The New York Times' star conservative takes us on... and not badly. Two more women's open-relationship stories on the way. And, psychedelic-assisted poly transformation.

Chacruna Institute

●  Ross Douthat is house conservative columnist at the New York Times. That can't be easy; he can't write dumb shit but has to be consistently worth reading for people who disagree with him. 

He discusses us polyfolk as his central focus in a pick-apart of society's current sexual transitions: The Quest for a New Vision of Sexual Morality (March 27). He starts with a recent New York magazine cover story about the pop-neuroscience men's influencer Andrew Huberman, who he agrees is an abusive pig:

...The portrait of a figure like Huberman would be interesting under any circumstances. But the special focus on his sex life, the detailed testimony from allegedly mistreated girlfriends, marks this as very much a post-#MeToo profile. Huberman is not accused of any sexual crime; he’s seemingly just a creep, cheat and control freak. But that kind of misbehavior is treated as essential to any judgment of his public career. Whatever the new rules of sex might be, it’s clear that we’re supposed to judge the cad’s lifestyle as regressive, deplorable and wicked. [Well yeah?]

So what kind of lifestyle might be preferable? Well, here we can turn back a few issues to a New York magazine January cover story on polyamory, featuring both a profile of a specific polycule and an extensive guide to “opening” your relationship or marriage.

When the Huberman profile appeared, some social-media voices suggested that there’s a tension in publishing a takedown of a man juggling six girlfriends after celebrating the juggle just a couple of months previously. But in reality the two cover stories are entirely of a piece. The implied critique of the neuroscience cad isn’t just that he has sex with lots of different women but that he does so deceptively and selfishly — instead of following the kind of open, complex process of negotiation that’s ethically required to be the kind of person who has sex with six different people at a time.

That idea of sex-as-process, with the sexual act itself embedded inside a kind of “best practices” of dialogue and interaction, seems to be where social liberalism has settled, for now, in its attempt to create a post-Hefnerian sexual culture. Thus the general fascination with polyamory, manifest in trend pieces, books and essays too numerous to count, isn’t just about envelope-pushing and shock value. It also reflects a desire to maintain the permissive sexual ethic that men like [Playboy founder Hugh] Hefner turned to their own exploitative ends, but to make it healthier and therapeutic, more female-friendly and egalitarian, safer and more structured.

Polyamory isn’t being offered as an alternative to conservative monogamy, in this sense, so much as an alternative to more dangerous, irresponsible, and deceptive forms of promiscuity — a responsible, spreadsheet-enabled, therapeutic version of the sexual revolution, in which transparency replaces cheating, and everything is permitted so long as you carefully negotiate permission.

Sounds pretty good! Especially because conservatives (of the old-fashioned type) are always talking about personal responsibility.

But I think he is committing a swap of cause and effect here, as people weak on history often do. In this case, our history.

For most of us old polyfolks who were there when today's movement settled on its current shape in the mid-1980s through 90s, polyamory (as opposed to broader forms of ethical non-monogamy) was not about tidier promiscuity. It was about actual heart-centered love — for people you truly want to treat well because you truly care about them. It was about the generalization of limerent, romantic love — that thing that has awed and obsessed and driven humans since humanity existed — from the isolated couple, where society has carefully walled away its power, into wider, community-like fields that, we discovered, are not only imaginable but actually possible. Sometimes.

In the history of the poly movement, personal Road-to-Damascus revelations about such larger, agapé-style erotic-romantic love came first. Today's best poly practices developed not by an antiseptic therapeutic ideology, but by experiment and experience amid the early poly community's often bitter trials and errors. The wider world only later started to notice the emergent best practices — those found to improve the chance of success — as awareness of the movement finally began to spread mass-market.

Douthat continues:

A glance at some actual human relationships should raise some doubts about how well this model really works. Whatever Huberman’s failures of honesty and communication, for instance, he appears extremely well versed in the kind of therapy-speak that’s supposed to tame libidinous excess — suggesting that predators and cads can work through this system as well as any other.

Too true. 

...Or again, the new mom-with-an-open-marriage memoir by Molly Roden Winter, “More,” reads more like a testament to marital suffering than any kind of guide to the good life.

Also true. But as conservatives frequently say, getting to a good life often requires hard work and suffering. Ad astra per aspera. Roden Winter herself says it was worth it.

●  Speaking of open-relationship memoirs by women, Rachel Krantz's Open comes out in paperback in June. Interviews and podcasts with her are already showing up. The book is sure to get more attention in the current environment than it did when it came out in hardback two years ago. From the publisher's description:

Krantz documents her dive into polyamory, from Brooklyn sex parties to swinging and beyond, in her extraordinary debut memoir. As she attempts to write a new plot for her love story with Adam, she runs up against miscommunications, gaslighting, and ancient power dynamics, and seeks solid ground in a relation-ship where the rules are ever-shifting. An award-winning journalist, she interviewed scientists, psychologists, and people living and loving outside the mainstream to understand what polyamory would do to her heart, mind, and life.

Here's a poly reviewer of the book for NPR two years ago: 'Open' explores polyamorous relationships through personal experience.

