Polyamory as Revolution with @openrelating
Polyamory challenges traditional love and many societal norms, but one aspect that is not often talked about is how it can be a tool for anti-capitalist revolutionary change. Roy (@openrelating) is a polyamorous personal coach who specialises in helping people of all relationship orientations discover and design their own unique, authentic, conscious and intentional relationships. Together we discuss:
- Roy's journey to polyamory and, in particular, his story as a victim of abuse by a female partner in his first non-monogamous relationship
- How polyamorous people face unique challenges when they are in toxic non-monogamous dynamics when it comes to seeking support or recognising the red flags in the first place
- How polyamory challenged Roy's toxic masculine beliefs as a man who grew up in militarised Israel
- How polyamory can be used as a tool for building community, challenging the nuclear family, combating materialism, competitiveness and scarcity that is taught by capitalism
and much more.
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transcribed by Eden Brown and Leanne Yau
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 6 of the Happy Polydays series! Today I am joined by Roy from @openrelating who is a personal coach who assists people with developing healthy, conscious, autonomous relationships. Today we’ll be talking about Roy’s polyamory origin story and how that’s shaped his view of how relationships intersect with societal beliefs on masculinity, politics and captitalism. So, there’s quite a lot to cover today in an hour and I’m very excited to get into it.
Roy, to begin, could you tell people a little bit more about yourself and your origin story — how’d you get into polyamory? How did you get to where you are today?
Roy: Hey, Leanne. Yes! So, I am 51 years old so that means I’ve lived quite a life, and by the time I discovered polyamory, I had already lived in 3 different continents, travelled around the world , had a long career, was in a marriage — long term relationship, with a child — a lot of the things you’re supposed to do on the relationship escalator. And it was really the fact that I felt like I was failing at it because my marriage ended, my relationship after that ended, I I felt like I just couldn’t hack monogamy and I didn’t know the reason why. So, I began dating again in my early 40’s and didn’t know what to expect basically what else I could do. I didn't even know what polyamory is. I never heard that word. Never heard about ethical non-monogamy. I had in the past tried to have a Don't Ask, Don't Tell type situation with my ex-wife when our own sex life was basically floundering. But we, you know, it wasn't really helpful in any way. You know, it was basically this whole diatribe that you're trying to fix your marriage by going to have sex with other people. That doesn't really work if you have, you know, core issues.
So what happened was that I went on a date with somebody from OKCupid and we had a really high match score like 99%. And I was very excited about meeting her and when we met we had really instant chemistry. And I didn't expect it, but she told me on the date that she was non-monogamous and explained what that means for her. And she said that she was already married before, she had an adult child. She just didn't want to be exclusive with anybody she wanted, she liked to have freedom, wanted to live alone, etc. And I just really connected to it mentally. I just thought, “Yeah, that kind of makes total sense. I really like this person and to date her, that's basically the price of admission, right?” Because that's how, you know, she kind of set her boundaries very clearly. And I just took it on board and said, “Yeah, let's try this.” And I haven't really looked back since. I never really wanted to go back to monogamy at all.
The evolution of that was that in the beginning, it was an open relationship, where we had casual sex with other people. Then she found another boyfriend and I met him and I really got on well with him, and even though neither of us are with her, we are still good friends.
Leanne: Oh, okay. That’s lovely.
Roy: Yeah. So that was basically the beginning. She told me about some books to read like The Ethical Slut and Sex and Dawn, and I started doing some more research because I like to read and understand more about a topic that I find interesting. And around about 2014 I met someone on speed dating, that was for people who are kind of kinky and poly and non-monogamous etc. and we hit it off. We started seeing each other, we were both seeing other people all the time, and very quickly realised there's a lot of compatibility in our kind of kinks and the things that we like to do together, etc, and activities. So we ended up moving in together within like six months of meeting and that was the first time I was in a nesting polyamorous relationship.
Leanne: Okay.
Roy: Initially, it felt like a great opportunity to really go deep with somebody. To still be able to make plans for the future and to think about life together while also having that freedom of building other relationships and having other encounters and being more fluid. However, in that relationship that lasted about three and a half years, over time, a lot of their insecurities and fears came to the fore and created a situation where she needed to control my actions and control who I was seeing and what I was doing with them. And while we never outright sat down and talked about that as clear boundaries or her needs, that's what happened in reality. I think that I didn't know what my needs were. I didn't know that I had this real need to be free and autonomous, and not be bound by somebody else's insecurities. And there was a lot of this kind of pushback, and both of us being very stubborn and agreeing to rules to try and work on our relationships. And then those rules wouldn't really work because I wasn't very happy with them. You know, I often just agreed to avoid her getting too angry and basically escalating into a big fight.
So over time, as I was pushing against those rules, and constantly renegotiating and not finding a way that they would actually work long term. Also, trust deteriorated in both directions, and eventually the conflicts became, most initially verbally abusive, and then physically abusive. For the last six months or so, really, like seriously, physically abusive.
