"The Invite" lowdown. "This Is Poly" TV series. We get 9 minutes on ABC News. And a friendly but very real examination of modern throuples' messes

If you think polyamory has slowed its 15-year sweep into mainstream fascination — nope! Ain't happened yet.

So, at what point does this thing. . . go too far? Are we already there? Repeat after me: Polyamory is not for everyone, and not for most. Not even, perhaps, for most who are now rushing into it.

I say this having evangelized for the possibilities of group romantic love since even before the Zell nest invented the word "polyamory" for it at the end of the 1980s. 

● The movie The Invite, an indie fave at Sundance last January, is now beging mass-released in megaplexes everywhere. It's had solid early box office. (Spoiler coming:) Its tantalizing early publicity — that it would show polyamory addressing a fraught dead-marriage situation — was just a tease. Near the movie's end the "invite" is turned down, and the story stops just when it could have begun.

But it represents a positive new twist, Marie Claire magazine points out (July 4):

The Invite gives ENM [ethical non-monogamy] the nuanced portrayal it rarely gets on screen. The story follows two couples whose dinner descends into arguments, flirtation and, eventually, a proposition. Yet, for once, the open couple aren't the dysfunctional one. Instead, it's the supposedly "normal" monogamous pair (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen) whose relationship begins to unravel.

The movie is getting good reviews and very good audience-exit interviews. It looks to become a summer hit. A Guardian story (July 3) begins,

‘I feel both thrilled and ruined by this’: Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton on making sex comedy The Invite

Their movie about marital bed death is this summer’s buzziest, funniest film. ...

By Catherine Shoard

The good-example couple (left) offer education to the monos.

Earlier this week, Edward Norton took a night flight from New York to London and felt so dreadful the next day he decided to get a massage. “I hadn’t had one in such a long time,” he says. “And I almost started crying. You’re like: ‘Oh! Ah!’ ”

He has heard similar sounds from cinemas screening his new movie, The Invite, which is about the devastating impact of marriage on your sex life. “People are almost tearful. They’re like: ‘I haven’t had a good, adult laugh that made me feel seen in a long time.’ ” ...

Fanbolt sums up: How Olivia Wilde’s ‘The Invite’ Puts Polyamory in the Multiplex Without the Doom (July 10)

By Emma Loggins

Hollywood has spent decades treating non-monogamy as either a punchline or a plot device headed for catastrophe. ... The Invite lets an openly non-monogamous couple be the most appealing people in the room instead of a cautionary tale, even if the film itself gets cold feet before the credits.

...The marketing dangles an orgy the film has no intention of delivering, and once the night pivots from comedy into something closer to group therapy, The Invite pulls back right when it could have gotten savage. ...

So the framing that this is the film that finally makes polyamory the happy ending is not quite right. What it actually does is subtler and more interesting. It lets Hawk and Piña be desirable and emotionally intelligent rather than doomed, and it uses them as a mirror to expose everything calcified in Joe and Angela’s marriage,....

The Cultural Moment Is Real, Even If the Film Hedges

...Intimacy experts keep pointing out that for a lot of viewers, movies and TV are their only window into what [poly] relationships look like, so when the depictions are relentlessly negative, they warp public understanding of lives that are far less doomed than the screen insists. That is why a movie built to let a poly couple be the aspirational ones matters, even one that flinches. 

The Invite treats Hawk and Piña as people with something to teach rather than a threat to be survived, and that alone is a shift.

...The value here is in the framing, not the follow-through. ... That is a smaller swing than the trailer promised, and I wish the film had matched the audacity of its premise. But a mainstream comedy that can imagine a version of love not automatically ending in a single couple walking into the sunset, and that treats the alternative as attractive rather than tragic, is a real tell about where this is all heading.

●  Also new in mass-market media — less happily — is This Is Poly, a reality show on WeTV. Here's the trailer; it opens excitedly but turns cringy with reality-drama (of course coffee is thrown). Episode guide so far.

Confession: I don't watch reality TV, so go find reviews elsewhere. I don't trust AI, but the pithy summary of early reviews that Google AI's serves up may save you time:

While intended as dramatic, trashy entertainment, [This Is Poly] is widely criticized for spotlighting dysfunctional, toxic, and non-ethical dynamics rather than healthy, consensual polyamory.

This from reddit user Polyamorouspotato seems typical:

I just finished “This is Poly” and I have noted that every dynamic is entirely toxic. From “throuples” to harems. Rules and all the couples dating together. Also notes of poly under duress.

This show made me so angry lol. I understand the choices to show drama on tv but woof there isn’t a single example of ethical polyamory.

Almost all 63 commenters agree. One that didn't:

I LOVED it. It did not disappoint in the entertainment and cringe. I hosted a watch party of CNM folks which was the best way to enjoy the show. BQ and his friend Pauly may be my favorites for having the best douchiest lines of the show and providing me a ton of laughs. But the “999,000 bitches” roster girlies also brought the toxicity and the clipboards.

I Lost the Remote and Watched 'This Is Poly' — I Wouldn’t Wish That on Anyone (TV Fanatic, June 17).

One of the five polycules on the show described to ShowBiz Cheatsheet what they underwent during filming: ‘This Is Poly’ Power Throuple on the ‘Pressure Cooker’ of Reality TV and the Importance of Hard Conversations (June 26). Trent admits the filming "was more than we bargained for." Says Nita (whose three DUI arrests and mug shot are now famous), "I feel like I could have [done] a lot better communicating through a lot of it." (She could also have grasped that if you go on reality TV, of course your arrest record and mug shot will go out there tied to what you represent). Kami, having invested so much of herself in the show, tries to see the positive:   

...“One of our main goals for doing it was really to help people see that this is actually a really viable option and you can do it in a healthy way,” she said. “Yes, it might still be messy. There’s not a rule book for it, so it’s hard … it was really showing people that this can be a really beautiful thing. And it is something that if people really want to grow and expand and love, it is something that’s possible.”

●  On a rather higher level, the Presbyterian Church USA (the larger and more liberal branch of the split Presbytherians) just went through some tumult over polyamory, as has been happen in other churchs. A proposal to its recent General Assembly would have expelled ministers in non-monogamous relationships. It made the news.

From the Associated Press, in many newspapers: As polyamory gains visibility, monogamy faces a vote in the Presbyterian Church USA (via Religion News Service, June 12)

By Katheryn Post

A proposal that would require ordained clergy to be monogamous is on the docket at the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly this summer.

The overture, CON-10, has generated strong reactions online but not yet earned broad support from PCUSA groups. A separate proposal asks for theological studies on gender and sexuality, life-giving relationships and the Christian vocation of family that would support the denomination’s commitment to inclusion of different familial realities. Together, these overtures show that as polyamory gains visibility in broader culture, it may have policy implications, especially in theologically progressive Christian denominations.

