Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, and there's
Speaker 1: this stuff you should know. That's right. How all of
Speaker 1: our wives and girlfriends are in the next room. Right,
Speaker 1: How are you doing? Man? I'm good. I found this
Speaker 1: topic to be super interesting. And um, I should say
Speaker 1: up front that our our joky nous that we always
Speaker 1: include in every podcast almost um is not meant to
Speaker 1: be disrespectful to anyone who is in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're not here to like just kind of look
Speaker 1: at your relationship from the outside and poke at it
Speaker 1: and make fun of it or light of it. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying yourself and everybody's on board and no one's
Speaker 1: being hurt, then we always say to each his own,
Speaker 1: that's right. But from the outside, uh, polyamory might seem
Speaker 1: like a very strange arrangement. Well, I think to most
Speaker 1: people it seems like swinging, that's right. But it's not. No,
Speaker 1: it is not a lot of things. It's not cheating, right,
Speaker 1: it's not swinging, right, it's not um, it's not polygamy.
Speaker 1: It's not what was the other one. Well, it's not
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Um, it's not dentistry, right, 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 of for of monogamy,
Speaker 1: but that it includes more than two people in this
Speaker 1: monogamous relationship. Well 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, kick ends with people. So
Speaker 1: I ran across something that that's technically considered monogamish, as
Speaker 1: Dan Savage coined it. That sounds like a very new word, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Dan Savage coined it. Yeah, But which means
Speaker 1: that I'm probably not gonna put too much greens. But
Speaker 1: in the from what I understand and this I got
Speaker 1: this from a polyamory site called um more than two
Speaker 1: more than two Franklin vow is how I'm pronouncing his
Speaker 1: last name, vow. Yeah. And I'm not kidding when I
Speaker 1: say it's a great side if you are interested in
Speaker 1: exploring polyamory. It's super thorough and very very helpful. I
Speaker 1: would think, yeah, just by going through it. And the
Speaker 1: impression that I got from him from his f a
Speaker 1: Q at least is that it is a It's like
Speaker 1: the people in a polyamorous relationship are committed to one another,
Speaker 1: and that like they're rather in the same way that
Speaker 1: two people a couple come together to form a monogamous relationship.
Speaker 1: If you if you take that bubble and add another
Speaker 1: person or two other people or something like that, but
Speaker 1: there's still that bubble of monogamy, of commitment, of affection um,
Speaker 1: that that is more close to the the the definition
Speaker 1: of polyamory. Now in real life, I'm sure it's different, um,
Speaker 1: and that there are different aspects to it or whatever.
Speaker 1: But supposedly that's what I gathered. But I think, uh,
Speaker 1: polyamorous couples say, why would you even use a word
Speaker 1: like monogamy when it means means more than one committed?
Speaker 1: Is the word I should. Yeah, I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the trip. And so Dan Savage come on monogamous. 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 all lived together, they were all in
Speaker 1: a committed relationship with one another. UM. I mean we'll
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: it's really I mean, we could go over a million scenarios. Really,
Speaker 1: I was starting to break him all down, but it's
Speaker 1: like you really is whatever you can work out between
Speaker 1: yourselves is polyann But the point is is ummm, to
Speaker 1: maybe put it on less fine of a point, but
Speaker 1: to get a little closer potentially to a correct definition.
Speaker 1: Polyamory is not monogamy because there's more than two people, right,
Speaker 1: and it's not cheating because all of the people involved
Speaker 1: are on the on the same page about what they're doing,
Speaker 1: what what they're doing, what their partners are doing, what
Speaker 1: everybody's doing. Everyone's aware and consenting, that's right. So it's
Speaker 1: between those two things. So this is the opposite of
Speaker 1: the E s P podcast, where apparently we never even
Speaker 1: said what ESP stood for. Yeah, a couple of people like,
Speaker 1: we're like, hey, I didn't catch a ESP stands for?
