Speaker 1: Hello, folks, it's Chuck here on a Saturday Select episode.
Speaker 1: This is from April seven, two fift and this is
Speaker 1: a very sexy podcast episode called Polyamory Colin when too
Speaker 1: just won't do. I think you know where this is
Speaker 1: headed right now. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck,
Speaker 1: Bryan Jerry's over there, and this is stuff you should
Speaker 1: not Let's try how all of our wives and girlfriends
Speaker 1: are in the next room. All right, how are you doing? Man?
Speaker 1: I'm good. I found this topic to be super interesting.
Speaker 1: And um, I should say up front that our our
Speaker 1: joky nous that we always include in every podcast almost
Speaker 1: um is not meant to be disrespectful to anyone who
Speaker 1: was in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah, and we're not here
Speaker 1: to like just kind of look at your relationship from
Speaker 1: the outside and poke at it and make fun of
Speaker 1: it or light of it. If you're enjoying yourself and
Speaker 1: everybody's on board and no one's being hurt, then we
Speaker 1: always say to each his own, but um, from the outside, Uh,
Speaker 1: polyamory might seem like a very strange arrangement. Well, I
Speaker 1: think to most people it seems like swinging. That's right,
Speaker 1: but it's not. No, it is not a lot of things.
Speaker 1: It's not cheating, right, it's not swinging, right, it's not Um,
Speaker 1: it's not polygamy. It's not what was the other one? Well,
Speaker 1: it's not a lot of things. Um, it's not dentistry right. Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: the point is that we should it's not promiscuous nous.
Speaker 1: So what it is actually from? And I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I think my conception of polyamory was that it was
Speaker 1: basically kind of swinging and it was based on it
Speaker 1: was I got the the root couple thing, but um
Speaker 1: that it was mostly like a swinging kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But from research, like I realized I was pretty far off.
Speaker 1: Polyamory is in a very odd way a form of monogamy,
Speaker 1: but that it includes more than two people in this
Speaker 1: monogamous relationship, while not necessarily monogamous either though, so because
Speaker 1: there can be arrangements where you're allowed to go out
Speaker 1: and do what you want, kickens with people. So I
Speaker 1: ran across something that that's technically considered monogamish. As Dan
Speaker 1: Savage coined it. That sounds like a very new word.
Speaker 1: It is new, yeah, I mean Dan Savage coined it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but which means that I'm probably not gonna put too
Speaker 1: much greedence. But in the from what I understand and this,
Speaker 1: I got this from a polyamory site called um more
Speaker 1: than two more than two Great Side Franklin vow is
Speaker 1: how I'm pronouncing his last name Vox. And I'm not
Speaker 1: kidding when I say it's a great side. If you
Speaker 1: are interested in exploring polyamory, it's super thorough and very
Speaker 1: very helpful, I would think, yeah, just by going through it.
Speaker 1: And the impression that I got from him, from his
Speaker 1: f a Q at least, is that it is a
Speaker 1: It's like the people in a polyamorous relationship are committed
Speaker 1: to one another, and that like they're rather in in
Speaker 1: the same way that two people a couple come together
Speaker 1: to form a monogamous relationship. If you if you take
Speaker 1: that bubble and add another person or two other people
Speaker 1: or something like that, but there's still that bubble of monogamy,
Speaker 1: of commitment of affection. UM that that is more close
Speaker 1: to the the the definition of polyamory. Now in real life,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's different, um, and that there are different
Speaker 1: aspects to it or whatever. But supposedly that's what I gathered.
Speaker 1: But I think, uh, polyamorous couples say, why would you
Speaker 1: even use a word like monogamy when it means that
Speaker 1: polly means more than one word. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: that's the trip. And so Dan Savage come on monogamoush Yeah. Yeah, UM,
Speaker 1: I knew more about this UM just because there was
Speaker 1: a show I don't know if it was HBO, it's
Speaker 1: probably Cinemax that UM followed some polyamorous relationships, and so
Speaker 1: I knew that it was not just hey it's swinging
Speaker 1: or hey I just want an open relationship. It's you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tryad I've got a man and there's a
Speaker 1: woman and there's another woman. Or in another case it
Speaker 1: was two couples, they all lived together, they were all
Speaker 1: in a committed relationship with one another. UM. I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about there is no standard for a polyamorous relationship.
