Author: Tristan Taormino

Just a normal family… with more resources

Sierra Black is a woman in an open, poly marriage who blogs about parenting at her blog ChildWild. She has written several pieces online recently about her nontraditional relationships and how they intersect with her parenting. The first, entitled "Our successful open marriage," was published on Salon. In this piece, she discusses her home life and why she is drawn to partners outside her marriage.

Since we've always been poly, I often wonder how monogamous couples do it. I get so much support from my lovers. No one else, not my friends, not my parents, no one, is as willing to deal with the messes and mishaps of parenting as my sweeties. There’s something about romantic intimacy that builds a family-type closeness.

. . . To my kids, this is all normal. I've never had a big sit-down talk about how Mommy and Daddy's marriage is different. They were born into this. We're a big messy family. The kids know I go on grown-up sleepovers sometimes, and take it for granted.

Another piece from Black was published on parenting site Babble. This article is called "What It's Like To Be A Parent In An Open Marriage," and it's a pretty in-depth look at common questions that people have about poly relationships. Black stresses that her life is nothing to be gawked at.

I'm writing this essay because I think it's important to provide images of open marriage that counter the stereotypes. We're just a normal family... who happen to have more resources.

. . . poly families resemble monogamous families in a lot of ways. I just spent an hour talking to my girlfriend about a charter school we're both considering sending our kids to. Last night, my husband's girlfriend came over and sat with my second-grader doing homework while he did bath time with the little one. Our partners are folded into the fabric of our family life.

Black's articles are wonderful; be sure to read them both.

Valentine’s Day for non-monogamists

Valentine's Day seems to spark extra interest in the poly community, and this year is no exception. In an article in the DC Around Town branch of the Huffington Post, there is an interview with Tamara Pincus, a psychotherapist and sex podcast host who also runs a local discussion group for non-monogamous folks. Pincus has two children and lives with her husband and one of her husband's girlfriends. Both Pincus and her husband have other relationships as well.

Hilariously, most of the interview is spent with Pincus explaining how Valentine's Day just isn't a big deal to her, and that her only specific plans are to make breakfast for her children and record a new podcast.

In a similar vein, there's an article on CNN's website about how different couples spend Valentine's Day, with a short section on "nontraditional relationships."

"Each of my partners is like those in any monogamous relationships," said Joreth, a representative of the Polyamory Media Association, which provides members of the press with information and spokespeople on how polyamory works. "There's really no difference between how I feel about my current partners or how we relate to each other. The only difference is I didn't have to break up with one to start the other."

Joreth, her three male partners and their additional "metamors" are going out for dinner at a nice steakhouse in Tampa, Florida. All told, there will be six of them around the table.

"I don't personally observe Valentine's Day, but my partners' other partners do," she said. "The holiday's not important, but making my loved ones feel that I care about them is important."

The media’s renewed interest in open relationships continues

It began when the former wife of GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich told Nightline that Gingrich had once, on the heels of a 6-year affair, asked her for an "open marriage." More and more news stories about the controversy just keep popping up, many of them mentioning non-monogamy in some way.

The latest is a piece from the New York Times entitled "Open marriage's new 15 minutes." The article is a cursory look at the different permutations of non-monogamy, with some quotes from myself, Anita Wagner (organizer of the Polyamory Leadership Network), and others.

If nothing else, Marianne Gingrich’s allegation, which the candidate has denied, provided an unexpected publicity bounce for advocates of open relationships, who have long been trying to paw their way out of the cultural margins.

. . . In the first flush of open marriage in the '70s, there was hardly any way for the curious to find like-minded people. "Then the Internet came along and it was all just a keystroke away," [Janet W. Hardy] said, adding that there are dozens of online forums devoted to the practice today. "It turned from an oddity into a community."

Meanwhile, Modern Poly released a statement about the effect of big news stories like this one on the poly community. The statement is directed at Gingrich.

. . . with every backlash more and more people will come out, non-monogamy will become more and more normalized, more network television shows will be interested in exploring a non-monogamous plot arc, and then sitcoms, and eventually, things will change... And we owe a lot of that to you, Newt, for being the person in power to be scandalized by allegedly asking for a sexually non-exclusive relationship.

So thank you, Newt, for giving us the spotlight, so we can show people all the good ways to practice polyamory and non-monogamy... through honesty, compassion, responsibility, commitment, love, a sex-positive outlook, and a willingness to work through the hard things like boundaries and jealousy. Please--keep doing it wrong, so more people can find their way to us. Because the more you do, the more the movement is fed and ready to start making things better.

Non-monogamous blogger lays out the facts

Samantha Fraser, blogger at Not Your Mother's Playground, was interviewed for an article on non-monogamy in The Grid, an online city magazine run by the Toronto Star. The piece is decent, but the author spends a lot of time stressing how complicated, confusing, and exhausting non-monogamy seems.

Fraser wasn't too bothered by the coverage, but she did take the opportunity to clear up some things that the article left murky. In the process, she wrote a blog post more useful than the original article.

To be honest, the only issue that I have with it is that it seems to focus on the fact that -- a few months into non-monogamy I struggled extra with the little details -- like the visual cue of my husband’s date's wine glass being left behind in my kitchen. When we were relatively fresh other people fuckers, silly shit like that was hard to handle. So I share those stories with other people because those are the things that threw me for a loop back in the day. A few commenters on the article have latched onto the wine glass story, suggesting that if I’m not comfortable with that then I must not really be happy with non-monogamy at all.

And this is a mild challenge I always see that, for the most part, I ignore. There are a lot of assumptions out there about open relationships. First of all, people will often react strongly when they hear someone is in one. "Isn't that hard? What about jealousy? What if you fall in love?". On the flip side however, if I suggest mySELF that non-monogamy is hard and that sometimes those questions can have really tough answers, then I obviously must not be happy with it.

. . . I find this attitude so ridiculous which is why I will constantly strive to be honest when discussing open relationships . . . However in the interest of clarity, I will list a few points here that maybe I haven't said in some time.

Read Fraser's list of things she has personally learned from practicing non-monogamy.