"Photo"? I have no idea what you're talking about. That's just a drawing of... what it might look like... if four people were VERY in love and two of them had the COOLEST WEDDING.
Sophie Sophie Sophie it's like you read my mind. I have been intentionally deconstructing my ideas of partnership over the last few months and arriving at exactly these notions of polyamory. Thank you for fearlessly talking about this. I wish I could give you a hug.
Also I am coming back here to report that I read the NYT piece and yes, ugh, it plays up all of the eye-rolly things people imagine about polyamory without exploring the areas of rich possibility beyond sex that you highlight here.
Thanks for this Sophie! Your insights have been foundational to me figuring out my world of relationships! I appreciate you!
I am roughly 0% words in song person. I have a hard time processing even clearly spoken words so song words are nearly impossible. If I really like a song I will read the lyrics until I know them. I usually sing nonsense and actually often listen to instrumental music over worded songs.
Thanks so much for this, Sophie :) As someone who's been in a poly relationship for the last three years, sometimes cultural moments like this (looking at the comments on social media posts about these articles...) make me feel weird and sad, even though so much of being poly feels so right and makes so much sense to me. It's so important, like you're saying, to see polyamory as something that nudges you towards deconstructing your notions of what you need to be and have in order to be happy, and not just a flashy lifestyle choice.
thank you for this. all the recent press about polyamory makes me wish that the lessons from your book would come alive. you are the messenger of inspiration meets reason.
It's nice to be reminded that the world is full of magical humans by one of my favorite magical humans. Thank you.
I think I go through a loopty-loop with a song. Where first I hear the music and not the words, then I loop over to the words and not the music and then back and forth forever.
For instance, I love Carly Rae Jepsen. Her song "Party for one" is a supreme bop. For the first year I was aware of it, I danced my ass off to it, thought about the self-pleasure message of the song, and it's fantastic music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ih3FriG1k&ab_channel=CarlyRaeJepsenVEVO).
But one day, three months after a break up, I was driving to a hair cut and I heard the line, "Once upon a time I thought you wanted me, was there no one else to kiss?" And then I was crying. All at once I was crying, driving, and belting out the song. The kind of crying where you're suddenly empty and all you know how to do is cry to become more empty. I parked and cried even harder, listening to the song again. Over the following month I learned all the words to the song. These days I hear the music mostly, but that line always stands out.
pretty sure that mainstream, privatized Media’s self-appointed job is no longer to get anything right or wrong but to sensationalize the topic as much as possible, supposedly to get a conversation going, but what sort of conversation is it, if at its foundation it’s never truly about understanding or learning?
But hey that’s actually not entirely true since it also brings forth texts like yours (even if it is like the tenth time you’ve written about the topic, every time adds something. And for you to oppose popular discourse and write about what polyamory isn’t, for me, really crystallized what it can be)
So thank you, once again, in my mind I position you as a true idealist, and I mean that in the best possible way.
One of my best/oldest friends is in a polyamorous relationship and has been for many years. Regardless of what someone's relationship can be classified as - each relationship is entirely its own beautiful story, with its own unique heartbeat. Anyone poo-pooing at love and community needs to find those things for themselves STAT.
On music: I love music with every fiber of my being. I feel like I listen to everything all at once (the person's voice, the lyrics, the instruments). I can't commit to "wintry-est song". I have an almost-13 hour winter playlist. I can't pick just one, but I can share 10 (not top 10, just 10):
1. "Not My Season - Solstice Version" by Fleet Foxes
Thank you for sharing this perspective and your own honest reflections. I wonder if part of what we are seeing is the transition from rejection to ubiquity of subcultures.
I imagine that up until recently the general social reaction to poly relationships was flat out rejection/disgust/wrong etc. Like with many social topics, it seems the next step towards acceptance is something like ambivalence: “sure that’s fine but who would bother with all the trouble?”. Then the final step would be ubiquity where people don’t even see it as a subculture but just part of normal life. So while frustrating to read about, this is maybe an optimistic sign that people are more accepting of this lifestyle/relationship choice.