So at that time, again, I didn't know who to talk to, I didn't know where I could actually find help. There was a lot of gaslighting involved where I basically was made to believe that everything that happens to me is my fault. And the real difficulty in the environment is even though you know we had quite a few mutual friends that were also polyamorous and open etc, they were mutual friends. I didn't feel I could go to them with my problems, because they were friends with both of us. So it felt quite isolated. And my own friends, long-term friends, didn't really understand polyamory. They didn't have a reference point to actually help me, or at least that's what it felt like to me. And you know, their advice would have been to either stay monogamous or leave her, and I kind of felt that they just don't understand enough about the situation to give me that advice.
Anyway, eventually it came to a head and we broke up. And only then, I started speaking to friends around me and reaching out and realising that actually, there were people that noticed what was happening that felt bad about it, but just didn't want to get involved. And it's really out of that experience that I realised eventually that I want to be able to work with people who might not know where to turn to, you know, they basically feel like people around them, family or friends, don't understand the situation. Because the relationship is not very traditional and not “normal”, quote unquote. And they may not actually realise if they are in an abusive or toxic situation.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I think I always believed that because it's polyamory, and because it's so unusual, we have to really work so hard and struggle to make it work. Right? So it never occurred to me that there could be an easy way of doing it. Well, if it's so rare and difficult, then we have to struggle! That's a big reason why I stayed for as long as I did. And, you know, both of us did mean things to each other. And we're both stubborn and not aware enough of how to communicate in a non-violent way. But ultimately, what I've learned from that experience is that it's so important to know what your needs are going into a relationship, and to be very clear about your boundaries as soon as you can in going into, I guess, a committed relationship.
And following that, I took some time off. I was quite wounded both emotionally and physically, and went to therapy. I initially had a therapist that didn't really understand anything about polyamory or kink, and I ended up like basically just spending half the time just explaining concepts to him and all the terminologies.
Leanne: Yeah, that's super common.
Roy: And eventually I found somebody who was who had their own experience in that and basically could relate, and that was really helpful. And then within about four or five months of the breakup, I found myself feeling much better about myself and then, at a party that I organised, which was a leaving party for the place I had originally shared with my ex, I invited a few friends and then some people who were new friends who I met recently, including two women who didn't know each other, but basically, who came there. And in that party, we had really nice connections. I had connections with both of them, and in that weekend, basically started dating them both -
Leanne: In the same weekend.
Roy: - and they became long term partners. The same weekend, same party.
Leanne: Wow. Wow. I think it's so rare that two relationships basically start at the same time. You've told me this before, Roy, and every time it's just like, that is such a unique story. And so, how long have you been together with both of these women?
Roy: Three years.
Leanne: Three years.
Roy: Three years at the beginning of this month, yeah.
Leanne: Okay. I think your story is so important for a couple of reasons. I think people often forget that polyamory can also be abusive, and I think a lot of people fall into the One True Scotsman fallacy thing. I talked about this with Ro as well, where just because someone did something unethically, then some people write it off and go, “Well, you didn't apply it correctly, and therefore, it is not polyamory,” and then you end up dismissing and invalidating quite a lot of individual experiences where, you know, they were definitely in a non-monogamous relationship and it was definitely also toxic.
I think particularly as a man as well, I think it's very important for you to share the story and to talk about it because people often forget that it's not just women who are victims. And, just hearing all this, I imagine it must have been so difficult after kind of that experience, which was basically your early experience with with polyamory, right? And you didn't know anything better. How was the process transitioning from that to, you know, embracing, I presume much healthier, relationships at the same time? What was that like?
Roy: Well, first off, the people that I was involved became available are much healthier, and are much better at talking about issues and also share values with me much more closely. And that's another important message: just because you meet somebody who’s polyamorous and you have attraction to them, it doesn't mean you share the same values. There are so many different ways to practice polyamory. Say, if I want solo polyamory and I don't want a hierarchy, and the other person wants polyamory wants to be hierarchical, we’re going to be struggling about agreeing how to actually manage a relationship. And at the heart of it, that's basically what was going on before. So with my partners, the fact that those relationships developed in parallel, meant that there was no hierarchy, and each relationship developed on its own, and they knew about each other, obviously, and they met sometimes, but they're not friends. Their only connection is me. So I think that really helped with issues around jealousy or feeling somehow like one person needs to be more of a priority because of time or whatever. That didn't occur. So I think that definitely helped. And ultimately, we share values around valuing independence and freedom.
So I identify as solo polyamorous and essentially, while I have these partners, we're all also dating other people. And there are no strict rules around that. We just take care to be open with each other and update each other on what's going on in our lives. And that would include also going on dates, and who we might go on a date with, or whether we’re having another date, and obviously we share information that is required to keep everybody safe in terms of health and stuff like that. So it's just been such a fresh experience for me to be able to speak about everything without any fear of being attacked or being judged. Knowing that I can, even with really difficult things, just come and sit down and talk about them. Because we have established the trust that nothing that we're saying is about criticising or attacking, or wanting to take away anything from the other person. We're just talking about our feelings and what it is like for us. And sometimes that might not be very comfortable to hear, but I trust my partner isn't trying to harm me in any way. Which I didn’t before. Then I will take what they're telling me and I will proceed without feeling like I need to defend myself or be defensive, which makes such a big difference when it comes to resolving any issue, when you're not starting from this place of being defensive.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely.