Speaker 1: Can you tell us? And I'm like, well, go listen again,
Speaker 1: and enough people said it that I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: extrasensory perception, by the way, And then we have just
Speaker 1: now defined polyamory for the last ten minutes, so I
Speaker 1: think we're covered. I think we finally landed on it. Though. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very fascinating thing, and um, here's how it works. Well, Uh,
Speaker 1: I think that the let's talk about why people are polyamorous, right,
Speaker 1: So people who are polyamorous probably tend to think that
Speaker 1: monogamy is not for them. And if you're speaking from
Speaker 1: a um like a evolutionary perspective, monogamy is kind of
Speaker 1: a puzzlement should we talk about that. Yeah, so monogamy
Speaker 1: looking through the lens of natural selection, doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: evolutionarily because it lowers a male's ability to um, It
Speaker 1: lowers his number of opportunities 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: are 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 and at the and enough time to
Speaker 1: really 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, well specifically mammals too. Yeah, about
Speaker 1: five percent of the four thousand mammal species give or
Speaker 1: take UM, only about five percent are monogamous or mate
Speaker 1: for life. And so again, if you are strictly looking
Speaker 1: at it from the selfish gene theory, like the whole
Speaker 1: point would be to run around and copulate with as
Speaker 1: many females as you possibly can so that you can
Speaker 1: have more and more chances of spreading your genetic line
Speaker 1: and then, like you said, hence carry on the species.
Speaker 1: So did not do that to just couple with one
Speaker 1: other person and and have maybe a few kids rather
Speaker 1: than thirty with a bunch of different males and females.
Speaker 1: Right again, it doesn't really kind of make sense. So
Speaker 1: they've tried to explain this, and there are some theories,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, one of them is that, um,
Speaker 1: if you are a rival male, one of the things
Speaker 1: you have to do to get with another female. I
Speaker 1: think that's what biologists call it getting with um you
Speaker 1: have to kill her offspring, because while she's nursing, she
Speaker 1: can't ovulate, and therefore you can't reproduce with her. But
Speaker 1: kill her kids. She's gonna stop nursing, she'll be sad,
Speaker 1: But then you guys can have your own offspring. If
Speaker 1: you are a male that's staying behind after you reproduce
Speaker 1: with a female, then you have the chance to defend
Speaker 1: your offspring from being killed by arrival males. Explanation from
Speaker 1: monogamy yep, and that was in the proceedings of the
Speaker 1: National Academy of Sciences and um. They found that out
Speaker 1: by studying behaviors of two d and thirty primate species. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they felt so good about it that the guy
Speaker 1: who ran the study said, this is it. We now
Speaker 1: finally know for sure. But that's not necessarily true because
Speaker 1: there's another really great theory where they actually published in
Speaker 1: the journal Science and Studied Mammals, which is way more
Speaker 1: than the other study. H. D. H. Lucas and Tim
Speaker 1: Klutenbrock of Cambridge University, and they said, Uh, it's really
Speaker 1: about low density and females. It's that simple. Like when
Speaker 1: there aren't many females, that's where monogamy happens, right when
Speaker 1: they're spread out, because they beat up on each other
Speaker 1: when they're in the same place female. Um, so they
Speaker 1: have to spread out geographically. Well, if you're a guy
Speaker 1: who's just running from female the female, the female, you
Speaker 1: don't know what she's doing while you're not around, so
Speaker 1: you don't know whether those kids are yours or not.
Speaker 1: So the best way to make sure that they're your kids,
Speaker 1: is to hang around and be monogamous. So it's it's
Speaker 1: really similar to the other theory, the you're staying around
Speaker 1: to defend the kids, and this one it's a little
Speaker 1: less magnanimous. You're staying around to make sure that the
Speaker 1: female doesn't run around on you. Right. But then I
Speaker 1: saw a third theory that also makes sense to um,
Speaker 1: and that is that the idea of males staying around
Speaker 1: to help raise kids was a strategy developed by lesser
Speaker 1: males in the primate kingdom. So like the alpha male,
Speaker 1: the top guys, they're having no trouble, they can go
Speaker 1: wherever they want. They're getting plenty of action. Right, Hey,
Speaker 1: I can care for the kids exactly. And that that's
Speaker 1: a strategy that caught the attention of females who otherwise
Speaker 1: wouldn't have made it with these guys because they're less
Speaker 1: nestment and uh instead said, yeah, he's a dork, I
Speaker 1: can't stand his bowtie in a short sleeve shirt, but
Speaker 1: he does do a pretty good job with the kids,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to be monogamous with this guy. So
Speaker 1: three pretty good theories to explain monogamy. None of them
Speaker 1: hold water for polyamorous. No, and and everyone under the
Speaker 1: age of thirty five is now looking up. Who less
Speaker 1: nestment is it was? That was a great reference, man. Thanks,
Speaker 1: it just popped up. Um alright. So the benefits, I believe,
Speaker 1: is what we were talking about before we delved into
Speaker 1: the theory. And I've always said monogamy too, is not
Speaker 1: a natural thing, and that the reward of saying with
Speaker 1: one person is partly because of that. You know, you
Speaker 1: it's not a natural thing. You sacrifice something in some
Speaker 1: way by being with someone, but the payoff is rich.
