Pop Culture Seems To Think Polyamory Is Just About Sex
Photo by Deon Black on Unsplash
If I were to guess what polyamory was, based on pop culture, it would be the image of lean, attractive people having non-stop orgies. I see examples of this trope in works like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, where Scott’s roommate Wallis Wells (Kieran Culkin) is in a loosely defined relationship with two other men, or Sense8, where the act of connection is often depicted as big joyous screw-fests.
Many cultural works hit on this note of polyamory being linked almost exclusively with sexuality. While there is nothing wrong with this in-of-itself, as a trend, it speaks to the exoticism that goes on when describing polyamory in pop culture. For far too many people, polyamory is a kooky type of relationship. As a result, most polyamory in media is not only otherized, but is portrayed in a way that goes against how these relationships actually work in the real world.
There is more to polyamory than just sex — a lot more, in fact — and honing in on those distinctions could better serve all people in relationships, not just polyamorous ones.
Polyamory, for those unaware, is the practice of someone engaging in multiple consensual, romantic relationships at the same time. These relationships do not have to be sexual (in fact, many of them are not), but you wouldn't know that from how polyamory is portrayed in media.
Polyamory is overwhelmingly brought up in a sexual context in pop culture. I briefly gave the example of Scott Pilgrim vs.The World, where roommate Wallace Wells has two partners, who we mostly see in a comically oversized bed the main protagonist also sleeps in. We could also talk about the minor character Jake (Steve Lund) in Schitt’s Creek (2015–2020), a very sex-positive person with whom characters David (Dan Levy) and Stevie (Emily Hampshire) both date separately before dropping him because they don’t want to be in a threeway relationship. Jake empathetically realizes that he has made a mistake and decides to take a step back from the two of them — the episode’s shenanigans over.
Source: Netflix S3 E2 ‘The Throuple’
Many modern-day representations of polyamorous people in media fall within the “ethical slut” trope or a person who is moral or benevolent regarding matters of romance and sexuality. These are people who are typically guided by the concept of effective consent in their escapades and usually have a strong sense of empathy (see Blanche in The Golden Girls (1985–1992), Jack Harkness in Doctor Who (1963–present), Rizzo in Grease (1978), Jake from Schitt’s Creek, etc.). There is nothing wrong with portraying sexually empowered people this way (I personally like Jake as a character), but because polyamory is often framed as exciting and strange, these portrayals can sometimes come from a place of exoticism. As a result, polyamorous characters make their way into many scripts for wacky hijinks or, for the chance for the viewer to gawk at something bizarre first, and to be well-developed characters second.
As an example, take the Netflix show The Politician (2019–present). A main subplot in the second season is that antagonist Dede Standish (Judith Light) is in a polyamorous relationship with her husband, Marcus Standish (Joe Morton), and their partner William Ward (Teddy Sears). There are many confessions of love between these three characters, but we don’t see much work on their actual relationship. We instead watch it implode over and over again, as characters who have allegedly had a stable relationship for years come apart at the seams. “I thought I was happy,” says partner William Ward as he finds himself cheating on the couple with Dede’s Campaign Manager Hadassah Gold (Bette Midler). “I’m so special to both of them, but I didn’t realize until I was out of there and with someone without dual loyalty, someone who gave all the attention to me, just how lonely I was.”
This framing of loyalty — the idea that one person can give you all of their attention — is not only unrealistic, but it’s also not how polyamorous people typically view time and attention. No one can reasonably give you all of their time. Your time is naturally split between your coworkers, friends, family members, and so much more.
Ward being oblivious of this fact doesn't make this portrayal malicious, but he is clearly being written for a monogamist audience, consequently making the entire relationship quite voyeuristic. It’s all about gawking at the drama of the polyamorous relationship, particularly the sexual nature of it, and then writing a rather stereotypical love triangle that you would see in a storyline with a monogamous relationship. “They always say that’s the problem with a threesome. Someone always ends up in tears,” the main character Payton Hobart (Ben Platt) says of threesomes after a single bad experience — a statement that says more about the people who wrote it than anything meaningful about threesomes or polyamory.
Source: Literally the current Netflix thumbnail as of writing this article.
Exoticism and polyamory come hand-in-hand with many portrayals. The HBO show Big Love (2006–2011) was all about the viewer being led into the secret and scandalous world of Morman “polygamy” (i.e., the act of marrying more than one person) through the lens of the suburban Henrickson family (see also Sister Wives, Escaping Polygamy, My Five Wives, etc.). The fun was learning about how this strange world operated between the cracks of mainstream society, a setup that would have seemed even stranger in 2006 when sexual norms were far more conservative than today. “Before the show made its premiere,” begins Mary Carole McCauley in the Baltimore Sun, “it was tempting to think: Throw ’em all in jail, even the kids. But then we saw the first episode. And the second. And the third. Despite our most cherished notions of what constitutes a family, we found ourselves rooting for the Henricksons to remain intact.”
We see a similar amount of exoticism in science fiction, where polyamory, especially its more sexual components, are shown as the defining traits of an alien species. For example, the franchise Star Trek has half a dozen species where polygamy is practiced. As revealed in Enterprise (2001–2005), a typical male Denobulan has three wives, who each have three husbands. This created a situation with very large families. It is implied that the entire Denobulan species is one big marriage (see also the Bolians, the Rakhari, the Skrreea, Taresians, and the Ligonians). Polyamory, although practiced by some humans on the show, is mainly seen as a niche activity largely reserved for strange aliens.
