Polyamory is attracting more and more practitioners. Why? | The Excerpt

On a special episode of The Excerpt podcast: The classic storybook version of happy ever after typically involves meeting someone, falling in love, getting married and starting a family. But what if that dream isn’t one you share? What happens when the way you define romantic relationships and love doesn’t align with societal norms? Enter polyamory, popularized by reality shows like the Peacock network’s "Couple to Throuple." Are we ready to open up our definition of love to accommodate these other relationships? Joining The Excerpt to discuss ethical non-monogamy is Leanne Yau, non-monogamy educator, sex positivity advocate, and queer therapist in training.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here

Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, March 21st, 2024, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt.

The classic storybook version of happy ever after often involves meeting someone, falling in love, getting married, and starting a family. But what if that dream isn't one? You share what happens when the way you define romantic relationships and love doesn't align with societal norms? Enter polyamory, popularized by reality shows like the Peacock Network's Couple to Throuple. Are we ready to open up our definition of love to accommodate these other relationships? Here to discuss ethical non-monogamy with me is Leanne Yau, non-monogamy educator, sex positivity advocate and therapist in training, who also holds a law degree from Oxford University. Thanks for joining us, Leanne.

Leanne Yau:

Yeah, happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Dana Taylor:

First, what is polyamory and how does it differ from being in an open relationship or just casually dating around?

Leanne Yau:

Polyamory, it comes from the Greek and Latin roots, meaning many love. And so as the name suggests, it's about having multiple loving relationships, multiple romantic relationships, as opposed to an open relationship where you typically have one romantic partner and then you have other additional partners who may be more casual or sexual in nature, still intimate, but there is very much a hierarchy with one romantic partner at the top. And casually dating is, well, dating. You're not in a relationship, you are exploring, you are discovering yourself, you are trying different flavors, and polyamory is very much different from that. It's about engaging in serious intimate relationships with multiple people at the same time with the consent and knowledge of everyone involved.

Dana Taylor:

What do you believe is driving this shift towards accepting polyamory or at least a new openness to discussing it?

Leanne Yau:

I think that LGBT rights and awareness of other relationship dynamics like kink through 50 Shades of Gray, things like that have paved the way for polyamory and just alternative relationships to be more widely accepted and understood, or at least just spoken about. I also think that the pandemic was a significant factor because it was a very isolating period, and a lot of people have come out of it thinking, "I need a change. I want to do something differently. I want to do more with my life." And I think polyamory was a big shift in that respect, people wanting to do relationships differently.

Dana Taylor:

So Leanne, is polyamory a new thing culturally or is there some historical precedent for what we're seeing?

Leanne Yau:

So no, polyamory is not a new thing. It has been something that has been done for a very long time. It's only now that with this movement with polyamory, it's very much pushing for equality between the sexes and there's much more acceptance of queer relationships rather than just one man having multiple wives or one woman having multiple husbands. Another thing that I would add to that is that monogamy, as we currently know it, is a relatively new phenomenon. Marriage used to be an economic decision, a political decision, something that would secure inheritance or bring families together. And particularly with the introduction of the industrial revolution, it became very much an economic thing, whereas now it's very much tied to romantic love and exclusivity, and we place a lot more expectations now on our romantic relationships than we ever have before. So polyamory has always been a thing, but monogamy has also looked different over the centuries, and so that's important historical context to have in mind as well.

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. That's why it's called kitchen table polyamory.

Dana Taylor:

What about cheating? Is it considered unfaithful to have an additional relationship out of your polyamorous relationship?

Leanne Yau:

Well, the thing about polyamory and about relationships in general is that they are highly customizable. Even in a monogamous relationship, different people have different definitions of cheating. Some people think that having sex with someone else is cheating. Everyone has different boundaries, and you get to customize those and talk with your partner about what is agreeable for you. So in polyamorous dynamics, the same thing happens. Our definition of cheating may be slightly broader, but we also have our own definitions of what cheating means, and that's going to be very specific to each relationship. So it is possible to cheat in polyamory, it just might look a little bit different. It's just breaking agreements, at the end of the day. It doesn't have to look any specific way, even in monogamy. And polyamory is not the same as cheating because cheating involves deception, it involves lying. It involves going behind someone's back. It involves an element of non-consent, whereas polyamory, it's specifically in the definition that everyone needs to be aware and consenting of the situation, otherwise it is just infidelity.

Dana Taylor:

What about within a polyamorous relationship, say have two people opt to spend noticeably more time together than with others. Is jealousy inevitable in these kinds of relationships?