Roy: Along the way in the last three years, it's just been beautiful to allow these relationships to blossom, and also have additional comet relationships with people that don't live in the country. And sadly some of them I haven't been able to see for a couple of years because of COVID. So some of them didn't sustain themselves as current romantic relationships, although in most cases, we're still friends. One of the things I really appreciate about polyamory is that there isn't this dichotomy or this binary decision of you're either together or you're not. You can transition into friendships, and friendships can transition to something else, and it's quite fluid. Because for me, it's all about the connection with the individual. And if I care enough about them to you know, have them in my bed, in my house, and be sexual with them, I also care enough about them to maintain friendship, if a sexual or romantic connection is no longer possible for whatever reason.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people see a breakup as an immediate downgrading of the relationship, or of the connection, but that isn't necessarily the case, right? You know, sometimes, the dynamic that does work best for you is platonic. And I'd much rather transition into something that works better for us than stay in a romantic relationship for the sake of being in a romantic relationship.
Another thing that I wanted to touch on regarding what you said, Roy, was that you talked about how you didn't have community when you were in that toxic relationship, and I think this is a very common struggle that polyamorous people have. Everyone immediately assumes that if you're in a non-monogamous dynamic, that it must be unhealthy and toxic in some way. So then I feel like there is this pressure to prove them wrong. And in a way, you try to pretend that everything's fine, because you want to make a point that non-monogamous relationships can work. So then when you land yourself in a situation where it's very much not, then I think some people might feel isolated in that way, because they don't want to prove other people right. I think an extra thing, as well, is regarding, you know, it's polyamory. So therefore I have to unlearn so much stuff, I have to struggle through so much stuff, obviously it's going to be difficult. That adds another layer to it. Because I think that in the early days of opening up, or just practising polyamory if you didn’t open up from a monogamous relationship, there's this sense that people may not be able to tell the difference between what is just kind of regular growing pains in polyamory, and what is genuinely toxic behaviour from their partner. And I think through that, a lot of people can just go, “Oh, you're feeling jealous!” or “You feel insecure! Oh, just read a book and do work on yourself and the thing will go away eventually!” Ignoring the fact that maybe, the issue is not so much internal but external, something that like their partner is doing.
This is something that I say a lot in terms of dealing with jealousy. I think there's this idea in the polyamorous community that if you're feeling jealous, then it must be an internal issue. It must be something wrong with you. And that isn't always the case. Sometimes it's something that your partner is doing. Sometimes it's a need that isn't being met. And we shouldn't be trying to eliminate jealousy or try to eradicate it completely, but listen to it and learn from it. Anyway, I just felt like those were important points to make because I think that people don't talk about the dark side of polyamory and non-monogamy enough, and they don’t talk potential red flags in the early stages that people could easily pass off as, “Oh, I just need to work on myself.”
Roy: Yeah, very much so. I missed a lot of red flags in the previous relationship for those reasons, because I was rationalising a lot of things. It's like, “Well, I'm still learning a lot of things.” This monogamous mindset that I've kind of lived with for so long, it was going to take me time to unlearn all of that. And also, I think that I was thinking of myself as having capacity to accept that things are gonna go wrong, to deal with hardships, and to push through it, not necessarily realising that self-care is so important. I just did not care for myself enough at all. So that's something that now, when I work with clients, I make sure that that's the priority.
And I think that it's also really important to really drill down to where does that jealousy come from? Is that the feeling that's emerging? Is it external or internal? And is there something in the relationship that might be a valid reason why you're insecure? What's going on? And externality of how you grew up or your attachment styles, etc. Yeah, it's a combination as well.
Leanne: Yeah, yeah. Of course
Roy: It might be that you have insecure attachment, but you're also in a codependent relationship that's harmful for you. It takes time to heal from things and it needs to be done in order. You can't just think you can fix all of your issues at the same time. Sometimes being in a polyamorous relationship isn't the healthiest thing if you're not ready for it. And sometimes it might be, it kind of depends. I think it also depends on what was happening with your partner at the same time. In my case, we both didn't know what we were doing. So that didn't help.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's the blind leading the blind, right?
So, I know that obviously in that relationship that you had, your first experience with non-monogamy, you struggled a lot with it, and a lot of it was due to the fact that your partner was being abusive. But I'm also wondering if there were issues that you struggled with apart from that. Issues with jealousy or perhaps a kind of competitiveness or with other partners or that kind of thing. Was there anything in particular that you struggled with early on in your polyamory journey that didn't necessarily have anything to do with your partner being toxic?
