August 29, 2020 • 44 mins
In this classic episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck dive into the world of polyamory. Turns out polyamorists aren't 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.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, folks, it's Chuck here on a Saturday Select episode.
This is from April seven, two fift and this is
a very sexy podcast episode called Polyamory Colin when too
just won't do. I think you know where this is
headed right now. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a
(00:23):
production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck,
Bryan Jerry's over there, and this is stuff you should
not Let's try how all of our wives and girlfriends
are in the next room. All right, how are you doing? Man?
(00:45):
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
was in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah, and we're not here
to like just kind of look at your relationship from
(01:08):
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, but um, from the outside, Uh,
polyamory might seem like a very strange arrangement. Well, I
think to most people it seems like swinging. That's right,
(01:30):
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. Uh, Well,
the point is that we should it's not promiscuous nous.
(01:53):
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.
But from research, like I realized I was pretty far off.
(02:16):
Polyamory is in a very odd way a form of monogamy,
but that it includes more than two people in this
monogamous relationship, while not necessarily monogamous either though, so because
there can be arrangements where you're allowed to go out
and do what you want, kickens with people. So I
(02:37):
ran across something that that's technically considered monogamish. As Dan
Savage coined it. That sounds like a very new word.
It is new, yeah, I mean Dan Savage coined it. Yeah,
but which means that I'm probably not gonna put too
much greedence. But in the from what I understand and this,
I got this from a polyamory site called um more
(02:58):
than two more than two Great Side Franklin vow is
how I'm pronouncing his last name Vox. 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
(03:20):
It's like the people in a polyamorous relationship are committed
to one another, and that like they're rather in 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,
(03:42):
of commitment of affection. UM 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
(04:04):
even use a word like monogamy when it means that
polly means more than one word. Yeah, I think that's
that's the trip. And so Dan Savage come on monogamoush 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
(04:27):
probably Cinemax that UM followed some polyamorous relationships, and so
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, they all lived together, they were all
(04:50):
in a committed relationship with one another. UM. I mean,
we'll 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 Uh,
it's really I mean, we could go over millions in
(05:12):
areas you really could. I was starting to break them
all down, but it's like, you really is. Whatever you
can work out between yourselves is polyamory. 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, and it's not cheating because all
(05:36):
of the people involved 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 e SP stood for. Yeah,
(05:57):
a couple of people like, we're like, hey, catch what
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,
(06:20):
and um here's how it works. Well, Uh, I think
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
like a evolutionary perspective, monogamy is kind of a puzzlement. Yes,
(06:45):
should we talk about that. Yeah, So monogamy looking through
the lens of natural selection doesn't make sense evolutionarily because
it lowers a mail's ability to um, It lowers his
number of opportunity at ease to carry on his genetic
line and there for the species, right exactly. Yeah, And
(07:06):
it was long thought by some that um it was
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,
or actually a lot less likely. Um. And ironically, well
not ironically, but coincidentally they were both published. They were
(07:29):
both published around the same time, these two new theories,
they came out 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
(07:51):
birds and the cockroaches, specifically, mammals too. Yeah, about five
percent of the four thousand mammal species, give or take UM,
only about five are monogamous or mate for life. Right,
And so again, if you are strictly looking at it
from the selfish gene theory, like the whole point would
(08:12):
be to run around and copulate with as many females
as you possibly can so that you can have more
and more chances of spreading your genetic line and then,
like you said, hence carry on the species. So to
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,
(08:36):
it doesn't really kind of make sense. So they've tried
to explain this, and there are some theories, 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
(08:57):
kill her offspring because while she's nursing, she can't ovulate,
and therefore you can't reproduce with her, but 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,
(09:19):
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 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
(09:44):
for sure. But that's not necessarily true because there's another
really great theory where they actually published in the journal
Science and studied mammals, which is way more than the
other study. H. D. H. Lucas and Tim kluten Brock
of Cambridge University, and they said, Uh, it's really about
(10:05):
low density and females. It's that simple, Like when 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. Females 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
(10:27):
know what she's doing while you're not around, so you
don't know whether those kids are yours or not. So
the best way to make sure that they're your kids
is to hang around and be monogamous. That's right. 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
(10:48):
a little less magnanimous. You're staying around to make sure
that the female doesn't run around on you. Right. But
then I saw a third theory that also makes sense
to UM, and that is the the idea of males
staying around to help raise kids was a strategy developed
by lesser males in the primate kingdom. So like the
(11:11):
alpha male, the top guys, they're having no trouble, they
can go wherever they want, they're getting plenty of action, right,
But less nestman is like, hey, 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,
(11:32):
he's a dork. I can't stand his bow tie in
his shortsleeve shirt, but he does do a pretty good
job with the kids. 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 neestment is? It was? That was a
(11:55):
great reference, man, Thanks, I just popped up um. Alright,
So the benefits, I believe, 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 staying 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,
(12:17):
but the payoff is rich. That is wise words, Chuck.
