been a rise in intimate partner violence....

...Inability to control others visiting each other during the lockdown. The resulting controversy... is so contentious that it [will require] another blog.

● On Mashable, What It's Like To Be Polyamorous During The Coronavirus Quarantine (April 19):

By Anna Iovine

...This is a question posed on the #PolyProblems Tumblr page, one of several in a post titled "Pandemic Poly Problems." ... Can you have phone sex with one partner while another is in the room? What if the partners don't know each other well?

Vicky Leta / Mashable

...There are four types of dynamics going on right now, according to relationship coach Effy Blue: People staying at home with partners but separated from others; people separated from all their partners; those polycules who decided to come together under one roof; and solo polyamorous people living alone.

...Ashley Ray, a comedian in Los Angeles, is solo polyamorous and has been since 2013. "Even, for me, given that background, I've really been struggling," she said. "If you're like me, you're going insane and you're just trying to video chat everyone you can. ... I did have one partner who very much wanted to detail the fun crazy quarantined sex he and his partner are having," she said, "and I was just like, 'Come on, you gotta shut up.'"

...Steve Dean, online dating consultant at Dateworking.com, a dating coaching and consulting business, told Mashable that he's staying at home with one partner and communicating with others virtually. ... In some cases, Dean said, social distancing has brought him closer with other partners, even those who even in normal circumstances live in different countries. "If anything, now that I have fewer things going on, every night I have more time that I can set aside for intentional heart-to-hearts and virtual chats with partners who are abroad."

Polycules living in one home, too, can have their own issues. They may be dealing with dynamics they never had to before and different distributions of labor. ... "There's a lot of work to be done there," said Blue. If relationship issues had previously gone avoided, they're bubbling up to the surface now. "People feel like they have time to talk about things without feeling like it has to be solved then and there," she said, "Because there's a sense that we're all going to be here for awhile." ...

...How it plays out will vary from person to person, but Blue believes that longtime, established polyamorous relationships will fare just fine. She compared them to lava lamps: frequently morphing and changing within an established framework.

Read on; it's much longer.


● A gripping narrative on The Greatist: I’m Polyamorous and I Don’t Live with My Partner — Here’s How We Cope During Quarantine (April 19):

By Gabrielle Smith

It’s the Sunday morning before Mayor de Blasio orders all the restaurants in NYC to close. I wake up and check my phone. I’m groggy from a late night of bartending, and it takes me a few moments to register the text that my boyfriend, A, has sent me. Woke up with a high fever. You should consider canceling your plans and self-isolating.

My heart drops. OK. Breathe, I tell myself to control the sudden spike of anxiety. I inform my roommate of the situation. I cancel my dates for the week. ... A’s messages begin to peter out — and then I start hearing from his wife.

Brittany England

Getting texts from her isn’t abnormal. ... We operate in this fluid cell of communication, regular STD testing, and combined Google calendars, all with the idea that our love can be shared with more than one person — and, often, with each other. ... The first time B and I were alone together, she gave me a note of reassurance.

“I really like you for him,” she said. “He always comes back so happy after seeing you.”

B’s texts to me now are composed of status updates.

...I’m only in the next neighborhood. Five stops and 15 minutes of travel could take me there. But I don’t move. ...

● In the alt-weekly Chicago Reader. Polyamory during a pandemic (April 21):

By S. Nicole Lane

...For many folks, their partnerships are evolving day by day as social distancing shifts to the new normal and shelter-in-place circumstances disrupt poly formations. Polycules, constellations, and networks are all navigating the pandemic in various ways, and each has their own unique set of boundaries.

Navigating a partnership shift this invasive (and global) requires incessant communication. Starting a healthy conversation of limitations, needs, wants, and concerns is imperative when several people are involved. ... For some polycules, physical touch and intimacy may have to take a back seat for the foreseeable future. This is, of course, a strain on any relationship. Developing a plan is essential when sketching out what a pandemic polycule will look like. Technology, virtual dates, social media, and video chats are all ways to stay connected and intimate.

...Apps like Hinge have launched [online] "date-from-home" features.... For poly folks looking to seek out new crushes, this is a cute and accessible way to continue dating (and still stay isolated). However, for folks in long-term partnerships, the pandemic has introduced considerable circumstantial changes.

