NY Times: "Better Living Through Music, Art and Polyamory"

That's the attention-getting headline the Times uses for an art review it posted this morning. The article's beginning and ending:

By Martha Schwendener

Starting with its mouthful of a title, “Cosmic Communities: Coming Out Into Outer Space — Homofuturism, Applied Psychedelia & Magic Connectivity” at Galerie Buchholz is baldly ambitious. Organized at this Upper East Side space by the German critic Diedrich Diederichsen and Buchholz’s Christopher Müller, the exhibition offers a crash course in over a century of utopian communities that used art, sex and music as models for better living.

Isaac Abrams painted the swirling motifs of “Après Hello Dalí” (1965), featured at Galerie Buchholz. The artist operated Coda, a 1960s gallery in Manhattan devoted to psychedelic art. (Galerie Buchholz)

Their two historical touchstones are the Symbolist poet Stefan George (1868-1933) and Ugrino, a community based on free love, founded in northern Germany in 1920 by the organ builder and writer Hans Henny Jahnn (1894-1959).

George was an early German nationalist at the center of the George Circle, a group of artists, writers and thinkers who modeled themselves after Greek organizations in which younger men were intellectually and sexually initiated into the group by older members. Ugrino, centered around Jahnn and the musician Gustav Harms, was a polyamorous commune in which its members reportedly all had sex with one another. ...

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...The curators attempt to draw links among all these artists, from those who broke with what the curators call the “bourgeois sexual order” to those who later produced (sometimes drug induced) psychedelia. But the questions the exhibition leaves in its wake are significant. What of Stefan George’s conservative ideas about “purifying” German language and culture, which later found full bloom in National Socialism? Are some of the ideas here actually conflicting, rather than living under the same cosmic umbrella? How do sonic frequencies, like psychedelic visual patterns, affect our psyches and serve as road maps for better living beyond the micro-communities of artists? “Cosmic Communities” rests upon a valuable trove of ideas and includes many interesting artifacts, but it feels like a sketch for an exhibition more than a fully realized one.

Read the whole article (December 28, 2017).

Funny, by these standards I guess I'm a total hippie, despite outward appearances. Psychedelics, peace and polyamory fit together for me about as naturally as protons, neutrons and electrons when it comes to grasping the cosmos — or rather the cosmos as I hope it might be on some super-deep level, in my dippier moments. I still struggle with this, with no conclusion that I can honestly consider to be likely true. Guess I'm also the total scientist (as some accuse me of being; looking at you, New Culture Summer Camp).

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Colorado photographer displays her polyfamily self-portraits

WestWord

Elsewhere in graphic arts exhibits, this time in Denver...

A day in the life of an alternative relationship in Let's Get It Straight, at Ice Cube Gallery

By Tiffany Fitzgerald

Julie Puma had a month to put together her new show, Let's Get it Straight, and she diverted from painting, her usual medium, into snapshot aesthetic photography. The biggest challenge for Puma wasn't the medium, however. Rather, it was spotlighting her own personal life.

Let's Get it Straight offers a look into the ordinary lives of people in three unorthodox relationships — two homosexual partners, one transgender woman's marriage, and Puma's own polyamorous relationship. She... notes that she struggled with the idea that her relationship would be on display.

"I used to be really scared about people finding out about my relationship," she says. "But, if we're going to take a stand about marriage, then it's about the right for everyone to have a family the way they want to have a family. I went back and forth on whether to call the piece about me "Julie, Charlie, and John," or "Untitled." I chickened out at the last minute. That was kind of wussy."

..."I think we need to redefine what it means to be married," she says. "I see more and more couples, or families, who either split-up or cheat and lie. But for some reason, when people are honest about their relationships and still have wonderful family values, all the things Americans want out of a family, the general public has a hard time moving away from how we originally define marriage."

For more information, visit Puma's web page, or Ice Cube's web page. The show runs through April 21.

Read the whole article (April 12, 2012).

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R. Crumb and Aline on their open marriage

New York Times

R. Crumb practically invented underground comix in the 1960s. Now he and his wife Aline (a real-life R. Crumb hippie chick) are living in France. They've always been as frank about their open marriage as everything else, as I've noted here before.