So we'll see if I 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. No, It's definitely part of it. It
(12:39):
is part of it, UM, But it is also about
um support in a greater 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
(13:04):
one another everybody. UM. Sex is a big component of it.
But you also have what are called poly effective relationships
where like, let's say you have what you call it
a triad. Is that a poly um? Yeah, right, but
that's what polyamorous call it. UM. So let's say you
have a triad where neither of the of two women
(13:26):
and a guy, and neither of the women are bisexual,
but they're still in a polyamorous relationship. They would be
polly 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
(13:48):
satisfying your every sexual need with a bunch of different people. UM.
It's 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 can be cultural interests,
it can be past times, it can be what have you.
(14:09):
And so the idea behind polyamory is you find those
people in your life who combined make that single ideal person, yeah,
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 than two, more
(14:31):
than more than two dot com? I looked at one.
They have a lot of just stories and examples of people,
like 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,
(14:54):
and she had another man that was really into that stuff,
an old high school boyfriend I think, and he uh
took up with another woman who had similar interest 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 within 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
(15:17):
have a lot of great stuff. Uh So it is literally,
like you said, satisfying all my 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.
(15:38):
If it was this lady, So everybody, we're about to
satisfy all of your needs with this commercial break. Hey
now all right and we're back. So chuck um. We
(16:11):
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 your twenties, but relationships get
(16:32):
a little more complicated 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 I want a vacation here.
(16:54):
They're exactly just in keeping up with schedules. It's all
very complicated. It's all compromise. It's like 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 basically what we're
(17:15):
getting at is, if you think your marriage is complicated,
polyamory can be even more complicated. 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 two for one,
two for one. You want to meet a great communicator,
(17:35):
go talk to someone in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah, so
that's one of the chief requirements of polyamory. Gotta be
able to talk about all this stuff. I've seen it
put as you have highly evolved communication skills. Yes, I
would not a good polyamory man like I wouldn't last
two days. No, I stink. I stink at communicating. I
(17:58):
think I'm just doing line 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
to that kind of thing, but you also have to
be honest about your feelings. And one of the things
that polyamorous face, just like anybody else's jealousy. We did
(18:22):
a pretty good episode on jealousy a while back, jealousy
much yea yeah, with a question mark right, 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 to approach the feelings of
(18:46):
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 spouse in front of you, right,
(19:08):
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 other spouse.
And by the way, in a polyamorous relationship, the plural
of spouse is spice. Yes, so if you're married to
two people, you have two spice um, which is kind
(19:32):
of funny. Sure you got a 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 than me. And if he
wants to be with him more than me, then uh,
(19:53):
he's gonna leave me. Is often rooted in your own insecurities.
So what this guy was saying is, if you spell
this 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 is correct, this person really would
leave me because that person is a better kisser. Um,
(20:15):
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, then maybe you'd
be a decent polyamorous. Yeah. There's a lady named Terry Connelly,
a professor of psychology and women's studies at University of Michigan,
uh Go Wolverines, and she's she's one of the well,
(20:39):
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.
And for good reason, Yeah, for very good reasons. But
she did some studies and polls and things, and she
found that jealousy is, in fact, she said, much higher
(21:00):
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 sevent individuals. Polly, Um, I'm
sorry monogamous individuals, hundred and 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
(21:23):
levels of sexual satisfaction. Uh, and people in open relationships
tended to have lower sexual satisfaction than their monogamous piers
and polyamorous piers. So, and we should say open is
not the same as polyamorous. Now again, in a polyamorous group,
the people in the group form a closed hole. Yeah.
