Polyamory in the News
. . . by Alan M.



August 31, 2024

"How Polyamory Became the New Normal" (it says). "Monogamy? In This Economy?" goes on tour. Smart symbiosexual unicorns. Best poly games. Baaad cops. And more.


●  How Polyamory Became the New Normal is the grabby title of a feature article in Canada's national newsmagazine, Maclean's (September print issue; online Aug. 26). The cover line is more modest: "The Proliferation of Polyamorous Relationships."

The article consists of five profiles of Canadian polyfamilies and how they got to be where they are, presented as first-person accounts. Excerpts:

Collage of five group photos of polyamorous households, with men and women of various ages
Carmen Cheung and Richmond Lam / Maclean's

Polyamory is suddenly everywhere—and it’s changing the face of love, marriage and even child-rearing. Five intimate stories of non-monogamy.

By Rosemary Counter

For proof of polyamory’s move into the Canadian mainstream, look no further than our easternmost province. In 2018, a judge in Newfoundland and Labrador ruled that a polyamorous trio of two men and a woman were all legal parents to their child—ruling against the province, which had refused to list more than two parents. “Society is continuously changing,” the judge wrote, “and family structures are changing along with it.” In 2021, a British Columbia Supreme Court judge issued a comparable decision on behalf of a similar “triad” relationship.

...Though throuples dominate pop-culture depictions, polyamorous relationships come in endless shapes, sizes and configurations, comprising people of all ages, genders, orientations and identities. ...

...We spoke to polyamorous people about how they make their configurations work in practical terms. How do they negotiate child care, date nights and sleeping arrangements? How do they deal with the jealousy and confusion that can arise? Here are five Canadian families on what polyamory means in their lives and how and why it works for them. ...

The Long-Distance Lovers
By Tara Lynne Franco

I discovered polyamory seven years ago, in my mid-40s, quite by accident. ... 

I met my current partner, André, on OkCupid in 2017. Neither of us identified as polyamorous at the time. About a month into dating, during an intimate moment, André playfully suggested that it would be helpful to have an “extra set of hands.” I replied, “That would be hot.” That night, we set up a joint dating profile to see if we could meet someone. ...

...From there we branched out, attending lifestyle clubs and parties—which fall more into the “swinging” category than into committed polyamory. We met couples and then dated others independently. ... What André and I realized early on is that open communication is the foundation for successful and secure polyamory—we got a lot of practice navigating new situations, like when I was jealous of a girlfriend of André’s who I felt was “cooler” than me, or when one of us went on a vacation with a partner on their own, or just seeing the other person having a really good time with someone at a party.

We learned a lot over the past seven years. Given that André is a sex-positive psychotherapist and I’m a life and relationship coach, it seemed a natural fit to teach others what we’ve learned. We started with a Facebook community, then developed some programs and services and now our Let’s Talk Polyamory Podcast. We love seeing people thrive in their relationships. ...

The Co-Parents
By Warren Baird

...I met Blue in 1996, just after graduating from university. We were never totally exclusive, and about a year into our relationship, we decided we would be polyamorous. I don’t want to own someone, nor have someone own me.... In 2007, Blue got pregnant with our daughter, Kaia.

At the time, Blue was also in a close relationship with another partner, Jbash. We knew the dynamics would transform when a baby entered the picture, and he knew he’d need to step back or step in. ... The three of us talked carefully before we made our decision: we merged to form a single family unit, and together raised Kaia.

Since 2007, we’ve all lived together. ... JBash and I earned good incomes, but Blue didn’t work outside the home due to some health issues. Two incomes to three people is a much better ratio than one income to two. Living together meant we could afford a bigger home in a nicer neighbourhood, and pool money for expenses.

And just as having three incomes is better, so are three parents.... To Kaia, Jbash, whom I consider a co-husband of Blue’s, is “Papa” and I’m “Dad.” She’s never felt the need to explain our lives to anyone, and rarely even mentions it—half the kids she goes to school with have split families, and plenty have step-parents living in different houses. We must have done something right, anyway—she just graduated at the top of her class as valedictorian.

The Full House
By Sarah Jean Stewart

...That night, she surprised me by telling me that she and her husband were interested in dating me as a couple. I was even more surprised by Adam’s reaction: if I wanted to explore their proposition, he said, I shouldn’t stop on his account. So, for about six months, I dated my friend and her husband. It was a beautiful experience, but it was their first foray into polyamory and it didn’t last. ...

Then we found Jenn and Josh. ...

...In the span of less than a decade, I had gone from knowing very little about polyamory to having multiple partners: Adam, Jenn, Josh, Nick and Chris, though he lives in a different city so we see each other less often. There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have considered that a healthy relationship, but being polyamorous has made me see that one person doesn’t have to fulfill all of my emotional and physical needs. It took me a long time to learn that. 

...Two years ago, we started looking for a house big enough to accommodate as many of us as possible, and last January, we moved into a big Victorian home near Ottawa. There’s me and Adam and our four-year-old son and my four daughters. There’s Jenn and Josh and their son Julian, who’s 21. And there’s PJ, a friend of ours who none of us are romantically involved with, but who’s part of the family. Adam and I share a bedroom, my teenage daughters share a huge room with bunk beds, PJ and Julian share a bedroom, and Jenn and Josh have their suite.