Roy: Yes and no. I think that even when I was monogamous, I never felt jealousy. It's not something that I feel I have a strong kind of link with, and in monogamy, I just got quite an enjoyment from seeing people, say men, flirt with my partner and chatting them up. And it just felt - I mean, to me, it felt good. It felt like, “Oh, yeah, it means I have good taste if they want her as well.” And I liked hearing about stories that they may have had when they were travelling, etc. So I don't think that was really ever an issue for me. Sometimes, especially if I'm feeling especially vulnerable or tired or stressed and not fully comfortable with myself, it's going to be harder to hear about my partner having an amazing time and meeting somebody great and telling me that stories. And you know, on occasion, that's what happened. Sometimes if I see my partner maybe having intimacy with another person, I might feel some twinge of tinge of jealousy, like a pain in my chest, etc. But it's always been, for me, a great kind of spotlight on what is my insecurity there, and also on the fact that it just means that I care about my partner. Maybe it's a FOMO thing where I just would rather that she did that with me, because I care about her and I love her. So it's not a bad thing. I mean, I think that I've come to realise - and that took me time and therapy, and also all the therapy training that I've been doing in the last couple of years to accept - that the negative emotions and painful feelings aren't all bad. It's okay to feel those feelings. And just allow them, to sit with them and feel them and learn what I need to learn, what I need from them. And they go away, they do not stick to you. If you allow yourself to feel them, they don't stick. It's when you fight them that they stick more.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. So Chad and I talked about this in our conversation, about him growing up as a man and being indoctrinated with heteropatriarchy and all the societal beliefs that come along with that. And since you are one of the few men that I'm interviewing for this series, I'd very much like to hear your perspective as well as a polyamorous man. Were there any struggles that you had that are unique to your lived experience as a man or any particular beliefs about what it meant to be a man and masculinity and that kind of thing that you grappled with in the early parts of your polyamory journey?
Roy: Yeah, I think it's an important question, and I think that it's a really important topic to focus on. For me, toxic masculinity is just another name for the air that I was breathing growing up in a country that was very militaristic and basically led by toxic masculinity.
Leanne: Which country was that?
Roy: Israel. So in Israel, the military, the army is this big thing. And everybody has to go to the army, and everybody talks about heroics. So people who have been in battle and stuff like that. So the idea of what is a man is wrapped up in this very violent… And it's all about this kind of heroic fighting. And winning. And conquering. And the language of dating, of relationships, also becomes that. Hunting, right? I mean, I think you also hear that in Europe and America, but I think in Israel, maybe it's a little bit stronger because of that culture. So, in America, for example, dating terminology tends to revolve around sports, like hitting, getting to second base, getting to third base.
Leanne: Yeah, baseball. Yeah.
Roy: Yeah. In Israel, it's a lot about military terms and stuff like that. In that sense, I think it was just in the water.
Now, I grew up with a mother and two sisters. So I think that I grew up seeing a very strong, capable mother that could basically do everything. And as such, I grew up with a lot of respect for women, and very much feeling like I'm a feminist or a decent ally, in that respect. So it wasn't certainly something in my own behaviour, but I definitely feel like I learned to just accept it around me when I heard stuff like that, and not necessarily speak up and speak out, which is something I try to do a lot more now. And still, there was the whole concept of ownership in relationships. It's also something that's tied for me to language and to culture. In Israel, in Jewish custom, when people get married, the husband literally buys his wife from her parents.
Leanne: Yeah. Okay.
Roy: There’s a formalised document where you buy her for some camels or something. It's all part of the traditional ceremony.
Leanne: Right. Okay. Wow.
Roy: Yeah. And the the name for husband in Hebrew, is owner. Literally translated, is owner.
Leanne: Okay, yeah. There are some parallels with that in China as well, because in the Chinese language, if you are talking about a man marrying a woman, the term for that is different from a woman marrying a man. Basically, a man marries a woman, and a woman is, I suppose the translation is, taken by the man. There's different verbs that we use depending on who we're referring to and who is marrying who. Even though obviously, it's the same act on both sides. But there's a specific kind of ownership element when talking about the man taking the woman from her family and being married into his family. So there are definitely, you know, I think this is cross culture. And yeah, I completely see what you mean.
Roy: Mhm. So, it always bugged me and I think it just started bugging me a lot more when I started going into polyamorous relationships, because of the inherent equality and freedom that everybody gets to have. Now, when I talked to friends in Israel earlier on in my journey, oftentimes I would have guy friends saying, “Oh, I can definitely see how I can fall in love with more than one woman, but I can never can never tolerate that my wife will see other men.”
Leanne: (laughs) Yeah, super common.
Roy: Super common. So that for me is very much all about toxic masculinity. It’s somehow this entitlement that men seem to have.
Leanne: Or that she can see other women, but not other men, because you know, “women don't count”, right? (laughs)
Roy: Yeah, it's all part of the same thing. Like, somehow a relationship between two women is somehow less than a relationship between a man and a woman. I mean, what's that about?
Leanne: Yeah, also, it's like, “Oh, but it's for me,” you know, “It's hot and I get to see it.” So it's still, again, entitlement to women's bodies, because it's like, “I get to enjoy it. It’s for my consumption, and so it's fine, whereas I'm not going to be turned on by my wife having sex with another man.” I think there's that element of it as well.