Speaker 1: It can really be anything you want that works for you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's bisexual, sometimes it's not. Sometimes um, the two Uh,
Speaker 1: it's really I mean, we could go over millions in
Speaker 1: areas you really could. I was starting to break them
Speaker 1: all down, but it's like, you really is. Whatever you
Speaker 1: can work out between yourselves is polyamory. But the point
Speaker 1: is is ummm, to maybe put it on less fine
Speaker 1: of a point, but to get a little closer potentially
Speaker 1: to a correct definition. Polyamory is not monogamy because there's
Speaker 1: more than two people, and it's not cheating because all
Speaker 1: of the people involved are on the on the same
Speaker 1: page about what they're doing, what what they're doing, what
Speaker 1: their partners are doing, what everybody's doing. Everyone's aware and consenting,
Speaker 1: that's right. So it's between those two things. So this
Speaker 1: is the opposite of the E s P podcast where
Speaker 1: apparently we never even said what e SP stood for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a couple of people like, we're like, hey, catch what
Speaker 1: ESP stands for? Can you tell us? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: go listen again, and enough people said it that I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, extrasensory perception, by the way, And then
Speaker 1: we have just now defined polyamory for the last ten minutes,
Speaker 1: so I think we're covered. I think we finally landed
Speaker 1: on it. Though. Uh yeah, it's a very fascinating thing,
Speaker 1: and um here's how it works. Well, Uh, I think
Speaker 1: the let's talk about why people are polyamorous. Right, So
Speaker 1: people who are polyamorous probably tend to think that monogamy
Speaker 1: is not for them. And if you're speaking from a
Speaker 1: like a evolutionary perspective, monogamy is kind of a puzzlement. Yes,
Speaker 1: should we talk about that. Yeah, So monogamy looking through
Speaker 1: the lens of natural selection doesn't make sense evolutionarily because
Speaker 1: it lowers a mail's ability to um, It lowers his
Speaker 1: number of opportunity at ease to carry on his genetic
Speaker 1: line and there for the species, right exactly. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it was long thought by some that um it was
Speaker 1: monogamy came about so males could assist in the raising
Speaker 1: of the young. Um. But there are some new theories
Speaker 1: now that UM make that seem a little less likely,
Speaker 1: or actually a lot less likely. Um. And ironically, well
Speaker 1: not ironically, but coincidentally they were both published. They were
Speaker 1: both published around the same time, these two new theories,
Speaker 1: they came out at the and enough time to really
Speaker 1: kind of compete with one another. Yeah, because you know,
Speaker 1: when you look around the the animal kingdom, among non
Speaker 1: avian there are more birds that are supposedly cockroaches that
Speaker 1: are monogamous. But if you if you rule out the
Speaker 1: birds and the cockroaches, specifically, mammals too. Yeah, about five
Speaker 1: percent of the four thousand mammal species, give or take UM,
Speaker 1: only about five are monogamous or mate for life. Right,
Speaker 1: And so again, if you are strictly looking at it
Speaker 1: from the selfish gene theory, like the whole point would
Speaker 1: be to run around and copulate with as many females
Speaker 1: as you possibly can so that you can have more
Speaker 1: and more chances of spreading your genetic line and then,
Speaker 1: like you said, hence carry on the species. So to
Speaker 1: not do that, to just couple with one other person
Speaker 1: and and have maybe a few kids rather than thirty
Speaker 1: with a bunch of different males and females. Right again,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really kind of make sense. So they've tried
Speaker 1: to explain this, and there are some theories, like you
Speaker 1: were saying, one of them is that UM, if you
Speaker 1: are a rival male, one of the things you have
Speaker 1: to do to get with another female. I think that's
Speaker 1: what biologists call it getting with UM you have to
Speaker 1: kill her offspring because while she's nursing, she can't ovulate,
Speaker 1: and therefore you can't reproduce with her, but kill her kids.
Speaker 1: She's gonna stop nursing. She'll be sad. But then you
Speaker 1: guys can have your own offspring. If you are a
Speaker 1: male that's staying behind after you reproduce with a female,
Speaker 1: then you have the chance to defend your offspring from
Speaker 1: being killed by arrival males. Explanation from monogamy yep, And
Speaker 1: that was in the proceedings of the National Academy of
Speaker 1: Sciences and UM. They found that out by studying behaviors
Speaker 1: of two d and thirty primate species. Uh. And they
Speaker 1: felt so good about it that the guy who ran
Speaker 1: the study said, this is it. We now finally know
Speaker 1: for sure. But that's not necessarily true because there's another
Speaker 1: really great theory where they actually published in the journal
Speaker 1: Science and studied mammals, which is way more than the
Speaker 1: other study. H. D. H. Lucas and Tim kluten Brock
Speaker 1: of Cambridge University, and they said, Uh, it's really about
Speaker 1: low density and females. It's that simple, Like when there
Speaker 1: aren't many females, that's where monogamy happens, right when they're
Speaker 1: spread out, because they beat up on each other when
Speaker 1: they're in the same place. Females UM, so they have
Speaker 1: to spread out geographically. Well, if you're a guy who's
Speaker 1: just running from female the female, the female, you don't
Speaker 1: know what she's doing while you're not around, so you
Speaker 1: don't know whether those kids are yours or not. So
Speaker 1: the best way to make sure that they're your kids
Speaker 1: is to hang around and be monogamous. That's right. So
Speaker 1: it's it's really similar to the other theory, the you're
Speaker 1: staying around to defend the kids, and this one it's
Speaker 1: a little less magnanimous. You're staying around to make sure
Speaker 1: that the female doesn't run around on you. Right. But
Speaker 1: then I saw a third theory that also makes sense
Speaker 1: to UM, and that is the the idea of males
Speaker 1: staying around to help raise kids was a strategy developed
Speaker 1: by lesser males in the primate kingdom. So like the
Speaker 1: alpha male, the top guys, they're having no trouble, they
Speaker 1: can go wherever they want, they're getting plenty of action, right,
Speaker 1: But less nestman is like, hey, I can care for
Speaker 1: the kids exactly, and that that's a strategy that caught
Speaker 1: the attention of females who otherwise wouldn't have made it
Speaker 1: with these guys. Because they're less nestment. And uh instead said, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a dork. I can't stand his bow tie in
Speaker 1: his shortsleeve shirt, but he does do a pretty good
Speaker 1: job with the kids. So I'm going to be monogamous
Speaker 1: with this guy. So three pretty good theories to explain monogamy.