"I haven't seen any of my other partners for like four weeks now. We've been experimenting with remote dating," says Dee*, a Skokie resident.... Dating while isolating consists of calls, voice chats (using a program called Discord), movie nights through Netflix Party, and a few dates through Animal Crossing. Dee is currently living with her spouse, who is immunocompromised, and because Dee is seeing three other partners, she finds that strictly quarantining themselves has been the best decision. Dee and her partners practice kitchen-table polyamory, which is when all people know one another and are friends with one another. Metamours—a term that refers to your partner's partner—are all friends when practicing kitchen-table polyamory (the term is inspired by the idea that everyone in the polycule is seated together at a kitchen table). For Dee, this type of practice has been helpful while quarantined. "It's been nice having my whole polycule as a support network. We've all been able to look out for each other and those of us who are healthier/lower risk can shop for each other."

...A text conversation between two members of a poly couple shows just what kind of anxieties can occur.

Steven* and Sylvia* have been together for three years and are navigating the pandemic one day at a time. Steven has been with his nesting partner for ten years, and Sylvia, being a solo poly, has been dating a new partner for four months. "When the stay-at-home order came in, my nesting partner and I had a brief discussion that we would still see each other's partners as long as everyone was comfortable with it and ensure that we would limit as much as possible interactions outside of our 'pod' and be safe when doing so," says Steven.

Steven, his nesting partner, and their metamours are all able to work from home during isolation, but Sylvia is still working some reduced hours. At first, Steven says he had few concerns about seeing Sylvia because she was taking the proper precautions to protect herself. However, after Sylvia listened to a Dan Savage podcast that discussed the topic of dating during a pandemic, she became increasingly concerned. After hearing Savage's advice for folks not to see their partners if they don't live with them, Sylvia's views on things shifted. ... "The biggest difficulty I have been facing lately is that I am still required to work on-site at my office," she says. "Although we have less than ten people currently working in our office, and we are doing everything in our power to keep our workspace and our protocols as safe and clean as possible, I still feel that I act as the biggest threat to my partners' health as they both work from where they have been sheltering in place for nearly a month.

"After having many lengthy conversations and despite knowing the risk, both of my partners, in addition to my partner's live-in partner, have all been adamant that they would still like to see me," she says.

Having lost 75 percent of her income, her mental health has suffered. "My long-term partner has stepped up immensely and has been there for me when I have needed reassurance and emotional support; both he and his live-in partner have been like family to me through this experience...."

Rae McDaniel, a certified sex therapist and founder of Practical Audacity, says... "Alternative ways of connecting simply may not completely meet your needs. And that's OK." They say there should be an acknowledgment "that we are going through collective withdrawal and grief about not being able to be with everyone that we love.... Being forced to isolate from communities of friends and lovers alike can be extremely difficult when community is a main source of connection, meaning, and a feeling of belonging.

"...Socially distant walks can be a nice way to connect and get some fresh air at the same time. There's also the old-school love letter."...

● A followup to last week's piece about best practices for online sex parties, Eros in Isolation (by Mischa Byruck on Medium): Forbes now has a story on the growth of these all over, happening on various platforms in case Zoom and GetVokl get stuffy about hosting them: Even Sex Parties Have Moved Online As People Turn To Cybersex During Lockdown (April 16). For instance, Forbes mentions events on the poly-oriented dating site Feeld.


● Lastly: We finally have a date when the BBC's poly love series Trigonometry will become watchable in the US: May 27, when the new streaming service HBO Max becomes available to HBO subscribers (no additional charge).

A new review of Trigonometry just appeared in a binge-watch guide in The Guardian, UK edition: 'Trigonometry shows that polyamory is about love': Paapa Essiedu's lockdown TV (April 23)

Actor/director Paapa Essiedu,
"bingeing British"
 

...An excellent eight-part drama about a couple who both fall in love with their lodger; it is like any other love story, just with an added element that makes it a little bit more extraordinary. The writing is fantastic, it is beautifully shot in an otherworldly style, and the three central performances are wicked — there’s so much chemistry between the three of them. It draws you in as a viewer, and shows you the reality of polyamory in a non-judgmental, unsensational way.

