Polyamory and Toxic Masculinity with @polyamfam
A big part of polyamory is challenging one's core beliefs and insecurities, and one big thing polyamorous men struggle with is toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity is a specific set of expectations and attitudes associated with men that have a negative impact on men's psyche as well as society as a whole, such as aggressive competitiveness and machismo, entitlement to and ownership of women's bodies, tying one's self-worth as a man to sexual performance, and so on. Today I speak with Chad (@polyamfam) about his unique experience and early struggles as a polyamorous man, and we hope that his story will help other men (and the people who date men) on their polyamorous journeys. We discuss:
- How to deal with competitiveness with other men, feeling like you "own" your girlfriend/wife, and tying one's self-worth to sex
- Dating struggles unique to polyamorous men and women, how to avoid comparisons with your female partner(s) on your respective dating lives, and possible reasons why women don't respond on dating apps
- How to introduce two male partners to each other in the least awkward way possible
and much more.
FOLLOW US:
Leanne (@polyphiliablog): Instagram | Facebook | Tiktok | Twitter | Youtube | Patreon | Website | Shop
Chad (@polyamfam): Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | Twitter | YouTube | Website
transcribed by Eden Brown
Leanne: Welcome to Happy Polydays, a series of intimate conversations about polyamory, sexuality, identity, and relationships, hosted by me – Leanne Yau of the Poly Philia blog.
Leanne: Hello everyone and welcome to day 5 of the Happy Polydays series. Today I am speaking with @polyamfam, also known as Chad. He honestly needs no introduction because if you follow me, you probably also follow him [laughter]. We’re both polyamorous meme creators, and apart from talking about our content creation, today we will also be talking about toxic masculinity in polyamory.
Chad, just in case there is someone out there who follows me who somehow doesn’t also follow you, could you please tell us more about what you do on @polyamfam and generally more about yourself?
Chad: Yeah, so @polyamfam is essentially, like you said, a meme page, and I’ve been doing more TikTok style videos as well. And all of my content is pretty much geared towards normalizing polyamory, giving people a safe space to be their polyamorous self without any judgement, and just making it more normal. Normalising all of non-monogamy, not just polyamory, but all non-monogamy.
Leanne: Honestly I am so excited to collaborate with you on this, because I remember when I started my page in November 2020 - I think around that time, you had 25K followers - you were actually my inspiration for starting my page. Because your memes were so fire, and I was like, “I want to do this too,” and now here we are. We’re both working on this project together, so this is a bit of a fan moment for me as well [laughter].
Chad: You’re making me blush! [laughter]
Leanne: So, Chad, first question: I would love to hear more about your polyamory origin story. This is something I ask every one of my guests. I think everyone has something interesting to say. And specifically, since we’re going to be talking about toxic masculinity and masculinity in general today, I would love to hear, as a man, what struggles you had in the early days of practicing polyamory that you unlearned over time.
Chad: Yeah! So, like most people, most men too, I have not been polyamorous for most of my life. I have only been polyamorous since early 2019. I was in a monogamous marriage prior to that. I had known that my partner had been in other relationship styles before and other structures, so it was something that was not entirely surprising, and something I kind of expected. So, in early 2019 when she met someone at a bar that we were both at — nothing shady, I knew about the whole thing — and they exchanged numbers, I asked her, “What - what is this?” And she basically didn’t know. Which came as a shock to me, because we had just not had the talk about it before, but then we did have that difficult talk about something we both knew would be a thing we would talk about and explore eventually.
Initially, like most men, I had to deal with a ton of unlearning, you know? I never had something like a One Penis Policy but I did have a preference to ease me in. I’d just be like, “I’m dealing with a lot of stuff.” I tried to own that stuff as best I could but often it’s very difficult as a man to own that stuff because it’s hard to sort out what — especially when you’re starting out — what is something you need to unlearn, and what’s something that just needs to be handled in a different way. So it was very chaotic. But, I had to unlearn all sorts of stuff like feeling like other men were competition, so much stuff like that. The competition thing really — because I knew in my head that I did not view women as a threat to my relationship, but I did view men that way, and I acknowledged that, and I knew that wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t quite know how to get to the point I was going to. But luckily I had the foresight to name it, and know that I had some work to do, and that wasn’t a right thing to think or feel. So yeah, got through a lot of that stuff.
Leanne: Yeah. And I know you’ve collated a lot of questions from your followers related to masculinity and unlearning beliefs, and processing jealousy and that kind of thing. And we will be dealing with these questions later on. But what was your process, like in terms of unlearning? The first step is acknowledging that you have these core beliefs, and I think that’s probably the most difficult step. No one like to think that they’re still holding on to racist or homophobic or misogynist beliefs. And then after that — then what?
Chad: Well I dove headfirst into the polyamory subreddit for a while. That was my initial, “Okay, I need to figure out what’s going on here. I need to learn the ‘ground rules’ as it were.” So I hopped on to that, I Googled pretty much anything I could think of, I got a couple of books, but I’ve got to be honest I never actually finished them? [laughter]
Leanne: Which ones?
Chad: Okay so, More Than Two, which has problematic controversy to it.
Leanne: Yeah, yeah.
Chad: We bought The Ethical Slut later but I was just so busy at the time — it’s not like I don’t want to read it, it’s just I was so busy at the time, I didn’t have the time to. And…there were a couple more I can’t really name, but those were the main two. We did read quite a bit of More Than Two, and this was before the controversy broke out or before we really knew about it.