“I think it is the next big conversation that most mainline denominations will have,” said the Rev. Claudia Aguilar Rubalcava, director of engagement for the LGBTQ-affirming nonprofit More Light Presbyterians.

 La Fabbrica Dei Sogni/ Unsplash/ Creative Commons

More Light Presbyterians released a statement last month, saying the proposal on monogamy targets queer communities. “It centers a single model of relationship as the only faithful expression of Christian life, ignoring both the breadth of biblical witness and the lived realities of many faithful people,” the statement says. ...

Last month, More Light Pres­by­teri­ans hos­ted a “Faith­ful Polyamory 101” train­ing that framed the Trin­ity as mod­el­ling the kind of mutual, over­flow­ing love that can be reflec­ted in polyamory. ... Chris­tian advoc­ates for polyamory often point to the range of rela­tion­ship mod­els in the Bible — though many con­trast poly­gamy, which often has hier­arch­ical implic­a­tions, with mod­ern forms of polyamory — and emphas­ize the import­ance of safe, con­sen­sual rela­tion­ships with clear bound­ar­ies.

...Aguilar Rubalcava told RNS that at speaking engagements, she routinely encounters polyamorous Presbyterians hungry for support. Kate Davoli, who serves as co-moderator on the board of More Light Presbyterians, told RNS they were dismissed from the denomination’s ordination process for being openly polyamorous. 

...As polyamory gains exposure, other mainline denominations have begun to confront their stance on it. At least three Episcopal priests have renounced their ordination vows due to tensions between their church roles and family structures, and in 2024 the Episcopal Church considered, but did not advance, a resolution intending to study diverse family structures. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada voted in 2023 to create national resources to support conversations that include “ethical non-monogamous relationships.”...

For the record:  God’s love is not scarce: A Presbyterian case for polyamory, by Dr. David W. Congdon (The Presbyterian Outlook, June 23). The other side: One flesh, one spouse: A clear standard for Presbyterian ministers, by Rev. Alexander Haines (same issue).

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

The outcome? The assembled Presbyterians punted. They voted 433-44 to send the proposal to a committee for more study.

You church-going polyfolk reading this (yes there are a lot of you), please make yourselves known if you can. Your silence lets TV shows like "This Is Poly" represent you in the eyes of your church.

Lots more Poly and Christian from a while back.

●  Just out is a landmark newspaper feature on the boom in people forming throuples and the emotional swamps they often land in:  ‘They said to me, you were the best sex toy we ever had’: the pain, pleasure and paranoia of life in a throuple (The Guardian, July 12. It's in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and International editions.)

This story is long, deeply informed, and friendly to us. But romantic triads have a reputation for being an especially hard dynamic to make work well for everyone, and the writer doesn't hold back about the crises she saw throuples going through across six months.

Now that we're squarely in the mass-market era of this thing, too many people gloss past the steep standards that "ethical" requires here. Or they don't think to train up in both speaking and listening fearlessly. This really is, as is often said, "graduate-level relationshipping." The good odds are for people who are brave, secure, self-examining, genuinely motivated by poly ideals, down-to-earth, and ready for big change. Not to mention being naturally honest; generous-hearted yet firm; and unusually emotionally intelligent. And, who are willing to let the relationships be what they are. No two relationships are ever alike.

And you don't have to be a natural low-jealousy compersive meltyheart about your metas. But it helps.

Nevertheless, there are exceptions to every rule. You sometimes find happy, easy-functioning, long-term throuples who had every "wrong" approach and are doing fine. People can surprise you. (Just not often.)

End of rant. I've been saying this sort of stuff since my Central Park bandwagon speech in 2008.

Excerpts from the throuple article:

From Hollywood movies to confessional memoirs, three-person relationships are everywhere. But is it really possible to keep everyone satisfied? Happy trios, bruised couples and rejected lovers tell all.

By Kitty Drake

Priscilla can pinpoint the moment she realised that her throuple was falling apart. Her fiancee, Kiara, had started kissing their shared girlfriend, Olivia, in a way that went on for just a little too long. One night, after the three of them had gone out for a romantic dinner in Savannah, Georgia, where they live, Olivia and Kiara started kissing in the front seats of the family car and it seemed as if they were never going to stop. About 10 minutes in, Priscilla tried to reach out and touch her fiancee’s shoulder, but her seat belt was buckled. Unbuckling and leaning forward felt intrusive. And, anyway, Kiara and Olivia seemed to have forgotten all about her. Watching the kiss unfold, squashed into the back with all the baby seats and toys, Priscilla thought about how by rights it was her turn to sit up front. She was always in the back seat. She felt a flicker of something competitive. “I worried, am I desired less than her?” she recalls now. “Will I be replaced?”

In the early days, Priscilla felt giddy with the excitement of being in a throuple. She and Kiara had been together for eight years, and adding a third person to their relationship felt like a way of exploring non‑monogamy without losing one another, because every new romantic experience would be shared. Olivia was an old friend, so Priscilla and Kiara’s children were comfortable with her. When the kids were in bed, they would walk to the beach holding hands as a three, to watch the sunset. At night, they would curl up to sleep together, and form a kind of cuddle chain. Priscilla would cuddle Olivia, and Olivia would cuddle Kiara.

Priscilla (left) and Kiara, who are engaged, had a shared girlfriend who
left them earlier this year. Kendrick Brinson/The Guardian

Sometimes in the night, Priscilla would wake up alone on one side of the bed, and see Kiara and Olivia cuddling without her – at first this didn’t bother her. “I felt a little left out, but I was happy that Kiara was happy,” Priscilla says. The problems really began when both Priscilla and Kiara moved beyond lust, and began to fall deeply in love with Olivia. “The thing about throuples is that when real emotions get involved, things get more complicated.”

In a throuple, three people commit to forming a romantic unit together – just like a couple, but with one extra person. In other forms of non-monogamy, you might have multiple partners, but you are typically only ever in bed with one partner at a time. Throuples are different, because they date and have sex and sometimes even raise children as a three. ...

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

On screen today, you see throuples everywhere. ... But as the throuple becomes more commonplace, there seems to be a growing backlash against this relationship structure. Recent research suggests that younger generations are rejecting the complications of polyamory and beginning to yearn again for the perceived safety of traditional coupledom. An analysis of sexual fantasies by the Kinsey Institute suggests that gen Z are turning away from polyamory, with 81% fantasising about monogamy instead.

Being happily polyamorous requires a daunting degree of patience and thoughtfulness, because you have to continually debrief with your lovers to check that their needs are being met – but throupledom seems to require even greater reserves of emotional maturity. Managing the desires and insecurities of three people at once is a feat, and even within polyamorous circles, throuples have a reputation for being fraught. ...

I have spent the last six months talking to people who have been in throuples that have gone spectacularly wrong (and some that are going spectacularly right) about how to manage infighting and rivalry in three‑person relationships. How can you make a throuple work? And what happens when a throuple implodes?