Speaker 1: None of them hold water for polyamorous No, and and
Speaker 1: everyone under the age of thirty five is now looking
Speaker 1: up who less neestment is? It was? That was a
Speaker 1: great reference, man, Thanks, I just popped up um. Alright,
Speaker 1: So the benefits, I believe, is what we were talking
Speaker 1: about before we delved into the theory. And I've always
Speaker 1: said monogamy too is not a natural thing, and that
Speaker 1: the reward of staying with one person is partly because
Speaker 1: of that. You know, you, it's not a natural thing.
Speaker 1: You sacrifice something in some way by being with someone,
Speaker 1: but the payoff is rich. That is wise words, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So we'll see if I end up married in twenty years,
Speaker 1: I'll confirm all this. Just kidding, of course, I will
Speaker 1: be um. All right, So let's talk about the benefits.
Speaker 1: It is not just about um having sex with more
Speaker 1: than one person. No, It's definitely part of it. It
Speaker 1: is part of it, UM, But it is also about
Speaker 1: um support in a greater you know, it takes a village,
Speaker 1: they say, So if you have a larger village, then
Speaker 1: you're gonna have more support and care and love and
Speaker 1: emotional support. UM. All that stuff right, exactly. And it's
Speaker 1: not polyamorous relationship or group doesn't necessarily have sex with
Speaker 1: one another everybody. UM. Sex is a big component of it.
Speaker 1: But you also have what are called poly effective relationships
Speaker 1: where like, let's say you have what you call it
Speaker 1: a triad. Is that a poly um? Yeah, right, but
Speaker 1: that's what polyamorous call it. UM. So let's say you
Speaker 1: have a triad where neither of the of two women
Speaker 1: and a guy, and neither of the women are bisexual,
Speaker 1: but they're still in a polyamorous relationship. They would be
Speaker 1: polly effective, like they have an emotional connection to one
Speaker 1: another like a couple would, but they're not sexually involved
Speaker 1: with one another. They're poly effective. That's another component of
Speaker 1: a polyamorous relationship. So the whole thing is not just
Speaker 1: satisfying your every sexual need with a bunch of different people. UM.
Speaker 1: It's also that I think they believe that you have
Speaker 1: a lot of different needs that one person can't necessarily
Speaker 1: satisfy beyond sex as well. It can be cultural interests,
Speaker 1: it can be past times, it can be what have you.
Speaker 1: And so the idea behind polyamory is you find those
Speaker 1: people in your life who combined make that single ideal person, yeah,
Speaker 1: rather than placing all that on one single person for
Speaker 1: better for worse. Yeah. I looked at an example on
Speaker 1: the what was it two for one, no two or
Speaker 1: more more than more than two, more than two, more
Speaker 1: than more than two dot com? I looked at one.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of just stories and examples of people,
Speaker 1: like real stories. And this one lady UM was married
Speaker 1: to a guy who quite simply was not into a
Speaker 1: lot of the things she was into. Um, she was
Speaker 1: big into the theater, I think, in museums. Her husband
Speaker 1: didn't like that. Uh. They developed into a polyamorous relationship,
Speaker 1: and she had another man that was really into that stuff,
Speaker 1: an old high school boyfriend I think, and he uh
Speaker 1: took up with another woman who had similar interest as him,
Speaker 1: and they all worked it out. And you know, people say, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you just leave the husband then? Who you
Speaker 1: don't have these things in common within go with the
Speaker 1: old high school boyfriend. That's a neat story. She was like, well,
Speaker 1: because he's really needy and my husband isn't and we
Speaker 1: have a lot of great stuff. Uh So it is literally,
Speaker 1: like you said, satisfying all my needs through multiple people,
Speaker 1: because who can expect one person to be that soul
Speaker 1: mate that gives you everything you need? And these suckers
Speaker 1: who are in monogamous marriages are just uh, sacrificing certain
Speaker 1: parts of their life, like going to museums or whatever.
Speaker 1: If it was this lady, So everybody, we're about to
Speaker 1: satisfy all of your needs with this commercial break. Hey
Speaker 1: now all right and we're back. So chuck um. We
Speaker 1: were talking about why people do polyamory, Right, do polyamory?
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how polyamory actually works? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: anyone in a marriage that's you know, things get more
Speaker 1: complicated as you get older. So I don't mean to
Speaker 1: talk down to people in your twenties, but relationships get
Speaker 1: a little more complicated you get older and you get
Speaker 1: more responsibilities. So if you're married and you're in your
Speaker 1: thirties or forties or fifties, you know it is or
Speaker 1: any kind of committed relationship you know it's logistically tough sometimes, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're like, I want this, and this other person
Speaker 1: who you share half of your estate with says, no,
Speaker 1: I want this, or I want to do this, or
Speaker 1: I want to do that, or I want a vacation here.
Speaker 1: They're exactly just in keeping up with schedules. It's all
Speaker 1: very complicated. It's all compromise. It's like there's one big,
Speaker 1: complicent compromise and you're compromising between two people's opinions. Imagine
Speaker 1: just throwing in one extra opinion that differs from the
Speaker 1: other two equal weight exactly. So that's basically what we're
Speaker 1: getting at is, if you think your marriage is complicated,
Speaker 1: polyamory can be even more complicated. And they admit that
Speaker 1: it can be more complicated, but they say that, uh.