...I'll admit that I was trepidatious when I first approached this memoir. I've never really hidden the fact that I am polyamorous, nor that my partner of seven years and I have always had, to one extent or another, a non-monogamous relationship. Anyone who is poly (or polyam, the short form Krantz uses in the book) or non-monog knows when to share this information and when to silo it away in order to avoid the judging eyes and skeptical questions of the monogamous overculture. Knowing the memoir was about Krantz's introduction to non-monogamy — and not only that, but that she was introduced to it by a straight cis man, a demographic that is often assumed to abuse this relational preference — made me brace myself for a traditional happy ending about how it was a valid life choice but simply not for her.

Rachel Krantz

I couldn't have been more wrong. It's no spoiler to say that Krantz still identifies as polyam, at least according to social media, and... it's neither a manifesto of polyamorous ideals nor an argument against it. It's Krantz's sincere and curious reckoning with the cultural messaging we all receive about gendered expectations and power dynamics in romantic and sexual relationships in general. How do we untangle those from our own desires? How do we differentiate between those desires and the things we think we should want, or that our partners want us to want? The highs and lows of a first non-monogamous relationship prove the perfect canvas on which to explore these fundamental questions.

At first, things between Krantz and Adam seem rather rosy, although readers familiar with gaslighting and manipulation in relationships may recognize the red flags early on. ...

●  Holly Williams is another woman with a book coming out. She writes in the UK's Independent how she went back to monogamy brimming with good poly lessons: An open relationship taught me everything I needed to know about love (April 2). Her novel The Start of Something starts shipping next week. It's already a Cosmopolitan best book pick for 2024.

...The best lessons I’ve learned in how to be a good partner, and have a good relationship, came from exploring non-monogamy. ... I’m now in a happy, basically monogamous relationship. But starting out non-monogamous actually proved a pretty fantastic bedrock for long-term, committed love.

...My second novel, The Start of Something, tells the story of 10 characters via 10 interlocking sexual encounters. I wanted to explore the different shapes sex, love, and relationships can take in the modern world. ...

Running through The Start of Something is the belief that what makes love work is honesty – it doesn’t matter the structure, as long as you can communicate within it. This is hardly a new or radical take, I know. But – and it’s a big but! – it can still be alarmingly difficult. And while you might assume that opening a relationship would make it thornier, my own experience suggests the opposite – exploring non-monogamy made me a better partner.

...When I got into a serious relationship in my twenties, obviously it was monogamous, because I thought that was what being in a relationship meant. That was the point.

...[It] ended because of my unfaithfulness. Cue crushing, terrible guilt – and a new certainty that monogamy was Not For Me. ... I needed to be free: no one was ever going to tie me down again!

A pinball of pent-up horniness, I rebounded my way through Tinder, Feeld, and the nightclubs of east London. But I didn’t know how to communicate my need for freedom, and so often took a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach. ... Still, there were clues that “just not mentioning it” was not working amazingly: the racing heart, the niggling guilt… And I did hurt people, by not being honest, and not really taking their feelings into account.

...It wasn’t until I started seeing people who were already in their own open relationships that I really understood what it took to make things work. What I learned was pretty simple: the more we properly talked about what we were looking for, without any moralising or persuading, the easier and safer it felt. If you’re gonna do ethical non-monogamy, my god you’re also gonna do a lot of talking. You can’t muddle through on vibes and hunches – there have got to be explicit boundaries, because there are a thousand ways to “do” non-monogamy. It meant planning before certain situations, and debriefing after: Are we all happy going out together? Will I stay over afterwards? So, how did it feel…?

...It all felt uncomfortable at first, and then it felt liberating. Have you ever been trapped in circular discussions with a partner, where you expect them to silently know what you need and if they don’t, you subtly punish them? There was way less of all that. Fewer games. Almost no sulks. Dating poly people made me more upfront, more realistic, less embarrassed about my true desires; it made me think harder about what’s behind feeling jealous, or insecure.

When I began dating my current partner Tommo, I was still seeing someone else. But then… as we fell in love, we also fell into monogamy. I believe that romantic love is not a finite resource: you can love more than one partner, like you can love more than one child, or friend. However, time is a finite resource. I soon found I wanted to spend more of it with Tommo than with anyone else. But I maintain that the open beginning was a great basis for the relationship. From the off, we learned to be calm, transparent, and clear in our communication. Our trust in each other is not predicated on exclusivity – but on honesty.

It helped us ditch any assumptions of what a relationship “should” look like…

Knowing this makes me feel both more free, and more secure. ... We talk about what’s working and what’s not. We ask the big questions. Including whether or not we should open up. I don’t want to just slot into a societally-approved, till-death-do-us-part model – I want to allow for movement, and growth.

Because for me, monogamy shouldn’t be the default: it should be a question. ... Right now, I’m happy spending all my romantic energy on just one person – but I think the reason that works is because there was never the assumption it had to be that way.

●  An example of some early best practices surviving, mostly intact, into today's mass market is this quickie little Open Marriage 101 in a women's mag: The 4 Do’s and 3 Don'ts of a Successful Open Marriage, According to a Non-Monogamist (PureWow, March 25; reprinted on aol.com and Yahoo).

"We chatted with Ally Iseman... a speaker, non-monogamy educator and practitioner and organizer in the sex-positive community in Los Angeles....'"