Leanne: Yeah. I’m just going to inject this here, in case people don’t know what’s the controversy with More Than Two. Basically, More Than Two was written by Eve Rickert and Franklin Veaux, who were partners, and it came out in around 2019 that Franklin Veaux was abusing Eve and had abused about 10 other women and nonbinary people, over the course of a couple years. These 11 people came out with full allegations and their survivor’s accounts, and that kind of thing, and you can read more about that on ITrippedOnThePolyStair.com. So Franklin Veaux is very much a taboo topic now, the polyamorous community has de-platformed him now, and I think he’s only really active on Quora now. So that’s the controversy.
The thing is that More Than Two as a book has helped a lot of people, and it was also very formative to my understanding of polyamory in the early days, so I don’t write off the book completely. I do still think that it has value. However, I think that it’s really important not to put people on a pedestal. I think it’s really important to read everything you read with a critical eye, particularly with things as personal as relationships because ultimately, we all define and relate to people in different ways, and one person’s experience can’t be 100% universal. So there are definitely things in More Than Two that I look back at now and I think, “That’s a bit problematic,” and I think in the wrong context could really lead to some and toxic and perhaps even abusive situations. But the subtitle of More Than Two is “a practical guide to polyamory”, and I do think that it does provide a lot of really really good practical tips. So, don’t write it off completely, but just take everything with a pinch of salt.
Chad: Absolutely, because like I said, that was one that I actually read part of — I never finished it — and from what I remember there was quite a bit of information in that book that this person clearly was not practicing themselves [laughter]. So, totally agree on that. But a lot of my experience — because I read about people’s questions and stories on the subreddit — a lot of my experience came by practice. And I know that sounds on the face that I was just diving in unprepared, but no, I did a whole lot of research. But a lot of the actual learning, and coming to terms with things, actually having it sink in, came from practising polyamory, after I had prepared as much as possible. There’s just so many things that you could read about all day long and you just don’t know what it feels like until you’re in it, right? It’s hard — that’s not a satisfying answer for anybody! [laughter] But that’s just the truth.
But then after that, my wife and I started dating. It was almost like a triad but with couples? [laughter]
Leanne: Wait, so, 3 pairs of couples, you mean?
Chad: Yes, yes.
Leanne: Okay.
Chad: 3 previously monogamous couples. And we had all been friends previously, these weren’t brand new people, so we were all comfortable with each other and it was a nice environment. A lot of us we were kind of learning the same things, but also some of us were more comfortable with certain things, so it was a good learning ground.
We didn’t typically, my wife and I don’t typically, and never really typically, dated as a couple. I’d say we did for a very short period, or attempted to when we first opened up, but we quickly both realized, “I don’t think this is really what we want to do.” I think that can be valid - I think there are issues with it, but it can be valid - but that just wasn’t really for us. Anyone we date together pretty much happens entirely organically. [laughter] We don’t force anything. It kind of went from there and since then we’ve had various relationships of all kinds and all types and I feel like — as unsatisfying of an answer as this is — some of the things I look back on which I knew were problematic at the time but I was in my feelings about them, it’s amazing how I look back on those things now, I’m just like “Woah!” [laughter] “I feel so much better!” [laughter]. Time helps a lot. As unsatisfying as that is, time helps a lot.
Leanne: For sure. I think also that change is destabilizing in any situation, so something that I tell my clients a lot when I do my peer support sessions is: exclusivity, for a lot of people, is like the bedrock of the monogamous relationship. The whole idea of you being devoted to each other and forsaking all others, etc. etc. That is the foundation of your love, of your relationship. So when you open up, you are literally taking that foundation away. How could you not feel scared as shit of all of it, right?
Chad: You’re getting rid of the reason you started your relationship, basically.
Leanne: Yeah [laughter] because you know, love is so tied into exclusivity for so many people, and then people just forget, “Actually I’m in a relationship with my partner, not because I’m trying to stop them from having sex or falling in love with anyone else, but because I feel a deep trust and intimacy with them, we are very emotionally compatible, I want to support them and their goals, I want to be there for them when they’re sad… It’s that whole thing: what you bring into a relationship rather than what you keep out of it. Like, as Jess from @remodeledlove very accurately said one time when she was talking about her marriage. I think that’s the reframing that people have to do. And obviously, that is super tough because you can believe or know something logically, but then emotionally it’s very difficult to internalize.
Chad: Oh yeah, absolutely, just, nail on the head right there [laughter]. Completely. It’s turning something that you took for granted for so long just upside down. Something that you thought to be true the entire time and suddenly, “Oh, maybe it’s not,” and it’s very jarring in a lot of ways.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely.
So what do you think are the most common hurdles that polyamorous men, or rather, men who are exploring polyamory and non-monogamy? What do you think are the most common hurdles that they face? This might not be specific to your experience as a man yourself, but basically what you’ve seen and if you have anything from your own personal life to say, I would love to hear it.
Chad: Oh yeah, I think the biggest one is just processing jealousy about other men. Like, I said, even when you name it and know it’s there it doesn’t make it just, “Oh, it’s fine now,” right? Like you still have to chew on those things, and have to digest it, and just figure out, even if you know where you want to be, or the direction you want to go, you still go in that direction, right? It’s not over just when you realize it’s there.
