Poly on OWN for “Our America with Lisa Ling”

Our America with Lisa LingTomorrow, March 5th, on Oprah's OWN network, a new episode of "Our America with Lisa Ling" will center on polyamory and various poly families. The one-hour show is called "I Love You & You... & You."

The show has been in the works since last August, when Robyn Trask, director of Loving More, was contacted by producers of the show. After some sniffing around to make sure the show would be respectful, Trask put the producers in contact with several poly families.

Ultimately, the show will feature Trask and her long-term partner Jesus V. Garcia and their partners, plus a triad from Vancouver and a quint from the Philadelphia area. The Philadelphia quint run the blog Polyskeptic. Shaun wrote a short post about the upcoming show, and Gina wrote about the process of coming out at work in preparation for its airing. Trask found the filming process to be pleasant:

Working with the producers, crew and Lisa Ling, who is an award winning journalist, was a delight. We spent three full days filming at our home in Loveland, CO. Overall it was a fun experience and very different from other TV crews I have worked with.

Two teaser videos have been released, entitled "Plenty of Love to Go Around" and "Monogamy's Not For Everyone."

"I Love You & You... & You" will air Tuesday, March 5th at 10 p.m. Eastern on OWN (use the channel finder to determine the channel number). It will re-air three hours later, and again on subsequent dates. The schedule can be found here.

Atlanta Poly Weekend is almost here!

Atlanta Poly WeekendIt's the third year for Atlanta Poly Weekend! Taking place March 15 through 17th at the Holiday Inn Perimeter in Atlanta, this conference brings in the foremost speakers to educate the poly-friendly community on matters regarding the family, the law, and social interactions and justice for those in the poly community.

The schedule is jam-packed with exciting sessions, plus other fun events such as trivia, poly family feud, an auction, and a St. Patrick's Day themed dance. The closing keynote will be led by Alan M. of Poly in the Media.

Register for Atlanta Poly Weekend here, and follow the conference on Twitter.

Tristan Taormino talks open relationships on NPR

To The Best of Our Knowledge

I will be on "To The Best of Our Knowledge" as part of a show called 'After the Romance,' which airs this weekend on NPR stations. I'll talk with host Steve Paulson about my book Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships, open relationships, swinging, polyamory, and more.

You can hear it during the following times on local NPR stations:

Atlanta, GA: Monday and Tuesday 11:00 am on 91.7 WUGA-FM
Columbus, OH: Sunday 3:00 pm on 89.7 WOSU-FM
Eugene, OR: Sunday 8:00 am on 1280 KRVM-AM
Los Angeles, CA: Sunday 9:00 pm on 88.3 KCLU-FM
Milwaukee, WI: Sunday 12:00 pm on 90.7 WHAD-FM
San Francisco, CA: Sunday, 8:00 am on 91.7 KALW-FM and Sunday, 7:00 pm on 88.5 KQED-FM
Seattle, WA: Friday (3/8) 8:00 pm on 94.9 KUOW-FM
Springfield, MA: Sunday, 8:00 am on 640 WNNZ-AM

For other local areas, click here to search by state.

You can also stream or download the mp3 of the entire show featuring me, Esther Perel, Kate Bolick, Brian Kaufman and Martin Swinger, and more or listen to and download my segment here.

How jealousy affects poly teens

Sam Fuller, an Oakland high school student writing for Youth Radio, has penned a quite insightful piece on polyamory, jealousy, and evolution. Fuller's interested in the subject stems from a female friend of his who, at one point, was in a polyamorous relationship. Wanting to know more about the role of jealousy, he interviews Dossie Easton (author of The Ethical Slut) and evolutionary psychologist David Buss. Both have different views of jealousy and its role: Easton wonders why jealousy is the sole deal-breaking emotion in relationships, while Buss sees jealousy as a biological defense mechanism that protects relationships.

Deciding to do his own bout of research, Fuller distributes a questionnaire to 21 peers, measuring their jealousy scores. While the average score is a 56, his friend Kina's score is 23 -- making her much less jealous than the others.

Kina's survey results made me wonder: had being poly and working on her insecure feelings actually made her a less jealous person? When I asked her about it, Kina said she thought it had, and she was glad for it. "Jealousy is just a counterproductive emotion," she said. "It doesn't make me happy."

Of course, evolutionarily speaking, jealousy doesn't work by making you happy. It works instead by creating an unhappy feeling, a feeling that your partner is threatening to reproduce and raise offspring with someone else. And once you have that feeling, you need to do something about it, whether it's something immature, like attacking the person flirting with your partner, or mature, like talking to your partner about it.

In Kina's case, she found ways to get rid of her jealous feelings, and that's made her feel happy. In the end, evolution aside, that's the question that mattered most to me.

Read the rest at Youth Radio.