Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Polyamory: From Mormons to 60s Counterculture

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

The polyamory movement has a long and interesting history. It takes in Pilgrims meeting Native American Indians, Mormons having their take on it, and a modern version born from 60s counterculture and the civil rights movement.But what beliefs underpin this lifestyle choice? And who are the figureheads who have defined it historically?Today we’re joined by Glen Olsen, author of 50 Years of Polyamory in America, to find out more.This episode was edited by Siobhan Dale, and produced by senior producer Charlotte Long.If you're enjoying Betwixt please vote for us at the British Podcast Awards here: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting. It would mean the world to us!Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Kate Lister, Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Mary Beard and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code BETWIXT. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Lovely of my Twixters, it's me, Kate Lister. I am here with your fair do's warning. Just because we care, actually. We care about you and possibly lawsuits, but mostly about you. So here it is. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults

about a range of adult subjects in an adulty way, and you should be an adult too. Now, if you continue listening to us and if you happen to be offended, then just don't come crying to us, quite frankly, because fair do's, you were warned. Picture the scene betwixters. You are a pilgrim stepping off the boat, the Mayflower, onto the shores of America, brave new world.

Not so much a brave new world to the people that already lived there, but for you, it's a very brave and new world. You step off the ship, you breathe in the air, take a good look around. I'm sure things look familiar. I'm sure that there are some things that you recognise. The landscape, the beach, possibly. What about the people that already live there? Huh?

The Native Americans. How familiar were they? Well, they weren't all that familiar to the pilgrims. And one of the things that seemed to shock them, among many things that shocked them, was the practice of polygamy. One man with several wives. That...

properly shocked the pilgrims. Yep, polygamy was properly shocking to European pilgrim sensibilities. But what does it tell us about our own history? What is the history of polygamy, of polyamory, of having more than one sexual partner? Because in the West, we have grown up with a model of monogamy, have we not? That's in all of our fairy stories, that's in all of our films, that's our social script. You grow up, you meet the one, you meet the one, birds sing overhead, your heart flutters, and then that's it, you're with them for forever and ever and ever, because we're monogamous. But are we? Are we? How common is it for one person to stay with one partner for their entire lives? Hmm, because the practice of polyamory is far, far, far more widespread pervasive and historical than devotees of monogamy like to think that it is.

Polyamry is a practice that has many origins and a very, very rich history. From the Mormons in the 19th century to its modern resurgence to today. Let's get into it. Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the... Yeah, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, for beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, dear.

Welcome back to Betwixt. the history of sex scandal in society with me Kate Lister. It's a funny thing monogamy, isn't it? Isn't it? I mean, I know that we're all supposed to be dead happy about it, but it's kind of weird. The idea that you just meet somebody, your partner up, and then bobs your uncle, this is the person for forever and ever and ever who's going to meet all of your spiritual, financial, emotional and sexual needs.

That's it. This is the one. Huh. I'm not knocking it. It's just that as an evolutionary concept, monogamy, is it's kind of hard to get your head round, right? If we're all here and we're supposed to be reproducing all the time, then just choosing one partner to help you out with that. That doesn't make much sense. This is what makes polyamory and its history so interesting.

For lots of us in the West, having several partners at once, is an alternative reality that we didn't even think we could consider. But for a lot of people, it's the key to a happy and harmonious life. Today, we are joined by Glenn Olsen, author of 50 years, of Polyamory in America, a guided tour to a growing movement. We are going to ask what are the various origins of the movement? What were its links with the civil rights movement in the 20th century? What is behind its modern resurgence? Let's all get Betwixt the sheets to try and find out. But before we delve into that episode, I have a little favour to ask of you. Oh, lovely Betwixta,

and I'm sure you know what's coming, but if you are enjoying Betwixt, we would love it if you could just take a couple of minutes out of your super busy day. to vote for us at the Listeners Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards. If you have already voted, have a gold star. You are exceptional. But if you haven't, and if you're thinking, I'll get around to it, Kay, just do it now, just do it now. If you follow the link in the show notes, it'll take seconds,

and it would honestly mean the world to us, it would really, really help us out. I think that we can do it this year. Now, let's get back to Polly Amory. And welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Glenn Olson. How are you doing? I am doing wonderfully. Thank you for having me on, Kate. This is exciting for me. It's ridiculously exciting for me because you are the author of 50 years of Pollyamory in America.

