Checking stories on yahoo today led me to some news videos and I saw one about “2 men a woman and a baby – a modern family” – so I had to click to see what it was about. They were doing a story about a polyamorous threesome, I think they called a thrupple (trying to put together three and couple I guess). So it was a household with one woman in a relationship with two live in men, and a baby she had with one of the men. 
I imagine that those of us who are not currently in that kind of relationship started thinking all kinds of things, I certainly made a few prejudiced conclusions before even seeing the entire few minute video, much less actually really getting to know these people, and I am pretty open minded about multiple partner relationships and households (been there done that a time or two or three or, oh why are you counting?
The video story and some if the interview with the woman and one of her men did shine some light on how they are choosing to do the polyamore thing, and by then end of the story a few of my initial reservations about their situation were addressed.
Apparently they all have different bedrooms, and the kid knows who his dad is, and considers the other guy to be a protector (like a babysitter). It is not a closed poly relationship, so the two guys are not bound only to the one woman, they are all open to date and fool around with others, as long as a few basic rules are adhered to, including safe sex and only dating other polyamorous or swinging lifestyle people.
The news tried to make it fair and balanced by showing honest interview about jealousy and they guy who admitted it was smart enough to know that a majority of that comes from his own insecurity. They also balanced the news story by talking about how people are aware of polygamy and mentioned shows like big love and the tlc show where one guy has several sister wives, so I guess they are being more balanced by showing a relationship that is primarily the other way around.
There was a statistic about there being I think they said 5 million polyamorous relationships in the united states? I am not sure where they got that stat from and what would count or not be counted that should be counted in those numbers – but at least it is showing there is more than just one strange threesome going on in each city and town in around here – there are many people choosing the multiple partner lifestyle.
There was a quick bit with some expert I guess who said that poly relations are not for everybody – as many people have a hard time with jealousy and possessiveness that tends to break them apart. I think that makes sense, and it shows how a lot of us are not 100% totally secure in being great lovable people that we sometimes have to worry about a lover being with another. I do believe that there are many more polyamorous people in the world, but many of them are not going to be standing up to be counted, as our society – or at least the media tends to try to make these kinds of things big scandals.
Just look at Bill Clinton with the whats her name thing – the media made a big deal out of it (and so did the republicans) – but I don’t think most of America was appalled or surprised by any means. The wiener gate thing, that guy was chastised by the media for sending some pics and dirty messages. The spitzer guy was chastised by media (and I think the feds) or paying hookers to have sex. With all of these public scarlet letters put on people who choose to have relations with more than one person after making a commitment to a primary relationship – it’s not wonder that the millions of other people who are out there “cheating” are not standing up to be counted as having polyamory relationships.
We don’t even know if those guys who were chastised for getting some excitement on the side were open, honest and cool with their primary lovers / wives or not – and yet the media made them all out to be bad people for doing what so many other people are doing all the time. Perhaps we could of had some wives come out and say yeah I knew about whats her name, we had an agreement, and that’s our private business – no stay out of our bedroom! But alas, I know with politics and getting future votes, they are probably caving to what is needed in that arena.
Nonetheless, there are plenty of people out there cheating on primary lovers or husbands or wives – some people know about it, and some people don’t. Some people are afraid to tell the world about it, and some people are afraid to tell their lovers about it. Certainly there are those who are just being selfish and greedy and want to explore other carnal relations without losing their main partner, but there are plenty of people out there who do not tell because their main motivation is not wanting to hurt the other person in the primary relationship as well.
Then you have to consider how many people out there are dating around, they are not married and they are having a few relationships at once. Plenty of that going on with girls and guys these days. So how do we count the number of polyamorous people in this country or around the world?
I think it’s impossible to know for sure – but we can make some estimates if we really started making some projections based on all of these factors, we might find that there are more polyamorous people in the country than monogamous. I have seen experts say that most humans are consider “serial monagomy” creatures – meaning we tend to stick with just one partner, and then leave and eventually get into another monogamous relationship with another partner. I myself think it is much more complex than that – and especially in this day and age, I believe that if we looked at people who live in a free world and are connected to lots of other people, so look at the cities of the free countries, I think we mind that humans tend to be polyamorous in general, and occasional go monogamous for periods of time for various reasons, and then are back to serial polyamore – whether we can get people to admit to it or not.
I hope the above link to the video will stay playable / viewable – if not here is a link to the story at abc / gma – I hope that stays readable!