April 7, 2015 • 44 mins
In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck dive into the world of polyamory. Turns out polyamorists aren't weirdos and deviants, they're just regular folks looking for love from more than one person. Learn all you ever needed to know about this unique, but not so modern arrangement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, and there's
this stuff you should know. That's right. How all of
(00:21):
our wives and girlfriends are in the next room. Right,
How are you doing? Man? I'm good. I found this
topic to be super interesting. And um, I should say
up front that our our joky nous that we always
include in every podcast almost um is not meant to
be disrespectful to anyone who is in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah,
(00:44):
and we're not here to like just kind of look
at your relationship from the outside and poke at it
and make fun of it or light of it. If
you're enjoying yourself and everybody's on board and no one's
being hurt, then we always say to each his own,
that's right. But from the outside, uh, polyamory might seem
like a very strange arrangement. Well, I think to most
(01:07):
people it seems like swinging, that's right. But it's not. No,
it is not a lot of things. It's not cheating, right,
it's not swinging, right, it's not um, it's not polygamy.
It's not what was the other one. Well, it's not
a lot of things. Um, it's not dentistry, right, Well,
(01:28):
the point is that we should it's not promiscuous nous.
So what it is actually from? And I had no idea.
I think my conception of polyamory was that it was
basically kind of swinging and it was based on it
was I got the the root couple thing, but um
that it was mostly like a swinging kind of thing.
(01:50):
But from research, like I realized I was pretty far off.
Polyamory is in a very odd way of for of monogamy,
but that it includes more than two people in this
monogamous relationship. Well not necessarily monogamous either though, so because
there can be arrangements where you're allowed to go out
(02:13):
and do what you want, kick ends with people. So
I ran across something that that's technically considered monogamish, as
Dan Savage coined it. That sounds like a very new word, yeah,
I mean Dan Savage coined it. Yeah, But which means
that I'm probably not gonna put too much greens. But
in the from what I understand and this I got
this from a polyamory site called um more than two
(02:38):
more than two Franklin vow is how I'm pronouncing his
last name, vow. Yeah. And I'm not kidding when I
say it's a great side if you are interested in
exploring polyamory. It's super thorough and very very helpful. I
would think, yeah, just by going through it. And the
impression that I got from him from his f a
Q at least is that it is a It's like
(03:00):
the people in a polyamorous relationship are committed to one another,
and that like they're rather in the same way that
two people a couple come together to form a monogamous relationship.
If you if you take that bubble and add another
person or two other people or something like that, but
there's still that bubble of monogamy, of commitment, of affection um,
(03:25):
that that is more close to the the the definition
of polyamory. Now in real life, I'm sure it's different, um,
and that there are different aspects to it or whatever.
But supposedly that's what I gathered. But I think, uh,
polyamorous couples say, why would you even use a word
like monogamy when it means means more than one committed?
(03:50):
Is the word I should. Yeah, I think that's that's
the trip. And so Dan Savage come on monogamous. Yeah, yeah, Um,
I knew more about this um just because there was
a show I don't know if it was HBO, it's
probably Cinemax that UM followed some polyamorous relationships, and so
(04:13):
I knew that it was not just hey it's swinging,
or hey I just want an open relationship. It's you know,
I'm gonna tryad I've got a man and there's a
woman and there's another woman, or in another case, it
was two couples all lived together, they were all in
a committed relationship with one another. UM. I mean we'll
(04:34):
talk about there is no standard for a polyamorous relationship.
It can really be anything you want that works for you.
Sometimes it's bisexual, sometimes it's not. Sometimes um the two
it's really I mean, we could go over a million scenarios. Really,
I was starting to break him all down, but it's
(04:55):
like you really is whatever you can work out between
yourselves is polyann But the point is is ummm, to
maybe put it on less fine of a point, but
to get a little closer potentially to a correct definition.
Polyamory is not monogamy because there's more than two people, right,
and it's not cheating because all of the people involved
(05:16):
are on the on the same page about what they're doing,
what what they're doing, what their partners are doing, what
everybody's doing. Everyone's aware and consenting, that's right. So it's
between those two things. So this is the opposite of
the E s P podcast, where apparently we never even
said what ESP stood for. Yeah, a couple of people like,
(05:38):
we're like, hey, I didn't catch a ESP stands for?
Can you tell us? And I'm like, well, go listen again,
and enough people said it that I was like, oh,
extrasensory perception, by the way, And then we have just
now defined polyamory for the last ten minutes, so I
think we're covered. I think we finally landed on it. Though. Uh, yeah,
it's a very fascinating thing, and um, here's how it works. Well, Uh,
(06:05):
I think that the let's talk about why people are polyamorous, right,
So people who are polyamorous probably tend to think that
monogamy is not for them. And if you're speaking from
a um like a evolutionary perspective, monogamy is kind of
a puzzlement should we talk about that. Yeah, so monogamy
(06:28):
looking through the lens of natural selection, doesn't make sense
evolutionarily because it lowers a male's ability to um, It
lowers his number of opportunities to carry on his genetic
line and there for the species, right exactly. Yeah, and
it was long thought by some that UM it was
(06:50):
monogamy came about so males could assist in the raising
of the young UM. But there are some new theories
now that UM make that seem a little less likely
are actually a lot less likely. UM. And ironically, well
not ironically but coincidentally they were both published. They were
both published around the same time, these two new theories,
(07:14):
they came out and at the and enough time to
really kind of compete with one another. Yeah, because you know,
when you look around the the animal kingdom, among non
avian there are more birds that are supposedly cockroaches that
are monogamous. But if you if you rule out the
birds and the cockroaches, well specifically mammals too. Yeah, about
(07:34):
five percent of the four thousand mammal species give or
take UM, only about five percent are monogamous or mate
for life. And so again, if you are strictly looking
at it from the selfish gene theory, like the whole
point would be to run around and copulate with as
many females as you possibly can so that you can
(07:58):
have more and more chances of spreading your genetic line
and then, like you said, hence carry on the species.
So did not do that to just couple with one
other person and and have maybe a few kids rather
than thirty with a bunch of different males and females.
Right again, it doesn't really kind of make sense. So
they've tried to explain this, and there are some theories,
(08:20):
like you were saying, one of them is that, um,
if you are a rival male, one of the things
you have to do to get with another female. I
think that's what biologists call it getting with um you
have to kill her offspring, because while she's nursing, she
can't ovulate, and therefore you can't reproduce with her. But
(08:44):
kill her kids. She's gonna stop nursing, she'll be sad,
But then you guys can have your own offspring. If
you are a male that's staying behind after you reproduce
with a female, then you have the chance to defend
your offspring from being killed by arrival males. Explanation from
monogamy yep, and that was in the proceedings of the
(09:06):
National Academy of Sciences and um. They found that out
by studying behaviors of two d and thirty primate species. Uh.
And they felt so good about it that the guy
who ran the study said, this is it. We now
finally know for sure. But that's not necessarily true because
there's another really great theory where they actually published in
(09:30):
the journal Science and Studied Mammals, which is way more
than the other study. H. D. H. Lucas and Tim
Klutenbrock of Cambridge University, and they said, Uh, it's really
about low density and females. It's that simple. Like when
(09:51):
there aren't many females, that's where monogamy happens, right when
they're spread out, because they beat up on each other
when they're in the same place female. Um, so they
have to spread out geographically. Well, if you're a guy
who's just running from female the female, the female, you
don't know what she's doing while you're not around, so
you don't know whether those kids are yours or not.
(10:12):
So the best way to make sure that they're your kids,
is to hang around and be monogamous. So it's it's
really similar to the other theory, the you're staying around
to defend the kids, and this one it's a little
less magnanimous. You're staying around to make sure that the
female doesn't run around on you. Right. But then I
(10:35):
saw a third theory that also makes sense to um,
and that is that the idea of males staying around
to help raise kids was a strategy developed by lesser
males in the primate kingdom. So like the alpha male,
the top guys, they're having no trouble, they can go
wherever they want. They're getting plenty of action. Right, Hey,
(10:58):
I can care for the kids exactly. And that that's
a strategy that caught the attention of females who otherwise
wouldn't have made it with these guys because they're less
nestment and uh instead said, yeah, he's a dork, I
can't stand his bowtie in a short sleeve shirt, but
he does do a pretty good job with the kids,
(11:18):
So I'm going to be monogamous with this guy. So
three pretty good theories to explain monogamy. None of them
hold water for polyamorous. No, and and everyone under the
age of thirty five is now looking up. Who less
nestment is it was? That was a great reference, man. Thanks,
it just popped up. Um alright. So the benefits, I believe,
(11:40):
is what we were talking about before we delved into
the theory. And I've always said monogamy too, is not
a natural thing, and that the reward of saying with
one person is partly because of that. You know, you
it's not a natural thing. You sacrifice something in some
way by being with someone, but the payoff is rich.
