Media Storm - S2E10 Polyamory: Love and the limits of the law - with Leanne Yau aka Poly Philia

Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay, Matilda, this episode has some terminology that we need to get out the way first. Fun, words, hit me. Okay, polyamory is the practice of or desire for romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time. It may also be referred to as ethical or consensual non-monogamy, but some polyamorous people don't really like that phrase and we'll chat more about that later. Okay, that's polyamory, which sounds a bit like polygamy. Right, but polygamy is different. Polygamy involves being married to multiple partners, and that's currently illegal in most places around the world. Okay, what other terms were we here? What about open relationships? Does that come into this? Okay, open relationships are typically different from polyamory in that sexual relationships are usually the desire for one or both partners outside of each other.

Starting point is 00:00:53 So that a more love part of polyamory is typically not necessarily part of an open relationship. Anymore for anymore? Okay, we've got good old-fashioned monogamy in which an individual has only one partner during their lifetime or only one partner at any one time. Also, I know I just said good old-fashioned, but as we'll hear a bit later on, monogamy, as we know it today, is actually newer than polyamory. Okay, so what are we going to focus on today? Well, I've got a question for you. If you wanted to book a holiday for you and your husband, let's say, what would you? do. Husband. Go online. Find a hotel room, double room or package holiday for a couple. Right. But if you wanted to book a holiday for, say, you, your husband and your partner, what would you do? I have no idea. Right. I mean, the reason I'm saying this is because that's a very small example of one of the many issues that polyamorous people face just trying to live

Starting point is 00:01:57 their lives. Go with me on another example for a second. So if you were in a monogamous relationship, would you think twice about saying my partner or my boyfriend at work when telling an anecdote? No. But say a polyamorous person at work mentioned their husband and then the next day told an anecdote about their girlfriend. And say their line manager heard and didn't agree with their way of living. And say the line manager reports them and then say their boss fires them. Well, that's discrimination, right? They could go to a tribunal for an unfair dismissal claim. Well, no. They kind of couldn't. And that's because in the UK and in most other places around the world, polyamory is not a protected characteristic. It does not have legally

Starting point is 00:02:48 protected status in the same way as, for example, being gay does. Wow. And so you could be fired if someone doesn't agree with your lifestyle in that way, if it's not a protected characteristic? Essentially, yes. And a third example, if you'll humor me. Imagine you're raising children in a polyamorous family. And imagine a nosy neighbour sees more than two parents around your children. And imagine that neighbour calls child protection because they think something untoward is going on. God, and I imagine parents without a buy. biological connection to the child and I guess not legal, you can't legally have three parents that I'm aware of. So would they have any legal rights? But this has gotten pretty dark from

Starting point is 00:03:37 talking about a package holiday for a thrum. I know, sorry. But these situations are all based on real life stories that people from polyamorous communities have told me. Oh my God. And polyamory not being covered by the law can have some really tricky consequences. I've been speaking to polyamorous people in the UK and abroad to find out how stigma and the lack of legal protection affects them. And what, if anything, they see changing. And I'll see you back in the studio with a very special guest to discuss everything around this media storm. This involves one man, two women, and no jealousy. How does your wife feel about your lengthy pursuit for other women?

Starting point is 00:04:19 It is more natural for men to be polygamous than for women to be polygamous. Society seems to function better. when there's one woman per man. When people say, oh, no, no, we're not jealous, we're not jealous. And I have to just poke a little bit more because I'm a woman and I would be jealous. Welcome to Media Storm, the podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia. And I'm Matilda Mallinson.

Starting point is 00:04:40 This week's investigation, polyamory, love and the limits of the law. I would say I've been polyamorous for about two years. I basically started dating a polyamorous person when I was still monogamous. by default, I would say, because I'd never really thought about it or sat down or spoken to someone about Pollyamory before then. And I ended up meeting some of their other partners and started thinking, like, wait, this is so much better. It's not for everyone, obviously, but I think there's a lot of joy in recognising that you can love more than one person and those relationships could all look different, but be totally valid and fulfilling in their own ways. That's Matthew Neal, a freelance

Starting point is 00:05:19 music journalist who lives in Bristol. Recently, he's written about being polyamorous for the first time. I asked him, Do you think polyamorous folk are discouraged from being open about their relationship statuses and about the fact that they are polyamorous because they have no legal protection? Yeah, I think we're definitely seeing a lot of masking. Visibility is a massive issue here. I think whenever a minority becomes more centred in wide and national,