In The Ethical Slut, the authors write that in any menage a trois “there are actually three couples, A&B, B&C and C&A”. What makes the throuple unstable is that, at any time, the mini-couples within the throuple can become more estranged, or entwined, and there can be dramatic reversals in allegiances. In Priscilla’s throuple, it was initially she and Olivia who were the closer pair – and Kiara who felt excluded. In the first weeks of the relationship, Kiara discovered that Priscilla and Olivia had been having sex while she was at work. Sex as a twosome wasn’t technically against the rules of the arrangement, Kiara tells me, but “it was very hurtful and it broke a lot of trust”. ...

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

I speak to Alissa for the first time over the phone from her home in Connecticut, and we have to pause the conversation a couple of times because I can hear her teenage son coming in and out. Alissa and her husband, Rob, have got five children aged 14 to 22, and, while the older children are aware that their parents have experimented with an open relationship, they don’t know the details.

After 21 years of marriage, Rob revealed to Alissa that he was bisexual. Experimenting with another man together seemed like a way to cope with that revelation without it breaking their marriage. Initially when they met Michael, 33, who lived in a neighbouring city, Alissa felt anxious. She worried that Michael was only pretending to feel an attraction to her in order to get to Rob, and remembers one awkward early date where Michael was all over Rob in a cab, and the two of them barely looked at her at all. But as the relationship progressed, Michael and Alissa developed an intense bond, and Rob felt increasingly threatened.

One night when the three of them were in bed together, Alissa and Michael started kissing, and Rob became so distressed he had a panic attack. Alissa had put on new underwear, and Rob started interrogating her about why he had never seen this lingerie before. “He was, like, ‘Well, you haven’t put that on for me lately!’ – but the truth was that Rob and I hadn’t been having sex with each other because we saw Michael two times a week, and who is having more sex than that?”...

Initially, Rob hadn’t wanted to talk to me because he found the breakup too painful to revisit, but a few weeks later the couple call me together so that he can offer his perspective. “I was madly in love with this guy,” Rob says. “Head over heels.” He is speaking to me from his car speakerphone. He says that it wasn’t simply the case that he was feeling possessive over his wife; he also felt horribly rejected by Michael. ...

When a throuple is going right, the amount of love feels almost unquantifiable, because you are “chosen and loved by two people and have two people to love”, Rob reflects. “Having him as part of our equation, I could love her 150% and him 150%”. But when a throuple breaks down, you have to deal with the inverse of that exponential love: exponential rejection. At times, Rob says, he didn’t feel “chosen” by anyone.

Alissa says that her and Rob’s marriage has survived the whole experience, but only just. Sometimes she feels resentful because dating another man wasn’t originally her idea, it was Rob’s. “I was pissed because I had this little tiny seedling that I didn’t even want in the first place and I gave it all the sunlight and all the water, and then when it started to grow Rob was ready to end it.”

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

...The criticism of [Lindy] West’s memoir [Adult Braces this spring] was often cruel, but I think the intensity of the reaction speaks to a real fear many of us have that, as polyamory becomes more mainstream, terms such as “throuple” and “ethically non-monogamous” will be wielded by faithless partners who want to legitimise their desire to cheat. However, having spoken to real-life throuples, the picture looks more complicated because the dynamics in the triad chop and change. The wife who was initially reluctant might end up being the most adored and enthusiastic member of the throuple. The husband who initially begged for it might wind up desperate to leave.

Even within the polyamorous community, throuples are considered messy and potentially unethical – not necessarily because they disrupt an existing couple, but because [they have a reputation that] they exploit the third person who enters the relationship. On polyamorous online message boards, couples who post that they are looking for a third person to join their relationship are often criticised for being “unicorn hunters”. ...

...Caitlin, 31, from London, tells me [such] a story about feeling used and discarded by a couple she met while living in Marseille.... “You know what they said to me? ‘You were the best sex toy we ever had.’ ”

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

I spoke to happy throuples while I was researching this article, and most of them told me that when you feel intensely heartbroken or hurt by a particular member of your triad, the key is to acknowledge it. Rather than leaving the throuple, or exercising a “veto” because you feel threatened, you have to talk through the pain as it comes up.

Rachael, Aaron and Kasey, a throuple from the Tampa Bay area of Florida who have been living together for seven years, say that they attribute their success to diligent emotional housekeeping. The first time I speak to them is in early April on a video call, and they are in exercise gear, ready for an early morning workout together at the gym.

Steady as they go: Aaron, Rachel, and Kasey . . .

Rachael, who describes herself to me as a “type-A, high-achiever, highly organised person”, tells me that these qualities are very helpful in a throuple. “It’s just 33% more – more to schedule, more to plan, more money to divvy up,” she says. Rachael and Aaron are in their 40s, and were together for 20 years before they met Kasey, 35, but they have worked hard to make sure she has equal standing within the throuple. They have created a trust that outlines Kasey as a beneficiary, and have given her medical power of attorney, should anything happen to either of them. They apply the same organised, thoughtful approach to hashing out emotional issues in the throuple, too. “We joke that if monogamous couples talked half as much about their feelings as we do in our throuple, the divorce rate would plummet,” Aaron says.

...and outside their bunglaow in Gulfport, Florida.
(Zack Wittman / The Guardian)

The throuple have a weekly date night, but Rachael has a regular one-on-one night with Aaron, too. She also has a regular night with just Kasey. And Aaron and Kasey have their own scheduled one-on-one time. The idea behind the one-on-one nights is to make sure that all the individual bonds within the throuple continue to grow. Rachael explains that she usually leaves the house for the evening when Kasey and Aaron have their couples night, and that re-entering the home at the end of the evening isn’t always easy. She doesn’t feel jealousy, she says: “It’s almost more like I know that they’ve had a very connecting moment, and me coming back to it feels intrusive. It feels like they almost have to baby me and say, ‘Oh, come back in.’ ” Rachael has been completely open with Kasey and Aaron about these feelings. She has developed a system where, instead of greeting them when she comes back at night, she takes a shower and even considers sleeping in the guest room. Then they “wake up and have a fresh day as a three”.

...In a way, people who form throuples are just braver than the rest of us. The fear of the third haunts most relationships. Throuples choose to invite the third into the relationship and live through all the difficult emotions the rest of us are trying to bury. Recently, Priscilla and Kiara told me that they are thinking about trying to form a new throuple. Kiara is wary, but Priscilla is excited. “We’re still discussing it,” she says. “But I think it will be an adventure.”

●  Meanwhile, happy triads continue to represent proudly in public.

On ABC-TV News this morning (July 14) came a 9-minute video report: Throuple opens up about their polyamorous relationship.

The creators of “Camp Throuple” open up about their polyamorous relationship. Kevin Jankay, Alana Underwood and Megan Smith say their non-monogamous relationship is the best one they’ve ever had.  

They live in Colorado and are in their sixth year as a closed polyfi delta triad. What fine, great-hearted, smart people these are! Do watch.

