I never pick up the Red Eye (a shitty free newspaper here in Chicago) because I find the content horribly written and not captivating at all. But I saw a copy strewn on the street with the subject of polyamory on the cover and thought some might find it interesting.
For some Chicagoans, enjoying multiple serious romances without cheating makes more sense than monogamy.
There's no reliable data showing how many people practice polyamory, leaders in the poly community say, but they say there has been a boom in people seeking information about the lifestyle.
"Fifty percent of people checking it out actually become interested, and the other 50 percent decide it's just not for them," said Robyn Trask, executive director of Loving More, a Colorado-based magazine for the poly community.
Loving More has 1,500 subscribers to the magazine and 15,000 people in its database, which includes people who have attended polyamory conferences, Trask said.
Of the eight or nine polyamory retreats and conferences held in the US each year, the largest is the PolyLiving Conference outside Philadelphia, which drew 120 people this spring, Trask said. The first Chicago Polyamory Conference was scheduled for this year, but it was canceled because of low registration.
Since 2005, a Chicago woman who goes by Cunning Minx has hosted a weekly podcast about her adventures in polyamory (polyweekly.com). There are two active polyamory Meetup groups in the area - an 8 month old Chicago group has 127 members and a 3 year old Fox Valley group has 38 and a polyamory book club meets monthly. The PolyChi Yahoo! Group founded in the late '90s, has more than 1,000 members and hosts a monthly PolyKaraoke night at Sidekick's, a karaoke lounge in Irving Park.
When Amul Kumar introduced himself to Joseph Prather at a science fiction convention three years ago, he said, by way of greeting: "I'm going to feet you shots so that I can make out with your wife later."
To monogamous ears, those are fighting words. But Prather and his wife, Patricia Bennett, practice polyamory, a lifestyle that encourages cultivating multiple romantic relationships openly and honestly. Kumar and Bennett had already established chemistry, and both were game; Prather though shocked at first by Kumar's brazen proposal, accepted the invitation.
Today, Kumar, Prather, and Bennett are in a relationship known in polyamory parlance as a "vee," because the structure resembles the letter "V": Bennett, representing the center point, is married to Prather and is dating Kumar, but Prather and Kumar are not romantically involved with each other (though they are close friends.)
Unlike swingers, who swap or add partners to spice up their sex lives, polyamorists maintain multiple intimate relationships that are emotional as well as sexual - "swinging with breakfast," some call it. The "vee" is one of many forms of polyamory, which, once you add hierarchies and outside partners, can begin to look like an extended family of lovers.
Prather, a 33 year old truck driver, and Bennett, a 28 year old airline reservationist, have the "primary" relationship and live together in Elk Grove Village. Kumar, a 33 year old photographer, has his own apartment in Edgewater and is the "secondary" partner. All three of them can have additional relationships as they please - Bennett has a "tertiary" partner, who in turn has his own fiance, and Kumar dates regularly, as he searches for a primary partner of his own - but they're bound by rules of conduct that hold them accountable to their trio.
Sound complicated? It can be. The relationships take work, scheduling is paramount and partners are not immune to jealousy. But for some people, enjoying multiple serious romances without cheating feels healthier than committing to one person for life - and society increasingly is taking notice.
Polyamory was a topic of discussion at the second annual Alternative Sexualities Conference at t he Center on Halsted, held May 21, which was designed to help clinicians and researchers understand sexual subcultures. Though no statistics show the ranks of the polyamorous are increasing, anecdotally there seems to be growing awareness of and interest in the lifestyle, particularly among young adults, said Richard Sprott, executive director of the Berkeley-based Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities.
"Many people question if one person can fulfill all of their needs," Sprott said. "They want to explore many parts of themselves and not put such a burden on one person. And they want to do it honestly, ethically, upfront."
It's not a topic to broach lightly, Sprott said. Telling your partner you want to try nonmonogamy, "is a very powerful statement" that begets insecurities and, with the conversation alone, can change the nature of the relationship," he said.
Some therapists warn that polyamory at its core is unworkable.
People are hard-wired to want the security of connecting profoundly with one other person, said Josh Hetherington, a marital and family therapist with the Family Institute at Northwestern University. When a partner has additional intimate relationships, even if they're transparent, there's a high risk that one partner will feel security is threatened.
"Anyone I've come across who wants to have multiple partners or multiple relationships, somebody is feeling burned by that," Hetherington said.