Speaker 1: That is eyes words, Chuck. So we'll see if I
Speaker 1: end up married in twenty years, I'll confirm all this.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, of course, I will be UM. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the benefits. It is not just
Speaker 1: about UM having sex with more than one person. Now,
Speaker 1: that's definitely part of it. It is part of it, Um,
Speaker 1: But it is also about UM support in a greater
Speaker 1: you know, it takes a village, they say, So if
Speaker 1: you have a larger village, then you're gonna have more
Speaker 1: support and care and love and emotional support. UM. All
Speaker 1: that stuff right, exactly. And it's not polyamorous relationship or
Speaker 1: group doesn't necessarily have sex with one another everybody. Um.
Speaker 1: Sex is a big component of it, but you also
Speaker 1: have what are called polly effective relationships where like, let's
Speaker 1: say you have what you call it a tryad. Is
Speaker 1: that a polly um is three people? Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: what polyamorous call it. UM. So let's say you have
Speaker 1: a triad where neither of the of two women and
Speaker 1: a guy, and neither of the women are bisexual, but
Speaker 1: they're still in a polyamorous relationship. They would be poly effective,
Speaker 1: like they have an emotional connection to one another like
Speaker 1: a couple would, but they're not sexually involved with one another.
Speaker 1: They're poly effective. That's another component of a polyamorous relationship.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing is not just satisfying your every
Speaker 1: sexual need with a bunch of different people. UM. It's
Speaker 1: also that I think they believe that you have a
Speaker 1: lot of different needs that one person can't necessarily satisfy
Speaker 1: beyond sex as well. It could be cultural interests, it
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: person rather than placing all that on one single person
Speaker 1: for better for worse. Yeah, I looked at an example
Speaker 1: on the what was it two for one, no two
Speaker 1: or more more than more than two more more more
Speaker 1: than two dot com? I looked at one. They had
Speaker 1: a lot of just stories and examples of people, like
Speaker 1: real stories. And this one lady UM was married to
Speaker 1: a guy who quite simply was not into a lot
Speaker 1: of the things she was into. Um, she was big
Speaker 1: into the theater, I think in museums. Her husband didn't
Speaker 1: like that. Uh. They developed into a polyamorous relationship, and
Speaker 1: 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 interests 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 with, and go with
Speaker 1: the old high school boyfriend. That's a neat story. She
Speaker 1: was like, well, because he's really needy and my husband
Speaker 1: isn't and we have a lot of great stuff. Uh
Speaker 1: So it is literally, like you said, satisfying all my
Speaker 1: needs through multiple people, because who can expect one person
Speaker 1: to be that soul mate that gives you everything you need,
Speaker 1: and these suckers who are in monogamous marriages are just uh,
Speaker 1: sacrificing certain parts of their life, like going to museums
Speaker 1: or whatever. If it was this lady. So everybody, we're
Speaker 1: about to satisfy all of your needs with this commercial break.
Speaker 1: He now all right and we're back. So chuck um.
Speaker 1: We 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 the twenties, but relationships get
Speaker 1: a little more complicated as you get older and you
Speaker 1: get more responsibilities. So if you're married and you're in
Speaker 1: your thirties or forties or fifties, you know it is
Speaker 1: or any kind of committed relationship, you know, it's logistically
Speaker 1: tough sometimes well yeah, because you're like I want this,
Speaker 1: and this other person who you share half of your
Speaker 1: estate with says no, I want this, or I want
Speaker 1: to do this, or I want to do that, or
Speaker 1: I want a vacation here there exactly, just in keeping
Speaker 1: up with schedules. It's all very complicated. It's all compromise.