Trigonometry's Ray, Kieran, and Gemma 

I recently directed a play on the same theme called Either and, as part of the research, I got the actors to watch Louis Theroux’s documentary Altered States: Love Without Limits, which makes [polyamory] sound like the most wild, hypersexual outskirts-of-society type existence. It is often seen as something really taboo and extreme; you don’t often see the idea of love being like a central pillar of that world or those relationships. I think that is what Trigonometry does that’s so brilliant: it teases out love as the thing that challenges and pushes and glues together these three characters along this journey.

[It illustrates] just how important and how brilliant British television can be.

That's Friday Polynews Roundup for now! See you next Friday, unless something big happens sooner.

Send me good stuff if you see it: alan7388 (at) gmail.com.

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Reviews are in for new polyam TV series 'Trigonometry'

Gary Carr, Thalissa Teixeira, and Ariane Labed play Trigonometry's Kieran, Gemma, and Ray.

 
Reviews are arriving for the BBC's new 8-part TV series "Trigonometry," which premiered last night in the UK. It's due to air in North America on HBO, start date not yet announced.

● The Telegraph, a Conservative paper, gives the show a four-out-of-five-star rating: Trigonometry review: less a controversial drama about polyamory than a lovely study of relationships (March 16, 2020. Paywalled.)

By Anita Singh

To begin with, you think you know what Trigonometry (BBC Two) is going to be. There’s what we might term a solo sex scene in the first 10 minutes, with Gemma (Thalissa Teixeira) watching porn while waiting for boyfriend Kieran (Gary Carr) to get home. ...

But what we got was something unexpected: a quite lovely study of relationships and all the messiness that real life entails, disarming in its moments of sweetness. There was one lyrical scene, in which the camera tracked Gemma and Kieran as they walked through the flat, that played out like a piece of modern dance.

I don’t mean to make it sound pretentious. The drama is very much grounded in reality, albeit a hipster kind of reality where Gemma and Kieran hang out with drag queens and live in a flat with 1970s styling. She has opened a café, he is a paramedic. Gemma is the impulsive one who jokingly refers to their relationship as a “six-year hetero-blip”, Kieran is more laid-back and conventional. I’m not sure they’d make it this far outside the confines of a fictional drama. They needed to rent out the spare room to help pay the mortgage and so into their lives came Ray (Ariana Labed), a former Olympian synchronised swimmer whose career was wrecked by an accident. Soon all three were making eyes at each other.

It would have been easy to take a subject like this and go down the salacious route, but by the end of the second episode the trio hadn’t even kissed. Instead, we’re given time to get acquainted with the characters. The three leads gave natural performances that at times felt semi-improvised – Labed in particular draws you in – and the chemistry between them crackles. It feels like a show you can slowly fall in love with.

● The liberal Guardian had an interview with the actress who plays Ray: 'It's not just "We’ll watch them having sex"': Trigonometry's Ariane Labed on the polyamory drama (March 15)

By Ammar Kalia

Sunday nights on the BBC are usually the time for easy viewing.... This weekend, though, there is an altogether different type of entertainment on offer. Trigonometry is the sex-laden tale of a thrupple which develops when Ray, a Frenchwoman who is a newcomer to London, moves into the cramped flat of cash-strapped couple Gemma and Kieran.

The series begins with a Black Swan-style synchronised swimming contest gone wrong, an interrupted bout of masturbation and an argument. And that’s all in the first five minutes. This is bracing TV to make you sit up on your sofa.

“The show isn’t us just going, ‘Here’s a thrupple and we’ll watch them having sex together’,” says Trigonometry’s star Ariane Labed, who plays the French interloper in her first TV role. “There’s no judgment here – we want the audience to just be accepting of their love and not questioning morality because it’s clearly love first.”

No fit for the bureaucracy: a scene from episode 7

 
...Filming eight episodes of Trigonometry over four months, Labed had to adjust to the snappy pace of television. “It was so fast I remember thinking: ‘I don’t have time to learn my lines, since they’re all in English,’” she laughs. “...We had to adapt – that’s why the camera is always moving, so [filmmaker Athina] could shoot up close and give a sense of our growing closeness, as well as film multiple takes together.” One of the most striking examples of this is used in a bathroom scene where the three lovers are trying to wash glitter off themselves after a night out; the camera continually cuts to their longing gazes for each other’s bodies, honing in on the tense intimacy that develops in this least romantic of locations.

“We don’t see enough portrayals of authentic female desire on screen,” Labed says. “What I love about Trigonometry is that sexuality and sex is seen as light, cheerful and clumsy. It’s not like suddenly the light changes and now it’s a sex scene and everything starts to be weird and serious.”

