"PolyFamily" reality series starts tomorrow on TLC, as quad member says it over-exaggerates drama. And other polyamory in the news

Apologies for being slow with Polyamory in the News lately. Bigger stuff is filling the news. And, Sparkle Moose is ill. Her care comes first.

●  Tomorrow TLC starts airing PolyFamily. For better or worse, this will be the first reality TV series about a modern polyfamily (and they have with kids) since Showtime's Polyamory: Married and Dating in 2012 and 2013. People you know will be talking about it — and maybe taking it as our image.

TLC

Recognize these folks? They're the sweet "Polyfamory" quad who have long done us credit on social media, with their good will, good hearts, insightful poly education and high values.

But reality shows are all about drama. Else few would watch.

An early sign: ‘Polyfamily’ Star Hints New TLC Show Exaggerates the Drama in Their Lives (Show Biz Cheatsheet, April 27). " 'Our family is stronger than ever,' Taya, who stars in 'Polyfamily,' wrote on Instagram."

The Polyfamily teaser hints at major drama for the foursome involving jealousy, parenting conflicts, and a big reveal about who really fathered Taya’s unborn baby. Plus, the tension heats up when one person suggests bringing another person into their relationship. Will the quad be able to survive it all?

Spoiler: Alysia, Tyler, Sean, and Taya are still together and going strong. After TLC announced the new show, Taya took to Instagram – where she posts updates as @polyfamory – to assure their 125,000+ followers that they had not broken up. 

“Just a reminder that filming was not recent, TV demands drama, and our family is stronger than ever,” she wrote in an Instagram Story on March 17. “Thank you for all your love and support.”

In another post, Taya reminded people that what they’d see on the show wasn’t necessarily an accurate portrayal of their day-to-day lives. 

“PSA: If you can’t separate real life from TV, then protect your sanity and don’t watch,” she wrote. 

In a comment on another post, she noted that she has “zero control” over the show and how her family is portrayed. 

Given that there’s a risk that Polyfamily might misrepresent their lives, why do the show at all? Taya said that they still wanted to take the opportunity to show people what polyamory is really like. 

“We’ve always promised to take every opportunity that we could to normalize polyamory—and this is a big one,” she wrote on Instagram. “No matter what, one thing is for sure, we did our absolute best to represent love, family, and community in all its beautiful complexities.”

“We are so incredibly grateful for each and every one of you who have shown us love, kindness, and support, you are the reason we get to share our story so far and wide,” she added. “Now.. buckle up! It’s going to be a wild ride.”

The trailer is below. It also suggests the show has promise. Episode 1 premiers tomorrow, Tuesday April 29, at 10 p.m. eastern, 9 central, with many re-airings. Four weekly episodes are currently planned. If it succeeds more episodes, and imitators, may follow.

Here's the on-air promo that TLC is now showing. (Link, in case the embed doesn't work.)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by TLC (@tlc)

The Warner Brothers press release. A typical promo article: PolyFamily: All we know about the reality show following a real-life poly relationship (TechNadu, April 24).

Reviews of the first episode are about to appear in media all over. Google-news search for them. Before clicking, make your own guess at what your applaud vs. cringe ratio will be.                  

●  While we're on about TV. . .  Australia's public TV network ABC Australia just aired a half-hour  documentary on the growth of poly and other ENM in that country: Inside polyamorous relationships and open marriages (April 26): 

From the episode's YouTube page:

... Siobhan Marin travels Australia to meet people who are living beyond monogamy — in polyamorous relationships, throuples and open marriages.

For many in this community, ethical non-monogamy isn’t just about sex. It’s about questioning traditional ideas around love, loyalty and commitment.

Although polyamory is becoming more popular, especially among younger generations, it still carries challenges. We speak to couples and polycules about navigating boundaries, stigma, insecurities, and the natural feelings of jealousy that arise.

0:00 Intro

1:20 Polyamory in the suburbs

3:26 The ups and down throuple life

7:00 Breaking down the stigma of ethical non-monogamy

10:31 Do soulmates still exist?