Speaker 1: There's one big, complicent compromise, and you're compromising between two
Speaker 1: people's opinions. Imagine just throwing in one extra opinion that
Speaker 1: differs from the other two equal weight exactly. So that's
Speaker 1: basically what we're getting at is, if you think your
Speaker 1: marriage is complicated, polyamory can be even more complicated it
Speaker 1: And they admit that it can be more complicated, but
Speaker 1: they say that, Uh. And this is really what I
Speaker 1: gathered from reading that site in a bunch of articles,
Speaker 1: is that one to one you want to meet a
Speaker 1: great communicator, go talk to someone in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the chief requirements of polyamory, be
Speaker 1: able to talk about all this stuff I've seen it
Speaker 1: put as you have highly evolved communication skills. I would
Speaker 1: not a good polyamora man like I wouldn't last two days.
Speaker 1: You know, I stink. I stink at communicating. I think
Speaker 1: I'm just doing fine, 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: in that kind of thing. But you also have to
Speaker 1: be honest about your feelings. One of the things that
Speaker 1: polyamorous face, just like anybody else's jealousy. We did a
Speaker 1: pretty good episode on jealousy a while back, Jealousy with
Speaker 1: a question mark um, and so they deal with jealousy
Speaker 1: and and and they deal with it apparently ideally. Again
Speaker 1: this is from more than two dot com in a
Speaker 1: way where it would take a pretty intelligent, calm person
Speaker 1: to approach the feelings of jealousy like this, which is
Speaker 1: basically deconstructing it. So the guy at more than two
Speaker 1: dot com I kind of gave a good example where
Speaker 1: he was saying, um, you're in a polyamorous relationship and
Speaker 1: it bugs you when your spouse kisses. There are other
Speaker 1: spouse in front of you, right, And he says the
Speaker 1: correct thing to do basically here is to stop and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: why does that make me jealous? And if you are
Speaker 1: honest with yourself, you'll say, well, it makes me jealous
Speaker 1: because I worried that the your spouse. And by the way,
Speaker 1: in a polyamorous relationship, the plural of spouse is spice. Yes,
Speaker 1: so if you're married to two people, you have two spice. Um,
Speaker 1: which is kind of funny. Sure you got spicy. I
Speaker 1: love life anyway. When the other spouse, if if you're
Speaker 1: worried that your spouse is kissing his other spouse, he's
Speaker 1: going to think that that spouse is a better kisser
Speaker 1: than you and think, well, that spouses, if he's better
Speaker 1: kisser then you he wants to be with him more
Speaker 1: than me. And if he wants to be with him
Speaker 1: more than me, then uh, he's gonna leave me. Is
Speaker 1: often rooted in your own insecurities. So what this guy
Speaker 1: was saying is if you spell us out, you realize
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of hidden assumptions and your jealous feelings,
Speaker 1: and that when you confront them, you will probably discard
Speaker 1: a lot of them. If you find that, no, this
Speaker 1: is correct, this person really would leave me because that
Speaker 1: person is a better kisser. Um, then you would ask yourself,
Speaker 1: do I want to be with somebody who would leave
Speaker 1: me because somebody else is a better kisser? Yeah? Um.
Speaker 1: So if you can approach this kind of stuff in
Speaker 1: this manner, that maybe you'd be a decent polyamorous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lady named Terry Connelly, a professor of psychology
Speaker 1: and women's Studies at University of Michigan. Uh go Wolverines,
Speaker 1: and she's she's one of the well, not one of
Speaker 1: the only people. But there haven't been many studies on polyamory. Um.