(If the embed above doesn't work here's the link. I don't find a transcript.)

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

Elsewhere in the world... The newly changing tide of the Ukraine war shows how, when a free people don't give up, fortune may swing their way.

If you still don't get what this war means to our own future as free cultural weirdos — not to mention to the whole rest of the world — you need the long view.

BTW, the logo of PolyamoryUkraine:

 

...while in Russia, speaking up for "nontraditional sexual relations" is a crime punishable by up to 12 years in prison under the "anti-extremism" laws. "Extremism" meaning whatever the emperor dislikes.

[Permalink]

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Movie The Invite: "the representation we've been waiting for"? is a disappointment. Two new polyam novels. The 3 most common reasons polyamory fails. And other poly in the news.

First: The international Week of Visibility for Non-Monogamy is coming up July 6-12 courtesy of OPEN, the increasingly well-established Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-mononogamy. Plan your own local educational event, party, talk at the library, booth in the park, or other event, either in-person or virtual, with OPEN's help and publicity.

Meanwhile, June is Pride Month. Join (or create!) a poly contingent in your local pride parade with OPEN's help, and find those already happening.

On Pennsylvania Avenue in DC, June 2025

____________________________________________________

●  In other news, Hazel Park, Michigan now makes nine US cities and towns that have passed legal protections and/or recognition for polyamorous or other chosen-family households. Michigan city first in the Midwest to shield polyamorous relationships (The Detroit News, June 12, paywalled). Hazel Park, population 15,000, is an inner-ring suburb of Detroit.

By Peg McNichol

Hazel Park city council unanimously agreed on Tuesday to update its human-rights ordinance by adding familial status, family or relationship structure.

The expanded civil rights protection includes multigenerational families, stepfamilies and, yes, polyamorous relationships. Polyamorous is the term for people who consent to being involved in multiple simultaneous romantic or sexual relationships.

Hazel Park is the first community in Michigan and in the Midwest and the ninth in the nation to protect family structure from discrimination. There are no federal or state laws that extend civil rights protection for familial status, family or relationship structure. ...

Councilman Luke Londo sponsored the updated ordinance....

●  They All Fall in Love at the End is the title of Haili Blassingame's new novel, out this month, about something she knows: a strong Black woman's wrestle with getting polyamory to function in DC's Black community. It's loosely based on her slightly younger self.  From the publisher's summary:

Friends and family urge her to just be happy with Jay, but Cat is determined to have it all—or blow up her life trying. As she falls for all the wrong people, racking up lies, betrayals, and terrible drafts of her novel, she tries to write her way to a happy ending. But in art, politics, and love, true liberation may take more than rewriting the old scripts. It may mean inventing something entirely new.

In an NPR  interview with Juana Summers, New novel explores the messy middle of living a non-monogamous life (June 3), Blassingame has this to say:

...To return to this question of, like, the types of stories that get told around polyamory, I wanted to see someone wrestling with it as a paradigm and as, like, a relationship modality, not simply as, hey, girl, there's this crazy thing I'm doing. And I think we typically talk about it as being antagonist to monogamy or an answer to monogamy rather than just simply a different way of loving. And I think you almost have to -- you have to unlearn and then relearn in order to practice it in the way that -- I mean, I don't want to say should practice it, 'cause you can practice it in many different ways.

SUMMERS: Right.

BLASSINGAME: But, like, you know, if you have zero models or zero examples of it, I mean -- and you find this a lot in the queer community, too. It's like you're building something from scratch. And I wanted to get into that piece of it, not just as a salacious plot point, but actually as, like, a philosophical relationship paradigm. ...

Read partway into the book.

NPR has lost its federal funding to Trump, resulting in newsroom layoffs and closed stations. But that also means the Trumpies lost a means of control: NPR no longer has to look over its shoulder toward the White House every time it chooses what to cover. Donate here.

●  Another new semi-autographical book, Waist Deep, is by a Danish poly mom in a mono-poly FF marriage. Now it's just been published in the US. A New York Times review: ‘Could Love Be Freer?’ A Tale of Polyamory, in Literature and Life.  The Danish writer Linea Maja Ernst’s debut novel, “Waist Deep,” a hit in Europe, explores the flirtations and frustrations within a millennial friendship circle.

From the publisher's description:

. . . But the idyll is fragile. Lost without the uninhibited magic of their youth, Sylvia is left wondering what happened to the radical ways of living they embraced at university. Tensions rise under moonlit swims and wine-drenched dinners, and Sylvia is stunned to learn her old crush Esben will be getting married at the end of the week—a crush her monogamous girlfriend would definitely not approve. While the group sunbathe, cook, and flirt their way to midsummer night, new desires prove not everyone has left their arcadian fantasies behind.

An instant bestseller in Scandinavia and now translated into ten languages, Waist Deep is a modern Midsummer Night’s Dream that offers a provocative flourish to the perennial question: does growing up have to mean giving up on your dreams?

●  Accurate poly education continues to flow in the mainstream, alongside clueless mass-market misconceptions that lead wishful-thinkers into trouble.

On the good side, a poly-friendly family therapist with a big global platform warns of the commonest routes to failure: As a psychologist, I’ve seen that polyamory doesn’t fix relationships – it reveals them. (The Guardian, March 1) 

(The article used an antique photo of a Victorian
poly-ish picnic. Glasshouse Images/Alamy)

By Carly Dober

The success of any relationship hinges on the same pillars of trust, respect, honesty and shared values. Polyamory simply tests their integrity daily.

Emilio* and Jessica* sat in front of me, disconnected and barely looking at each other. They had been together for seven years and had recently opened up their relationship and tried polyamory, upon Emilio’s suggestion. Jessica agreed to this, but it was not her first choice for how she wanted the relationship to be. They were now in a crisis, as betrayals and secrets had occurred before and during the attempts at this new relationship configuration.

...We discussed that the foundational principle of successful non-monogamy is radical transparency. Everything must be on the table from the start, with the understanding that the conversation never truly ends. As feelings evolve about a new partner, an old dynamic, or something else, so must the dialogue. This is sometimes where the theory crashes into the reality of human emotion.

I have witnessed too many couples where one partner, often after discovering polyamory as a concept, presents it as an ultimatum. ... The coerced partner, in a desperate bid to preserve the relationship at their own expense, may concede before being psychologically or emotionally ready. The result is often anxiety, jealousy, depression and self-doubt, masquerading as progressive enlightenment. Jessica saw herself in this description.

A firm, shared understanding of the spirit of ethical polyamory is non-negotiable. It is the autonomy, honesty and abundant care that must extend to all partners. In clinical intervention, we start by exploring the existing relationship. ... It must be understood by all parties that cheating is not polyamory. Identifying as polyamorous does not retroactively excuse deceit, as Emilio was attempting to do.

We then explore motivations and potential red flags, which are often magnified in polyamorous contexts. ...

