Adulting - #51 When Does Monogamy Fail? with Rosie Wilby

Episode Date: February 16, 2020

Hey Podulters, welcome back to season 6! This week I speak to comedian, author and fellow podcaster Rosie Wilby about monogamy, polyamory, sex parties and lots more. Rosie's book, Is Monogamy Dead was fantastic and I would highly recommend. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded. Or 11 p.m. Eastern. Restrictions apply. See full terms at canada Adelting. Oh my gosh, I can't believe that we're this many episodes in. Our first episode is pretty spicy. I speak to Rosie Wilby, who's comedian, author, and fellow podcaster about monogamy, polyamory, relationships, singledom, everything to do with love and sex, really. I listened to her book on Audible, which is called Is Monogamy Dead?

And I would actually really recommend listening to it because as you're about to hear, she's got such a lovely voice. It's such a fascinating read. It's really candid, really open. And I think this conversation is a really positive one for anyone who maybe doesn't think that they fit into very heteronormative ideas around relationships or just anyone who's curious.

I feel like I really learned a lot. So I hope you enjoy it. And as always always please do rate review and subscribe it helps other people to find the podcast and helps me to keep on going thank you love you bye hi guys and welcome to adulting Today I am joined by Rosie Wilby. Yes, hello there. How are you doing?

It's really great to be here. Thank you so much for coming. Could you give us a little bit of an introduction to who you are and what you do? Definitely. Yes, I'm Rosie Wilby and I am a comedian who has toured a trilogy of shows around the UK and a bit around the world, all about the psychology of love and relationships. And that led me to writing a book called Is Monogamy Dead, which I think we're going to be talking about today. And now I also host the podcast, The Breakup Monologues. Amazing. So I've literally just listened to Rosie speaking. You did your own audible. I did narrate the audio yeah yes and it was incredible and so it's really nice to have you here in the flesh to pick your brain so it's really fresh in my mind

yeah and I was just saying to Rosie that the reason I wanted to get into this topic is because I think infidelity and cheating and lots of negative connotations around kind of having multiple partners comes up without looking at a reason why people might be doing it it tends to be lots of conversations around it happening but no one ever deep diving further into maybe the social constructs that are causing people to maybe cheat on their partners or have multiple relationships at the same time or not even just the social constructs but the inherent biology and psychology that that drives us yeah now that we we live such long lives compared to humans of old. Totally.

I think, you know, that lifelong monogamous dream is very, very difficult to attain. And I think we need to be pragmatic and realistic about that. And I think that's why you do see people now exploring different options and ethical non-monogamy and polyamory, which is different to the sort of cheating in inverted commas that you're talking about, because people really have discussed boundaries and have discussed rules around how they're going to conduct their personal intimate relationships. And you also have some people who might not have loads of sexual partners, but they might define relationships in a slightly different way. And they might have lots of kind of platonic relationships that are like friendships that are kind of romantic and deep, but they might

want to define them as relationships. So there's all kinds of different things going on. And we don't talk enough about what is a relationship, what is fidelity, what are my boundaries, because one person will have a completely different set of things that are comfortable than another person will. And that was really the point of my survey that I did a few years ago now that was originally research for a comedy show and then obviously became the kind of crucial part of research that informed the first part of the book. And I really wanted to ask that question, what counts as cheating, to really demonstrate that it's not this universal concept that everyone knows the answer to. And so for one person, it might be more emotional forms of cheating, and they're fairly comfortable with their partner kissing somebody else or that kind of thing. But they would feel quite threatened by them falling in love with somebody else and having a deep emotional bond with somebody else. Whereas for some, another person,

it might be purely defined around sex, they might be very comfortable with their partner having close emotional ties with other people. But we just don't talk about this stuff enough. It's certainly not a one size fits all monogamy. No, I think you're totally right. I think that first question which you open up the book is really interesting as well, because I think you're right, we automatically, when it comes to cheating, kind of imagine some kind of sexual relationship. But actually, you're totally right. I think for me, I would be more upset if someone else went and fell in love with someone else. If we hadn't spoken about it, that would kind of hurt me more, I think, than a sexual relationship. But maybe that's because I think I'm

a more emotional than physical person I don't really know but I also think the emotion the monogamy question that I find fascinating I remember realizing this when I was at uni so I'd always kind of like oh I'm I'm so monogamous but actually I've had about four the ones so obviously by that by those numbers and statistics evidently it's so funny that you think every time it's going to be the one when already you can't have that many by by that data you evidently are a serial monogamist and I think for some reason we think monogamy is any relationship that you stay in rather than monogamy truly would be one life partner isn't it yes I do I do sort of break down into two different chapters in the book.

There's two that say, what is this monogamy, lifelong versus serial? And the other one, what is this monogamy, emotionally versus sexual? So, yeah, I think you're right. The idea of serial monogamy is, I think, something that we've kind of now decided is a kind of monogamy because we're more comfortable with the idea rather than having one marriage for life with having sort of one marriage at a time. So I think we've decided that we want to adapt the word and adapt the meaning and that monogamy can now mean serial monogamy. But yes, I mean, if you are being really pedantic, you might say, well, you know, is that really monogamy?