The subheads:

DO: Establish Your "Why"...

DON’T: Think This Will Fix Anything...

DO: Have Weekly Meetings Where You Discuss the Specifics of Your Agreement...

DON’T: Expect Your Partner to Be a Mind Reader...

DON’T: Go with the Flow...

DO: Connect with Fellow Non-Monogamy Enthusiasts...

DO: Decide How Much You Want—or Don’t Want—to Know...

●  Lastly: Old forgotten revelations, if they are correct rather than illusory, do not die but lie dormant, reawaiting their time. How Psychedelics Can Guide the Transformative Journey of Polyamory is a serious new paper by ketamine-assist therapist Justin Natoli, JD, LMFT, in Los Angeles (Chacruna Institute, April 2).

In my work as a psychotherapist, I have found few opinions that feel as personal or divisive as those around monogamy and polyamory. I hold a mindset that different arrangements work better for different people, and what works best may change over the course of one’s life. However, I also observe that institutions of power put monogamy on a pedestal in the postindustrial world. The result is a queering of other healthy forms of relationship that limits the love we share as a human family.

My intention with this paper is to help balance the scales. First, I will offer an expansive definition of polyamory and explore how it can be a journey of healing and transformation. I will then identify the three primary struggles I have observed along the polyamorous journey: shame, past trauma, and difficulty transcending labels. I will also illustrate how the spiritual and therapeutic use of psychedelics can help guide us through those struggles. To be clear, I make no claims for or against monogamy in this paper. I simply wish to highlight polyamory’s transformative potential and reclaim its validity.

The ideas in this paper come from my own psychedelic and polyamorous experiences, my clinical observations as a psychotherapist, and 25 transcribed interviews. All personal statements in this paper come from these interviews with the participants’ consent. I found interview participants by posting queries in Facebook groups related to psychedelic healing. The participants who responded were diverse in age, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, socioeconomic status, and preference for monogamy or polyamory. Each interview lasted approximately 30 minutes and followed a structured series of questions.

Chacruna Institute 

...Psychedelics help us transcend our labeling ego to see the full complexity and potential of our relationships. By removing limits and expectations, we are able to access what Hardy and Easton (2009) call “clean love”:

How many times have you rejected the possibility of love because it didn’t look the way you expected it to? Perhaps some characteristic was missing you were sure you must have, some other trait was present that you never dreamed of accepting. What happens when you throw away your expectations and open your eyes to the fabulous love that is shining right in front of you, holding out its hand? Clean love is love without expectations. (p. 59)

To illustrate how psychedelics help us access clean love, it is fitting to share my own story. ...

(Obligatory caution: These substances are not to be taken lightly. Read up.)

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Meanwhile, as the larger world stage darkens. . .

Call or write your representative.

(Look up their phone / email.)

    

Here again is why I've been ending posts to this polyamory news site with Ukraine: I've seen many progressive movements die out because they failed to scan the wider world accurately and understand their position in it strategically.

We polyamorous people are a small, weird minority of social-rule breakers. Increasingly powerful people call us a threat to society — because by living successfully outside of their worldview, we expose its incompleteness.

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

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

Innovative people, communities, and societies who create their own lives, and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights that enable them to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the authoritarians who are growing in power around the world and in our own United States. Now with direct mutual support, which is increasingly unhidden.

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

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

You can donate to Ukraine relief through this updated list of vetted organizations (Oct. 2023) or elsewhere. We're giving to a big one, Razom, and to a little informal one, Pizza for Ukraine in Kharkiv, the project of an old friend of my wife.

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

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

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

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

But the outcome didn't look good for a couple of years then, either. Popular history remembers the 1945 victory over the Nazis and the joyous homecoming. Less remembered are the defeats and grim prospects from 1941 through early 1943.

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

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PS: Ukraine should not be idealized as the paragon of an open democratic society. For instance, see If Ukraine Wants To Stand for Liberty and Democracy, It Should Rethink Some of Its Wartime Policies. And it has quite the history of being run by corrupt oligarchs — leading to the Maidan Uprising of 2013, the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and Zelensky's overwhelming election in 2019 as the anti-corruption candidate. So they're working on that. And they're also stamping hard on the old culture of everyday, petty corruption.  More on that.  More; "Ukraine shows that real development happens when people believe they have an ownership stake in their own societies."

Now, writes US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic, 

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

They have a word there, with a deep history, for the horizontal, self-organized, mutual get-it-done that grows from community social trust: hromada. Learn that word. It's been keeping them going  to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

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Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But not bitterly so like often in the US; in the last generation the ideal of modern European civil society has become widely treasured, and social progressivism has room to thrive. The status of women has fast advanced, especially post-invasion (pre-invasion article). More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions — including as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, snipers, and infantry. (Intimidating video: "Thus the Witch has Said".) Ukraine has more women volunteering in combat positions than any other armed force in the world.

  

Ukraine's LGBT military unicorn.
The thorns and barbed wire
represent old restrictions
now being cut away.
 

Some LGBT folx in the armed forces display symbols of LGBT pride on their uniforms, with official approval, whereas in Russia it's a prison-worthy crime for even a civilian to show a rainbow pin or "say gay." A report on Ukraine's LGBT+ and feminist acceptance revolutions. Another. Another. Another. War changes things.