Read on. It's couple-centric, but again, that's where most people are. More than half the adults in the US are in cohabiting couples per US census data.

●  A similar take, though deeper into couple-centrism: The 3 Most Common Reasons Open Relationships Fail (Vice, Feb. 23).

Open relationships get pitched as the brave, evolved option, like you can just add a few extra people to your love life the way you add toppings to a pizza. Then real life arrives. ...

Sex researcher Dr. Justin R. Garcia, executive director of the Kinsey Institute, told Business Insider [Feb. 21, paywalled] that three factors keep pushing couples back toward monogamy.

First, the emotional bandwidth problem. Garcia said, "...You can want the fantasy of being chill and limitless, then find out your feelings don’t scale the way you wanted them to."...

Second, the workload. People hear “open” and imagine freedom. A lot of the day-to-day reality is coordination, check-ins, and a ton of negotiation. ...“Even casual polyamorous encounters take substantial effort and negotiation,” he said. That negotiation can be healthy. It can also be exhausting....

Third, the “this will fix us” trap. ...Garcia [says] non-monogamy works well for some people, and some couples build real stability there. “While consensually open relationships might not work for everyone, or even for most people, there are many people for whom they do work perfectly well.”

The least sexy truth is also the most useful one. Monogamy can be a preference, not a failure. Plenty of couples try something new, learn what it costs, then pick the version of commitment they can actually live with.

And he didn't even mention the unicorn fantasy. If you are a couple and assume you can treat a third person as disposable, choose a third who fully understands and wants that exact role. Talk it out with them first! In the immortal words of Granny Weatherwax,

"Sin, young man, is when you treat people as things."

●  My guess is that most attempts at poly relationships fail for some definition of "fail." Especially now that the poly idea has gone mass-market, which means downmarket. So many people for whom this is just wrong try it frivolously — with poor advance study, lousy communication, and inadequate shared prep. Or no deep, exploratory communication at all.

Or, any grasp of the many other cultural assumptions among the normals that will need to be examined and shed. Please get the message out: Poly is not for everyone.

And anyone will start disadvantaged without access to good, experienced poly community. You need community. You learn so much from real-life examples of the successful and experienced, and also from others' mistakes.

I'm still proud of my bandwagon warning speech from the Poly Pride stage in Central Park nearly 20  years ago. It was right then and it's right now.

●  In this vein Cosmopolitan, always on the lookout for trends, thinks it sees one: Why Is Non-Monogamy Getting So Much Backlash Again? (UK edition, June 18).

"The communication and empathy that’s meant to define ENM appears to have been thrown out of the window in favor of secrecy, selfishness, and a pressure to repress feelings.

By Brit Dawson

... “It’s the enshittification of relationships. The idea that you should fuck more people and want less from them,” says Bea. “It’s hook-up culture cloaked in therapy speak. There’s a lot of pressure on people, especially women in monogamous relationships, to erase their boundaries to make their partner happy.”

Therein lies the key to non-monogamy: if both partners don’t enter the arrangement willingly, even with equal enthusiasm, it’s likely not going to work. And yet, many feel they should embrace the opportunity if it arises, either to appease their partners or wider communities. ... But, says Bailey, the flip side is that it “paints those who engage with monogamy as lesser-than, uneducated, or complicit—and that can easily sway someone into feeling guilty for their own dating preferences”.

...But for many couples [sic] it does work—and far better than any attempts at monogamy have served them in the past. Leanne Yau, a polyamory educator known as Poly Philia, who’s been non-monogamous for 10 years, credits her relationship structure with giving her “flexibility and freedom, independence to explore [her] own desires, and emotional awareness.” Yau believes the backlash largely stems from “the internet loving to sensationalize everything”. “I think non-monogamous people are being scapegoated for a lot of dating frustrations,” something she believes “contributes to an existing narrative that polyamorous people are irresponsible cheaters who can’t control themselves and will take advantage of you, which is not the case.” For Yau, being non-monogamous “makes [her] a better person and partner.”

For Bea, it’s a case of start as you mean to go on. “A lot of the messiness between the pro- and anti-crowd comes from people using non-monogamy to soft-launch a break-up, or to not lose access to their emotional safety blanket while they fuck hotter people,” she says, advising: “Don’t get into a monogamous relationship and ask to open it up; likewise, don’t ask a poly person for exclusivity.”

There’s no doubt that some people are abusing the idea of non-monogamy—and its cultural cachet in certain circles—to get away with bad behavior. There’s also likely a lack of individual research into and understanding of non-monogamy, particularly among younger people who are experimenting in fledgling relationships, which can see them enter into agreements without being fully prepared for the reality of them. ...

●  But success stories also abound. A solopoly tale: How Polyamory Helped Me Love Myself Better (in GO magazine, "the cultural roadmap for city girls everywhere," Feb. 14.)

A couple of years ago, I went through an unexpected and messy queer divorce that led me to question everything about the way I live my life. It was an opportunity to rediscover and recommit to who I really am and the life I want to be living.  While I was in no hurry to get into any kind of relationship again, I spent time examining if I still wanted to live a polyamorous life—I did. ...

Not only does polyamory give me a way to center the kind of queer, nontraditional relationships I’m most attracted to, but it allows me to stop trying to live a life that other people approve of, and it gives me a level of self-confidence I never thought possible.

...I’m lucky enough to live in Portland, Oregon, which is known for its queerness. In fact, I recently bought a bumper sticker for my car that says “Portland: you don’t have to be polyamorous to live here but it helps.”

...Polyamory has given me the language, space, and framing to literally have it all. Sometimes this looks like a one-off hookup or other casual connection as opportunity presents itself and have that be cheered on by those closest to me. But it also looks like having deeply committed loving partners who can be daily connected with me and who factor into big life decisions I’m making. ...

Polyamory allows me to show up for those who I love as the best version of myself. I am deeply committed to the people I bring into my inner circle platonically and romantically, and I now treat myself, my art, and my passions the way that I expect others to treat me. I won’t compromise my interests for someone else’s schedule, and I’ve built relationships with people who wouldn’t want me to and in fact enthusiastically encouraged me to write more stories, enter more dog shows, and do more of the things that make me happy.  

What first drew me to polyamory as a young queer punk was the ability to architect a relationship that fit the queer life I imagined. ... Since I showed up fully and unapologetically as myself, I’ve never been happier, loved harder, or been loved better. ... It took me 25 years of practicing the lifestyle, but I finally fully and completely understand that this means not just loving others, but also loving myself, and finding ways to prioritize my own joy like I would any of my partners.

●  The movie The Invite, which took Sundance by storm last February, opens in limited theaters June 26 and in major chains July 10. The trailer looks like run-of-the-mill movie drama. But people involved in this production sound like they really wanted to get some ENM representation right. One indication: How Realistic Is Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite”? An Ethical Non-Monogamy Expert Explains (Dating News, June 16)

By Emma Patterson

We’ve never seen non-monogamy in the headlines as much as we have over the last few years — and it’s never been so hotly debated as a result. There’s Lily Allen and David Harbour’s high-profile (and high drama) Split; Ava’s stint in a throuple in Hacks; and the show Industry’s portrayal of unethical people navigating an open marriage. 