Leanne Yau:

I wouldn't say jealousy is inevitable. I think that jealousy is a very human emotion that everyone feels regardless of what their relationship looks like. There are monogamous people who don't get jealous, and there are polyamorous people who get jealous all the time. It's less about whether you feel the emotion in the first place and more about what you do with the emotion. In a monogamous relationship, if someone feels jealous, it might be typical for their partner to stop doing whatever it is that made them feel jealous. Whereas in polyamorous dynamics, it's much more likely that you'll be asked to question why you're feeling jealous, where it's coming from, whether it's something to do with you or something to do with your partner, and to have a negotiation about next steps. Polyamory is ultimately very much a self-discovery journey for a lot of people. It allows you to define what your relationship looks like for yourself, to customize those according to your needs, to have open communication with your partners and so on.

Dana Taylor:

Leanne, you mentioned that the pandemic inspired some people to try new kinds of relationships like polyamory. Are you worried that your lived life will be seen as a fad?

Leanne Yau:

No, I'm not worried about polyamory being a trend. I'm not worried about it being a fad because it's always been a thing, and I think it will always be a thing. There will be some people who come in, give it a go, realize it's not for them and move on. There are going to be some people who go into it, realize that it's really something that resonates with them and is something that stays with them for the rest of their lives. So I'm all for encouraging people to experiment as long as they're communicating with the people around them, as long as they're doing their research. And there are always going to be bad actors in every community, that's always unavoidable. And so it's part of my work to do the education to show people what sustainable, healthy polyamory looks like. And relationships are complicated. There are always going to be people making mistakes and that's not going to be avoidable.

But I also think that we need bad representation in order to get to good representation. As cringe as I find current media representations of non-monogamy and polyamory, it is slowly getting better. And I hope that in a couple of years we'll see a much better, much broader representations of polyamory that will help people with figuring out how it looks in their personal lives. Because the problem with polyamory at the moment is that there isn't a social blueprint for it. In monogamy, there's this general understanding of what it looks like. In polyamory, it could be anything, but there's also a lot of misconceptions about what's ethical and what's not. So people have to muddle their way through that in order to find out. And so yeah, I'm not worried about it being a trend. There are always going to be people trying it, but I'm not concerned about that.

Dana Taylor:

Do people in polyamorous relationships have any legal protections when it comes to things like healthcare benefits, property rights and inheritance, or is that still a gray area?

Leanne Yau:

So no, polyamorous people don't have legal rights. Generally, that is changing at the moment in certain states in the US. I know in Somerville, Massachusetts and other places, there are now increased protections for polyamorous people explicitly stated that it's for polyamorous people, but for the most part, polyamorous people have had to kind of just find ways to circumvent the existing law by creating LLCs to own property jointly. Because at the moment, it's very difficult to get more than two names in a mortgage, kind of figuring out family custody through getting specialist lawyers. There's so many things that the law affects.

And I would say right now the biggest concern I have is about discrimination in the workplace, in schools, just in life in general. Polyamorous people experience very negative mental health outcomes from the way that polyamory is so stigmatized because there's still very much a lack of understanding of what polyamory is. And I would say that if I had to wave a magic wand and improve something or change something about the system as it is, I would say yeah, introducing more anti-discrimination laws for polyamorous people and increasing education about what non-monogamy is and how it's just as valid an option as monogamy, not better than monogamy, not worse, just the same. I think the world will be a lot better and people will be a lot happier.

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. I think that is just the nature of things. People are scared by change, and I think that's a very human response. And when people are holding onto their creature comforts, the structures that they've grown up in, 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, but it doesn't concern me.

I think that people are going to respond in all kinds of ways. 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. When people think about multiple partners, they can't conceive of having more than one romantic partner at the same time. And so they assume that either just one of them is the real relationship or none of them are real relationships. 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. There are people who are capable of having multiple romantic connections at the same time, and that is just a thing that is always going to exist, whether you like it or not.

Dana Taylor:

Leanne, what advice would you give to someone who's interested in exploring polyamory?

Leanne Yau:

I would say take it slow. It's a big thing to do, and you don't have to do everything all at once. There's lots of resources that are now available to you. There are books, there are podcasts, there are social media pages like mine where you can get a lot of information and consume it in whatever format you choose. I would say if you are in an existing monogamous relationship, to approach the conversation with tact and to possibly think about talking about the subject in theory rather than kind of going in and going, "This is something that I want to do right here, right now."

And I would say, yeah, do your research and be compassionate and patient with yourself and allow yourself to make mistakes because inevitably, there will be mistakes made, as people often do in relationships. So it's just another relationship style. You're allowed to mess up, and you're allowed to learn from those mistakes and obviously be communicative and respectful. And yeah, just brush up on those relational skills that you'd been using even prior to this. So it's not that much different really, to be honest, but I think there's a lot of personal growth. There's a lot of potential growth in polyamory, and that's a very exciting thing.

Dana Taylor:

Leanne, thank you for being on The Excerpt.

Leanne Yau:

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producer, Shannon Rae Green and Bradley Glanzrock for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.