The three recent polyamory stories on Canada's CBC

That lovely TV profile of a polyfamily in Calgary, Canada, came shortly after three serious treatments of polyamory on CBC, Canada's national broadcasting service. Was it inspired by them?

Only in the first one below did I learn about Ontario's All Families Are Equal Act, passed in 2016. Its key part relevant to polyfamilies is this:

References assuming two parents

(4) If, under this Part, a child has more than two parents, a reference in any Act or regulation to the parents of the child that is not intended to exclude a parent shall, unless a contrary intention appears, be read as a reference to all of the child’s parents, even if the terminology used assumes that a child would have no more than two parents.

● Accordingly, Matthew Pearson, a member of the out-and-proud FF and MM queer couples below, told their story of group parenting on CBC Radio's "The Sunday Edition": The Mamas and the Papas: How two Ottawa couples became co-parents (Jan. 27, 2019). He also wrote the article that appears with the audio on the show's website:

The Ontario law passed in 2016 gave equal rights to same-sex parents and multi-parent families. That's us.

The four co-parents in August 2016, when Karin was pregnant with Zora, their first child. Matthew is at left. (Matthew Pearson/CBC)

By Matthew Pearson

In the fall of 2016, I sat in the visitor's gallery at Queen's Park and witnessed the introduction of the All Families Are Equal Act.

The bill was enacted to enshrine in law the basic premise that all parents in Ontario deserve equal rights, regardless of the route they took to become a parent.

...The new law also cleared a path for multi-parent families, allowing up to four parents to be listed on a child's birth certificate. It was a game-changer for families like mine, which is comprised of four people — two queer couples — who joined forces with the intention of raising children together.

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I always wanted to be a dad, but I was focused on finding a partner first. Didn't I need to be with someone before I — or we — could decide to even have children?

That changed when my friend Karin, who, like me, was single, in her late 30s and identified as queer, asked me if I'd consider having a child with her.

...We started spending more time together, and we talked about the kind of things you talk about with someone you might spend your life with — values, beliefs, despair, dreams. We peeked into every corner of each other's life in an attempt to answer a singular question: Could I raise a child with this person?

As the answer became clear, something rather unexpected happened — we fell in love — with other people.

Karin met Janette at a mutual friend's wedding and I later met Alain through mutual friends. By a stroke of magic — and some serious heart-to-heart talks with these new partners — they both decided to take the plunge and join Karin and me on our co-parenting adventure.

The four of us spent hours talking about how the arrangement would work. We drafted and signed a parenting agreement — a contract outlining our expectations, responsibilities and values. It established how we would split our time with our child, including holidays, and how we would make decisions about the child's health and education. It also included a process for resolving conflicts.

...There was no roadmap for this kind of family, so we created our own. ...

Negotiating with one other person is likely hard enough, but we have four people. Four opinions, perspectives and desires, which sometimes vary. Four sets of arms wanting to hold and cuddle one little baby.

We had to learn to communicate clearly, to compromise, and to trust that we were in this together. We were family now.

On Family Day in 2018, the five visited the
National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
(Matthew Pearson/CBC)

...One of the upsides of co-parenting with three other people is the downtime — something all parents of young children could probably use more of.

...A few months after Zora was born, her birth certificate arrived in the mail. It listed all four of us as her parents.

Light as that piece of paper was, it was heavy with meaning. It was an affirmation that our family existed; that some space had been made somewhere in Canada for families that looked like ours.​

Karin will soon give birth to our family's second child, which will thrust all of us back into the bleary world of parenting a newborn.

Meanwhile, Alain and I just bought a house a stone's throw from Karin and Janette's, which will soon free us from cross-town commutes.

In the beginning, we were two — Karin and me. Then we were four with Janette and Alain. Zora's birth made us five. And soon we'll be six. Two moms, two dads, two children.

One family.

You can stream the 25-minute show with the "Listen" button on the original article. Or download the mp3 file (January 27, 2019).


● A couple weeks later, CBC Radio's "The Conversation" — one of Canada's most-listened-to radio shows — aired a 9-minute interview with a couple who opened their marriage by the conventional route: How this polyamorous couple makes their marriage work (Feb. 5):

'Just because it doesn't look or sound 'normal,' doesn't mean that it can't be wildly beautiful'

Bryde MacLean and Jeremie Saunders have talked about sex and relationships more than most couples.

That's partly because they co-host Turn Me On, a podcast they describe as "a no-holds-barred conversation about what it is to be a sexual being in the world."

...MacLean has a long-term boyfriend. Saunders has a long-term girlfriend and casually dates other people.

"Together the four of us have a very platonic and supportive relationship," said Saunders.

...Here are some of things that have helped keep their marriage on track.

Put it on paper

Bryde MacLean: "[Before opening up our marriage] we wrote up a contract [which is on our website] in as much detail as we could about all the potential concerns we had. Don't talk about our problems with other people, don't criticize each other with other people, have lots of respect and no sleep-overs... We pretty much reviewed and edited that, almost every day, if not once a week, for the least the first six months to a year. It really helped us define what we were doing as we went."

Be trustworthy

Bryde MacLean: "I remember the first time Jeremie told me that he was in love with somebody else. That was really, really challenging. After a couple of weeks of them hanging out a lot, I had to ask him, to ask them both, if they could take it a little slower, if they could limit the number of days per week … Neither one of them wanted to do that, because you're in the the energy of a new relationship and it's exciting … But they did and it was really respectful. It's really important to be trustworthy."

Work together

Jeremie Saunders: "It was always an experience that we were doing together, not separately, even though we are separately seeing other people, we're doing this as a team." ...

Why is this "conventional"? Because what they describe is mostly about the couple's rules they made between themselves, with no apparent regard for their other potential partners. Who will turn out to be real people too. Such arrangements can work if these others like being so secondary. Some people do; some are fine with the assumption that they're just friends-with-benefits to the core couple (meaning the third is disposable). Such "deliberate secondaries" may like the freedom from entanglement that this status implies (or should).

But the secondary better be savvy enough to see what the setup is right away — and lay their own needs and boundaries on the table at the outset, while it's still easy to walk away. And put those on paper too.


● A few days later, more modern and healthy approaches (IMO) were described on CBC News in Saskatchewan: 'A different way of doing things': Polyamory challenges idea that monogamy is always the way to go (Feb. 11). This is good, informative one; put it in your "show the parents" collection.

When Kayleigh Kazakoff started seriously dating, she held out hope of finding that one perfect partner, but she found that no one could live up to her expectations.

Then, eight years ago, the 33-year-old from Saskatoon was introduced to polyamory. She said it has made her a better partner in every way.

"I'm way less terrible to date. I would expect (my partner) to be my be-all-end-all. That's not fair pressure to put on anyone," Kazakoff said. "I'm a lot more relaxed now and able to accept my partners for who they are and acknowledge their flaws. I just feel a lot more fulfilled."

Kayleigh Kazakoff identifies as solo poly.
(Naomi Zurevinski)

...Polyamorous relationships can take various forms, including a triad or quad, which is where three or four people are all in a relationship with each other. Triads and quads can be open or closed, meaning they are either exclusive or individuals can have offshoot relationships from there.

...At one point, [Kazakoff] was dating five people. She currently has two partners, one of whom lives in Winnipeg and she's been seeing for five years; the other she has been dating for under a year and is close by.