It’s such a difficult question, because like there are — and one of the reasons I came up at the time was just “Oh, well it’s just not that I don’t trust my partner with other men, it’s that I just don’t trust other men.” And I see that as a really common rebuttal to defending things like One Penis Policies, but to that I say: it should always be about trusting your partner’s taste in men [laughter] There’s another step there. I get that feeling, I’ve had people come after me for basically trashing men because — specific behaviors, “not all men”, whatever. [laughter] I hate that fucking phrase so much! [laughter] But I’ve had people trash me like, “You hate men!” and I’m like, “I mean, I don’t hate myself and I am one, so obviously I don’t fucking hate all of you!” [laughter] But we have these discussions all the time, both in the monogamous world and the non-monogamous world, of how badly a huge portion of men treat women when it comes to dating. So there’s reasons behind this, it’s not that someone woke up and just decided, “Men suck and we hate them all!” There’s reasons, there’s experiences behind all these things. It’s hard to get over. And I think part of the reason men do have a tough time is because they know other men, right? They do know like, [laughter] “I’m working through my shit, but what if this other man isn’t working through his shit?” And credit to women because I don’t think men are very often — especially in hetero-presenting relationships at least — they don’t even have to think about other women, because, acknowledge this or not, they kind of just implicitly trust women more [laughter].
Leanne: Yeah, and I think also what you said about competition around other men, what you said about how ultimately, this is an exercise in trusting your partner. It’s like if someone says, “It’s not like I don’t trust my partner, it’s that I don’t trust the guys my partner might be with,” and it’s like, “Okay, but, your partner has a certain type of taste in men, and if they chose you, and you believe that you yourself are a good man, then what reason would your partner have to pick other shitty guys?”
I mean, this doesn’t always hold up, because I’ve definitely seen situations where because someone already has a good, secure partner, then they end up looking for really passionate relationships that also might not be the healthiest for them? So this doesn’t hold up in 100% of situations but what I say is, “You’re a partner, not a parent,” right? Like, you’re not your partner’s chaperone, and obviously—
Chad: I’m doing polyamory to fulfil unmet needs, and one of my unmet needs is an unhealthy relationship! [laughter] I need to experience that! [laughter]
Leanne: Oh god! But you know, you shouldn’t — like obviously if you see your partner is in a situation that’s a bit sus, obviously speak out about it, like you would if your best friend was in what you saw to be a toxic relationship. But ultimately you need to — the biggest thing that people struggle with is: you need to let your partner make their own mistakes. I think only in the most extreme cases, right, would that not hold up. But I think in the vast majority of cases, you have to kind of let your partner learn their own lessons, and the more you try to control them and go, “No, don’t do that thing!” the more they’re going to fight back against that or maybe even go behind your back. It’s just going to engender a lot of resentment between the two of you. And I think that people really struggle with that because I feel in a sense that — particularly in monogamous relationships — there is this entitlement to your partner’s time and space. There is this idea that your partner’s time with you is the default, and any time that they spend with other people is time being taken away from you and time that is being borrowed from you.
Chad: Yeah, I went through that for sure [laughter] Very specifically, we had a very specific conversation at one point: I have up until this point — we spend, unless something’s going on, we spend our nights together. That’s a thing we do every day; we’re nesting partners. So we had specific conversations of, “I want at least this much time with you per week,” right? Which can be a healthy conversation but also like not. it just kind of depends. Absolutely.
Leanne: Yeah, and I think also — what you said — I think me and my partner do the same thing where we have one date night a week, right? A proper date night, rather than just us existing in our house together, and I think that is really important to maintaining fun and excitement and desire in long term relationships, right? Because otherwise you end up treating your partner as the default and they’re just, like, there. But also by being too strict around things like time, and if you say I need us to spend like 2 hours, 3 hours or whatever doing this thing, per week then… While I see the value in that, there’s also the flip side of quantity of time does not necessarily guarantee quality of time. Like you could just be 2 to 3 hours of just sitting watching a movie together and you’re not connecting and bonding, right?
Chad: Right.
Leanne: I think you can spend all your time with your partner and still not have a meaningful relationship which is why focused, devoted, undistracted quality time is really important.
Chad: Absolutely.
Leanne: So you mentioned competition with other men and having to unlearn that, and I think another aspect to competitiveness I feel that men experience — I’m not speaking from my own experience but from watching my partner who is, like you, a cishet man — I think there’s a lot of competition around you and your partner’s dating lives specifically. So, as a woman, as a bisexual woman, I have a lot more sexual opportunities, even if I don’t end up taking 90% of those opportunities because a lot of people are really creepy! [laughter] But I do have more options, right? Whereas my partner really struggles to get a text back most of the time. I think there’s an argument to be had about, “Well, women get more matches, but do they get quality matches?” and I obviously 100% see that, but at the same time, I think it can be a real hit to someone’s confidence if they’re not getting any matches at all. Or they are getting matches, but they aren’t getting — they message a ton of people but only one of them responds.
Chad: And I’ve experienced that—
Leanne: You’ve experienced that.
Chad: I’ve experienced that very specifically because when my wife and I opened up our marriage for the first time, we got on dating apps with our own profiles, separately, but we were both dating at the same time, in the same way, so it was very easy to see each — and we’re nesting partners, we live together — so it was very easy to experience what it’s like for the other person. Our communication was very open so we talk about it all the time too, and absolutely, I would get very very few matches, and I’ve had more than one conversation of just, “Man, I am feeling overwhelmed by the amount of attention that you get compared to me,” and it just feels so shitty. Like it makes me feel like I’m just not worthy, that I’m just not appealing or whatever. And there was a night, I think multiple nights, where my wife showed me her matches and was like, “I need you to take a look at this,” and I was just like, “Oh, I don’t want that!” [laughter] There’s a whole other side where, like you said, digging through all of that, those weeds. At least when I got matches, the quality was fairly high! They were someone who was willing to talk about polyamory or were already in a polyamorous relationship or whatever, and I got very few people who, say, just wanted to use me for sex and move on, whereas my wife’s inbox was just full of garbage! [laughter] Where I was working to get matches, she was working to sort out the matches she had gotten. It was basically the same effort, just kind of one step apart, right?