Speaker 1: And this is really what I gathered from reading that
Speaker 1: site in a bunch of articles, is that two for one,
Speaker 1: two for one. You want to meet a great communicator,
Speaker 1: go talk to someone in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's one of the chief requirements of polyamory. Gotta be
Speaker 1: able to talk about all this stuff. I've seen it
Speaker 1: put as you have highly evolved communication skills. Yes, I
Speaker 1: would not a good polyamory man like I wouldn't last
Speaker 1: two days. No, I stink. I stink at communicating. I
Speaker 1: think I'm just doing line and it turns out, oh wait,
Speaker 1: I didn't say that, Chuck. Is this bothering you know?
Speaker 1: But it's really bothering. Well, that's another thing too. Not
Speaker 1: only do you have to be a great communicator and
Speaker 1: get your point across and read other people and listen
Speaker 1: to that kind of thing, but you also have to
Speaker 1: be honest about your feelings. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that polyamorous face, just like anybody else's jealousy. We did
Speaker 1: a pretty good episode on jealousy a while back, jealousy
Speaker 1: much yea yeah, with a question mark right, um, And
Speaker 1: so they deal with jealousy and and and they deal
Speaker 1: with it apparently ideally. Again, this is from more than
Speaker 1: two dot com in a way where it would take
Speaker 1: a pretty intelligent, calm person to approach the feelings of
Speaker 1: jealousy like this, which is basically deconstructing it. So the
Speaker 1: guy at more than two dot com I kind of
Speaker 1: gave a good example where he was saying, Um, you're
Speaker 1: in a polyamorous relationship and it bugs you when your
Speaker 1: spouse kisses there are other spouse in front of you, right,
Speaker 1: and he says the correct thing to do basically here
Speaker 1: is to stop and say, okay, why does that make
Speaker 1: me jealous? And if you are honest with yourself, you'll say, well,
Speaker 1: it makes me jealous because I worried that the other spouse.
Speaker 1: And by the way, in a polyamorous relationship, the plural
Speaker 1: of spouse is spice. Yes, so if you're married to
Speaker 1: two people, you have two spice um, which is kind
Speaker 1: of funny. Sure you got a spicy I love life. Anyway,
Speaker 1: when the other spouse, if if you're worried that your
Speaker 1: spouse is kissing his other spouse, he's going to think
Speaker 1: that that spouse is a better kisser than you and think, well,
Speaker 1: that spouses, if he's better kisser then you, he wants
Speaker 1: to be with him more than me. And if he
Speaker 1: wants to be with him more than me, then uh,
Speaker 1: he's gonna leave me. Is often rooted in your own insecurities.
Speaker 1: So what this guy was saying is, if you spell
Speaker 1: this out, you realize that there's a lot of hidden
Speaker 1: assumptions and your jealous feelings, and that when you confront them,
Speaker 1: you will probably discard a lot of them. If you
Speaker 1: find that, no, this is correct, this person really would
Speaker 1: leave me because that person is a better kisser. Um,
Speaker 1: then you would ask yourself, do I want to be
Speaker 1: with somebody who would leave me because somebody else is
Speaker 1: a better kisser? Yeah? Um, So if you can approach
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff in this manner, then maybe you'd
Speaker 1: be a decent polyamorous. Yeah. There's a lady named Terry Connelly,
Speaker 1: a professor of psychology and women's studies at University of Michigan,
Speaker 1: uh Go Wolverines, and she's she's one of the well,
Speaker 1: not one of the only people. But there haven't been
Speaker 1: many studies on polyamory. Um. One reason is because it's
Speaker 1: underreported in a lot of cases because people, some people
Speaker 1: may not like to be uh really out front with it.
Speaker 1: And for good reason, Yeah, for very good reasons. But
Speaker 1: she did some studies and polls and things, and she
Speaker 1: found that jealousy is, in fact, she said, much higher
Speaker 1: end quote among monogamous pairs than non monogamous ones. And
Speaker 1: I think for the reasons you just said, um, she
Speaker 1: also found Um, she interviewed sevent individuals. Polly, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry monogamous individuals, hundred and fifty swingers, hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: people in an open relationship, and three hundred polyamorous individuals,
Speaker 1: and said that polyamorous tended to have equal or higher
Speaker 1: levels of sexual satisfaction. Uh, and people in open relationships
Speaker 1: tended to have lower sexual satisfaction than their monogamous piers
Speaker 1: and polyamorous piers. So, and we should say open is
Speaker 1: not the same as polyamorous. Now again, in a polyamorous group,
Speaker 1: the people in the group form a closed hole. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In an open relationship, it's like there's two people who
Speaker 1: are connected, but they're also facing outward and the whole
Speaker 1: world's up for grabs, basically, right, in an open relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, right, it's not so in polyamorous is not
Speaker 1: an open relationship, and open really ship is not polyamorous.
