The sexual revolution has been evolving since the sixties and we are entering a new phase which still breaches certain moral and ethical values for some people, in spite of our more liberal views. But we don't make snap judgements these days about alternate lifestyles. Even if we don't embrace them, we certainly are more accepting than our parents. Have you even heard of polyamory ?
Well, let me clarify: - The practice, state or ability of having more than one sexual loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved ... in Latin it literally means 'many loves'. It is unlike polygamy, which involves one man and several female partners.
This is the definition used by California polyamorist Morning Glory Zell, who coined the term in the early 1980's. Polyamory differs from adultery because all the partners know about each others' lovers, so there is not secrecy or betrayal.
As a child Franklin Veaux recalls hearing his school teacher read a story about a princess who had a tantalizing dilemma. Two male suitors had been wooing her and she had to choose between them. Franklin wondered why she could not choose both.
This early insight was revealing. Franklin has to this day never stuck to one relationship at a time. “I have never been in a monogamous relationship in my life. When I was in high school I took two dates to my senior prom. I lost my virginity as a threesome.”
Today he lives with his long-term girlfriend in a home he shares with her other boyfriend. Occasionally his partner’s teenage daughter also stays over. He is also in four other long-distance relationships, people he sees with varying degrees of frequency. Confused yet?
Franklin and his girlfriends are what’s called polyamorous or “poly” as the community tends to call it. It simply means you ( male or female) can be in more than one relationship, with the full support and trust of however many partners they choose to have.
Polyamory does not feature in any census tick box but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is on the rise. Some are even calling for it to be recognized by law following the legalization of gay marriage in the US. This raises the question of whether the future of love may be very different from our current conceptions of romance.
Monogamy and marriage are now considered the norm, but it wasn't always that way.
But love has always been the same, right? A man falls for a woman, they get married, pop out a few children and stay together in a harmonious and monogamous relationship for life.
Sorry romantics. This wasn’t, and still isn’t, always the picture of love. Polygamy – where more than one spouse is allowed – was the norm for many of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Monogamy started flourishing when our ancestors began to settle down. A preference for it then appears to have arisen, among many other reasons, for economic purposes.
It made it easier for fathers to divide and share valuable commodities such as land with their children. Monogamy later got hijacked by romantic love of idealistic 19th Century Victorians. “The idea of sexual exclusivity started emerging fairly late in the game,” says professor of law Hadar Aviram at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, US.
Even today monogamy is the minority relationship style around the world. Cultural estimates suggest that as many as 83% of societies around the world allow polygamy.
In the last two decades, sociologists, legal scholars and the public have shown great interest towards polyamory and it’s making them reassess the very nature of romance.
Talking to poly individuals makes it quickly apparent that there is no one way to be poly. There are no immediate rules. Some people, like Franklin have live-in partners with additional liaisons outside the home. Others have a mixture of short and long-term relationships.
Some live in a big group with their partners and their partner’s other partner(s), so called “family style polyamory”. You get the idea. The one thing they all have in common is openness, understanding, trust and acceptance from all involved.
As you might imagine these kinds of relationships take a lot of work to maintain, so being poly is far from an easy option. For starters, to keep more than one relationship going, small logistical matters require a lot of communication. “Our relationships are a lot more challenging,” says Eve Rickert, one of Franklin’s long distance partners and co-author of their polyamory book More than Two.
Terri Conley from the University of Michigan, initially struggled to get her research published due what she felt was a pervasive bias in favour of monogamy. Her research is revealing – there are some clear benefits to polyamory.
To start with, in a 2014 review paper Conley found that polyamorous people tend to maintain more friendships as they keep a wider social network. They are also less likely to cut off contact after a break-up.
Monogamous couples on the other hand, often withdraw from their friends in the first, loved-up stages of their relationship.
Conley also found that individuals in poly relationships are better at communicating and that jealousy is often lower. In new research, not yet published, she even discovered that overall relationship satisfaction can be higher in poly relationships.
Nor do they seem more likely to spread sexually transmitted diseases. Indeed, an anonymous online study revealed that openly non-monogamous people are more likely to practice safe sex than cheating individuals in seemingly monogamous relationships.
Taking all her findings into consideration, Conley says that married monogamous couples could learn from a poly way of life. They could use using similar ways to communicate and resolve conflict for example. “The idea is that we put too much stress on marriage and need to give it more oxygen by giving people more resources,” she says. “A lot of the strategies used in poly relationships can map onto suggestions of how we improve marriage.”