Because like you say, you've had different partners in your lifetime. You've just had the one after the other rather than simultaneously. But it's interesting how you talk about the one and how we're very married, if you like, for want of a better word, to this idea that there is this one person. And I think that can be quite damaging. It can put a huge amount of pressure on our relationships if we think we are supposed to get so much from this one person and that they are meant to complete us and make our lives suddenly have meaning when often we can only

really find those things for ourselves. So, yeah most people who really really believe in the idea of the one are the ones who often do kind of chop and change partners and are quite serially monogamous as i was and and kind of why i wanted to write the book and explore these questions but yeah i think um serial serial monogamy can it can get a bit exhausting you know every time you think oh this is the one and you're really excited and you're on this huge roller coaster this amazing high at the beginning and then it's it's so devastating when it all comes crashing down because you think at the time that's your your sort of one chance totally i i really learned this lesson uh and I

love that you came on to this in the books every single time I had a thought your next topic you approach would be that so I remember thinking when you were saying how when it's the one it doesn't have to be you know romantic relationships it could be your relationships with your friends and as just before you said that I've been thinking actually this is a change that I'd made going into my relationship with him. And now it was, I don't expect my boyfriend to be my best friend and the person that I go out with and my confidant and everything. I've got 20 different people. Well, maybe not that many. I was going to say, lucky you. Loads of different friends who I go to for different things. And then my boyfriend is

my boyfriend. Then I've got my sisters and it's all everyone has a different relationship with me and I never thought of that as being polyamory I guess in its official state but really when you explain it more I was kind of thinking well I'm not kind of hell-bent on loading everything onto my boyfriend I really am spreading out the love. That's good yeah and I think yes in some senses in a kind of loose sense of the term polyamory, which largely means many loves, that is a bit polyamorous. But yeah, of course, you might want to define monogamy you have um and the things that you want to do with with people and the time that you want to spend with people the energy you want to get from somebody um it's probably good to spread that out between different friends family colleagues different

different people that you interact with and it can become super intense when one person is your be all and end all totally um i want to go back to where you were saying about your survey because you talk about that right at the beginning of the book and that was on facebook was it on facebook just your friends um no i posted it up on survey monkey fine and i distributed it through a few different uh groups um kind of where i thought i'd get a bit of a mix of different genders, sexual orientations, ages. So a few different kind of forums and science forums and comedy forums and that kind of thing. So, yes, I think some of my friends answered it, but also some people I didn't know at all.

And it was a reasonable spread. It was possibly slightly more gay people than you would get in a kind of random sample of the population so that might have interestingly skewed the results that's really nice though because i assume that normally with every heteronormative thing that goes on the world you've probably created the only survey that has a queer bias yeah which is probably amazing a bit more helpful but what so when you were doing this did you go were you expecting to have this journey that you've gone on and and what really drove you really to I know you said you're a serial monogamous obviously in the book you explained it but for those who haven't read it what was the starting point when you suddenly thought actually maybe the way that we look at relationships in today's

society doesn't fit with how I'm trying to live my life? Yeah, I think it was very much coming to a realisation that I was a serial monogamist, as we've said, and I'd been through quite a few big breakups that had been quite challenging and sad and difficult. So I wanted to kind of challenge that lifestyle, that roller coaster and that feeling of crashing and burning every time. Even though I have maintained friendships with a good number of my ex-partners, there was one who, it was quite a difficult breakup and a difficult time. And, you know, sadly, we're not in touch anymore. I think that's for the best with hindsight. You know, we've both, well, been able to get on with our lives and and go and do our separate

things and sometimes that is the way and that is the healthy way um but you know i i just felt like it seemed like a waste to spend all that time with somebody and then because it's no longer a successful romantic partnership to maybe have this kind of script that we do in our in our society in our culture really that you sort of have to kind of script that we do in our society, in our culture, really, that you sort of have to kind of discard that relationship. It doesn't really count anymore. And I felt that I was in a relationship at the time, which was after the big breakup, that was more ambiguous in what it was,

in that we were a couple, we were together, but I didn't feel it was as intense a romantic or sexual partnership as maybe the previous relationship which perhaps had been unhealthily so with hindsight but I felt that we were somewhere in the gray area between lovers and friends and obviously I know many relationships hover somewhere between companionship and you know that that very kind of erotic lust and desire and we're all constantly moving in this weird kind of spectrum between these different states and feelings and as we move through the relationship stages the brain does kind of respond and act in different ways. And there are different hormones and chemicals going on.

So we will feel maybe less sexually attracted to someone over time. But I felt that there was something different about this relationship where it felt more along the lines of a really, really loving friendship. And somebody that I definitely wanted to have in my life long term, if possible. But I was always slightly uncomfortable with the definition of it being a monogamous relationship, because it felt like there might be something that we were both missing in terms of sexual and romantic connection with people. And I think trying to think about things in a more removed and pragmatic way, I thought maybe we could think about having an open relationship. In practice, I think it's far more difficult to do than just when you sort of are thinking about

like a maths problem or something like, oh, you know, well, we get loads of stuff from each other, but maybe we don't have, you know, as much of a full-on sexual connection so perhaps we could just have sex with other people of course it's much much more complicated than that in in reality but I suppose as I started reading a bit about sexuality and love and people having uh kind of platonic primary partners and having lovers outside of that I I thought, you know, maybe that's a sensible model, because in some ways, your primary partner is the one that you do want a more kind of rational relationship with. Because if you're sharing a house with somebody, particularly if you buy a house with somebody, you don't necessarily want to have this roller coaster of emotion, because you have to sometimes talk about very pragmatic, boring

things about, you know, fixing the floor or something. Do you know what I mean? So sometimes there is boring stuff, admin and stuff you've got to do with that kind of primary person in your life. So I think sometimes the sexy, lusty feelings and the sort of madness of that, I mean, Freud even described romantic love as a temporary psychosis. You know, I think all of that stuff can sometimes get in the way of having almost what is like a business partnership with that primary person. It's so funny.

Have you read Love Factually, The Science of How and Why We Fall in Love? Oh, Laura Mucher. Mucher, yeah. So she was on and she talks about this, how you have the different states of love and how often it starts off as love and then by the end it moves into companionship. And she says that same thing. When you're in that lustful love, it's basically like you're taking Coke.

