What The Media Is Still Getting Wrong About Polyamory

PLUS: the concept of giant puppets

Dear Friend,

This isn’t what I normally come here to write to you about, and I want to acknowledge that, on the surface, a long letter about polyamory might not seem relevant to the great majority of you. I’m asking you to bear with me. I’m not going to talk about group sex, nor will I shame monogamous people. Ultimately, I want to talk to you about love, friendship, and community — and these are topics that apply to you. This might not have been the door you would have chosen to enter to get to some of these ideas, but that might mean there’s something new here for you. 

In other words: I’m not here to talk about the logistics of a relationship structure that only marginally interests you (if it interests you at all), or to diverge from my overarching goal of reminding you that you’re doing a good enough job. I just want to talk about how we love each other, in the broadest sense of the word.

The media is once again buzzing about polyamory. There’s a new book from Penguin Random House called “More” by Molly Roden Winter, a Park Slope mom who opens up her marriage, and it’s receiving a bunch of attention. New York Magazine published a big package on polyamory, moored by a feature by Allison P. Davis that follows some child-free New Yorkers in a polycule. To be frank, I tend to feel a little left out when this happens. “I published a book about this five years ago!” I want to whine. (I guess I do whine it. I’m demonstrably whining now.) When I wrote the book, plenty of people told me polyamory was too fringe or niche to really gain traction. 

In the past five years, the topic has gained some traction. Statistics are slippery, because a lot of folks in poly configurations want to keep their lifestyles private. Nevertheless, there’s been a steady reported increase of individuals who say that they practice polyamory in the past decade. In my own reporting on the subject, I’ve met people like Laura Boyle, who have been independently gathering data on and about polyamorous people for years, and there are tons of grassroots movements to create and provide resources outside of the mainstream. There are even laws being considered for the first time in US history that would redefine “family” to include more than two adult partners — and a law passed in Massachusetts last year that extends legal protections against discrimination to people in polyamorous relationships and other nontraditional family structures. 

This is from my first-ever article about polyamory, which is now NINE YEARS OLD and can GO TO FOURTH GRADE!

And still, the people in the New York Magazine story use fake names to protect their identities. I, too, use a different last name when I’m introducing myself to people, or when I’m teaching in a public school. A supervisor told me once that she had considered not hiring me when she found out what my first book was about — she was nervous that parents would complain about a person who writes openly about sex and sexuality teaching their children. I’ve had new friends ghost me when they find out about my book, and old friends try to cover up what I’ve written about when I meet their parents. This spread from Many Love is borrowed from lots of true experiences.

I mention all of this because even with the latest onslaught of coverage, I feel like the needle hasn’t really moved much, and I continue to be disappointed with the dominant narrative about polyamory. Here are some complaints:

1. Polyamory isn’t necessarily about sex.

This is among my biggest gripes about the way the media likes to discuss polyamory. In the New York Magazine article, Davis responds to one of her interviewee’s boundaries around his partner having sex with other people by writing,  “I was surprised to hear this. If a person is open to being open, isn’t sex part of that, even if knowing your partner is with someone else is painful?” Then she goes on to puzzle through the interviewee’s feelings, and eventually, he concedes that his boundary has to do with his own insecurity, with the conceit that it’s something he needs to work on.

A huge percentage of polyamorous people I have interviewed over the past few years are on the asexual and / or aromantic spectrum. Sex and romance are not inherent in any type of relationship. The belief that we should structure relationships based on the amount of sex or dates people have with each other is flawed, and it lays the groundwork for often-harmful relationship hierarchies.

It can be liberating to use polyamory as a term to help you prioritize your close friendships in conjunction with relationships with people you have sex with. Technically, I guess I’m talking more about what’s colloquially described as “relationship anarchy” here, but I still like the word “polyamory.” It translates to “many love.” What does it mean to you to love more than one person? Is it only about dividing your time? Or is it, too, about allowing yourself to nurture a network that is greater than the sum of its parts?

You don’t have to be polyamorous to consider these questions, but polyamory opens the door to them. Polyamory has allowed me to privilege and deeply honor spending time with my close friends, while taking pressure off a single romantic partnership to be all things at once for me. This, I think, would be useful to most people. 

The difference between monogamy and polyamory to me is that in polyamory, participants make the choice to be intentional about allowing relationships to grow, ebb, and change. That sometimes involves more physical touch or sex; and it sometimes involves less. But polyamory is not defined by “letting” your partner have sex with other people. 

2. Polyamorous relationships aren’t inherently harder than monogamous ones. 

Another paragraph from the New York Magazine article that bugged me: 

Celebrating your lover while they marry their partner while supporting your lover’s lover’s lover while they go through it is an example of what Anna calls “living life on hard mode.” “There’s a real sense of connection that I think comes from doing hard things, and I’m someone who likes to do hard things,” Sarah explains further.

And then this morning, I woke up to one of my favorite writers, Bess Kalb, posting a pretty funny satire about “coming out” to her children as monogamous. Mostly, I loved it, but the punchline hit a snag for me:

The fact is: We are adults, and what we do in the privacy of our own home and in our bed is entirely the result of deep, deep exhaustion. Truly the mere idea of adding one more complicating factor to our lives, even if the Irish actor Paul Mescal showed up at our doorstep and begged Mommy to run away with him, and Salma Hayek showed up and told Daddy that she wanted to whisk him away in her private jet for a non-stop sexathon, we would both ultimately be too stressed about the logistics to do anything about it.