So if there's anyone that we're going to talk to about the history of Pollyamory, it's going to be you. My first question has got to be, what made you want to write this book? What was it about Pollyamory and what was it about the last 50 years that you thought, this needs a book and I have to be the one to write it? That is a great question. Since it took several years to write the book and a thousand interviews, I would go, why am I still doing this? In fact, it was loads of fun. But what actually happened is that I had an enduring interest in polyamory in my personal life, starting from teenage years. And so even though my professional life wasn't as a historian, I sort of found myself in that role accidentally.

Because over the years, it turned out that I had either been to all of the locations where things were happening, met the people that had started organizations, interviewed them somewhat accidentally sitting on their living room floors and chatting about their lives, or had somehow been in the room when a lot of these things were happening from the 1970s on to today. So I felt like I knew a lot of the people. And therefore, when I was seeing all the books coming out over the last 10 or 12 years, every book about Polly Amory was, how I did it, or how I suggest you do it, or how us two or three people did it. I said, what if I tell the story of how thousands of people did it? And what sort of ideas they invented and passed along to each other and what enduring mark they made for the rest of us

so that we had guideposts to base some of our explorations and relationships on that were, frankly, not standard in our societies. It's really interesting that you said that, that it's not standard polyamory. I suppose we should start quite early on by saying, how do you define polyamory? Like what is the difference between polyamory and me just being quite slutty? Like, is there a difference? Well, some people would say, no, there's not much difference. A basic tenet of polyamory turns out to be that you are going to handle your relationships ethically. And here's the one that I kind of settled on finally. It says to be polyamorous or to be willing to be polyamorous is to be willing to have an emotional connection and build a relationship.

with more than one lover and treat everyone in the relationship ethically. And what the last part means is, you know, up for interpretation for a lot of people. What is ethically? How do you make agreements? What do you decide your path in life is? But that's why there's so many people doing so many things that they all call polyamory. But the heart of it is, is that a person is making an emotional connection with more than one lover and treating all the people in their lives ethically. I love that. We've all, well, I've certain. met you idiots on Tinder.

You go, I'm polyamorous. And what that actually means is that I'm here and my wife doesn't know about that. Yeah, we call that something else. That's something else, isn't it? That's not what you're talking about. What you're talking about is what's sometimes called ethical non-monogamy, or I've heard it referred to as relationship anarchy before, where like you sort of like you break down the hierarchy of this is my primary partner and everyone else is kind of,

you know, lesser than. And it sounds like such an amazing relationship utopia that you. you tell everyone that you're radically honest with everybody and everyone knows exactly where they are and everybody speaks their truth all the time. But why is that so hard to do? It sounds like that's such the obvious solution, isn't it? It's like people wouldn't cheat and they wouldn't get into these messes if everyone was just honest and could communicate this stuff. Why are we so rubbish at doing that? It is so obvious to some people. That's true. There'll be people listening to this going, no, Kate, I agree with you. Absolutely.

Well, part of the way people treat each other has to do with what we know is possible. What we have learned is a behavior that works in other people. Sometimes you have a friend that you can tell everything to. You can tell them they're having a bad hair day. Sometimes you have a friend that if you imply that they put their clothes on a little sloppily, they're just going to go all nuts on you. So it takes a certain amount of bravery to be honest, and it takes a certain amount of human heart to know how to treat people in a way that works for them. All of these things are learned

behaviors. And so when we learn our dating patterns from movies, from our peers, from hopefully watching our parents, some people say, oh no, whatever they did, I'm not going to do. So a lot of our ways of dealing with each other come from all these sources. And unless we examine them, we go just with the norm. Well, this is how everybody does it. You know, I can kiss Joey under the apple tree and and then go have ice cream with Will. But Will better not know that, you know, an hour ago, I was under the apple tree. But unless you are brave enough to say, hey, Will, you know, I also have feelings for Joey. How do you know if Will is going to be able to step up and say, well, that's fine.