And in December 2022, Russia made it a crime not just to speak for LGBT recognition in Russia or occupied Ukraine, but to speak for "non-traditional sexual relations." Pre-invasion, Russia had a visible polyamory education and awareness movement.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full material backing for as long as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and future. Speak up for it.

Your congressperson's email and phone. Putin-aligned Republicans right now are blocking some $60 billion in aid, especially ammunition, that the Ukrainians desperately need in order not to be overwhelmed by Russian advances. Just a handful of other Republicans getting some courage to do what they know is right would be enough.                         

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

Women defenders in a trench in the Donetsk region

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

Update April 14, 2024: More than a year later Vidma is still alive, still in the Bakhmut area, and posting TikToks. Her unit is at the front in or around the battle for Chasiv Yar, a town just walking distance west of Bakhmut that will soon, unfortunately, be in world news. A young girl who looks high-school age has showed up to join their fight. Another. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on us. 

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

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

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Researchers find key polyamory motivations. Taking ignorance apart. Feeld, compersion, our history, a very public failure of consent... and upcoming polycons.

●  First: The next poly conventions/gatherings on the calendar!

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Poly Big Fun

March 28 – 31

Bastrop State Park near Austin, TX 

A big annual campout of the area community, with self-organized workshops. "Previous events have featured dancing, board games, crafts, hiking, bike riding.... Volunteer to teach, help make our shared experience better!" 

Southwest Love Fest

April 12 – 14

Tucson, AZ

Currently the largest poly/ENM hotel convention. "We expect 400+ attendees, with all-day workshops, Friday and Saturday night social events, community vendors + more!" Mission: "To create greater opportunities to find community and learn from others' diverse relationship experiences."

New Culture Spring Camp

May 10 – 15, 2024

Abrams Creek Retreat Center, Mt. Storm, WV

A very poly-friendly "multi-day experiment in loving community and cultural change. Each year we choose a new theme, an aspect of life that we want to explore."

For fuller descriptions and events for the next 12 months:

Alan's List of Polyamory  Events

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Meanwhile, the big winter wave of polyamory in the news has slowed down. Some recent items:

●  Why do people seek polyamorous relationships? Researchers identify key motivations (PsyPost, March 14). This is a report on the paper Initial Motivations for Engaging in Polyamorous Relationships by Alexander K. Tatum, Sharon M. Flicker, Imara Peralta and R. J. Kubicki in Archives of Sexual Behavior, Dec. 14, 2023.

Even if something seems plain to you, it does needs to be checked and examined.

Getty

By Eric W. Dolan

New research sheds light on the motivations that lead individuals to pursue polyamory.... The study reveals that individuals in polyamorous relationships are often driven by desires for deeper emotional connections, autonomy in their personal lives, and a fulfillment of needs that may not be met in monogamous arrangements. 

...By focusing on polyamory separately from other forms of consensual non-monogamy, the researchers hoped to provide nuanced insights that could aid clinicians in supporting clients in polyamorous relationships, especially those facing stress related to their relationship style.

...[Says lead author] Alexander K. Tatum, “Over the last several years of my practice I’ve noticed an emerging trend of individuals and couples presenting to therapy with a desire to explore ethical, consensual polyamorous relationships. [Searching the literature] I didn’t find a satisfying answer to [why], so I decided to conduct my own study to understand people’s motivations for initial engagement with polyamory.”

The study recruited participants through the “r/polyamory” forum on Reddit.... The final sample consisted of 63 participants.

...A significant number of participants identified their attraction to polyamory as stemming from a deep alignment with their personal values and beliefs about relationships. [These included]

-- a philosophical approach to relationships that emphasizes authenticity

-- a conscious rejection of societal norms favoring monogamy, and

-- a transition from other forms of consensual non-monogamy to polyamory as individuals’ relationship needs evolved.

Participants described polyamory as more congruent with their ideals of honesty, openness, and the ability to form meaningful connections with more than one person. This alignment with core values facilitated a sense of living authentically and fully, allowing individuals to express love and affection in ways that felt natural and fulfilling to them.

The second theme revolves around the dynamics within existing relationships....  Some individuals turned to polyamory to address dissatisfaction within monogamous relationships, seeking to fulfill unmet emotional, intellectual, or sexual needs. Others were introduced to polyamory through their partners....

External stimuli, such as the development of feelings for someone outside the primary relationship or exposure to polyamory through media, friends, or community, constituted another pathway to polyamory. Participants recounted how encounters with polyamorous individuals or representations of polyamory challenged their preconceived notions of relationships and opened up new possibilities for love and connection.

The final theme, Sexuality, captures motivations related to sexual exploration, desire for diversity in sexual experiences, and managing discrepancies in sexual desires or interests within relationships. 

...“There are many reasons why people may become curious about polyamory, and it’s important to avoid making broad-brush assumptions about why someone decides to explore polyamorous relationships,” Tatum told PsyPost. ...