Yesterday a grand art museum in Paris opened a major exhibit on Crumb's life work. Bemused, he and Aline spoke at the museum's dinner and press conference, covered in today's New York Times. From the article:

...The Crumbs have always been open about their open marriage, in which they have allowed each other to pursue other intimate relationships. Asked how it has worked out, he replied, “It’s the only reason we’ve stayed together all these years.”

Ms. Crumb said: “It’s a mess, though! It’s just too time-consuming. One husband is a lot of work. And having another one is even more work.”

Mr. Crumb observed, “And also you have children and all that, oh boy.”

Ms. Crumb said: “You have grandchildren and chicken pox, and you’re off with that other person, and you feel guilty. It might or might not be worth it.”

Read the whole article (April 13, 2012; print edition April 14).

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"Suddenly, It Was Everywhere"

The polyamory-awareness movement, such as it is (in the U.S. this means mainly Loving More, the Polyamory Leadership Network [PLN], and a whole raft of independent people and groups) has in the last few years settled pretty firmly on a name for its core purpose: "Relationship Choice."

This is shorthand for telling the world that you can create your own relationship structures, based on how well they work for all concerned. In particular, it's about spreading the revelation that loving, ethical multi-relationships exist, do work, and can be a genuine choice for three or more good-hearted people of integrity. For some, anyway, if they know what they're doing, and if they take care to be good at it. As in communicating, communicating, communicating.

The other side of "relationship choice" is knowing that you can choose monogamy without apology, and declare it a requirement for any partner you seek, as a conscious decision about your own needs and nature. But it should not be an unthinking default that you assume everyone has to do because it's the only thing that works. Nor should you unwarily assume that a partner of yours will also automatically think and feel the same way.

Accordingly, a vision that we discussed at the last PLN summit was bringing about the day when everyone grows up knowing that having open or closed relationships is a choice that you deliberately think about and make, rather than monogamy being the assumed necessity. In this vision, whenever two people start getting serious about each other they'll have the mono-or-poly discussion right alongside the other discussions that are crucial to serious relationships in this day and age, such as whether you want children or expect a partner to share your religion.

Those questions too used to go undiscussed because "yes" was the only right answer.

The poly movement a generation ago tended to be wilder and more utopian. Our founders often saw polyamory as a revelation about the next stage of all human evolution. Thirty years of practical experience (and ruthless snarking) have brought such attitudes more down to earth. Although, I have a hunch that a poly-normative 22nd century will look back on our early radical visionaries more kindly than we sometimes do now.

So, who could object to the ideal of relationship choice? Or the need to discuss your poly or mono proclivities with a new person right off the bat?

Well, life gets complicated. Nowadays there are enough poly-normative communities that the inevitable downsides of a new social norm are starting to be visible.

For instance, a while back I noted a complaint published at York University in Toronto:

Once I was part of a discussion with a pair of female friends bemoaning the increasing number of polyamorous women these days who were "ruining it" for women looking to settle down with one man....

Arguably... the acceptance of polyamory in certain social circles is creating an environment that is increasingly inhospitable for those bent on cultivating a monogamous relationship. This is because there is greater social pressure to accept polyamory.... A thorough critical analysis of polyamory would include an examination of the broader social issues at play if and when such relationships become more mainstream.

Portland, Oregon, is such a place already, at least if you're young. At Reed College in Portland, Lucy Bellwood is a comix artist-in-training who, when she fell hard for a guy, ran right up against the local poly-vs-mono dating culture.

Her beau, like the PLN's model of the good poly person of the future, informed her right away of his relationship beliefs and preferences.

She has just posted an auto-
biographical comic of what came next as she encountered this world. Click for the whole thing full-size (Sept. 13, 2011).

She's good. This is clearly just the start of an unfolding story. I hope she keeps going. Leave a comment on her blog.

(A week later she posted this followup sketch.)