I also need to be honest that I’ve been guilty of the “yah that’s fine but why bother with all the trouble?” response to things I’m not familiar with.
Recommend Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works”. The whole book is amazing but there are some excellent sections on relationships as well.
I've found myself thinking about a lot of these things a lot over the past few years, thanks to a divorce and several close friends who are polyamorous and re-evaluating my own ideas about what I want and need from the various relationships in my life. I'm afraid the language we have for all of it is insufficient and reductive, and leaves a lot of people confused about what we're even talking about.
So while I remain pretty steadfastly monogamous (it works for me!), I find myself in a funny spot that the monogamous/polyamorous language doesn't really capture. I am dating someone new while being best friends with my ex-husband. I was joking with some poly friends last week that it's like we're poly except that this new guy is in a serious relationship with music (producing/mixing/listening/collecting). My poly friends joke that I am basically a non-romantic non-sexual member of their polycule, which keeps growing and evolving. Sometime last year some newer folks in the polycule literally thought my ex-husband and I were part of the polycule, and we had to clarify that we are just friends of the polycule who are also divorced from one another. A few months ago we went to a comedy show together and the comedian asked the room "Is anyone here divorced?" and we made the quietest whoop we could because we felt like we had to respond but really didn't want her to talk to us and figure out that we were divorced from each other, when anyone looking at us would have assumed we were on a date. A comedian could really have a field day with us. And everything is going so so well with this new guy I'm dating, but I've found myself starting to re-evaluate some of the things I always thought I knew about what I wanted - are those the things I want, or are they the things I was told to want? What do I actually want and need from him, and what do I want and need from myself and my friendships?
It seems like the labels and expectations and cultural scripts are lot less useful than evaluating one's own feelings and being really honest and caring with all of these fine people who populate my life and accepting that it all might take a shape that is different and probably better than my imagination previously allowed.
this is great. you are great. thank you for thinking, feeling, writing, and sharing it.
here are three nuggets from this piece that i love:
1) "In my experience, having a child is vastly more exhausting than polyamory inherently is."
2) "I believe so completely in the possibility of a world where everyone has what they need. "
3) “Wow. The slippery slope theory was truly correct and soon I guess people will be marrying their pet hedgehogs.”
beautifully put, all!
love,
myq
PS in answer to this: "When you listen to songs, are you listening to the words? What percentage are you a words-in-songs person?" i will say that for me it is always music first and sometimes it is years before i understand what the words of a song i love mean. then sometimes when i find out, i'm like wow this song is even better! but the sound and feel of the music come first for me. thank you for asking! (maybe i'll make a song out of this paragraph.)
For what it's worth- I am here for all of you (and found you through poly channels) - and I ADORE your book(s). I even have a "traveling" copy of Many Love that I give to folx and they sign it as it gets passed around. Thank you for being so honest and caring and inclusive in how you communicate about our community. I love you, I feel so seen by you <3 The way you are able to verbalize my own similar truth is so pure and special. Grateful you exist. I hope someday to give you a big huge smile/hug/evening off of childcare/or anything that ultimately feels like an ounce of the type of gratitude I want to show you. Sincerely yours- Jana
I'm in this photo and I really like it
"Photo"? I have no idea what you're talking about. That's just a drawing of... what it might look like... if four people were VERY in love and two of them had the COOLEST WEDDING.
Sophie Sophie Sophie it's like you read my mind. I have been intentionally deconstructing my ideas of partnership over the last few months and arriving at exactly these notions of polyamory. Thank you for fearlessly talking about this. I wish I could give you a hug.
Also I am coming back here to report that I read the NYT piece and yes, ugh, it plays up all of the eye-rolly things people imagine about polyamory without exploring the areas of rich possibility beyond sex that you highlight here.