Starting point is 00:05:49 or international discourse, the risk of being discriminated against rises with it. I think we're not hearing about so many high-profile cases right now because, A, it's not such a hot topic right now, and B, again, people are mostly masking it. Masking here refers to hiding your polyamorous status for ease. For example, calling your girlfriend your friend or amalgamating multiple partners into one when telling a story. Matthew, before you wrote this article about being polyamorous. Amorous. Had you ever mentioned to any colleagues that you were? I hadn't really. I think I probably did it by stealth because occasionally I would refer to, you know, a partner or a girlfriend and

Starting point is 00:06:33 just throw in different names. And I think that was definitely over a period of time with people I trusted. I don't think I would necessarily go to, you know, my boss or whoever I might be concerned about withholding work. I'm still cautious about presenting myself. fully openly in that way, and because there's not that protection, because it's not included in the Quality Act of 2010, for example, there's really no protection there if something was to happen. So I do tend to keep it quiet. Matthew's story is not unusual. I've heard from many people in the polyamorous community that being open about their relationship at work is just something they wouldn't do for fear of being isolated or fired.

Starting point is 00:07:19 Because polyamory is not a protected category, it's really difficult to find out the true scale of this problem. Many people didn't want to speak to me about their experiences because, among other things, there's a risk of potential civil lawsuits. But two people did give me their stories of employment-based discrimination. Both wanted to remain anonymous, so this next part is voiced by actors, and names have been changed. Jane is in her 30s and three weeks into her admin-based. based job. This happened. I mentioned my girlfriend at work, having already mentioned my boyfriend who I live with.

Starting point is 00:07:56 My colleagues had some questions, and I answered them saying I was polyamorous. I didn't give any details, just stated quite simply, I was poly. From that day, the atmosphere at work completely changed. My line managers, before really friendly with me, were super distant. The next week, I received a formal written warning that I was being too slow when writing up contracts. I was shocked because I was working at a regular pace, if anything, faster than other colleagues. Then, yeah, the week after I was fired. I hadn't made a single mistake at this job. Ironically, I had been praised for my work ethic the week before I mentioned I was polyamorous.

Starting point is 00:08:38 This is why that's the only thing I could think of that would have led to my contract being terminated. I obviously have no proof, but it couldn't have been anything else. John, now in his 40s, had a similar experience. At work, a female colleague had a big interest in my life. She kept trying to find out if I was in a relationship. Eventually, I mentioned once in passing that me and my wife and my girlfriend went on a day out to a farm or something I said. This woman went to the boss and said she was intimidated by me

Starting point is 00:09:13 and I was trying to get her to join my wife and my girlfriend Like in bed Essentially She was accusing me Of sexual harassment But she sexualised me I didn't mention sex I said we went to a farm

Starting point is 00:09:29 For fuck's sake Sorry I just get so annoyed When I speak about it Even though it was years ago But I got dismissed From work That same day

Starting point is 00:09:39 It was a shitty job With no proper HR or anything But I don't know if any HR Would even help I also think that being black played a part in it. She labelled me with a lot of things black men get labelled

Starting point is 00:09:54 over-sexualised, aggressive, intimidating. You know the story. I wanted to find out what vision polyamorous people have for the future so I contacted the newly set-up UK Polyamory Association. I spoke to Julia

Starting point is 00:10:10 supporting the needs of polyamorous people and communities across the UK. And Eunice, everybody associated with the UK Polyamorous Association is polyamorous ourselves. Eunice told me her own story of discrimination. In 2018, I had booked a group holiday with my Polly family, right? This was, we'd booked two months in advance, and I was very upfront from the beginning

Starting point is 00:10:36 about what type of family group we were. And a week and a half before the holiday was due to start, I got an email saying that they had cancelled our booking, all caps, this is not the type of family group we want in our property, in all caps. And they were going to keep our deposit as well, right? They canceled, they were going to keep our deposit. I'm not even asking for compensation for having to re-book a new place or change, you know, train tickets or flight or anything. I just want the deposit and the full refund back based on the contract, which was that if they cancel, they return our deposit. And they were very insulting. There was nothing in the law. There is nothing in the law,