Leanne: Yeah! I think that’s key to recognize. And also if you’re specifically looking for romantic relationships, most people would write off a polyamorous dynamic, but most people are willing to have casual sex, particularly guys.
Chad: And this is hard to realize, but something I’ve said multiple times is the reason, as a cishet man, that you’re not getting as many matches, is not the fault of women. Mostly, it is the fault of other men for giving them such a bad experience that they just want to match so infrequently, right? [laughter] The reason you are or are not getting matches is based on experiences that these people who are viewing your profile have had. It doesn’t matter — you could have a great profile, you can be a great person — but if that doesn’t match up with what the person looking at your profile has experienced, you have no chance. And that’s completely out of your control.
Leanne: Yeah.
Chad: That’s really hard to realize and hard to get to sink in, but it’s the truth.
Leanne: I think I would also add another aspect to that that completes this even further.
The vast majority of women are caught in a catch-22 situation when it comes to expressing themselves sexually or whatever on dating apps, right? Because I think women are held back by this societal expectation that you have to be sexy but not sexual. And if you say “yes” to an encounter, then you’re labelled a slut, and if you hold back a little, you’re labelled a prude, and then you’re caught in this double-bind. And a lot of women are stuck and they don’t know what to do, so they don’t do anything at all. Which I think is a big reason why my partner will message — these women will match with him, but then they might not respond. Because there’s clearly an interest there, that’s why they matched, right? — well some of them are bots [laughter] — but I do think societal expectations of women in dating and sex also kind of plays a major role in this, and that’s why so many men are like, “Why aren’t they texting me?” and it’s like, well, it’s not you, buddy. I know this sucks but it’s not you.
Chad: And I think I’ve posted about this more in meme and tweet formats or whatever: toxic men love to complain that the people they’re seeing aren’t sexual enough, but it’s because they’re not willing to date a sexual person because they devalue them. [laughter] They’re fucking themselves up. Like you didn’t want to date a slut, right? So, yeah, the person you’re dating is not that. Duh! [laughter]
Leanne: Like “I want to date a virgin who’s so good in bed!”
Chad: Yes, like if you want to date — if you want your partner to be sexual, guess what? You have to be willing to date sexual people! [laughter] That’s how it works.
Leanne: So yeah, I think the crux of what I’m trying to say is the competitiveness comes out not only with other metamours — the people your partner is dating — but also with your partner when it comes to each of your dating experiences. So that’s kind of the point I’m trying to get at.
I think another thing that I wanted to talk with you about is how, because of toxic masculinity culture and general patriarchy shit, I think a lot of men tie their worth as men to their performance in bed. And this is kind of why stuff like One Penis Policies crop up because men define their worth, so much, by their dicks that they get really insecure about the idea, “What if she finds someone who’s bigger than me who is more aggressive or dominant?” in that sense. And there’s also this whole idea of being a cuck.
It’s very interesting how gender dynamics play into polyamory, because if you’re participating in — if you are the outside person who is engaging with like one half of a couple, if you’re a man and you’re engaging with a woman, then you’re the bull. You’re the sexual conquest, and you’re seen kind of as superior to the man who’s in the relationship. Whereas if you’re a woman and you’re engaging with a man, you’re seen as the homewrecker, you’re seen as inferior. And I think in that situation both women, the wife or the girlfriend — both women are vilified, but that homewrecker narrative is more prevalent and you are — you get a lot of shit thrown at you. Whereas if you’re the guy on the outside, I feel like you get a little less criticism. That’s my view anyway. And so, I think that’s so interesting because these narratives that are based on gender in some way get drilled into our heads. That’s why people tie their worth to their sexual performance, and that’s why they get competitive with their partners about dating, because if your partner has more partners, then you are losing, necessarily.
Chad: And I think that men tying their self worth to their sexual performance is just so deep-seated because we start learning that as small children, not even necessarily teenagers. Little kids make these jokes, right? Like, as soon as they know what penises are, the jokes and shittiness starts happening. And usually, when we learn something that’s shitty as a kid, we grow up, we grow into our teen years, and we grow into our adult years, and we realize: oh, that’s not the way the world works, but in this instance society immediately validates us and tells us, “Yes, that is exactly how the world works!” [laughter] So I think that’s why it’s so deep-seated and baked in and hard to unlearn because we learn it at every stage of our growth into adults. As a small kid, the jokes are funny like, “hahaha”. Then as a teenager when you’re learning what sex is, you better fucking be good at it, or your life is going to be shit! And then, as an adult, it’s just like “Yeah, no, for real, keep thinking that though!” So few people are out there telling people as they’re maturing, “That’s not how it is,” right?
Leanne: Yeah, yeah.
Chad: So it gets in there from every different direction.
Leanne: As a guy you better want it, and you better be good at it from the get-go, and you better have a big dick, and you better blow their minds the first time. Like whoa, dude!
Chad: You’ve got to go for hours! [laughter] Every time! I’ve heard that one. That’s the one that always gets me and I’m like frickin’, I’m, what? I don’t have the cardio for that shit! [laughter]
Leanne: And I think particularly a gripe that I have, even in feminist circles, is that when women make jokes about — they see a man doing shitty behavior — their first insult is “Oh, he must have a tiny dick and that’s why he’s doing these shitty things!” and it’s like —
Chad: Guilty! [laughter]
Leanne: I don’t know if body-shaming is the right response to calling out a guy’s behaviour, right?