We’ve got the living arrangements down, but time management is a different story. We have a half-dozen Messenger threads going at any time and logistical meetings every day: where are the cars going? Who has what work to do? ...

It’s helpful to have so many people to share the financial load, but the biggest benefit is the sense of community. ... We’re surrounded by epic love, and that supports us through times that might otherwise decimate us. Living this way, and bringing up our families this way, is incredible. Even if we took the romance out, I wouldn’t go back.

The No-Secrets Polycule
By Silver Olatunde

...There was no big conversation about polyamory at the time. I knew he had other lovers; he knew I wanted to keep exploring. ... We also dated people together.

...Three years ago, we met Acintya and Pierre-Yves at a music festival, where Chris was doing sound and I was building outhouses. They were running the first-aid tent. ... It took a year and a half, but eventually we were all going out. We’re subtle and slow, so it took a while. Now we’ve met their children—five of them, from seven to 20 years old—and they’ve met my daughter.

...In the past, when we’ve gone through rough periods, we’ve made a point of not expanding our polycule—expansion means accommodating other people’s needs and desires, and if that isn’t happening in the primary relationship, it’s not likely to work by just adding more. If the timing isn’t right, we’ll wait. ... The primary relationship comes first—and we have a “no-secrets” policy, if only because we don’t have the capacity to lie.

Today, in addition to Chris and Acintya and Pierre-Yves, our polycule includes Chris’s Wife 1, albeit platonically. There’s also Chris’s previous lover Bexxie, as well as our newest love, Liah. We’ve known her for years, and it took her a long time to accept this side of herself. But it’s so important to allow people to be themselves on their own timeline. You make your own polyamory, and you define it every day.

The Reformed Monogamists
By Kristie Courtnell

...Denis’s profile said, “Full disclosure: I’m still living with my ex-wife, and we’re still friends.” That might have scared some people off, but to me it seemed refreshingly honest. ...

...We talked at length and tried different relationship dynamics to make things work—until eventually, he suggested monogamy. So, we closed the relationship and, for six months, we really tried. But it changed things. We were reluctant to express attraction to other people.... We couldn’t be ourselves. ... He gave me the monogamous relationship I thought I wanted, but it turned out I just wanted to know that our love was secure, and that I was enough. Two years ago, we opened it up again. We live together, so he’s my nesting partner, but we’re also dating Heather, with whom we’ve formed a throuple. She’s intelligent, athletic, well-travelled, free-spirited and beautiful.

Everything is different now. My insecurities are manageable. Denis gave me what I thought I wanted, only for me to realize that real security doesn’t come from any one relationship style. It comes from understanding ourselves and maintaining open communication with our partners.



●  Another good article with an overclaiming title: The story of Gen Z and the rise of polyamory; How values, openness, and digital savvy are transforming modern relationships. It's in WeHeart, an online magazine "exploring the intersections between art, design, lifestyle and travel." (Aug. 28)


It’s official: Gen Z is rewriting the rulebook on love, and monogamy is getting the boot. [Nope, monogamy will always be the right choice for many, maybe most. Ed.]  Consensual nonmonogamy, an umbrella concept that includes polyamory, is gaining traction as it allows individuals to pursue multiple intimate relationships with the full knowledge and consent of all parties involved. The rise of polyamory is in full flow. ...


It goes on to be a long, helpful Poly 101, including smart warnings to newbies and not-so-newbies, but again it skips the promised cultural hows and whys.


● Two new books are just out:

Monogamy? In This Economy? Finances, Childrearing, and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamoryby Laura Boyle (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). Boyle is starting a multi-city book and speaking tour.

This, I predict, will become the must-have book around the house for polyfamilies and other cohabiting polycules. At 190 pages it's a condensed, outstandingly practical, often blunt handbook telling how a wide variety of poly households navigate the realities of living together with various different degrees of sharing. Boyle is an energetic and diligent writer (her first book was Ready for Polyamory, 2021) and a blogger, podcaster, activist, and personal coach. She has lived the non-mono life for over 17 years, has "built a large and caring local polyamorous community here in Connecticut," and is currently living solo while co-parenting her kids.

She didn't just draw on her own experiences. She surveyed 468 people who were or had been living in households of three or more adults, then did deeper-dive interviews with 128 of them. Their wide variety of experiences and solutions sometimes surprised even her.          

A rave review of the book comes from possibly the best-qualified person in America to pass judgment: Kathy Labriola, poly for more than 50 years and a specialist polygroup relationship counselor in Berkeley for most of those decades. She has seen it all. Many times.

From her review on her website: 


Anyone considering moving in with their polyamorous partners should read this book FIRST! In addition, those already living together in a polyamorous triad, throuple, quad or other polyamorous family unit could benefit from Laura Boyle’s no-nonsense approach. Her very practical book provides guidance on navigating the choppy waters of space, money, privacy, noise, landlords and rental agreements, shared mortgages, housework, parenting and custody arrangements, breakups, and ex-spouses.