..."Initially I could do polyamory or monogamy and I was fine with either. As I continued exploring it and (learning) about myself, I discovered it's more who I am than a choice I make."

[We asked 4 ethically non-monogamous daters what their terms are]

Jacq Brasseur, executive director
for the UR Pride Centre
(CBC News/Alex Soloducha)

...Jacq Brasseur, the executive director for UR [University of Regina] Pride Centre, said the idea that jealousy does not exist in polyamorous relationships is one of several misconceptions out there.

"In reality, scheduling isn't going to be easy; holidays aren't going to be easy. I think the other myth has to do with not committing to your partner, and that somehow this is the easy way out," Brasseur said.

"To be successful and to build a loving, supportive partnership in a polyamorous setting involves so much work and I don't think people understand that."

...Brasseur notes that [compersion] is not quite the opposite of jealousy.

"Compersion can be excitement, or it could be a desire to hear about your partner's other relationships — for example, if you want to hear about a first date they had, because first dates are exciting."

Brasseur added that "as we become less judgemental and more willing to understand that different ways of doing things are OK, I think more people will be open about their polyamory."

'You learn to look deep into yourself with what makes you feel comfortable and stable in a relationship, and through that you become more comfortable with yourself, too,' says Lindsay Rose of polyamory. (Naomi Zurevinski)

Lindsay Rose is polyamorous and currently has two committed partners. One of her partners is long-term, and she has been dating her other partner for a few months.

Her long-term partner initially introduced her to polyamory, and Rose immediately became interested because of difficulty she'd had in past relationships.

"I've always kind of been a serial dater and very codependent in my relationships," said Rose, who hails from Saskatoon. "I think it was coming from a place of needing someone else to show me how to love myself. Then I found out it was possible for more than one person to love me, and for me to love more than one person, and I wanted to further explore that."

She said that one of the major misconceptions about her relationship approach is what polyamory is actually all about.

"I'm sure some people assume that those who are poly have 12 different partners and are always looking to add more, but it's about having the option to develop more than one meaningful relationship," said Rose.

"It's not necessarily about seeking, but more so about having the freedom to explore things as they come up. If a human comes into my life that I enjoy, I'll pursue that relationship."

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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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BBC triad interview: "As genuine and as significant as a couple relationship"

Yesterday BBC Radio 5 hosted a 3-hour #sextakeover "focussed on sexual behaviour, relationships and attitudes in the UK." The show is not available outside the UK as far as I can tell, but BBC News put up this nice, 3-minute video with the show's poly interviewees:



It came with this text:

Meet the 'throuple': A three-way relationship

..."As soon as you say a three-way relationship, people automatically think this must be about sex. When in reality this is something like as genuine and as significant as a couple relationship," said Cathy.

"The third person is the mediator. So they can see it from an outside perspective of whatever that situation," added Nicole.

They talk openly about how they became a throuple, parenting Thomas and Cathy's son, and their sleeping arrangements.

The clip's page (November 20, 2018).

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NPR: "It's Polyamorous Polysaturation — Unconventional Relationships Abound On TV"

We're not the only ones noticing. On NPR's "All Things Considered" this afternoon, with video clips:

It's Polyamorous Polysaturation — Unconventional Relationships Abound On TV

By Neda Ulaby / NPR News

Laura Ramadei (center) as Annie, who gets involved with a different couple in every episode of the web series Unicornland.

Let's look at some of the buzziest shows on television in the past year or so, shall we? What do House of Cards, Girls, I Love Dick, Orphan Black, Transparent and The Magicians have in common?

Every one of them has featured unconventional romantic or sexual relationships involving more than two people.

Exhibit A: the arrangement between the fictional president of the United States and First Lady on one of Netflix's most popular shows, House of Cards. The most powerful couple on Earth enjoyed a joint affair with one of their Secret Service protectors. The two also regularly pursue separate romantic interests.

Exhibit B: I Love Dick's entire premise rests on a couple's shared crush on a famous artist (named, of course, Dick). And the lead character in Girls gets pregnant after a fleeting relationship with a man in an open relationship. (It's also worth mentioning the failed threeway turned bonding experience between two of the main characters.)

On the other hand, Orphan Black's three-ways tend to feature evil clones. A university professor on Transparent insists on non-monogamy with her much younger girlfriend. In The Magicians, polyamorous marriage is literally magical. And a new show called You Me Her concerns a suburban married couple bringing a girlfriend into their relationship.

As for reality TV, surprise! It's not to be outdone. TLC's polygamous hit Sister Wives was briefly joined on its home channel by a special called Brother Husbands, both about unconventional marriages. The channel further upped the stakes by introducing a throuple — three people in a relationship — on its bridal gown shopping show, Say Yes To The Dress.

...Of course, pushing boundaries and titillating viewers is nothing new for television. ... [But] what's happening now [notes MTV Networks general manager Nusrat] Duranni, is that many of these open relationships currently shown on television are an ongoing part of storylines, key to driving plots and understanding major characters. They're not just stunts.

...The dramatic appeal of multi-partner relationships seems self-evident. But Lucy Gillespie takes them as seriously as other subjects she's investigated, such as Occupy Wall Street and Lee Atwater. The 32-year-old created an online-only series called Unicornland. It's about a young woman who hooks up with a different couple in every episode.

...Her main character learns about the pitfalls of venturing into other people's messy relationships: "I didn't get out of a bad marriage to join yours," she tells an insufferable husband who isn't listening to his wife.

Perhaps what we're seeing reflects a society where so many old rules about gender and sexuality are in flux.... Opening a relationship can feel like a fantasy, a fix or both. Gillespie likens it to a hack.... "We're all sort of trying to hack our lives and make our lives more interesting and optimal," she says.

That said, Gillespie's about to enter a monogamous marriage herself. Maybe, she says simply, there's not a better mousetrap. But Dan Savage points out that the stories about the mice that play accomplish what television, film, and literature have always done: push the envelope, make you think, provide vicarious experiences, and give you a chance to contemplate your choices.

Here's the whole article (May 24, 2017). Click the button at top left there to listen to this segment of the show (4:48).

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Poly community leaders on NPR talk show

Update after the show: Bob and especially Robyn did great; Karen Ruskin was a lot more subdued than in the past and wasn't on for long (and was effectively refuted by Robyn); and the last portion of the show featured a very articulate poly couple in Connecticut who are in an open quad, representing us well. Honestly, the whole thing was more on the bland side than I expected. I guess that's good. Listen to it here (41 minutes).

But they didn't take any callers!! Shucks, I was hoping for a chance. Thanks to everyone who tried to call.

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

(Original post:)

Heads up, listeners and callers! Robyn Trask of Loving More, and longtime poly author/counsellor/speaker Bob McGarey, will be on the Colin McEnroe Show, a big deal on a leading NPR radio station, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern time (10 a.m. Pacific) today, Thursday Dec. 15, 2016. The show will also bring on the poly-hostile TV therapist Karen Ruskin to challenge Robyn. It runs for one hour.

WNPR is the flagship National Public Radio station in Connecticut. Its programs are sometimes syndicated to other stations nationwide.

Listen live online. The call-in number is 860-275-7266. Email: colin@wnpr.org. Twitter: @wnprcolin.