Elsewhere, a monogamist in another very poly setting describes how she navigates:

Alternative Alternative Relationship Models

By Bianca James

Recently I went and saw a workshop presented by Dossie Easton, co-author of The Ethical Slut....Polyamory is wildly popular in the queer and kink communities, to the point that people who prefer monogamy get sometimes funny looks.

I dabbled in polyamory in my youth (when I actually had the time and energy for multiple relationships) and while I respect it as a valid lifestyle for others, it's not a relationship model that works for me at this point....

So what do you do when you're not really up for polyamory but are too unconventional for traditional committed monogamy? You come up with alternatives to alternative relationship models.

Unrequited Polyamory: Although I cannot handle IRL polyamory, I am a champion at unrequited polyamory. This is when you are secretly "in love with" (read: doomed crush) multiple unavailable people.... The difference between unrequited polyamory vs. normal unrequited love is the sincere belief that all twelve of these people could be the love of your life, simultaneously, if they'd just give you a chance.

Casual Monogamy: One of the best parts of being in an ongoing relationship is (hopefully) you are having lots of fantastic sex with someone who gets to know your sexual ins and outs (teehee) well enough to get you off every time. But you know what the best part of monogamy really is? LOTS AND LOTS OF BAREBACKING (assuming you're both STI-free).... Sometimes you can't handle being in a real relationship, but you miss that unlimited sexual freedom to fuck without a condom/ dental dam/ whatever. And that's where casual monogamy comes in.

When I first moved to Chicago, I spent six months in a non-committed relationship with a much older divorced man I nicknamed my "casual husband."...

Platonic Boyfriend/ Girlfriend/ Genderqueerfriend: This is sort of the inverse of casual monogamy. You are clearly in an ongoing, emotional involved relationship with a person, and you do stuff like cook dinner and go to IKEA together, but sex is off the table....

Read the whole article at the Huffington Post (Sept. 19, 2011).

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Germany: Giant nude puppy pile on newsmagazine cover, re the West's poly future

This site is way past due for a roundup of poly in the German media, as a cover story in Germany's third-largest weekly newsmagazine makes clear.

Focus magazine devoted its May 22nd cover story to the future of sex and relationships in the Western world, and polyamory is the theme from which the entire article flows. For nine pages. However, I think there's less here than meets the eye.

What meets the eye on the cover is the most beautiful all-nude puppy pile I've ever seen. The article itself begins with a wider shot. Note the toddler and mom at left. No, this is not an actual poly pod; the caption says it's a performance-art exhibit in a museum's Rubens Hall.

The cover headline is, "How Shall I Love — and If I Shall, How Many? Why emotions, sex, and our relationships are going to change." (Warning, I don't read German, I puzzle at it with Google Language Tools and Babel Fish. If I've screwed up anywhere tell me.)

Focus is supposed to be what passes for a conservative magazine over there, at least on economic issues. It claims to have a high-end, information-savvy audience.

Excerpts:

How shall I love — and if I shall, how many?

By Focus editor Carin Pawlak and reporter Andreas Wenderoth

Several partners at the same time. Potency into old age. The end of romance, but of egoism too. And men could be the losers of tomorrow. Futurists and scientists describe how emotions, sex and relationships are going to change.

Silvio Wirth and Mara Fricke love three-dimensionally. They love polyamorously — in which you have multiple partners, for head, heart and body. In 2030 Wirth, a psychologist, will be 60 and Fricke, an art therapist, will be 56. And maybe they will smile a bit about the fact that they had already anticipated the future in 2010.

They live as a family with their daughter in Belzig, Brandenburg. In addition to practicing tantra they are teaching that partnerships can be boundless. They have several secondary affairs, open and "with the consent or approval of all parties." They are both happy with this agreement. "Even if there are painful moments in which we grow, we want to."

Can we imagine a future of multi-dimensional love? And so, also, a future of other emotions in 3-D, as it were? For philosopher and writer Sven Hillenkamp, the lifestyle of Silvio Wirth and Mara Fricke is a realistic possibility in the world of 2030. "Networks of people living polyamorously are renewing the idea of open relationship," he says. "These people believe that they can do both long-term: be in a partnership and have unlimited possibilities."