Like that's what your brain's doing. That's absolutely right, yeah. Yeah. And you spoke about that as well, I think, in the book. You're like, maybe if we do, I get some volunteers, do some Coke and we do the experiments. Yes, yeah. And I said we'd probably get a load of volunteers. A load of volunteers.

Oh, 100%. can we do the experiments yes yeah and I said we'd probably get a load of volunteers definitely 100% uh and what I find really interesting is actually also I remember I would go for those kind of lustful really passionate lots of arguments relationships when I was younger because that's what you're sold in the movies is love exactly yeah and then as I've got older I've actually thought actually I really like going to bed really early and like having a more you're not old enough no but I do go to bed quite I do I know well like 10 oh yeah get up at six it's not too bad that's a solid get into bed yeah have to have eight hours I can't I literally won't get up otherwise um it's awful I just sleep in but yeah going back to that it's really interesting because I think I've kind of now got to the point where I find that lack of chaos much more attractive and but then I do understand why

you would want to have like the multitude of it and I guess and I can imagine that people I remember watching I think it was a Louis Theroux documentary quite a few years ago about people that were polyamorous that was the first time I had the tab compersion which is when you don't feel jealousy you feel joy yeah and I remember finding that so hard to I couldn't I could not understand and then I think via osmosis slowly over time I've come to know people who are polyamorous have open relationships and it just starts to feel like oh okay but I can imagine that when you enter into that your relationship doesn't exist in a vacuum. And if you start dating someone else, it's not that you guys might be OK with that.

But then it's like every person has so many people attached to them. I guess that's where the complications start to arise. We're all interconnected. You know, even if we're not all having sexual relationships, I think our actions do affect other people. I mean, I'm now thinking a lot about breakups for my second book and obviously for the Breakup Monologues podcast. And I've been thinking a lot just recently about how when two friends, like if they're mutual friends who you're friends with both of them, when they break up, how that affects you and how it affects the whole surrounding friendship network. I talk a bit in the book about the erosion of a landscape of friendship when two central friends in a sort of group split up because everyone feels a bit like, oh, do we take sides?

And it gets very complicated. So I think we forget how interconnected we all are. Just a quick point on language. I wanted to share one of my favourite terms that I came across meeting people who were poly was, if you've reached your threshold of partners, you can say that you're polysaturated. Oh, stop. That's really good. Which is a good one, isn't it? How many, well, I suppose it's different for everyone. It would be different for everyone. And I think age, you know, you're talking about going to bed

earlier. I think age definitely would have, would play some part in that. You know, as you get older, you've probably got less energy and time and energy and resources to sort of devote to having lots of different people for lots of different things that's one of my first thoughts whenever anyone mentions being polyamorous or even actually having an affair more actually because i just think your time management you have to be so efficient first of all to hide i always that's honestly the first thing which maybe is a bit weird but I always think I think god I couldn't I just don't have the time and I wouldn't I wouldn't understand how to maneuver that um I quickly want to ask you because what I love is

the way that you speak about um lesbian relationships in the book and how you differ in that because it was such to be gay in a certain time period it was so marginalizing that you would stay friends with all of your exes because you needed to have allies in that because it was such, to be gay in a certain time period, it was so marginalising that you would stay friends with all of your exes because you needed to have allies in that space. Yeah, absolutely. And it was a small community. And I mean, you couldn't really not be friends because that would, like I say, that would kind of be difficult for a whole group of people. So I've particularly looked at same-sex partnerships because I think it gives us a lot of hints perhaps to a sort of preferred gendered strategy around monogamy I mean I know gender is getting more fluid and more of a spectrum now but I do think you see two women in a relationship and two men in a relationship

behaving in a really really different way to cope with this central problem of monogamy and how we navigate it and so women have tended towards rapid serial monogamy and how we navigate it. And so women have tended towards rapid serial monogamy. Lesbian divorce rates are actually the highest of all. We divorce over three times the rate of gay men. Yeah, which is interesting. And then you have gay men who more typically would stay in a primary partnership a very, very long time time their divorce rates are really really low but they would more typically navigate a sort of an open relationship and have sexual partners outside of the primary partnership so I think you see these two different strategies going on and I think there's something interesting in that and I also think that gay people of kind of previous decades have had creative strategies around

concepts of family fidelity love relationships because we have been excluded from marriage and maybe having families in a very conventional way and so I think we have looked to friends as family we have looked to the ideas of what the writer Armistead Maupin calls logical family rather than sort of biological family. And, you know, we have played around with the ideas of open relationships or things like living apart together. The lapped couple became a bit of a buzz phrase a few years ago in the media, but lesbians have been doing it for like decades. And so I think you often find the queer community sort of pioneer models that then kind of catch on, you know, a decade or two later in the kind of heteronormative world.

Totally. The only people that I know who are in an open relationship are gay men couples. Yeah. And I thought about this before, and you kind of, you brought this up in the book as well. And my kind of thought process, or when I was like thought experiment about why this might be and you did you literally it's so funny every time I thought something you then say it better but it was about how because if your relationship is already viewed as being controversial or different you've kind of got less you can be open I feel like when you're in a heteronormative, very normal couple, if you kind of push the boundaries a little bit and want to do something different.

People are like, oh. Yeah. Whereas I think if you're a queer couple, it's already seen as, and not, this is not positive. Yeah, exactly. So to then change that. And I also wonder with. It's not that much of an extra leap, yeah.