Chad: Right. And I see the reason because for a lot of dudes who do shitty behaviour, that there is a grain of truth in there. Not necessarily that they have any sort of sized penis or whatever, but just the insecurity about that. Like there is a grain of truth, but I’ve had to unlearn that, and I’m still unlearning that because I — specific scenario every fucking time — I’m sitting at a restaurant outside and someone fucking goes by, revving their motorcycle as loud as they possibly fucking can [laughter] and my brain is immediately like [bangs on desk] “Wow! What a big fucking dick!” [laughter] So I get it! I’m part of that, where I’m trying to acknowledge and unlearn that that’s not exactly the direction we want to go in to make things better.
Leanne: Yeah! So I think the main thing that — when I talk to men who are insecure about their partners dating other men and if they recognize these beliefs that they’re like, “I’m worried that she’ll find someone who’s bigger, better, blah blah blah,” I think that the main thing is that, I try to get people to realize, they are defining themselves by their gender, by their genitals, by their performance in bed. They are tying their worth to certain aspects of themselves. The world focuses on gender in a really insane way, and so no wonder people are making these arbitrary distinctions like you can date women but you can’t date other men. Okay, well, what if you find someone of any gender who is funnier than me? Why aren’t we making comparisons on, you can date people who are less funny than me but not people who are more funny than me, or have this type of humour but not that type of humour. I’m trying to say, why is gender, or what you have in your pants, the thing that people fixate on when it comes to comparing themselves on how they’re similar or different to their partner’s other partners? Why is gender the thing we’re fixating on when, actually, at the end of the day, we are individuals with unique things to offer beyond our performance in bed, or the gender we are, and that kind of thing. There’s so much more to who we are than what we do in the bedroom.
Chad: And I think it kind of ties into the exclusivity thing. I think people hyperfocus on that so much because, in monogamy, that’s one of the things that is gated off to just one person so you take it for granted and don’t have to worry about it so much. Even if you do have insecurities that other men are bigger or better or whatever, if you’re monogamous, you just don’t have to worry about it as much. But, when you’re polyamorous, then suddenly this thing you’ve been learning all your life that you don’t have to worry about, [gasp] “I have to worry about it!” Because I’ve already spent a bunch of time worrying about if someone’s funnier than me, if someone likes this thing more than me; I’ve already spent time, I’ve learned how to process all that, but I never had to learn how to process if someone’s better in bed than me because it’s something that’s usually just gated off to one person.
Leanna: That is such a good point, Chad, and I hadn’t considered it that way, but you have 100% hit the nail on the head there. Because if you think of creating exclusivity around sex, then everyone freaks out about sex being that one thing to get competitive about. Yeah, I haven’t considered it that way, you brought up a really good point there. It’s just an insecurity that people haven’t had the time to process up until they open up a relationship and have to stare that in the face.
Chad: Absolutely.
Leanne: So, Chad, you’ve collated some questions from your followers to do with all of what we just talked about, basically. So do you want to go through those now and just kind of talk about them?
Chad: Sure! Yeah.
Leanne: So the first question that we have — and these are all anonymized by the way — is “What does healthy masculinity in polyamory look like? Can you give one or two examples?” So, what do you think Chad?
Chad: I think, first of all, to be very direct, I think healthy masculinity looks like either not having or working towards not having very toxic masculinity sort of rules. Talking about One Penis Policies stick out the most to me — ha! Stick out! [laughter] I am twelve.
I think that’s the main thing it looks like to me it’s unlearning the actual rules and boundaries. I don’t know, I don’t like using the term rules, but people have them, right? Rules and boundaries that aren’t focused towards preserving toxic masculinity —
Leanne: Okay but specifically things like having a One Penis Policy, if your partner dates multiple genders, treating them the same rather than having double standards depending on the gender. Is that kind of what you mean?
Chad: Yes, and I think another thing is shifting your mindset towards viewing other men not as competition, but as a collaborative effort. Obviously, people have different structures where they do or don’t want to know their metas and stuff like that. But if you’re in a situation where you want to know your metas — which I do recommend because it makes the whole thing a lot less scary — you can realize how you both contribute to your partner’s happiness instead of working to obtain your partner’s happiness from the other person. It’s not necessarily a resource that you’re trying to scramble to get, one of you is going to get it, but it’s something you can both work towards making your joint partner very happy. Those are the couple of things that come to mind to me for that question.
Leanne: Yeah, I think a very prevalent toxic masculinity belief is that you own your partner. So the more you see your metamour as a person you can collaborate with on this project of making your partner happy rather than being the sole provider in this dynamic, or seeing your [metamour] as taking your partner away from you rather than your partner being a whole ass individual who can make choices about who they spend their time with. I think that that’s what healthy masculinity looks like to me, too. So to recognize the value and the differences that you and your partner’s other partners bring to your mutual partner’s life, and to celebrate that rather than see it as a threat to who you are as an individual, or even you as a man. That’s how I see it.
I think this can be very individual, I think there’s a bunch of things we probably haven’t touched on, but generally, it’s getting rid of that competitiveness and getting rid of that sense of ownership and entitlement. I think those are the main things. And I wouldn’t even think that this is specific to men, I think that women can definitely feel entitled to their partners as well.
Chad: For sure.