Social stigmas
Unfortunately, poly individuals face many stigmas and one of the biggest misconceptions is that it's all about sex. More partners means more bed-hopping, right? This is a common view, much to Franklin and Eve’s despair.
“I have been in committed long-term relationships that span decades,” Franklin explains. “There are easier ways to find sex if sex is what you’re interested in.”
Eve agrees. “Poly is a lot of work. Having a lifestyle where you enjoy casual sex and hook-ups is a lot less work than maintaining five current long-term relationships.” In poly relationships people aren’t simply after a romp in the dark, but they make emotional and loving commitments to each other, taking in the good and the bad.
In her research Conley also came across other more subtle stigmas. “People have the sense that monogamous individuals are seen as better, that people are more committed to each other,” she says. People even perceived monogamous individuals as being better at very arbitrary things, such as walking their dogs, paying taxes on time and that they are more likely to floss their teeth.
These are similar to the kind of stigmas single people face. This all points to the fact that there is an intense “pressure to pair”. Monogamy is surrounded by a glowing halo and anyone who deviates from this norm seems to be viewed negatively, says Conley.
The problem is that these judgements do not only affect the adults in polyamorous relationships, but it seeps into their children. Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli of Deakin University in Australia, has done extensive research looking into the well-being of children in poly families, and says the main issue is what’s referred to as “the deficit model”. This simply means outsiders believe that children are affected by their parents’ lifestyle in a negative way, which is not necessarily the case.
“Research shows that most children are really happy growing up with lots of adults, in fact most kids love it,” Pallotta-Chiarolli says. They benefit from added support and time from any additional parental role within their family unit. “These children are more insightful and wise, and open to understanding diversity and many forms of religion and culture.”
“The children see parents organizing employment, health care, making lunch,” she continues. “For them they see the whole gamut of living in a family, but externally, [many] think polyamory is all about orgies, and that’s really hard for the kids.”
None of which is to say poly families are always perfect – they face similar struggles that any family might face. Eve, for instance, still lives with her husband as a life partner, but is no longer romantically involved with him. Then, as well as Franklin, she has been dating another woman for four years. Franklin also divorced his first wife of 18 years. Like any relationship, break-ups can be difficult, and they are even more complicated if children are involved.
All the evidence suggests that the children of poly families are generally happy and well-adjusted, though they may be conscious of the stigma (Credit: Olivia Howitt)
These types of stigmas will be difficult to overcome, in part because these family units are not supported by any legal recognition Regardless, any type of judgement from the outside world can put an unwelcome strain on polyamorous families. If the children underperform at school it’s often attributed to the fact that their parents are living in a non-monogamous relationship.
Aviram spoke to numerous poly activists in research looking into whether polyamorous marriage might ever legally be possible. A 2012 survey of 4,000 polyamorous people revealed that about 76% of the respondents would be interested in legal marriage if it were available.
This appetite for legal poly marriage may have arisen as a result of the support given to same-sex marriage, which is now a legal right in the US. The truth is that implementing poly marriage would be complicated, in part because there are so many different types of poly relationships. “No poly family is like the others,” Aviram says.
That being said, the family style units – where everyone is a member of the household with no relationships outside – should work remarkably like a conventional marriage, she says.
For polyamory to be protected by law it will first have to be considered an orientation in the way that homosexually is. If, legally speaking, it is seen as an orientation, then the reasoning goes that poly individuals would be protected by similar anti-discriminatory laws.
Sexual orientation is defined as attraction to either the same sex, the opposite sex or both sexes – but it could be broadened to include other sexual preferences that are entwined with identity. This echoes what many poly activists say, “They tell you they have an innate sense that they are wired this way. That this is a natural way of being for them.” If that is the case, these groups should receive special anti-discriminatory protection under law as well, according to Aviram.
That some people choose polyamory in order not to cheat on their partner brings to light a striking contradiction about monogamy in the west: adultery is rife. One analyst pointed out the irony that mainstream media almost accept affairs as a social norm. “But when it comes to ethical non-monogamous relationships… this is considered [abnormal].”
Aside from that, most people are not monogamous in the true sense of the word: staying with one partner for life. You only need to look at divorce rates to see that about one-third of us practice what is referred to as “serial monogamy”, where we change partners over time.
This all points the fact that there’s not just one set way for love between individuals to be expressed. What works for one person or society may not work for another. Relationships are eclectic and diverse, and while legal recognition for polyamory may be a long way off, we are gaining greater awareness of love in all its many forms - and presently it's in an amorphous, shape shifting state. Kids growing up right now have more options, more lifestyles to choose from. Who know where the future of love and commitment is headed.
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