Speaker 1: One reason is because it's underreported in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases because people some people may not like to be
Speaker 1: uh really out front with it for reasons. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: very good reasons. But she did some studies and polls
Speaker 1: and things, and she found that jealousy is, in fact,
Speaker 1: she said, quote much higher end quote among monogamous pairs
Speaker 1: than non monogamous ones. And I think for the reasons
Speaker 1: you just said, um, she also found um. She interviewed
Speaker 1: seventeen hundred individuals Polly, I'm sorry, monogamous individuals, hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty swingers, hundred and seventy people in an open relationship,
Speaker 1: and three hundred polyamorous individuals and said that polyamorous tended
Speaker 1: to have equal or higher levels of sexual satisfaction. Uh
Speaker 1: and people in open relationships tended to have lower sexual
Speaker 1: satisfaction than their monogamous piers and polyamorous peers so, and
Speaker 1: we should say open is not the same as polyamorous. Again,
Speaker 1: in a polyamorous group, the people in the group form
Speaker 1: a closed hole. In an open relationship, it's like there's
Speaker 1: two people who are connected, but they're also facing outward
Speaker 1: and the whole world up for grabs, basically right, in
Speaker 1: an open relationship, you know, it's not so in polyamorous
Speaker 1: is not an open relationship, and open relationship 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. You knew that, yeah, because
Speaker 1: you supposedly if your husband died in battle, it was
Speaker 1: just sort of understood that that woman would then take
Speaker 1: up with another serviceman. Correct, I guess, but with another
Speaker 1: married serviceman or what? I don't know about that. Well,
Speaker 1: apparently it started out with like we called it, 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 told the story about the Atlantis 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 just
Speaker 1: the Atlanti singers, they'd just be like my mom would
Speaker 1: just remember it was so like troublesome to her, and
Speaker 1: how she kept the whistle next to the phone and
Speaker 1: would blow a whistle into it. It's so funny to
Speaker 1: think about, 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 are
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 monogumous 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 up
Speaker 1: front about it in polyamory. Yeah, and and they kind
Speaker 1: of have to be, and they kind of just make
Speaker 1: it 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 it has a practical application and 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 monogous 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. You go off and your cheat and you
Speaker 1: 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 you, 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 and a polyamorous for
Speaker 1: relationships are rules. Yeah, if you haven't picked up on
Speaker 1: that yet, Yeah, you gotta have the ground rules laid down. Um,
Speaker 1: how much time are you going to spend with this
Speaker 1: person versus that person? Um? All the way down to
Speaker 1: rules in the bedroom. Um. It sounds a little gross,
Speaker 1: but fluid swapping. Well, it's so there's a thing. One
Speaker 1: 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, right,
Speaker 1: like you break the twister game out and they show up, right.
Speaker 1: So the the the the difference between the two is
Speaker 1: with the hierarchical relationship, with the hierarchical format, the the
Speaker 1: person that your spouse, the core group, the core couple
Speaker 1: of people. They're the ones who are gonna get the
Speaker 1: most time, the most attention. They're gonna have more power
Speaker 1: to say veto the others. Yeah, Um in a and
Speaker 1: the other relationship that forms like a try it or
Speaker 1: a quad or six people or something like that, where
Speaker 1: everybody is equally weighted. That's that that that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have like a higher there's no hierarchical structure of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it depends on how you want to structure things.
Speaker 1: They're both completely valid as polyamorous relationships. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: you know, up to you basically. And so you said
Speaker 1: the veto power is a big deal. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's always to be honored. Right. So with if um,
Speaker 1: somebody is is is meeting somebody new and wants to
Speaker 1: date them. They basically have to go to the rest
Speaker 1: of the group that they're committed to in this committed
Speaker 1: relationship with and say I got this person, I'd like
Speaker 1: to bring them unto the group. I don't know this,
Speaker 1: but I can imagine that is a huge thing, especially
Speaker 1: in a long established um polyamorous relationship, you know, like
Speaker 1: bringing a new person in all but that would be
Speaker 1: really big deal. I can imagine being that dude and
Speaker 1: showing up right, It's like the worst job interview of
Speaker 1: all time, especially if you don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Plus in the hierarchical structure, then I can imagine the
Speaker 1: veto power probably just rests with the two core people,
Speaker 1: maybe slightly in the secondary people, probably not at all.