Leanne: So: “How intertwined would you say the idea that a man owns his wife is with perceptions of polyamory?” Now, I have a lot of interesting things to say about this but you go ahead, Chad [laughter]
Chad: I think one problem is that when approaching polyamory and non-monogamy in general, a lot of times, the only terms that people have heard that are more household, known terms, are polygamy and swinging, right?
Leanne: Yeah.
Chad: Outside of that, I can’t really think of any other non-monogamous terms I knew before actively looking into it. I didn’t know what the fuck the word polyamory meant! [laughter] So my exposure to that and the exposure, like most lifelong monogamous people, are those two terms. And while I won’t call either of them inherently unethical, there’s a lot of history and problematic stuff with both of those terms that just attach a lot of male-focused stuff that attaches to your perceptions of what all of non-monogamy is, even like when you approach it knowing that’s not what it means. You know what I mean?
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely.
Chad: Like, you have a lot of preconceived notions.
Leanne: I mean even, polygamy is one man, multiple wives, and then swinging is also known as wife-swapping.
Chad: Right, exactly. And it’s very male-focused both of them are very — like I said, I hesitate to call either of them inherently bad. I think people can be in situations — and I’ve said before on my page — on paper, polyamorous is the term that I use, but on paper you can define me as a swinger too. If you find a checklist somewhere and read them off, I probably check all the boxes for that, too. But there’s this whole culture about it that has existed for, seemingly at least in my perception, far longer than a more equitable polyamory set-up. I think that really feeds into “owning” your wife. Obviously like you said women can feel like they own their partners too, but it’s so much more prevalent because I feel like men are taught that that’s the expectation. A lot of that comes from more conservative values, especially in America. We always mock the 50’s [laughter] as the decade that was just like, “Men own their fucking wives!”
Leanne: Yeah, yeah.
Chad: That weird middle ground where society is progressing but like hmm… [laughter]
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. So I think in my experience of creating on TikTok and getting all kinds of comments here and there, a lot of people immediately assume that it was my partner’s idea. That I was tricked into this somehow and that I’m being taken advantage of and it’s like bro, no. I was the one who introduced him to polyamory, I was the one with more experience than him when we started our relationship!
I consider myself fairly naturally polyamorous — or rather not so much “naturally polyamorous” — but I definitely struggled [less] with opening up and practising polyamory generally in the early stages than most people, whereas my partner definitely had to go through a phase where the jealously was real. And I think that often is the case. There’s gonna be one person who struggles with it more than the other. So it’s so funny to me when people assume that the women in the situation inherently have no sexual agency. Again, this is the focus on sex. They focus on sex and therefore they assume that it’s the man’s idea, because everyone assumes that the men always want sex, and the women have no agency in that situation, and therefore, ergo, the women must have been tricked into this situation and been duped into having her boyfriend have multiple girlfriends.
Chad: And for a more quantitative kind of thing, everyone — we’ve talked about this in a group chat with a lot of people — everyone across the board as polyamorous creators, have more women followers. Myself included. This is not just a trick [laughter]. I believe mine is close to 70% women, and it varies back and forth, but it’s fairly consistent. No matter how many followers I’ve had, it’s always been majority women. Even on a man’s page, it’s not just a bunch of men trying to trick women into fucking them all the time [laughter].
Leanne: And even then, a common rebuttal to that is, “Well, women tend to use social media more.” Now, okay, cool, but: most of the polyamory creators are women. So if women were really hating this so much, then why are we talking about this in spades, you know? [laughter] I think that — how many male polyamorous creators do I know. Okay. There’s you, there’s Roy from @openrelating, and…is that it? [laughter]
Chad: There’s a few more, there’s uh…
Leanne: There’s a couple more… [laughter] but no one is coming to mind. But everyone else is women. Or a nonbinary person.
Chad: But you can easily rattle off 10 women content creators. [laughter] And that’s not just because you’re a woman, that’s the names you know. Me too. We’re in the same chats, we talk to the same people. [laughter]
Leanne: So this is clearly something that we enjoy doing. This is something we enjoy, this is something we feel empowered by, this is our idea, we know a lot about it, we’re not just getting tricked into something by some dude. [Laughter]
Chad: See, the thing is Leanne, we tricked the women into creating content for us.
[Hysterical laughter]
Leanne: So meta.
Chad: Like inception, we’re playing 4D chess up here! [laughter]
Leanne: Oh my god [laughter].
Yeah, so I feel we answered that. I think there are a lot of societal expectations that are tied with men’s ownership of women and the sexual agency of women in particular.
So, here’s one: “Tips for introducing male partners to each other without sparking competition?” Now I think this is interesting because I can tell them from the perspective of someone who has introduced two male partners to each other, and you can talk about it as someone who has been introduced to other male partners. I’d love to hear from you about what positive or negative experiences have you had meeting your partner’s other male partners?
Chad: Mostly all positive because, we touched on it earlier, my partner’s dating me, and I’m not a hyper-competitive alpha male sort of whatever. Chances are the other people they date are also not necessarily going to be that way because frankly — as far as my nesting partner is concerned, not necessarily my other partners — she doesn’t find that as an attractive trait in someone! [Laughter] So I’ve gotten off easy because it’s just been, she doesn’t like in a man to be super competitive and like [grunting noises] stake my claim.
I think it also just kind of depends. It’s a little bit of a dice roll just on personality types, because there are men who can get together who are normally not competitive at all, but when they get together with other men then suddenly the urge creeps up on you [laughter]. I don’t consider myself to be one of those people, but I’ve met those people —
Leanne: Yeah like the two of you could just not vibe.