And, as Rusty Foster wrote in “Today In Tabs,” 

The book promotion machine is dating every influential New York publication at once on behalf of Park Slope Momoirist Molly Roden Winter’s open-marriage memoir “More” and the verdict is: rich people have made polyamory boring. “How a Polyamorous Mom Had ‘a Big Sexual Adventure’ and Found Herself” promises the Times review, but the whole thing sounds more administrative than adventurous.

I’m a decade into practicing polyamory now. I am married, and I have a child. I have had the same three partners for between five and nine years. Before I was polyamorous, my longest romantic relationship lasted two years and change, and when it ended, I was devastated to the point of being bereft. At that point in my life, I couldn’t imagine dating anyone for five years. But dating multiple people has paradoxically made things easier for me. After some initial uphill practice around communication, and settling into rhythms and routines, our network of relationships started to work like a well-oiled machine.

From “Many Love.”

It’s hard to get the hang of something new. Entering into your first polyamorous relationship certainly comes with growing pains; after all, you’re learning a new emotional language. But over time, having more than one person to call a partner can create ease. If Luke doesn’t want to talk to me about why I am so freaked out about my boss’s mysterious email asking me to have lunch with her, I am pretty sure I can count on Kat to show up for me around that. 

Calendaring is, indeed, a love language — and I think that isn’t unique to people who are polyamorous. This doesn’t have to be tedious! It can be exciting!

To this point from The New York Times:

Winter concedes that polyamory could be exhausting — particularly when she had to balance it with marriage, child care and working as an 8th grade English teacher.

“I did not sleep very much,” she said.

In my experience, having a child is vastly more exhausting than polyamory inherently is. Being an 8th grade English teacher is among the most exhausting things a person can do. There is a real, shining, hopeful possibility that polyamory can alleviate the exhaustion. Your other partner can be another adult in your child’s life. Your other partner might be able to pick you up from work, or grab groceries for you (they’re going to the store anyway!), or bring over a casserole when everyone in your house is sick with RSV. (They’ll wear a mask, natch.) It’s not just making sure you have time to have sex with two different people on multiple weekdays — which, sure, makes me want to fall asleep for 1,000 years just thinking about it.

3. The lessons people in polyamorous relationships have learned translate well into monogamous or non-polyamorous relationships. 

Culturally, we are having the conversation. So far, the conversation has made space for people to be like, “Oh! Maybe I want four boyfriends!” or to be like, “Oh my god, I AM SO TIRED just thinking about my ONE husband. I don’t know how these people do it!” or to be like, “Wow. The slippery slope theory was truly correct and soon I guess people will be marrying their pet hedgehogs.” 

This is a missed opportunity. 

The conversation could instead find a way to include all people. Don’t you think everyone could benefit from rethinking the way we’ve defined relationships for literally hundreds of years?

People who have practiced polyamory for a long time have learned things. Experimenting with relationship structure has resulted in (I’m estimating) millions of hits and misses, and there’s so much we’re leaving on the table if readers of these articles conclude with their ruling judgment and call it a day.

Successful polyamorous relationships hinge on communication. Every sitcom I’ve ever watched has convinced me that our cultural capacity for communication is achingly small (to the point that it’s hilarious!). So here are some guiding questions for you: Who are the people you feel safest around? Can you have a conversation with them about what it would be like to practice radical honesty? What would it be like if you could say things to each other that produced discomfort, and then hold each other’s discomfort, and then experience the discomfort change? What do you need to trust that the people you love aren’t going to leave you? What do you think justifies one person leaving another person? Why is it easier to conceptualize breaking up with a lover than a friend? Is there anything you can learn from that? If the person you’re dating isn’t currently giving you everything you need, is there a possibility that, rather than try to get them to change, you can seek the things you need from someone else? What would that look like? 

Often, I think this is about a graceful combination of fundamental trust and inelegant communication. Like, “I really want to be able to ask for help, and I really want you to feel safe saying no. Can we practice me asking you for some things, and then you saying no? Just to find out what that feels like? Cool. Can I borrow 90 million dollars? Will you slice off my itchy finger? Would you give me ownership over your pet hedgehog you love enough to marry?” If I know anything to be true, it is that practice creates ease. If you want something to be different, you have to practice it. This is hard, but you can do it. You’re already doing a good enough job; start where you are.

I believe so completely in the possibility of a world where everyone has what they need. I hold the shape of this belief in my mind when I go to bed at night, when I pick up the phone to call my mom, when I go into a classroom to teach, and whenever I write a letter to you. Beyond the novelty of, “Oh wow, look at those weirdos all dating each other! Yikes!” are decades upon decades of lessons people have learned as they’ve entertained the idea of loving differently. We should take that seriously.

Good luck out there, bravely facing all that breaks your heart.

Love,

Sophie

By The Way…

Here are some articles etc. I’ve written about polyamory etc.

• Book: Many Love: A Memoir of Polyamory and Finding Love(s)

• Audiobook: Love Without Sex: Stories on the Spectrum of Modern Relationships

• Buzzfeed: When You’re Polyamorous, Figuring Out Who’s Paying For What Can Be Complicated

• Buzzfeed: I Was In Three Polyamorous Relationships — Then I Got Pregnant

• Vice: What We Can All Learn About Polyamorous Relationships

• District Fray: I Am Ready To See My Relationship On TV Already

• New York Times: Talking to My Fiancé About My New Girlfriend

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