...“We all had a great connection on Trignometry,” Labed says. “It was easy to be generous with each other as Athina has this wonderful approach to the sex scenes where she doesn’t make a big deal out of it, but it’s always very choreographed. Everybody involved is respectful and everybody cares; when it’s like that, it’s very easy. We didn’t need an intimacy coordinator, because of that....”

● The reviewer at RadioTimes (which has paid attention to this series since it was announced) was disappointed, perhaps because of his being glaringly couple-centric: BBC Two’s polyamory drama doesn’t measure up (March 15)

By David Craig

BBC Two’s Trigonometry lives up to its name in the sense that it can be confusing and sometimes a bit dull. The series explores the friendship between three thirty-somethings as it gradually evolves into a polyamorous romance. Emphasis on gradually.

This eight-part series is a very slow burn and from a certain perspective you can understand why. After all, it would be easy to jump straight in and tell this story with all the subtlety of a tabloid exposé. Admirably, Trigonometry goes in the opposite direction.

The show spends a lot of time setting up its three central characters and putting them on their plodding collision course. There’s a palpable sense that the filmmakers want this relationship to feel truly authentic, like something that could happen to anyone in the right circumstances. But it doesn’t.

Gemma and Kieran

...The issue with this arrangement is twofold. First, while Ray is a kind and thoughtful person, it’s hard to imagine why a couple would completely upheave their life for her. For one thing she’s unbearably naive, frequently displaying an almost childlike innocence that you would think might get tedious.

Second, the crucial element of this arrangement is that Kieran, Gemma and Ray all love each other completely equally. Except it doesn’t really feel that way. From the outset, Gemma shows significantly more interest in Ray than Kieran does. It seems to contradict the idea that the addition of a third party doesn’t detract from their long-standing connection. ... The script goes round in circles trying to explain this issue away, but only succeeds in deteriorating Gemma and Kieran’s individuality. ...

It isn’t much more entertaining than scrolling through Instagram posts from your coupled-up friends. Sure, you’re happy for them but you don’t need to know every tiny detail.

My diagnosis of that problem, and also of the slowness of Season 1 in the US polyamory series "You Me Her": Each show thinks the audience needs way too much explaining of how such a relationship could possibly even come to exist, dragging on for way too many episodes. Get over it, TV producers! If you're going to do a polyfamily series, dive right in and present the family as a given from day one. People get that now.

And if you guys don't grasp how successful nesting polycules naturally work — with their joys and dramas and failings and their endless talky processing (a gold mine for humor if there ever was one; think "Big Bang Theory") — then get the eff out of the way and hire writers who do.

What could make a mass-market smash of a polyfamily dramedy?

Picture a big old Victorian house in a fairly hip city, full of clutter and cats and six adults embroiled in an ever-morphing constellation of mutual relationships, with lots of kitchen-table angst and hilarity and oversharing among metamours. Add a couple of super-precocious kids and a baby, weirded-out (or over-eager) friends and neighbors, older relatives visiting from Peoria in various states of cluelessness that requires impromptu closeting (and here come the kid-blurts) — make them quirky and mostly-lovable, and hey, you'd have the makings of "Big Bang Theory"-level success.

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Friday Polynews Roundup — Polyamory in the time of coronavirus, 'Trigonometry' and 'Open' begin on TV, research on ethics in the poly community, and more

It's Friday Polynews Roundup again — for March 13, 2020.

Updated March 15.

● Polyamory in the time of coronavirus. What a difference in a week. And next week is likely to change even more than this one, and then the week after, and that's still only March. Think exponential for maybe a couple more months, according to what seem to be the most honest, reality-grounded current estimates, and a return to normalcy maybe in summer or fall.

For now, two things of particular concern to the poly community:

1) How close do we draw our circles of social distancing?

2) What happens to the schedule of polyamory conferences — which often run on the personal financial shoestrings of their organizers, who may have already put down big hotel deposits?

As for the first, Moose and I are not distancing ourselves much from each other or the couple we are close with, though of course we're all really serious about the frequent handwashing thing, stopping saliva and sneeze-droplet contact, etc. In the coming times of stress, people will need closeness with those closest to them. But think in terms of a very few people, not crowds. Prepare to live a lot of your life on video Skype (replacing voice calls) and Zoom (replacing in-person meetings). The video makes a lot of difference.