"Young couples who have higher sex drives might be able to sustain polyamorous relationships for a while, but eventually jealousy "gets to be corrosive on the [primary] relationship," and they return to monogamy, said Lonnie Barbach, author of "Erotic Edge" and a psychologist on the clinical faculty of the University of California Medical Center.
But just because monogamy works for most people doesn't mean it works for everyone, said therapist David Rodemaker who runs Many Loves, a workshop that meets monthly at the Center on Halsted for people practicing of interested in consensual nonmonogamy.
Though he doesn't endorse one lifestyle over another, Rodemaker said he has known people who have sustained successful polyamorous relationships for years. The eight to ten people who show up at the Many Loves sessions discuss "the same kind of stuff that comes up during couples counseling," he said, including jealousy.
For example, Prather said he feels jealous when he feels he's not spending enough time with Bennett. So they devised a schedule, with Bennett spending alternating weekends with Prather and Kumar.
To regulate their outside relationships, the trio abides by a set of rules: They use protection, and each person tells the others of new partners "within a reasonable time frame." Bennett also declared that Prather and Kumar have veto power over her partners if they don't pick up a good vibe. And Prather stipulates that Bennett must enjoy herself, because, "otherwise, what's the point?"
Bennett, a former serial monogamist who bounced from one committed relationship to the next, said she'd "never felt inclined to" monogamy. Cheating was a problem in relationships, but what bothered her the most was the lying.
"I preferred honesty over whether or not they were actually being faithful," said Bennett, who was introduced to polyamory by Prather who'd had a history of open relationships.
Bennett added: "The hardest part was getting used to the fact that it was OK."
Social stigma is another big challenge. people have lost custody of their children or their jobs because of their lifestyle.
Lissa Melton of Aurora, one of the organizers of the Fox Valley Polyamory Meetup group, said she joined another Meetup group recently in hopes of participating in their game nights and finding playmates for her 2-year-old son. A few days later, she got a note from the organizer saying that her affiliation with polyamory made others uncomfortable. She was removed from the group.
"It isn't the first time that I have wondered about being open about my lifestyle choices, but one of the things we value is honesty," said Melton, 33, who has been married for 13 years and polyamorous for seven.
To many, multiple partners may seem like more trouble than they're worth. But Prather said Kumar brings important elements to his marriage: a different point of view, a companion for Bennett, and another person to turn to in hard times.
"He's like family; he's on our emergency contact list," Prather said.
And if Bennett and Kumar broke up?
"I'd be heartbroken," Prather said.
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
For some Chicagoans, enjoying multiple serious romances without cheating makes more sense than monogamy.
There's no reliable data showing how many people practice polyamory, leaders in the poly community say, but they say there has been a boom in people seeking information about the lifestyle.
"Fifty percent of people checking it out actually become interested, and the other 50 percent decide it's just not for them," said Robyn Trask, executive director of Loving More, a Colorado-based magazine for the poly community.
Loving More has 1,500 subscribers to the magazine and 15,000 people in its database, which includes people who have attended polyamory conferences, Trask said.
Of the eight or nine polyamory retreats and conferences held in the US each year, the largest is the PolyLiving Conference outside Philadelphia, which drew 120 people this spring, Trask said. The first Chicago Polyamory Conference was scheduled for this year, but it was canceled because of low registration.
Since 2005, a Chicago woman who goes by Cunning Minx has hosted a weekly podcast about her adventures in polyamory (polyweekly.com). There are two active polyamory Meetup groups in the area - an 8 month old Chicago group has 127 members and a 3 year old Fox Valley group has 38 and a polyamory book club meets monthly. The PolyChi Yahoo! Group founded in the late '90s, has more than 1,000 members and hosts a monthly PolyKaraoke night at Sidekick's, a karaoke lounge in Irving Park.
When Amul Kumar introduced himself to Joseph Prather at a science fiction convention three years ago, he said, by way of greeting: "I'm going to feet you shots so that I can make out with your wife later."
To monogamous ears, those are fighting words. But Prather and his wife, Patricia Bennett, practice polyamory, a lifestyle that encourages cultivating multiple romantic relationships openly and honestly. Kumar and Bennett had already established chemistry, and both were game; Prather though shocked at first by Kumar's brazen proposal, accepted the invitation.
Today, Kumar, Prather, and Bennett are in a relationship known in polyamory parlance as a "vee," because the structure resembles the letter "V": Bennett, representing the center point, is married to Prather and is dating Kumar, but Prather and Kumar are not romantically involved with each other (though they are close friends.)