Speaker 1: But a polyamorous relationship could include swinging from what I understand. Yes,
Speaker 1: And did you know that swinging apparently started among World
Speaker 1: War Two Air Force pilots in your families? You knew that, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you supposedly if your husband died in battle, it
Speaker 1: was just sort of understood that that woman would then
Speaker 1: take up with another serviceman. Correct, I guess, but with
Speaker 1: another married serviceman or what. I don't know about that. Huh. Well,
Speaker 1: apparently it started out with like we called that wife
Speaker 1: swapping in World War Two in the Air Force, like
Speaker 1: specifically the Air Force, not like oh, American servicemen like
Speaker 1: the Air Force. So I guess they know who it was. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I've told the story about the Atlanta Swingers
Speaker 1: Club was very close to my phone number growing up,
Speaker 1: and we used to I was a kid. I had
Speaker 1: no idea what it meant, of course, and I used
Speaker 1: to answer the phone and people would be like the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Singers would just be like my mom would just
Speaker 1: remember it was so like troublesome to her, and she
Speaker 1: kept the whistle next to the phone and would blow
Speaker 1: a whistle into it. It's so funny to think about, yes,
Speaker 1: so man, very funny. I still remember that number two?
Speaker 1: Do you remember your original phone number? Nine? Isn't that crazy? Um?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for anyone who has those numbers today, or
Speaker 1: to the Atlantic Swingers Club, which is still operational, I'm sure. Um.
Speaker 1: All right, another thing we need to talk about our
Speaker 1: s t I s UM sexually transmitted infection. You would
Speaker 1: think that UM it would be higher in a polyamorous relationship,
Speaker 1: and they don't have statistics that may or may not
Speaker 1: be the case, but what they are adamant about is
Speaker 1: lots of testing and lots of access to those results
Speaker 1: and being super open about those results. UM apparently much
Speaker 1: more so than UM people in monogamous relationships like new
Speaker 1: new relationships. They found that people in new monogamous relationships
Speaker 1: are often very shy about talking about their sexual history
Speaker 1: and potential UM infections and things, whereas they're really upfront
Speaker 1: about it in polyamory. Yeah, and and they kind of
Speaker 1: have to be, and they kind of just make it
Speaker 1: a normal, open thing. But that's part of that open,
Speaker 1: honest communication. That's that's kind of a hallmark of polyamory.
Speaker 1: And even two, it has a practical application defending against
Speaker 1: S T I S. Yeah, they did. There was one
Speaker 1: study in twelve in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that
Speaker 1: found that UM unfaithful like cheaters, not like uh, like
Speaker 1: a cheater, you're in a monogamous relationship, in your cheating,
Speaker 1: they're much more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior
Speaker 1: and to keep it a secret than someone in a
Speaker 1: polyamorous relationship because you go off in your cheat and
Speaker 1: you keep quiet and you do something super risky, you know,
Speaker 1: hook up with someone randomly that you don't know, and
Speaker 1: that's just that's kind of like the opposite of polyamory
Speaker 1: from what it sounds like. Right. With polyamory, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's your it's time for your weekly STD test, right,
Speaker 1: I want to see the paper and we're not hooking
Speaker 1: up with some random person. There. If there are one
Speaker 1: thing that there's a lot of in a polyamorous relationship
Speaker 1: or rules, yeah, if you haven't picked up on that yet, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta have the ground rules laid down. Um, how
Speaker 1: much time are you going to spend with this person
Speaker 1: versus that person? Um? All the way down to rules
Speaker 1: in the bedroom. Um. It sounds a little gross, but
Speaker 1: fluid swapping. Well, it's a big deal. So there's a thing.
Speaker 1: One of the ways they protect against um STDs is uh, well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the arrangements. Okay, alright, because
Speaker 1: I think we need to because these different rules that
Speaker 1: we're talking about here will apply differently to different types
Speaker 1: of relationships. So obviously there's a triad. You can also
Speaker 1: have a quad. I can imagine that you could go
Speaker 1: up to six eight. Whatever. The point is is um
Speaker 1: when you have a group that are equal to one another,
Speaker 1: where everybody's equal to one another, that's one. That's one
Speaker 1: form of the polyamorous relationship, right. There's another form that's hierarchical,
Speaker 1: which is based on a core couple that are Yeah,
Speaker 1: they would be the primary, and then say each of
Speaker 1: them has a significant other like a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Those would be the secondaries. And then maybe they have
Speaker 1: another person that they're they're close to, they see once
Speaker 1: in a while, maybe they live out of town, something
Speaker 1: like that. That would be potentially a tertiary um relationship,
Speaker 1: right like you break the twister game out and they
Speaker 1: show up, right. So the the the the difference between
Speaker 1: the two is with the hierarchical relationship. With the hierarchical format,
Speaker 1: the the person that your spouse, the core group, the
Speaker 1: core couple of people. They're the ones who are gonna
Speaker 1: get the most time, the most attention. They're gonna have
Speaker 1: more power to say, vito the others veto is a
Speaker 1: big deal. Yeah, um in a and the other relationship
Speaker 1: that forms like a try it or a quad or
Speaker 1: six people or something like that where everybody is equally weighted.
Speaker 1: That's that that that you wouldn't have like a high
Speaker 1: there's no hierarchical structure to that. Yeah, And it depends
Speaker 1: on how you want to structure things. They're both completely
Speaker 1: valid as polyamorous relationships. Um, it's just you know, up
Speaker 1: to you basically, And so you said the veto power
Speaker 1: is a big deal. Yeah, I think it's always to
Speaker 1: be honored. Right. So if if um, somebody is is
Speaker 1: is meeting somebody new and wants to date them, they
Speaker 1: basically have to go to the rest of the group
Speaker 1: that they're committed to in this committed relationship with and
Speaker 1: say I got this person, I'd like to bring them
Speaker 1: unto the group. I don't know this, but I can
Speaker 1: imagine that is a huge thing, especially in a law
Speaker 1: long established um polyamorous relationship, you know, like bringing a
Speaker 1: new person in all bet that would be really big deal.