Totally. And with things like paternity certainty I guess there's two men there's less issue of like biologically being worried about sleeping with other people in terms of fathering a baby and I suppose that's the same with two women yes I mean now now with gay people starting to have children you see some interesting models where you often see two gay men and two lesbians sort of having children together and being like four parents in a big kind of molecule, or if they were truly poly, it would be a polycule. But, you know, even sometimes four of them all living in the house with the kids and stuff. And so you see

some interesting structures like that going on. But yeah, I mean, obviously, there's a lot of kind of feminist writing about monogamy being exactly, as you say, about men wanting to protect paternity and not being cook-holded and not wanting to plough their resources into bringing up another man's child and all of this kind of stuff. And yeah, sort of historically how it came about as this construct because of kind of agriculture and when labour got more physical and men kind of did the physical work, whereas, you know, in hunter-gatherer days, women had done lots of the important work as well. Then suddenly women were becoming a bit more decorative and were kind of handed around like property between the patriarchs. So yeah, you have this idea about women sort of becoming sexual property, I suppose, in a way. When you started talking about this, because I find it very fascinating,

it's definitely still quite new. Were you worried? Were you scared to approach the subject with your friends? Or were you in circles where this was already something that was going on? Do you find that maybe it's something that people look to when they've, like, I'm mid-20s now and I feel like everyone's either getting into their first serious relationship some of them are getting engaged but I feel like open relationships

maybe come when you're in your 30s or like what do you yeah maybe I mean I you know I'm an old bird in my 40s now um and I suppose, yeah, there was a real mix because to some extent in queer culture, especially in London, in a big city, there is a lot of openness, particularly, like you say, among the gay men that I know. And the lesbians were really, really divided. There are some lesbians who are really kind of hacked off

with serial monogamy like i am and getting divorced in inverted commas every few years um and then going through all this emotional work to stay friends with your exes because it's still quite a small community um so so there were some women who were like yes this really makes a lot of sense i can see where you're coming from and then there are some lesbians who really are clinging on to the idea of monogamy and were a bit unsure, you know. And I think the assumption is that if you're talking about monogamy and you're questioning it, that you are, you know, living this hedonistic lifestyle

and going to sex parties and having sex 24-7. And, you know, I was like oh I wish I mean honestly I did go to one or two sex parties and stuff like that but actually kind of for research in inverted commas and because I did go and do I write about it in the book I went and did a comedy set at a really lovely kind of friendly sex party and I was more just interested in seeing what the vibe was and, you know, enjoying that, the sort of flirtation of it. And, yeah, just kind of seeing how people communicated and how there were a lot of kind of very respectful ethical rules

at this party about, you know, don't be a dick. Yeah. And so people were actually being really, really respectful. And there wasn't really much alcohol being consumed. And people were just excited to connect and communicate. And, you know, then maybe some people would go off and have sex. I love how candid the book was. And it felt very unabashed, but in a really nice way. So it's very comfortable to read or listen to. And I find it fascinating that you say, I guess it is hedonism in one sense of the word,

but I think it's just also ideological in that at this moment in time, it might seem very extreme to love freely or whatever, but if you go through periods of time and you bring up Greek, when were men all loving each other like Roman Greeks? Yeah, yeah, because there was a lot of homoeroticism. Yeah, totally.

And it's really, I've brought this up to my guy friends before as well. And it's just about the way that, it's just because we're viewing it in this moment right now, you think it's a certain way. But we've gone through so many different iterations of the way that we spend time with each other and love each other. And as you say, like, we're going to live longer. Will we be able to be the same person for 70 years? We might get really bored.

I know. It's hard, isn't it? I think that's a huge, huge challenge. Yeah. And like you say, if you look back through history and even if you look around the world even now, you do see a lot of polyamorous communities. Even polyandrous communities where women might take more than one husband. That's very rare. So that's opposite of polygamy.

Yeah, polygamy. And then polyamory is... Polyamory is more based around love than marriage, which let's face it are two different things. Yeah. And so, yeah, polyandry is when a woman takes more than one husband. Yeah. And there are a few parts of the world where that might be a norm. Interesting.

I actually want to ask you about marriage. I can't remember if I spoke to someone, or maybe it was me listening to you, I can't remember now, about marriage and how marriage really is just as a contract. It's kind of like a financial, it's not really that much about the love side of things. Well, it historically wasn't. You know, it's about sort of two families joining and it is about, yeah, a financial and pragmatic arrangement. Well, we mentioned sort of the idea of a business relationship earlier on. And the, yeah, I think it's relatively recent in Western culture that we have this very romanticized idea of love and marriage and yeah how how realistic is that how can it really live up to like like we were saying earlier the the romantic films this idea of romantic love that was sold

that is the lasting form of love whereas that may always let us down slightly so i do think polyamory gives us a potential option to look at, you know, kind of maybe sustaining relationships in different ways and finding energy and love and passion and excitement in other ways. It may not always be through sex, but that's an option as well. If it's communicated and your boundaries are communicated and everything's consensual and everybody is on board. I think it's healthy that we can have these discussions at least and those options are there. And I think if you explore polyamory and you know what that's about and that's there as an option, you can more actively choose monogamy, which is what I ultimately have done. And I think it's much healthier to think it's a choice that I want to be monogamous in my relationship rather than it's this cultural default that I don't know if

I feel comfortable with. I think you can feel much happier about something if you've chosen it. Yeah, the freedom to choose it. Totallyaranteed to hit by 11 p.m. with your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Daily Jackpots. A chance to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner by 11 p.m. every day. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario.

Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded or 11 p.m. Eastern. Restrictions apply. Do you think though, and I know that I'm kind of going back to my point before, but you were talking about how women have sort of like romantic, non-sexualized relationships with their girlfriends. And also kind of harking back to that greek idea of these men like falling over each other it's so normal for you and your girlfriends to watch a movie girlfriend swells a term that's slightly problematic because i'm not gay because i think i get told off sometimes for saying that and shouldn't um but you know what i

mean friends who are women female friends with each other yeah will very happily strip off in front of each other like watch movies and cuddle and there's really very few boundaries around that and I think we're so conservative about the way I don't know actually because I do think it is a bit weird sometimes the way we sexualize women to being together when it's not sexual as well so it's all kind of problematic but if we had a less conservative view or allowed people to be more open and loving with each other. I do think British culture constrains some of that as well, which is why I think monogamy sometimes spills out over the edges

and people do find themselves perhaps being drawn to the idea of cheating or something because it feels so restricted. Yes, if you feel confined, that's when you're going to rebel against it. You know, like if you've got really strict parents, that's when you're going to rebel against it. You know, like if you've got really strict parents, that's when you're going to be a naughty teenager. So, yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's so interesting what you say about your kind of your straight girlfriends. Because in some ways, as a gay woman,

I've always been a bit jealous of straight women having girlfriends that they can be so comfortable with. Whereas if you're a lesbian and you're friends with other gay women, there's always that tension. There's almost that, you know, rather than when Harry met Sally, it's when Sally met Sally. Can two queer women who might be attracted to one another really be friends without any sexual tension?

So, yeah. I totally agree, but then surely it works in the same way that if you're, I suppose it's not usually as friendly, but being in a heteronormative situation where a girl's friends with a guy. Yeah, and of course it can work. But I do know what you mean. Would you strip off in front of each other, like with a straight male friend who you were just friends with?

When I was younger, if I had a really close guy friend, I wouldn't be like, woohoo, here are my baps. But I probably wouldn't, I also wouldn't be like woohoo here are my baps but I probably wouldn't I also wouldn't be shy about like having a quick change I wouldn't loiter around with my fanny app but I probably wouldn't also be that worried about yeah changing if you know what I mean yeah yeah and also when I remember one of my best friends came out to me and that never that didn't remotely change our relationship that's nice so that was thing we've talked a lot about language one of my friends had a special phrase for defining those kind of very special

female friendships and she calls them her love affair friendships yeah I love that you said that in the book so sorry that was what I wanted to I've completely forgotten my point I love exploring this idea of the way that we share because I think if you're even not in a relationship with anyone the idea of love like when I was younger I think we're using love a lot more frequently and a lot more freely so I tell my mum I love her all the time but I don't remember that being language when I was younger that you would necessarily say out loud do you feel like that's become a bit more colloquialized and you're allowed to kind of just be a bit more emotional with people or have you always felt that way perhaps we are becoming less buttoned up I hope so because I

think like you say our British culture was a bit a bit oppressive in the way that yeah the way we talked about sex was it all a bit innuendo yeah you know and it was a bit kind of seedy and under wraps totally and there was so much shame when I was growing up around sex yeah like my mum is really Catholic I've completely undone the Catholicism from her so she's fine now but growing up sex to me I was just more so terrified of talking anything about it and actually I think when we kind of I know that sex and love are two different things but I also think being able to tap into both of those conversations makes everyone else so much more at ease I honestly think that if it seems really

forward thinking to talk about polyamory and open relationships in some senses but in another sense of the word I also almost imagine that in the future I think you spoke about this we will oh what's this relationship anarchy that's what I'm thinking of now. Oh, yes. But almost people don't define their relationships. Yes. Relationship anarchy is something I think I alluded to at the beginning where for some people, emotional relationships are the key.

There might be some partners that they have sex with, but it's all about the emotional connections. So they wouldn't necessarily rank everything in a hierarchy where friendships sit below romantic love that isn't up there on this pedestal. I actually use the phrase in my book, a new currency of commitment, and to kind of get away from this idea that we have this inflated value placed on romantic love by the sort of Valentine's cards and the love songs and the romantic films. And I think it is quite healthy to think about all our connections,

all those kind of interconnected satellites of connections with people and all those constellations of people as, you know, just part of something that makes up a big picture of us and who we are. Yeah, because I think growing up when I was younger, I definitely was of the opinion, well, I mean, fairy tales and Disney films do this to you, but that you will just meet a man or a woman, well, in the films, it's always a man.

And once you get them, you will be whole. And if anything, all I found out was that I was getting completely undone by these people who I didn't know how to be in a relationship with or would become very codependent. And actually, it wasn't until I learned how to be independent and really invest time in all my friendships that then I could meet someone because I was going to them with my glass full or whatever the expression is. Yes, I think often the best start to a relationship is after you've been single for a while and you've found your feet and you've found your identity and

your sense of self and what you want to bring into a relationship but there are people who just run from one partnership to the next who never really they're so scared of spending that time alone I think we're giving um singleness a bit of good press now I think it's really starting to get uh I have a friend called Florence Given who's amazing and she constantly talks about the joy of being single and why it's such an amazing thing and why it's also an option. I mean, we've been talking about being in all different kinds of relationships, but I think it's really nice to also have the option of not being in a relationship, which I also didn't know that you could grow up and just not have that. You can be poly and not in a relationship. You can be solo poly, which is kind of you're having your primary relationship with yourself and you're open to relationships. But there are plenty of solo poly people who are single and they might be open to connections.

But, yeah, that primary relationship is with yourself. It's really fascinating. I honestly, the more I think about it, then maybe I'm simplifying it slash don't understand it enough I just think it's it's me we need to have a huge shift in our attitude towards relationships and it also needs to come along with the changes in gender and kind of marginalization and because I think that even in terms of hierarchy within relationships like male and female relationships especially in the way that we kind of look at gender norms is so problematic and I wonder if if we didn't put so much onus on having this one this monogamy this prince or whatever and stripped away the heteronormativity if there would be less power

in those in male privilege because they wouldn't have as much power in the in the dynamic if you were able to spread that love yeah have. Have I gone round in circles? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I think absolutely. I think also it kind of opens up the possibility for so much ambiguity and miscommunication and assumption. And I think that's why I was looking for some kind of clarity about what relationships meant.