12:24 Navigating relationships with multiple partners

14:34 Heartbreak and healing in a polycule

20:35 Raising kids in a poly family  

●  ‘Come for the threesomes, stay for the admin’ — Polyamory. The BBC hosts the "On Love" podcast by Jacob Hawley. Up March 13: 

Comedian Jacob Hawley explores the world of love, sex and intimacy -- and the people that make money from it.

This week he hears about polyamory -- the act of having intimate relationships with more than one partner at a time. He sits down with his friends Stuart and Phoebe who have been experimenting with ethical non-monogamy, journalist Franki Cookney about her writing and life experience, polyamory expert Dr Elisabeth ‘Eli’ Sheff, and Ana Kirova, the CEO of dating app Feeld. (31 minutes)

It's a funny listen and fine intro representation.

● On that show, poly and relationship researcher Eli Sheff recommends The Bonding Project, a study with over 20,000 respondents so far. Take the test:  What’s your bonding style?

We want to help people have healthier relationships. To do that, we need to better understand people’s actual wants, needs, and desires.

Relationships come in all shapes and sizes for a bevy of reasons, but the research on relationship diversity is very limited. We’re on a mission to change that.

● If the celebrity press crosses your screen, you've seen much hype about rapper Ne-Yo celebrating his life of "polyamory." For instance, Ne-Yo Introduces His 4 ‘Loves’ From Polyamorous Relationship: ‘We Happy Over Here’ (US Magazine, March 10). Ne-Yo Reveals The Secret To Maintaining His Polyamorous Relationship (iHeart Radio, April 10).     

He talks nice about communication and honesty. But forget equal agency. In all his publicity, we never get a word from any of the four women as far as I've seen. He's the boss and sets their rules. On iHeart:

...He said he's able to date other women but his girlfriends must be exclusive to him. In addition, time management has become a major challenge for him. ...

“I want you here, I don’t need you here… the most important thing here is my happiness," he said. “If a girl is acting up, she gotta go.”

So, just another rich man ruling a harem (hello Elon) and giving us a bad name. At least he's not requiring them to be his baby-factory laborers (hello Elon).

It's another reminder that when someone tells you "I'm poly," your first response should not be "So am I!" but instead,

"Oh, cool! And how do you do polyamory?

Then be quiet and listen carefully, giving no signs or cues. When they run down, ask for more about anything that seemed vague or off to you.

Oh, and if they tell you "I'm in an open marriage / open relationship," say "Great! Let's ring them up and chat." And watch for sweaty excuses.

 

●  When a new idea or feeling gets a word, it becomes thinkable and discussable. People grasp it as a real thing. George Orwell had a lot to say about that, or rather about its opposite: dictatorships that shrink language and erase words to make undesirable ideas not only undiscussable, but unthinkable. 

One new word in the growing ENM lexicon has been gaining traction and now shows up in places like Women's Health: Symbiosexuality 101: What To Know About And How To Explore Being Attracted To Couples (March 6).  

Some polyfolks have disputed that such a thing exists — saying you can't fall in love with the relationship itself, only with the two separate individuals. Of course that's often false. As the conscious unicorn Caroline Giuliani writes in Vanity Fair, 

"I’m not sure if Aristotle was a unicorn, but the whole is definitely greater than the sum of a couple’s parts. A unicorn not only dates the individuals, but also dates the relationship. This third force to flirt with is undoubtedly the most interesting one."

The term symbiosexuality originated in 2021 in a research paper presented by Sally W. Johnston and C. Schoenfeld at that year's Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality ("Quad-S") conference. A 2023 paper by Johnston went into more depth.

The recent Women's Health article is just a superficial 101, but here's an excerpt:

By Gabrielle Kassel

...Symbiosexuality is an orientation that describes an attraction to a pre-existing partnership, couple, throuple, or quad, says Jesse Kahn, LCSW, CST, a queer sex therapist and director of The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in New York City. For symbiosexuals, the dynamic, energy, interplay, and connection shared between partners is the primary source of attraction—rather than the specific individuals in the partnership or their unique traits, Kahn says. In other words, the sum is worth far more than its parts.

Symbiosexuality varies as much as a SimCity Creation or New York Fashion Week line-up because “exactly what someone finds hot in a pre-existing partnership and why they find it hot will change from symbiosexual person to symbiosexual person,” says Kahn. ...