That is eyes words, Chuck. So we'll see if I
(12:02):
end up married in twenty years, I'll confirm all this.
Just kidding, of course, I will be UM. All right,
So let's talk about the benefits. It is not just
about UM having sex with more than one person. Now,
that's definitely part of it. It is part of it, Um,
But it is also about UM support in a greater
(12:25):
you know, it takes a village, they say, So if
you have a larger village, then you're gonna have more
support and care and love and emotional support. UM. All
that stuff right, exactly. And it's not polyamorous relationship or
group doesn't necessarily have sex with one another everybody. Um.
(12:46):
Sex is a big component of it, but you also
have what are called polly effective relationships where like, let's
say you have what you call it a tryad. Is
that a polly um is three people? Yeah, but that's
what polyamorous call it. UM. So let's say you have
a triad where neither of the of two women and
a guy, and neither of the women are bisexual, but
(13:10):
they're still in a polyamorous relationship. They would be poly effective,
like they have an emotional connection to one another like
a couple would, but they're not sexually involved with one another.
They're poly effective. That's another component of a polyamorous relationship.
So the whole thing is not just satisfying your every
sexual need with a bunch of different people. UM. It's
(13:33):
also that I think they believe that you have a
lot of different needs that one person can't necessarily satisfy
beyond sex as well. It could be cultural interests, it
can be past times, it can be what have you.
And so the idea behind polyamory is you find those
people in your life who combined make that single ideal
(13:55):
person rather than placing all that on one single person
for better for worse. Yeah, I looked at an example
on the what was it two for one, no two
or more more than more than two more more more
than two dot com? I looked at one. They had
a lot of just stories and examples of people, like
(14:17):
real stories. And this one lady UM was married to
a guy who quite simply was not into a lot
of the things she was into. Um, she was big
into the theater, I think in museums. Her husband didn't
like that. Uh. They developed into a polyamorous relationship, and
she had another man that was really into that stuff,
an old high school boyfriend I think, and he uh
(14:41):
took up with another woman who had similar interests as him,
and they all worked it out. And you know, people say, well,
why don't you just leave the husband then, who you
don't have these things in common with, and go with
the old high school boyfriend. That's a neat story. She
was like, well, because he's really needy and my husband
isn't and we have a lot of great stuff. Uh
So it is literally, like you said, satisfying all my
(15:02):
needs through multiple people, because who can expect one person
to be that soul mate that gives you everything you need,
and these suckers who are in monogamous marriages are just uh,
sacrificing certain parts of their life, like going to museums
or whatever. If it was this lady. So everybody, we're
about to satisfy all of your needs with this commercial break.
(15:23):
He now all right and we're back. So chuck um.
(15:50):
We were talking about why people do polyamory, Right, do polyamory.
Let's talk about how polyamory actually works. Yeah, I mean,
anyone in a marriage that's you know, things get more
complicated as you get older. So I don't mean to
talk down to people in the twenties, but relationships get
(16:12):
a little more complicated as you get older and you
get more responsibilities. So if you're married and you're in
your thirties or forties or fifties, you know it is
or any kind of committed relationship, you know, it's logistically
tough sometimes well yeah, because you're like I want this,
and this other person who you share half of your
estate with says no, I want this, or I want
to do this, or I want to do that, or
(16:32):
I want a vacation here there exactly, just in keeping
up with schedules. It's all very complicated. It's all compromise.
There's one big, complicent compromise, and you're compromising between two
people's opinions. Imagine just throwing in one extra opinion that
differs from the other two equal weight exactly. So that's
(16:53):
basically what we're getting at is, if you think your
marriage is complicated, polyamory can be even more complicated it
And they admit that it can be more complicated, but
they say that, Uh. And this is really what I
gathered from reading that site in a bunch of articles,
is that one to one you want to meet a
great communicator, go talk to someone in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah.
(17:17):
So that's one of the chief requirements of polyamory, be
able to talk about all this stuff I've seen it
put as you have highly evolved communication skills. I would
not a good polyamora man like I wouldn't last two days.
You know, I stink. I stink at communicating. I think
(17:38):
I'm just doing fine, and it turns out, oh wait,
I didn't say that, Chuck. Is this bothering? You know?
But it's really bothering. Well that's another thing too. Not
only do you have to be a great communicator and
get your point across and read other people and listen
in that kind of thing. But you also have to
be honest about your feelings. One of the things that
polyamorous face, just like anybody else's jealousy. We did a
(18:02):
pretty good episode on jealousy a while back, Jealousy with
a question mark um, and so they deal with jealousy
and and and they deal with it apparently ideally. Again
this is from more than two dot com in a
way where it would take a pretty intelligent, calm person
(18:23):
to approach the feelings of jealousy like this, which is
basically deconstructing it. So the guy at more than two
dot com I kind of gave a good example where
he was saying, um, you're in a polyamorous relationship and
it bugs you when your spouse kisses. There are other
(18:44):
spouse in front of you, right, And he says the
correct thing to do basically here is to stop and say, Okay,
why does that make me jealous? And if you are
honest with yourself, you'll say, well, it makes me jealous
because I worried that the your spouse. And by the way,
in a polyamorous relationship, the plural of spouse is spice. Yes,
(19:06):
so if you're married to two people, you have two spice. Um,
which is kind of funny. Sure you got spicy. I
love life anyway. When the other spouse, if if you're
worried that your spouse is kissing his other spouse, he's
going to think that that spouse is a better kisser
than you and think, well, that spouses, if he's better
kisser then you he wants to be with him more
(19:28):
than me. And if he wants to be with him
more than me, then uh, he's gonna leave me. Is
often rooted in your own insecurities. So what this guy
was saying is if you spell us out, you realize
that there's a lot of hidden assumptions and your jealous feelings,
and that when you confront them, you will probably discard
a lot of them. If you find that, no, this
(19:49):
is correct, this person really would leave me because that
person is a better kisser. Um, then you would ask yourself,
do I want to be with somebody who would leave
me because somebody else is a better kisser? Yeah? Um.
So if you can approach this kind of stuff in
this manner, that maybe you'd be a decent polyamorous. Yeah,
there's a lady named Terry Connelly, a professor of psychology
(20:11):
and women's Studies at University of Michigan. Uh go Wolverines,
and she's she's one of the well, not one of
the only people. But there haven't been many studies on polyamory. Um.
One reason is because it's underreported in a lot of
cases because people some people may not like to be
uh really out front with it for reasons. Yeah, for
(20:32):
very good reasons. But she did some studies and polls
and things, and she found that jealousy is, in fact,
she said, quote much higher end quote among monogamous pairs
than non monogamous ones. And I think for the reasons
you just said, um, she also found um. She interviewed
seventeen hundred individuals Polly, I'm sorry, monogamous individuals, hundred and
(20:53):
fifty swingers, hundred and seventy people in an open relationship,
and three hundred polyamorous individuals and said that polyamorous tended
to have equal or higher levels of sexual satisfaction. Uh
and people in open relationships tended to have lower sexual
satisfaction than their monogamous piers and polyamorous peers so, and
we should say open is not the same as polyamorous. Again,
(21:16):
in a polyamorous group, the people in the group form
a closed hole. In an open relationship, it's like there's
two people who are connected, but they're also facing outward
and the whole world up for grabs, basically right, in
an open relationship, you know, it's not so in polyamorous
(21:37):
is not an open relationship, and open relationship is not polyamorous.
But a polyamorous relationship could include swinging, from what I understand, Yes,
and did you know that swinging apparently started among World
War two Air Force pilots. You knew that, yeah, because
you supposedly if your husband died in battle, it was
(22:01):
just sort of understood that that woman would then take
up with another serviceman. Correct, I guess, but with another
married serviceman or what? I don't know about that. Well,
apparently it started out with like we called it, wife
swapping in World War two in the Air Force, like
specifically the Air Force, not like oh, American servicemen, like
the Air Force. So I guess they know who it was. Um.