In an open relationship, it's like there's two people who
(21:46):
are connected, but they're also facing outward and the whole
world's up for grabs, basically, right, in an open relationship,
you know, right, it's not so in polyamorous is not
an open relationship, and open really ship is not polyamorous.
But a polyamorous relationship could include swinging from what I understand. Yes,
(22:07):
And did you know that swinging apparently started among World
War Two Air Force pilots in your families? You knew that, yeah,
because you supposedly if your husband died in battle, it
was just sort of understood that that woman would then
take up with another serviceman. Correct, I guess, but with
(22:27):
another married serviceman or what. I don't know about that. Huh. Well,
apparently it started out with like we called that 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.
I think I've told the story about the Atlanta Swingers
Club was very close to my phone number growing up,
(22:50):
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 the
Atlanta Singers would just be like my mom would just
remember it was so like troublesome to her, and she
kept the whistle next to the phone and would blow
a whistle into it. It's so funny to think about, yes,
so man, very funny. I still remember that number two?
(23:15):
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.
All right, another thing we need to talk about our
s t I s UM sexually transmitted infection. You would
(23:37):
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
and being super open about those results. UM apparently much
(23:57):
more so than UM people in monogamous 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 upfront
about it in polyamory. Yeah, and and they kind of
(24:18):
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 two, it has a practical application defending against
S T I S. Yeah, they did. There was one
study in twelve in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that
(24:38):
found that UM unfaithful like cheaters, not like uh, like
a cheater, you're in a monogamous 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 because you go off in your cheat and
you keep quiet and you do something super risky, you know,
(24:59):
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 your 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 in a polyamorous relationship
(25:21):
or 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 a big deal. So there's a thing.
One of the ways they protect against um STDs is uh, well,
(25:45):
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,
(26:07):
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.
(26:29):
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 with the hierarchical relationship. With the hierarchical format,
(26:55):
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, vito the others veto is a
big deal. Yeah, um in a and the other relationship
that forms like a try it or a quad or
six people or something like that where everybody is equally weighted.
(27:18):
That's that that that you wouldn't have like a high
there's no hierarchical structure to that. Yeah, And it depends
on how you want to structure things. They're both completely
valid as polyamorous relationships. Um, it's just 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 if if um, somebody is is
(27:42):
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, but I can
imagine that is a huge thing, especially in a law
long established um polyamorous relationship, you know, like bringing a
(28:06):
new person in all bet 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. Plus in the
hierarchical structure, then I can imagine the veto power probably
just rests with the two core people, maybe slightly in
(28:26):
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 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
(28:47):
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 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 if they are agreed
(29:11):
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 fluid monogamous and everybody
else would be. Right, you'd have to wear economy or something. 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
(29:34):
in the relationship working out what works best for them.
All right, So let's take a break here and talk
more about the polyamory right after this. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Um.
(30:09):
It's 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 relationships whos two or more Spice is the
plural of spouse um. And then there's a word called
compulsion that's very much associated with polyamory, and it is
(30:33):
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 thing for
(30:56):
most people, especially people in traditional argamous 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 compulsion. 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 keep
(31:18):
her from really falling in love with him 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 that marriage is like the marital contract that you
(31:41):
feel like you have to stay you know, uh true too,
you know, like in a regular marriage, you should want
to be with your husband and 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 some sort of of structure or mechanism
(32:02):
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 going to break up and
that couple is going to split off. That's not polyamory
(32:25):
and 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 factors in their longevity, and monogamous
(32:46):
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 disappoint Yeah, it's I mean,
those aren't reasons to stay mary, you know. So, Um,
we already touched on also the idea that if you
(33:07):
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 lot of drawbacks to being in a polyamorous relationship
(33:30):
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 two societal
(33:51):
values is UM. It's gotta be tough. Yeah, And you know,
over the years acceptance of this is UM been zilch too.