Speaker 1: I can imagine being that dude and showing up right,
Speaker 1: it's like the worst job interview of all time, especially
Speaker 1: if you don't know what's going on. Plus in the
Speaker 1: hierarchical structure, then I can imagine the veto power probably
Speaker 1: just rests with the two core people, maybe slightly in
Speaker 1: the secondary people, probably not at all. In the tertiary people,
Speaker 1: they're just there for twister. But with the um the
Speaker 1: s t I thing. Um, if you are what's called
Speaker 1: body fluid uh monogamous, Yeah, which I was kind of
Speaker 1: joking about that it sounds gross, it's really not at all.
Speaker 1: That's basically saying that we can have sex with each
Speaker 1: other without condoms. And I'm sorry I'm saying you and me.
Speaker 1: I thought you were talking to somebody behind. But um,
Speaker 1: maybe the secondary and I have to wear condoms and
Speaker 1: we don't exchange those fluids so intimately and freely or um.
Speaker 1: If you're in a group, like everybody in the group
Speaker 1: might be body fluid monogamous, but if they are agreed
Speaker 1: that they can go outside of the group, they would
Speaker 1: not be. Or if it's a hierarchical structure, yeah, that
Speaker 1: primary couple would just be body fluid monogamous and everybody
Speaker 1: else would be. Right, you'd have to wear economy or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or it may not even involve sex. Maybe your your
Speaker 1: secondaries or you go on dates with and you can um,
Speaker 1: you know, go to first and second base and that's
Speaker 1: where it ends. Like, it's really all about the people
Speaker 1: in the relationship working out what works best for them.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's take a break here and talk
Speaker 1: more about the polyamory right after this. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Um.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that I found interesting about
Speaker 1: polyamory um was that they had to coin some terms
Speaker 1: because they were really breaking new ground here and trying
Speaker 1: things with relationships whos two or more Spice is the
Speaker 1: plural of spouse um. And then there's a word called
Speaker 1: compulsion that's very much associated with polyamory, and it is
Speaker 1: basically the mirror image of jealousy. Yeah, it's being super
Speaker 1: happy that you're primary has found someone else that they
Speaker 1: really love and are satisfied with. Yeah, and not just
Speaker 1: your primary, anybody your polyamorous relationship with. Yeah, that they've
Speaker 1: found happiness with somebody else. You're happy for them because
Speaker 1: of that. So yeah, that's not a normal thing for
Speaker 1: most people, especially people in traditional argamous relationships. So polyamorous
Speaker 1: people kind of, I guess, stumbled upon this thing and
Speaker 1: had to come up with the name for it, and
Speaker 1: they call it compulsion. Yeah. And if you know, if
Speaker 1: you think to yourself as a monogamous person, Well, what
Speaker 1: you know, this person goes off your wife all of
Speaker 1: a sudden is sleeping with another man. What's to keep
Speaker 1: her from really falling in love with him to the
Speaker 1: extent that she no longer wants to be with you.
Speaker 1: Of course that can happen, but that can happen in
Speaker 1: your regular marriage as well. And if the only thing
Speaker 1: that's binding your marriage is that, um, you've got bigger
Speaker 1: problems in your marriage. If the only thing binding you
Speaker 1: do that marriage is like the marital contract that you
Speaker 1: feel like you have to stay you know, uh true too,
Speaker 1: you know, like in a regular marriage, you should want
Speaker 1: to be with your husband and your wife, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what the piece of paper says. Um. I
Speaker 1: would guess, and again I don't know. I would guess
Speaker 1: that polyamorousts have some sort of of structure or mechanism
Speaker 1: to deal with that, Like if, especially if there is
Speaker 1: a if that happens where somebody starts out as a
Speaker 1: married couple, but then they include a third person and
Speaker 1: become a triad. If one of them really starts to
Speaker 1: fall for the other one, that that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: the the initial couple is going to break up and
Speaker 1: that couple is going to split off. That's not polyamory
Speaker 1: and that's not how it works. So I wonder what
Speaker 1: kind of mechanism they have to deal with checks and balances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's got to be something they did do. There was
Speaker 1: one study in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality in
Speaker 1: two thousand five that said, um, polyamorous couples who had
Speaker 1: been together more than ten years listed love and connection
Speaker 1: as the most important factors in their longevity, and monogamous
Speaker 1: couples listed religion and family as the most important reasons. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was sort of clumsily trying to say.