(22:24):
I think I told the story about the Atlantis Swingers
Club was very close to my phone number growing up,
and we used to I was a kid. I had
no idea what it meant, of course, and I used
to answer the phone and people would be like just
the Atlanti singers, they'd just be like my mom would
just remember it was so like troublesome to her, and
how she kept the whistle next to the phone and
would blow a whistle into it. It's so funny to
(22:47):
think about, man, very funny. I still remember that number two.
Do you remember your original phone number? Nine? Isn't that crazy? UM,
I'm sorry for anyone who has those numbers today, or
to the Atlantic Swingers Club, which is still operational, I'm sure. UM.
(23:09):
All right, Another thing we need to talk about are
s t I s UM sexually transmitted infection. You would
think that UM, it would be higher in a polyamorous relationship,
and they don't have statistics that may or may not
be the case. But what they are adamant about is
lots of testing and lots of access to those results
(23:32):
and being super open about those results. UM apparently much
more so than UM. People in monogumous relationships like new
new relationships. They found that people in new monogamous relationships
are often very shy about talking about their sexual history
and potential UM infections and things, whereas they're really up
(23:54):
front about it in polyamory. Yeah, and and they kind
of have to be, and they kind of just make
it a normal, open thing. But that's part of that open,
honest communication. That's that's kind of a hallmark of polyamory.
And even it has a practical application and defending against
s t I S. Yeah, they did. There was one
study in twelve in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that
(24:17):
found that um unfaithful like cheaters, not like uh, like
a cheater, you're in a monogous relationship. In your cheating,
they're much more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior
and to keep it a secret than someone in a
polyamorous relationship. You go off and your cheat and you
keep quiet and you do something super risky, you know,
(24:39):
hook up with someone randomly that you don't know. And
that's just that's kind of like the opposite of polyamory
from what it sounds like. Right, with polyamory, it's like, Okay,
it's you, it's time for your weekly STD test, right,
I want to see the paper, and we're not hooking
up with some random person there. If there are one
thing that there's a lot of and a polyamorous for
(25:00):
relationships are rules. Yeah, if you haven't picked up on
that yet, Yeah, you gotta have the ground rules laid down. Um,
how much time are you going to spend with this
person versus that person? Um? All the way down to
rules in the bedroom. Um. It sounds a little gross,
but fluid swapping. Well, it's so there's a thing. One
of the ways they protect against um STDs is uh, well,
(25:24):
let's talk about some of the arrangements. Okay, alright, because
I think we need to because these different rules that
we're talking about here will apply differently to different types
of relationships. So obviously there's a triad. You can also
have a quad. I can imagine that you could go
up to six eight. Whatever the point is is, um,
when you have a group that are equal to one another,
(25:47):
where everybody's equal to one another, that's one. That's one
form of the polyamorous relationship. Right. There's another form that's hierarchical,
which is based on a core couple that are Yeah,
they would be the primary and then say each of
them has a significant other like a boyfriend or girlfriend.
(26:09):
Those would be the secondaries. And then maybe they have
another person that they're they're close to, they see once
in a while, maybe they live out of town, something
like that. That would be potentially a tertiary um relationship, right,
like you break the twister game out and they show up, right.
So the the the the difference between the two is
(26:29):
with the hierarchical relationship, with the hierarchical format, the the
person that your spouse, the core group, the core couple
of people. They're the ones who are gonna get the
most time, the most attention. They're gonna have more power
to say veto the others. Yeah, Um in a and
(26:51):
the other relationship that forms like a try it or
a quad or six people or something like that, where
everybody is equally weighted. That's that that that you wouldn't
have like a higher there's no hierarchical structure of that. Yeah,
And it depends on how you want to structure things.
They're both completely valid as polyamorous relationships. Um, it's just
(27:12):
you know, up to you basically. And so you said
the veto power is a big deal. Yeah, I think
it's always to be honored. Right. So with if um,
somebody is is is meeting somebody new and wants to
date them. They basically have to go to the rest
of the group that they're committed to in this committed
relationship with and say I got this person, I'd like
to bring them unto the group. I don't know this,
(27:34):
but I can imagine that is a huge thing, especially
in a long established um polyamorous relationship, you know, like
bringing a new person in all but that would be
really big deal. I can imagine being that dude and
showing up right, It's like the worst job interview of
all time, especially if you don't know what's going on.
(27:55):
Plus in the hierarchical structure, then I can imagine the
veto power probably just rests with the two core people,
maybe slightly in the secondary people, probably not at all.
In the tertiary people, they're just there for twister. But
with the um the s t I thing. Um, if
(28:16):
you are what's called body fluid, uh monogamous, yeah, which
I was kind of joking about that it sounds gross,
it's really not at all. That's basically saying that we
can have sex with each other without condoms. And I'm sorry,
I'm saying you and me. I thought you were talking
to somebody behind. But um, maybe the secondary and I
(28:38):
have to wear condoms and we don't exchange those fluids
so intimately and freely. Or um, if you're in a group,
like everybody in the group might be body fluid monogamous,
but that if they are agreed that they can go
outside of the group, they would not be. Or if
it's a hierarchical structure, yeah, that primary couple would just
be body flu monogamous and everybody else would be right,
(29:00):
you'd have to worry conovering. Yeah, Or it may not
even involve sex. Maybe your your secondaries or you go
on dates with and you can um, you know, go
to first and second base and that's where it ends.
Like it's really all about the people in the relationship
working out what works best for them. All right, So
let's take a break here and talk more about the
(29:21):
polyamory right after this. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Um. It's
(29:49):
one of the things that I found interesting about polyamory
um was that they had to coin some terms because
they were really breaking new ground here and trying things
with relation. There's a whole glossary two or more. Spice
is the plural of spouse. Um. And then there's a
word called compersion that's very much associated with polyamory, and
(30:11):
it is basically the mirror image of jealousy. Yeah, it's
being super happy that you're primary has found someone else
that they really love and are satisfied with. Yeah, and
not just your primary, anybody your polyamorous relationship with. Yeah,
that they've found happiness with somebody else. You're happy for
them because of that. So yeah, that's not a normal
(30:35):
thing for most people, especially people in traditional monogamous relationships.
So polyamorous people kind of, I guess stumbled upon this
thing and had to come up with the name for it,
and they call it compersion. Yeah. And if you know,
if you think to yourself as a monogamous person, well,
what you know, this person goes off your wife all
of a sudden is sleeping with another man. What's to
(30:57):
keep her from really falling in love with them to
the extent that she no longer wants to be with you.
Of course, that can happen, but that can happen in
your regular marriage as well. And if the only thing
that's binding your marriage is that, um, you've got bigger
problems in your marriage. If the only thing binding you do.
(31:17):
That marriage is like the marital contract that you feel
like you have to stay you know, true too, you know,
like in a regular marriage, you should want to be
with your husband your wife, like it doesn't matter what
the piece of paper says. Um. I would guess, and
again I don't know. I would guess that polyamorousts have
(31:38):
some sort of structure or mechanism to deal with that,
Like if, especially if there is a if that happens
where somebody starts out as a married couple, but then
they include a third person and become a triad. If
one of them really starts to fall for the other one,
that that doesn't mean that the the initial couple is
(32:00):
going to break up and that couple is going to
split off. That's not polyamory. That's not how it works.
So I wonder what kind of mechanism they have to
deal with checks and balances. Yeah, there's got to be
something they did do. There was one study in the
Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality in two thousand five that
said um polyamorous couples who had been together more than
ten years listed love and connection as the most important
(32:23):
factors in their longevity and monogamous couples listed religion and
family as the most important reasons. Uh, and that's what
I was sort of clumsily trying to say. The only
thing keeping you together is the fact that your husband
or wife hasn't slept with someone else. Are your parents
are going to be disappointed? Yeah, it's I mean, those
aren't reasons to stay married, you know. So, UM we
(32:44):
already touched on also the idea that if you are
in a polyamorous relationship, you you know, you might not
share a lot of interests with your primary, but you've
got the ones that your primary is not interested in
you get to share with your secondary or your tertiary
or whatever. Right. Um. So just having more people to
spend life with, that's another benefit of it. There's a
(33:05):
lot of drawbacks to being in a polyamorous relationship that
I think any polyamorous would readily admit as well. Um
to be in in a quote fringe sexual sexuality, I
think living your romantic and reproductive life, as we'll talk
about a minute, um in complete contrast to societal values
(33:32):
is um. That's gotta be tough. Yeah, And you know,
over the years, acceptance of this is um been zilch too,
better be saying peaked now zilts to confusion to UM
these days a little more open minded about things. I
did see one pole here from I think it was
in April of this year actually, where they pulled about
(33:55):
heterosexuals on how willing they would be on a scale
of one to seven to commit non monogamous acts like
adding a third party to the relationship, and depending on
the scenario, sixtent of women and of men chose four
or higher on that scale, would ask if they'd be
willing to pursue and like try something like that out basically,
(34:16):
So it's I wonder before I don't know lower did you?