Better be saying 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
(34:12):
April of this year actually, where they pulled about 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,
sixteen percent of women and thirty one percent of men
chose four or higher on that scale, would ask if
(34:32):
they'd be willing to pursue like try something like that
out basically, so it's 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
(34:53):
studies I've seen. I saw like the most maybe four percent. Yeah,
I can't imagine ten percent. There's just no 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. I agree. Secrecy is a big part
(35:16):
of this. And that's not to say that shame is
a part of a polyamorous relationship, but secrecy is 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,
(35:39):
I mean you'd spend half your life explaining this to everybody,
you know. Um, there was the one case and uh,
and I couldn't find up any follow up about this
young woman, but April what's your last name? Yeah, she
was on the MTV show in the late nineties and
had a child and had two men in her life.
(36:00):
A triad and everyone was happy, the kid was healthy
and happy, and everything was great, and the grandmother sued
for custody and one it because the court basically made
a moral judgment. So this is a depraved lifestyle. And
this was in spite of the fact that the court
sent its own shrinks to go evaluate the home and
(36:22):
the family and didn't find that the kids were any
in anything but a loving, supporting home and we're happy
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
(36:43):
if you came out as a polyamorous family. Probably it's
one thing I think as far as society goes to
be like, Okay, you guys, just go do your own thing.
Whatever you 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
(37:07):
you're having kids with multiple partners in this polyamorous relationship,
I think society's threshold 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
(37:30):
on children. No, no one knows polyamorous will say, look, dude,
you have 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,
(37:52):
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 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
(38:12):
to support kids who are going through that. With this,
it's like that doesn't make any sense, and the kid's
going to be have all sorts of issues. And then
if you don't tell your kid while you're raising them,
when they get to college and figure out what was
going on, they're not going to trust you any longer. Like,
but none of this, almost none of it is based
on studies. It's all just moral judgments on one way
(38:34):
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. 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
(38:56):
done a lot of interviewing, and she finds generally they
are in their thirty sporties and fifties, generally white and
liberal and educated, many of 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
(39:19):
are they religious, but 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. 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
(39:40):
in polyamory by start looking for a woman bisexual when
to enter their relationship. So I want 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?
(40:01):
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 upon the communism.
Oh really, I think so? Well, they were. It sounds
like a cult, but um, it's super interesting because it
(40:22):
was in the eighteen forties in upstate New York and Oneida,
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. A lawyer named
John Humphrey noise Uh basically started of Free Love Commune
in the eighteen forties in New York, and by some accounts,
(40:45):
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 it turned out, not so
great in many ways because because they had sex with teenagers,
and the more I read about it, at first it
sounded like this commune, and then ten minutes later I
(41:08):
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 remember hearing it as like some
sort of cautionary tailor 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
(41:30):
that commune going. That was the main reason. But they
did not encourage monogamy at all. They they shunned it.
If you were caught, 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, get your priorities in order, basically,
(41:51):
get your head together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a documentary
on that clan that'll be interesting. Uh, if you want
to know more, about polyamory and other alternative lifestyles. You
can search those in the search bar at how stuff
works dot com. And uh, since I said search bar,
it's time for a listener mail. Here's more on T.
(42:13):
Hey guys, listen to T and a massive te connoistur
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 what I can't wait to sec them this 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 spelled pu dash e r H. Pu air is
(42:37):
what I'm gonna say, he said. It's probably the most
unique T out of the six types tom to the
Union Province of China, is the only T to be fermented,
not oxidized. What this means is that pu air is
and I know that's wrong, is able to be aged
for years and years and taste better as ages, just
(42:58):
like wine. And some pure air on the market that's
several decades old goes for thousands of dollars per disc disc.
Yes disc traditionally puerre is stone pressed into a disc
form called a being cha and is sold um in
that disc form that it has a forced floor flavor
and has brooded about two five to two and ten
(43:20):
degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, it sounds good, um, he said. I
could go on and on, but that suggests great job
over all, guys, and now it's tough to fit at all.
One episode t could easily be its own college class
with all the cultural history behind it. Take care. And
that is from Aaron Krauss, whose developer at the Society
dot org. That is t h E s O c
(43:42):
I E t e A dot org. Thanks a lot,
Aaron and your cohorts at the Society. Sounds neat. Uh,
it sounds like the one needed call. Mm hmm yeah,
I 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 at s y s
(44:04):
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 at our home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know
is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hello, folks, it's Chuck here on a Saturday Select episode.