Chad: — not necessarily like a meta situation but, exactly, yeah.
Leanne: Or the two of you could just not vibe for a completely separate reason, right? Like they have different interests or whatever. So what attitude do you take — say you meet your partner’s other partner, and they’re perhaps kind of nervous about meeting you, what approach do you take to get them more relaxed into the situation? Because this is something that my partner does: he actively tries to be super cool with the other guy and then the other guy’s like, “Okay, no, he doesn’t hate me, it’s fine.” [laughter]
Chad: Yeah exactly. I think the big thing that comes to mind is just finding common ground. Sounds like a simple thing but — here’s the perk that you didn’t think about — you already have some kind of common ground because someone chose the both of you. You have something in common! [laughter] The chances of this person picking literally the polar opposite of you are pretty slim! [laughter] Sure you can be very different, no doubt, but there’s something in common that attracts you to this person, at least. You can find common interests, just find something to talk about. I’m also very fortunate that I’m kind of a natural conversationalist and I feel like I can talk about and listen to basically anything even if I don’t know shit about the stuff. [laughter] It kind of helps, I know not everybody’s like that so it’s not exactly a helpful tip — be a different person! [laughter] But yeah, finding common ground sounds so simple, but it really does sometimes just come down to breaking that ice and, like you said, realizing that the other person has a lot of the same insecurities, nervousness that you do. Talk about it.
Leanne: Absolutely! Do you prefer to meet your partner’s other partners with your mutual partner present, or do you prefer to meet up with your metamour one on one?
Chad: For first time interactions, I definitely prefer our mutual partner to be there just because I feel like it just helps it flow. Kind of if you were meeting just a platonic friend of a partner, you might feel a little awkward if they’re not there.
Leanne: Definitely.
Chad: This is their friend, and this is their partner. So I definitely prefer them to be there and it just, most of the time, works out that way. We like similar things so we go to similar things.
Leanne: For sure! I think in my experiences of introducing male partners to each other - or people of any gender to be honest, but if we’re going to talk about two men specifically - I think them having something in common is really important. There was one time where I introduced a male friend with benefits I had and my anchor partner to each other, and we met up specifically to play Smash Bros. [laughter] And my friend with benefits completely demolished us, it was really funny. He was just beating our asses [laughter] for like an hour straight, it was really hilarious. He was just dancing around us the whole time and he was like “Oh! Oh! You’re dead!” It was so funny.
Chad: I got to say, I worry for the first time that one of my partners meets someone who thinks they’re better at Guitar Hero than I am! [laughter] Because then… [slams on desk] it’s fucking on! [laughter]
Leanne: No, but that could be fun! We can have some good, healthy competition as long as you don’t both go, “Oh, he’s better at Guitar Hero than me, that says something about me as a man.”
Chad: Whelp, I guess I’m a garbage person! [laughter]
Leanne: Learn to separate that. Lose with grace.
So having common ground is really important and I think like you said, you feel more comfortable having your mutual partner present. I also have always been there when introducing partners for the first time because I’m the go-between. I am the person linking the two of them, so I want to be there, because I know them both pretty well. I’m able to go like, “Oh! Here’s something that you two can talk about!” and kind of let them interact, if I feel the need to move things along.
I think it’s also really important to talk to each person beforehand about what specific anxieties they might have about the other person, right? Obviously, don’t push your partners to meet each other if they don’t want to meet each other. I think that’s a mistake I made in my early days. I was too eager to see my partners interacting with each other, and definitely landed myself in some very awkward situations where one of my partners got way too anxious about it and then it just ended up being a very awkward time.
I would also encourage, if you don’t want to make it a whole thing, I would encourage you to introduce your partners to each other at a bigger event. Rather than the three of you going and meeting up for coffee together specifically to talk, I think if you’re going to the same event, or if you’re going to a mutual friend’s party and then you see each other at the event. Then if things go bad, or get awkward, then you can give each other an out. There is an opportunity for you to not just focus on each other if you don’t vibe for whatever reason and you can just do other stuff. There’s the option to enjoy the event or talk to other people. I think that’s been really instrumental to having smooth interactions, because I think that if someone goes to, say, a coffee meetup, then they feel some people — particularly if you struggle with anxiety, which one of my partners did experience — you feel boxed in. You feel boxed in, like, “I can only talk to this person or I can talk to my partner,” and it’s like “agh!” So that’s really important.
And I think another thing is that if it does get awkward, it might be best to acknowledge it. If you’re feeling nervous about meeting your partner’s other partner, they’re likely feeling the same stuff and it might be good to just get it out in the open and be like, “You know, I’ve been feeling really nervous about meeting you, so I might trip on my words a little but I do want to get to know you.” So instead of the two of you feeling nervous energy and not knowing what to do with it, I think just speak your thoughts and be honest about it.
Chad: And I think, try not to let your nervousness turn you into someone you’re not. If you have a goofy, dumbass sense of humour like I do, you let it shine. I met a metamour very recently — and he had gone on a vacation with my wife and we joked — because I had never met this person — we joked that when we were talking about her going on this trip we were like, “This is the part of the murder documentary where all the viewers say that this family’s an idiot!” [laughter] Like why are you doing this? So when we were talking about that, I told her the first thing I’m going to say to this person is, “Thank you for not murdering my wife on an island.” [laughter] And I did! We met and literally I said, “I said this was the first thing I was going to say to you: thank you for not murdering my wife on an island!” [Laughter] And we were instantly at — I mean there wasn’t really any nervous energy, but if there was, it would have been significantly defused, right? Don’t be afraid to just be yourself if you have those personality traits. It helps you relax, but it also helps the other person relax.