Starting point is 00:11:21 which protects us from that. Among other aims, the UK Polyamory Association wants to change key legal policy areas, including in family law. So what can it be like living as polyamorous parents? I think it's a matter of luck. How is it it is for polyamorous people to live the lives as polyamorous family because in theory if a polyamorous family just want to live their you know happy life together just all live you know nice music as housemates but what if you know a neighbour's got suspected and reported them at the moment there's not legal rights they say that this is fine this is okay why if there was these people will have the security and the safety and stability you know that at the moment is not

Starting point is 00:12:12 granted in the love. I have a friend who he lives with various partners and his children and people have reported them to child social services. They investigated and they talked to all the children alone and apologized to him because his kids are doing great, the family's doing great, everyone is happy and yet they keep getting reported. It is very difficult for people to be able to persuade judges that actually the fact that they have two partners, three partners, however many, is not an indication that they are somehow immoral or that this will be an unstable situation for the child. Actually, there's a longitudinal study, like over 20, 25 years

Starting point is 00:13:01 done by Dr. Elizabeth Schiff in America that shows that polyamorous family structures are not bad for children. I knew I had to speak to Elizabeth Schiff to find out more. Most people call me Dr. Eli. I am a sociologist. I'm an expert witness in court for polyamorous families. I'm also a relationship coach, an author, an educator, and I blog for psychology today. Dr. Eli started the longitudinal polyamorous family study in 1996, collecting waves of

Starting point is 00:13:40 data from following the same group of people in polyamorous families with kids. In the U.S., family law can be even more restrictive for polyamorous people, as it not only covers custody of children, but also sharing of key benefits like health insurance. In cases Dr. Eli has seen, a large part of the problem is that legal frameworks are still structured around perceived morality. Even though in the U.S. We have separation, at least in theory, of church and state. In actuality, a very Christian morality permeates our laws and social institutions. And this Christian morality tends to be based on sexual exclusivity between a married heterosexual couple and procreative sex, meaning sex designed to have babies as the correct or the moral way to have sex.

Starting point is 00:14:43 But lots of people have sex for fun, not just the polyamorists. So I as a policy standpoint feel that it would be far superior to change those standards to rely on ethics rather than morality, because morality, is at heart a religious concept. Are you doing what you think or your brand of religion says God wants you to do? And within polyamorous settings, I think the kind of common misconception is that it's just a free-for-all. Like people are just having an orgy in the kitchen when the kids get home from school. And that is absolutely not the case. You know what happens when the kids get home from school. Somebody's having a snack. Somebody else is folding laundry. Somebody's

Starting point is 00:15:40 helping them with their math homework. There's no orgy in the kitchen. Under any of these last, I've been studying this for more than 25 years. I've talked to the children directly and none of them have ever reported witnessing an orgy in the kitchen or any other room. But somehow polyamorists are held to a wholly different standard. I asked Dr. Eli if she has seen any changes over the years within legal institutions that may begin to benefit polyamorous people. And I was surprised to find out, unlike in the UK, where a child can have a maximum of two legal parents, things may be changing in the US. I would say only within the last eight or so years have polyamorous folks been able to read obtain custody of their children. Prior to that, if their custody was challenged in court,

Starting point is 00:16:39 they always lost. Always. Now, there is an increasing pattern to recognize judicial bias against polyamory and their decisions are being overturned on appeal. Also, it started with the advent of assisted reproduction, where a trio, two lesbians in a gay man in California, were able to prove that they were all three biological parents of the child so that one woman donated the egg, the man donated the sperm, and the other woman carried the child to term. So they were all three biologically related to the child. And the judge was like, we back. Better put another line on that form for you three. So since then, judges in Massachusetts and New York, Washington State, and California have all recognized multiple legal parents.

Starting point is 00:17:50 It has set a precedent for acknowledging the fact that children can have more than two parents. and in fact, I would say it is to the child's benefit. If the stigma of being polyamorous can find itself in courtrooms, it's important then to elevate lived experience, which begs the question, what is it like being a polyamorous parent? I have been with my current husband, partner, nesting partner, baby daddy for 13 years, and we have been polyamorous for 10 of those years. We have two small children. Our oldest is going to be five in February, and our baby will be two in March. That's Jessica Levity Daylover, who runs the hugely popular remodeled love, a project spanning Instagram, TikTok, a podcast, all with the aim of expanding the cultural narrative on healthy