This is from April seven, two fift and this is
a very sexy podcast episode called Polyamory Colin when too
just won't do. I think you know where this is
headed right now. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a
(00:23):
production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck,
Bryan Jerry's over there, and this is stuff you should
not Let's try how all of our wives and girlfriends
are in the next room. All right, how are you doing? Man?
(00:45):
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
was in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah, and we're not here
to like just kind of look at your relationship from
(01:08):
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, but um, from the outside, Uh,
polyamory might seem like a very strange arrangement. Well, I
think to most people it seems like swinging. That's right,
(01:30):
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. Uh, Well,
the point is that we should it's not promiscuous nous.
(01:53):
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.
But from research, like I realized I was pretty far off.
(02:16):
Polyamory is in a very odd way a form of monogamy,
but that it includes more than two people in this
monogamous relationship, while not necessarily monogamous either though, so because
there can be arrangements where you're allowed to go out
and do what you want, kickens with people. So I
(02:37):
ran across something that that's technically considered monogamish. As Dan
Savage coined it. That sounds like a very new word.
It is new, yeah, I mean Dan Savage coined it. Yeah,
but which means that I'm probably not gonna put too
much greedence. But in the from what I understand and this,
I got this from a polyamory site called um more
(02:58):
than two more than two Great Side Franklin vow is
how I'm pronouncing his last name Vox. 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
(03:20):
It's like the people in a polyamorous relationship are committed
to one another, and that like they're rather in 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,
(03:42):
of commitment of affection. UM 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
(04:04):
even use a word like monogamy when it means that
polly means more than one word. Yeah, I think that's
that's the trip. And so Dan Savage come on monogamoush 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
(04:27):
probably Cinemax that UM followed some polyamorous relationships, and so
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, they all lived together, they were all
(04:50):
in a committed relationship with one another. UM. I mean,
we'll 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 Uh,
it's really I mean, we could go over millions in
(05:12):
areas you really could. I was starting to break them
all down, but it's like, you really is. Whatever you
can work out between yourselves is polyamory. 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, and it's not cheating because all
(05:36):
of the people involved 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 e SP stood for. Yeah,
(05:57):
a couple of people like, we're like, hey, catch what
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,
(06:20):
and um here's how it works. Well, Uh, I think
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
like a evolutionary perspective, monogamy is kind of a puzzlement. Yes,
(06:45):
should we talk about that. Yeah, So monogamy looking through
the lens of natural selection doesn't make sense evolutionarily because
it lowers a mail's ability to um, It lowers his
number of opportunity at ease to carry on his genetic
line and there for the species, right exactly. Yeah, And
(07:06):
it was long thought by some that um it was
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,
or actually a lot less likely. Um. And ironically, well
not ironically, but coincidentally they were both published. They were
(07:29):
both published around the same time, these two new theories,
they came out 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
(07:51):
birds and the cockroaches, specifically, mammals too. Yeah, about five
percent of the four thousand mammal species, give or take UM,
only about five are monogamous or mate for life. Right,
And so again, if you are strictly looking at it
from the selfish gene theory, like the whole point would
(08:12):
be to run around and copulate with as many females
as you possibly can so that you can have more
and more chances of spreading your genetic line and then,
like you said, hence carry on the species. So to
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,
(08:36):
it doesn't really kind of make sense. So they've tried
to explain this, and there are some theories, 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
(08:57):
kill her offspring because while she's nursing, she can't ovulate,
and therefore you can't reproduce with her, but 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,
(09:19):
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 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
(09:44):
for sure. But that's not necessarily true because there's another
really great theory where they actually published in the journal
Science and studied mammals, which is way more than the
other study. H. D. H. Lucas and Tim kluten Brock
of Cambridge University, and they said, Uh, it's really about
(10:05):
low density and females. It's that simple, Like when 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. Females 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
(10:27):
know what she's doing while you're not around, so you
don't know whether those kids are yours or not. So
the best way to make sure that they're your kids
is to hang around and be monogamous. That's right. 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
(10:48):
a little less magnanimous. You're staying around to make sure
that the female doesn't run around on you. Right. But
then I saw a third theory that also makes sense
to UM, and that is the the idea of males
staying around to help raise kids was a strategy developed
by lesser males in the primate kingdom. So like the
(11:11):
alpha male, the top guys, they're having no trouble, they
can go wherever they want, they're getting plenty of action, right,
But less nestman is like, hey, 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,
(11:32):
he's a dork. I can't stand his bow tie in
his shortsleeve shirt, but he does do a pretty good
job with the kids. 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 neestment is? It was? That was a
(11:55):
great reference, man, Thanks, I just popped up um. Alright,
So the benefits, I believe, 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 staying 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,
(12:17):
but the payoff is rich. That is wise words, Chuck.
