(Image credit: Getty Images)
By Scott Hocker, The Week US
published
It has burbled up consistently over the last 30 or so years. It has wrapped its arms around multiple people and their partners during those decades. Polyamory is the lifestyle people love to love and love to hate. Yet, if the last few months are an indication, the more-love groundswell is currently appreciating in a whole new way.
Background
Polyamory, or as Merriam-Webster explains "the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time," hit the comparative mainstream with the publication of the now-famous text "The Ethical slu*t" in 1997 by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton, the latter who has been nonmonogamous since 1969.
In the ensuing years, polyamory became normalized — well, somewhat. "Approximately 1 out of 22 people (4–5%) who are currently in a romantic relationship identify as part of a consensually non-monogamous relationship," according to a 2021 study published in Frontiers in Psychology. And, as noted in Bedbible, polyamory or nonmonogamy is on the slow but steady rise. The practice has also hit the online dating market: Tinder expanded its relationship types to include such categories as open relationship, polyamory and ethical nonmonogamy in March 2023 in select countries.
Subscribe to The Week
The Week provides readers with a wide range of perspectives from 200 trusted news sources.
Try 6 Free IssuesSign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our daily WeekDay news briefing to an award-winning Food & Drink email, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our daily WeekDay news briefing to an award-winning Food & Drink email, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The latest
Statistics tell one story about the ascent of polyamory. Its increasing appearance in mainstream news tells another. Nearly once a year NPR produces a story about polyamory. In November 2023, Oxford University Press published the first history of polyamory, "American Poly," by Christopher M. Gleason. The scholar tracks the movement's tentative birth during the Roaring Twenties through the present day, while laying out the way the movement threads together both conservative and countercultural stances on religion, politics and sexuality.
Then, in January 2024, peak polyamory exposure occurred. First, New York magazine devoted much of the Jan. 16, 2024, issue to polyamory, with a cutesy, cuddling quartet of felines on the print edition's cover. The issue featured an immersion into the practical minutiae of a polycule (a polyamorous group of interconnected individuals). "What they're doing is not really new, but it feels utterly au courant as an increasing number of people consider what it looks like to add a person or persons to their relationships," wrote the profile's author Allison P. Davis. The issue also included an in-depth user's guide to how to practice polyamory.
The same month, The New York Times interviewed Molly Roden Winter, author of the memoir, "More: A Memoir of Open Marriage," about Winter's, well, open marriage. As further evidence of polyamory's comparative mainstreaming, Winter "felt compelled to write about her experience, in part because she felt that non-monogamy is so often depicted as something happening on the fringes, not as a lifestyle that married moms pursue." Oh, and in January 2024 NPR hopped yet again on the polyamory wagon, interviewing Winter, a therapist, a rabbi and a psychology professor about how American marriages are changing. "The average marriage is getting worse. But those of us who are able to connect in this new way are achieving a marriage that is better than the best marriages of earlier eras," said Eli Finkel, the psychology professor.
The reaction
Mainstream media exposure be damned, the ladies of "The View" were not having the January uptick. In a recent segment after the launch of the New York magazine cover story, Whoopi Goldberg cringed as she said the story gives readers a guide to "being in an open relationship or engaging in so-called ethical nonmonogamy." Then the camera panned to Sunny Hostin making an unamused face. Then Joy Behar exclaimed, "How many org*sms can one girl fake?"
The response from a section of the polyamorous community was pointed. Behar's joke "implies that the women involved in nonmonogamy are just doing it for the men, you know, doing it for their pleasure," Leanne of Poly Philia, a polyamory blog,
criticized on YouTube. "Which is a very misogynistic and patriarchal viewpoint."
Then the public intellectuals began spouting off. "Isn't it at least a little suspicious that polyamory — which is supposedly a "liberatory" corrective to repressive family structures — happens to be exactly compatible with a mode of economic life that has made both traditional marriage and parenthood completely unaffordable?" wrote environmental studies professor and The Atlantic writer Tyler Austin Harper on X.
The point isn’t that polyamory is/isn’t immoral. Rather, polyamory is a *symptom.* It’s downstream from a culture that is allergic to limits and personal sacrifice and that embraces the idea that human beings are fungible commodities to whom no permanent attachment is owed 2/January 17, 2024
He then explained polyamory's intimate connection to 21st-century individualism and that polyamory, as a movement, is not disrupting any status quo. All fun and intellectual games until X user @full_hearts upended Harper's seven-post thought exercise with one juicy comedic smackdown.
this is so many tweets to say you got no bitches https://t.co/cnauDuaQDvJanuary 17, 2024
Welcome to the polyamory discourse, 2024-style.
Explore More
TwitterWhy Everyone's Talking AboutMarriagePsychologyCultureSex EducationMedia Industry
To continue reading this article...
Create a free account
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
register for free
Already have an account? Sign in
Subscribe to The Week
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more with a subscription to The Week.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Unlimited website access is included with Digital and Print + Digital subscriptions.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Scott Hocker, The Week US
Scott Hocker is an award-winning freelance writer and editor at The Week Digital. He has written food, travel, culture and lifestyle stories for local, national and international publications for more than 20 years. Scott also has more than 15 years of experience creating, implementing and managing content initiatives while working across departments to grow companies. His most recent editorial post was as editor-in-chief of Liquor.com. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of Tasting Table and a senior editor at San Francisco magazine.
Nasa's astronauts: stranded in spaceIn the SpotlightSunita Williams and Butch Wilmore's eight-day trip to the ISS has now stretched into weeks amid concerns over their Starliner spacecraftBy The Week UKPublished 17 August 24 Crossword: August 17, 2024The Week's daily crossword puzzleBy The Week StaffPublished 17 August 24 Sudoku hard: August 17, 2024The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzleBy The Week StaffPublished 17 August 24
Rawdogging flights: as bad an idea as it sounds?Talking PointViral trend of travelling without entertainment, food or movement could offer mental respite and challenge, but risks boredom, dehydration and deep-vein thrombosisBy Harriet Marsden, The Week UKPublished 14 August 24 The couples who run their marriage like a businessIn the SpotlightUsing business principles in the home touted as a potential solution to gender disparity in domestic labourBy Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UKPublished 12 August 24 Did Kamala Harris kill brat?Talking PointPop culture phenomenon co-opted by presidential candidate sparks claims brat is overBy Jamie Timson, The Week UKPublished 26 July 24 In 'Twisters,' there are no winds of (climate) changeTalking PointThe weather-focused blockbuster kicks up a swirl of controversy over a conspicuous and deliberate omissionBy Rafi Schwartz, The Week USPublished 23 July 24 Despite the pandemic and environmental alarm, the cruise industry is soaringIn the SpotlightRoyal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian all went into 2024 with record high bookingsBy Justin Klawans, The Week USPublished 22 July 24 Demand for nonalcoholic beer is hitting a fever pitch. Booze companies are leaning in.In the SpotlightOne of the biggest players in the industry recently raised another $50 million in fundingBy Justin Klawans, The Week USPublished 11 July 24 The Alice Munro claims rocking the literary worldIn the SpotlightDaughter says the late author knew stepfather abused her as a childBy Richard Windsor, The Week UKPublished 8 July 24 Malaysia travel guide: the true Asia, two waysThe Week RecommendsCombine a city break in Kuala Lumpur with island relaxation on Langkawi for the best of multicultural MalaysiaBy Kari Wilkin, The Week UKPublished 2 July 24