And I think you're absolutely right to point to the sort of patriarchal structure around this. And the fact that it seems to have been defined so far very much in male interest. And it does seem that women have different types of relationships that they don't really have words for and are making up their own like love affair, friendship. And so, yeah, I think it's things are times are definitely changing look how much more accepting we've become about queer relationships I mean in my lifetime I've gone from going on kind of same-sex wedding marches and demos and we staged a mock wedding when I was a student outside York Minster on Valentine's Day, really terrified, thinking we were doing something crazy controversial that would never,

ever happen, that two women and two men would never, ever be allowed to marry. And now that is becoming, in this country at least, fairly accepted by most people. And so I think we've seen things come a long, long way and we're far more accepting of trans people and thinking about gender binaries in a different, new, modern kind of a way and are so much more progressive. So I think it will follow suit that we will start thinking about monogamy and relationship structures and relationship forms in a different way. But I think to be a complete relationship anarchist may be challenging for some because we quite like structure and we quite like organisation. I mean, even for me, I, you know, when I was really grappling with it, I kind of thought the structure that probably appeals to me most personally is to have some kind of primary partner, whether that's a sexual partner or an emotional platonic partner yeah totally I kind of feel like you do want that one person that you live with and you have some sense of family with particularly as I don't have a large biological family I'm an only child so I

think having that one key person is still that's still something I do crave I think no I completely agree and I think I'm I'm the same but I think mine is more in but probably then I shouldn't define it that way mine is just more that I very much am aware that I spread instead of where I've been in codependence relations before I've been obsessed upset and it's been really toxic and oh it can be awful and kind of lost friendship and now it's just a very like that's my boyfriend but these my friends. And they all kind of get different amounts of love. Yeah. I do think that men, interestingly, lose out in this patriarchal structure of friendship

because I remember saying to my boyfriend once, one of our friends was struggling with something, and I was like, well, what did you say to him? And he was like, oh, I just said this. And I was like, well, why don't you say that? He was like, oh, I don't really want to. And I thought, oh, my God, you don't know. You can't say, I could say anything to my girlfriend.

I shouldn't say that to my friends, my women friends. What are you allowed to say? I don't want to say something wrong. And it's really funny that we're able. I think that it's definitely changed. And I've even noticed as I got older that the guys that I went to school with are starting to become more tactile with each other and more effeminate in their friendships, which is lovely.

I quote a survey in my book of um male heterosexual male snogging um that this professor at one of the universities had done a survey a study into women into men snogging one another and actually that there is quite a lot of homoerotic tactile touching and kissing between men so i think men are starting to break out of that shell of masculinity and what it feels like it has to mean there's there's a hell of you know we've been talking a bit about you know patriarchy and what that means for women but gosh there's a hell of a lot of pressure on men to be a certain way yeah like this alpha male idea i do always find that like sport is so home like rugby is one of the most

homo erotic things and also them all being the change so i think women can outwardly be really tactile like some of my friends will just hang off each other and it's a very like it's all not sensual but almost is like like women in those paintings like with long hair brushing each other's hair but guys with a little apple yeah exactly whereas guys feel like they have to be all but then with the snogging thing was that on nights out is it drunken so is it just a little i think it was a yes amalgamation yeah alcohol and sport were definitely involved like hugging after scoring a goal or a try or something yeah yeah it is so fascinating so what's gonna i've literally just forgotten what i was going to say. I'm sure it was amazing.

I will, but I hope so. What was my point I was going to say? Oh, that one, I remember now. So I think I heard you, were you on the Guilty Feminist? Is that where I would have heard you? Yes, I think that was where you heard me. So it made me laugh so much because you were talking about how you'd written this book called Is Monogamy Dead? And you just put it up and these men were just emailing you absolutely fuming, not having read the book, but just with the title. Did you know that it was going to be a bit of a firecracker to put out into the world? I mean, I deliberately asked that question to be a little bit provocative. I'm a comedian. And so primarily, you do want to make

people ask questions and you want to get a response. You want people to come and see the show. And, well, the letter that I actually read out on The Guilty Feminist was not an email but an actual traditional old-school letter that had been delivered through the letterbox of a bookshop that I was due to do a talk at. And he posted it, this gentleman had posted it through the letterbox at her and hill books

and it was addressed to rosie will be his monogamy shed and he kind of had this whole page of you know why he thought monogamy was this you know very excellent structure and telling me all about his family and his children and their marriages and And yeah, I thought it was interesting how some people, even without reading the book, make an assumption that if you're questioning it, you must be saying that monogamy is a terrible, outdated, bad idea. Whereas actually, I think it's probably quite a viable relationship structure

if we redefine it a little bit for modern times and modern living and this long lifespan we have. And we kind of attach on the communication about boundaries and consent and all the things that we probably need to make a kind of compulsory part of it, that inherently do seem to be part of polyamory. You've got to talk a lot if you're going to open up your relationship, whereas actually a lot of monogamous couples don't talk at all and I think that's the problem I also think that because monogamy is so accepted that it's the same with anything but if you stick your head above the parapet and even try to deviate from it people can't it makes it holds up a mirror and people

feel attacked because they think no but I'm doing monogamy and actually maybe attacked because they think, no, but I'm doing monogamy. And actually maybe deep down they think, shit, this isn't right. And I think we can get into, no one would blink an eye if you started going out with someone at 16 and married them at 24. And actually really, those are such formative years of your life and if you dated someone for that,

I don't know, I think that shouldn't, I think we need to be encouraged more, as you say, to explore relationships, even if they're not overlapping or polyamorous, but you're just dating around and meeting different people and finding out what you like. Yeah, it's probably quite healthy. There's a new theory that I'm going to propose in my next book, the 40 laugh theory, which is a slight tennis joke because my partner's a tennis coach. I love tennis. But quite a few of us in this decade have decided that really you don't know what you're doing until you're about 40.