●  From the PR office of Northeastern University in Boston: If polyamory is on the rise, there may be good economic reasons. But economist says arrangements are ‘tricky’  (Northeastern Global News, March 15)

By Tanner Stenning

Social attitudes toward dating may be a factor in a rising interest in polyamory, but economic forces could also be playing a role, says Mindy Marks, associate professor of economics at Northeastern University. 

...Whatever the primary drivers are, Marks sees polyamory as having some economic basis. Northeastern Global News asked her to weigh in on the recent wave of headlines about polyamory, and on the status of the nuclear family in 2024.

Bits from the interview:

Marriage, partnerships and coupledom — however you want to put it — have responded to economic forces for as long as they’ve been institutions. ...

Getty

If I were to speculate, I could give you two economic reasons why you might see a rise in polyamory. One has to do with imbalanced sex ratios in communities, especially in more highly educated communities, where there are more college-educated women than college-educated men. Assuming that people don’t want to change their preferences to partner with somebody with a similar education level, then some unmatched women might be more open to considering the sort of partnership arrangements that don’t look like the traditional nuclear family — because there literally just aren’t enough men. ...

The second possible reason — and again I’m just speculating here — might have to do with child-rearing. Today, the modal married couple has two working parents, and that’s in part because of a variety of economic pressures. ... So there are advantages to having, for example, three people in the household as opposed to just two.

...On polyamory, I’m a little long-term suspicious. It’s hard enough to solve problems to keep two people together. There are all of these little internal negotiations that have to happen for some couples to function. With two people, eventually you play a repeated game and you can reach some sort of equilibrium. There are a whole bunch of econ models that show that the more the participants, the harder the decision-making gets. ...

No argument about that. 

●  Feeld has become the go-to dating app for people interested in exploring poly, kink, and other non-mainstream relationship models because, say its fans, it has many good people in its pool (for now) and because of the management's affinity with its users. These and hard work have made it a booming success after many other poly dating apps over the years have come and gone. (Who else here remembers PolyMatchMaker? Your only matches within 100 miles tended to be your own partners.)

Success brings new problems. The tech-biz magazine Fast Company reports on Feeld's devastating crashes in recent months as it gets overloaded: On again, off again: Can Feeld keep up with non-monogamy’s big moment? (March 20). It's a long, basically friendly piece about the company, its founder Ana Kirova, and its user community. But has the crashing stopped? Doesn't quite say.

The company remains independent even as corporate Big Dating buys out other niche ventures (expect their enshittification), and as young people in particular are growing disillusioned with dating apps.

●  KUER public radio in Utah produced "A Brief History of Polyamory in America," a 44-minute interview with Christopher M. Gleason. He's the author of American Poly: A History, which came out last fall. "He joined us to talk about it." (March 18). 

As a historian, Gleason starts the show with our 19th-century free-love precursors and the religious framing they gave their attempted utopias, then the Roaring Twenties, then the anarcho-libertarian-freespirit stew of group-love visionaries who helped drive the 1960s counterculture.

A historically important force in the beating heart of the counterculture was the Kerista commune in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. It was a large, enthusiastically utopian, sometimes cultish group marriage that for 20 years flooded California with "a deluge of literature," Gleason notes, and spun off former members and hangers-on as independent visionaries. Adding to the stream were Stranger in a Strange Land converts, some of whom swelled into the Neo-Pagan movement and in 1990 coined the word polyamory.

Out of this brew emerged the later, more practical women leaders who, during the countercultural drought of the 1980s, birthed what we know today as the modern polyamory movement.

Their magazine Loving More and its conventions and retreats cohered the movement, set its ideals and hard-learned best practices, served as its pre-internet nexus, and drove it forward. 

Gleason tells of the New Age spiritual thread that was more prominent in the movement in those days, often centering "sacred sex" and Neo-Tantra, and some reaction against this as too "woo-woo." A boost in the late 1990s was The Ethical Slut with its entirely non-spiritual practicalities; and on to the mass spread of poly awareness enabled by the internet.

"Polyamory's genetic history should not be forgotten," says Gleason in the interview. "As a historian, I think that just knowing where a thing comes from helps you understand that thing better."

As for the future? Gleason notes on the show that culture evolves by selection much the way species do. "Multiple forms of polyamory or ethical non-monogamy are beginning to proliferate, and eventually some of those will be selected out, as we have seen in the history of ethical non-monogamy." But whatever their future cultural forms, he thinks our basic ideas are now permanently embedded in the world. "Probably from here on, we will have forms of ethical non-monogamy and monogamy side by side. ... It could go so many ways."

●  Another of our words that was invented early (this one in Kerista) was compersion. It's not yet in mainstream dictionaries but that will change; it's gaining wide knowledge and use. The definition that its communal inventors gave it was exact and succinct:

the feeling of taking joy in the joy that others you love share among themselves.

Dictonary.com renders that as

noun  (especially among polyamorous people). A feeling of happiness caused by another person's happiness, especially by seeing one's romantic or sexual partner interacting positively with another of their partners.

Seeing them giggle like teenagers as they came in from a date filled me with compersion.

The women's mag PureWow is out with What Is Compersion? Therapists Break Down the Opposite of Jealousy (March 3)

By Alexia Dellner

We recently asked a sex therapist about the words that she wishes people would use more often, and one of her answers was a term we'd never heard before: compersion. ...Although the neologism is relatively recent, similar concepts of selfless love have precedents in world religions, such as Buddhism's state of mudita and Christianity's agapé.