...Symbiosexuality refers to an attraction to the partnered unit, not to the unique individuals within that relationship, says Berkheimer. “For a symbiosexual to successfully be in a polyamorous relationship with those two individuals, they need to recognize both aspects: the beauty of the couple’s synergy and the individual gifts each partner brings to the table,” she adds.

●  Jaime M. Grant, esteemed scholar of the trans and queer worlds and poly herself for more than 40 years, recently authored the comprehensive and insightful Polyamory for Dummies (I've read it now, and my initial impression stands). She's currently on a book tour and got this nice article in the awful New York Post: Sexpert reveals why polyamory is more than just dating around – and how monogamy leaves ‘no wiggle room’ (March 19)

...When it comes to relationships, polyamory is a non-starter for many.

That’s a mistake, according to sex coach and podcaster Dr. Jaime Grant — who believes that the monogamy-minded are making their lives harder than they have to be.

As humans, we’re meant to grow and change throughout life. Who you were five years ago might be a different version of the person you are today. Grant said in a [Radio New Zealand] article that it’s important for people to allow themselves that same freedom when exploring romantic relationships and adventures.

...The anti-pairing-off pro, who has lived a polyamorous lifestyle for over 40 years, said: “It’s helped me be braver about other risks I could take because I just wasn’t doing the norm, you know, I wasn’t marching in lockstep with everybody else around relationships.”

Grant describes monogamous relationships as a “closed system” which can make things difficult — especially for parents. She believes being in a polyamorous relationship allows for even more care, love, and help than you would get from one partner.

“I literally have a group of people who are deeply invested in my children and have supported me. These are not people I’m married to, these are my loves,” she said. ...

●  Another research note: A recent meta-analysis (geek-speak for a scientifically done combination of many studies or surveys) regarding life satisfaction in poly vs. mainstream relationships recently appeared in the Journal of Sex Research: Countering the Monogamy-Superiority Myth: A Meta-Analysis of the Differences in Relationship Satisfaction and Sexual Satisfaction as a Function of Relationship Orientation (online March 9). From the abstract:

...A literature search... and an additional call for unpublished data, identified 35 suitable studies (N = 24,489). Meta-analytic results show null effects overall, suggesting that both [poly and mono] relationships (k = 29; g = -0.05, 95% CIs [−0.20, 0.10], p = .496) and sex (k = 17; g = 0.06, 95% CIs [−0.07, 0.18], p = .393) are equally satisfactory for monogamous and non-monogamous individuals. Sub-group analyses revealed that these overall effects did not vary according to sampling characteristics (e.g. LGBTQ+ vs. heterosexual samples), non-monogamy agreement types (e.g. open vs. polyamorous vs. monogamish), or relationship satisfaction dimension (e.g. trust vs. commitment vs. intimacy). There was no evidence of publication bias. Methodological challenges and directions for future research are discussed.

This got a lot of news coverage, for example in Phys.Org: Challenging the 'monogamy-superiority myth': Non-monogamous people report just-as-happy relationships and sex lives (PDF. March 26)

...The study, which analyzed data from 35 studies involving 24,489 people in the United States, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Italy, and other countries, found no significant differences in relationship or sexual satisfaction levels between individuals in monogamous and [openly] non-monogamous relationships.

"Monogamous relationships are often assumed to offer greater satisfaction, intimacy, commitment, passion and trust than non-monogamous ones. This widespread belief—what we term the 'monogamy-superiority myth'—is often reinforced by stereotypes and media narratives," says lead author, Associate Professor Joel Anderson, a Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Research Center in Sexuality, Health, and Society situated at La Trobe University. ...

As reported in The Guardian: Non-monogamous as happy in their love lives as traditional couples – study (March 26) 

...The team found that while some studies found relationship satisfaction was greater in monogamous relationships than non-monogamous relationships, other studies found the reverse to be true, and most found no difference at all.

All participants were in relationships, with between 4.0% and 69.9% in non-monogamous set-ups, depending on the study. The research did not look at serial monogamy or affairs.

The research has limitations, including that the type of non-monogamous relationship was not considered in many of the studies; participants were often recruited via social networks, meaning they were not necessarily representative of the whole population; and the studies relied on self-reporting, which can be biased.