Speaker 1: The only thing keeping you together is the fact that
Speaker 1: your husband or wife hasn't slept with someone else. Are
Speaker 1: your parents are going to be disappoint Yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: those aren't reasons to stay mary, you know. So, Um,
Speaker 1: we already touched on also the idea that if you
Speaker 1: are in a polyamorous relationship, you you know, you might
Speaker 1: not share a lot of interests with your primary, but
Speaker 1: you've got the ones that your primary is not interested
Speaker 1: in you get to share with your secondary or your
Speaker 1: tertiary or whatever. Right, Um, so just having more people
Speaker 1: to spend life with. That's another benefit of it. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of drawbacks to being in a polyamorous relationship
Speaker 1: that I think any polyamorous would readily admit as well
Speaker 1: UM to be in in a quote fringe sexual sexuality,
Speaker 1: I think living your romantic and reproductive life. As we'll
Speaker 1: talk about a minute, UM in complete contrast two societal
Speaker 1: values is UM. It's gotta be tough. Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 1: over the years acceptance of this is UM been zilch too.
Speaker 1: Better be saying now zilts to confusion to UM. These
Speaker 1: days a little more open minded about things. I did
Speaker 1: see one pole here from I think it was in
Speaker 1: April of this year actually, where they pulled about heterosexuals
Speaker 1: on how willing they would be on a scale of
Speaker 1: one to seven to commit non monogamous acts like adding
Speaker 1: a third party to the relationship, and depending on the scenario,
Speaker 1: sixteen percent of women and thirty one percent of men
Speaker 1: chose four or higher on that scale, would ask if
Speaker 1: they'd be willing to pursue like try something like that
Speaker 1: out basically, so it's I don't know, lower did you
Speaker 1: did you say before that? There was this two thousand
Speaker 1: two survey that found that UM, that predicted as much
Speaker 1: as ten percent. Yeah, people, that's high compared to other
Speaker 1: studies I've seen. I saw like the most maybe four percent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine ten percent. There's just no UM because
Speaker 1: I mean I'm pretty hip, you know, I know what's
Speaker 1: going on, and I would just be blown away if
Speaker 1: it turned out that one in ten people were in
Speaker 1: a polyamorous relationship and and just managed to keep it
Speaker 1: secret that much. I agree. Secrecy is a big part
Speaker 1: of this. And that's not to say that shame is
Speaker 1: a part of a polyamorous relationship, but secrecy is just
Speaker 1: out of necessity a UM a pretty big aspect of
Speaker 1: polyamorous relationships, mainly because, like we said, it's in stark
Speaker 1: contrast to social values, and if you've got a kid,
Speaker 1: you're at risk of having your kid taken away. Yeah. Plus,
Speaker 1: I mean you'd spend half your life explaining this to everybody,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, there was the one case and uh,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't find up any follow up about this
Speaker 1: young woman, but April what's your last name? Yeah, she
Speaker 1: was on the MTV show in the late nineties and
Speaker 1: had a child and had two men in her life.
Speaker 1: A triad and everyone was happy, the kid was healthy
Speaker 1: and happy, and everything was great, and the grandmother sued
Speaker 1: for custody and one it because the court basically made
Speaker 1: a moral judgment. So this is a depraved lifestyle. And
Speaker 1: this was in spite of the fact that the court
Speaker 1: sent its own shrinks to go evaluate the home and
Speaker 1: the family and didn't find that the kids were any
Speaker 1: in anything but a loving, supporting home and we're happy
Speaker 1: and healthy. Uh. Still it didn't matter because it was
Speaker 1: she was living a depraved lifestyle. So she lost her kid. Um.
Speaker 1: I can imagine that in almost any state in the Union,
Speaker 1: you would be at great risk of losing your kid
Speaker 1: if you came out as a polyamorous family. Probably it's
Speaker 1: one thing I think as far as society goes to
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, you guys, just go do your own thing.
Speaker 1: Whatever you floats your boat, that's fine, keep it out
Speaker 1: of our faces, keep your your little polyamorous lifestyle quiet.
Speaker 1: But if it turns out that there's kids that are
Speaker 1: being brought into that, like either they already existed or
Speaker 1: you're having kids with multiple partners in this polyamorous relationship,
Speaker 1: I think society's threshold for understanding and looking the other
Speaker 1: way really reaches an end for better for worse. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: so I think there is a real threat and there's
Speaker 1: there's a real threat still in part because there's very
Speaker 1: little scholarship on the impact that a polyamorous upbringing has
Speaker 1: on children. No, no one knows polyamorous will say, look, dude,
Speaker 1: you have no idea how much our child is loved.