...[psychologist Joli] Hamilton says that "polyamorous people do their best to treat jealousy as a valuable teacher, an indicator that they care deeply about someone, then then they take steps to move away from the fear and move instead towards jealousy’s opposite." She explains that "compersion isn’t about destroying jealousy, it's about turning toward joy and turning toward each other, instead of turning away..."

...Here’s an example of what that might look like: Let’s say that you go to a party and your partner spends the evening working the room and mingling with others. In fact, every time you look over, it seems like your S.O. is laughing and having a good time with an attractive and charming guest. Meanwhile, you’ve been stuck talking to Mr. Let-Me-Tell-You-About-My-Cats for the last 40 minutes. Do you A. start an argument on the way home about it? Or B. take a deep breath, tune into your body, notice that you’re feeling jealous and tell yourself that you can figure this one out?

If you go with option B, you’ll probably feel better about yourself tomorrow morning and you may even realize that seeing your partner having fun and being so engaged and desirable is actually pretty cool. Boom—compersion. 

...“When jealousy plants a seed of despair, compersion says — hold on, let’s not water that,” explains Hamilton. 

But I would add the flip side: Sometimes jealousy is not just your internal insecurities tweaking, but your gut reacting to a genuine external problem that your clueless brain hasn't yet grasped.

How do you tell the difference? Ah, there's the hard part! The easy questions in life were answered long ago.

●  MundoNOW, formerly Mundo Hispanico, aims "to reach the newly dominant 55 percent of America's Latino population that identifies as either bilingual/bicultural or English-language preferred." It served its 10 million monthly visitors this straightforward, glowing report of our beliefs and standards: Exploring love without limits: Insights into the polyamorous lifestyle (March 9)

MundoNOW archive

By MundoNOW

The polyamorous lifestyle is a journey into the realm of love that transcends traditional boundaries, offering a unique perspective on relationships and affection.

It’s rooted in the belief that one can have meaningful, romantic connections with more than one person simultaneously, with honesty and consent forming the cornerstone of these relationships.

...At its core, polyamory is built on a foundation of transparency, communication and consent, principles that guide and sustain multiple romantic partnerships.

It’s about nurturing meaningful relationships with various partners, each with its unique dynamic, without ranking them in a hierarchy of importance.

This lifestyle emphasizes emotional openness, with all parties involved being aware of and agreeing to the relationship structure.

Understanding and navigating these principles can lead to a fulfilling experience, allowing for a diverse and profound connection that celebrates love in its many forms.

However, 

Navigating a polyamorous lifestyle comes with its set of challenges and widespread misconceptions. One of the main hurdles is managing jealousy and ensuring that all partners feel valued and secure within their relationships.

Additionally, societal misconceptions often paint polyamory as merely a pursuit of casual encounters, overshadowing the deep emotional bonds and commitment it entails.

Addressing these challenges and misconceptions requires constant communication and emotional introspection, ensuring that every relationship within the polyamorous network is nurtured with care and respect.

Effective communication stands as the linchpin of polyamorous relationships, facilitating the expression of needs, boundaries and desires among all partners.

It involves regular check-ins and discussions to navigate the complexities of multiple relationships, ensuring everyone’s emotional well-being.

This level of openness fosters a deep sense of trust and understanding, allowing individuals to explore their connections fully without fear of judgment or insecurity. ...

Embracing this communicative approach can lead to stronger, more transparent relationships, where every individual feels heard and respected.

Again however,

In polyamory, nurturing multiple connections simultaneously requires a delicate balance of time, energy and emotional availability.

Each relationship needs to be tended to with intention and care, ensuring that no partner feels neglected. This involves not only managing one’s own needs and schedules but also being mindful of the needs and commitments of each partner.

...The societal perceptions of polyamory are gradually shifting, but the lifestyle still faces significant stigma and misunderstanding. ...

Despite these hurdles, the polyamorous community continues to advocate for understanding and recognition, aiming to normalize consensual non-monogamy and promote its acceptance in mainstream society.

●  A poorly informed writer for Your Tango said this whole thing is a brief fad that will blow over:  Monogamy Is Good — And It's Here To Stay (March 13). What it doesn't mention is that it is a  reprint from 2008!

Why aren’t you in an open relationship yet? ... But if history can teach us anything, the open relationship bandwagon will come and go, which is a good thing because most women still benefit from and prefer monogamy. 

Why? Women still generally do more work in relationships than men do and openness requires even more diligence than a regular relationship; women are taught to care more about relationships and risk more for them than men, so non-monogamy raises the stakes more for us. And, despite today’s female open relationship proponents, it’s men who typically initiate and prefer non-monogamy. 

Another reason why open relationships don't work in practice for a lot of women is because they're simply too time-consuming. [Open book author Jenny] Block is upfront about the work involved in juggling a husband and a girlfriend. An excerpt from her book on The Huffington Post [published in 2008] prompted one HuffPo commenter to say, "I'm exhausted just reading about all the 'work' and never-ending 'communication' about feelings, situations, jealousy, worry, etc. It all sounds like much more effort than it's worth (IMO)."