...These developments, however, only make visible by exaggeration — like works of art — how society as a whole is changing....

And from there the article ranges off into dark and sophisticated ruminations on the end of romantic love, Brave New World dystopias, the aging and shrinking of the German population, the disintegration of the family, a future of singles living alone with polyamorous love for their many electronic gadgets; trial marriages and drug-enhanced sexed-up old people "who will drink wine not from South Africa but from Schleswig-Holstein, where, thanks to climate change, flowering vineyards will cover the landscape," as they slip away from reality into big-screen virtual-reality 3-D.

And on it goes — seeming to me like a big, disappointing exercise in literary thumbsucking — we're such big thinkers, we're jaded and funny and depressed and that makes us important. But it's all in German so what do I know. Comments, please?

Read the whole thing. Or, since the magazine is multinational, try reading it in Portuguese! (flip the pages with your mouse).

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Coming back down to reality, here is a more focused introductory article in the Austrian newspaper Oberösterreichische Nachrichten:

Happiness is more love

In times of globalization, enhanced communication is changing our lives — and love. Unusual forms of relationship are increasingly being tried. This is about polyamory, the ability to love several people at the same time.

In German cities the theme of polyamorous love is more and more in vogue.

"More and more people believe that serial monogamy may not be the optimal way to happiness," says Wolf Schneider, editor of a magazine with a focus on esoteric Tantra. "These people do not have to hide their affairs. When you fall in love, you do not have to dispose of a person as an Ex. You are looking for loyalty and adventure at the same time — deep, lasting love and commitment, without having to build a prison for each other."

..."Polyamory is a major challenge to the individual," says Schneider.... Jealousy is the biggest hurdle, according to polyamorous lovers in real life. Ideally, the principal partner of a jealous person should treat them carefully, acceptingly, and concomitantly, similar to how one deals with the grief of a friend who has lost a loved one, or the fear of a child afraid to learn to swim. Such an attitude and willingness to meet with intense feelings is itself often a learning process. Therefore, lack of jealousy is seen as less important than willingness to face it....

Read the whole article (Aug. 8, 2009).

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In one of Germany's major daily newspapers:

What is Polyamory? "Currently the situation is complex"

Philip Schiebler, 24, and his girlfriend Inci, 23, have a polyamorous relationship. Actually, only Philip has several girlfriends. Inci is "monoamorous" because she so far hasn't fallen in love with another man. Sounds complicated? It is; nevertheless it works....

See the original in Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich (Jan. 12, 2010). To read past the first paragraph you have to pay 2 euros.

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The spiritual/ New Age German magazine Connection devoted an entire issue to polyamory (issue number 85). The cover shows a lady holding three flowers for three guys with the headline:

I love you all!

The trend toward polyamory. And the eternal question is: solo, mono or poly — which makes for the happiest?

You can read some of the issue online or buy it for 9 euros.

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An interview with Silvio Wirth appeared in the trashy, huge-circulation tabloid Bild, August 25, 2009 (full of NSFW soft-core porn ads). Wirth guesses in the interview that there are 10,000 polys in Germany. With the article is a lively video of the newspaper collecting person-on-the-street reactions to the topic.

This is a huge improvement over the last time we heard from Bild, when it reacted (or pretended to) with shocked moralistic horror.

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Here is a lovely German TV show portraying Juliette Siegfried and her happy triad family with a toddler.

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News.de published an interview with writer and lawyer Regula Heinzelmann, who "explains how multiple simultaneous relationships are feasible, and one's responsibility to partners, and logistical problems":

Fifteen years ago you published a book about polygamy [Die neuen Paare: Anleitung zur Polygamie / The New Couples: Instructions for Polygamy]. Have things changed since then?

Heinzelmann: Not really. I practice and I support this way of life today. At that time I called it polygamy, but now there is the word polyamory. I find it better. At that time the youth were extremely against it. The reason was that their parents, in part due to infidelity, divorced often, which unfortunately also happens today. Young people saw avoiding other relationships as better. Women also were critical. Men less so, because polyamorous relationships are much more difficult for men than for women....