Starting point is 00:18:50 relationships. Jessica loves being a visible, polyamorous parent, but a bigger platform does come with its baggage. We will occasionally have a viral TikTok or Instagram get to the wrong side of the algorithm, as they say, and just get an absolute influx of just the most awful stuff. People saying that they feel really bad for our children, that our children are going to grow up to hate us, that we are scarring our children, traumatizing them, that we're exposing them to dangerous situations because obviously polyamorous people, unlike monogamous people who are single and dating, obviously we are just bringing literal orgies of strangers into our house with our children. Obviously, that's what's happening. And it is a privilege to be out and to have a platform. And we take

Starting point is 00:19:47 that very seriously because the more marginalized you are, the second you add children into the picture, you're actually at a very greater risk. Because people will be like, I'm going to call CPS, right? Like, people say that to me. And as a white hetero-legally married couple, the risk of someone doing that, if that were to happen, the consequences are not as serious as for, say, a non-white person with adopted children. So it's a privilege to be out and we try to use that. We feel like we are on the front lines of a culture war, but just existing as a polyamorous family,

Starting point is 00:20:25 with a very large platform is inherently triggering to people. Why do you think some people find the very concept of being a polyamorous mum difficult to grasp? Yeah, because the cultural semiology, the script that we have created for mothers is that motherhood equals martyrdom. So you are only a good mother if you have sacrificed every last ounce of yourself to your children and dare you have some semblance of desire or passion outside of exactly the role of motherhood as it relates to being a martyr, then you are a bad mother and you are selfish, whereas men have much, much, much more freedom to have an identity. And there's a little bit of a cultural shift happening right now on Instagram and

Starting point is 00:21:16 TikTok with mommy bloggers who that's where you'll see the like, have friends, mama, like have hobbies, go to Pilates because you deserve an identity outside of motherhood. And it's like this inspirational you deserve script being fed. But it cannot trigger anything outside of this acceptable identity for women to have, which is still monogamous and pure. But if you're doing anything hedonist, if you're going to sex parties or you're engaged in swinging, then you're a slut. And sluts are bad mom.

Starting point is 00:21:51 What does the future hold for poly people in the UK? Here's Matthew Neal and Julia and Eunice from the UK Polyamorous Association again with their next steps. Marriage is way off. I think marrying multiple people is not going to happen in the next sort of five or ten years personally. What we need to focus on is education and building up momentum to get the Equality Act updated. We need to attract the attention from the public and, you know, from institutions. potentially political parties all the time in order to raise awareness and make the topic hot because we need to get the judiciary on our side, you know, to establish a precedent in Hayslaw.

Starting point is 00:22:34 My sort of thinking long term is that sooner or later all of the older generations will die off and leave the kids and the kids are going to be the ones that will get there because so many of them are already right at the cutting edge. They're familiar with queer rights. They're familiar with. with consensual non-monogamy, they're familiar with, you know, gender. Like, there's so much knowledge there. There's so much that they are bringing to the fore. And at some point, you know, us old farts are going to die off. If increasing public awareness and acceptance of polyamory

Starting point is 00:23:10 is key to fighting the stigma against it, what role does the media have to play in this? That takes us back to the studio. Thanks for sticking. around. Welcome back to the studio and to MediaStorm, the podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. Today we are talking about polyamory, the myths and stereotypes associated with it and how

Starting point is 00:23:46 it is represented in the media and pop culture. Joining us this week is a very special. guest. They are a content creator, writer and relationships educator who created the very popular project Polyphilia, dedicated to bite-size education and entertainment on polyamory, non-monogamy and open relationships. It's Leanne Yow. Leanne, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. How was your journey in, dare we ask? Well, there were train strikes today, so yeah, it was a bit stressful, but I'm here now and really excited to get into this. We should do an episode on train strokes before we have too much of a bitch about the change place.

Starting point is 00:24:21 Yeah, definitely. I've got to put lived experience first. Yeah, and also, Leanne came from Bristol, which is one of my favourite places in the entire world. Funnily enough, quite a lot of people I spoke to for this episode live in Bristol. Really? A big polyamorous community there, apparently. Oh, yeah, everyone there is really alternative.

Starting point is 00:24:38 Like, for sex education season four, they came to Bristol to look for queer people to star in a scene for that. Wow. The world outside London. Yeah, it's a beautiful place. Well, let's get started. So in the first half of this episode, we hear how polyamory is not a protected category under law and therefore how legal judgments usually come down to, quote-unquote, morality.