Anderson... said his work suggested that satisfaction in relationships was not about their structure, but how people communicated, connected and met each other’s needs. ...

●  Also in The Guardian, reporting from Australia: Two may be company, but for a rising number of Australians, three (or more) isn’t a crowd (March 29)

stournsaeh/ Getty Images/ iStockphoto

By Tory Shepherd

“I didn’t know what polyamory was,” Melissa* says. “I didn’t have the vocabulary. I Googled it a few times to understand.” Melissa was on the “relationship escalator”. She got married, had a child, then the no longer happy couple split.

So she started exploring her options. First stop? Singles’ groups.

“Then I went down the rabbit hole of adult groups, sex groups,” the now 40-year-old says. “It was interesting to look at but it wasn’t really my thing … until the [Facebook] algorithm gave me ‘Brisbane Polyamory’.”

..The Relationships Australia NSW chief executive officer, Elisabeth Shaw, who is also a clinical and counselling psychologist, says the guiding principle of polyamory and ENM is consent that is freely given.

“It’s bringing ethics in relationships back to the fore in a principled way: ‘I want to be open, transparent and clear in what exactly I’m doing’,” she says. ... 

“People still want to get married [but] you have emerging new ways of relating.”

A ‘dream’ of all living together

While Melissa was discovering polyamory, something else was happening. She and her ex (they were still married) were talking. They were sharing what they liked and didn’t like about each other, and what kinks they were and weren’t into. They got back together. And she convinced him to go make new “friends”.

“Each new person is a new opportunity to learn,” Melissa says, recalling her “first boyfriend” after getting back with her husband.

She’s since broken up with that boyfriend and met someone new. Melissa’s “immediate polycule” is herself, her husband and boyfriend. The broader “constellation” includes her boyfriend’s submissive, and her husband’s “play partners”. There are others on the periphery, but they’re not involved in her day-to-day life.

She’s moving into her husband’s home in May, where they will live together for the first time in eight years. There are other plans afoot.

Melissa calls it a “a pipeline dream”.

“We’ve started talking about what if we all moved in together on a large property, have plenty of room, other roommates, whatever situation can be accommodated. It’s still very much a fantasy land because we do have a daughter to accommodate as well.”

Her advice to anyone interested in non-monogamy is to be curious and to research, but not get overwhelmed by the avalanche of information about different ways to love.

She says a key to relationship success – no matter what type of relationship – is compersion, a word used in poly communities for feeling joy at your partner’s happiness.

Decriminalising bigamy?

A paper in published in The University of Queensland Law Journal this month outlined how Australia could legalise polygamy in a secular way.

The University of Adelaide PhD candidate Michail Ivanov proposed that could happen by maintaining the law that a marriage be between two people, but abolishing bigamy as a crime.

“The practice of polygamy clashes with traditional Christian values, which have underpinned much of Australia’s marriage laws. But in a country with no state religion, we should question how much weight we place on that factor,” Ivanov says.

“If Australia were to legalise polygamy in the way I propose, it would be the first society to do so in a manner not led or motivated by religious beliefs.” ...

●  Essence magazine, for Black women, asks Polyamory And Parenthood: Does It Affect The Kids? (March 26)

We spoke with experts and a married mother of four practicing polyamory, who explain that healthy communication prevents confusion for children.

Seeing parents date, whatever the relationship style, can be perplexing. Cassandra Raphael, MD, MPH, board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, recommends not introducing any partner to a child unless they’re going to be a family fixture. “It’s best to introduce a new grown-up when you are confident that that grown-up is going to be around for quite a while,” she shares. “The stability and attachment that children have with their grown-ups can be compromised in [the] future if in their early relationships, they feel like the relationship to grown-ups are kind of fleeting.”

Polyamory should also be discussed in an age and developmentally appropriate manner, according to mental health professionals like Stacey Younge, a licensed clinical social worker behind the practice Sixth Street Wellness. “The conversation you’re going to have with a 5-year-old is going to be very different than the conversation you’re going to have with a 9-year-old than you’re going to have with a 15-year-old,” she says.