...Sure, some women can tinker with this arrangement and come out on top, but for many of us there's a sense that this is part of the battle of the sexes we're not winning. So if you're feeling like a fuddy-duddy for not wanting two lovers, remember this open relationship thing is a fad, and, as history has shown us, this too shall pass. 

Four days later Jenny Block herself, 16 years older now, replied in Your Tango: Open Marriage Is Not A Fad (March 17)

I was leery about this 2008 piece the minute I saw the title. But as soon as I read it and saw the word "fad" used to describe the kind of relationship that I have been deliriously happy in for years (and the kind hundreds of other people I have met have been in for decades) I knew I was dealing with a classic case of fear and misunderstanding — a dangerous mix. ... So, below I have gone section by section in response to Ms. Cline's piece.

Why aren't you in an open relationship yet? Carla Bruni Sarkozy, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, famously "prefers polygamy and polyandry...." 

Cline's opening question immediately gave me pause. This is the tone of someone who feels either uncomfortable or threatened. Surely no one is asking Cline, or anyone else, why they're not in an open relationship, which makes me wonder if perhaps Cline is questioning herself. ...I have repeatedly assured my readers that I have no problem with honest, intentional monogamy. ...

...The truth is, it's the lying that is a racket. And, if history can teach us anything, which surely it can, it's that open relationships aren't going anywhere. ...

"In Woody Allen's ménage a trois flick Vicky Cristina Barcelona....

This is a movie written by a man. Not real life. A movie. 

"It's intriguing that Block and Taormino, two of today's loudest advocates for open relationships, are women."

Why isn't our existence — and popularity — proof enough that there are women in the lead?...

Read more. This is how it's done.

●  The USA Today podcast "The Excerpt" brings on UK activist Leanne Yau, and she is her usual voluble self. Polyamory is attracting more and more practitioners. Why? (March 22, 14 minutes)

...Dana Taylor:

I've been trying to wrap my head around the concept of kitchen table polyamory where there's a large family unit, but not all in it are romantically involved. How does that work?

Leanne Yau:

Kitchen table polyamory is a specific style of polyamory where like you said, there is a kind of family-like dynamic, but the definition is more to do with the closeness of the people involved. There are certain polyamorous dynamics where partners know about each other, but they aren't necessarily friends or they aren't expected to hang out apart from at birthday parties and special events and things like that. Kitchen table polyamory is a specific dynamic where there's a lot more camaraderie. There's very much an emphasis on a group dynamic as well as individual connections between the people involved. And the idea is that people can sit around a kitchen table and have a chat. 

...Dana Taylor:

Leanne, there are people who will be bothered by our conversation. Does that concern you in any way? And are there any common misconceptions that you'd like to debunk?

Leanne Yau:

Yeah, I deal with people getting offended at me on the internet all the time. ... People are scared by change, and I think that's a very human response. ... It can be terrifying to realize that there are other options out there that you may not have considered. Leads a lot of people to have existential crises about whether they've made the right decision. And so I see it as a very normal response....

Some people are going to feel challenged by it, and that may lead them to do more introspection or reflection. And some people are going to feel challenged and run away, and that's their business, not mine. ... And I think it's just important for mainstream audiences to recognize that just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. 

●  A sad, important, and cautionary story. Remember Hacienda Villa, the famous sex- and poly-positive housing group that set up ten years ago in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn?

The New York Times reports, A Brooklyn Sex Club Promised Freedom. Some Called It Rape. (March 10).  "The leaders of Hacienda, perhaps New York City’s most prominent sex club, preach a gospel of continuous consent. Former members say when things went wrong, the group did not keep them safe." 

By Sarah Maslin Nir

The townhouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn, was once a beacon for Jennifer Fisher, a place where she did not have to hide that she was polyamorous and kinky, because her housemates were too.

The landlord, a group called Hacienda, had a unique vision: creating a community of sexually adventurous people whose house rules preached consent above all else, particularly during the orgies they threw in the basement every week. Over the years that followed, Hacienda flourished, and sex positivity, a movement to destigmatize different types of sexual expression, became more mainstream. Ms. Fisher felt a measure of pride at being part of a community that had pushed for greater acceptance of her lifestyle.

That feeling helped her ignore what she described as Hacienda’s dark side: a series of claims from guests and tenants who said they were victims of sexual or physical assault under its auspices.

Then, she said, it happened to her. Ms. Fisher was in her kitchen at Hacienda in spring 2012 when she was approached and badgered into sex by a guest of the sex party she had left downstairs, she said. She awoke feeling that she had not given her consent to what had occurred — that she had been raped. Yet a fear of betraying her community, the circumstances of the encounter and its very setting stopped her from reporting it to the authorities, she said. It was a decision she deeply regrets.

“How do you call the police to report something that happened at a sex party?” Ms. Fisher said. “They’d come and say, ‘OK, which deviant do I arrest first?’”

At a time when non-monogamy has become a drop-down option on dating apps, groups like Hacienda have risen to new prominence, drawing in curious newcomers and profiting in the process. Participants envision these groups as a place to push the boundaries of sexual norms — or flout them altogether — in the safe company of like-minded people. But Ms. Fisher’s story and others like it reveal the inherent tension between the desire to create a freewheeling space and questions of consent when one person’s kink can be another’s crossed line.