Speaker 1: In the tertiary people, they're just there for twister. But
Speaker 1: with the um the s t I thing. Um, if
Speaker 1: you are what's called body fluid, uh monogamous, yeah, which
Speaker 1: I was kind of joking about that it sounds gross,
Speaker 1: it's really not at all. That's basically saying that we
Speaker 1: can have sex with each other without condoms. And I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm saying you and me. I thought you were talking
Speaker 1: to somebody behind. But um, maybe the secondary and I
Speaker 1: have to wear condoms and we don't exchange those fluids
Speaker 1: so intimately and freely. Or um, if you're in a group,
Speaker 1: like everybody in the group might be body fluid monogamous,
Speaker 1: but that if they are agreed that they can go
Speaker 1: outside of the group, they would not be. Or if
Speaker 1: it's a hierarchical structure, yeah, that primary couple would just
Speaker 1: be body flu monogamous and everybody else would be right,
Speaker 1: you'd have to worry conovering. Yeah, Or it may not
Speaker 1: even involve sex. Maybe your your secondaries or you go
Speaker 1: on dates with and you can um, you know, go
Speaker 1: to first and second base and that's where it ends.
Speaker 1: Like it's really all about the people in the relationship
Speaker 1: working out what works best for them. All right, So
Speaker 1: let's take a break here and talk more about the
Speaker 1: polyamory right after this. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Um. It's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I found interesting about polyamory
Speaker 1: um was that they had to coin some terms because
Speaker 1: they were really breaking new ground here and trying things
Speaker 1: with relation. There's a whole glossary two or more. Spice
Speaker 1: is the plural of spouse. Um. And then there's a
Speaker 1: word called compersion that's very much associated with polyamory, and
Speaker 1: it is basically the mirror image of jealousy. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: being super happy that you're primary has found someone else
Speaker 1: that they really love and are satisfied with. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: not just your primary, anybody your polyamorous relationship with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that they've found happiness with somebody else. You're happy for
Speaker 1: them because of that. So yeah, that's not a normal
Speaker 1: thing for most people, especially people in traditional monogamous relationships.
Speaker 1: So polyamorous people kind of, I guess stumbled upon this
Speaker 1: thing and had to come up with the name for it,
Speaker 1: and they call it compersion. Yeah. And if you know,
Speaker 1: if you think to yourself as a monogamous person, well,
Speaker 1: what you know, this person goes off your wife all
Speaker 1: of a sudden is sleeping with another man. What's to
Speaker 1: keep her from really falling in love with them to
Speaker 1: the 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 do.
Speaker 1: That marriage is like the marital contract that you feel
Speaker 1: like you have to stay you know, true too, you know,
Speaker 1: like in a regular marriage, you should want to be
Speaker 1: with your husband your wife, like it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: the piece of paper says. Um. I would guess, and
Speaker 1: again I don't know. I would guess that polyamorousts have
Speaker 1: some sort of structure or mechanism to deal with that,
Speaker 1: Like if, especially if there is a if that happens
Speaker 1: where somebody starts out as a married couple, but then
Speaker 1: they include a third person and become a triad. If
Speaker 1: one of them really starts to fall for the other one,
Speaker 1: that that doesn't mean that the the initial couple is
Speaker 1: going to break up and that couple is going to
Speaker 1: split off. That's not polyamory. That's not how it works.
Speaker 1: So I wonder what kind of mechanism they have to
Speaker 1: deal with checks and balances. Yeah, there's got to be
Speaker 1: something they did do. There was one study in the
Speaker 1: Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality in two thousand five that
Speaker 1: said um polyamorous couples who had been together more than
Speaker 1: ten years listed love and connection as the most important
Speaker 1: factors in their longevity and monogamous couples listed religion and
Speaker 1: family as the most important reasons. Uh, and that's what
Speaker 1: I was sort of clumsily trying to say. The only
Speaker 1: thing keeping you together is the fact that your husband
Speaker 1: or wife hasn't slept with someone else. Are your parents
Speaker 1: are going to be disappointed? Yeah, it's I mean, those
Speaker 1: aren't reasons to stay married, you know. So, UM we
Speaker 1: already touched on also the idea that if you are
Speaker 1: in a polyamorous relationship, you you know, you might not
Speaker 1: share a lot of interests with your primary, but you've
Speaker 1: got the ones that your primary is not interested in