Roy: Yup. And, you know, you can see very clearly how in our culture, both men and women learned that behaviour and learn to expect that. I've spoken to women in countries, especially in Eastern Europe, Russia, Israel, Southern Europe, that also expect the man's behaviour to be very chauvinistic. That equates for them with like a real man. A man, a real man, takes, he doesn't ask. And out of that, there's this whole, in those cultures, it's perceived that if you say, like a woman, and you ask her if you can kiss her, she thinks of you as a sissy, as soft, because you don't take what you want. And the expectation is that you just grab her and kiss her. To prove your manhood, you know?
So that's how I grew up. Luckily, it didn't stick to me. And I also left Israel when I was 21. And I was able to absorb different cultures and different experiences and form my own opinion about it. So it was relatively easy for me to accept that fundamental equality for men, women, and everybody else. But I do still find a lot of resistance to accepting that masculinity, the way we are taught it, can be toxic, in clients that are struggling with things around jealousy when there are men. And sometimes also women, who don't believe they deserve the same, who somehow accept that as just a way of the world. That they don't - that they shouldn't have the same desires and needs and wants as men.
I often think about how men complain that it's so hard to find a date, it's so hard to find a girlfriend etc. because women are instinctively wary of talking to somebody on the street, or meeting somebody unless it's in a safe place, and clearly, most of the men that complain about it are not abusers or people who cause harm. But, I think it's very important to be aware of why women are reluctant, why women are hesitant.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. There are so many societal factors that play into it. Chad and I talked about this as well. And it's not just on the men's side. I think there are certain beliefs that women perpetuate, certain societal norms that are not great. I think the heteropatriarchy is maintained by both men and women, and well everyone, really, in various tiny ways that all contribute to like a very messed up culture.
Roy: Yeah, and in a way I do believe – and maybe I’m idealistic and maybe too naïve – but I do believe that polyamory and opening up the whole spectrum of gender orientations and relationship dynamics does serve an opportunity to challenge the heterodoxy, to challenge the patriarchal view of the world, and also challenge capitalism, potentially. Because of this idea that there isn’t a set way to do things, you have to basically figure out for yourself what’s right for you. You can’t just follow a paved path that somebody else told you is the way. And when people start questioning assumptions and questioning these core beliefs, they start actually thinking about, “Actually, what do I want? And who is the person that wants it? Do I know myself enough?”
So for me, polyamory has opened up this whole other area of questioning beliefs; around heterosexuality, around sexuality and kink, and stuff like that. All of a sudden, you see there is no reason to say no to something that you haven’t actually considered, just because you heard other people say no. So, first you realize the world is so amazingly complex, and beautiful, and varied, which is great. And you also realize that it’s okay to be an individual with your differences and your specific needs that might be different from others.
So one thing that I think you’ve mentioned - you’ve polled about it as well – is the correlation between people who identify as polyamorous or nonmonogamous, and people who are neurodivergent; on the autistic spectrum, or have ADHD, or other divergencies. And I see that in my real life all the time. I date people who are largely neurodivergent in some way, and it makes total sense to me in that sense of - once you accept that people can be individuals with their own specific characteristics, and they don’t have to apologize for it, then the level of acceptance of their differences becomes a lot greater, and people who are neurodivergent feel accepted, feel that they can be comfortable, that they can be themselves.
Leanne: Yeah, and I think there is something to be said about – as a neurodivergent person myself – I have frequently spoken about how I feel that my polyamory and my autism do compliment and benefit each other in various ways. And being autistic, there are so many societal scripts and norms that just never made sense to me, so I just did away with them. And once you do away with one thing, it’s much easier to question the other stuff! (laughs) So in that sense, being able to tailor my relationships to what I really want and to question the status quo, how things are done - and to be able to customize my relationships to what I and my partners want them to be, and not what society expects of me - is so freeing because I struggle so much to follow what society does anyway that I would much rather just do my own thing. And I think that’s why there is such a high correlation between neurodivergence and polyamory because it’s all about tailoring and customizing things to yourself in a world that already doesn’t accommodate you in many ways. We’ve spoken about this before - when I presented at Polyamory Day, and in our own chats about being neurodivergent and dating people who are neurodivergent, and how that influences polyamory.
Roy: Yeah, that’s right. By the way, we will have Polyamory Day 2022 on the 2nd of April. And I would love to go deeper into a lot of these topics and try and expand on that. We will have an opportunity to do it at that event, coming up.
I can’t speak to the experience of being neurodivergent because I don’t think I am – I don’t know, maybe – but I at least haven’t experienced any difficulties or challenges in society for who I am, but I am speaking to how this can help neurotypical people come to a greater degree of acceptance of people who are different from them. And I think that’s where polyamory and challenging relationship norms can actually help with that.
Leanne: Absolutely. So, Roy, I would love to hear about what you said earlier about how polyamory challenges mainstream norms - challenges the heteropatriarchy and capitalism – and I would love to hear you elaborate a little bit more on that, specifically on how polyamory can be used as a tool for revolution!