Karen Ruskin makes a special point of saying poly households are always terrible for children. If you were or are being raised in a poly family, your call would be especially good. In the past Ruskin has seemed scared of being refuted on-air, and rumor has it that she would not come onto this show if Robyn's own daughter, now in her late teens, would be on.

Two reasons for other folks to call: To increase the chance of informed, sympathetic callers getting on the air, and to show the station that there's a lot of interest. When a show considers whether to revisit a topic or invite guests back, a lot depends on whether the phones lit up the first time.

Update: Ruskin bills herself as "Dr." Karen Ruskin, but is this for real? See the first comment below. Don't ask me, this professional question of "doctors" is beyond my pay grade.

Muddying the waters is the fact that there is, coincidentally, another Dr. Karen B. Ruskin from her school (Nova Southeastern University), who went on to get an actual Doctorate in Education (from Northern Illinois University). A quick search for "Dr. Karen B. Ruskin" is likely to land on the wrong one. (Our Ruskin is "Karen S. Ruskin" on her Massachusetts license to practice marriage and family therapy, but she later changed the middle name that she uses to Bailes, her maiden name, initial B.) Can someone who knows more than I do about the use of "doctor" sort this out?

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The Humanist Hour interviews articulate PolyColumbus activists

Susan Porter (left) and Rose McDonnell

The Humanist Hour is a monthly podcast produced by the American Humanist Association. It's also on the Public Reality Radio online network and a couple of small stations in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

This month's episode (number 141) is What Is Polyamory All About?, featuring the brilliant Susan Porter and Rose McDonnell of PolyColumbus in Ohio, which helped sponsor the Beyond The Love poly conference there last November.

Listen here. They're thoughful and sharp — great new representatives we're lucky to have. They start at 6:30 into the program.

The blurb:

Bo Bennett and Kim Ellington interview Susan Porter and Rose McDonnell from PolyColumbus.org. Listen as they discuss polyamory – the practice of having multiple simultaneous sexual and/or romantic partners.

From the PolyColumbus.org website:

PolyColumbus empowers individuals that either self-identify as polyamorous, open, or ethically non-monogamous, or are exploring such possibilities. We build community to provide a safe and inclusive place to not only be ourselves, but also meet like-minded individuals from all backgrounds.

We advocate for the equal treatment of the ethically non-monogamous under law, and for broader societal acceptance of the same. We serve organizations with similar goals by documenting best practices and creating other resources for successfully running such an organization.

Finally, we educate each other, allied organizations, and the broader community on what it means to be ethically non-monogamous.

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Janet Hardy of *The Ethical Slut* in TV, radio interviews

Janet Hardy, perhaps best known as co-author of The Ethical Slut (originally under the pseudonym Catherine A. Liszt), is wrapping up a tour of Australia. Here she talks polyamory on Australia's public-TV broadcast network, ABC (the embattled Australian Broadcasting Corporation). She gets a full 8 minutes to do some good Poly 101 for television viewers. Watch here (I can't find a way to embed the video). (Jan. 30, 2015.)

She also did a 23-minute radio interview on the network's radio branch. The blurb:

Janet Hardy is a provocative American sex educator who challenges all our assumptions about sex, gender and what happens between the sheets. She’s in Australia for the Sydney Festival of Really Good Sex. Janet is the author of eleven books about relationships and sexuality.

Listen/ download audio, 23 minutes (Jan. 28, 2015).

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"At Home With Polyamory": a profile of an Oregon quad with a teen

KOPB (Portland, OR)

Oregon Public Broadcasting puts up a 3-minute piece on its website talking with a two-couple quad and their geeky teen daughter about their poly life:



Does anyone know whether this appeared on radio or TV in addition to the website?

I have mixed opinions about representing poly to the media if you need your faces blurred out. These people pull it off, helped by all their laughter and by the happy little ukelele backgrounds the producers added. But viewers are used to blurred faces suggesting something shameful. Opinions?

This is part of KOPB's "At Home" series, "conversations inside homes across Oregon."

On a Monday night in late January, Liam and Tracie are cooking dinner for their daughter Emily. It’s her 16th birthday, and they’re having nachos and birthday cake.

As Liam and Tracie prepare dinner in the kitchen, Emily is on the couch in the living room talking with Melissa and Matthew.

Liam and Tracie are a married couple, and so are Matthew and Melissa. But they are also polyamorous. Liam and Melissa are paramours, which means they share an intimate relationship with each other. Matthew has a paramour outside the group, and Tracie currently is not in another relationship.

“Right now I’m invested in my own individual exploration,” she says. “I have a couple of projects that I want to work on now and am not really looking for another romantic attachment.”

Liam and Tracie decided to open up their marriage after Tracie had an affair with a friend.

“I made the mistake of not talking with Liam before I went ahead with it,” Tracie says. “But we decided to see what this could add to our marriage instead of taking away from it.”

Tracie and Liam met Melissa and Matthew through an online dating site a couple of years ago in Missouri. Liam and Melissa immediately hit it off, and got permission from their spouses to begin dating. After two years of the couples living separately in Missouri, they decided they were ready for their next adventure. They found an apartment in Rock Creek, a Portland suburb, and moved in together. They’ve been here for five months.

The couples asked that we not use their last names or show their faces because some of them have still not told family and friends about their choice to be polyamorous.

“A lot of people think polyamory means promiscuousness or being false with your partner, and some of that exists in our families,” Tracie says. “And right now we’re not willing to put our family or our happiness on the line just because someone has a closed mind.”

...“Trying to find time for Melissa is sometimes a struggle for Liam,” Tracie says about her husband. “And every once in a while, I’ll find that I’m jealous of the time that he’s spending with her.”

The solution? A strategy they call “over-communication,” which the foursome says is the most important rule of the house.

...Included in most of the family talks is Liam and Tracie’s daughter Emily, a self-professed “geek” who spent her birthday at Portland Comic Con. For some teenage girls, polyamorous parents might seem like too much to handle. But Liam and Tracie thought differently.

“Emily has always taken a really mature approach to it,” Tracie says. “We’ve tried to give her as much information as we felt she was ready for.”

“I was actually fine with it,” Emily says. “I expected them to understand and respect things I was going through, and I in turn would do the same for them.”...

Her's the whole article, at the original video site. (Jan. 30, 2015).

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Poly conference organizer Zoe Duff on feminist radio

CJSW Radio (Calgary, Alberta)

The modern polyamory movement has deep feminist roots. Since its beginnings almost 30 years ago,¹ most of its writers, organizers, leaders, and spokespeople have been women. Year after year, as new movers and shakers keep emerging, this continues to be true.

A statistic: of the 35 nonfiction books on polyamory published in English since 1984, the authors and co-authors total 28 women, 9 men, and 1 genderqueer person. That's 3-to-1 female to male. I see similar ratios among bloggers, local-group organizers, workshop presenters at conferences, and spokespeople quoted in the media.

So it's no surprise that when a Canadian poly item popped up in the news this morning, it was Zoe Duff, director of the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association (CPAA) and organizer of Canada's first PolyCon, being interviewed on Yeah, What She Said, "Calgary’s only feminist/women’s radio program" (on Calgary's independent radio station CJSW based at the University of Alberta).

A podcast of the show just went up. You can listen to it here (23 minutes).