Not that we really know what we're doing either. But I think there's an argument to be said that maybe you do kind of experiment and play around. And obviously it's perhaps a bit more difficult if you are going to have children because you probably need to do that before 40. But then I think you could bring up children in different kind of ways in a community with different friends, as well as like one primary partner and that kind of thing. So there's all kinds of different ways of looking at family. But I think in as far as finding yourself and discovering yourself, and knowing who you want to be in a relationship, I think you do know a lot more by the time you get to 40. I think in your 20s, you really are, you know, I mean, look at you, you're so young. And in some ways, I'm kind of envious, but in another way, I'm not at all, because I remember what a mess of chaos it all

was. And then in your 30s, you're kind of sorting things out a little bit. But by 40, you really kind of start to feel quite confident and quite yeah I know who I am but unfortunately then you get a bit too tired to start executing all your amazing plans to take over the world that makes me really happy that's the whole point of this podcast because I remember when I finished uni I was like great well now everything will be sorted and then all of a sudden it was just another shit storm of no idea and every day some days I wake up and I think absolutely nailed it I know what I'm doing and the next day I wake up and I'm just like what the fuck am I doing and it's that every other day so it's really nice to hear that I think I don't think I still I've asked so many people now like

do you feel like you're an adult even my mum who's in her 60s is like I don't necessarily feel like and I think that's kind of lovely but yeah it's good because actually and i'm a comedian which is the most juvenile kind of job you can possibly have i mean yes there were a lot of kind of stressful elements of it particularly when you're at edinburgh fringe which is just a month-long nightmare um but i i think yes i think what's uh really been important about doing this job is actually staying in touch with that sense of play and I think that does help you communicate and have fun in your relationship and me and my partner we do just have kind of silly banter with each other and take the piss out of each other and

have little funny games and memes and songs that you know we'd sing to each other that other people would be like what on earth are you doing you know well you brought up um the proverbial clicking clocking talk what is that what am i trying to say biological clock bloody hell it's like monalisa wonderland and i think that's also what forces a lot of people into unhappy relationships because you hear this dreaded thing of you can't be a woman who's single at 30 because who's gonna give you sperm or whatever the story is and i think that's also like it's so frustrating because I always say I wish that you could have children up until your 50s. That'd be great because then I'd get married at 45.

Yeah. And then that's kind of the timing. It would be perfect. Yeah. You know, damn the menopause. I know. It's so, I honestly think that's so irritating because I do think in the back of my mind,

even though I really think like I've got, I'm such a career, I'm such a career I'm such a shit time no one's a career man are they but like there's so many things I want to do and then something in the back of my mind goes but you better you've got to have a baby and it's really I hate I hate that feeling that's the only thing I love being a woman and I actually don't envy men for much even though they have loads of privilege but I would like to be able to have children up until I'm like 80 that'd be great well I mean yeah then you've got to think about whether you're going to be around yeah that's

well I mean we might be living for like two years now we might yes we are starting to live longer so yeah you know I yes I kind of think actually settling down and committing later I mean I think we are in general maybe committing a tiny bit later definitely in London I think kind of early marriages that you used to hear about and you know a lot of a lot of those people I mean so many of my friends and kind of ex-partners and stuff have had parents who've divorced or split up because yeah they got married so young before they really knew what on earth was going on I don't to, although every time I say something like this, I have to say, if you are in a long-term relationship from when you're really, really young,

it does, obviously, there's also, there's the exception to the rule. And also your book isn't saying the other thing about the book, just because you read it and find it interesting. It doesn't mean that monogamy will never work for you. As you said, it's working for you perfectly now. I think if you are in a long, long-term relationship and you're really happy said it's working for you perfectly now i think if you are in a long long-term relationship and you're really happy it's just thinking about the fact that you will both grow um and you won't always grow together so it's just constant communication and constant fluidity and and acceptance around those those different boundaries that you may need to renegotiate and keeping on communicating about the division of well you know just just kind of work within the relationship if you do

have kids or you have pets i mean me and my partner have a dog and a cat i mean the cat doesn't need much but the dog actually you know has been quite a lot of work in the first year when she was this crazy puppy running around weeing all over the house and needing walks and needing constant kind of attention and chewing all our shoes and things and so you know we have had to think about how you know how do we yeah you know who's going to have a keep an eye on the dog during the day or in the evenings and so I think you do have to communicate really really well and that that is you know it's not rocket science but I think you do have to communicate really, really well. And that is, you know, it's not rocket science. But I think that is the secret to that long, long term commitment. If you feel you've got that real deep connection with someone and that is working well, then brilliant.