Beyond that? It is crucial to start radical public infection control right now, not in a day or two, in order to flatten the curve of what comes later. Think exponential. I'm on the governing board of our local Unitarian Universalist church. Early in the week we set up to livestream services from the church, put out only single-packaged snacks at coffee hour, etc. etc. On Thursday the church scrapped that approach. No physical gatherings, period. Our minister points out that there are also measurable health costs to social isolation, especially isolation from places of community in time of trouble, so every effort will be made for our UU community to hold each other online. Did I say flatten the curve? BTW, it's a hashtag: #flattenthecurve. Because, exponential. Update Sunday afternoon: Our first Zoom-conference service and sharing of community was surprisingly powerful and effective, with 100+ at once by video and/or audio. Wow.

As for the upcoming poly conferences? Such as Southwest Love Fest, SoloPoly Con, Relate Con Boise, and Rocky Mountain Poly Living in April, and Polytopia, New Culture Spring Camp, PolyamQ, and OpenCon Catalonia in May?

As of this afternoon (March 13), SoloPoly Con will Zoom-conference its proceedings from a Manhattan workspace for those who want to stay away.  Southwest Love Fest in Tucson, RelateCon Boise, and Polytopia in Portland have postponed indefinitely. Loving More has succeeded in postponing Rocky Mountain Poly Living in Denver to September 11-13 (tentative dates, depending on the situation then) without sacrificing any of its hotel deposit. I will post all updates ASAP on Alan's List of Polyamory Events.

Some good news for organizers: Hotels and other public venues are in even worse straits than the conferences they host, so remember, you're in a good negotiating position! The press is saying the hotel industry is "in free fall."

Other conferences farther out seem to be, for the moment, in a state of wait and see. There is talk on the Polyamory Leadership Network of what the community might do to help with organizers' possible major losses, in order to keep our conferences solvent for the future.

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

Meanwhile, let's get on to this week's polyamory in the news.

● "Trigonometry," BBC's new series about a triad living and loving as three, premieres its first two episodes this Sunday, March 15, on BBC2.

BBC

All episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer after the first one airs. You probably can't watch unless you're in the UK or spoof a UK address with your VPN. No word yet on when Trigonometry will air in North America on HBO, as is promised.

Watch the one-minute trailer.

From WhatsOnTV in the UK: Trigonometry on BBC2 – Start date, cast, plot and everything you need to know (March 9)

...The series follows cash-strapped couple Gemma (Thalissa Teixeira) and Kieran (Gary Carr), after they decide to open their small [London] apartment up to a third resident.

Surprisingly, new resident Ray (Ariane Labed) seems to make things easier for the couple.

She makes the apartment feel bigger, not smaller, and the extra pair of hands makes life easier.

But they soon enter a polyamorous relationship and each resident finds themselves learning to navigate love and relationships in an entirely new way.

BBC

According to the BBC, the drama is “funny and full of sexual tension”.

They add, “ 'Trigonometry' has emotional and psychological truthfulness at its heart. This is a world of consequences, in which the characters have everything to lose.

“As this unusual relationship becomes unavoidable, the trio approach it with the prudence of people in their 30s, and overthink it in a way only this generation can.

“But even when common sense, friends and family is telling them that this relationship is doomed, they simply cannot be apart.”

...The eight-part drama series was created by “The Crown” writer Duncan Macmillan and former “Emmerdale” actress Effie Woods.

Speaking about the project, they said, “We’re thrilled to be working with House Productions and the BBC to bring this unconventional and very adult romcom to life.

“ 'Trigonometry' is about negotiating new relationships with compassion and humour. Set in a city that can feel cold and unfriendly, at a time when we’re more divided than ever, this is a show about love.”

● A report on BET's new movie "Open," which premieres tomorrow, Saturday March 14, at 8pm ET, appeared in Atlanta's major newspaper the Journal-Constitution: Atlanta is the backdrop for BET’s new film, ‘Open’ (March 11).

Keith Robinson as Cam and Essence
Atkins as Wren in “Open.”