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1. I'm counting from 1984, when Ryam Nearing published her first edition of The Polyfidelity Primer.

BBC poly documentary sets off global hubbub

BBC radio sure has a big reach. On Monday August 19, BBC's Radio 4 aired a strikingly good half-hour piece on polyamory, titled "Monogamy and the Rules of Love." It suggested that ethical non-monogamy will be widely accepted in just 10 years. This prompted all kinds of reaction in Great Britain and around the world. The program description:

Does monogamy still have a place in a society where choice is everything? Jo Fidgen asks why people are still so wedded to the ideal, if not always the practice. Does true love really demand sexual fidelity, and what happens when people choose to open up their relationships?

You can listen to it here (28 minutes) until 3 p.m. EDT Monday August 26th.

The BBC put up a written companion story on its News Magazine site the previous evening. It became the News Magazine's most-read story for the week.

How does a polyamorous relationship between four people work?

Imagine one house, with four people, but five couples. How does it work, asks Jo Fidgen.

From top left, clockwise: Sarah, Chris, Charlie and Tom.

Charlie is talking excitedly about a first date she went on the night before.

Next to her on the sofa is her husband of six years, Tom. And on the other side of him is Sarah, who's been in a relationship with Tom for the last five years. Sarah's fiance, Chris, is in the kitchen making a cup of tea.

The two women are also in a full-blown relationship, while the two men are just good friends. Together, they make a polyamorous family and share a house in Sheffield.

"We're planning to grow old together," says Charlie.

Polyamory is the practice of having simultaneous intimate relationships with more than one person at a time, with the knowledge and consent of all partners. The term entered the Oxford English Dictionary only in 2006, and such relationships are rare enough that Tom finds himself having to account for his personal situation time and time again.

"The number of conversations I've had with peers where I've started to explain it and they've got as far as, 'so, you all cheat on each other' and not been able to get past that. I've said no, everybody's cool with it, everybody knows what's happening, no one's deceiving each other."

If any of the four want to get involved with someone else, they have to run it by the others - all of whom have a veto.

"We can't use a veto for something as silly as, say, personal taste," says Sarah. "If you were dating somebody and I could not understand why you found them attractive, that would not be sufficient reason for me to say, no, you can't see this person."

The word entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, where it is defined as:

"The fact of having simultaneous close emotional relationships with two or more other individuals, viewed as an alternative to monogamy, esp. in regard to matters of sexual fidelity; the custom or practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned."

What counts as infidelity, then?

"Lying," they chorus.

"For example," explains Charlie, "before I went on this first date yesterday, I sat down with each of my three partners and checked with them individually that I was okay to go on this date. Cheating would have been me sneaking off and saying I was meeting Friend X and not say that it was a potential romantic partner."

The rules and boundaries of their relationships are carefully negotiated.

When they had been a couple for just two weeks, Tom suggested to Charlie that they be non-monogamous.

"It was a light bulb moment for me," she says. 'I had been scared of commitment because I had never met anyone I felt I could fall completely and exclusively in love with. The idea of this not being a monogamous relationship allowed me to fall as deeply in love with Tom as I wanted to without fear that I would break his heart by falling in love with somebody else as well."

But how did she feel when, a year into their marriage, Tom fell in love with another woman?

"Well, Sarah's lovely," says Charlie. "I was just so happy that Tom was happy with her."

Sarah's partner, Chris, was less comfortable with the situation at first. They had agreed that they could have other sexual partners, but forming an emotional attachment with someone else was a different matter.

So when Sarah fell for Tom, she agonised over how to tell Chris.

"We sat down and talked about what it meant to be in love with more than one person, and did that mean I loved him less. Well, of course it didn't.

"It's not like there's only so much love I have to give and I have to give all of it to one person. I can love as many people as I can fit in my heart and it turns out that's quite a few."

In interviews, people in open marriages say that although it is not for everyone, it is absolutely possible for adults to be in committed, emotionally satisfying relationships with more than one person at a time.

Chris and Tom bonded over video games and became firm friends. Before long, Chris had fallen in love with Tom's wife, Charlie.

"It had never crossed Chris's mind not to be monogamous - now he says he could never go back," says Sarah.

This quandary over how to manage relationships is something that couples counsellor, Esther Perel, sees people struggling with all the time.

"You can live in a monogamous institution and you can negotiate monotony, or you can live in a non-monogamous choice and negotiate jealousy. Pick your evil.

"If you are opening it up you have to contend with the fact that you're not the only one, and if you are not opening it up then you have to contend with the fact that your partner is the only one."

So how do Charlie, Sarah and Tom handle jealousy?

Not a problem, they insist, and point to a word invented in polyamorous circles to indicate the opposite feeling.

"Compersion," explains Tom, "is the little warm glow that you get when you see somebody you really care about loving somebody else and being loved."

"There's always a small amount of insecurity," reflects Sarah, recalling how she felt when her fiance fell in love with Charlie. "But compare my small amount of discomfort with the huge amount of love that I could see in both of them, and honestly, I'd feel like a really mean person if I said my discomfort was more important than their happiness."

Jealousy has to be handled differently in a polyamorous relationship, adds Charlie.

"In a two-person, monogamous relationship, it's not necessary but it is possible to say, we just need to cut out all of the people who are causing jealousy and then everything will be fine.

"Whereas when you are committed to a multi-partner relationship, you can't just take that shortcut. You have to look at the reasons behind the jealousy."

If an issue does arise, the four may stay up all night talking it over.

"We do so much more talking than sex," laughs Charlie.

But some argue that it is natural for people to bond in pairs.....

Our desire for monogamy has deep roots, says Marian O'Connor, a psychosexual therapist at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships in London.

"As children we need someone who loves us best of all in order to thrive. There's normally one main care giver, usually the mother, who will look after the infant.

"The thing about a monogamous relationship, it can give you some sense of certainty and surety, somewhere you can feel safe and at home."

Sarah, Tom and Charlie agree that a safe base is important, but see no reason why only monogamy can provide one.

"I feel safe and secure, with the ability to trust and grow, with Tom, Sarah and Chris," says Charlie. "It is from the base and security of the three of them that I face the world and the challenges the day brings."

"The way I see it, it's only a problem if I feel like one of my partners is spending more time with all their other partners than with me," says Sarah. "It just leads to people feeling hurt."

A shared Google calendar is the answer.

"We mostly use it for keeping track of date nights," says Charlie. "The couple who is on a date gets first pick of what film goes on the TV and it helps keep track of who's in what bedroom."

Sarah chips in. "So, for example, I have a weekly date night with Charlie. It's us snuggling up, us with the TV, us going to bed together and all that kind of business."

Perel sees polyamory as "the next frontier" - a way of avoiding having to choose between monotony and jealousy.

"We have a generation of people coming up who are saying, we also want stability and committed relationships and safety and security, but we also want individual fulfilment. Let us see if we can negotiate monogamy or non-monogamy in a consensual way that prevents a lot of the destructions and pains of infidelity."

But it's not an easy option....

Tom is cautiously optimistic that polyamory will become "average and everyday".

"Anyone who is expecting some massive social change overnight is terribly mistaken, but it will happen."

...They all agree managing a multi-partner relationship can be exhausting.

"But we don't have a choice. We're in love with each other," they chime.

Read the original (Aug. 18, 2013).