Joey's an upright guy. I don't care. Or I don't mind. It's kind of scary, isn't it? It's really scary, actually. And it's kind of a strange conundrum of the human condition, I guess, which is that our lives would be a lot easier if we could just be completely honest about everything all the time. I mean, all right, you'd offend some people sometimes, but it still seems so difficult to do it,

to actually have those radically honest conversations and not just about people that you fancy, but just people in general. Indeed. There's been a lot of growth going on in the human ability to interact with each other all during the 20th century. And the invention of psychology was the beginnings of how do we look inside ourselves? And then back in the 1950s and 60s, something called, the human potential movement came about. And it was all through the United States, Europe, most of the Americas, in various forms. And it was allowing you to question, what choices have I made, what do I want to putting into my life, and how do I do it? So these are permissions that we have that maybe earlier generations didn't have. So a little scary and a little wonderful.

I like that. A little scary and a little wonderful. Right at the start of the show, you said that you were interested in people who are having relationships that were different from what is the social norm. And I'm quite interested in that because polyamory, as in you've got multiple partners, in many ways that has been a standard norm for humans in the West. Not the way you're talking about it, as in like ethical non-monogamy and everyone's being honest. But it was fully expected that a man would have multiple mistresses and that you just had to suck it up and get on with it. and people would just have extramarital affairs. When did what you're talking about here, ethical non-monogamy,

when did that start to take shape and become something that people were willing to explore? And it not just being, yeah, I've got a mistress. It might have started happening right at the end of the Victorian period. Ooh, okay. Yes. We had about every 30 years in America and we sort of follow the same pattern that happens in Europe and elsewhere. about every 30 years, there is a period of intense exploration and looking at what we're doing, and sexuality always gets thrown into that exploration.

So we had the gay 90s here in America, and then the roaring 20s, and then the beat generation of the 1950s. I do not have any explanation for why it's a 30-year cycle. Somebody studied that. I never heard that. Yeah, so it seems to happen in a 30-40-year cycle. God, that's interesting. And the idea that one must adhere to the social norms at least visibly and then have a side honey or a side fellow or the fantasies in America in the 1950s, you know, the suburban housewife who, you know, had the pool boy.

Husband wasn't doing what he needed to do. And while there's always the pool boy, that is probably still the norm for a lot of people because they feel comfortable doing it that way. but a lot of people, you know, starting from the 1920s and on with the various philosophies, started saying, why can't I be honest and live the life I want to live? A little bit at a time, people started doing that. It's one of those things that when you actually start me thinking about, it's like, well, where did this convention of marriage and monogamy actually come from? I know there'll be people listening who say, well, I'm in love with my partner. We've never cheated.

We're deliriously happy. Good for you. Great. But on the whole, humans seem quite rubbish at it. If we were supposed to be just monogamous, if that was on. natural state would just be able to do it, but we can't. And actually, I was reading about this, proper monogamy, as in like you stay, fall in love with the first mate that you have and no one else, is so rare in the animal kingdom. There's only like five species that actually do it. And even a

couple of them have been caught cheating. So where did this I come from that we're supposed to hook up and just stay with this person? Ah, my stepdaughter is a scholar of the Catholic Church and medieval times. And we have these conversations. So the idea of monogamy seems to be well-rooted in Western societies way back, even during the expansion of the Roman Empire. And we don't actually know exactly when somebody thought it was, hey, a good idea. But sometime after most of the human race switched to a greringen type of activities

and stopped being wanderers in small groups. The idea of being rooted in one place and building a relationship with one person sort of went together. That's about the best I can figure that one out. And I will say that probably 90 or 95% of the human race finds that monogamy is just easier. It's a simpler way of having relationships.