Media can help with this. The children’s book A Color Named Love introduces little readers to polyamorous family dynamics. Deidre Morgan, LCSW, who specializes in therapeutic support of children, also recommends you avoid pretending that your new partner is just a platonic friend if behavior indicates otherwise. She also suggests resisting the urge to “code the conversation” by identifying the partner as something they’re not. According to Morgan, “It almost can feel like they’ve been betrayed or lied to.” Mainstream culture can embed ideas into children before topics are broached at home. Therefore, it may not be much of a shock to open up about polyamory with your children. “Kids know more than what we give them credit for,” says Morgan. “They pay attention.”

“We have seen these relationships growing up. That wasn’t just mom’s best friend, that was her lover,” Johnson says of the prevalence of using codified language as parents when sharing about one’s private life.

“We do have to be very careful as well because our children have to go out into this world and have connections with people who may not operate in the same space as your family. I think that is why oftentimes people have these codified languages or have tried to figure out ways to not to expose the truth, even if they can trust that their child could handle it.”

●  And here's a personal plug. If you read this website, you ought to get on the mailing list of OPEN, the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy. It is the serious, capable, effective poly-activist organization that the modern poly movement has really needed for the 40 years since its origins.

The Polyamory Foundation (of which I'm a director) helped to fund OPEN's start. Now they're running full speed on many fronts. Read their site, drop in on their monthly advocacy huddle, and send them a bit of money if you can.

On its third anniversary, OPEN's executive director Brett Chamberlin sends out this appeal:

Imagine walking into a city council meeting and watching as elected officials unanimously vote to protect people like us from discrimination. Imagine folks from all walks of life gathering in public parks and community centers from Lisbon to Los Angeles to celebrate their relationships openly. ​

 

These scenes ... unfolded across the US and around the world just last year.

As we celebrate OPEN's third anniversary, I'm reflecting on moments like these, when our community's vision for a more accepting world becomes reality. The path ahead is filled with even more possibility:

Envision three parents all having their names on their child's birth certificate, their co-parenting arrangement legally recognized.

See a world where employers and insurers recognize multiple committed partners without requiring legal marriage. 

Imagine no longer having to hide or explain your non-monogamous relationships at a family gathering, because these relationships are widely understood and accepted.​

See yourself as part of the movement making this happen, one city, one workplace, one conversation at a time.

 

To get there, we need strong organizations supporting a powerful movement:

• We need organizing capacity to build local power in communities across the country.

• We need communication capacity to ensure our stories and perspectives are represented in public discourse.

• We need wider research to better understand our communities, identities, and experiences.

• We need coalition-building to connect our work with other movements fighting for justice and liberation.

Would you consider making your first gift today to be part of this story? Whether you can give $5, $50, or more, you'll be joining a community of hundreds of supporters who are chipping in to help this movement grow. 

Join our community of supporters

 

On a personal note: Three years ago, I took a leap of faith, walking away from a stable job (and health insurance!) to launch OPEN. It hasn't always been easy! But witnessing both the public victories and the quieter, personal stories of impact has made every difficult day worthwhile.

●  One thing OPEN is doing is helping local organizers in cities and towns enact chosen-family nondiscrimination laws, such as in housing and domestic-partnership rights. The model here is the successful effort pioneered in Somerville, Massachusetts (near Boston) by the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition (PLAC). With OPEN's help, experienced lawyers are helping local activists replicate that success in cities like, so far, Cambridge, Oakland, and Berkeley. More are in the works.

In Somerville, the reverberations continue. People have moved there because of the ordinances. A newspaper columnist has dubbed it Polyamory City. And on opening the Boston Sunday Globe real estate section recently, I saw this practical article: Buying property with your chosen family (print edition April 13, online April 9).

The photo is of Somerville City Councilor Willie Burnley, Jr., a leading force behind the city's poly recognition measures and now a candidate for Somerville mayor.

Somerville City Councilor-at-Large Willie Burnley Jr. at Diesel Cafe.
(John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

By Kara Baskin

...Amid a skyrocketing housing market and loneliness becoming a public health epidemic, aspiring buyers are looking beyond the traditional nuclear family to find new financial and social solutions to homeownership.