These are key issues which have proven to be deal-breakers for countless polycules! So the sooner the better for each person to think these important core issues through, get clarity on what their needs are and what they can and can’t live with, and decide whether this particular group of people are compatible to live together as a family. Unfortunately, many poly configurations do not realize their areas of incompatibility until after they move in together and things quickly blow up.


(A wide-ranging interview with Labriola is up on the Evolving Love Podcast, Polyamorous for 50 Years: Kathy Labriola. [Aug. 16; 1 hr 06 min.])

Another review of the book comes from Amy of the Coffee and Kink site, including chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. It concludes,


All the way through, Boyle’s insights are peppered with real-life stories from some of her hundreds of interviewees. These bring the theory to life and show some of the real-world challenges, joys, and problem-solving that takes place in polyamorous families.

I found this book to be a fairly quick read, with mostly relatively short chapters. Plenty of subheadings break it up into bite-sized chunks. They also make it easy to find the exact information you’re looking for. Boyle covers a hell of a lot of ground in this relatively concise book. She also signposts to other resources where appropriate.



●  Next new book:  More Than Two, second edition: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrityby Eve Rickert and Andrea Zanin (Thornapple Press) 

When the first edition of More Than Two appeared in 2014 it became the polyamory movement's biggest hit since The Ethical Slut in 1997. By 2021 it had sold almost 200,000 copies, even as co-authors Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert went through a fraught and exceedingly public breakup. It left Rickert with second thoughts about some of the book's content and overall direction. And, in these ten years, the whole CNM landscape itself has changed a lot.

Her updated, second edition is just out, co-authored with Andrea Zanin, a queer and kink consent expert and activist and fellow Canadian. Its new direction is indicated by the new subtitle and symbolized by the cover art. 

In her introduction Rickert writes,


This book could not have existed without [co-author Zanin]. While the bones of the original are there, we've revised every bit of it, and added significant new content. The book you hold in your hands now is the culmination of ten years of unlearning and relearning, grief and heartbreak, unravelling and breaking and remaking. It's a triumph and an apology, an attempted righting of past wrongs and a prayer for the future, a tiny — and, I hope, humble — contribution to the vital project of love.



What's changed in its approach? In the "Finding Your Compass" chapter, Rickert and Zanin write


As nonmonogamous communities have moved toward more flexible models that prize autonomy and flexibility, some have arrived at a hyper-individualist, even capitalist approach wherein everyone is responsible for their own feelings, anyone can walk away at any time, and people are perceived to have no, or almost no, responsibility to others, even their closest intimates. This framework has been called poly libertarianism, and to be quite honest, a lot of it was encouraged by parts of the first edition of this book.  We believe that while some of these ideas are rooted in good principles, when they are not balanced with responsibility, they can lead to a lot of harm. 


In parallel, much of the organized poly world in the last 10 years has leaned toward the same shift in philosophy.


●  And a book on the way. You knew it was coming: Polyamory for Dummies will be published this December.

The publisher's description sounds like it might actually be okay. A good sign is that the author is Dr. Jaime M. Grant, a radical queer and sexuality book author, podcaster, and former policy institute director at the National LGBTQ Task Force. But the gigantic For Dummies franchise, owned by Wiley, has a reputation for very uneven quality. After the early Dummies books became a financial success, critics say, Wiley expanded the series way too fast at the cost of poor quality control.

Fingers crossed. It'll be hefty, 352 pages. 


● The local-polyfamily newspaper profile is a genre that never grows old. In the Minnesota Star Tribune: A gay, multi-ethnic, chicken-farming family is part of Minnesota’s emerging polyamorous community (Aug. 20, registration walled). The StarTrib, based in Minneapolis, is the state's largest newspaper and the eighth largest-circulation daily paper (digital plus print) in the US.

You might be able to get this kind of coverage just by calling your local paper and asking if they're interested!

In this case the reporter's interest was apparently piqued by the annual MNPolyCon in July.


"Bryan Demeritte, a Unitarian pastor and farmer, center, stands with his husband,
Deron Demeritte, right, and Joshua Rodriguez, left, on their Loving More
Farmstead in Waseca." (Nicole Neri / Minnesota Star Tribune)





















By Richard Chin, feature reporter

Bryan and Deron Demeritte and Joshua Rodriguez don’t exactly make up a stereotypical rural household.

It’s true that they hunt and fish and raise chickens, fruits and vegetables on their 10-acre farmstead in Waseca, surrounded by fertile rolling fields of soybean and corn.

But Bryan, a full-time farmer and a part-time Unitarian pastor and seminary professor, describes Deron and Joshua as his two husbands.

Think of it as Green Acres, nonmonogamy style. Or polyamory among the chickens.

Bryan, 52, is white, a former teacher who grew up Baptist in Missouri. Deron, 38, is Black and originally from the Bahamas. He works as an industrial and commercial HVAC foreman and has been legally married to Bryan for 11 years. Joshua (who plans to change his last name to Demeritte) is a 24-year-old restoration company project manager. He’s mostly Latino and grew up in Boston as the son of immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.