Thanks for this Sophie! Your insights have been foundational to me figuring out my world of relationships! I appreciate you!
I am roughly 0% words in song person. I have a hard time processing even clearly spoken words so song words are nearly impossible. If I really like a song I will read the lyrics until I know them. I usually sing nonsense and actually often listen to instrumental music over worded songs.
Thanks so much for this, Sophie :) As someone who's been in a poly relationship for the last three years, sometimes cultural moments like this (looking at the comments on social media posts about these articles...) make me feel weird and sad, even though so much of being poly feels so right and makes so much sense to me. It's so important, like you're saying, to see polyamory as something that nudges you towards deconstructing your notions of what you need to be and have in order to be happy, and not just a flashy lifestyle choice.
(Also, I am definitely a words in songs person :)
thank you for this. all the recent press about polyamory makes me wish that the lessons from your book would come alive. you are the messenger of inspiration meets reason.
This is a very relevant topic for me, as I have stumbled into the deep end in my marriage. Thanks for the reminder to get your book!
I think I am a mostly words in songs person. Maybe 80-20? The music has to grab me but I want to know and feel the words.
As for the music questions, I always listen to the words. And I think Winter, by The Rolling Stones, is the winteriest (🤔) song.
Sophie,
It's nice to be reminded that the world is full of magical humans by one of my favorite magical humans. Thank you.
I think I go through a loopty-loop with a song. Where first I hear the music and not the words, then I loop over to the words and not the music and then back and forth forever.
For instance, I love Carly Rae Jepsen. Her song "Party for one" is a supreme bop. For the first year I was aware of it, I danced my ass off to it, thought about the self-pleasure message of the song, and it's fantastic music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ih3FriG1k&ab_channel=CarlyRaeJepsenVEVO).
But one day, three months after a break up, I was driving to a hair cut and I heard the line, "Once upon a time I thought you wanted me, was there no one else to kiss?" And then I was crying. All at once I was crying, driving, and belting out the song. The kind of crying where you're suddenly empty and all you know how to do is cry to become more empty. I parked and cried even harder, listening to the song again. Over the following month I learned all the words to the song. These days I hear the music mostly, but that line always stands out.
pretty sure that mainstream, privatized Media’s self-appointed job is no longer to get anything right or wrong but to sensationalize the topic as much as possible, supposedly to get a conversation going, but what sort of conversation is it, if at its foundation it’s never truly about understanding or learning?
But hey that’s actually not entirely true since it also brings forth texts like yours (even if it is like the tenth time you’ve written about the topic, every time adds something. And for you to oppose popular discourse and write about what polyamory isn’t, for me, really crystallized what it can be)
So thank you, once again, in my mind I position you as a true idealist, and I mean that in the best possible way.
One of my best/oldest friends is in a polyamorous relationship and has been for many years. Regardless of what someone's relationship can be classified as - each relationship is entirely its own beautiful story, with its own unique heartbeat. Anyone poo-pooing at love and community needs to find those things for themselves STAT.
On music: I love music with every fiber of my being. I feel like I listen to everything all at once (the person's voice, the lyrics, the instruments). I can't commit to "wintry-est song". I have an almost-13 hour winter playlist. I can't pick just one, but I can share 10 (not top 10, just 10):
1. "Not My Season - Solstice Version" by Fleet Foxes
2. "Season Suite: Winter" by John Denver
3. "Winter is Blue" by Vashti Bunyan
4. "Winter" by Tori Amos
5. "Watching Snow" by Pinc Louds
6. "Together" by Misha Panfilov
7. "Chicken Soup with Rice" by Carole King
8. "Old Note" by Lisa O'Neill
9. "Wake Up With the Sun" by Odessa
10. "I Can See Your Tracks" by Laura Veirs
Thank you for sharing this perspective and your own honest reflections. I wonder if part of what we are seeing is the transition from rejection to ubiquity of subcultures.