Did you say before that there was this two thousand
two survey that found that UM that predicted as much
as ten percent. Yeah, people, that's high compared to other
studies I've seen. I saw like it the most, maybe
four percent. Yeah, I can't imagine ten percent. There's just
(34:39):
no way, UM, because I mean I'm pretty hip, you know,
I know what's going on, and I would just be
blown away if it turned out that one in ten
people were in a polyamorous relationship and and just managed
to keep it secret that much secrecy is a big
part of this. And that's not to say that shame
is a part of a polyamorous relationship, but secrecy is
(35:02):
just out of necessity a um, a pretty big aspect
of polyamorous relationships, mainly because, like we said, it's in
stark contrast to social values, and if you've got a kid,
you're at risk of having your kid taken away. Yeah. Plus,
I mean you'd spend half your life explaining this to everybody,
you know. Um, there was the one case and uh,
(35:24):
and I couldn't find up any follow up about this
young woman, but April what's her last name? Yeah, she
was on the MTV show in the late nineties and
had a child and had two men in her life,
a triad, and everyone was happy. The kid was healthy
and happy and everything was great. And the grandmother sued
(35:48):
for custody and one it because the court basically made
a moral judgment. So this is a depraved lifestyle. And
this is in spite of the fact that the court
sent its own shrinks to go evaluate the home and
the family and didn't find that the kids were any
in anything but a loving, supporting home and we're happy
(36:08):
and healthy. Uh. Still it didn't matter because it was
she was living a depraved lifestyle. So she lost her kid. Um.
I can imagine that in almost any state in the Union,
you would be at great risk of losing your kid
if you came out as a polyamorous family. It's one
thing I think as far as society goes to be like, Okay,
(36:30):
you guys, just go do your own thing. Whatever floats
your boat, that's fine, keep it out of our faces,
keep your your little polyamorous lifestyle quiet. But if it
turns out that there's kids that are being brought into that,
like either they already existed or you're having kids with
multiple partners in this polyamorous relationship, I think society's threshold
(36:52):
for understanding and looking the other way really reaches an
end for better for worse. Right. Um, So, I think
there is a real threat, and there's there's a real
threat still in part because there's very little scholarship on
the impact that a polyamorous upbringing has on children. No
no one knows. Polyamorous will say, look, dude, you have
(37:15):
no idea how much our child is loved. My wife
loves our kid. I love our kid. Our wife loves
our kid. So not only does our kid get to
like be raised by two loving parents, our kid gets
to be raised by three loving parents equally. Um, there's
more of a division of labor. Uh it's it's just
the kids great. And on the other side you'll find
(37:39):
blog posts by people who are authorities on the other
side saying no, there's just no way because you're you're
at risk of a divorce. But it's a nontraditional divorce,
whereas under a normal divorce we have a social structure
to support kids who are going through that. With this,
it's like that doesn't make any sense, and the kid's
gonna be have all sorts of issues. And then if
you don't your kid while you're raising them, when they
(38:01):
get to college and figure out what was going on,
they're not gonna trust you any longer. Like, but none
of this, almost none of it is based on studies.
It's all just moral judgments one way or the other. Yeah,
I think it's pretty funny. That's I bet the same
people that I don't think a child should be raised
by a single parent also probably think three or more.
(38:23):
They're like just two, not one, not three or four? Five?
Two is perfect? Uh So, who are polyamorous um. Elizabeth
Chef as a sociologist who's done a lot of interviewing,
and she finds generally they are in their thirties, forties
and fifties, generally white and liberal and educated, many of
(38:45):
them highly educated master's degrees to the tune of like
compared to eight percent forty percent master's degrees. Yeah, that's
what I saw, compared to eight percent in the general population.
And she says, rarely are they religious. When they do,
it's usually paganism or Unitarian universalism. Apparently there's a lot
of overlap with the b D s M and cosplay communities.
(39:09):
And here's another term, hunting the unicorn. Did you come
across that? No, I didn't. I'm disappointed in myself. That
is um. She said that a lot of couples are
introduced or interested in polyamory by start looking for a
woman bisexual women to enter their relationship. So I want
(39:29):
to try ad, I want two women. The woman's like
I would like a woman as well, and so let's
go out and find that. That's that's called hunting the unicorn.
What else I got nothing else? I mean, I did
look up a little bit of the history of this
kind of thing, and it's there was Have you ever
heard of the Oneida Commune? Yeah, I think we touched
(39:51):
upon the communism. Oh really, I think so? Well they were.
It sounds like a cult, but um, it's super interesting
because it was in the eighteen forties in upstate New
York and not in New York where you usually don't
in the eighteen forties here about things like um, free
sex and polyamory. But that's exactly what was going on there.
(40:14):
A lawyer named John Humphrey noise Uh basically started a
free love commune in the eighteen forties in New York,
and by some accounts, it was a very um feminist
group because women were encouraged to only have sex when
they wanted to, which you know, in the eighteen forties
that wasn't the norm um. But it was also, as
(40:36):
it turned out, not so great in many ways because
they like had sex with teenagers. And the more I
read about it, at first it sounded like this commune,
and then ten minutes later I was like, no, this
was a cult and it had religious undertones. And the
weirdest thing out of all is Oneita silverware that is
still popular today. It was formed from that commune. I
(40:58):
remember hearing it as like some sort of cautionary tail
or whatever. Yeah, and there was only like three hundred
of them, but apparently they I think it was all
about having lots of kids to keep that commune going
was the main reason. But they did not encourage monogamy
at all. They they shunned it. If you were caught,
(41:19):
like really rooting down with one person, they were like, no, no, no, no, no,
no no, you can't do that. Go off and have
sex with someone else right now. Pities in order basically
get your head together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a documentary
on that clan. They'll be interesting. Uh. If you want
to know more about polyamory and other alternative lifestyles, you
(41:41):
can search those in the search part how stuff works
dot com. And uh, since I said search parts, time
for a listener mail. Here's more on T. Hey guys,
listen to T and a massive tea connoisseur for the
last seven years. I was really impressed. I expected to
listen and pick out a bunch of little mistakes, but
I was pleasantly surprised. However, you guys did leave out
(42:03):
but one, No, I don't think so. Aaron, sounds like
a nice dude. Um, you left out one major category
of T though, and it's spelled pu dash e r
h pu air. That's what I'm gonna say, he said.
It's probably the most unique t out of the six types.
Home to the Union Province of China. There's only t
(42:25):
to be fermented, not oxidized. What this means is that
pe air is and I know that's wrong, is able
to be aged for years and years and taste better
as it ages, just like wine. And some pure air
on the market that several decades old goes for thousands
of dollars per disc disc. Yes disc. Traditionally, purere is
(42:46):
stone pressed into a disc form called a being cha
and is sold um in that disc form, and it
has a forced floor flavor and has brooded about two
five to two and ten degrees fahrenheit. I gotta try
that stuff. Yeah, it sounds good. Um, he said. I
could go on and on, but that suggests a great
job overall, guys, And now it's tough to fit it all.
(43:07):
One episode could easily be its own college class with
all the cultural history behind it. Take care. And that
is from Aaron Krauss, who's developer at the Society dot org.
That is t h E S O c I E
t e A dot org. Thanks a lot, Aaron and
your cohorts at the Society. Sounds neat. Uh. It sounds
(43:31):
like the one needed call mm hmm yeah like it?