The show prompted this column in The Guardian:

Being polyamorous shows there's no 'traditional' way to live

Polyamory is not a euphemism for sleeping around. It's just another way of organising life, love and who does the dishes.

By Laurie Penny

...This week the BBC Radio 4 documentary "Monogamy and the Rules of Love" tapped into a growing curiosity about polyamory, the formal practice of having multiple romantic partners at one time. For many people, though, polyamory isn't curious at all – it's just another way of organising life, love and whose turn it is to make the tea.

It may be hard for the conservative old guard to fathom, but for a long time lots of people have quietly been getting on with non-monogamous relationships. During the recent debates around the legalisation of gay marriage, Tory critics warned that the next, unthinkable step would be multiple marriage. I can't be the only one who wondered if that'd be such a bad idea. Some of the sweetest couples I know, including many with healthy, happy children, are not couples at all, but triples or even quadruples – but the public conversation about open non-monogamy is still stuck on horrified confusion. An article in the Independent about the BBC programme confused polyamory with "wife-swapping", which makes the women involved sound like unwanted Saturdays CDs.

...I've been in various polyamorous relationships, some delightful, some less so, particularly with people who confuse structured non-monogamy with simple sleeping around. From a distance, they look similar, but only the former has the tedious syncing-up of calendars and household chores.... Once you've got past the initial thrill of being allowed to fall in love and fool around with multiple people at once, you tend to find that polyamory replaces one set of problems – suspicion, frustration, guilt at lusting after people you shouldn't – with an exciting new set of problems. Problems like how to make sure you're spending enough time with each of your partners, or what precisely you're supposed to call your girlfriend's other boyfriend who you may or may not also be dating (answer: your "metamor"). Problems like how to balance the time you spend talking discussing your feelings honestly with various lovers with other important things like eating dinner and going to work....

The fact that doing polyamory properly requires a lot of time and energy is one of the reasons that many participants in the "poly scene" – although by no means all – are urban, middle-class professionals. These tend to be the people with the hours and energy to devote to maintaining multiple partnerships in a time when even monogamous love is a struggle for working people....

...Radio 4 predicted that monogamy would lose its "moral monopoly" within 10 years. Bring it on, I say.

Read the whole article (Aug. 20).


The Independent was less sympathetic:

Monogamy is outdated, according to controversial BBC investigation

'Polyamorous' relationships, involving multiple partners, could become the new normal

By Adam Sherwin

Monogamy and the Rules of Love, a Radio 4 documentary broadcast on Monday, features a pair of co-habiting couples, living together in Sheffield, who use a Google calendar to plan when they have sex with each other.

The programme argues that the “taboo” around sharing lovers between an unlimited number of sexual partners could disappear within a decade.

Presenter Jo Fidgen interviews experts and meets British couples who have rejected monogamy. “Could monogamy really lose its moral monopoly inside ten years?,” she asks.

She meets Charlie, a woman who has been married to Tom for six years. Before their marriage, Tom met and fell in love with Sarah, with Charlie's approval.

Subsequently, Sarah and Charlie also began a relationship. Then Sarah got engaged to a man called Chris. “And somewhere along the line I fell in love with Chris and now we're all planning to grow old together,” Charlie tells the programme.

...Ms Fidgen speaks to Esther Perel, a Belgian sex therapist with a radical approach to relationships, who predicts that the “power” of monogamy is subsiding.

Perel agrees that “multi-partner relationships are coming on the radar” and suggests that they will become common within 30 years, if not ten.

“Monogamy has shown remarkable endurance. These relationship pioneers are revising the rules of love to promote sexual honesty over exclusivity,” Ms Fidgen said. “If they persuade people there's a viable model, then monogamy becomes a choice rather than the default.”

She asks: “Does true love really mean forsaking all other lovers? Most of us assume a conventional serious relationship depends on sexual fidelity. What happens when we open our minds and our relationships?”

The programme quotes a British social attitudes survey which found that 80% still believe that it's wrong to stray. But Ms Fidgen speaks to Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad, a Norwegian sex expert with a radical approach to relationships, who predicts that the “power” of monogamy is subsiding.

Pirelli agrees that “multi-partner relationships are coming on the radar” and suggests that they will become common within 30 years, if not ten....

Read the whole article (Aug. 18).


The London Evening Standard sniffed, Partners are best sampled one at a time (Aug. 22):

Monogamy is on the way out, apparently. According to a recent Radio 4 documentary, Monogamy and the Rules of Love, having a one and only may soon be passé. In the next 10 years, it was claimed, polyamory — having multiple partners — could become the norm.

...By way of example, the Beeb gave us a foursome who loved in a square (well, a square minus one side: the two men weren’t horizontally tangoing). They didn’t make this multi-loving malarkey sound fun, they made it sound like a logistical nightmare, tougher to negotiate than the Northern Ireland peace process.

...You have to find a way to organise the shindig so that no one feels left out. That means a libido-extinguisher more potent than chronic halitosis: a timetable. And who wants to be a slave to spreadsheets in their relationships, or to be held captive by Google calendar?

...I’m not suggesting that the only path to happiness includes a trip to H Samuel. It’s just that, given the alternative, monogamy doesn’t sound so bad.

• Elsewhere around the world, brief reaction in The Times of India: Monogamy on way out with Polyamory coming in! (Aug. 19).

• The same item appeared in The Business Standard, "India's leading business daily," and probably elsewhere.

• In the health section of MSN New Zealand: Has monogamy become outdated? (Aug. 21).

• A tech site picked up on the Google Calendar angle: Poly Couples Using Google Calendar to Schedule All Their Awesome Sex Stuff.

• Appearing later in The Guardian, an idiot woman fails to get it; conflates everything with patriarchal polygamy. To which a polyamory activist in South Africa, where traditional polygamy is legal and common, writes a scathing reply drawing the distinction.

Polyfolks were thrilled with the BBC report. For instance, longterm poly pair Anna and Alan (not me; another Alan) write at their website The Ordinary Extraordinary,

...The BBC delivered an absolutely sparkling primer on what polyamory is and what it isn’t. In the profiled quad, each man has a loving relationship with each woman and the women also have a loving relationship — four people, five couples. They all live together and are, through frequent quotation, lovely spokespeople for polyamory.... Share it with others!

While writers at big conservative journals were seriously grumped out. At National Review Online, If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Need Google Calendar (Aug. 21):

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

“We have a generation of people coming up who are saying, we also want stability and committed relationships and safety and security, but we also want individual fulfillment. Let us see if we can negotiate monogamy or non-monogamy in a consensual way that prevents a lot of the destructions and pains of infidelity,” a British “couples counselor” Esther Perel explains in that BBC piece on making polyamory work.

“Manag[ing] relationships” is something she says she “sees people struggling with all the time.” The choices, as she views it, are: “You can live in a monogamous institution and you can negotiate monotony, or you can live in a non-monogamous choice and negotiate jealousy. Pick your evil.”

Marriage as we knew it is evil, and then there is “love” on the other hand....

Love and marriage and the baby carriage might be boring in comparison, but it’s not doomed if the Google server crashes. It’s also not all about adults, but is open to higher expections and a commitment to rise to responsibilities and challenges together, toward good and actually away from evil.