Read the whole article (March 11, 2009). It also includes a video clip of editorial commentary.

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Here's an article in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality: Friend hoppers, pleasure activism, the Schlampagne and the Octopus: Non-monogamous activism in the German lesbian-feminist subculture.

From the abstract: "Based on interviews with six activists, this article sketches four different approaches to activism around non-monogamous relationship concepts in the German lesbian-feminist subculture in the past thirty years." (Aug. 2, 2009).

"Schlampagne?" Well, a group of people made a documentary film. From the film's website (scroll down there for English):

In 2007 the first ”Ferien in Schlampenau”, which roughly translates to “Vacations in Slut Meadow”, took place in Germany, becoming since then an annual feminist summer camp for women who challenge the concept of monogamy as the sole accepted relationship model. (Watch ad.)

...In this DIY, no-budget film, voice is given to four participants in Schlampenau and they speak about polyamory, the camp itself, feminism, queer identities and their dreams for the future.

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And I'm sure that's just a sample.

Here are some German resources:

Important German poly site: www.polyamorie.de, which includes a list of further German media coverage and an extensive book list in German and other languages.

"Polyamory on the Internet" page on the website of the German magazine Connection; loads of German links.

Vienna Poly People site, with German links.

www.polyamory.ch

www.polyamore.de

OBHD (Offene Beziehung Heidelberg), with list of links.

Can't skip ZEGG (Zentrum für Experimentelle Gesellschaftsgestaltung), though it's not explicitly poly.

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Poly jewelry, clothing, and personal displays

Messages that you wear or otherwise show off count as "media," right? I sometimes sport a nice little infinity-heart pin (at right) and keep a bunch of them to give to friends. My friend Ken Haslam printed a bumper sticker for his car: Try Polyamory, Release Your Inner Bonobo. You can get hats, buttons, T-shirts, thongs, neckties, coffee mugs, tote bags, throw pillows and other swag with poly mottos that range from the discreet ( I♥>1, or the Modern Poly emoticon infinity heart, <83) to the flagrant ("Bisexual, kinky, polyamorous, horny. And I'm still not sleeping with you").

And ever more nice jewelry.

• That favorite infinity heart pin of mine is from speculative-fiction writer Vincent M. Wales, best known for his novel One Nation Under God and founder long ago of the Polyamory Awareness and Acceptance Ribbon Campaign. The pin, the size of a quarter, is colorful, high quality, and for $5 including shipping how can you go wrong? Update: Additional poly pins now available in other designs; same price.

• Abzu Designs has a line of poly-themed jewelry in silver, gold, and less expensive metals.

• Tasteful, often understated jewelry from PolyCharms. "Mission: The purpose of PolyCharms is to give the polyamory and non-monogamy community a venue for expressing their individual style through symbolism, wrought in metal and stone."

• Poly dogtags.

• Greeting cards for poly occasions, from Zazzle and CafePress. Happy, sad, raunchy, Hallmark-y, or treacly.

• Loads of other poly stuff is available from Poly Tees and the big, general-interest purveyors Zazzle, CafePress, Spreadshirt, Printfection, and others. At most of these sites you can custom-order stuff with your own message or design, even in single copies.


Updates!

• Here's an illustrated list of some fancy poly jewelry, courtesy of Joreth. Here's another. Joreth runs PolyTees.

• Infinity-heart earrings: blue, black and red on white.

• Loads of cool Kimchi Cuddles comic merch (June 2013).

• Love Infinitely jewelry by Stephan Moore, who deserves your support.

• Infinity-heart necklaces, earrings, keychains, bracelets from Shielasattic (Dec. 2013).

• Poly pride T-shirts and others (Dec. 2013).

• Another infinity-heart necklace, super-inexpensive (Jan. 2014).

• Poly designs on pins, shirts etc. etc. from LiveLoudGraphic (July 2014).

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Web Comic Presents Excellent Poly Saga

Fans!

Two years ago I rounded up some web comics treating polyamory. Even now that post keeps getting hits.