Billed as “a romantic drama that showcases the alternative perspective of open relationships,” “Open” stars Essence Atkins, recently of the Atlanta-based drama “Ambitions” on OWN, and Keith Robinson, who plays Miles in “Saints & Sinners” on Atlanta-based Bounce TV. Set in Atlanta, whose high female to male ratio among African Americans has been well-documented and discussed, Atkins’s character, Wren, a successful entrepreneur who owns her own bakery business, takes a preemptive strike against the heartbreak of infidelity, which, as a child of divorce, she sees as inevitable. So, in hopes of guarding herself emotionally, she asks her architect husband, Cam, played by Robinson, for an open marriage. The arrangement truly gets complicated, however, when Wren breaks one of the main rules....

Seated with Robinson in a secluded location inside the W Hotel Midtown days before the film’s BET premiere, Atkins, a divorced mother of one, explained that the story itself resonated with her. “I just really identified with the rationale of Wren and why she would propose such a thing and why she would think that this is the way to go to somehow keep her marriage from falling apart, opening it up to allow them to be with other people,” she said. “I just had a real appreciation for her journey. I also thought that it was important to talk about this because this is something that does occur, and I think, if you haven’t done it, which I believe that most people probably haven’t, you’ve at least considered what the benefits might be.”

...The married Robinson shared that “getting over my judgment about the character and situation of open marriage” was a challenge at first, especially given his deep Southern, religious and family background. “I’m a church Bible Belt kind of guy who comes from a two-parent home,” explained the Augusta grad of Lakeside High School and one-time UGA student.... Cam and Wren’s open marriage “is just an honest effort of trying to make something last beyond the normal parameters, so to speak.”

Atkins: “In talking about this kind of taboo subject, I wanted to discuss it in a way that wasn’t sensationalist, but that was actually real and grounded and [explore] what it might look like, and what the pitfalls might be and what the seeming benefits would be.” ...

● More press for author Susan Wenzel and her new book A Happy Life in an Open Relationship: The Essential Guide to a Healthy and Fulfilling Nonmonogamous Love Life: Why this sex therapist says you should be in an open marriage (New York Post and elsewhere, March 9):

Cheryl, Susan Wenzel, and Denys. (Roger LeMoyne)

Susan Wenzel had just stuffed a pile of dirty laundry into the washer when she discovered it wouldn’t start. Wenzel knew her husband, Denys, couldn’t fix it, but she had someone else in mind: Her lover, Richard.

“I told him what happened and he gladly offered to come over and help,” Wenzel tells The Post. ... “After he fixed it, we all sat on the patio and drank cold beers and ate chicken salad together,” Wenzel, 40, recalls. “I loved the feeling of knowing that they both cared about me and I cared about them as well.”

...Throughout the how-to guide, the sexually liberated mother of two uses her personal experiences (names of her partners have been changed), interactions with clients, and therapeutic exercises to help those who are curious about trying out the relationship style.

In fact, Wenzel believes millions of people would improve and strengthen their marriages and relationships if they weren’t so obsessed with being with only one partner. ...

...Wenzel wasn’t always into extramarital hookups. The pair had dated for one year and were living together in Winnipeg when Denys, who’s a nonprofit executive director, first admitted that he wanted to have sex with other women. The revelation left her in “complete shock.”

“I felt like I was going to have a panic attack,” she recalls. “I felt dizzy and wondered, ‘Am I dreaming?’ ”

Heartbroken and defeated, Wenzel swiftly kicked Denys out. ...

● The Greatist ran a long, basic Poly 101 by a writer who seems new to the subject and spends too much time, IMO, dwelling on what poly is not. It gets better when it turns to submissions by actual poly people, who were apparently asked to supply free content in bulk. Polyamory: Setting the Record Straight on Ethical Non-Monogamy (March 10).


● Interesting research report, written up on PsyPost: Study sheds light on the roots of moral stigma against consensual non-monogamy (March 6):

People in consensually non-monogamous relationships tend be more willing to take risks, have less aversion to germs, and exhibit a greater interest in short-term mating compared to those in monogamous relationships, according to new research published in Frontiers in Psychology. The findings may help explain why consensual non-monogamy is often the target of moral condemnation.

“Consensual non-monogamy (CNM) is an increasingly popular romantic relationship practice in societies historically predominated by monogamy. CNM refers to any romantic relationship where people form consensually non-exclusive romantic or sexual partnerships,” said lead researcher Justin K. Mogilski of the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie.