Now, Olivia Wilde’s upcoming film The Invite ... may be the nuanced, positive portrayal the community has been waiting for. 

...Victoria Joseph got an exclusive invitation to the film’s premiere. Joseph is herself a participant in an ENM relationship with her husband Ryan. Together they co-founded a matchmaking company which specializes in ENM relationships.

DN: Did the film feel authentic to the realities of ENM relationships, or did it lean more into dramatization? Were there any moments that made you think, “Finally, a movie got this right”?

VJ: When I first received the email invite, the movie was described to me as “a riotous film about love, desire, monogamy, polyamory, and so much more.” Polyamory is often used incorrectly, because it is such a buzzword, most people do not understand the nuances of the different non-monogamous relationship dynamics.

...But honestly, it really did reflect a good ethically non-monogamous relationship. [One of] the moments during the movie that made me think, wow, they got this right…was when this couple named Pina and Hawk (Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton) were describing to Joe and Angela (Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde) [the concept of] compersion, meaning that you get joy and happiness seeing your partner giving joy and pleasure to other people. [And] they were describing how consent was important, and how it starts. 

I feel like my husband Ryan and I [have] had similar conversations with people who never even thought to talk about non-monogamy. [The film] really articulates it in a way that was really positive and really, really funny.

Update June 26: Sigh. I'm told the movie is a big letdown from our point of view. A theatrical set piece of a bickering, bed-dead couple, if that's what you want. But the "invite" of the title happens near the very end, and it gets turned down. No poly here; we've been teased.

So the movie ends just when it could start. From there it could have gone on to be groundbreakingly interesting and exploratory. Oh well.

A confirmation: I just saw this from NPR's "Fresh Air". Everyone expected more from the evening 'Invite,' audience included (July 26). 

.

.

By Justin Chang

...Piña and Hawk have their own ideas about how to help ... suffice to say that the title The Invite has more than one meaning. It's disappointing, though not surprising, that the film pulls back from those ideas. After dangling a more audacious outcome, The Invite retreats to a zone of emotional safety — one that's poignant in its own way, though it also feels like a missed opportunity. The movie could have been — dare I say it — a little Wilder.

.

.

●  Let's close for now with one of the most poly-positive mainstream advice columns I can recall. It's by Dear Prudence (Jenée Desmond-Harris) in Slate (May 12): Help! My Best Friend’s New Relationship Is Posing a Big Problem for My Wedding.

 

Dear Prudence,

...We are struggling with our [wedding] guest list. ... “Maggie” was my best friend in college, and she shaped who I am today... I still consider her one of my closest friends. But my fiancé and I are hitting a wall on her plus-one(s). Maggie has been with “Luke” for two years, and we adore him. ... Now there’s a third member of their relationship, “Flora,” whom I’ve never met. All three of them are very happy and in love, and Maggie seems genuinely thrilled with the situation.

Now that Flora is involved, I’m not sure what to do. ...To invite all three of them—including a woman we’ve never met—we would need to cut someone [from the guest list] we really want to be at our wedding. How can I solve this without offending anyone or feeling resentful myself?

—Three’s a Crowd

Dear Three’s a Crowd,

The practical thing to do is invite Maggie, Luke, and Flora, bringing your guest list to 121. ...

My more emotional and relationship-based suggestion is that you should scrutinize why, out of 120 people, Flora is the one on the chopping block ... because on some level you don’t really see the triad as legitimate.

...I want to argue that you should. Not just because it’s the right thing to do for one of your best friends, but because weddings can be powerful events that create and deepen connections with and among the people you love. You don’t want to miss this opportunity to bring Flora into the fold.

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

Elsewhere in the world... As I said a few months ago in their cold dark winter of bombed power plants, some people don't give up. Now the changing tide of the Ukraine war shows how, when a free people don't give up, fortune may swing their way.

And if you still don't get what this war means to our own future as free cultural weirdos... you need the long view.

BTW, the logo of PolyamoryUkraine:

 

...while in Russia, speaking up for "nontraditional sexual relations" is a crime punishable by up to 12 years in prison under "anti-extremism" laws. "Extremism" meaning whatever the emperor dislikes.

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The Two Big Waves of Polyamory in the News this spring

I've gone way too long without posting! I will speed up Polyamory in the News again. For now, some catch-up.

●  The wave of poly-rights legislation in Pacific Northwest cities (see previous post) caught the attention of, among many others, the New York Times. Which thinks it sees a long-term trend brewing. In the Northwest, Polyamory Finds Something New: Legal Protection (Feb. 28)

From big cities like Seattle and Portland, Ore., to small ones like Astoria, Ore., proponents of “nontraditional” romantic relationships are making headway in getting legal recognition.

By Anna Griffin

Under President Trump’s leadership, the country as a whole is swinging to the right on social policy. But the Pacific Northwest, as usual, is swinging its own way.

A wave of recent local ordinances in large liberal bastions like Portland, Ore., but also smaller communities like Astoria, Ore., which has a population of 10,181, would confer the beginning of legal protections to polyamorous relationships. The goal, pushed by a group based in California, is to establish legally protected family structures for groups of adults who are romantically or otherwise tied together under one roof.

...National Democrats might be trying to move the political conversation away from divisive social policies that helped cost them the White House in 2024, but proponents of the polyamory changes say Mr. Trump and his supporters have forced them to act. Adding protections for “nontraditional” households is a response to efforts to roll back rights for groups that already enjoy legal protections.

...Conservative activists say officials in the Northwest are using the language of nondiscrimination to foster broader cultural changes that have already run afoul of U.S. law, such as polygamy. ... “It’s ultimately an effort to recognize polygamous marriages and to do that by saying it’s discriminatory not to,” said Roger Severino, a vice president at the conservative Heritage Foundation and the architect of many of the first Trump administration’s social policies when he headed civil rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.

...In Portland, city councilors are considering a similar change in city ordinances, which they packaged as part of a response to hundreds of measures being considered in more conservative states to roll back gay and transgender rights.

At a hearing last week, they heard from more than 40 people supporting the addition of broader nondiscrimination laws that would include nontraditional family structures, including several speakers in polyamorous relationships who said clearer legal protections would help them feel more open when going about the day to day business of looking for jobs, renting homes, signing their children up for school or just engaging in small talk.

Brett Chamberlin, executive director of OPEN, the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Nonmonogamy... cited cases of polyamorous people being denied promotions or fired from their jobs, being denied rental applications from housing providers or being refused a sexually transmitted infection test because they’re listed on paperwork as married.

...“Chosen families take a lot of different forms,” said Ms. [Jessa] Davis, executive director of the Seattle Coalition for Family and Relationship Equity, who is helping with the Olympia [WA] ordinance.  “Even polyamory isn’t just about having sex with multiple people. It’s about what your community looks like.”...