Yeah. And I think being, you said about the work, it is just like you've got to actively be present kind of in your relationship and I wonder if what maybe why I've had lots of people talking about polyamory and or even just having one um like sleeping with someone else once that's been they've both agreed on it and then going back into the relationship and being really happy and I wonder if that's because it just suddenly kickstarts you to be aware of oh this is where I am and this is my partner and I think one of the things that led me to write the book was I felt that there could be something a bit deadening about being in a monogamous relationship you know it does sound a little bit like monogamy and just relationship wooden and so yes i think many people if they negotiate an open time an open period in their

relationship and maybe then become monogamous again they've had so much excitement and i don't know refueling of their creative energies and their personal sense of self and that they do bring a sort of energy back into into the partnership um you know but then it's not always as easy as that because maybe one person went off and had a brilliant time but the other person didn't so you've got to be prepared for it not being equal and not being even often in many heterosexual partnerships where they open it up the man has harder time bless him to find partners than a woman who you know there are just men everywhere who are like fantastic yeah so I think you know there are always sadly uneven parts yeah polyamory and obviously we haven't really got into the the jealousy side and I can imagine it's it could get very complicated and also just because it is very subversive and it is so different I

know some people might even just listen to this conversation and think oh my god what are you talking about but I do I think you're right I think it's just the option of knowing that you know even I'm so excited if I do have children I just can't wait to say to them and you'll go out with anyone like not say you'll get a boyfriend or girlfriend I just gonna I'm so excited if I do have children. I just can't wait to say to them, and you'll go out with anyone. Like, not say you'll get a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I'm just going to, I'm really genuinely excited to teach them that they can date anyone. Just because for me, I think that's such a great, I wonder how the world will change when we don't have such binary ideas about sexuality. And children are brought up thinking, oh, I can just go out with whoever I want.

I really think it's going to be fascinating to see whether or not we even ascribe to a sexuality at that point. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think it'll be really interesting. I think it has been useful to have slightly more rigid labels just for, you know, kind of campaigning and activism. You know, when you're campaigning for equal rights, then you have to define relationships in certain boxes that work within a legal framework. So I don't know if we're quite there yet when we can let go of all of that. But I think, yeah, it's really progressive that we're starting

to completely explode the idea of the gender binary. Yeah. And it does help everybody, i think to to not feel so constrained about how they have to be but you're totally right as well and you bring this up in the book as well we are in london and obviously i imagine that the people you hang out with are probably so many people i have these conversations and think amazing and then you kind of walk outside of the room yeah yeah well yes I did um do my is monogamy dead comedy talk in Aberdeen and um polyamory had not reached Aberdeen

no they were lovely but they did not quite know what I was talking I had to kind of really step backwards a little bit and take them through it in baby steps the idea that you might think about relationships differently even if you don't want to go and have lots of different partners there's maybe something healthy in just talking about it all. Yeah, I also think that's what the book serves to do very well because, as you said at the beginning, people seem to think of being polyamorous as a very dirty, underground, sexy, but shameful thing.

And I think what you do is bring it into the fore in a way that's just very, as I said, very candid but also you it just it just sounds like love it doesn't sound shady I've met some polyamorous people who are very very wholesome people who like bird watching and knitting and you know they are not what I expected at all I think that's great I also when I first learned about polyamory I think it's about yoga I kept, when I first learned about polyamory, I think it was about a year ago, I kept calling it polygamy, which is really difficult. It often denotes like people in different countries who maybe have loads of wives. That tends to be what comes to people's minds. People think of the Mormons.

Yeah. And I prefer to think of Moomins. Oh, lovely. So yeah, the language on that one is quite important. I need to stop calling it polygamy. Yeah, because that is all about marriage rather than love. Yeah, and what do you say is when a woman, because that's specifically men having multiple wives, isn't it?

Yeah, and polyandry is women having multiple husbands. Like misandry, but different. They love men, so if it's all women, that is interesting. Amazing. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you wanted to cover? Gosh. We've gone all around the houses. I mean, we covered so much.

I hope people have been able to follow it. I know. We've just had a good old chat about monogamy, polyamory, the whole lot. And I just think, yeah, everything we've said about friendships and the different kind of spectrum of emotional connections that we have. You know, if we think about all those things as relationships, then we start to think about relationships in a more sophisticated, more nuanced kind of a way. And it's, yeah, it's as much about your thinking and how you feel about relationships as what you actually do.

It doesn't mean you have to start going to sex parties, although there are some good ones that I went to in my book. But it doesn't mean you have to like you say live this kind of um very kind of sexy and hedonistic lifestyle there there's a lot of good in actually just just changing your thinking and and feeling um accepting of maybe doing relationships in different ways or even if you're not accepting other people doing that yeah totally I think that's really. I would definitely recommend everyone to read the book. I listened to it on Audible. And if you like Rosie's voice, it is a really good thing to do

because you just got such a good voice for radio. Thank you. So yes, is monogamy dead? Yes. And if anyone wants to find you anywhere else? Oh, yes. Well, I've got a website, rosiewilby.com. I'm on Twitter at Rosie Wilby. And on Instagram, I'm there under my podcast name. So that's at Breakup Monologues. Amazing. Yeah, do check. That's all free on iTunes and Spotify and all good podcast places as well. And we do cover quite a lot of polyamory and monogamy kind of stuff on that too,

because we try to look at breakups in a universal way but also in a really inclusive way that looks at some of the kind of non-traditional narratives of maybe queer people or poly people and thinking about breakups I mean gosh what happens when you break up with like five people in the same oh wow so true I love honestly that was one of my favorite bits actually talking about your um in your relationships with other women because of the the way that you stayed friends whereas whenever i've broken up with an ex generally it's been like a block by and then i just never want to see them again and i was like god i don't think i've got the strength to still be friends so that's

i do think it was it's it's a very clever book and that it does have such a different viewpoint but really accessible to everyone thank you i hope so i tried to that it does have such a different viewpoint, but really accessible to everyone. Thank you. I hope so. I tried to make it kind of read a little bit like a fiction. Yeah, it does. It's got that personal story underpinning some of the real research that I did interviewing scientists and academics about how on earth all this stuff actually works. And obviously doing my own survey and research too.

I loved it. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you guys for listening. And I too. I loved it. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you guys for listening and I will see you next week. Bye. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning.

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