So this is the person I'm bonded to. everyone else is on the outside. I guess that's true. It's simple in theory and should be simple in practice. It's not as simple in practice. But it's certainly, if it works for a certain person, it makes their lives awfully easy because they've made their choices and they don't have to revisit it. It's very comforting. I think it was the relationship therapist Esther Perel, and she said humans are not monogamous, we're monogamous one partner at a time, which I quite liked. You know, we have sort of serial monogamy. We find somebody and then we'll go, right, you, just you and me, and then it'll probably break down and then there's another person.

It's a simpler pattern than having to remember that, okay, yes, gee, I've got Jim on Wednesday, I've Alfie on Thursday, and oh, my goodness, Friday is not filled. Do you think that's what it was? Monogamy was just about the logistics of just like, oh, God, it's just easier to just keep everyone in one place, just one person. I'm just buying one birthday card this year. That's kind of my feeling that simplicity wins out a lot of the times. I think you could be right, you know, from like an evolutionary point of view is if you've got the one person you have secured that one person and you don't have to risk it. Let's talk about some historical examples here. So we talked a little bit about the Catholic Church and the Christian faith.

They're very big on monogamy, unless you're in the First Testament, in which case it's a bit like that. But what about when the Catholic Church and the Christian faith? colonizers at the pilgrims came over to America and they went, hello, we're in charge now. And they met and they encountered the Native American people. Did they have a system of monogamy or how did the pilgrims react to that? The very first colonies on our side of the pond on the east coast of the Americas ran into the Iroquois Confederation and the Algonquin people. And the Indians had a very sophisticated society in many ways. They traded among themselves. They traded ambassadors. They had pretty well-defined societies. And the settlers were again and again running into certain parts of

the Native American societies that they didn't like because many of like the Algonquins, you could have a family that was three women and a man. And the three women would be the farmers. They would till the land, the soil, and the man would be the hunter or the trader, and he'd come back to the homestead, and that's how they would build it. And settlers would tell them, that's wrong. And they go, what do you know? They did do that quite a lot, didn't they? Everyone thinks, you know, my way of doing things is absolutely right. Why don't you see that? Absolutely. Right. So how do we get from, I imagine it was quite a shock to the pilgrims amongst other things. But how do we get from that, from the, oh, I really don't think that you should be doing that, to Mormonism, which my very limited understanding of Mormonism. So apologies to any Mormon's listing, is that Polly Amory or at least Polly Giney multiple wives, that's a big thing in that faith.

Joseph Smith in, I think it's 1829, in upstate New York, which is very close to the Canadian border, our current Canadian border, had a revelation. Oh, did he now? Yes, he had a revelation. God told him that a good way to be a Christian. Well, would you look at that? Yes, indeed. This was not an epiphany of personal responsibility or choice. This was, hmm, I think God wants us to do this. So with the help of a bunch of other people and being a truly great orator, he convinced a whole segment of people that what God wants them to do is build a new religion. Church of the Latter-day Saints is what it's called now. and one of the tenets is that the men were called upon by God to have more than one wife. This was called complex marriage. Now, to be very clear, God did not call on the women to have more than one husband. He never seemed to do that.

We've got to send a sternly worded memo. I'm sorry. So this was during a period of religious revivalism in the United States, one of the 30-year cycles. Ah. Yes, and he was wildly successful. in a certain group of people. I imagine he would be. Was it men and people who really went for that?

Yes, yes. But it was strongly felt by these people that they were on a mission from their God. So this wasn't personal choice. This was a religious choice. The Church of Latter-day Saints has a theory that God continues to speak to them to this day. And that's why at some point later on,

around 1900 or so, God revealed to them that no, I no longer wants them to do complex marriage and go back to every man having one wife. Oh. Yes, yes. So the official Mormon religion no longer sanctions. I didn't know that.