So we'll see if I 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. No, It's definitely part of it. It
(12:39):
is part of it, UM, But it is also about
um support in a greater 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
(13:04):
one another everybody. UM. Sex is a big component of it.
But you also have what are called poly effective relationships
where like, let's say you have what you call it
a triad. Is that a poly um? Yeah, right, but
that's what polyamorous call it. UM. So let's say you
have a triad where neither of the of two women
(13:26):
and a guy, and neither of the women are bisexual,
but they're still in a polyamorous relationship. They would be
polly 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
(13:48):
satisfying your every sexual need with a bunch of different people. UM.
It's 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 can be cultural interests,
it can be past times, it can be what have you.
(14:09):
And so the idea behind polyamory is you find those
people in your life who combined make that single ideal person, yeah,
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 than two, more
(14:31):
than more than two dot com? I looked at one.
They have a lot of just stories and examples of people,
like 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,
(14:54):
and she had another man that was really into that stuff,
an old high school boyfriend I think, and he uh
took up with another woman who had similar interest 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 within 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
(15:17):
have a lot of great stuff. Uh So it is literally,
like you said, satisfying all my 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.
(15:38):
If it was this lady, So everybody, we're about to
satisfy all of your needs with this commercial break. Hey
now all right and we're back. So chuck um. We
(16:11):
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 your twenties, but relationships get
(16:32):
a little more complicated 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 I want a vacation here.
(16:54):
They're exactly just in keeping up with schedules. It's all
very complicated. It's all compromise. It's like 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 basically what we're
(17:15):
getting at is, if you think your marriage is complicated,
polyamory can be even more complicated. 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 two for one,
two for one. You want to meet a great communicator,
(17:35):
go talk to someone in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah, so
that's one of the chief requirements of polyamory. Gotta be
able to talk about all this stuff. I've seen it
put as you have highly evolved communication skills. Yes, I
would not a good polyamory man like I wouldn't last
two days. No, I stink. I stink at communicating. I
(17:58):
think I'm just doing line 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
to that kind of thing, but you also have to
be honest about your feelings. And one of the things
that polyamorous face, just like anybody else's jealousy. We did
(18:22):
a pretty good episode on jealousy a while back, jealousy
much yea yeah, with a question mark right, 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 to approach the feelings of
(18:46):
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 spouse in front of you, right,
(19:08):
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 other spouse.
And by the way, in a polyamorous relationship, the plural
of spouse is spice. Yes, so if you're married to
two people, you have two spice um, which is kind
(19:32):
of funny. Sure you got a 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 than me. And if he
wants to be with him more than me, then uh,
(19:53):
he's gonna leave me. Is often rooted in your own insecurities.
So what this guy was saying is, if you spell
this 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 is correct, this person really would
leave me because that person is a better kisser. Um,
(20:15):
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, then maybe you'd
be a decent polyamorous. Yeah. There's a lady named Terry Connelly,
a professor of psychology and women's studies at University of Michigan,
uh Go Wolverines, and she's she's one of the well,
(20:39):
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.
And for good reason, Yeah, for very good reasons. But
she did some studies and polls and things, and she
found that jealousy is, in fact, she said, much higher
(21:00):
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 sevent individuals. Polly, Um, I'm
sorry monogamous individuals, hundred and 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
(21:23):
levels of sexual satisfaction. Uh, and people in open relationships
tended to have lower sexual satisfaction than their monogamous piers
and polyamorous piers. So, and we should say open is
not the same as polyamorous. Now again, in a polyamorous group,
the people in the group form a closed hole. Yeah.