Unlike swingers, who swap or add partners to spice up their sex lives, polyamorists maintain multiple intimate relationships that are emotional as well as sexual - "swinging with breakfast," some call it. The "vee" is one of many forms of polyamory, which, once you add hierarchies and outside partners, can begin to look like an extended family of lovers.
Prather, a 33 year old truck driver, and Bennett, a 28 year old airline reservationist, have the "primary" relationship and live together in Elk Grove Village. Kumar, a 33 year old photographer, has his own apartment in Edgewater and is the "secondary" partner. All three of them can have additional relationships as they please - Bennett has a "tertiary" partner, who in turn has his own fiance, and Kumar dates regularly, as he searches for a primary partner of his own - but they're bound by rules of conduct that hold them accountable to their trio.
Sound complicated? It can be. The relationships take work, scheduling is paramount and partners are not immune to jealousy. But for some people, enjoying multiple serious romances without cheating feels healthier than committing to one person for life - and society increasingly is taking notice.
Polyamory was a topic of discussion at the second annual Alternative Sexualities Conference at t he Center on Halsted, held May 21, which was designed to help clinicians and researchers understand sexual subcultures. Though no statistics show the ranks of the polyamorous are increasing, anecdotally there seems to be growing awareness of and interest in the lifestyle, particularly among young adults, said Richard Sprott, executive director of the Berkeley-based Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities.
"Many people question if one person can fulfill all of their needs," Sprott said. "They want to explore many parts of themselves and not put such a burden on one person. And they want to do it honestly, ethically, upfront."
It's not a topic to broach lightly, Sprott said. Telling your partner you want to try nonmonogamy, "is a very powerful statement" that begets insecurities and, with the conversation alone, can change the nature of the relationship," he said.
Some therapists warn that polyamory at its core is unworkable.
People are hard-wired to want the security of connecting profoundly with one other person, said Josh Hetherington, a marital and family therapist with the Family Institute at Northwestern University. When a partner has additional intimate relationships, even if they're transparent, there's a high risk that one partner will feel security is threatened.
"Anyone I've come across who wants to have multiple partners or multiple relationships, somebody is feeling burned by that," Hetherington said.
"Young couples who have higher sex drives might be able to sustain polyamorous relationships for a while, but eventually jealousy "gets to be corrosive on the [primary] relationship," and they return to monogamy, said Lonnie Barbach, author of "Erotic Edge" and a psychologist on the clinical faculty of the University of California Medical Center.
But just because monogamy works for most people doesn't mean it works for everyone, said therapist David Rodemaker who runs Many Loves, a workshop that meets monthly at the Center on Halsted for people practicing of interested in consensual nonmonogamy.
Though he doesn't endorse one lifestyle over another, Rodemaker said he has known people who have sustained successful polyamorous relationships for years. The eight to ten people who show up at the Many Loves sessions discuss "the same kind of stuff that comes up during couples counseling," he said, including jealousy.
For example, Prather said he feels jealous when he feels he's not spending enough time with Bennett. So they devised a schedule, with Bennett spending alternating weekends with Prather and Kumar.
To regulate their outside relationships, the trio abides by a set of rules: They use protection, and each person tells the others of new partners "within a reasonable time frame." Bennett also declared that Prather and Kumar have veto power over her partners if they don't pick up a good vibe. And Prather stipulates that Bennett must enjoy herself, because, "otherwise, what's the point?"
Bennett, a former serial monogamist who bounced from one committed relationship to the next, said she'd "never felt inclined to" monogamy. Cheating was a problem in relationships, but what bothered her the most was the lying.
"I preferred honesty over whether or not they were actually being faithful," said Bennett, who was introduced to polyamory by Prather who'd had a history of open relationships.
Bennett added: "The hardest part was getting used to the fact that it was OK."
Social stigma is another big challenge. people have lost custody of their children or their jobs because of their lifestyle.
Lissa Melton of Aurora, one of the organizers of the Fox Valley Polyamory Meetup group, said she joined another Meetup group recently in hopes of participating in their game nights and finding playmates for her 2-year-old son. A few days later, she got a note from the organizer saying that her affiliation with polyamory made others uncomfortable. She was removed from the group.
"It isn't the first time that I have wondered about being open about my lifestyle choices, but one of the things we value is honesty," said Melton, 33, who has been married for 13 years and polyamorous for seven.
To many, multiple partners may seem like more trouble than they're worth. But Prather said Kumar brings important elements to his marriage: a different point of view, a companion for Bennett, and another person to turn to in hard times.
"He's like family; he's on our emergency contact list," Prather said.
And if Bennett and Kumar broke up?
"I'd be heartbroken," Prather said.
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