Roy: Well, so one thing that I’ve noticed is that when I have multiple relationships and my partners also have relationships, I learn so much more about the different interactions that people have, since I am intimately involved with them and I can observe their relationships with other people. So I learn for example about relationships that women have with women because that’s not something that I was very close-up looking at before. And, again I learn about different ways of relating to each other. Because some relationships are more casual, play-based, or platonic, so it just totally expanded my understanding of what is an intimate relationship. Which in the past, with most people, it is supposed to be monogamous, and sexual, and romantic, and friendship-based, like everything in one. So once you accept that, you also can basically see that there are so many new connections and relationships you can have, you don’t have to limit yourself, you don’t have to stop making them and deepening them. Intimacy becomes something you can share with a lot more people, it doesn’t have to be something you only share with your one true partner. And that makes me closer to more people, makes me care about more people, it helps to create this interlocking, interdependent community.
Leanne: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Roy: In a way that a dyad-based, nucleus family type situation doesn’t do. And it’s kind of like a return to the village, where people looked after each other, cared about each other, and it was all basically a big extended family. I think we can get back to it with the help of this expanded vision of relationships.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. What you mentioned about the nuclear family and how we moved from larger, co-regulating communities to little units of a mother and father and two and a half kids, where we’re isolated in little pods. I don’t have the language for this, but how this furthers a capitalist agenda to motivate us to work, and to stress ourselves out, and not get paid enough to barely afford rent and all that when we could be all collaborating in a commune and living that cottagecore life as the memes go.
Roy: Exactly. To build off on that, where capitalism comes in, capitalism and I think feudalism before that, always needed to have an elite that is controlling the proletariat, or the farming community, whatever it is. And for that element of control, it’s really important to convince the masses of people that what they’re getting is enough. And also that they have to fight with each other for a seat at the table — to be able to get ahead. It comes at the expense of somebody else. So capitalism is teaching us about the win-lose instead of the win-win. It teaches us about scarcity and having to compete with other people in your strata to be able to basically level up. And it really contrasts with this idea of abundance, like I mentioned in an open vision of relationships, just because you have, doesn’t mean another person also can’t have. Looking at a win-win situation there. So just because I have a romantic partner and we are very intimate and together, doesn’t exclude her having another partner who also has a very high degree of intimacy. I don’t have to feel threatened by that, because what I’m getting from her is what I need. It doesn’t take away from me that she also has a connection with somebody else. So once you broaden that out, this idea that I have to compete and take from someone else, no longer holds water. And I think that’s a challenge to capitalism in many ways. When I care about more people, money and profit isn’t the primary motive that drives me. And if I don’t have to think somehow that I have to prove myself as more worthy than other competitors, and other suitors, to find that one true love, then I’m not spending my life just obsessing about making lots of money and getting that big house to impress a potential spouse.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely
Roy: Right now romance is tied into capitalism, love is co-opted by capitalism. And I really think we can challenge that and really use polyamory as a way of doing that. Not just, but it’s one of the tools to change the system.
One thing I noticed - you brought up this article that was written by a conservative non-monogamous person.
Leanne: (laughs) Yes, oh my god, I’ve been waiting to bring this up. So a bit of context, obviously, because the people watching this are not in the chat. So in the polyamory Instagram creators chat, I found this article from 2019 that was written by a conservative right-wing person on the benefits of polyamory. But he was writing about polyamory from a very right-wing perspective. And he made a lot of really good points. He definitely made his case to what would be a very right-wing audience. But we were all just collectively losing our minds over this article. It was amazing. And I will definitely have to link the article in the caption — or maybe, should I? Do I want that site to get more clicks? Hmmmm.
Roy: Yeah, that’s a good question, because – look - some of it is palatable, and it is hard to disagree with all the things he is saying there about freedom and respect for people who are different from you, etc. What I did find really objectionable and a warning sign, was trying to co-opt it into the hierarchical nuclear family, into Christianity, basically seeing how it can sit with religion.
Leanne: Yes, and a pro-natalist society. I remember now. There was a particular focus on - there was still ultimately a focus on a hierarchical dyad, and other relationships supporting that. Instead of going like, “Deconstruct it all, and fuck everything,” it was very much, “Here is how you can still maintain your nuclear family-type situation, but you have other things supporting that” and I thought it was so bizarre. I genuinely — and you know what I’m talking about — we were all like, oh my god. Because polyamory ultimately - it’s so funny to me that I see it as such a freeing, almost anarchist relationship style. You’re free to customize it to whatever you want, where you question one thing, you question all of it, right? Whereas these people are like, “We’re still going to maintain all of these things, and stay faithful to God, maintain heterosexuality, and do all these things, but we’re also going to have a little fun here on the side, and that ultimately all supports these things that are very very rigid".” So it’s so bizarre that they don’t see it as a means to deconstruct and question everything, they just see it as a relationship style, something fun, something different that you can do, but not questioning these core beliefs that they have. (laughs)
Roy: Yeah, and while I do want to also argue for their rights to live like that — if you want to be a Christian and go to church, and believe in marriage, and also have a boyfriend or play partner, etc. and for that to be openly accepted, that’s great. I also want to fight for peoples’ right to do that. I guess the concern that it raised for me is that it becomes coopted and institutionalized. Now it’s okay to have a marriage of three people. Or now it’s okay to have other structures that basically support that main idea of marriage as an institution. For me, it doesn’t even make sense that we’re still keeping it alive as an institution. Rather than having it something that people within their religion want to get married, they can do that, but it doesn’t necessarily have to have legal status. Because that keeps outside of the tent people who doesn’t want to get married, who doesn’t want to live with a partner, maybe wants to live alone. Because that has real implications, like in tax credits and other benefits, which prioritize people who want to get married, who want to have children, who want to live together. And that’s not okay.