Seattle's NPR station KUOW interviewed the article's author: Polyamorous people want to be Seattle's newest protected class (March 11).

As of May 31 the measures have passed in most of the cities named. But Seattle's City Council has still delayed introducing the legislation. Some advocates of the Seattle measure say councilors are wary of possible political backlash.

●  Almost two months after that Times story, The Guardian followed on at length: Polyamorous Americans are celebrating new laws establishing their ‘inherent worth and dignity’  (The Guardian, May 3)

 AzmanL / Getty

By Jake Thomas

Amy Nash-Kille knows that not everyone would choose a polyamorous family like hers. But she called it the “greatest blessing” of her life.

Nash-Kille said she has spent the last 17 years in a committed relationship with “two gentle, loving men”, sharing the costs and responsibilities of raising four kids.

But she’s concealed her family arrangement from her graduate school adviser, co-workers and even her hairdresser. She said someone harassed her family for more than a year, and she took out a restraining order to stop it before moving her family from a Colorado suburb to Portland, Oregon, in 2011.

In March, the city became the largest in the US to pass an ordinance protecting polyamorous people and multipartnered households from discrimination in housing, jobs and public accommodation. For Nash-Kille and her partners, it was “one of the greatest relief moments of our lives”.

...The new law, she said over email, “is helping to establish the inherent worth and dignity of people who have unusual family configurations when considered by society at large”.

Portland’s ordinance is the latest in a recent wave of cities including West Hollywood and Olympia, Washington’s capital city, extending civil rights protections to those in nontraditional family or romantic arrangements. Eight cities across Massachusetts and the west coast now have some form of legal recognition of polyamorous relationships.

Taken together, the efforts signal the emergence of a stigmatized group as a political constituency, as well as a challenge to the legal dominance of the traditional nuclear family – which has become the exception rather than the rule.

...“I’d like to get the government out of the business of evaluating our personal relationships,” said Diana Adams, an attorney who heads the Chosen Family Law Center and helped write ordinances in Massachusetts.

Adams said their bigger goal isn’t marriage for polyamorous people, but “unbundling” rights and benefits tied up in institutions that favor people in traditional relationships, including taxes, health insurance benefits and hospital visitation.

Brett Chamberlin – the executive director of the Oakland-based Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy (Open), which has campaigned for the ordinances – said polyamorous people are moving from being viewed as a “lifestyle oddity” to organizing into a movement.

Efforts are already under way for more ordinances in Pacific north-west cities such as Seattle, Eugene and Astoria, as well as Hazel Park, a small city near Detroit. Chamberlin hopes this will eventually create a tipping point where states and the federal government adopt protections for polyamorous people.

A more visible population

...Greater visibility hasn’t always come with greater acceptance. Open’s 2024 survey of nonmonogamous individuals found that 60% had experienced stigma or discrimination when dealing with healthcare, child custody or acceptance from their own families.

...After Portland’s ordinance passed, Skylar Cruz recalled her group chats lighting up with supportive messages. Cruz, a 33-year-old transgender programmer, said she has been in a polyamorous relationship for about a year after she and her male partner of six years added a trans woman to their relationship.

Skylar Cruz between her partners, Jordan Lewis and Robin
Bogushevich, in Times Square, New York. Courtesy Skylar Cruz

...“I feel like we’re at a crossroads in a lot of our political values here in the US,” she said. “And we ultimately have to decide whether or not people are worth protecting for being different. As somebody who is very different, I can’t opt out of being different at this point.”

...Despite the recent momentum for protecting polyamorous people, advocates say there are hurdles ahead. For instance, Seattle’s city council has yet to officially introduce the ordinance that local advocates have lobbied for. ... Davis said councilors in larger cities have privately expressed concern that adding polyamory protections to their municipal code could draw the ire of the Trump administration. ...

...For now, Cruz said, she was considering what the future holds after securing legal protections for her relationship, which she hopes lasts the rest of her life.

“I’ve got probably 50, 60 years left,” she said. “And in that time, I want to ensure that not only are we not being discriminated against, but that we are moving towards being seen as more ordinary, more common, more accepted.”

●  The religious right is taking alarmed notice.  Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.” (Time once called him), has a huge following – partly because he has earned a reputation as a genuinely thoughtful and kindly man.

Mohler has been distressed by the rise of polyamory since at least 2009. After the New York Times story, he called on red-state legislators to urgently pass laws banning their "blue dot" cities from protecting us from fear of being driven out of our jobs and homes: A Page Out of the LGBTQ Playbook: Liberal Activist for Polyamory Reveals Gameplan – This Should Be a Wakeup Call for State Legislatures (March 12).

This from a kindly and thoughtful man – in his own closed world.  Said Voltaire, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

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

●  But the biggest polyamory-in-the-news event of the last two months has been something else: comedian Lindy West's memoir Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane. And the flood of contrasting media reactions to it, and the reactions to the reactions. The tl;dr: Some feminists called her a sellout. Others defended her choosing the life she wants. The right pounced. The mainstream clucked. 

West was already famous as a brash voice of millennial feminism and fat pride. Adult Braces tells how a case of Poly Under Duress, pushed on her by her spouse, morphed into her more than four great years now in a happy triad. The book is her story of that transformation, centered on a fraught road trip thrashing it out with her spouse  (who identifies as nonbinary and goes by either he/him or they/them), as they drove from Seattle to Florida. Hence the subtitle.

A New York Times headline sums it up: She Wrote a Book About Her Throuple. The Internet Lost Its Mind. (March 31)

By Elizabeth Spiers

...Lindy West has written a 336-page memoir, “Adult Braces,” that, among other things, describes her polyamorous marriage to her husband, Ahamefule Oluo, and their relationship with another woman, Roya Amirsoleymani. Ms. West is a feminist writer and comedian who first gained notoriety for her take-no-prisoners work at Jezebel over a decade ago. She is, therefore, something of an internet character, at least of a certain vintage, with a yearslong trail of writing and posting where she hashes out her ideas and gives readers a sense of who she is.

Sam Whitney/New York Times

Now much of the current-day internet has decided she either isn’t who they thought she was or is lying to herself in saying she’s happy in a throuple. The resulting discourse has ranged from concern that she was coerced into agreeing to nonmonogamy to accusations that she has betrayed feminism.

She wrote an earlier memoir, “Shrill,” which was turned into a TV show starring Aidy Bryant. Ms. West has written searingly about being a fat person in a fatphobic society, reproductive rights and her abortion, and refusing to define herself by how men see her. I picked up “Adult Braces” in part because she has written so well about these issues.

In a recent interview with The Times, Ms. West said she was at first devastated by her husband’s request to open things up. “Our initial conversation was a lot of me crying and being like, I don’t want anyone else,” she said. But after much soul searching and a road trip from Seattle to Florida, she accepted the situation and eventually formed her own relationship with her husband’s girlfriend.