No, they don't. There are enclaves of Mormons in various countries that don't agree that the church got it right and are still practicing polygyny. But yeah, it's no longer a tenant of the revealed religion that God has told men to have multiple wives. Are there any historical examples of what we call polyandries, So a woman not having multiple partners because that seems to be much, much rarer all throughout history, all around the world.

It does seem to be much, much rarer. A lot of the examples I'm aware of are in what we would call marginal economic societies. Like I want to say the Tibetan society, I can't remember which one it's called, but in Tibet right up until the middle of the 20th century, it was quite common for two brothers to marry one woman. So that was a very wise economic decision because the custom is that the family property or business or something would be divided among the brothers. And so if two brothers started two separate families, that would cut down the family farm or the family business. Everybody is poorer. But if two brothers marry one woman, it's still one family and there's great economic benefits. I think that money in inheritance rights plays a lot into this.

It seems so, yeah. You've got to keep it in the family. That makes sense, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Hopefully she likes both of the brothers. Hopefully. I haven't read about that part in the literature. I'll be back with Glenn after this short break. Step back in time with me, Tristan Hughes, on the ancients from history hit as we unearth Pompeii's buried secrets in a special mini-series.

You'll discover what life was like in this town before the eruption of Vesuvius, the bustling streets, the roar of the... gladiators and the hidden lives of sex workers. Lost for over 1,500 years and then uncovered, Pompeii's saga continues. With the help of leading experts, we'll bust myths and reveal star-sling new research, so get ready for a dramatic journey through the echoes of the past. Experience Pompeii like never before on the ancients from history hit. Listen and follow wherever you get to your podcasts. Society, the Oneida community? Yes, Oneida. Thank you. For some strange reason, the northeastern

corner of the United States was a hotbed at that time. So the Oneida commune started about 1848, 1849, a man named Noyes, John Humphrey Noyes, also caught up in a religious revival, decided that God had told him that the proper Christian way to live is for all adults in the community to be married to each other. So all men were married to all the women. All the women were married to all the men. Okay. And again, they were pretty insular, except that they were also very, very industrious. So the commune wound up having a couple of hundred adults at one time. They owned a fur trapping company. They owned the Oneida Silverworks, which was famous throughout our continent for most of the 20th century. If you got silverware, it was from Oneida. And they simply believe,

that God said that all women in the community have all the men as their husband. And you could choose who you were actually sexual with, but you thought of yourself as a spouse to all. Wow. That seems amazing and also very complex. Very complex. And it helps that it's a religiously underpinned, you know, idea. But what I like about this one is it seems that the women have a bit more agency in this. Is that right? Or is that not right? Yes. I agree. And the O'Night and the... are many of the people that follow polyamory in America these days.

If they think back fondly what going on before them, the Oneidens are really admired. Oh, really? They still say they're kind of like the OG of polyamory. Oh, I love that. How did you get into the club? Just when you said that there, a horrible thought, maybe it's like an incestuous thing.

It's like, you know, people grow up and they keep having sex each other, but people joined? Yes, they did a little bit of proselytizing in the early years. John Humphrey Noyes wandered around the Americas and talked up his vision of proper Christian living. People followed him and people trickled in all during the years caught by his vision and what they were doing and would join up and marry into the clan, as it were. What happened to them? Are they still going? They are not. They are not. Over a period of time, people did start wandering away.

The children would grow up and take jobs elsewhere. go to school, things like that. So the community just lost some vitality. And eventually, they looked at each other and they said, we're not going to be able to keep the commune going, the community going. Let's dissolve our businesses and give every one of our children a start in life economically. Wow. And that's what they did as a community. And then they simply shut the doors of the commune, but they kept a couple of the companies like the Oneida Silverworks going as a regular company with shareholders and such. Wow. It just seems so mad that that would be in 1840s America?