Leanne: Yeah, you make such a good point about marriage, actually. I used to be — in my early days of practising polyamory — like, “Why can’t people marry more than one person at the same time?” And now I’m like, “Why is the state involved in my romantic life? Abolish it all!” And obviously, while I know that marriage abolition is probably never going to happen, realistically speaking, at least it’s not going to happen for my lifetime, I think - you touched on exactly what I mean. Why are people advocating for plural marriage or group marriage, or whatever, when we should not be offering financial incentive for something like romance, and love, and emotions. This can get very toxic very quickly. There are so many people who stay in legal marriages — even though they are in an unhappy or toxic or even abusive situation — because they need to maintain it for financial reasons, or legal reasons. And there are ways that this this traps people, particularly if you are in a place where it’s not easy to get divorced. And this is one of the major reasons why me and my anchor partner don’t ever plan on getting married. I had a conversation with my mum about this the other day — she was like, “You love each other so much, why don’t you get married?” And I was like, “Well, because I don’t want — “
Roy: Because we love each other so much!
Leanne: Exactly, you took the words right out of my mouth, Roy! I was like, “Because we love each other so much.” What I said to her specifically was: I don’t want our marriage to be weaponized 10 or 20 years down the line. Because we may love each other now, we may be extremely committed to each other now, but I am not the same person I was five years ago and I cannot guarantee I’ll be the same person in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. And as a kindness to our future selves, me and my partner are not getting married because we don’t want that legal or financial fodder to sour our relationship. I was like, “I actually want to make it easy for my partner to leave me if the relationship should turn sour.” The last thing I want is for extra things like money and finances to complicate the situation.
I think where the crux of my argument — as I explained to my mother — was that while, of course, I hope that my happiness and the maintenance of our relationship will always coincide and will coincide for the rest of my life — that is a hope that I have — if, if, one day I should have to choose between maintaining the relationship or maintaining my happiness, or having my partner be happy as well, then I would choose our mutual happiness over maintaining the relationship. So obviously, I would want that process to be as smooth as possible. Whereas I feel a lot of people would choose maintaining the relationship and sacrificing quite a lot for the relationship, rather than thinking about their happiness and general fulfillment in life. And I do think that, while monogamy is a very valid relationship style and many people practice it and lead very very happy lives, I do think that in a long-term monogamous relationship, people do end up having to sacrifice quite a lot of things in order to maintain monogamy, in a way that I, personally, don’t feel that you have to do in such an extent in a non-monogamous dynamic. That’s my belief.
Roy: I think I largely agree with you. I don’t care if people choose to be monogamous or multigamous and have multiple partners. What I do know for myself and also hope to help clients with, is that, first of all, they know that their partner or partners are with them because of choice, because they want to be, not because of some kind of obligation or fear. (Leanne: Yes. Yes. Yes.) That’s really important. And that we constantly check in with each other to know that we are still on the right track, we’re still happy being with each other. And as we change - my partner is going to change as well - we may have evolving needs that are going to be different. Now, a monogamous, exclusive relationship tends to limit what you can do outside of your core relationship. And that can sometimes feel restrictive — although for some people that doesn’t feel restrictive, it’s fine, that’s ok. As long as they are always aware that it’s not the structure that is keeping them together, but it is their connection.
Leanne: Yeah, completely.
Touching on what you said earlier, another point I wanted to bring up regarding what you said about how capitalism engenders competitiveness and scarcity in relationships, and I think to a certain extent, materialism: a common thing that I get asked a lot in a polyamorous dynamic is, what if your partner leaves you for someone else, what if they find someone better than you? What if they find someone smarter than you, hotter than you, or whatever, just better than you, in that way. And ignoring what is “better” anyway, the response that I have is: your partner doesn’t love you because you are the hottest, smartest, and “best” person in the entire world. If that were the case — if people only stayed with their partners because they were the best option possible — people would be constantly trading up, all the time. As soon as they saw a better option, they would trade up. And of course, some people do do that. They stay in a relationship until they see a better option, and then they leave their partner and they go, right. That does happen and I’m not trying to deny that — but not everyone does that.
