16
March 2011
Polyamory
T
LOVIN’
Catalystmagazine.net
he term “non-monogamy” is appearing more regularly in the press and in the national dialogue. A catch-all reference for relationships that can involve sexual intimacy with more than one partner, non-monogamy manifests in several ways. Utahns, of course, were aware of polygamy long before “Big Love” and “Sister Wives.” “Swinging,” with its partner
“Respectable” non-monogamy?
swaps and often anonymous, recreational, and temporary sexual hookups, has been grist for books and films since the ’50s. Despite Utah’s ultra-conservative reputation, an underground sub-culture of swingers continues to thrive here. Those drawn to polyamory, however, claim a more complex desire: to create and maintain honest, consensual, ongoing, loving rela-
Polyamory stretches the paradigm, claiming that love for more than one other person is like a parent’s love for more than one child—it just develops when they show up, and it doesn’t get diluted as it expands.
tionships with more than just one other person. The word polyamory entered the modern lexicon in 1990, the mixed Greek/Latin roots meaning “to have many loves.” But it’s not a recent phenomenon. Several books written in the past two decades report many combat pilots and their wives during World War II practiced a form of it. So did their commander-in-chief— Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, who both maintained outside love interests that were known to the other. In certain cultures throughout human history, something akin to polyamory has actually been the norm. According to a July 29, 2009
BY JIM CATANO
Newsweek online report, as many as half a million American families are openly polyamorous (TINYURL.COM/29QKLBP). Even if that figure is correct, however, most people whose lifestyle could be labeled polyamorous remain below the public radar. They may live together or not; see each other frequently or rarely; be straight, gay, bisexual or some variation. However, even though it’s been a feature of Western civilization since the Roman Empire, they all defy the idea that monogamy is the only model for marriage and relationships. I am ethically bound to share with you my own experience and situation: I left a conservative reli-