Leanne: Yeah, 100%. And I think just laugh about it, you know? [Laughter] That’s such a funny line, I’m definitely going to tell my partner to just like, “Thank you for not killing my partner while they were on a date with you — thank you for not being a creep!” [laughter]
Chad: I was eager to say it too! Like I knew they were coming and I knew what I was going to say, and I was like, “I get — I get to say the punchline!” [laughter]
Leanne: Oh my god. That is genuinely the best.
I do think that because of the society we live in and the heteropatriarchy and all that type of stuff, men and women have very unique struggles when it comes to polyamory. That could not have been more obvious through dating a man myself and both of us having completely different insecurities and struggles and issues. I think it’s really important to talk about these things and I think that because so many polyamorous creators are women, I think that obviously can only speak from lived experience. So I think it’s really important to speak with polyamorous men, for them to be open about their struggles and their emotions and their insecurities. And I think that overall contributes more to positive masculinity. When men are able to talk about their feelings and admit vulnerabilities. So yeah, I think you’re setting a great example to men out there, Chad. I think that your work is really valuable.
Chad: I try to. And that’s actually something I discovered that my followers want more of from me, you know? Because for the longest time my page was basically just polyamory. The name is fucking @polyamfam, right? [laughter] But, more recently I’ve been posting more stuff about toxic masculinity and problems that men deal with in polyamorous relationships. People clearly fucking love it, so I’m just like, “Alright I’m going to keep posting!” Literally right before we got on this call I was recording a Tik Tok about that thing! [laughter]
Leanne: Yeah, yeah!
Chad: Because I do agree. I think that’s an important conversation to have and there’s not a ton of creators out there doing it. And also — I will forget this if I don’t say it — there is a podcast called Molding Masculinity that—disclaimer, I am very biased because this person has been my friend forever, I’ve been on an episode, and I made their cover art, so… [laughter] so about as biased as you can possibly be — but it is legitimately just a great podcast about unlearning. And it’s not even just for polyamorous folks, it’s for pretty much anyone. They had an episode about polyamory with me on it, but it’s accessible to anyone, and it really deep-dives into why men have certain toxic attitudes and what we can do to shift them to a better place.
I had to get that plug in there because I will forget if I do not and it’s on my mind right now! [laughter]
Leanne: Yeah, I think that’s so good and so relevant! I honestly think that there need to be more good, male role models in the polyamorous community who openly talk about the topics that you are now focusing more on, because there aren’t enough of us. And as lovely as it is having so many women and non-binary folks and queer folks talking about polyamory and all the stuff that comes with that, at the end of the day there are lived experiences that we can’t cover. Struggles we can only talk about from the perspective of observing our male partners or from stories that we’ve heard from other people, right? So for you to be out there — a cishet straight white man — talking about these things and being such a positive force for being open and honest about these very thorny issues, I think it’s a really great thing.
Chad: And I think the community as a whole has just kind of started talking about this. Because we post about polyamory all the time but I feel the community as a whole — myself included — has barely even scratched the surface on all of the overlapping, intersectional issues that happen. So there’s so much more to discuss, and I’m excited to do so! [laughter] All the time!
Leanne: Okay! So, I’m sure most people are not living under a rock so they probably do already follow you, but in case someone has been living under a rock and does not follow Chad, where can people find you?
Chad: I am @polyamfam pretty much everywhere. On Twitter I am @thepolyamfam because the handle was taken, and of course is an inactive account too —
Leanne: Damn it!
Chad: And I’m like damn! I know! It’s also my least active platform so I’m like, whatever, it’s fine. My TikTok, Instagram, and more recently YouTube, are my three primary channels right now. I also post all my stuff to Facebook under the same name, @polyamfam, but if I’m interacting with it that’s primarily on Instagram. That’s where my interaction with the community lives the most is Instagram, and more recently Tik Tok and YouTube.
Leanne: I mean my YouTube, I’ve had my YouTube for a very long time but it’s not been particularly active, but your videos have been great! And there aren’t many polyamory videos on YouTube so that’s a niche that I’m very excited to see you get into.
This has been an amazing chat, Chad, and I’m sure that many people — not just men — but people of all genders, men and people dating men, will have learnt a lot from this. So, thank you so much!
Chad: Yeah, we’ll have to do it again! [laughter]
Oh wait! Wait! We didn’t answer the one question!
Leanne: Oh?
Chad: The thing!
Leanne: Oh my god!
Chad: The question that everyone always asks us!
Leanne: [laughter] Oh, yes! Are we dating?
Chad: Let’s answer the question!
Leanne: Are we dating!
Chad: No!
Leanne: No!
Chad: We’re not! [laughter]
Leanne: We are not dating! [laughter]
Chad: Just to clear the air, we’re not!
Leanne: The suspense—the suspense! Everyone was just like, “That is the one thing that I needed to know.” No, we are not dating.
Chad: Sorry to disappoint, everybody [laughter]
Leanne: But yeah, game recognise game, Chad. As a polyamorous meme creator, I applaud you for your work, and I hope to collaborate with you more in the future. Thank you so much! And goodbye!
Chad: Bye!
Leanne: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Happy Polydays series. If you’d like to support my work, consider becoming a Patreon subscriber at patreon.com/polyphiliablog. You can also follow me at @polyphiliablog on Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, and Twitter, buy my polyamory merch at polyphiliashop.redbubble.com, or book a peer support session with me on my website polyphilia.blog. Until next time!