Okay uh. If you want to get in touch with us,
you can let's see what can you do? Chuck tweet
to us yeah s y s K podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to stuff Podcast at
how stuff works dot com, and as always, join us
(43:52):
at our home on the web, Stuff you should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff Works dot com. Hm hm
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, and there's
this stuff you should know. That's right. How all of
(00:21):
our wives and girlfriends are in the next room. Right,
How are you doing? Man? I'm good. I found this
topic to be super interesting. And um, I should say
up front that our our joky nous that we always
include in every podcast almost um is not meant to
be disrespectful to anyone who is in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah,
(00:44):
and we're not here to like just kind of look
at your relationship from the outside and poke at it
and make fun of it or light of it. If
you're enjoying yourself and everybody's on board and no one's
being hurt, then we always say to each his own,
that's right. But from the outside, uh, polyamory might seem
like a very strange arrangement. Well, I think to most
(01:07):
people it seems like swinging, that's right. But it's not. No,
it is not a lot of things. It's not cheating, right,
it's not swinging, right, it's not um, it's not polygamy.
It's not what was the other one. Well, it's not
a lot of things. Um, it's not dentistry, right, Well,
(01:28):
the point is that we should it's not promiscuous nous.
So what it is actually from? And I had no idea.
I think my conception of polyamory was that it was
basically kind of swinging and it was based on it
was I got the the root couple thing, but um
that it was mostly like a swinging kind of thing.
(01:50):
But from research, like I realized I was pretty far off.
Polyamory is in a very odd way of for of monogamy,
but that it includes more than two people in this
monogamous relationship. Well not necessarily monogamous either though, so because
there can be arrangements where you're allowed to go out
(02:13):
and do what you want, kick ends with people. So
I ran across something that that's technically considered monogamish, as
Dan Savage coined it. That sounds like a very new word, yeah,
I mean Dan Savage coined it. Yeah, But which means
that I'm probably not gonna put too much greens. But
in the from what I understand and this I got
this from a polyamory site called um more than two
(02:38):
more than two Franklin vow is how I'm pronouncing his
last name, vow. Yeah. And I'm not kidding when I
say it's a great side if you are interested in
exploring polyamory. It's super thorough and very very helpful. I
would think, yeah, just by going through it. And the
impression that I got from him from his f a
Q at least is that it is a It's like
(03:00):
the people in a polyamorous relationship are committed to one another,
and that like they're rather in the same way that
two people a couple come together to form a monogamous relationship.
If you if you take that bubble and add another
person or two other people or something like that, but
there's still that bubble of monogamy, of commitment, of affection um,
(03:25):
that that is more close to the the the definition
of polyamory. Now in real life, I'm sure it's different, um,
and that there are different aspects to it or whatever.
But supposedly that's what I gathered. But I think, uh,
polyamorous couples say, why would you even use a word
like monogamy when it means means more than one committed?
(03:50):
Is the word I should. Yeah, I think that's that's
the trip. And so Dan Savage come on monogamous. Yeah, yeah, Um,
I knew more about this um just because there was
a show I don't know if it was HBO, it's
probably Cinemax that UM followed some polyamorous relationships, and so
(04:13):
I knew that it was not just hey it's swinging,
or hey I just want an open relationship. It's you know,
I'm gonna tryad I've got a man and there's a
woman and there's another woman, or in another case, it
was two couples all lived together, they were all in
a committed relationship with one another. UM. I mean we'll
(04:34):
talk about there is no standard for a polyamorous relationship.
It can really be anything you want that works for you.
Sometimes it's bisexual, sometimes it's not. Sometimes um the two
it's really I mean, we could go over a million scenarios. Really,
I was starting to break him all down, but it's
(04:55):
like you really is whatever you can work out between
yourselves is polyann But the point is is ummm, to
maybe put it on less fine of a point, but
to get a little closer potentially to a correct definition.
Polyamory is not monogamy because there's more than two people, right,
and it's not cheating because all of the people involved
(05:16):
are on the on the same page about what they're doing,
what what they're doing, what their partners are doing, what
everybody's doing. Everyone's aware and consenting, that's right. So it's
between those two things. So this is the opposite of
the E s P podcast, where apparently we never even
said what ESP stood for. Yeah, a couple of people like,
(05:38):
we're like, hey, I didn't catch a ESP stands for?
Can you tell us? And I'm like, well, go listen again,
and enough people said it that I was like, oh,
extrasensory perception, by the way, And then we have just
now defined polyamory for the last ten minutes, so I
think we're covered. I think we finally landed on it. Though. Uh, yeah,
it's a very fascinating thing, and um, here's how it works. Well, Uh,
(06:05):
I think that the let's talk about why people are polyamorous, right,
So people who are polyamorous probably tend to think that
monogamy is not for them. And if you're speaking from
a um like a evolutionary perspective, monogamy is kind of
a puzzlement should we talk about that. Yeah, so monogamy
(06:28):
looking through the lens of natural selection, doesn't make sense
evolutionarily because it lowers a male's ability to um, It
lowers his number of opportunities to carry on his genetic
line and there for the species, right exactly. Yeah, and
it was long thought by some that UM it was
(06:50):
monogamy came about so males could assist in the raising
of the young UM. But there are some new theories
now that UM make that seem a little less likely
are actually a lot less likely. UM. And ironically, well
not ironically but coincidentally they were both published. They were
both published around the same time, these two new theories,
(07:14):
they came out and at the and enough time to
really kind of compete with one another. Yeah, because you know,
when you look around the the animal kingdom, among non
avian there are more birds that are supposedly cockroaches that
are monogamous. But if you if you rule out the
birds and the cockroaches, well specifically mammals too. Yeah, about
(07:34):
five percent of the four thousand mammal species give or
take UM, only about five percent are monogamous or mate
for life. And so again, if you are strictly looking
at it from the selfish gene theory, like the whole
point would be to run around and copulate with as
many females as you possibly can so that you can
(07:58):
have more and more chances of spreading your genetic line
and then, like you said, hence carry on the species.
So did not do that to just couple with one
other person and and have maybe a few kids rather
than thirty with a bunch of different males and females.
Right again, it doesn't really kind of make sense. So
they've tried to explain this, and there are some theories,
(08:20):
like you were saying, one of them is that, um,
if you are a rival male, one of the things
you have to do to get with another female. I
think that's what biologists call it getting with um you
have to kill her offspring, because while she's nursing, she
can't ovulate, and therefore you can't reproduce with her. But
(08:44):
kill her kids. She's gonna stop nursing, she'll be sad,
But then you guys can have your own offspring. If
you are a male that's staying behind after you reproduce
with a female, then you have the chance to defend
your offspring from being killed by arrival males. Explanation from
monogamy yep, and that was in the proceedings of the
(09:06):
National Academy of Sciences and um. They found that out
by studying behaviors of two d and thirty primate species. Uh.
And they felt so good about it that the guy
who ran the study said, this is it. We now
finally know for sure. But that's not necessarily true because
there's another really great theory where they actually published in
(09:30):
the journal Science and Studied Mammals, which is way more
than the other study. H. D. H. Lucas and Tim
Klutenbrock of Cambridge University, and they said, Uh, it's really
about low density and females. It's that simple. Like when
(09:51):
there aren't many females, that's where monogamy happens, right when
they're spread out, because they beat up on each other
when they're in the same place female. Um, so they
have to spread out geographically. Well, if you're a guy
who's just running from female the female, the female, you
don't know what she's doing while you're not around, so
you don't know whether those kids are yours or not.
(10:12):
So the best way to make sure that they're your kids,
is to hang around and be monogamous. So it's it's
really similar to the other theory, the you're staying around
to defend the kids, and this one it's a little
less magnanimous. You're staying around to make sure that the
female doesn't run around on you. Right. But then I
(10:35):
saw a third theory that also makes sense to um,
and that is that the idea of males staying around
to help raise kids was a strategy developed by lesser
males in the primate kingdom. So like the alpha male,
the top guys, they're having no trouble, they can go
wherever they want. They're getting plenty of action. Right, Hey,
(10:58):
I can care for the kids exactly. And that that's
a strategy that caught the attention of females who otherwise
wouldn't have made it with these guys because they're less
nestment and uh instead said, yeah, he's a dork, I
can't stand his bowtie in a short sleeve shirt, but
he does do a pretty good job with the kids,
(11:18):
So I'm going to be monogamous with this guy. So
three pretty good theories to explain monogamy. None of them
hold water for polyamorous. No, and and everyone under the
age of thirty five is now looking up. Who less
nestment is it was? That was a great reference, man. Thanks,
it just popped up. Um alright. So the benefits, I believe,
(11:40):
is what we were talking about before we delved into
the theory. And I've always said monogamy too, is not
a natural thing, and that the reward of saying with
one person is partly because of that. You know, you
it's not a natural thing. You sacrifice something in some
way by being with someone, but the payoff is rich.