Joshua has been in a committed relationship with Bryan for five years. He and Deron consider themselves as brother husbands. ...

The three recently moved into their five-bedroom ranch house in the small southern Minnesota town as business and relationship partners in what they’ve called Loving More Farmstead.

Their spread includes three barns, a field of corn, four small vineyards, an apple orchard, a couple of geese and 72 juvenile Heritage chickens that will earn their keep laying eggs for market. They’ll be adding a market vegetable garden and begin raising sheep for lamb meat next.

There are other farmers of color. And other gay farmers. But Bryan said he doesn’t know of any other gay, nesting, polyamorous, multiracial farming households.

So far, the Loving More trio said they haven’t had any problems fitting into their rural community. “Were the happiest we’ve ever been,” Bryan said. “I think people in this Minnesota sense are very welcoming, but they also just leave you alone.” ...

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

...The local nonmonogamy group called MNPoly reports its membership has grown to more than 4,000 members, up from about 1,000 in early 2020. More than 100 people attended the nonprofit’s fifth annual convention, MNPolyCon, held this summer at a community center in St. Louis Park. ...

...Bryan Demeritte led a session called “Non-Monogamy 101″ in which he said terms like “ethical nonmonogamy” and “consensual nonmonogamy” are giving way to a simpler, nonjudgmental umbrella term: nonmonogamy. ...

Demeritte is writing a book to be published next year called “The More Love the Better,” which he said will describe nonmonogamy in the 21st century from the theological perspective.

“Someone you know is nonmonogamous,” Demeritte said. “It is becoming more and more mainstream. It’s time to let people be who they want to be and live the way they want to live.”



● Some lively family-of-origin drama made it to Reddit's "Am I The Asshole?" section and went a bit viral. On BoredPanda: Man Rejects Bride’s BFF’s Polyamorous Partners To Prevent Family Backlash, Receives An Ultimatum (Aug. 20). Spoiler: Amid the uproar, the AH admitted fault and it ends happily.


●  6 Best Games With Healthy Polyamorous Dating Options (GameRant, Aug. 23). "Not many [computer] games have managed to depict polyamory without bias, but a few titles take big strides in this regard. ..."

The chosen top six (with reviews) are the Hades franchise,  Pathfinder: Kingmaker,  Baldur's Gate 3,  The Waylanders,  The Sims 4: Lovestruck,  and Pumpkin Days. 

 
●  A discussion in the growing CNM-studies world has been started by Daniel Cardoso, longtime academic researcher and conference organizer from Portugal. Reframing the role of communication in consensual and/or ethical (non)monogamies: A proposal for a change in academic terminology (ver. 1) Online Aug. 5, 2024.


I argue that naming conventions are some of the most important – and dangerous – tools and acts that researchers have at their disposal and, thus, should be employed with the utmost care.

Considering the ongoing discussions – both inside and outside of academia – around the terms “consensual non-monogamies” and “ethical non-monogamies”, this essay proposes a novel solution to help create less morally-slanted, and overreaching... umbrella terms.



And speaking of terminology, 



Recent research published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior has identified a phenomenon called symbiosexuality, where individuals find themselves attracted to the dynamics within existing relationships. These findings offer a new perspective on human desire, suggesting that attraction can be more complex than we previously understood.

The concept of symbiosexuality emerged from observations in cultural and academic discourses that some people are drawn to the relationships between others rather than to individuals themselves. Despite this, the phenomenon had remained largely unexplored...

“As part of the polyamorous community, I have heard people talk openly about experiencing attraction to established couples,” explained study author Sally W. Johnston....

These findings... challenge the ongoing invisibility and invalidation of and stigma and discrimination against such attractions, within both the polyamorous community and broader mononormative culture.


In my experience, healthy "conscious unicorns" (of any gender) — who not only fall in love with a couple and their dynamic but also know how to look out for their own interests — are fairly common. An example: Caroline Giuliani wrote in Vanity Fair, 


When a couple invites me into their bed, I not only get welcomed into the midst of their preexisting connection, but also get to forge a new one with them based on their trust that I will respect the boundaries of their relationship. This is a vulnerable position all around: for the couple in opening their connection to a newcomer, and for the unicorn in entering a power dynamic where they are the only one without an established teammate.


So don't be prejudiced, folks.

The research paper itself came out last April, and the term symbiosexual originated1 back in 2021. But now it's suddenly getting news attention: in the New York Post, Daily Mail, MSN, Toronto SunHuffPost UK, Deutsche Welle in Germany, the Hindustan Times and NDTV in India, more. Looks like it's here to stay.

1. Johnston, S. W. & Schoenfeld, C. (2021). Symbiosexual: Introducing a term for sexual/romantic attraction to couples. Poster presentation, Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, San Juan, Puerto Rico.


●  ACAB is an ugly overstatement, but this sure doesn't help: Lawsuit claims Kansas dad targeted by police after ending polyamorous relationship with officer (KCTV-5 News, Kansas City, Aug. 28)


...The complaint filed on Wednesday... claimed Smith attempted to end his part in a polyamorous relationship with Officer Eric Windler and his wife, after which he was ruthlessly targeted. [It alleges] the arrest was the result of a “deeply flawed investigation and a gross misuse of police authority.”