Speaker 1: My wife loves our kid. I love our kid. Our
Speaker 1: wife loves our kid. So not only does our kid
Speaker 1: get to like be raised by two loving parents, our
Speaker 1: kid gets to be raised by three loving parents equally. Um,
Speaker 1: there's more of a division of labor. Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: just the kids great. And on the other side you'll
Speaker 1: find blog posts by people who are authorities on the
Speaker 1: other side saying no, there's just no way because you're
Speaker 1: you're at risk of a divorce. But it's a nontraditional divorce,
Speaker 1: whereas under a normal divorce we have a social structure
Speaker 1: to support kids who are going through that. With this,
Speaker 1: it's like that doesn't make any sense, and the kid's
Speaker 1: going to be have all sorts of issues. And then
Speaker 1: if you don't tell your kid while you're raising them,
Speaker 1: when they get to college and figure out what was
Speaker 1: going on, they're not going to trust you any longer. Like,
Speaker 1: but none of this, almost none of it is based
Speaker 1: on studies. It's all just moral judgments on one way
Speaker 1: or the other. Yeah, I think it's pretty funny. That's
Speaker 1: I bet the same people that I don't think a
Speaker 1: child should be raised by a single parent also probably
Speaker 1: think three or more. They're like, just two, not one,
Speaker 1: not three or four? Five? Two is perfect? Uh So,
Speaker 1: who are polyamorous? Um? Elizabeth Chef as a sociologist who's
Speaker 1: done a lot of interviewing, and she finds generally they
Speaker 1: are in their thirty sporties and fifties, generally white and
Speaker 1: liberal and educated, many of them highly educated master's degrees
Speaker 1: to the tune of like, compared to eight percent forty
Speaker 1: percent master's degrees. Yeah, that's what I saw, compared to
Speaker 1: eight percent in the general population. And she says, rarely
Speaker 1: are they religious, but when they do, it's usually paganism
Speaker 1: or unitarian universalism. Apparently there's a lot of overlap with
Speaker 1: the b D s M and cosplay communities. And here's
Speaker 1: another term, hunting the unicorn. Did you come across that, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I'm disappointed in myself. That is. Um. She
Speaker 1: said that a lot of couples are introduced or interested
Speaker 1: in polyamory by start looking for a woman bisexual when
Speaker 1: to enter their relationship. So I want to try ad,
Speaker 1: I want two women. The woman's like I would like
Speaker 1: a woman as well, and so let's go out and
Speaker 1: find that. That's that's called hunting the unicorn. What else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? I mean I did look up
Speaker 1: a little bit of the history of this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and it's there was Have you ever heard of the
Speaker 1: Oneida Commune? Yeah, I think we touched upon the communism.
Speaker 1: Oh really, I think so? Well, they were. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a cult, but um, it's super interesting because it
Speaker 1: was in the eighteen forties in upstate New York and Oneida,
Speaker 1: New York where you usually don't in the eighteen forties
Speaker 1: here about things like um, free sex and polyamory. But
Speaker 1: that's exactly what was going on there. A lawyer named
Speaker 1: John Humphrey noise Uh basically started of Free Love Commune
Speaker 1: in the eighteen forties in New York, and by some accounts,
Speaker 1: it was a very um feminist group because women were
Speaker 1: encouraged to only have sex when they wanted to, which
Speaker 1: you know, in the eighteen forties that wasn't the norm um.
Speaker 1: But it was also, as it turned out, not so
Speaker 1: great in many ways because because they had sex with teenagers,
Speaker 1: and the more I read about it, at first it
Speaker 1: sounded like this commune, and then ten minutes later I
Speaker 1: was like, no, this was a cult and it had
Speaker 1: religious undertones. And the weirdest thing out of all is
Speaker 1: Oneita silverware that is still popular today. It was formed
Speaker 1: from that commune. I remember hearing it as like some
Speaker 1: sort of cautionary tailor whatever. Yeah, and there was only
Speaker 1: like three hundred of them, but apparently they I think
Speaker 1: it was all about having lots of kids to keep
Speaker 1: that commune going. That was the main reason. But they
Speaker 1: did not encourage monogamy at all. They they shunned it.
Speaker 1: If you were caught, like really rooting down with one person,
Speaker 1: they were like, no, no, no, no, no no no,
Speaker 1: you can't do that. Go off and have sex with
Speaker 1: someone else, right now, get your priorities in order, basically,
Speaker 1: get your head together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a documentary
Speaker 1: on that clan that'll be interesting. Uh, if you want
Speaker 1: to know more, about polyamory and other alternative lifestyles. You
Speaker 1: can search those in the search bar at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. And uh, since I said search bar,
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. Here's more on T.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, listen to T and a massive te connoistur
Speaker 1: for the last seven years. I was really impressed. I
Speaker 1: expected to listen and pick out a bunch of little mistakes,
Speaker 1: but I was pleasantly surprised. However, you guys did leave
Speaker 1: out what I can't wait to sec them this one. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think so, Aaron sounds like a nice dude. Um.
Speaker 1: You left out one major category of T though, and
Speaker 1: it spelled pu dash e r H. Pu air is
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna say, he said. It's probably the most
Speaker 1: unique T out of the six types tom to the
Speaker 1: Union Province of China, is the only T to be fermented,
Speaker 1: not oxidized. What this means is that pu air is
Speaker 1: and I know that's wrong, is able to be aged
Speaker 1: for years and years and taste better as ages, just
Speaker 1: like wine. And some pure air on the market that's
Speaker 1: several decades old goes for thousands of dollars per disc disc.
Speaker 1: Yes disc traditionally puerre is stone pressed into a disc
Speaker 1: form called a being cha and is sold um in
Speaker 1: that disc form that it has a forced floor flavor
Speaker 1: and has brooded about two five to two and ten
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, it sounds good, um, he said. I
Speaker 1: could go on and on, but that suggests great job
Speaker 1: over all, guys, and now it's tough to fit at all.
Speaker 1: One episode t could easily be its own college class
Speaker 1: with all the cultural history behind it. Take care. And
Speaker 1: that is from Aaron Krauss, whose developer at the Society
Speaker 1: dot org. That is t h E s O c
Speaker 1: I E t e A dot org. Thanks a lot,
Speaker 1: Aaron and your cohorts at the Society. Sounds neat. Uh,
Speaker 1: it sounds like the one needed call. Mm hmm yeah,
Speaker 1: I like it. Okay, Uh. If you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can Let's see what can
Speaker 1: you do? Chuck Tweet to us at s y s
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