I imagine that up until recently the general social reaction to poly relationships was flat out rejection/disgust/wrong etc. Like with many social topics, it seems the next step towards acceptance is something like ambivalence: “sure that’s fine but who would bother with all the trouble?”. Then the final step would be ubiquity where people don’t even see it as a subculture but just part of normal life. So while frustrating to read about, this is maybe an optimistic sign that people are more accepting of this lifestyle/relationship choice.
I also need to be honest that I’ve been guilty of the “yah that’s fine but why bother with all the trouble?” response to things I’m not familiar with.
Recommend Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works”. The whole book is amazing but there are some excellent sections on relationships as well.
Winter songs - I love these 2:
https://goodlovelies.bandcamp.com/track/winter-song - Their voices and this melody sound like ice to me
https://juliedoiron.bandcamp.com/track/snowfalls-in-november - How it meanders and stays put at all once
Thanks for all these thoughtful thoughts.
I've found myself thinking about a lot of these things a lot over the past few years, thanks to a divorce and several close friends who are polyamorous and re-evaluating my own ideas about what I want and need from the various relationships in my life. I'm afraid the language we have for all of it is insufficient and reductive, and leaves a lot of people confused about what we're even talking about.
So while I remain pretty steadfastly monogamous (it works for me!), I find myself in a funny spot that the monogamous/polyamorous language doesn't really capture. I am dating someone new while being best friends with my ex-husband. I was joking with some poly friends last week that it's like we're poly except that this new guy is in a serious relationship with music (producing/mixing/listening/collecting). My poly friends joke that I am basically a non-romantic non-sexual member of their polycule, which keeps growing and evolving. Sometime last year some newer folks in the polycule literally thought my ex-husband and I were part of the polycule, and we had to clarify that we are just friends of the polycule who are also divorced from one another. A few months ago we went to a comedy show together and the comedian asked the room "Is anyone here divorced?" and we made the quietest whoop we could because we felt like we had to respond but really didn't want her to talk to us and figure out that we were divorced from each other, when anyone looking at us would have assumed we were on a date. A comedian could really have a field day with us. And everything is going so so well with this new guy I'm dating, but I've found myself starting to re-evaluate some of the things I always thought I knew about what I wanted - are those the things I want, or are they the things I was told to want? What do I actually want and need from him, and what do I want and need from myself and my friendships?
It seems like the labels and expectations and cultural scripts are lot less useful than evaluating one's own feelings and being really honest and caring with all of these fine people who populate my life and accepting that it all might take a shape that is different and probably better than my imagination previously allowed.
dear sophie,
this is great. you are great. thank you for thinking, feeling, writing, and sharing it.
here are three nuggets from this piece that i love:
1) "In my experience, having a child is vastly more exhausting than polyamory inherently is."
2) "I believe so completely in the possibility of a world where everyone has what they need. "
3) “Wow. The slippery slope theory was truly correct and soon I guess people will be marrying their pet hedgehogs.”
beautifully put, all!
love,
myq
PS in answer to this: "When you listen to songs, are you listening to the words? What percentage are you a words-in-songs person?" i will say that for me it is always music first and sometimes it is years before i understand what the words of a song i love mean. then sometimes when i find out, i'm like wow this song is even better! but the sound and feel of the music come first for me. thank you for asking! (maybe i'll make a song out of this paragraph.)
For what it's worth- I am here for all of you (and found you through poly channels) - and I ADORE your book(s). I even have a "traveling" copy of Many Love that I give to folx and they sign it as it gets passed around. Thank you for being so honest and caring and inclusive in how you communicate about our community. I love you, I feel so seen by you <3 The way you are able to verbalize my own similar truth is so pure and special. Grateful you exist. I hope someday to give you a big huge smile/hug/evening off of childcare/or anything that ultimately feels like an ounce of the type of gratitude I want to show you. Sincerely yours- Jana