Smith was arrested and convicted for allegedly making off with his ex-wife's car despite "the facts around the ownership of the vehicle in question," says the lawsuit.


... Alongside DA Howe and Officer Windler, the lawsuit names officers Christopher Tritt, Kevin Curry and Brandon Fox. ... Smith argued his arrest, confinement and prosecution were intentionally orchestrated despite clear evidence of his innocence. ...



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

Finally, because this situation is absolutely not going away,







    
Here is why I've been ending posts to this polyamory news site with Ukraine: 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. Increasingly powerful people call us a threat to society, religion, and nation — because by living successfully outside their worldview, we expose its incompleteness.

Our freedom to choose our relationship structures, and to speak up for ourselves about the truth of ourselves, is just one way we depend on a free and pluralistic society that respects people's dignity to create their own lives, to access facts, and to speak of what they know.

Such a society is possible only where people have reasonably good power to govern themselves, combined with legal structures that are at least supposed to guarantee the rights of all.

Vote for Ukraine Aid protest signs outside the US Capitol
Innovative people, communities, and societies who create their own lives, and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights that enable them to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the authoritarians who are growing in power around the world and in our own United States. Now with direct mutual support that is increasingly stated out loud.

Such rulers and would-be rulers seek to stamp out other people's freedom to choose their lives — by intimidation, repressive laws, inflammatory disinformation and public incitement, stacking courts, and sometimes, eventually, artillery.

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, linking up at home and abroad, is rising and sees freedom and liberalism and social tolerance as weak, degenerate, delusional  inviting easy pushovers. As Russia thought it saw in Ukraine. The whole world is watching what we will do about it. Starting with China, with its eyes on Taiwan.


The coming times may require hard things of us. 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. 

Need a little help bucking up? Play thisAnother version. More? Some people on the eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war is awful.) Maybe your own 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 1941 through early 1943.

Remember, these people say they are doing it for us too. They are correct. The global struggle between a free, open 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.

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

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 (New York Times, June 18, 2024). 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 trusthromada. It's been keeping them going  to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

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

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, especially post-invasion. More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions — including 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 revolutionsAnotherAnotherAnother. War changes things.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full material backing for as long as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and future. Continue to speak up for it.
                                     
A Russian writer grieves: "My country has fallen out of time."


Ukrainian women soldiers in dense undergrowth
Women defenders on our world's eastern front

PPS:  U.S. authori-tarians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, say that allowing women in 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, who commands a mortar platoon, recounting the story of one of their battles near Bakhmut.

Update August 28, 2024: Two years later Vidma is still alive, still with her mortar unit, still at the front, and posting TikToks.  A young girl who looks high-school age showed up to join themAnother 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.


[Permalink]

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,



July 28, 2024

That threesome hookup in the Olympics opening ceremonies. USA Today on babies in polyfamilies. Advice columns on babies in polyfamilies. And other poly in the news.


● If you watched the Olympics opening ceremonies with your polycule, I bet you whooped at the unexpected. You weren't the only ones. For instance, in Us Weekly: Threesome Bit at Olympics Opening Ceremony: ‘Little Hot and Bothered’ (July 26)


...“We are transitioning from the Liberty portion, which got us a little hot and bothered in the pouring rain,” [NBC Olympics announcer Savannah] Guthrie joked during the Friday broadcast of the opening ceremony....

During the Liberty segment of the “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” demonstration, three dancers in a library [France's Bibliothèque nationale] ran past a book titled Le Triomphe De L’Amour — "The Triumph of Love." The trio ran out of the library and into the streets of Paris. They found themselves in a building where they ran up a spiral staircase.

After one female dancer nearly kissed both of her fellow dancers on the stairs, all three performers snuck into a room, got cozy and shut the door on the camera.

“We are uninvited, OK,” commentator Kelly Clarkson said, before joking “That was just rude.”

The three are M, F, and gender indeterminate, and of course you want the video. Here it is. (I would embed it here but that would mean paying Xitter.) Below is a still. 

 


During the performance, NBC Olympics primetime host Mike Tirico shared a little insight about the inspiration behind the performance.

“So the artistic director, Thomas Jolly, decided to lean into some of the clichés about France,” Tirico explained. “The City of Light, known as a romantic city. So much literature written or set here involves love. So in this segment, love and literature the twain shall meet. Or maybe we should say trois.

Guthrie and Clarkson weren’t the only viewers who had some thoughts about the cheeky performance.

“I didn’t have the Olympics opening ceremony celebrating polyamory among their celebration of love, but I’m here for it,” one user wrote via X. ... 


As News.com in Australia noted (in Viewers stunned by threesome in Olympics opening ceremony, July 27), 


The official Olympic Games X account shared an image of the trio with a quote from legendary author Victor Hugo: “The freedom to love is no less sacred than the freedom to think.”


Lots more. US right-wing sites had a meltdown about it — kids will find out there are threesomes! — even amid everything else they've got going on right now.   