At The American Conservative, columnist Rod Dreher bemoans that such positive coverage appears in mainstream media: Those Wacky Polyamorists! (Aug. 21):

The BBC brings us a somewhat chirpy look at polyamory in the UK....

Is this a flash in the pan, or a sign of things to come?

Polyamory seems so strange, but is it really that much stranger in 2013 than legalized same-sex marriage sounded in 1983? The logic justifying them both is the same. I think there is really no way to overstate the power of the mass media in conditioning the public to accept things like this. [Yay! –Ed.] The propaganda campaign for gay marriage has been overwhelming. We’re starting to see it on transgender stuff now.... What is important to note about these things is not that the media report on them, but the way in which the media report on them....

...While polyamory may or may not be the wave of the future, adoring coverage of it probably will be, at least if the SSM story is any guide.

The Christian Institute wasn't a bit chirpy: Bring on multi-partner marriage, says writer (Aug. 22).

In conservative responses like those last few, I'm seeing less shocked outrage as time goes on and more grumpy resignation about being on what looks to become the losing end of yet another social issue.

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"I see us as a unit, and I wish the world could see us as a unit"

WYSO Radio

The NPR News affiliate for southwest Ohio (based at Antioch College) just broadcast a 7-minute report on an adorable-sounding triad who run a local poly group. Two of them are getting legally married and the third is over the moon about it; she'll be part of their private three-way wedding.

Listen here (7 minutes). Transcript excerpts below:

Southwest Ohio Young & Poly

By Nicole Richter

A new way of thinking about relationships is growing in the US. Polyamory is the ability to have romantic love for more than one person at a time. Dayton is home to a growing polyamorous community. Dayton is known for being a city of innovation and now that innovation affects relationships as well. A local group called Southwest Ohio Young and Poly was formed in response. Community Voices Producer Nicole Richter has the story.

This is not a story about swingers, religion or cheating. This is a story about love. At the Southwest Ohio Young and Poly monthly potluck, children run around, folks have conversations, and there is lots of food on the table. Here families and friends join together in a celebration of community.

Since the group was formed a year and a half ago it has grown to over 150 members. Jason, Brianna, and Keely run Southwest Ohio Young and Poly. Together they form a triad.

Keely explains: “I live in a household with two other partners; Brianna and Jason. We live in a triad, which means we all have fully developed romantic relationships with each other.”

This is just one of several relationship structures in polyamory.....

“We are a whole,” Jason explains. “When I’m thinking about making a choice or taking an action I don’t think about is this good or bad for Keely or is this good or bad for Bri. I think, ‘Is this good or bad for the triad, for our family?’ I see us as a unit, and I wish the world could see us as a unit.”

When first hearing about polyamory many people wonder about jealousy. The triad explained to me that jealousy is an emotion often based in fear. In order to be successful in polyamory you have to be willing to confront your own insecurities.

“The three principles of successful, ethical non-monogamy, especially polyamory, are communicate, communicate, communicate,” Jason says. “If you are open and honest with your wants and needs, open and honest and willing to listen to the wants and needs of your partners, you will be successful. If you can’t put them before yourself then you probably won’t be successful. But you probably won’t be successful at monogamy, either.”

Jason and Brianna have been dating for three and half years. Keely met Jason and Brianna at her first potluck and the triad has been happily dating for a year. Together they have four children between the three of them.

“I am by nature polyamorous,” Brianna says. “I believe that in my core more than one partner is the best path for my happiness. Because I believe I shouldn’t count on one person to fulfill all my needs and that’s why I have partners who are different who fulfill different aspects of what my soul needs.”

Jason adds, “We are energized by the love we all share and it inspires us to find adventures, follow whimsy and go on road trips and end up stuck in Indianapolis in the middle of a blizzard because we didn’t pay attention to the weather at Christmas time. Things like that. It inspires us because we are so genuinely happy and comfortable together.”...

“There’s a lot of fringe benefits and not the ones that people would expect,” he says. “It’s the great peace of the three of us curling up together and watching the shows we all enjoy and having one of them on each side of me holding my hand while we watch TV. And it allows us to build this home together, to build a family. Family is very important to me and feeling like somewhere is home.”

...Keely went with Jason to pick out the ring for Brianna. “Keely kept pointing at different rings and then the woman who sold it to them said well, don’t you want to try it on? And Keely said, ‘No, it’s not for me.’ And I can only imagine the look that woman must have had at that moment but I feel completely surrounded by love,” Brianna says.

...“There will always be members of society who don’t accept anything that is outside of their definition of normal,” Brianna says. “There will always be people who stand against me, but I also understand that there are more and more people who stand behind me every day.”

See the whole transcript, with link to the audio (August 12, 2013).

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Should you take poly onto conservative talk radio?

Anita

After the Supreme Court's gay-marriage decisions on June 26th, poly activist Anita Wagner Illig found lots of media quoting stuff that she had recently said, and seeking her out. U.S. News & World Report had quoted her at length in an article about what a favorable court ruling might mean for people in multi-relationships. So after the decisions, other media came calling.

Conservative media in particular. She agonized over whether she could explain poly relationships as being reasonable and deserving of respect without just feeding the beast. When the Glenn Beck radio show invited her on as a guest, she asked other members of the Polyamory Leadership Network for advice.

Most of us recommended that she leave that one alone, and that's what she decided — partly because she felt that Beck (a right-winger so bizarre that he got kicked out of Fox News) might trigger her to the point of tripping up and not representing the poly world well.

Michael

A few others, however, said they thought they could handle Beck just fine. One was Michael Rios, a lifelong poly activist known for his organizing work in the Network for a New Culture. He contacted Beck's producers, but by then they were done with the topic.

Michael did, however, get himself a guest spot elsewhere on conservative talk radio: the Mike McConnell Show, based in Chicago. He handled it perfectly, with ease, for 13 minutes. Listen here. His part starts about 55% of the way through. (Aired July 2nd.)

McConnell, though, was an easy host. He did fish a bit for a statement that would prove polys want a slippery slope to group marriage. But, says Michael, "Hearing [the recording] as a listener now, I’m more convinced that McConnell had done his homework, and was at the very least neutral about polyamory. He asked good questions, and gave me time for complex answers when needed."

The skill that Michael displays in this clip is in being forthright while not being drawn into concept framings you didn't choose. To do this you need not just quick wits, but also an attitude that keeps you from being triggered: being genuinely curious and interested in your opponent's worldview. Not becoming reactive enables you to use your own framings to speak in ways that the host and his listeners will hear.

I think Michael's one of the best we've got. My opinion of the stuff he does only went up after I started going to the Network for a New Culture's Summer Camp East, which he, Sarah Taub, and others put on in the West Virginia mountains every July. I'm heading off there in a week. The location has very little internet, so if I don't post much then, that's why.

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Tristan Taormino on NPR

National Public Radio


Of all the 31 books about polyamory published since the modern poly movement began in the mid-1980s, the one recommended most often these days — at least for people looking to open an existing relationship — is Tristan Taormino's Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships (2008).

Tristan Taormino leads an energetic life as a sex educator, college speaker, author, sex-positive activist, host of the weekly VoiceAmerica radio show Sex Out Loud, and producer of feminist porn.

A number of NPR stations are airing a 10-minute interview with her on the highbrow, big-ideas show To the Best of Our Knowledge. She's one of a series of six guests discussing "After the Romance": what to make of the fact that humans are built in such a way that new-relationship limerence does not last.