So here's another. The long-running "Fans!" has begun a storyline exploring a new-forming triad, complete with Heinlein and Wonder Woman references. It's a flashback explaining how three key characters got together. It helps to know who they are: flamboyant emo goth bondage girl with heart of gold, maybe; sweet little anime artist, a runaway from Japan; all-American Christian college kid, thinks he's Archie. Pick it up from here, and keep clicking the forward arrow. The first three pages are pre-flashbacks to set the mood for each character. God knows where this is heading.

But the artist knows what he's doing. As the story develops he's touching one poly reality base after another.

(Warning, bits may be slightly NSFW. Here's the artist's fan forum. Here's day one, long ago and far away. An' thanks to Anyee f' th' tip!)

Update: If you want to make sense of the June 4th strip, "Home," the first three panels (with their earlier drawing styles) are flashbacks:
http://www.faans.com/index.php?p=1321
http://www.faans.com/index.php?p=1339
http://www.faans.com/index.php?p=347
(Thanks to AvalonXQ for the tip.)

Update: It just gets better. The storyline reaches its end on June 29th, having completed the tale. Rikk with a beard means that we've jumped forward to present time.

This'll be a poly-comic classic. Pass it on.

Poly Comic Strips

There are way more comic strips on the web now than on paper. Webcomics number more than 7,000 [update 2013: make that more than 21,500], ranging from pathetic to brilliant. Here are 100 of the most popular.

I've run across a few poly strips:

Strange Den, which is semi-autobiographical. The characters in the author's house are real despite how they're drawn. Here's what the author thinks of her family.

Spice, an archived oldie telling the story of how the author's quad got together.

Queen of Wands, another archival strip, is at least poly-friendly. Claims to be 70% nonfiction. This page is a good, fast explanation of poly suitable for printing in large format (here's the file) and taping to your door.

The hauntingly winsome Bruno has long had polyamory drift in and out of her dreamy, ineffectual life.

The long-running, ever-popular Dykes to Watch Out For featured this sly episode a while back. (With thanx to diligent researcher Guy With Hounds.)

Those were all I found. Can you add more? Post in the Comments section below.

P.S.: Then I open my mainstream morning newspaper a couple days ago to see a Harry Bliss cartoon (not available on the web) showing one lightbulb saying to another as they look at a third: "A three-way bulb! That's hot!"

P.P.S.: Questionable Content offers this explosive-laden scene. And this update of old-timey doctoring....

Here's a lolcats that's been going around. Oh, and a bunch more: MAI POLYAMORY LOLCATS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM. And another.

And here is a major historical golden oldie! A genuine scanned paper copy of Far Out West comics starring Polly Morfus — by "Even Eve" Furchgott of the seminal Kerista commune in Haight-Ashbury, the group that invented the terms polyfidelity and compersion. This was published in 1975, when computers were supposed to look like that thing on the cover.

Update May 30, 2008: The long-running "Fans" has returned with a storyline exploring a new-forming triad, complete with Heinlein reference. It helps to know the characters and their backstories (bad goth bondage girl with heart of gold, maybe; sweet little anime artist, a runaway from Japan; all-American Christian college kid, thinks he's Archie). And the frames can cut from one storyline to another. But never mind, pick it up from here. Keep clicking the forward arrow.

The artist clearly knows what he's doing. As the story develops he's touching one important base after another.

Update July 2008: In The New PolyAnna, cartoonist Anna Hirsch chronicles her life of multiples.

Updates 2009-10: "Oopsie" from the Polyamorous Percolations forums says she's starting up a comic named <3, an emoticon heart.

And another, from "Pictures for Sad Children".

And another, from "Not Invented Here."

A geek-thought warning from xkcd.

A new twist on the hoary old Noah's Ark trope.

The popular strip Questionable Content ran a strip on February 5, 2010 that a lot of poly readers criticized, so artist J. Jacques followed up with an explanatory strip on February 8 spelling out his views on polyamory. And at the bottom, in an author's text box, he explains himself:

It seems some people were offended or confused by Friday's comic. They felt that I was saying or implying that polyamory is somehow not as serious as monogamy, or that polyamorous folks don't enter into committed relationships, or something. That couldn't possibly be further from my intent!