●  Speaking of kids, two days earlier USA Today published a long feature article: Polyamory, pregnancy and the truth about what happens when a baby enters the picture (online July 24). 


By David Oliver

Ashley Hefley didn't have a second baby on her 2023 bingo card. She and her husband hadn't planned on expanding their family – they already had one child together – but that May, fate drew up other plans. ...

What else wasn't on her bingo card? A third baby right around the same time. No, Hefley wasn't having twins. She and her husband were also in a relationship with another woman, Anna. The polyamorous throuple found out Anna was pregnant, too, a few months later.

"Ashley Hefley and her partner Anna found out
they were pregnant within months of each
other. (Courtesy Ashley Hefley)" 


"Don't worry, he's getting a vasectomy," Hefley, 29, joked over a recent phone call. She's laughing now, but wasn't then. Two women with morning sickness. Pregnancy brain. Exhaustion. But also a rare, cool opportunity.

Hefley's story is one of many. Polyamorous relationships, while not new, have become more prominent and commonplace in the last several years. As these relationships flourish, and years pass, babies are becoming part of the equation. The reality is that having a child is the start of a life-changing journey that requires crystal clear communication from all parties involved – no matter your relationship structure. And many in the polyamorous community want people to know that pregnancy does not suddenly disqualify someone from being ethically non-monogamous.

"Having a baby is challenging for a plethora of emotional, physical, mental and logistical reasons," says Grace Lawrie, licensed professional counselor. "I've known polyamorous people for whom having the extra support of additional partners was crucial for them to have children. As the old adage goes, it takes a village."

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

...By the time [Jessica] Daylover got pregnant, five years into the marriage, they were comfortable practicing polyamory. Their household – who they "nest" with, in polyamory terms – has since grown. It now includes their 6- and 3-year-old children and two partners (one with Jessica, and one with Joe). Jessica calls Joe's partner her metamour, or a platonic connection you have with someone with whom you share a romantic relationship.

This living arrangement makes both logistical and emotional sense: "There's a big difference in the experience of adding children between polyam folks who are organized as multiple partners together in one household versus polyam folks who are organized as a dyad with 'outside partners; who live elsewhere," says Sheila Addison, a family and marriage therapist. ...

"Dana Hare (middle) has been remarried for a little over five years to her husband Eli and they have another partner, Gaby (right). (Courtesy Dana Hare)"




















...[Diana] Adams says it can be helpful to lawyer up. [But first] a lot of questions need to be worked out when it comes to polyamory and starting a family: How long does a parent need to be dating someone before they meet a child? Should they be joining for family dinners multiple times a week, or for holidays? Not to mention considerations about shared values, like money, and what everyone's definition of infidelity is.

"I do create legal agreements for people, whether that's a co-parenting agreement or a financial agreement about how they want to share finances," Adams says. "But I see those conversations as even more valuable for keeping people out of conflict."

In their practice, Adams finds that usually polyamorous people and queer families tend to be very cautious and understanding. And a breakup doesn't necessarily have to get nasty, especially when you prep for it in the fine print.

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

...Sarah Stroh, 35, started exploring non-monogagmy in 2016 and lives with her partner of four years. They have an almost 6-month-old together. They've dated other people but have never had a committed, long-term partner other than each other.

...Actor Nico Tortorella and his partner, too, grew monogamous as their family grew, he shared in a recent podcast.

"When you're focusing all of your energy on creating life, you really have to give it your all," he said, "especially if it's not working. And then, sustaining life – being a father's the most important role I've ever played in my life. There's nothing that will come close."

Adams, however, found it worked well to stick with polyamory while growing their family, especially as they endured multiple miscarriages and a long struggle with infertility. Adams was "grateful that I had more than one partner as well as a robust chosen family of people to be in mutual support and in community with me and with my co-parent." It allowed for time to grieve with more people, too. ...


And then, IMO, comes something pretty questionable:


Who's the biological father? For some, the answer doesn't matter.

Another question that often comes up – and impacts everyone differently – is who are the biological parents of the child? Particularly the father. Some families have no interest in knowing, and others a vested interest. Some go out of their way to know for sure.

Daylover, for example, "did not have sex with other partners anywhere near my fertility window."

But that's not the case for others in the community, she says. "Just as adoptive parents or step parents will be like, 'that is my kid.' There are polycules that are like, 'we all had sex, and we all weren't using protection, and we were all hoping a baby would come in one of the sessions, and it did and we don't need to know, because we are all the parent.' "


And that can lead to bad places, not just in my opinion but lawyers' and doctors'. One obvious issue — in addition to medical issues, custody rights and obligations, and the kid's rights if things ever go south — is this: I've observed that in polyfamilies with two dads, it becomes clear pretty soon which father the child looks more like. If the grown-ups pretend they don't see or know, it becomes an increasingly obvious elephant in the room for them and for everybody who knows the family. Room elephants wreak destruction in poly groups.

Have a DNA test done in the hospital at birth when everyone is happy and together. If you really don't want to know yet, seal the test result without looking at it and put it on file with a lawyer or in a safe-deposit box.