It was. It seemed like something from the 1960s that you'd have a commune of like, yeah, let's make spoons and have sex. Ah, we're back to spoons. Yes, silver spoons. Absolutely. And I think some of the communes of the 1960s and 70s, Fentholme, in Scotland, some of the ones in the Americas, pattern themselves quite deliberately from the Oneida commune without taking the religious trappings and borrowed concepts from the current

information of the day on how to run a group consensus building instead of a charismatic leader voting for what you're going to do. That was the pattern of most of the communes that I investigated and looked at from the 1960s to the early 2000s. I'm not aware of very many of them in operation at the moment, but some of them lasted quite a while in the 60s, 70s and 80s. We should talk about the 60s, shouldn't I? Because that was the hallmark of free love. Is that kind of what they meant by polyamory and free love?

Or was that, was it something else? Because a commune where you all go and you're all hooking up and you're all in a relationship with each other. And that sounds amazing and very complicated. to do it. But was that born out of the 1960s ideals? Some of it, yes. The 1960s, of course, didn't just spring out of nowhere. No. There were social forces that were moving around the world and really I chronicled them in here in America because, you know, here I am on this continent, on this side of the pond. But the 1960s really started from two movements in the 1950s in America.

The civil rights movement was working to better the lot of frankly black people, people of color, people who are disadvantaged in the laws of the country. And they were making great strides in the courts. And right up through the 1960s, their gains were allowing people to view activism as respectable. At the same time, the Beat Movement, Poet Movement of the 1950s, which said go on a spiritual quest, make a difference in the world, and be suspicious of government. That was one of the tenets of the beat movement. They turned into the energetic hippie movement in the 1960s. So those two forces are coming through the 1960s and then add the human potential movement,

which was looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, looking at how people thrive and giving people, tools to let them go back inside themselves and change what they don't like about themselves. All those three things came together. And in 1967, the Supreme Court of the United States declared for the first time that any person of any race can marry a person of another race anywhere in the United States or its territories. That had been a fight since the Civil War. But it became law in 1967. The same year, coincidentally, that the Summer of Love took place in New York City and in San Francisco, California. And the summer of love was, you know, just celebrated sex, drugs, rock and roll.

So the idea of free love that I could give myself permission to have any lovers I wanted and have no, you know, make no promises, make no connections was the, I guess, was the energy of the time. But then people were also going, yeah, but how do I want to live my life for the long term? And that's where the human potential movement and the activism of the civil rights movement kind of caught their attention as well. So here we are. We've got all these modalities coming together, giving people permission to question authority, to make changes in their own lives, to make choices. And it just went on from there, swept the world.

Do you think that we can be guilty of overly romanticizing the 60s and thinking of it as this time where free love and these kind of rebellions were accessible to everyone? I've read a couple of articles and books from people that make the argument of that was true for some people. Some people could go and do that, but not everybody. That kind of sexual freedom was a privilege not available to a lot of people. What do you think? Did anyone in the 60s make it work? That's actually a good point because it certainly depended upon economic status, for one thing.

Very poor people living right at the edge of their abilities to survive weren't paying attention to things like, oh, pre-love, rock and roll, things like that. And people that were in the fights of their lives for better housing. for better treatment, medical care, things like that. So there were a lot of things going on in societies, but the headlines were grabbed by young, energetic people. And the nice thing about the Summer of Love is that it swept all ethnicities. It was basically people from their teens to their 30s who had the economic ability to drop out for a while. But you saw whites, blacks, The mix of people who just all of their barriers down to each other was truly amazing. And that, I think, reverberated through, you know, the rest of the century.

Who was the first commune that you had contact with that you went and spoke to? Ah, there was a commune. There was a group called Morehouse. Moorehouse was founded in 1967 by a man named Victor Barranco. Vic Bronco, bless his soul, was the ultimate salesman. He had even sold used cars. He was a used car salesman. He had patter. He understood how to get people's attention.