At the end of April, Harvard Law School plans to release a landmark guidebook called “How to Buy Property with Chosen Family,” which addresses how to approach traditional institutions such as banks and real estate agencies as a nontraditional unit. The first-of-its-kind primer, which will be published by the school’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, is for people trying to buy a home with friends or anyone hoping to live in a nonstandard structure.

The arrangement is often associated with polyamory, but the clinic emphasizes that the guide can apply to a group of friends, multiple families, or anybody who wants to break into the housing market but doesn’t have the desire or resources to go it alone. The guide offers strategies such as creating a tenancy in common agreement or an LLC, which offers ownership agreements and stipulates financial consequences in case a living arrangement goes south.

“Among a lot of people I know, this is the main way that they see themselves being able to [buy] — and it also seems like a much better idea than becoming isolated in your own little suburban enclave without access to community,” said Samara Trilling, a third-year Harvard Law student who coauthored the guidebook in collaboration with the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition (PLAC).

The guide comes at the right time, Trilling said, as more people simply crave community and homeownership. The structure — romantic or platonic — makes financial sense, and the guide’s release coincides with a shift in household demographics. ...

“Many people are not in a nuclear family. ... If that’s not actually reflecting our constituents, how do we build in pathways toward generational wealth that actually can meet people where they’re at?” said Kimberly Rhoten, a PLAC cofounder.

Somerville is a groundbreaking example. ... “We’ve heard from people who moved to our community specifically because of these [2023] laws and because of the domestic partnership ordinance that passed in 2020,” said Willie Burnley Jr., a Somerville city councilor-at-large and mayoral candidate who is polyamorous and rents his home with platonic roommates.

Heath Schechinger, another PLAC cofounder... is hopeful that laws and housing models will catch up to prospective homeowners’ financial and social realities.

“An increasing number of people are living with their chosen family: buying homes with friends or partners, or building family through shared values rather than marriage. The future of family isn’t about form. It’s about function — and who you build your life with.”

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

And now we all get it.

(BTW, get on the 50501 mailing list.)

    

For three years I've ended these polyamory posts with Ukraine. At first some of you didn't get the connection. Now that Russia's socio-fascist, patrimonialist allies have seized power in America and elsewhere, more of you do.

The 80-year postwar consensus is dead. We've entered a world struggle for whether free and open societies, or brutal illiberal oligarchies, will rule us in the 21st century. What's happening in America is only a part of it; authoritarian rulers around the world have been linking up with direct mutual support that is stated out loud.

And the current events, planned and carried out by Americans, resemble nothing so much as a decapitation strike.

I've seen too many progressive movements die out, or get wiped out, because they failed to scan the wider world accurately and understand their position in it strategically. We polyamorous people are a small, weird minority of social-rule breakers. Our freedom to choose our relationship structures, and to speak up for ourselves about the truth of ourselves, depends on a free and pluralistic society that respects people's dignity to create their own lives and identities, to access facts, and to speak of what they know.

Such a society is possible only where people have agency to create their own lives without fear, combined with legal structures that are at least supposed to guarantee the rights of all.

Innovative people, communities, and societies who create their own lives, who "choose to live within the truth" and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the world's authoritarians. 

Such rulers and would-be rulers seek to stamp out other people's freedom to choose their lives — by censorship, intimidation, inflammatory disinformation and public incitement, stacked courts and agencies, legal erasure, shifts of wealth to the top, and sometimes, eventually, bombing.

For what it's worth, Polyamory in the News received more pagereads from pre-invasion Ukraine over the years (56,400) than from any other country in eastern Europe.

For those of us born since World War II this is the most consequential war of our lifetime. Because we have entered another time when calculating fascism, at home and abroad, is rising and sees freedom, liberalism, and social tolerance as weak, degenerate, delusional — inviting easy pushovers. As Russia thought it saw in Ukraine. All sides worldwide now are watching what we will do about it.

Background: "The United States has a much higher stake in Russia's war on Ukraine than most people think."  More: "If we stop supporting Ukraine, then everything gets worse, all of a sudden, and no one will be talking about “fatigue” because we will all be talking about disaster."

The coming times may require hard things of us here. We don't get to choose the time and place in history we find ourselves born into. We do get to choose how we respond to it. 