Navigating this landscape has been particularly fraught for Hacienda, which has capitalized on the sex positivity movement in a way few other groups have, charging rent in a cluster of Brooklyn townhouses to people who want to live in the scene full time. ...

If this were just a case of some bad actors spoiling one scene, that would be one thing. But it's an example of a too-common situation. Where the police and courts are untrustworthy blunt instruments, but no one else has the power and resources to investigate evidence and compel truthful testimony, whole communities often just break apart into two bitter factions with no resolution.

Bad actors know this.

●  Lastly, The New Yorker has a bit of fun: Films That Have Been Rewritten Now That Everyone Is Talking About Polyamory (March 19).  For ex,

First cover,1925

“Troy” (2004)

After Paris falls in love with Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, things almost come to blows, but everyone’s able to negotiate and agree that Helen can spend Tuesdays with Paris, and be with Theseus, Menelaus, Achilles, Deiphobus, and King Menelaus on the other nights of the week, but have Sundays to herself. It’s actually pretty nice to have some time apart and not feel completely beholden to a bunch of emotionally volatile men in ancient Sparta.

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Meanwhile, as the larger world stage darkens. . .

Time to call or write your representative.

(Look up their phone / email.)

    

Here again is why I've been ending posts to this polyamory news site with Ukraine: I've seen many progressive movements die out because they failed to scan the wider world accurately and understand their position in it strategically.

We polyamorous people are a small, weird minority of social-rule breakers. Increasingly powerful people call us a threat to society — because by living successfully outside of their worldview, we expose its incompleteness.

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

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

Innovative people, communities, and societies who create their own lives, and who insist on the democratic structures and legal rights that enable them to do so safely, infuriate and terrify the authoritarians who are growing in power around the world and in our own United States. Now with direct mutual support, which is increasingly unhidden.

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

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

You can donate to Ukraine relief through this updated list of vetted organizations (Oct. 2023) or elsewhere. We're giving to a big one, Razom, and to a little informal one, Pizza for Ukraine in Kharkiv, the project of an old friend of my wife.

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

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

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

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

But the outcome didn't look good for a couple of years then, either. Popular history remembers the 1945 victory over the Nazis and the joyous homecoming. Less remembered are the defeats and grim prospects from 1941 through early 1943.

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

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PS: Ukraine should not be idealized as the paragon of an open democratic society. For instance, see If Ukraine Wants To Stand for Liberty and Democracy, It Should Rethink Some of Its Wartime Policies. And it has quite the history of being run by corrupt oligarchs — leading to the Maidan Uprising of 2013, the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, and Zelensky's overwhelming election in 2019 as the anti-corruption candidate. So they're working on that. And they're also stamping hard on the old culture of everyday, petty corruption.  More on that.  More; "Ukraine shows that real development happens when people believe they have an ownership stake in their own societies."

Now, writes US war correspondent George Packer in The Atlantic, 

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

They have a word there, with a deep history, for the horizontal, self-organized, mutual get-it-done that grows from community social trust: hromada. Learn that word. It's been getting them through  to the extent they've been able. We polyfolks often dream of creating something like that community spirit in miniature, in our polycules and networks. Occasionally we succeed.

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Social attitudes in Ukraine are mostly traditional, rooted in a thousand years of the Orthodox Church. But not bitterly so like often in the US; in the last generation the ideal of modern European civil society has become widely treasured, and social progressivism has room to thrive. The status of women is fast advancing, especially post-invasion (pre-invasion article). More than 43,000 women volunteer in the armed forces, flooding traditionally male bastions — including as combat officers, artillery gunners, tankers, battlefield medics, snipers, and infantry. (Intimidating video: "Thus the Witch has Said".) Ukraine has more women volunteering in combat positions than any other armed force in the world.

  

Ukraine's LGBT military unicorn.
The thorns and barbed wire
represent old restrictions
now being cut away. 
 

Some LGBT folx in the armed forces display symbols of LGBT pride on their uniforms, with official approval, whereas in Russia it's a prison-worthy crime for even a civilian to show a rainbow pin or "say gay." A report on Ukraine's LGBT+ and feminist acceptance revolutions. Another. Another. Another. War changes things.

And in December 2022, Russia made it a crime not just to speak for LGBT recognition in Russia or occupied Ukraine, but to speak for "non-traditional sexual relations." Pre-invasion, Russia had a visible polyamory education and awareness movement.

Polyfolks are like one ten-thousandth of what's at stake globally. Ukraine must have our full material backing for as long as it takes them to win their security, freedom, and future. Speak up for it.

Your congressperson's email and phone. Putin-aligned Republicans right now are blocking some $60 billion in aid, especially ammunition, that the Ukrainians desperately need in order not to be overwhelmed by Russian advances. Just a handful of other Republicans getting some courage to do what they know is right would be enough.                         

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

Women defenders in a trench in the Donetsk region

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

Update February 2024: More than a year later Vidma is still alive, still directing the mortar unit (now in muddy trenches), and is                            posting TikToks. A young girl who looks high-school age has joined them. Another. Their lives, and their promising society, depend on us. 

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

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

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