And he had decided that what people need is to have better sex lives. So. Yeah. He started something called the Institute of Human Potential with his wife, who was a psychologist. And they started going around people's living rooms. talking about how to improve your sex life and how to improve your relationships. And they came up with some seminars, basic sense, which stood for basic sensuality, things like that. Oh, that's clever.

Yeah. And they started a commune or a happening place, bought a place that had like seven buildings on it. People started trickling in. I went to visit them multiple times. And people would go out and start satellite communes. Morehouse was so successful that they at one time had between 30 and 35 communes spread all through the Americas. And in the islands of Hawaii, they are still in existence. They're the only one I know. They have survived the death of their founders. Vic Bronco, I think, died in 2005 and his wife a couple of years ago.

It was very sad. They're shrunk down now, but they're down to about three campuses. But they're still teaching all the technologies that they learned and invented in the 1960s and 70s. It seems like a lot of this is underpinned by the emergence of psychology and therapy. There was a shift to this is religion to this is now a psychology and therapy model. That's what I'm seeing. I think you're right. That's some of the underpinnings. The permission that people are getting to change themselves is now individual and that does come from our better understanding of psychology and the human potential.

fact, I'll cycle back for a moment to Vic Barranco. I sat in his living room listening to him, talk a number of times, and his point was very, very interesting. He says, listen, you are perfect the way you are. He says, all the decisions you made to get you here today, all the choices that you've made, all the things that you've done have been perfect because they've gotten you to where you are today. And being perfect, you can choose to bring something else into your life. You can choose more. You can choose more. Yeah, you can choose more love, you can choose more joy, you can choose more success and riches. You're right here and can choose. There's nothing to fix. There's nothing to repair. There's nothing to, you know, take away from your life. Right here, you are perfect.

Go ahead and choose the next thing. Yeah, that would sign me up, definitely. That would work. Oh, if I had a time machine, I'd take you back and you would meet him. It sounds so simple when you talk about it about this idea that, well, maybe we don't need to be in monogamous relationships. And maybe we should be open with each other and honest with each other. But why hasn't it taken off yet? I mean, if we've been kind of playing around with this for, well, all throughout our history, but this idea of ethical non-monogamy since the Oneitans and then coming to the 60s, it's becoming more and more mainstream. but it's not mainstream enough yet to not sort of shock people

or to be people to often regard it as quite unusual. Why do you think that it hasn't taken off? Because in some ways it just seems like the solution. You know, let's just all be really honest with each other and have sex with the people that we love and not tell fibs about it. That sounds great. Why haven't we managed to do that?

I agree with everything you say. You know what? I'm going to say that I think I am seeing polyamory becoming as successful as it can be. Some people are early adopters. Some people see a concept, see an idea. And so, hey, I'm going to put that in my life. Other people wait to see if it worked for the first person.

And other people wait until a whole bunch of people in their community are doing it before they feel they can give themselves permission to adopt this new behavior. I have a story about, I was in a carpool driving my children to what we call middle school in America. and so my 12-year-old son and his 12-year-old friend who was a girl from the Philippines were talking. And he didn't know I was researching this book and hadn't heard much about the words of polyamry. So his friend is telling him, he says, hey, have you heard of polyamory? So I'm listening very carefully while I'm driving. And my son goes, no, they're 12.

And she says, well, do you know that polyamory means that I can have more than one boyfriend? I like a style. Yeah. My son goes, really? And she says, yeah, yeah, that's what Pollyamory means. So I can have as many boyfriends as I want. My son's an easygoing kiddie goes, cool. So the penetration among generations has been happening.