You can listen to her 10-minute segment on open relationships, or the entire 53-minute show (she's segment 3), or listen on the radio if your area is on the local broadcast schedule. (First airs March 3, 2013. Produced by Wisconsin Public Radio, distributed by Public Radio International.)

Excerpts:

...I think for some people it's simply [that] monogamy doesn't work. I mean monogamy may be this revered and sacred institution, but as a relationship style it's really pretty dismal, and has failed a lot of people. So people are looking for an alternative. And there are people out there who say "I don't want to cheat, I want to be honest about this" — and how can we create a relationship and a set of guidelines that incorporate other partners, and do it in a really responsible way?

...We're brought up to believe [monogamy] is the mature choice, and when you're truly in love with someone you want to be monogamous with them because you don't want anyone else. And that's just not true for people. There are a lot of people out there who believe that you can love you more than one person at a time. And other people who believe you can love someone strongly, commit to them strongly, and still have other sexual partners — and that doesn't infringe on your primary partnership.

...[Jealousy] is part of what you sign up for when you sign up for an open relationship. You're going to have to confront some of your own emotional baggage: around insecurity, fear of abandonment, envy, possessiveness — an open relationship is not a good idea to "fix" a monogamous one. You've got to have a solid foundation before you open up.

The host challenges her with a story of two good friends of his who were excited to announce they were opening their marriage — and within six months one had moved in with a new primary "and now they are getting divorced. Is that a common story?"

It's a common story of serial monogamy, actually.... One of the things that people have to do in open relationships is you really have to manage that new relationship energy. When you first get infatuated, or excited about someone, and everything about them is really amazing, and you're like hey, let me pack up all my belongings and move in with them — there's a time at which you have to take a pause, and say let's not make any abrupt decisions here. Because this little honeymoon phase of feeling high, and in love, or in lust, is going to come to an end. And if you can ride out that wave, then you can make better decisions.

This is just the right basic 10-minute audio snippet for a newbie couple considering opening their relationship or marriage. Save the link for that purpose.

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Radio Interview from New Zealand

Radio B (Auckland, NZ)

Nobody thinks twice now about listening in on any tiny radio show anywhere in the world, with perfect clarity and no special radio gear. In Auckland, New Zealand, the alternative station Radio B (95bFM) is "a sizzling casserole of New Zealand music, news and views... lodged like orange pith in your teeth... firmly on the second floor of the former student union building at the University of Auckland." On a show last Sunday:

Polyamory: literally, loving more than one person at once. But how does it work in practice? Sarah and Priscilla join us in studio to share their experiences with polyamory and maintaining polyamorous relationships.

Listen here. 47 minutes; 43 MB .mp3 file. (June 27, 2010).

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Polyfolks on NPR

Radio Netherlands Worldwide
National Public Radio (U.S.)
CBC Radio One (Canada)
ABC NewsRadio (Australia)

And the hits keep on coming. I just listened to one of the best radio interviews on polyamory that I can recall.

Many NPR stations in the U.S. carry "The State We're In" (slogan: "how we treat each other around the world"), produced by Radio Netherlands. The show's producer writes us, "I had the pleasure of interviewing Robyn Trask, Jesus Garcia and Ben Silver from Loving More for [the May 15th] programme. This is broadcast in English on many NPR stations across the USA, Asia and in Australia."

From the station's website:

Robyn and Jesus live together in Colorado, but they also have other emotional and sexual relationships. They are, in fact, polyamorous. As they tell Jonathan Groubert, they feel this arrangement has deepened their sense of intimacy, but it’s not without jealousy. We introduce Ben who is Robyn's “sweetie” and Jesus’s good friend.

Listen here. Our intrepid three start the show and go until 21:45 (with a one-minute news break). It ends with one of Ben Silver's happy, haunting poly songs: his multi-voice, interwoven "More Love."

Some excerpts:

Flirtation, love, romance and polyamory

Q: ...Listening to the both of you talk through most of this interview, a few words keep coming back. "Talk it through." "Rationalization." "Old paradigms," like monogamy. These things all keep coming through. How important is emotional maturity here? (Pause.) You're laughing.

Robyn Trask: I'd say its critical. Because without it, this can all explode spectacularly and it can be very challenging. It's like dating for the first time when you're a teenager, or in college, or whenever you started dating the first time. Most of us had a lot of what we call teen angst. Or angst over relationships, and we worried, and we fell in love, and we got hurt, and we didn't know how to deal with it. And, the same thing happens when people start exploring multipartner relationships. It's like learning relationships all over again.

The difference is that oftentimes you can't go to your parents to talk about it. Or you don't have an aunt or somebody who's been through it to go talk to and say, "Hey, I'm really having trouble with my two partners, and I'm not sure how to reconcile these feelings," because they look at you and go like "What?! You're with two partners?!"

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Q: ...How about at work? Are they aware of your relationships?

Jesus V. Garcia: One thing I've found is, when you approach this with pride, and passion, and having people see you with pride and passion about what you're doing, they can't really fault you for it.

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Q: ...But what does Ben think of Jesus?

Ben Silver: I got to hear a lot about the building of [Robyn's] relationship with Jesus well before I met him. So I sort of felt a warmth toward Jesus even before we met, and then when I did meet him I was delighted.

Q: ...Ben, is there a moment that has happened since you've chosen to be polyamorous that has confirmed to you: Yes, I made the right decision. That this was the best thing to do with my life.

Ben: When my son was much younger he was watching the live-action version of the Grinch movie, and in the backstory, there was something where the mayor of the town, as a kid, was vying for a relationship with someone that they both loved. I was watching this with my son and he looked at me and said, "I don't understand? If they both love her and she loves them, why can't she be with both of them?"

And I felt this moment of delight and pride that my son understood this idea of, there aren't necessarily these limitations to love. In fact, he not only understood that, the whole idea that you would have to not love someone because you loved someone else was foreign to him.

Q: Robyn, the same question to you: What one moment encapsulates for you the fact that you have made the right decision to live your life this way? And that it really matters.

Robyn: I was actually at work one day and a girlfriend of mine was over helping my husband clean the house after this party. So my husband called me up on the phone, he says "I just want to let you know that So-and-so and I were making out in the kitchen." I got this huge grin on my face, because I was really happy for him. Because I knew he liked her, I knew that she liked him, and I felt this sense of happiness for it. And I was with a group of people, I was sitting in a big circle of people when he called, and they go, "Well what are you so happy about?" And I thought, how funny it is that I really don't know how to explain to this room, "My husband has been making out in the kitchen with one of my friends, that's why I'm smiling."

In a way I relate it to children, because most people can relate to that -- watching your child take his first steps and you're all excited. It's that kind of feeling. You're happy for them.

Q: Jesus, you know I can't leave you out of this. What for you is your most important moment, your "Aha" moment?

Jesus: After I think it was the last conference, we were all in a room, Ben and Robyn were hugging and snuggling and kissing, and I walk in and they greet me with open arms, and I hug them both, and I kiss Robyn, and then Robyn goes over and kisses Ben, and then Ben reaches over and gives me a quick kiss and takes a step back and goes [joking] "Oh! -- oh my god -- I'm sorry!" I felt very flattered, Ben's a good friend, I didn't even think anything about it -- but just that one sudden shock of --

Ben: Was I that apologetic? I'm sort of surprised.