Speaker 1: you get to share with your secondary or your tertiary
Speaker 1: or whatever. Right. Um. So just having more people to
Speaker 1: spend life with, that's another benefit of it. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of drawbacks to being in a polyamorous relationship that
Speaker 1: I think any polyamorous would readily admit as well. Um
Speaker 1: to be in in a quote fringe sexual sexuality, I
Speaker 1: think living your romantic and reproductive life, as we'll talk
Speaker 1: about a minute, um in complete contrast to societal values
Speaker 1: is um. That'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 peaked now zilts to confusion to UM
Speaker 1: these days a little more open minded about things. I
Speaker 1: did see one pole here from I think it was
Speaker 1: in April of this year actually, where they pulled about
Speaker 1: heterosexuals on how willing they would be on a scale
Speaker 1: of one to seven to commit non monogamous acts like
Speaker 1: adding a third party to the relationship, and depending on
Speaker 1: the scenario, sixtent of women and of men chose four
Speaker 1: or higher on that scale, would ask if they'd be
Speaker 1: willing to pursue and like try something like that out basically,
Speaker 1: So it's I wonder before 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 it the most, maybe
Speaker 1: four percent. Yeah, I can't imagine ten percent. There's just
Speaker 1: no way, UM, because I mean I'm pretty hip, you know,
Speaker 1: I know what's going on, and I would just be
Speaker 1: blown away if it turned out that one in ten
Speaker 1: people were in a polyamorous relationship and and just managed
Speaker 1: to keep it secret that much secrecy is a big
Speaker 1: part of this. And that's not to say that shame
Speaker 1: is a part of a polyamorous relationship, but secrecy is
Speaker 1: just out of necessity a um, a pretty big aspect
Speaker 1: of polyamorous relationships, mainly because, like we said, it's in
Speaker 1: stark 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 her 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 is 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. It's one
Speaker 1: thing I think as far as society goes to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you guys, just go do your own thing. Whatever floats
Speaker 1: your boat, that's fine, keep it out of our faces,
Speaker 1: keep your your little polyamorous lifestyle quiet. But if it
Speaker 1: turns out that there's kids that are being brought into that,
Speaker 1: like either they already existed or you're having kids with
Speaker 1: multiple partners in this polyamorous relationship, I think society's threshold
Speaker 1: for understanding and looking the other way really reaches an
Speaker 1: end for better for worse. Right. Um, So, I think
Speaker 1: there is a real threat, and there's there's a real
Speaker 1: threat still in part because there's very little scholarship on
Speaker 1: the impact that a polyamorous upbringing has on children. No
Speaker 1: no one knows. Polyamorous will say, look, dude, you have
Speaker 1: no idea how much our child is loved. My wife
Speaker 1: loves our kid. I love our kid. Our wife loves
Speaker 1: our kid. So not only does our kid get to
Speaker 1: like be raised by two loving parents, our kid gets
Speaker 1: to be raised by three loving parents equally. Um, there's
Speaker 1: more of a division of labor. Uh it's it's just
Speaker 1: the kids great. And on the other side you'll find
Speaker 1: blog posts by people who are authorities on the other
Speaker 1: side saying no, there's just no way because you're you're
Speaker 1: 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: gonna be have all sorts of issues. And then if
Speaker 1: you don't your kid while you're raising them, when they
Speaker 1: get to college and figure out what was going on,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna trust you any longer. Like, but none
Speaker 1: of this, almost none of it is based on studies.
Speaker 1: It's all just moral judgments one way or the other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty funny. That's I bet the same
Speaker 1: people that I don't think a child should be raised
Speaker 1: by a single parent also probably think three or more.
Speaker 1: They're like just two, not one, not three or four? Five?
Speaker 1: Two is perfect? Uh So, who are polyamorous um. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Chef as a sociologist who's done a lot of interviewing,
Speaker 1: and she finds generally they are in their thirties, forties
Speaker 1: and fifties, generally white and liberal and educated, many of
Speaker 1: them highly educated master's degrees to the tune of like
Speaker 1: compared to eight percent forty percent master's degrees. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I saw, compared to eight percent in the general population.
Speaker 1: And she says, rarely are they religious. When they do,
Speaker 1: it's usually paganism or Unitarian universalism. Apparently there's a lot
Speaker 1: of overlap with the b D s M and cosplay communities.