Starting point is 00:25:02 But what we want to know is, why has polyamory been associated with immorality? Where do you think that came from? I think it probably came from the assumption that polyamory is the same thing as cheating. Adultery is mentioned quite a lot in the Bible and people very much interpret having multiple partners as inherently immoral because we're all fed to this narrative that you have this Disney ideal of the one true love and your soulmate and your other half

Starting point is 00:25:28 and so to kind of break out to that mould people immediately assume there's something wrong with you so yeah that's probably one part of the immorality and another part I think is people assume that it's a sex thing do you think some of the misunderstandings around polyamory have come from the idea that polyamory is this kind of new concept that only lefty, liberal, bristolians take part in. When we actually look at history, is polyamory all that new?

Starting point is 00:25:56 I think monogamy, as we currently know it, is new. People have been having all kinds of relationships for millennia. But then formalizing monogamy happened around the Industrial Revolution when people needed to ensure kind of lines of paternity, inheritance. Successions to the throne, marriage was a political decision in economic. decision. It wasn't until relatively recently that romantic monogamy and exclusivity in that sense was associated with marriage, right? Back in the olden days, courtly love was a thing basically just kind of church-sanctioned infidelity. But there are all kinds of stories of kings taking

Starting point is 00:26:31 multiple concubines and that kind of thing. Now, exclusivity and romantic love is associated with monogamy and commitment. And so anything kind of outside of that norm is treated as an aberration or immoral. What's really interesting to me and what you just said is that, for example, in the US, as recently as 1974, women couldn't get a credit card without a man co-signing. And I suppose that is that kind of deeply entrenched monogamy that means women were essentially reliant on monogamy to survive. Now, of course, those legal policies may have changed now, but I wonder, do we still have a

Starting point is 00:27:08 hangover of those attitudes in our culture? and is there therefore a gendered element to how monogamy has been enforced? Oh yeah, 100%. I think monogamy mostly existed to benefit men to pass down like inheritance or kind of housing or whatever infrastructures they wanted to maintain. I've had plenty of people argue with me that monogamy in modern society is beneficial to women because it enables them to get half of their husband's stuff

Starting point is 00:27:35 when they divorce and stuff. But my argument with that is these structures were created by men, though. It's always been a double standard gender-wise. Men never stuck to it. They would demand monogamy of women, but they would always be stepping out. When people tell me that I'm being taken advantage of because I'm in a polyamorous relationship,

Starting point is 00:27:51 they assume that it was my partner's idea. I mean, it's not, it was mine. When you say that monogamy has been more advantageous to men, is part of that to do with security and paternity. When a woman gets pregnant, it's very clear who the mother is. But the father responsible for that child is not necessarily clear unless that women has been held to the highest standards of monogamy.

Starting point is 00:28:14 And so for a man to feel invested in raising that child, I don't know if this is a patriarchal thing or if this is a biological thing, but is that what you mean at a very basic level when you say that monogamy is advantageous to men in a way that it's not necessary for women maybe. Yeah, I suppose that is one part of it. But there's lots of historical records of tribes where children were, you know, looked after by the entire community. Fathers didn't have any particular claim of any particular child just because they were the biological parent. Yeah, there is a problem. It takes a tribe to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a child, exactly. And it does. But now we've been split off into these

Starting point is 00:28:52 nuclear families. Polyamory is a way to sort of return to that sense of community rather than isolating ourselves into these little pods. And when you talk about that isolation into little pods and that rise at the nuclear family, that's tied up in the modern nation state, which I suppose is where you talk about all this policy and legislation. That really is what we mean when we say monogamy. We actually mean conventional marriage and these laws. Monogamous marriage and, yeah, two and a half kids. And I do make a distinction between monogamous relationships and the institution of

Starting point is 00:29:22 monogamy or what people more commonly refer to these days as mononormitivities, the infrastructure. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with having one relationship at a time. People can do what they want. But then I think we need to acknowledge the structures that are in place. Let's look a bit deeper into the common myths and stereotypes of polyamory that we see in the mainstream media. A really pervasive stereotype is that polyamorous people are all sex-obsessed, kinky, have an orgies, left-right and center. Why has polyamory been so linked to just sex, and why is this a myth?