That is eyes words, Chuck. So we'll see if I
(12:02):
end up married in twenty years, I'll confirm all this.
Just kidding, of course, I will be UM. All right,
So let's talk about the benefits. It is not just
about UM having sex with more than one person. Now,
that's definitely part of it. It is part of it, Um,
But it is also about UM support in a greater
(12:25):
you know, it takes a village, they say, So if
you have a larger village, then you're gonna have more
support and care and love and emotional support. UM. All
that stuff right, exactly. And it's not polyamorous relationship or
group doesn't necessarily have sex with one another everybody. Um.
(12:46):
Sex is a big component of it, but you also
have what are called polly effective relationships where like, let's
say you have what you call it a tryad. Is
that a polly um is three people? Yeah, but that's
what polyamorous call it. UM. So let's say you have
a triad where neither of the of two women and
a guy, and neither of the women are bisexual, but
(13:10):
they're still in a polyamorous relationship. They would be poly effective,
like they have an emotional connection to one another like
a couple would, but they're not sexually involved with one another.
They're poly effective. That's another component of a polyamorous relationship.
So the whole thing is not just satisfying your every
sexual need with a bunch of different people. UM. It's
(13:33):
also that I think they believe that you have a
lot of different needs that one person can't necessarily satisfy
beyond sex as well. It could be cultural interests, it
can be past times, it can be what have you.
And so the idea behind polyamory is you find those
people in your life who combined make that single ideal
(13:55):
person rather than placing all that on one single person
for better for worse. Yeah, I looked at an example
on the what was it two for one, no two
or more more than more than two more more more
than two dot com? I looked at one. They had
a lot of just stories and examples of people, like
(14:17):
real stories. And this one lady UM was married to
a guy who quite simply was not into a lot
of the things she was into. Um, she was big
into the theater, I think in museums. Her husband didn't
like that. Uh. They developed into a polyamorous relationship, and
she had another man that was really into that stuff,
an old high school boyfriend I think, and he uh
(14:41):
took up with another woman who had similar interests as him,
and they all worked it out. And you know, people say, well,
why don't you just leave the husband then, who you
don't have these things in common with, and go with
the old high school boyfriend. That's a neat story. She
was like, well, because he's really needy and my husband
isn't and we have a lot of great stuff. Uh
So it is literally, like you said, satisfying all my
(15:02):
needs through multiple people, because who can expect one person
to be that soul mate that gives you everything you need,
and these suckers who are in monogamous marriages are just uh,
sacrificing certain parts of their life, like going to museums
or whatever. If it was this lady. So everybody, we're
about to satisfy all of your needs with this commercial break.
(15:23):
He now all right and we're back. So chuck um.
(15:50):
We were talking about why people do polyamory, Right, do polyamory.
Let's talk about how polyamory actually works. Yeah, I mean,
anyone in a marriage that's you know, things get more
complicated as you get older. So I don't mean to
talk down to people in the twenties, but relationships get
(16:12):
a little more complicated as you get older and you
get more responsibilities. So if you're married and you're in
your thirties or forties or fifties, you know it is
or any kind of committed relationship, you know, it's logistically
tough sometimes well yeah, because you're like I want this,
and this other person who you share half of your
estate with says no, I want this, or I want
to do this, or I want to do that, or
(16:32):
I want a vacation here there exactly, just in keeping
up with schedules. It's all very complicated. It's all compromise.
There's one big, complicent compromise, and you're compromising between two
people's opinions. Imagine just throwing in one extra opinion that
differs from the other two equal weight exactly. So that's
(16:53):
basically what we're getting at is, if you think your
marriage is complicated, polyamory can be even more complicated it
And they admit that it can be more complicated, but
they say that, Uh. And this is really what I
gathered from reading that site in a bunch of articles,
is that one to one you want to meet a
great communicator, go talk to someone in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah.
(17:17):
So that's one of the chief requirements of polyamory, be
able to talk about all this stuff I've seen it
put as you have highly evolved communication skills. I would
not a good polyamora man like I wouldn't last two days.
You know, I stink. I stink at communicating. I think
(17:38):
I'm just doing fine, and it turns out, oh wait,
I didn't say that, Chuck. Is this bothering? You know?
But it's really bothering. Well that's another thing too. Not
only do you have to be a great communicator and
get your point across and read other people and listen
in that kind of thing. But you also have to
be honest about your feelings. One of the things that
polyamorous face, just like anybody else's jealousy. We did a
(18:02):
pretty good episode on jealousy a while back, Jealousy with
a question mark um, and so they deal with jealousy
and and and they deal with it apparently ideally. Again
this is from more than two dot com in a
way where it would take a pretty intelligent, calm person
(18:23):
to approach the feelings of jealousy like this, which is
basically deconstructing it. So the guy at more than two
dot com I kind of gave a good example where
he was saying, um, you're in a polyamorous relationship and
it bugs you when your spouse kisses. There are other
(18:44):
spouse in front of you, right, And he says the
correct thing to do basically here is to stop and say, Okay,
why does that make me jealous? And if you are
honest with yourself, you'll say, well, it makes me jealous
because I worried that the your spouse. And by the way,
in a polyamorous relationship, the plural of spouse is spice. Yes,
(19:06):
so if you're married to two people, you have two spice. Um,
which is kind of funny. Sure you got spicy. I
love life anyway. When the other spouse, if if you're
worried that your spouse is kissing his other spouse, he's
going to think that that spouse is a better kisser
than you and think, well, that spouses, if he's better
kisser then you he wants to be with him more
(19:28):
than me. And if he wants to be with him
more than me, then uh, he's gonna leave me. Is
often rooted in your own insecurities. So what this guy
was saying is if you spell us out, you realize
that there's a lot of hidden assumptions and your jealous feelings,
and that when you confront them, you will probably discard
a lot of them. If you find that, no, this
(19:49):
is correct, this person really would leave me because that
person is a better kisser. Um, then you would ask yourself,
do I want to be with somebody who would leave
me because somebody else is a better kisser? Yeah? Um.
So if you can approach this kind of stuff in
this manner, that maybe you'd be a decent polyamorous. Yeah,
there's a lady named Terry Connelly, a professor of psychology
(20:11):
and women's Studies at University of Michigan. Uh go Wolverines,
and she's she's one of the well, not one of
the only people. But there haven't been many studies on polyamory. Um.
One reason is because it's underreported in a lot of
cases because people some people may not like to be
uh really out front with it for reasons. Yeah, for
(20:32):
very good reasons. But she did some studies and polls
and things, and she found that jealousy is, in fact,
she said, quote much higher end quote among monogamous pairs
than non monogamous ones. And I think for the reasons
you just said, um, she also found um. She interviewed
seventeen hundred individuals Polly, I'm sorry, monogamous individuals, hundred and
(20:53):
fifty swingers, hundred and seventy people in an open relationship,
and three hundred polyamorous individuals and said that polyamorous tended
to have equal or higher levels of sexual satisfaction. Uh
and people in open relationships tended to have lower sexual
satisfaction than their monogamous piers and polyamorous peers so, and
we should say open is not the same as polyamorous. Again,
(21:16):
in a polyamorous group, the people in the group form
a closed hole. In an open relationship, it's like there's
two people who are connected, but they're also facing outward
and the whole world up for grabs, basically right, in
an open relationship, you know, it's not so in polyamorous
(21:37):
is not an open relationship, and open relationship is not polyamorous.
But a polyamorous relationship could include swinging, from what I understand, Yes,
and did you know that swinging apparently started among World
War two Air Force pilots. You knew that, yeah, because
you supposedly if your husband died in battle, it was
(22:01):
just sort of understood that that woman would then take
up with another serviceman. Correct, I guess, but with another
married serviceman or what? I don't know about that. Well,
apparently it started out with like we called it, wife
swapping in World War two in the Air Force, like
specifically the Air Force, not like oh, American servicemen, like
the Air Force. So I guess they know who it was. Um.