In an open relationship, it's like there's two people who
(21:46):
are connected, but they're also facing outward and the whole
world's up for grabs, basically, right, in an open relationship,
you know, right, it's not so in polyamorous is not
an open relationship, and open really ship is not polyamorous.
But a polyamorous relationship could include swinging from what I understand. Yes,
(22:07):
And did you know that swinging apparently started among World
War Two Air Force pilots in your families? You knew that, yeah,
because you supposedly if your husband died in battle, it
was just sort of understood that that woman would then
take up with another serviceman. Correct, I guess, but with
(22:27):
another married serviceman or what. I don't know about that. Huh. Well,
apparently it started out with like we called that 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.
I think I've told the story about the Atlanta Swingers
Club was very close to my phone number growing up,
(22:50):
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 the
Atlanta Singers would just be like my mom would just
remember it was so like troublesome to her, and she
kept the whistle next to the phone and would blow
a whistle into it. It's so funny to think about, yes,
so man, very funny. I still remember that number two?
(23:15):
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.
All right, another thing we need to talk about our
s t I s UM sexually transmitted infection. You would
(23:37):
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
and being super open about those results. UM apparently much
(23:57):
more so than UM people in monogamous 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 upfront
about it in polyamory. Yeah, and and they kind of
(24:18):
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 two, it has a practical application defending against
S T I S. Yeah, they did. There was one
study in twelve in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that
(24:38):
found that UM unfaithful like cheaters, not like uh, like
a cheater, you're in a monogamous 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 because you go off in your cheat and
you keep quiet and you do something super risky, you know,
(24:59):
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 your 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 in a polyamorous relationship
(25:21):
or 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 a big deal. So there's a thing.
One of the ways they protect against um STDs is uh, well,
(25:45):
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,
(26:07):
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.
(26:29):
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 with the hierarchical relationship. With the hierarchical format,
(26:55):
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, vito the others veto is a
big deal. Yeah, um in a and the other relationship
that forms like a try it or a quad or
six people or something like that where everybody is equally weighted.
(27:18):
That's that that that you wouldn't have like a high
there's no hierarchical structure to that. Yeah, And it depends
on how you want to structure things. They're both completely
valid as polyamorous relationships. Um, it's just 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 if if um, somebody is is
(27:42):
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, but I can
imagine that is a huge thing, especially in a law
long established um polyamorous relationship, you know, like bringing a
(28:06):
new person in all bet 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. Plus in the
hierarchical structure, then I can imagine the veto power probably
just rests with the two core people, maybe slightly in
(28:26):
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 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
(28:47):
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 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 if they are agreed
(29:11):
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 fluid monogamous and everybody
else would be. Right, you'd have to wear economy or something. 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
(29:34):
in the relationship working out what works best for them.
All right, So let's take a break here and talk
more about the polyamory right after this. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Um.
(30:09):
It's 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 relationships whos two or more Spice is the
plural of spouse um. And then there's a word called
compulsion that's very much associated with polyamory, and it is
(30:33):
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 thing for
(30:56):
most people, especially people in traditional argamous 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 compulsion. 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 keep
(31:18):
her from really falling in love with him 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 that marriage is like the marital contract that you
(31:41):
feel like you have to stay you know, uh true too,
you know, like in a regular marriage, you should want
to be with your husband and 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 some sort of of structure or mechanism
(32:02):
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 going to break up and
that couple is going to split off. That's not polyamory
(32:25):
and 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 factors in their longevity, and monogamous
(32:46):
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 disappoint Yeah, it's I mean,
those aren't reasons to stay mary, you know. So, Um,
we already touched on also the idea that if you
(33:07):
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 lot of drawbacks to being in a polyamorous relationship
(33:30):
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 two societal
(33:51):
values is UM. It's gotta be tough. Yeah, And you know,
over the years acceptance of this is UM been zilch too.