Any discussion of polyamory reliably generates strong opinions. ...

Much of the reaction to Ms. West’s new book has been focused on adjudicating whether she can be truly happy in a throuple when nonmonogamy was her husband’s idea and whether her happiness is consistent with her feminism. Voices on the right claim she is a victim of millennial feminism run amok, and voices on the left claim her situation is a consequence of her feminism not going far enough. Both claims rely on a caricatured idea of what feminism is. 

...Actual feminism is not a neat list of dos and don’ts; it’s simply the idea that women deserve the same agency and rights as men. That includes the ability to decide whom they want to be with and how they choose to conduct their relationships. ...

There’s another element that makes this discourse catnip: She’s not performing marriage the way some would apparently like. People often bring insecurities about their own relationships — what would they do if their partner wanted a third? — to their evaluations....

...Ms. West insists she’s happy. Many of her readers insist she isn’t. But there is no one way to be happy, just as there’s no one way to be a feminist or to conduct a marriage. ...

●  There's been so much media about this that I won't even begin to list it! Here's the lengthy list from Google News (very incomplete) as of the time you read this.  

●  West gives the details of how it began in a podcast with the New York Times' "Modern Love" columnist, Anna Martin: Lindy West Thought She Couldn’t Handle Polyamory. She Was Wrong (March 4). The tl;dr: She and the other woman fell crazy in love, and it has lasted.

Lindy West

...West: It becomes clear that the next thing we need to do is hop on a call and discuss what the heck is going on. Aham [her spouse] and Roya [his new interest] video-called me. There was definitely incredible tension in the air. I think all of us were like: “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” And also I don’t want to make it sound easy, because also there’s still the part of me that’s terrified. And so it’s like, inside me are two wolves; one is having the time of her life and is so electrified by this. And the other one is definitely terrified. ... And I’m using my new skills to stay in the moment with what’s actually happening in front of me, which is that I’m feeling really connected with this person, who’s beautiful and sweet and kind and funny and smart, and who loves Aham, and I love Aham. It was a very complicated video call.

Martin: And let’s just say there’s nothing more electric than finding out someone has a crush on you. How did that make you feel?

West: It was very powerful. I was immediately like, “Oh, I like her a lot more all of a sudden.” She had just been this big cloud of mystery and suspicion, and I was like, “How do I know that she’s not trying to get rid of me so that you guys can be together?” And she’s not out there thinking the vile stuff that is happening in my head. She’s out there thinking: “Oh, Lindy’s beautiful. And she seems so smart and interesting. I would love to get to know Lindy.”

And I am processing my changing feelings about Roya while I’m on the road trip. And I think I started to feel so soothed by that feeling of safety. I liked the feeling of not having a stab of panic when Aham brought up Roya’s name. And all of a sudden I wasn’t having that anymore. And I was like: “What is this new place? I want to stay here.”

Martin: The circumstances of Aham and Roya’s relationship haven’t changed. If anything, they’ve intensified, right? So the safety you feel, that’s you. You’ve created that safety, no?

West: Yes. Absolutely. And that’s why it was different, I think. So the trip continues, and I’m talking to Aham more and more about Roya. And I believe Aham sent me a sexy underwear pic of Roya with her consent. And I was like, “OK, you can tell her that that’s a beautiful photo.” I’m such a dork.

...I suggested, “Why doesn’t Roya come up to Seattle, and we’ll see what happens?” I went by myself to pick her up. And she was instantly captivating. Like she was just so pretty and so sunny and smiley. And then we went to the show, and Roya and I held hands. Then we went to a bar, and Roya and I were sitting next to each other talking, and some drunk guy came up and grabbed her arm. And I was like, “I’m going to [expletive] kill that guy.” And I kind of bodied him away from us. The feeling I had was like: “That’s my girlfriend. Why would you think you can just touch her?” And then we went to the hotel, and we [all three] had sex, and it was really fun.

...Martin: In 2022, you, Aham and Roya announce what’s happening in your relationship. Can you tell me about that?

West: We were a romantic triad. We didn’t really know how to launch. Because it felt intrusive and stressful, and I felt resentful about it. Like why do I have to explain my life to people? But it really was eye-opening to me how angry people are about non-monogamy. And I think it’s because everyone thinks that if it becomes normalized, then their husband is going to say, “Now I need to have a girlfriend.” And I just want to say that you don’t have to do that. I wasn’t looking for it, but it found me. And I too had that fear, and it came true, except what I found on the other side was a way better life than before for me.

Martin: Why? How?

West: I just feel so much more freedom for myself. I have two people who love me instead of one. And it’s really just three people that live in a house instead of two. And we all help with the dishes.

Martin: That sounds kind of nice.

West: Yes. So we’re all three together, still. We’re into year five.

●  The kerfuffle has spread worldwide. Just one example, a friendly one in Ukraine: A Prominent Feminist Opens Up About Polyamory and How It Transformed Her Marriage (112.ua, a news site promising "independence, impartiality, and only verified information," May 19).

Translated from Відома феміністка випустила мемуари про поліаморію: як це змінило її шлюб, which talks about polyamoriyu without explanation as if readers already know what it is:      

By Shostal, Oleksandr

According to Vox - Feminist writer and activist Lindy West has released her fourth book, 'Adult Braces,' a memoir detailing her journey into an open marriage and her experiences with polyamory. The book has sparked lively debates online, particularly around themes of honesty in relationships and the evolving dynamics of marriage.

Polyamory Within Marriage

In 'Adult Braces,' West recounts how she and her spouse, Aham—a nonbinary individual who uses he/him and they/them pronouns—navigated the shift toward polyamory. The memoir also explores her relationship with a third partner named Roya, who moved in with West and Aham. This new relationship structure challenges conventional ideas about marriage and partnership.

The book has received mixed reactions on social media, where readers are actively discussing the issues West raises. ... West also emphasizes that 'she has autonomy, and it’s her choice.' These statements highlight the importance of personal agency in relationships—a central theme of the book.

Ultimately, 'Adult Braces' offers more than just a personal narrative; it contributes to broader conversations about relationships, marriage, and polyamory, drawing attention from a wide audience.

This memoir marks a significant step in expanding understanding and acceptance of diverse relationship models, as polyamory becomes an increasingly common topic of public discussion. It raises questions about traditional views of family and partnership, encouraging readers to rethink their own perspectives on love and commitment. The relevance of the issues explored in 'Adult Braces' reflects a growing need for new approaches and openness to experimentation in emotional connections.

More catching up on the news coming soon. 

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

Speaking of Ukraine...  as I said in the deep dark cold of their recent winter with bombed power plants, these people don't give up. Now the changing tide of the war shows that, if you don't give up, fortune sometimes swings your way.

And if you still don't get what this war means to our own future... you need the long view.

BTW, the Telegram logo of PolyamoryUkraine:

 

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