Starting point is 00:29:56 So I do counter this stereotype when people talk about this stereotype, because yes, on the one hand, polyamory is not just about the sex. It's in the name itself. Poly, many, amory, love. But also, I don't think there's anything wrong with having hedonistic orgies and being kinky. We shouldn't be trying to kind of poster child ourselves and make ourselves kind of more plattible to the mainstream by saying, we're not like those dirty swingers who go to orgies and swap partners all the time. I think there's room for all types of non-monogamous and polyamorous relationships. Whether you're kinky or vanilla, whether you're having threesomes and group sex or not, whether you enjoy casual sex or not.

Starting point is 00:30:32 Absolutely. And I feel that's a really important point. be made. I mean, what kind of what you're pointing out is that fire is being fought with fire, but I'm asking, I suppose my question is also, why is that fire being used in the first place? Why is sex shaming being used to smear polyamory as a concept? Ultimately, it just comes down to people not being able to conceive of the idea that you can love multiple people at the same time. So therefore, you must either love one person and be having sex with all the other ones, or you're just having a free-for-all sexy time with all of them.

Starting point is 00:31:04 Plenty of people say to me, if you truly love someone, you won't have eyes for anyone else. You don't even think of being attracted to other people. And I also think of that kind of smear campaign that it's just about sex, completely erases asexual people from the polyamorous community, which, correct me if I'm wrong, are a big part of the polyamorous community. Yeah, absolutely. There are asexual people who really don't see sex as the focus of their relationships. Could you just explain to us, if you're happy to,

Starting point is 00:31:30 how your polyamorous relationship work? because you talked about your partner, so you have a partner and you're in a polyamorous relationship. What does that look like? Yeah, so the partner that I referred to earlier was, you know, my partner of four years who I've been kind of polyamorous with from day one.

Starting point is 00:31:47 Right now, the day we're recording this is our four-year anniversary. Happy anniversary. We've got to get you on that train back to Bristol. Yeah, I mean, we celebrated over the weekend, so it was fine. I personally define a partner as someone who I have a romantic and sexual connection with, who I see you relatively regularly and consistently and who I'm building something long term

Starting point is 00:32:06 with. I have some people who are long distance who I see every now and then I have some people who are more friends with benefits. But in terms of the partner, as I define it, I have three partners. So I have, so I have my partner, the one I've had four years. And then I have two more one I met in March this year and one I met in June this year. The one I met in March, she actually got married recently. We all went to their wedding in August. Incredible. That is really something. Yeah. Last night we went out to God Dungeons and Dragons themed Drag Night, which I think is the nerdiest thing we've done so far. Okay.

Starting point is 00:32:37 Where was my invite? I do wonder, though, continuing with myths and stereotypes about Polyamry, as Polyamory has become more visible in the mainstream media, do you think it has propped up the stereotype that it's only kind of young, Gen Z type people who partake in it? Because we've had people like Willis Smith, be very vocal about their relationships, but does it again only focus on one type of polyamory? So I've met people from all walks of life and generations who practice polyamory. I used to participate quite a lot in the Facebook polyamory groups

Starting point is 00:33:13 and vast majority of them are millennial Gen X boomers and some who have been practicing polyamory for decades, been in long-term relationships with the same people for 30 years. So clearly it's been something that has been going on for a while, but I suppose it's only recently that it's become more prominent in mainstream discussions and started appearing a little bit more in the media. Yeah, I think one of the first times I remember hearing polyamory being talked about was in a negative context and it was in the context of the same-sex marriage debate.

Starting point is 00:33:43 And at that time, I remember having this debate with small sea conservatives who were against any kind of reform of the institution of marriage because they would argue that opening marriage up to same-sex partnerships would trigger a slippery slope decline into, among all sorts of outlandish ideas like incest and bestiality and marrying your fridge, that it would open up the door to polyamory. So why have these things all been grouped together and is our fear of polyamory as unnecessary, as irrational as that fear of same-sex marriage proved to? be. I do think the link to that is somewhat due to the fact that quite a lot of the people in the polyamorous community are also queer. I think the most popular media representation is FFM triad, where the two women are bisexual and the man is straight. Queer people have been having forms of kind of non-monogous relationships for a really long time. It's very common for

Starting point is 00:34:40 gay men to be in open dynamics. And this, I think, was partly because gay marriage was not legal for a really long time. So people were just like, well, okay, we can't do the normative things. so we're just going to do our own thing. That explanation right there just points out how monogamy is so tied in with institutions and what systems have been put in place by the state. So any relationships that haven't fallen within the legal sphere don't necessarily fall within the monogamy sphere.