“Research documents that those who pursue CNM are the target of significantly greater moral condemnation than those in monogamous relationships. However, people’s perceptions of CNM tend to be discordant with its actual practices and outcomes. For example, CNM individuals are presumed to have worse sexual health than monogamous individuals yet report similar or better sexual health practices compared to those in monogamous relationships.”

“They also report unique benefits from forming multiple intimate relationships such as diversified need fulfillment, more frequent social opportunities, and more fluid sexual expression. And these benefits are associated with relatively greater relationship satisfaction, particularly when an individual’s personality is matched to their relationship structure (e.g., when someone with greater interest in casual sex pursues CNM),” Mogilski told PsyPost.

“We became interested in this topic to address why these negative beliefs about CNM exist despite evidence to the contrary. In our study, my colleagues and I tested a novel explanation for why moral stigma against CNM exists: individuals who habitually form multiple romantic or sexual partnerships may be predisposed to engage in riskier, more competitive behaviors that strain social cooperation.”

...The researchers surveyed 783 individuals who were currently in a romantic relationship of some type. Most of the participants were in a monogamous relationship, but 149 were in a multi-partner relationship and 96 were in an open relationship. ...

...We propose a model explaining how modern CNM communities regulate negative outcomes within multi-partner relationships. Most modern CNM communities have well-developed guidelines for pursuing non-exclusive relationships safely and ethically. These guidelines, including effective birth control, open communication and honesty, and consent-seeking, may help manage and diminish the risks common to competitive, promiscuous mating environments.”

“In other words – CNM’s culture of compassionate sexual ethics may help risk-prone people pursue multi-partner mating in a manner that doesn’t endanger other people’s physical or mental health,” Mogilski said.

The researchers emphasized that the findings should not be mistaken as a justification of the condemnation of consensual non-monogamy. In fact, they hope the research will help to reduce the moral stigma surrounding the topic. ...

“Our data highlight how those with a proclivity toward CNM may possess personality traits that predispose them to take risks, pursue multi-partner mating, and disregard pathogens. CNM practices may therefore not foster these traits, but rather provide an environment where people can ethically express them,” Mogilski said.

“If this is true, CNM may improve, rather than threaten, cooperation and well-being within certain communities – a feature that should be valued by those who fear how public acceptance of CNM might affect social order or the stability of romantic relationships.” ...

The study, >Life History and Multi-Partner Mating: A Novel Explanation for Moral Stigma Against Consensual Non-monogamy, was authored by Justin K. Mogilski, Virginia E. Mitchell, Simon D. Reeve, Sarah H. Donaldson, Sylis C. A. Nicolas and Lisa L. M. Welling.

● Elsewhere in academia, the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships has published a special issue titled Polyamory and other Relational Constellations, edited by Ruby Bouie Johnson (vol. 6 no. 2, dated Fall 2019). The abstracts are free; the rest of each paper is paywalled.


● Dating guide. I've posted about surveys of poly dating apps three times in the last year: 1, 2, 3. This new overview, on a site called Daterboy (for women too), widens the category to include ways to look for poly dates or hookups on more mainstream sites and in real life. The "ultimate guide" title is ridiculous, but headline writers are paid to insert SEO words. How To Find Polyamorous Partners: The Ultimate Guide (March 9).


● An interesting little poly reference by the Washington Post's advice columnist Carolyn Hax, syndicated nationwide. What's interesting is that she just tosses it out assuming readers will get it. She's fielding a letter from a guy who is mystified why his older brother won't let him visit their house anymore — supposedly it's not "presentable" — though other relatives can visit: A sibling withdraws, rolling up the welcome mat for family (March 5)

...There was no fight, no falling-out to precipitate this that I'm aware of.... We get along fine, for the most part — except we're just not allowed to come to their house.

...Our house is always open to them, of course, and they visit a couple of times a year. ... It's time for me to get past this, but how? I'm really hurt and struggling with it.

— Hurt

Hurt: ...You’re so sure the exclusion is about you! Isn’t it more likely that, given the facts you’ve presented here, the exclusion is about them?

As in, maybe they’re. . . hoarders? Or they’re poly and don’t want you to know that, and the third partner lives with them. Or they have something in their house they don’t want you to see — say, an heirloom they aren’t supposed to have....

That's Friday Polynews Roundup for now. See you next Friday, unless something big happens sooner.

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