I don’t love my partner because — obviously, I do think that he is amazing, and I do think he is very attractive, but let’s be real, he is not the hottest person in the universe. I know this, he knows this, we both know this. But I don’t love him because of that. I love him because of the bond we have created, and the compatibility that we share, and the history that we’ve built together and what we will build together in the future, our goals, our dreams, whatever. And, this is why I don’t worry about him being with someone who may be more conventionally attractive than me, or may have a certain skill that I don’t, or who may have a certain degree that I don’t, or whatever, because I think it’s important to recognize that, as individuals, we bring different things to the table and even though someone is “better” in some respects, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything about the compatibility of their connection, or anything like that. So once we are able to let go of that sense of materialism in relationships, which I think is a belief that capitalism definitely contributes to, then we are able to rest much more easily and rest more secure in our connections and be recognized for our worth; not what we provide, but for who we are.
Roy: Yes, yeah, I think it is tied into this scarcity mindset. So working on that and challenging our views and our beliefs is an important part of our process and replacing it with new mindsets — like with an abundance mindset — allows for that expansion. Regardless of where you are on the relationship spectrum, it’s always helpful to have a more abundant mindset. One of the things I do as a coach is I teach a course which is four weeks long, four sessions, where we look at these scarcity beliefs and mindsets and we challenge them and question them, and we can unpack them, both universally and individually for people within the course, and we replace them with new beliefs that we can create for ourselves. And that requires us to know who we are, know our needs, know our values, and then set up some boundaries around those. “It’s important for me to have these needs met, and then I can feel a lot more free to relax and to not constantly fear that I am missing out or that I need something more.” So that’s been a great experience for me, to explore that several times this year with different groups of people and different classes and I hope to do another one in February — to start another class. So that’s something that I’m really passionate about — helping more people start to question these beliefs that they grew up with. Replace it with something that’s really right for them. Not just a general thing that all of society is supposed to have but what’s individually right for you.
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. Well just one more thing before we wrap up, Roy. You used the word just now: “multigamous”. I know what it means, and you know what it means, but for people that are watching, can you explain this term a little more? Because it is something that you coined.
Roy: Yeah, and I know that some people really hate it when somebody creates a new word because they feel like it’s pretentious or whatever. And I just want to preface it that polyamory is also a word that was invented by people in just the last century. It didn’t exist before. It actually shouldn’t exist — as you’ve pointed out as well — because it is a combination of Latin and Greek.
Leanne: (laughs) Yeah well a lot of words are a combination of Latin and Greek, like “television”, but yes.
Roy: Yeah. So I was actually feeling unhappy as “non-monogamy” as a blanket label for the relationship dynamic. And I do see a difference between what you do and what you are. So what you do is how you practice a relationship. So monogamy, or swinging, or solo polyamory as a practice. Those are dynamics. But who you are is monoamorous or polyamorous. And that is basically the way you love, the way you hold love for multiple people or one person, and that varies between people. And for some, maybe they can do either, but it’s convenient for them to choose a relationship dynamic of one sort. For others, it’s really an orientation and it’s something that even if they didn’t know they were like that from the beginning, they — like, when I realized that it is something that worked for me, I also looked back for my life and everything made sense about why I was unhappy in monogamous relationships in the past. There was something that was missing there which was the polyamory, I just didn’t know it, so I blamed other things for it not working out. So that is basically the preface. The term “non-monogamy” as an umbrella term, for me, feels othering. It feels like it’s basically saying that there is monogamy, which is the default, and then there’s all these other things that are not monogamy.
Leanne: Yeah, it’s kind of like if we said non-heterosexuality instead of homosexuality.
Roy: Exactly. So if people who were queer were called non-straight or non-hetero, that wouldn’t sit well with anybody, and it’s not okay. So in that sense, I don’t want to be othered that way, or to be defined by what I’m not.
So I found this word that made sense in that respect — multiple relationships, multigamy — and as far as I know, nobody else is using it in a different context, so it was free. (laughs) And I decided to start using it, and it helps me. I don’t really care if it catches on or not, to me it helps to feel better about not always feeling like I am something that I am not. It is simple, but to me, it’s effective. And I like words that help me make sense of the world. Not everybody needs terminology. Not everybody needs labels. And for some it helps, and for others they don’t care, and that’s fine too.
Leanne: Yeah. I think that labels and words, some people feel boxed in with them and others use them to find identity and community.
So, Roy, I think you’re doing fantastic work in terms of deconstructing capitalism and patriarchy and helping people in of all sorts of relationship orientations, and desires build the healthy and consciously chosen relationships that they want. So feel free to check out Roy’s website at —
Roy: OpenRelating.Love.
Leanne: OpenRelating.Love. And where else can people find you Roy? On Instagram you’re @OpenRelating?
Roy: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, it’s @OpenRelating one word.
Leanne: Okay. Right, fantastic! So, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you Roy, and I’m sure people have learned a lot from this session. So here is to more collaborations in the future, and have a great day!
Roy: It’s been great, thanks! I’ll see you soon hopefully. Bye-bye!
Leanne: 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!