(22:24):
I think I told the story about the Atlantis Swingers
Club was very close to my phone number growing up,
and we used to I was a kid. I had
no idea what it meant, of course, and I used
to answer the phone and people would be like just
the Atlanti singers, they'd just be like my mom would
just remember it was so like troublesome to her, and
how she kept the whistle next to the phone and
would blow a whistle into it. It's so funny to
(22:47):
think about, man, very funny. I still remember that number two.
Do you remember your original phone number? Nine? Isn't that crazy? UM,
I'm sorry for anyone who has those numbers today, or
to the Atlantic Swingers Club, which is still operational, I'm sure. UM.
(23:09):
All right, Another thing we need to talk about are
s t I s UM sexually transmitted infection. You would
think that UM, it would be higher in a polyamorous relationship,
and they don't have statistics that may or may not
be the case. But what they are adamant about is
lots of testing and lots of access to those results
(23:32):
and being super open about those results. UM apparently much
more so than UM. People in monogumous relationships like new
new relationships. They found that people in new monogamous relationships
are often very shy about talking about their sexual history
and potential UM infections and things, whereas they're really up
(23:54):
front about it in polyamory. Yeah, and and they kind
of have to be, and they kind of just make
it a normal, open thing. But that's part of that open,
honest communication. That's that's kind of a hallmark of polyamory.
And even it has a practical application and defending against
s t I S. Yeah, they did. There was one
study in twelve in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that
(24:17):
found that um unfaithful like cheaters, not like uh, like
a cheater, you're in a monogous relationship. In your cheating,
they're much more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior
and to keep it a secret than someone in a
polyamorous relationship. You go off and your cheat and you
keep quiet and you do something super risky, you know,
(24:39):
hook up with someone randomly that you don't know. And
that's just that's kind of like the opposite of polyamory
from what it sounds like. Right, with polyamory, it's like, Okay,
it's you, it's time for your weekly STD test, right,
I want to see the paper, and we're not hooking
up with some random person there. If there are one
thing that there's a lot of and a polyamorous for
(25:00):
relationships are rules. Yeah, if you haven't picked up on
that yet, Yeah, you gotta have the ground rules laid down. Um,
how much time are you going to spend with this
person versus that person? Um? All the way down to
rules in the bedroom. Um. It sounds a little gross,
but fluid swapping. Well, it's so there's a thing. One
of the ways they protect against um STDs is uh, well,
(25:24):
let's talk about some of the arrangements. Okay, alright, because
I think we need to because these different rules that
we're talking about here will apply differently to different types
of relationships. So obviously there's a triad. You can also
have a quad. I can imagine that you could go
up to six eight. Whatever the point is is, um,
when you have a group that are equal to one another,
(25:47):
where everybody's equal to one another, that's one. That's one
form of the polyamorous relationship. Right. There's another form that's hierarchical,
which is based on a core couple that are Yeah,
they would be the primary and then say each of
them has a significant other like a boyfriend or girlfriend.
(26:09):
Those would be the secondaries. And then maybe they have
another person that they're they're close to, they see once
in a while, maybe they live out of town, something
like that. That would be potentially a tertiary um relationship, right,
like you break the twister game out and they show up, right.
So the the the the difference between the two is
(26:29):
with the hierarchical relationship, with the hierarchical format, the the
person that your spouse, the core group, the core couple
of people. They're the ones who are gonna get the
most time, the most attention. They're gonna have more power
to say veto the others. Yeah, Um in a and
(26:51):
the other relationship that forms like a try it or
a quad or six people or something like that, where
everybody is equally weighted. That's that that that you wouldn't
have like a higher there's no hierarchical structure of that. Yeah,
And it depends on how you want to structure things.
They're both completely valid as polyamorous relationships. Um, it's just
(27:12):
you know, up to you basically. And so you said
the veto power is a big deal. Yeah, I think
it's always to be honored. Right. So with if um,
somebody is is is meeting somebody new and wants to
date them. They basically have to go to the rest
of the group that they're committed to in this committed
relationship with and say I got this person, I'd like
to bring them unto the group. I don't know this,
(27:34):
but I can imagine that is a huge thing, especially
in a long established um polyamorous relationship, you know, like
bringing a new person in all but that would be
really big deal. I can imagine being that dude and
showing up right, It's like the worst job interview of
all time, especially if you don't know what's going on.
(27:55):
Plus in the hierarchical structure, then I can imagine the
veto power probably just rests with the two core people,
maybe slightly in the secondary people, probably not at all.
In the tertiary people, they're just there for twister. But
with the um the s t I thing. Um, if
(28:16):
you are what's called body fluid, uh monogamous, yeah, which
I was kind of joking about that it sounds gross,
it's really not at all. That's basically saying that we
can have sex with each other without condoms. And I'm sorry,
I'm saying you and me. I thought you were talking
to somebody behind. But um, maybe the secondary and I
(28:38):
have to wear condoms and we don't exchange those fluids
so intimately and freely. Or um, if you're in a group,
like everybody in the group might be body fluid monogamous,
but that if they are agreed that they can go
outside of the group, they would not be. Or if
it's a hierarchical structure, yeah, that primary couple would just
be body flu monogamous and everybody else would be right,
(29:00):
you'd have to worry conovering. Yeah, Or it may not
even involve sex. Maybe your your secondaries or you go
on dates with and you can um, you know, go
to first and second base and that's where it ends.
Like it's really all about the people in the relationship
working out what works best for them. All right, So
let's take a break here and talk more about the
(29:21):
polyamory right after this. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Um. It's
(29:49):
one of the things that I found interesting about polyamory
um was that they had to coin some terms because
they were really breaking new ground here and trying things
with relation. There's a whole glossary two or more. Spice
is the plural of spouse. Um. And then there's a
word called compersion that's very much associated with polyamory, and
(30:11):
it is basically the mirror image of jealousy. Yeah, it's
being super happy that you're primary has found someone else
that they really love and are satisfied with. Yeah, and
not just your primary, anybody your polyamorous relationship with. Yeah,
that they've found happiness with somebody else. You're happy for
them because of that. So yeah, that's not a normal
(30:35):
thing for most people, especially people in traditional monogamous relationships.
So polyamorous people kind of, I guess stumbled upon this
thing and had to come up with the name for it,
and they call it compersion. Yeah. And if you know,
if you think to yourself as a monogamous person, well,
what you know, this person goes off your wife all
of a sudden is sleeping with another man. What's to
(30:57):
keep her from really falling in love with them to
the extent that she no longer wants to be with you.
Of course, that can happen, but that can happen in
your regular marriage as well. And if the only thing
that's binding your marriage is that, um, you've got bigger
problems in your marriage. If the only thing binding you do.
(31:17):
That marriage is like the marital contract that you feel
like you have to stay you know, true too, you know,
like in a regular marriage, you should want to be
with your husband your wife, like it doesn't matter what
the piece of paper says. Um. I would guess, and
again I don't know. I would guess that polyamorousts have
(31:38):
some sort of structure or mechanism to deal with that,
Like if, especially if there is a if that happens
where somebody starts out as a married couple, but then
they include a third person and become a triad. If
one of them really starts to fall for the other one,
that that doesn't mean that the the initial couple is
(32:00):
going to break up and that couple is going to
split off. That's not polyamory. That's not how it works.
So I wonder what kind of mechanism they have to
deal with checks and balances. Yeah, there's got to be
something they did do. There was one study in the
Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality in two thousand five that
said um polyamorous couples who had been together more than
ten years listed love and connection as the most important
(32:23):
factors in their longevity and monogamous couples listed religion and
family as the most important reasons. Uh, and that's what
I was sort of clumsily trying to say. The only
thing keeping you together is the fact that your husband
or wife hasn't slept with someone else. Are your parents
are going to be disappointed? Yeah, it's I mean, those
aren't reasons to stay married, you know. So, UM we
(32:44):
already touched on also the idea that if you are
in a polyamorous relationship, you you know, you might not
share a lot of interests with your primary, but you've
got the ones that your primary is not interested in
you get to share with your secondary or your tertiary
or whatever. Right. Um. So just having more people to
spend life with, that's another benefit of it. There's a
(33:05):
lot of drawbacks to being in a polyamorous relationship that
I think any polyamorous would readily admit as well. Um
to be in in a quote fringe sexual sexuality, I
think living your romantic and reproductive life, as we'll talk
about a minute, um in complete contrast to societal values
(33:32):
is um. That's gotta be tough. Yeah, And you know,
over the years, acceptance of this is um been zilch too,
better be saying peaked now zilts to confusion to UM
these days a little more open minded about things. I
did see one pole here from I think it was
in April of this year actually, where they pulled about
(33:55):
heterosexuals on how willing they would be on a scale
of one to seven to commit non monogamous acts like
adding a third party to the relationship, and depending on
the scenario, sixtent of women and of men chose four
or higher on that scale, would ask if they'd be
willing to pursue and like try something like that out basically,
(34:16):
So it's I wonder before I don't know lower did you?