What I was going for in that comic (and this one) is that the specific situation Tai finds herself in.... In no way did I mean to imply that because Tai isn't happy, ALL polyamory is unfulfilling, or not serious, or anything of that sort.

Like Dora says in today's strip, relationships exist on a continuum, and there are many different kinds of relationship that different people consider "polyamory." You certainly can have a serious, committed, happy polyamorous relationship! You can also be more casually polyamorous, like Tai has been in the comic. Ain't no right or wrong, or inferior or superior, as long as everybody's being safe and honest.

One of the challenges of working in this medium is that intent and interpretation are two very different things. I thought it was obvious that I was writing about a specific situation, and not denigrating polyamory in any way, but some people felt otherwise. That means I didn't do a good enough job! The vast majority of you guys either had no problem with the strip or actively told me that it was fine! But that doesn't mean that the minority who were bothered by it don't deserve to have their concerns addressed, which is what I'm attempting to do.

I apologize if I've hurt any feelings or offended anyone, and will try to make my intent more clear in the future! I hope this clears things up.

Added 2011: Poly in Pictures, by Lotte.

Dinosaur Comics on polyamory, an oldie (Oct. 6, 2003). And another (Mar. 30, 2011). And another (Nov. 19, 2013).

From Something Positive, regarding those elementary-school Valentine's Day rituals.

Kendermouse writes,

Flipside seems to handle it at some point, and is sex-postive throughout.... First comic is here. They have nifty "Monogamy... it's overrated" shirts, that come in a true variety of sizes!

And Girl Genius seems to be leaning that way lately, at least if the side stories and comments of the castle and whatnot are any indication. Heck, in one of the one-off side stories, it's the canon ending! (The start of said story.) :)

Just begun: the amateur furry anime strip PolyFi.

Lucy Bellwood's as-yet-unnamed mono-vs-poly autobiography. She's good. On her blog she writes that she "is currently pursuing a degree in Studio Art at Reed College while trying to figure out how to make comics the central focus of her academic and social life."

For Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner giggles, here's an oldie in the style of Gary Larsen.

Added 2012

Girls With Slingshots looks like its heading into a poly storyline. Artist's comments. Update: Ryan comments on the North Carolina Regional Poly List, "The gist of it is that two women start off in a monogamous relationship. One is asexual, and one is a very libidinous bisexual, and they decide to shift to a polyamorous relationship to deal with the frustrations presented by their dramatically different sexualities. The author admits she has very little personal experience with either asexuality or polyamory, but I've been really impressed with some issues she's tackled in the past (like safe sex, ageism, representation of a wide variety of body types, BDSM, differences in sexual experience, how differences in ability (like deafness or blindness) affect relationships, male aggression, different concepts of satisfying sexuality, etc), and I'm enjoying her attempt at approaching asexuality and polyamory concurrently. The polyamory story arc starts here." The storyline take a break for a run of guest artists, then resumes here.

Next up: Go Get a Roomie sometimes takes up poly themes, as Chloé C. in Brussels draws "the wild adventures of an upbeat hippie, living her life in love and joy. (And beer and sex.)"

More geekness: Why you should date a scientist... or a poly scientist.

Added 2013

The new Kimchi Cuddles is all about poly life and loves. (With the old exploding head meme.) "Most of the comics are based on my own experiences, but many are based on the experiences of friends of mine or from submissions from fans." It's exploding in popularity in the poly world as of June 2013, a month after its introduction.

Added 2014

Kris "Floe" Busini posts some illustrated autobiography.

My Heart Palace by Glasmond (who runs a geek shop in Munich) about her partners Cherry and Schpog.

Another slippery slope.

Added February 2015

A new ongoing strip about the author-triad's life: The Feeling Is Multiplied!.

A reader recommends Leftover Soup.


Added March 2015

Ongoing autobiography of a mono-oriented person: Polyamory Isn't for Everyone.

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