Better be saying 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
(34:12):
April of this year actually, where they pulled about 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,
sixteen percent of women and thirty one percent of men
chose four or higher on that scale, would ask if
(34:32):
they'd be willing to pursue like try something like that
out basically, so it's 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
(34:53):
studies I've seen. I saw like the most maybe four percent. Yeah,
I can't imagine ten percent. There's just no 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. I agree. Secrecy is a big part
(35:16):
of this. And that's not to say that shame is
a part of a polyamorous relationship, but secrecy is 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,
(35:39):
I mean you'd spend half your life explaining this to everybody,
you know. Um, there was the one case and uh,
and I couldn't find up any follow up about this
young woman, but April what's your last name? Yeah, she
was on the MTV show in the late nineties and
had a child and had two men in her life.
(36:00):
A triad and everyone was happy, the kid was healthy
and happy, and everything was great, and the grandmother sued
for custody and one it because the court basically made
a moral judgment. So this is a depraved lifestyle. And
this was in spite of the fact that the court
sent its own shrinks to go evaluate the home and
(36:22):
the family and didn't find that the kids were any
in anything but a loving, supporting home and we're happy
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
(36:43):
if you came out as a polyamorous family. Probably it's
one thing I think as far as society goes to
be like, Okay, you guys, just go do your own thing.
Whatever you 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
(37:07):
you're having kids with multiple partners in this polyamorous relationship,
I think society's threshold 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
(37:30):
on children. No, no one knows polyamorous will say, look, dude,
you have 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,
(37:52):
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 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
(38:12):
to support kids who are going through that. With this,
it's like that doesn't make any sense, and the kid's
going to be have all sorts of issues. And then
if you don't tell your kid while you're raising them,
when they get to college and figure out what was
going on, they're not going to trust you any longer. Like,
but none of this, almost none of it is based
on studies. It's all just moral judgments on one way
(38:34):
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. 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
(38:56):
done a lot of interviewing, and she finds generally they
are in their thirty sporties and fifties, generally white and
liberal and educated, many of 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
(39:19):
are they religious, but 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. 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
(39:40):
in polyamory by start looking for a woman bisexual when
to enter their relationship. So I want 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?
(40:01):
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 upon the communism.
Oh really, I think so? Well, they were. It sounds
like a cult, but um, it's super interesting because it
(40:22):
was in the eighteen forties in upstate New York and Oneida,
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. A lawyer named
John Humphrey noise Uh basically started of Free Love Commune
in the eighteen forties in New York, and by some accounts,
(40:45):
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 it turned out, not so
great in many ways because because they had sex with teenagers,
and the more I read about it, at first it
sounded like this commune, and then ten minutes later I
(41:08):
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 remember hearing it as like some
sort of cautionary tailor 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
(41:30):
that commune going. That was the main reason. But they
did not encourage monogamy at all. They they shunned it.
If you were caught, 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, get your priorities in order, basically,
(41:51):
get your head together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a documentary
on that clan that'll be interesting. Uh, if you want
to know more, about polyamory and other alternative lifestyles. You
can search those in the search bar at how stuff
works dot com. And uh, since I said search bar,
it's time for a listener mail. Here's more on T.
(42:13):
Hey guys, listen to T and a massive te connoistur
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 what I can't wait to sec them this 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 spelled pu dash e r H. Pu air is
(42:37):
what I'm gonna say, he said. It's probably the most
unique T out of the six types tom to the
Union Province of China, is the only T to be fermented,
not oxidized. What this means is that pu air is
and I know that's wrong, is able to be aged
for years and years and taste better as ages, just
(42:58):
like wine. And some pure air on the market that's
several decades old goes for thousands of dollars per disc disc.
Yes disc traditionally puerre is stone pressed into a disc
form called a being cha and is sold um in
that disc form that it has a forced floor flavor
and has brooded about two five to two and ten
(43:20):
degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, it sounds good, um, he said. I
could go on and on, but that suggests great job
over all, guys, and now it's tough to fit at all.
One episode t could easily be its own college class
with all the cultural history behind it. Take care. And
that is from Aaron Krauss, whose developer at the Society
dot org. That is t h E s O c
(43:42):
I E t e A dot org. Thanks a lot,
Aaron and your cohorts at the Society. Sounds neat. Uh,
it sounds like the one needed call. Mm hmm yeah,
I 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 at s y s
(44:04):
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 at our home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know
is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.