If nothing else, you owe this to the child and adult the baby will become. Especially if one of the dads is gone by then and can't be found when the testing becomes necessary.


...Just because some parental duties may be easier to handle [with three or more parents] doesn't necessarily mean it's smooth sailing for the relationship. Hefley and her husband are actually getting a divorce in order to make things more equitable for their third partner.

...Poly relationships, like any relationship, experience high highs and low lows. Pregnancy and newborns, in particular, can result in "polysaturation," when non-monogamous people "reach the maximum number of romantic or sexual relationships that they can comfortably and sustainably manage," Lawrie says.

Breakups are often messy. Now imagine multiple people in a relationship, and you've got a much bigger mess on your hands. It's much more tricky when children are involved.

"Having a child was always a high priority
for Sarah Stroh. (Courtesy Sarah Stroh)


After giving birth, Stroh was wary of her partner dating again. Their dynamics shifted. She was the one stuck at home breastfeeding.

She didn't realize this discrepancy would impact her "ability to date and and meet people and be non-monogamous, or enjoy the fruits of non-monogamy." Stroh "naively thought I would be able to keep up being a fun, free, sexy person, but I didn't really feel that way a lot of the time, especially later in my pregnancy."

It's different for everyone: "Sex may become an issue when a pregnant person is in a non-monogamous relationship − if their partners have other partners to turn to for sex, it may bring up feelings of jealousy or of being 'replaced,' Addison says. "On the other hand, it might be a relief that their partners have other sexual relationships, and the pregnant person is too exhausted or ill or uncomfortable before birth, or recovering from birth postpartum, and doesn't want to or isn't able to have sex."

Stroh ultimately felt comfortable with her beau seeing an on-and-off partner of his own.

[Diana] Adams points out people sometimes opt for monogamy briefly. In the 17 years they've been in a polyamorous partnership, the only time [Diana and her husband] have been monogamous was while pregnant. Mainly due to the STI risk.

"I still had dates with other partners that were platonic and still about connecting and felt tremendous amounts of support through my pregnancy, because we took that factor off the table as one of the things to be stressed out about, for me as an anxious lawyer mom," Adams says. ...



●  In my last post, remember those advice columns in the Washington Post and Slate? The same day that USA Today spotlighted polyfamilies with babies, another advice columnist replied to another uncomfortable older parent writing about a polyfamily with their grandkid on the way. Dear Abby: I don’t know where to put my son and his 2 girlfriends during a visit (week of July 24).


My 25-year-old son lives with his two girlfriends, who are also romantically involved with each other. They share a single bedroom. One of them has a baby due this week, and the other has made noises about wanting a child.

I don’t approve of this arrangement and can’t see it ending well. I love my son and I have a good relationship with all three of them, but it flies in the face of my upbringing and beliefs.

My question: How do I deal with this threesome if they come stay at my house? I don’t want this going on under my roof, but I don’t know how to assign bedrooms. ... I think my son knows me well enough to (hopefully) make that decision before coming here. I’m afraid if I assign bedrooms according to my convictions, it will lead to a falling-out. Any advice?

– Conflicted Dad in Ohio




●  A different advice-column query, this time to Rich Juzwiak's queer-positive sex column "How To Do It" in Slate: Ethical for Who? (July 21). A young, primary open couple are in trouble with their more-evolved-than-thou poly critics. Thankfully, Juswiak gets this right.  


Dear How to Do It,

My wife (25 F) and I (25 F) have recently started experimenting with non-monogamy as a natural extension of our journey with kink, and our desire to find new kinds of queer community. ... My question is in regards to the ethics of our ethical non-monogamy. We feel strongly that there is a distinction between our relationship and the relationships we have with other partners, and our relationship comes first. We really care for our partners and consider them close friends, but we’re building a life together, we have a mortgage, and eventually will have kids. We also only have sex with partners if both my wife and I are present (solo non-sexual hangouts are fine).

This type of hierarchical setup, I have come to find out, does not sit well with many people more experienced with polyamory. We’ve been told our arrangement indicates a possessiveness around love and sex, and a less evolved understanding of polyamory and relationships in general. ... So I guess I’m wondering, is our dynamic inherently toxic because it incorporates aspects of monogamy? How can we go about hierarchical polyamory with the maximal respect for the wonderful people we are getting to know?

—Ethical for Who?

Dear Ethical for Who?

I’m familiar with the philosophy behind the negative feedback you’ve received, and I respect your detractors’ idealism. They have a point of view and it’s their right to live according to their morals. When they cross the line into insisting that you adopt their way of doing poly is where they go too far for me. Beware of people who think they have it all figured out. Inevitably, they don’t. ... I have to wonder if the people who have read you for filth have truly achieved poly nirvana. Does their method really come without drama, hardships, and breakups? Highly doubt it. Besides, isn’t this anti-hierarchical attitude … kind of hierarchical? ... It’s snobby, at the very least.

The people who tell you that you’re possessive and unevolved are not your people. ... There’s no one way to do poly. ... What matters the most here is how you and your wife feel, as well as the people you are seeing. If they don’t feel used, there’s no problem there. If you can conduct loving relationships with them while they understand exactly where you and your wife are at with the whole poly thing, fantastic. 