Speaker 1: And here's another term, hunting the unicorn. Did you come
Speaker 1: across that? No, I didn't. I'm disappointed in myself. That
Speaker 1: is um. She said that a lot of couples are
Speaker 1: introduced or interested in polyamory by start looking for a
Speaker 1: woman bisexual women to enter their relationship. So I want
Speaker 1: to try ad, I want two women. The woman's like
Speaker 1: I would like a woman as well, and so let's
Speaker 1: go out and find that. That's that's called hunting the unicorn.
Speaker 1: What else I got nothing else? I mean, I did
Speaker 1: look up a little bit of the history of this
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and it's there was Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of the Oneida Commune? Yeah, I think we touched
Speaker 1: upon the communism. Oh really, I think so? Well they were.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a cult, but um, it's super interesting
Speaker 1: because it was in the eighteen forties in upstate New
Speaker 1: York and not in New York where you usually don't
Speaker 1: in the eighteen forties here about things like um, free
Speaker 1: sex and polyamory. But that's exactly what was going on there.
Speaker 1: A lawyer named John Humphrey noise Uh basically started a
Speaker 1: free love commune in the eighteen forties in New York,
Speaker 1: and by some accounts, it was a very um feminist
Speaker 1: group because women were encouraged to only have sex when
Speaker 1: they wanted to, which you know, in the eighteen forties
Speaker 1: that wasn't the norm um. But it was also, as
Speaker 1: it turned out, not so great in many ways because
Speaker 1: they like had sex with teenagers. And the more I
Speaker 1: read about it, at first it sounded like this commune,
Speaker 1: and then ten minutes later I was like, no, this
Speaker 1: was a cult and it had religious undertones. And the
Speaker 1: weirdest thing out of all is Oneita silverware that is
Speaker 1: still popular today. It was formed from that commune. I
Speaker 1: remember hearing it as like some sort of cautionary tail
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah, and there was only like three hundred
Speaker 1: of them, but apparently they I think it was all
Speaker 1: about having lots of kids to keep that commune going
Speaker 1: was the main reason. But they did not encourage monogamy
Speaker 1: at all. They they shunned it. If you were caught,
Speaker 1: like really rooting down with one person, they were like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, you can't do that. Go off and have
Speaker 1: sex with someone else right now. Pities in order basically
Speaker 1: get your head together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a documentary
Speaker 1: on that clan. They'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 part how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. And uh, since I said search parts, time
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. Here's more on T. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: listen to T and a massive tea connoisseur for the
Speaker 1: last seven years. I was really impressed. I expected to
Speaker 1: listen and pick out a bunch of little mistakes, but
Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised. However, you guys did leave out
Speaker 1: but one, No, I don't think so. Aaron, sounds like
Speaker 1: a nice dude. Um, you left out one major category
Speaker 1: of T though, and it's spelled pu dash e r
Speaker 1: h pu air. That's what I'm gonna say, he said.
Speaker 1: It's probably the most unique t out of the six types.
Speaker 1: Home to the Union Province of China. There's only t
Speaker 1: to be fermented, not oxidized. What this means is that
Speaker 1: pe air is and I know that's wrong, is able
Speaker 1: to be aged for years and years and taste better
Speaker 1: as it ages, just like wine. And some pure air
Speaker 1: on the market that several decades old goes for thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars per disc disc. Yes disc. Traditionally, purere is
Speaker 1: stone pressed into a disc form called a being cha
Speaker 1: and is sold um in that disc form, and it
Speaker 1: has a forced floor flavor and has brooded about two
Speaker 1: five to two and ten degrees fahrenheit. I gotta try
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, it sounds good. Um, he said. I
Speaker 1: could go on and on, but that suggests a great
Speaker 1: job overall, guys, And now it's tough to fit it all.
Speaker 1: One episode could easily be its own college class with
Speaker 1: all the cultural history behind it. Take care. And that
Speaker 1: is from Aaron Krauss, who's developer at the Society dot org.
Speaker 1: That is t h E S O c I E
Speaker 1: t e A dot org. Thanks a lot, Aaron and
Speaker 1: your cohorts at the Society. Sounds neat. Uh. It sounds
Speaker 1: like the one needed call mm hmm yeah like it?
Speaker 1: Okay uh. If you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: you can let's see what can you do? Chuck tweet
Speaker 1: to us yeah s y s K podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to stuff Podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, and as always, join us
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