Starting point is 00:35:08 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I think if you're already an outcast, it makes sense to just start questioning everything else about your life. If you're not straight, then you're like, okay, well, what else about my relationship? Can I carve out for myself? freeing in a way. Yeah, absolutely. I do think so. Yeah, you mentioned there the two women, one man triad trope. I feel like that is one of the biggest tropes I've ever seen when I come across

Starting point is 00:35:32 discussions or anything about polyamory. Why is that? What, that it's one man and multiple women. Well, no, that it's specifically one man and two bisexual women. Yeah, and they're all dating each other. And they're all dating each other, yeah. Yeah, so I think the FFM triad is the reason why it's become so popular in the media and it is the main focus of the media when they're looking for stories about polyamory. I think it's because it's the most palatable version of polyamory for monogamous audiences. Firstly, it's a man with multiple women which kind of reinforces gender stereotypes about men and their sexual appetites and that kind of thing. Another thing is that because both of the women are bisexual and they're dating each other, there's a healthy bit

Starting point is 00:36:10 of fetishization thrown in there as well. It's like a man gets to have multiple women and they also kiss each other. This is sexy. Say it was a woman with two male partners, right? She would be perceived in a very different way. There is a content creator on TikTok who is a woman with two male partners and the three of them, they have two children together and they get so much hate on a daily basis. A woman is called a slut, a whore, all the kind of things

Starting point is 00:36:30 and then the two men are called like cucks. It's that tale as old as time that we were all subjected to in our teenage years that a woman with a sexual or perceived to have a high sexual drive would be a slut and a man perceived to have a high sexual drive would be a player. A legend. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like in those things,

Starting point is 00:36:48 scenarios women's sexuality isn't taken seriously unless it's for the benefit of a man. It's like lesbianism wasn't illegal because it wasn't seen to exist. And actually when soldiers went off to war, sometimes they would encourage women to satisfy their sexual urges with other women because it wasn't seen as in any way a real threat to their relationship. It wasn't seen as an actual valid form of love. I didn't know that actually. Damn, that's interesting. Yeah. And I can counter that with, so the history of swinging as a practice, wife swapping, started in the American military. Oh. There you go. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:37:18 God, it all makes sense. It all makes sense. Okay, let's now delve a little bit deeper into some of the language that is commonly used by the mainstream media when talking about polyamory. One big one we really want to talk about is the term ethical or consensual non-monogamy. This is used in the mainstream media very often and it's often used interchangeably with polyamory. Is it, in your opinion, a useful term or does it imply that non-mohogamination? Non-monogony, non-monogony. The worst of the words. Got these terms, bud.

Starting point is 00:37:57 Non-monogamy is inherently unethical. Just to clarify, ethical or consensual non-monogamy is a broader umbrella describing any relationship that is just not monogamous, whereas polyamory is specifically referring to multiple emotionally intimate and typically romantic relationships. So there are other relationships that are non-monogamous, but not polyamorous. So for example, swinging where couples have casual group sex with other singles and couples, but they never form intimate romantic bonds. But to answer your question, I think the term ethical non-monogamy arose because so many

Starting point is 00:38:29 people associated polyamory and non-monogamous relationships with cheating. And so the term ethical non-monogamy came up to be like, no, what I'm doing is ethical and honest. The term arose because we wanted to distinguish ourselves from cheaters. But I feel like by saying that, we perpetuate the association between like open relationships, and cheating. People who cheat don't describe themselves as unethically non-monogamous. They're just cheaters. I think we also hold ourselves to a higher standard as well. If a monogamous relationship goes wrong, people are always like, oh, what a shame, try again,

Starting point is 00:38:59 whatever. If a polyamorous relationship goes tits up, everyone's like, oh, polyamory is the issue. They should have been in a monogamous relationship first. Oh, I told you so. I knew this would happen. So true. We're already held to a much higher standard in our relationships, and I don't think having the label, like, serves that any more than just putting pressure on us. Time now to look at some of the articles on this topic which have been making recent headlines. Let's start with this from the Daily Mail. Polyamorous Thruples, who are looking to start a family with three parents, are being offered IVF through UK clinics. So this headline states that polyamorous thruples are being offered IVF at clinics.