To the root of your question, people are so individual. And there are so many different things that are going to be good for an individual person. The fact that our data shows that worldwide, probably somewhere between 4 and 5%, of all people have tried polyamory in their lives or are currently practicing it. That's a huge number of people. In America, that would be between 9 and 15 million people. And so a lot of people are doing it, but it's not going to be right for everyone. And as again, some people are early adopters. So, you know, come back in another 10 years when I write the next installment of the book,

and I'll tell you what's happened. I think as well, it's because people think that it's going to be easy. They have this idea of like, we'll just open up our relationship or we'll just do this. it's actually incredibly difficult because all relationships are difficult, let alone many at the same time. And the thing that often trips people up is like when you imagine yourself with other lovers, that's great. But when you have to accept that your lover is with somebody else, that's when it gets very, very difficult. So how do you manage those feelings? Because jealousy is such a powerful emotion that stalks us all. It can't just be that you say, well, polyamorous now

that the jealousy envy button is turned off. How is that managed in polyamorous communities? And the first part is, of course, communication. My being willing to hear you being uncomfortable about something and making agreements and doing something about it, anyone can feel jealousy. One of the strong underpinnings of jealousy, of course, is fear. So a fear of loss is very real.

It's very important. If I'm going to risk, a relationship by letting another person into it for my partner, maybe I need some reassurances that it's going to go well or at least I'm going to be taken care of emotionally. So as we're kind of saying here, polyamory isn't easy because I have to pay attention to not only what I want, but what you need. And if I can't careful of your needs, it's not going to work well. So we just have to know that. I have a funny story that comes from my early understanding of polyamory. I was in high school and I was hearing about this thing and kind of like my son's friend who says,

oh, I get to have as many boyfriends as I want. I'm going, wow, being in a relationship is hard. If I'm in a relationship with one person, you know, I'm 50% responsible for that. But if we had another person, now there's three of us, now I'm only 33% responsible for the relationship. My math was spot on. I said, see? And you had a fourth person, I'm only 25%. Yeah, but in real life, I knew math, but I didn't know human relationships. Yeah, that doesn't work like that.

No, it doesn't work like that. So every relationship that we are in, we're 100% responsible for our behavior. Yes. And we're 100% responsible for the decisions that we make. So that word ethical starts creeping in again. If you've got a structure that you follow of how you treat people, it's more likely that the goodies of being, you know, in a polyamorous situation will happen. Glenn, you have been amazing to talk to it.

My final question for you today, I'm sure you get asked this one a lot. But if anyone is listening to this and thinking, well, maybe we should give polyamory a world, maybe I'll bring it up tonight over the washing up. what would be your advice to someone who's maybe just starting out on this path? Very good question. It might be to ask myself, what do I want and what can I give someone else? Self-knowledge is so important. So if I'm starting out, let's say I'm in a relationship.

Let's say person X is in a relationship with person Y. And person Y wants to open up our relationship. being curious rather than judgmental is really helpful, saying, well, what's going to happen if we open up our relationship? And the real answer will be, I don't know, but let's see if we risk it and if it will be helpful to us. So talking with people who have been successful in a relationship really helpful, modeling the behavior of people who are doing it well, doing it right. In some cases, that might be listening to podcasts, reading books that people have written, you know, all those people that right, this is how I did it book, and this is how you should do it book. I mean, they all do

have some good advice in there and be willing to be a little scared. Whenever you're doing something new and you're taking a risk and you're having an adventure, there are some scary aspects to it. But for the people that it's going to benefit their lives and it's going to enrich them, they'll really be glad they did. Glenn, you have been wonderful to talk to. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? Are you on social media? Oh, thank you. Yes, yes, I am. And besides having written this book, I'm also an author of fiction. I write science fiction. So this book was not fiction. No, no, no, no, no, no. Fifty years of polyamory in America was a factual account. Yes. So I can be found on my website, HTTSg.S. Glenn Olson.org. I'm also available on most social media like Facebook. And most of the things that I've written can be found on like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and those websites. So I'm findable.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Glenn. You have been an absolute treat to talk to. Oh Kate, it's been wonderful. I have enjoyed this so much. Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Glenn for joining me. And if you like what you heard,

please don't forget to like review and subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just like to say hello, please email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. We have got episodes on everything from superstition to the gay subculture in now. absolutely Germany, all coming your way.

This podcast was edited by Chavon Dale, the senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.