Jesus: You took a step back, you were more shocked than anything. But it was nice, the fact that the emotions were running between the three of us, that it felt good that we were just in the moment at that time.

Q: What's the next time you're all going to meet up?

Ben: September.

Q: And what's that moment going to be like, when you see each other for the first time in months?

Robyn: Lots of hugs and kisses. [Laughs.]

Listen here.

Here are pictures of the three of them, and Robyn's own comments on the interview.

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"The Future of Marriage and Non-Traditional Relationships"

KPBS Public Radio (San Diego)

A public radio station presents an intelligent, 34-minute discussion of the future of polyamory, featuring three guests: Ethical Slut co-author Dossie Easton, family therapist David Peters, and family-law expert Janet Bowermaster.

Polyamory comes off in the discussion as a serious and promising, though difficult, new social institution — for the minority of people who are suited to it and willing to face up to the work.

The segment aired March 18, 2010, in mid-morning. You can stream or download the audio, or read the transcript. Here are pieces of it:

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH (Host): I'm Maureen Cavanaugh, and you're listening to These Days on KPBS. The big news about marriage recently is how many more people want to give it a try. Many gay and lesbian couples are working hard to achieve the right to marry in California, a right same sex couples have already achieved in five states and the District of Columbia. In addition to being part of a struggle for equal rights, the move toward same sex marriage might also be seen as a validation of monogamous relationships.

But not everyone agrees. At the same time that some are working for marriage, the polyamory movement is gaining strength in some urban areas and on the internet. Polyamorists believe in ethical non-monogomy by openly engaging in intimate relationships with more than one person at a time. And if that sounds like old fashioned hippie free love to you, you may not be so far off the mark. Joining me to discuss what place polyamory may have in the future of relationships are my guests....

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DAVID PETERS: ...Well, monogamy in human history is the dominant form of bonding. Most of the animal world does not pair bond monogamously, 90% does not. But humans, through almost all of human history, have had a proclivity to monogamy and pair bonding. You have exceptions, of course....

CAVANAUGH: And many people live, in a sense, polyamorous lifestyles without being honest about it. I mean, spouses cheat and... does that sort of knock down the idea that monogamy is what most people sort of go towards?

PETERS: Well, we, as a species, attempt monogamy and then because we have emotions and drives that lead us by our nose sometimes, we fail at monogamy.... Affairs in marriage, you know, some 30% of men and women, statistics vary depending upon what you read, but most of those people who do have affairs would also say, well, they’re not happy about it, they would prefer that they had one love in their life and – or one love at a time and that they could be open with that one love. So many people who are having affairs feel caught....

EASTON: ...There’s no reason to think that having an affair or a relationship with another person needs to detract from a life partnership or any other relationship that you have. You don’t have to kind of subtract the one from another.

CAVANAUGH: Yes, I understand exactly what you’re saying....

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PETERS: I’m going to quote a little bit from the work of a well known anthropologist, a Dr. Helen Fisher, who is out of Rutgers State University. And she’s done some remarkable research on the level of brain neurology and brain chemistry in terms of studying love, lust, attachment, and romance. She’s pointed out that we actually have three different brain systems within our heads that promote the mating and reproductive behavior among humans.

The first one is commonly known as lust. It’s merely that urge to have sex with someone. It’s impersonal, it doesn’t require love, it doesn’t require attraction even....

Another brain system is romantic love, and this is the very familiar human trait which is that attraction. You get this euphoric feeling. That’s marked by a rise in dopamine levels in the brain and it causes the sense of excitement, and then a lowering of serotonin in the brain which causes the obsessive love where you just can’t get the person out of your mind. And we really enjoy this romantic love. You know, poetry’s written about it, movies are written about it, music is composed about it. And this is really uniquely human and it makes our mating and partnerships so wonderful.

A third brain system, in this full human behavior, is attachment. And with attachment, you see the longterm bond between humans. This is the marriage that’s lasted for years. You have your best friend there. It may not be hotly romantic anymore but it’s very comfortable. You’re good friends. You trust one another. You stick together....

What’s interesting here is that these brain systems can act independent from one another... and cause confusion if your goal is monogamy. You have to really work to manage it. What’s interesting here is in the polyamorous community, they’re attempting to have a primary attachment with one partner, or sometimes two partners, while allowing romantic love or allowing lust to be explored with others. And this is all by open agreement. Everybody has to know what’s going on. Most people would not prefer this, but this is what’s being attempted.

...EASTON: Some people – and when my daughter was young, this was what I was doing and sort of still do – see their polyamorous connections as one kind of big, extended family, the equivalent of a neighborhood or a village. And extend things out like, you know, sharing raising kids and keeping houses going and all that, in one larger system that distributes a lot of the work in that system. I would simply add that there is room for attachment as well as lust and romance. My own experience is that sexual connection is kind of an amazing intimacy – I think of it really as sacred, a wonderful way of connecting, so I don’t think of it as just lust, or just romance. I think of it as a truly profound connection and I want to honor that connection.... So I sort of expect people who are present in my and my partner’s lives as lovers to, you know, have profound connections.

CAVANAUGH: Dossie brings up a point....

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CALLER: I had a question for the author of “The Ethical Slut.” You know, I know that at least Christianity and Catholicism believe that when a couple get married and have intimacy, there’s a bond, a divine bond that’s created there. I know they were talking a little bit about spirituality before but in terms of that religious morality and divine connection between married people, monogamous married people, what is the polyamorous perspective on that?

EASTON: I think that the polyamorous perspective is largely that spiritual connection can exist beyond marriage and that the connections, that the love connections that we make are sacred, whatever rituals or whatever commitments involved in those relationships are. Certainly, marriage is a very special relationship, but the notion that love can only occur in marriage or that sexual love can only occur between two people in one particular kind of relationship, is, in my experience, really just plain not true. And that the kind of love that indicates a spiritual connection - loving, caring, concerned about each others' wellbeing, all that other good stuff - is something that can be more widespread.

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PETERS: ...Well, jealousy is certainly going to be the biggest challenge if you’re attempting a polyamorous relationship. And, you know, when you hear people casually talk about this, they’ll say, oh, these people just want it easy to just get whatever they want. And, in fact, it’s not quite easy. What they’re attempting does require a lot of work because one has to take full responsibility for one’s position. You go in consciously knowing what’s going on, no one’s being fooled, and so if you do have feelings of jealousy or insecurity then you’re responsible for them. So there’s a deep personal challenge to own up to, you know, what you’re doing there.

And that can be growth enhancing, one could say, but clearly the majority of people, you know, are not wanting to be challenged in that way. We want the security of marriage. And so, you know, this is certainly not a route for everybody; this is a route for people who have really thought about it very seriously. And I wouldn’t recommend anybody get into such a thing casually.

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PETERS: If you read much of the polyamorous literature, it is not male-centered. Much more of it is female-centered. They tend to - Dossie has mentioned several times the spirituality of sex and there tends to be – you can kind of find it in the literature as you read around a certain feminine-feminist-spirituality-sexuality, you know, flow here, where sex is celebrated in a spiritual encounter, and that’s definitely the trend in the polyamorous community....

Read the whole transcript (March 18, 2010).

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