Starting point is 00:39:37 Yet reading further down, the article is actually based on one fertility service who says that they've been contacted by people who want to start a family with three parents. The article then goes on to point out the apparent flaws in polyamory saying, quote, lawyers say that if relationships end, there could be problems over custody. First of all, it's this culture war brewing that always seems to happen in the furnace of the tabloid press, that they're making out there is this huge kind of social threat to our very core infrastructures that is actually a very, very fringe, personal, localized issue. What were your thoughts on this article? Yeah, so when I looked at the article, I think the first thing I wanted to point out is that the title, Polyamorous Thruple, is in quotes.

Starting point is 00:40:23 I mean, the Thruples are definitely real. I don't understand why the quote marks were necessary. It reminds me of a different article I read. I forgot which tabloid it was now, but the word threesomes was also in quotes, and I'm like, do these people not think that people have threesome? The mythical. The so-called threesome. And then also, the stock photo is of, how would you describe this? oh my god it's a bedroom it's a darkly lit bedroom with three pairs of legs and two of them are in heels

Starting point is 00:40:50 and kind of one of them is kind of positioned in a very seductive manner and one sat on the bed this is an article about parenthood this is an article about family yeah the stock image could not be more sexual suggestive or cd i mean it's absolutely ridiculous yeah yeah um it's beautifully lit though yeah yeah very very beautifully lit photo but definitely for the topic yeah questionable choice completely inappropriate i thought the totally inappropriate i thought the of the article overall was quite negative and just trying to say we already have enough problems and now we have these polyamorous people coming in

Starting point is 00:41:21 creating more issues for us. And not the other way around, it positions them as a problem for the law and not the law is the problem for them. Yeah, exactly. Which is definitely a partial take. Yeah, for sure. The second article we'd like to look at is this from Vogue. Headline, When did calling

Starting point is 00:41:39 yourself polyamorous become an excuse for terrible behaviour? This is a really interesting article that Leanne, you're actually quoted in. And while I was really glad to see some voices with lived experience like yours in this article, the headline and some of the lines did make me do a kind of sharp intake of breath. Because in this article, the author gives examples of people who are in polyamorous or open relationships who don't have great boundaries. For example, Kate quoted in the article, went on a date with a man in an open relationship they had sex and then the man left as one of the rules within his relationship with

Starting point is 00:42:15 his primary partner is they don't stay overnight at people's places she's quoted saying as soon as we had sex he used his non-monogamous status as a way to absolve himself from any responsibility to me says kate i think these stories are important to tell but for me it kind of felt like they were tarring every polyamorous person with the same bad boundary brush here i also kind of took issue with that story because basically one of the things that this Kate person said was she wouldn't have slept with this man if she had known that he wouldn't stay the night after they had sex and I was like wait okay if her condition for having sex was that she wanted him to stay over she should have clarified that instead of assuming that he would be able to read her mind right

Starting point is 00:42:55 you can be upset about a situation without necessarily finding a person to blame people always love to find a scapegoat and they want to externalize like a source of their pain I did think that it had important perspectives to share because obviously there are kind of of bad eggs in the polyamorous community and we need to talk about it. But just kind of portraying polyamorous people as a bunch of bad actors really kind of did a disservice to the community at large. I try to view it in a positive way and be like, oh, maybe we've reached a point in media discussions where we can talk about the flaws of the polyamorous community rather than just doing constant explainers all the time. That can be various ways to interpret this article and

Starting point is 00:43:31 unfortunately I do think the majority of people will interpret it negatively. thank you lian so much for sharing your wisdom on this show with us today before you leave us do you have anything that you would like to plug and where can people follow you yeah so you can follow me at the same handle on multiple platforms i'm at polyphelia blog i'm on facebook instagram twitter ticot i also have a patreon where i post bonus content and i also offer one-on-one peer support so yeah if you're looking for advice resources a second perspective on any situation relating to non-monogamy you can can reach out to me and book a session over, text, email or video call. Thank you for listening.

Starting point is 00:44:09 We'll be back next week with some bonus content on polyamory and pop culture. What to watch and what to, well, avoid? And the next episode of Media Storm on Menopause will be out on the 24th of November. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-style rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast.

Starting point is 00:44:34 podcast, and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal, at Helena Wadia, and follow the show via at MediaStorm Pod. Get in touch and let us know who you'd like us to speak to and what you'd like us to cover. Media Storm, an award-winning podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist, is part of the ACAS creator network. It is produced by Tom Silinski and Deborah Francis White. The music is by Samfire.

Starting point is 00:45:04 Thank you.

Media Storm - S2E10 Polyamory: Love and the limits of the law - with Leanne Yau aka Poly Philia

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