●  Lastly, gamers into The Sims are all over a new upgrade that lets you define your characters' relationship boundaries in ways that enable realistic polycules. These may succeed or blow up, depending on your wits and maybe your emotional intelligence, or what the machine considers to be emotional intelligence. Google Alerts is feeding me a lot of buzz from the gaming world (including complaints of technical bugs).

















With its new romantic boundaries system, The Sims 4 finally allows you to play polyamorous families without watching relationships crash and burn in the flames of cheating accusations any time one of them gets slightly flirty with a crush. The system hinges on jealousy being a spectrum, and allows you to get pretty granular with whether your Sim is okay with their partners being flirtatious or physical with other Sims and whether they're up to changing their boundaries through gameplay and conversations.

But as with all things in The Sims, sometimes you need a bit of inspiration. You could play a solo Sim with totally open relationship boundaries dating around, but the real fun is in managing a bigger family with its own quirks and challenges.

The magazine recruited knowledgeable people to test-drive five setups: Non-hierarchical triad, Non-hierarchical hinge, Mono-poly, Hierarchical polycule, and Non-hierarchical polycule.

The reviewers had, for instance, this to say about the non-hierarchical polycule, which included the characters pictured above.


Sarah: Inside this style of household are a variety of diverse relationships—and not everyone is in one with everyone else, some people may just be metamours and roommates. Most critically, both the household and relationships inside it are egalitarian, with nobody being above anyone else. 

Lauren: This household is fun to make but chaotic to play! Kieran and his wife Hailey, who have open relationship boundaries, live with Kieran's long-time besties Gavin and Elise who are newly dating. The latter two have closed boundaries but are open to talking about changing that—which they'll need to, because Elise is also catching feelings for Hailey.

...Remember to make use of other personality traits like "jealous" or "romantic" or "loyal" to shape each relationship, or use the "romance dynamic" setting for each relationship if you have the Lovestruck expansion. ...

Sarah: Honestly, this result is the most surprising to me, simply because I didn’t imagine something so complex to manage in real life could be replicated. With that, it really nails 'fun but chaotic,' which is what a busy relationship life can sometimes feel like.


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

Meanwhile, because this situation is absolutely not going away,







    
Here is why I've been ending posts to this polyamory news site with Ukraine: 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. Increasingly powerful people call us a threat to society and nation — because by living successfully outside of their worldview, we expose its incompleteness.

Our freedom to choose our relationship structures, and to speak up for ourselves about the truth of ourselves, is just one way we depend on a free and pluralistic society that respects people's dignity to create their own lives, to access facts, and to speak of what they know.

Such a society is possible only where people have reasonably good power to govern themselves, combined with legal structures that are at least supposed to guarantee the rights of all.

Vote for Ukraine Aid protest signs outside the US Capitol
Innovative people, communities, and societies who create their own lives, and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights that enable them to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the authoritarians who are growing in power around the world and in our own United States. Now with direct mutual support that is increasingly stated out loud.

Such rulers and would-be rulers seek to stamp out other people's freedom to choose their lives — by intimidation, repressive laws, inflammatory disinformation and public incitement, weaponizing police abuse, stacking courts, and sometimes, eventually, artillery.

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, linking up at home and abroad, is rising and sees freedom and liberalism and social tolerance as weak, degenerate, delusional  inviting easy pushovers. As Russia thought it saw in Ukraine. The whole world is watching what we will do about it. Starting with China, with its eyes on Taiwan.


The coming times may require hard things of us. 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. 

Need a little help bucking up? Play thisAnother version. More? Some people on the eastern front trying to hold onto an open society. (TW: war is awful.) Maybe your own 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 1941 through early 1943.

Remember, these people say they are doing it for us too. They are correct. The global struggle between a free, open future and a fearful revival of the dark past that's shaping up, including in our own country, is still in its early stages. It's likely to get worse before it gets better. The outcome is again uncertain, and it will determine the 21st century and the handling of all its other problems.

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

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 (New York Times, June 18, 2024). 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."

Writes US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic, 


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 trusthromada. It's been keeping them going  to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

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

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, especially post-invasion. More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions — including 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 revolutionsAnotherAnotherAnother. War changes things.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full material backing for as long as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and future. Continue to speak up for it.
                                     
A Russian writer grieves: "My country has fallen out of time."


Ukrainian women soldiers in dense undergrowth
Women defenders on the world's eastern front

PPS:  U.S. authori-tarians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, say that allowing women in 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, who commands a mortar platoon, recounting the story of one of their battles near Bakhmut.

Update July 28, 2024: Almost two years later Vidma is still alive, still with her mortar unit, and posting TikToks. They are now at the front in, it looks like, the battle to hold Chasiv Yar, an afternoon's hike east of Bakhmut. A young girl who looks high-school age showed up to join themAnother vid. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on us. 

And maybe our own? Says Maine's independent Senator Angus King (Jan. 31, 2024),


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.


Labels: , , , , , , , ,