Here's an easy start: Get on the 50501 email list: https://www.fiftyfifty.one/. It stands for 50 states, 50 protests, 1 movement. The next national action is coming right up on May 1st. USA Today article on its who and what.  Pix.  Also: Join your local Indivisible, or at least download its guide for practical good-citizen strategies and tactics.

Stop moping and buck up. Play this, and this, and this, by people heading into a scarier part of the fight than you or I will face. Eight thousand more of those, sorted for just that one song by Shadow Phoenix. (lyrics)

Some people on the Western world's eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war is awful.) Maybe your granddad did this from a trench facing Hitler's tanks — for you, and us, because a world fascist movement was successfully defeated that time, opening the way for the rest of the 20th century.

But the outcome didn't look good for a couple of years then either. Popular history remembers the 1945 victory over the Nazis and the joyous homecoming. Less remembered are the defeats and grim prospects from 1939 through early 1943.

Some Americans have felt called there because they were more able than most. They will be remembered as heroes for humanity. By comparison, the rest of us have it easy.

Remember, the Ukrainians say they are doing this for us too. They are correct. The global struggle between a brighter future and a fearful revival of the dark past that's shaping up, including in our own country, is still in its early stages. The outcome is again uncertain, and it will determine the 21st century and the handling of all its other problems.

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PS: Ukraine should not be idealized as the paragon of an open democratic society. For instance, ‘A Big Step Back’: In Ukraine, Concerns Mount Over Narrowing Press Freedoms. And it has quite the history of being run by corrupt oligarchs — leading to the Maidan Uprising of 2013, the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and Zelensky's overwhelming election in 2019 as the anti-corruption candidate. So they're working on that. And they're stamping hard on the old culture of everyday, petty corruption.  More on that.  More; "Ukraine shows that real development happens when people believe they have an ownership stake in their own societies."

Wrote US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic early in the war, 

Here was a country with a tragic history that had at last begun to build, with great effort, a better society. What made Ukraine different from any other country I had ever seen—certainly from my own—was its spirit of constant self-improvement, which included frank self-criticism. For example, there’s no cult of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine—a number of Ukrainians told me that he had made mistakes, that they’d vote against him after the war was won. Maxim Prykupenko, a hospital director in Lviv, called Ukraine “a free country aspiring to be better all the time.” The Russians, he added, “are destroying a beautiful country for no logical reason to do it. Maybe they are destroying us just because we have a better life.”

They have a word there, with a deep history, for the horizontal, self-organized, mutual get-it-done that grows from community social trust: hromada. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

It's this tough.  "You've lived your life — go to the front!"
Army recruiting pamphlets for oldsters at a kiosk
in a train station.

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Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But in the last generation the ideal of modern European civil society has become widely treasured. The status of women has fast advanced throughout society, especially post-invasion. More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, not just in support roles and as drone pilots but as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, snipers, and infantry. Some LGBT folx in the armed forces display symbols of LGBT pride on their uniforms, with official approval, whereas in Russia it's a prison-worthy crime for even a civilian to show a rainbow pin or "say gay." A report on Ukraine's LGBT+ and feminist acceptance revolutions. Another. Another. Another. War changes things.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full support for them to win their security, freedom, and future. Speak up for it. Like, right now.

                                     

A Russian writer grieves: "My country has fallen out of time."

Women defenders on our world's eastern front

PPS:  U.S. authori-tarians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, say that allowing even the most capable women into front-line roles is a woke plot to weaken America's armed forces. Ukraine puts that shit to bed. Do you have a relative who talks like that? Send them this video link to Vidma, a junior lieutenant who commands a mortar platoon, recounting one of their many battles.

Update Feb. 2025: More than two years later Vidma is still alive, still at the front, and posting TikToks. Her mortar unit has graduated to heavy artillery. A young girl who looks high-school age showed up to join them; another vid with her. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on us. 

And maybe our own? Says Maine's independent Senator Angus King,

Whenever people write to my office [asking why we are supporting Ukraine,] I answer, 'Google Sudetenland, 1938.' We could have stopped a murderous dictator who was bent on geographic expansion…at a relatively low cost. The result of not doing so was 55 million deaths.

     

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