Did you say before that there was this two thousand
two survey that found that UM that predicted as much
as ten percent. Yeah, people, that's high compared to other
studies I've seen. I saw like it the most, maybe
four percent. Yeah, I can't imagine ten percent. There's just
(34:39):
no way, UM, because I mean I'm pretty hip, you know,
I know what's going on, and I would just be
blown away if it turned out that one in ten
people were in a polyamorous relationship and and just managed
to keep it secret that much secrecy is a big
part of this. And that's not to say that shame
is a part of a polyamorous relationship, but secrecy is
(35:02):
just out of necessity a um, a pretty big aspect
of polyamorous relationships, mainly because, like we said, it's in
stark contrast to social values, and if you've got a kid,
you're at risk of having your kid taken away. Yeah. Plus,
I mean you'd spend half your life explaining this to everybody,
you know. Um, there was the one case and uh,
(35:24):
and I couldn't find up any follow up about this
young woman, but April what's her last name? Yeah, she
was on the MTV show in the late nineties and
had a child and had two men in her life,
a triad, and everyone was happy. The kid was healthy
and happy and everything was great. And the grandmother sued
(35:48):
for custody and one it because the court basically made
a moral judgment. So this is a depraved lifestyle. And
this is in spite of the fact that the court
sent its own shrinks to go evaluate the home and
the family and didn't find that the kids were any
in anything but a loving, supporting home and we're happy
(36:08):
and healthy. Uh. Still it didn't matter because it was
she was living a depraved lifestyle. So she lost her kid. Um.
I can imagine that in almost any state in the Union,
you would be at great risk of losing your kid
if you came out as a polyamorous family. It's one
thing I think as far as society goes to be like, Okay,
(36:30):
you guys, just go do your own thing. Whatever floats
your boat, that's fine, keep it out of our faces,
keep your your little polyamorous lifestyle quiet. But if it
turns out that there's kids that are being brought into that,
like either they already existed or you're having kids with
multiple partners in this polyamorous relationship, I think society's threshold
(36:52):
for understanding and looking the other way really reaches an
end for better for worse. Right. Um, So, I think
there is a real threat, and there's there's a real
threat still in part because there's very little scholarship on
the impact that a polyamorous upbringing has on children. No
no one knows. Polyamorous will say, look, dude, you have
(37:15):
no idea how much our child is loved. My wife
loves our kid. I love our kid. Our wife loves
our kid. So not only does our kid get to
like be raised by two loving parents, our kid gets
to be raised by three loving parents equally. Um, there's
more of a division of labor. Uh it's it's just
the kids great. And on the other side you'll find
(37:39):
blog posts by people who are authorities on the other
side saying no, there's just no way because you're you're
at risk of a divorce. But it's a nontraditional divorce,
whereas under a normal divorce we have a social structure
to support kids who are going through that. With this,
it's like that doesn't make any sense, and the kid's
gonna be have all sorts of issues. And then if
you don't your kid while you're raising them, when they
(38:01):
get to college and figure out what was going on,
they're not gonna trust you any longer. Like, but none
of this, almost none of it is based on studies.
It's all just moral judgments one way or the other. Yeah,
I think it's pretty funny. That's I bet the same
people that I don't think a child should be raised
by a single parent also probably think three or more.
(38:23):
They're like just two, not one, not three or four? Five?
Two is perfect? Uh So, who are polyamorous um. Elizabeth
Chef as a sociologist who's done a lot of interviewing,
and she finds generally they are in their thirties, forties
and fifties, generally white and liberal and educated, many of
(38:45):
them highly educated master's degrees to the tune of like
compared to eight percent forty percent master's degrees. Yeah, that's
what I saw, compared to eight percent in the general population.
And she says, rarely are they religious. When they do,
it's usually paganism or Unitarian universalism. Apparently there's a lot
of overlap with the b D s M and cosplay communities.
(39:09):
And here's another term, hunting the unicorn. Did you come
across that? No, I didn't. I'm disappointed in myself. That
is um. She said that a lot of couples are
introduced or interested in polyamory by start looking for a
woman bisexual women to enter their relationship. So I want
(39:29):
to try ad, I want two women. The woman's like
I would like a woman as well, and so let's
go out and find that. That's that's called hunting the unicorn.
What else I got nothing else? I mean, I did
look up a little bit of the history of this
kind of thing, and it's there was Have you ever
heard of the Oneida Commune? Yeah, I think we touched
(39:51):
upon the communism. Oh really, I think so? Well they were.
It sounds like a cult, but um, it's super interesting
because it was in the eighteen forties in upstate New
York and not in New York where you usually don't
in the eighteen forties here about things like um, free
sex and polyamory. But that's exactly what was going on there.
(40:14):
A lawyer named John Humphrey noise Uh basically started a
free love commune in the eighteen forties in New York,
and by some accounts, it was a very um feminist
group because women were encouraged to only have sex when
they wanted to, which you know, in the eighteen forties
that wasn't the norm um. But it was also, as
(40:36):
it turned out, not so great in many ways because
they like had sex with teenagers. And the more I
read about it, at first it sounded like this commune,
and then ten minutes later I was like, no, this
was a cult and it had religious undertones. And the
weirdest thing out of all is Oneita silverware that is
still popular today. It was formed from that commune. I
(40:58):
remember hearing it as like some sort of cautionary tail
or whatever. Yeah, and there was only like three hundred
of them, but apparently they I think it was all
about having lots of kids to keep that commune going
was the main reason. But they did not encourage monogamy
at all. They they shunned it. If you were caught,
(41:19):
like really rooting down with one person, they were like, no, no, no, no, no,
no no, you can't do that. Go off and have
sex with someone else right now. Pities in order basically
get your head together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a documentary
on that clan. They'll be interesting. Uh. If you want
to know more about polyamory and other alternative lifestyles, you
(41:41):
can search those in the search part how stuff works
dot com. And uh, since I said search parts, time
for a listener mail. Here's more on T. Hey guys,
listen to T and a massive tea connoisseur for the
last seven years. I was really impressed. I expected to
listen and pick out a bunch of little mistakes, but
I was pleasantly surprised. However, you guys did leave out
(42:03):
but one, No, I don't think so. Aaron, sounds like
a nice dude. Um, you left out one major category
of T though, and it's spelled pu dash e r
h pu air. That's what I'm gonna say, he said.
It's probably the most unique t out of the six types.
Home to the Union Province of China. There's only t
(42:25):
to be fermented, not oxidized. What this means is that
pe air is and I know that's wrong, is able
to be aged for years and years and taste better
as it ages, just like wine. And some pure air
on the market that several decades old goes for thousands
of dollars per disc disc. Yes disc. Traditionally, purere is
(42:46):
stone pressed into a disc form called a being cha
and is sold um in that disc form, and it
has a forced floor flavor and has brooded about two
five to two and ten degrees fahrenheit. I gotta try
that stuff. Yeah, it sounds good. Um, he said. I
could go on and on, but that suggests a great
job overall, guys, And now it's tough to fit it all.
(43:07):
One episode could easily be its own college class with
all the cultural history behind it. Take care. And that
is from Aaron Krauss, who's developer at the Society dot org.
That is t h E S O c I E
t e A dot org. Thanks a lot, Aaron and
your cohorts at the Society. Sounds neat. Uh. It sounds
(43:31):
like the one needed call mm hmm yeah like it?
Okay uh. If you want to get in touch with us,
you can let's see what can you do? Chuck tweet
to us yeah s y s K podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to stuff Podcast at
how stuff works dot com, and as always, join us
(43:52):
at our home on the web, Stuff you should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff Works dot com. Hm hm
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