As we can observe, polyamory has frequently been used as a shorthand for otherness, and over the years, not all of these portrayals have been particularly kind. Since polyamory is a non-normative type of relationship, it has historically been demonized in media. For years the go-to image people had of polyamory was fringe groups like the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) in places like Arizona, Utah, and Canada — groups long associated with child brides and statutory rape. The public knew about these people through raids, like the one that famously backfired in Short Creek, Arizona in 1953, and later, a more successful one in Schleicher County, Texas, in 2008. This association is the reason why HBO created a polygamous show based on FLDS renegades and not say queer Chicaogans writing comic books. For years, the American publics' primary association when it comes to polygamy, and by extension polyamory, has been weird sex cults.
Additionally, many polyamorous people are queer in pop culture and fall within the “depraved bisexual” trope. These are people whose bisexuality, and by extension, their polyamory, is a facet of their general apathy and moral degeneracy. The quintessential example is Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn — two characters who are canonically both bisexual and polyamorous. These DC comic villains are well-loved in the comic book community, but they are also kind of awful. Poison Ivy, for example, whose power allows her to charm others, has perpetuated numerous sexual assaults against characters ranging from Superman to minor side characters like unnamed police officers.
Source: Moth’s Audio and Videos
It’s not that there can never be bisexual villains (see Villanelle in Killing Eve as a great example of this done right) or even bisexual polyamorous villains (see Clarice Willow in Caprica), but when you make that polyamory a component of their villainousness, then you are leaning on moral sensationalism that is inherently problematic. The same goes for polyamorous characters who are dramatic or have their relationships fall apart. We should reflect on these relationship dynamics in media, but that work involves telling stories focused on real characters, not exaggerated stereotypes clearly coming from a monogamist lens.
Polyamory is already a poorly understood identity, and many shows seem more interested in shocking viewers with exaggerated exploits than telling an honest conception of what polyamory even is — which, to clarify, isn’t about constant sex.
No, polyamory is mainly talking.
Something obvious I want to stress about polyamory is that it involves more than two people, and these relationships have many of the same ups and downs of any monogamous relationship. Relationships are hard. Monogamous couples spend a lot of time on communication. Therapy, which includes couples counseling as a large portion of it, would not be a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States if relationships did not take work.
Polyamory takes that dynamic — one that monogamous people admit is difficult — and adds at least one other person. And so you take that hectic dynamic and multiple it by at least two: two times as many conversations, two times as many disagreements, two times as many arguments. There is a joke in polyamorous circles that it’s for people with a talking fetish because you spend so much of your time on communication.
Occasionally a piece of media will hit this point just right. The Netflix show House of Cards (2013–2018), for example, had a lot of problematic elements to it, but something I was generally impressed by was how they treated the polyamorous nature of the characters' Frank (Kevin Spacey) and Claire (Robin Wright) Underwood’s relationship. The two of them shared sexual partners and occasionally had separate romantic ones. There was even a moment in season four where Frank encouraged Claire to see another partner, saying:
“He should stay on, because he can give you things that I can’t. Look, Claire, we’ve been a great team. But one person — one person cannot give everything to another person. I can’t travel with you. I don’t keep you warm at night. I don’t see you the way he sees you. It’s not my permission to give, but you’ll do what’s right for you. But I want you to know, if you wanted, I know you’ll be careful. And I’ll be fine. I mean, if we’re gonna go beyond marriage, let’s go beyond it.”
Again, Frank is abusive in many areas of his life, but not here.
We could also look to the show BoJack Horseman (2014–2020) for an example of positive polyamorous communication. BoJack’s sister, Hollyhock (Aparna Nancherla), was raised by eight gay dads. This premise may have initially been set up as a joke, but it’s clear from the get-go that she was raised in a loving environment. The one conversation we see of all these parents comes in season four, which isn’t centered on sex and sexuality but on communication. Their characterizations may be heightened for comedic effect, yet we clearly see an eight-way couple working towards consensus.
However, this type of communication is rare to see in media, and that’s because most writers are monogamists and most monogamous relationships do not as frequently have these types of conversations about boundaries. In many, though not all, monogamous relationships, a lot of boundaries are assumed. Characters in media (and people in real life) often assume that their partner will be there for them romantically, financially, emotionally, and sexually. As character Noah Calhoun says in The Notebook (2004), a movie often joked about as the most romantic movie ever made: “We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.”
Source: The Notebook
The problem is that forever is a lot. Problems naturally arise when unstated expectations turn out not to be true. Not every wife wants to be someone’s therapist. Not every husband wants to co-raise kids with the person that they love. When these problems do arise, they are existential crises in monogamous relationships because that person has to be your everything. For example, a common trope in cinema is that of a former couple having separated, usually, before the movie or show starts, because one of them wanted kids and the other didn’t (see Alex and Maggie in Supergirl, Jan Levinson in The Office, Monica and Richard in Friends, etc.). These couples have to separate because, under the logic of The Notebook-style monogamy, one person has to be your everything.
In healthy polyamory, however, these do not have to be crises at all. In fact, those expectations often need to be hammered out well in advance (and constantly reaffirmed) because you do not have the time or the bandwidth for miscommunication You are juggling two or more relationships, after all. This means that there are various types of relationships in polyamory: some partners will be sexual; others will only be romantic; sometimes people with be both sexual and romantic; occasionally, you will only form emotional or financial relationships with no sex or romance whatsoever.
The combinations are varied, and they are shocking to many monogamous people because they are so used to everything being bundled together as a packaged deal. If you are with someone romantically, doesn’t it have to be sexually as well? Won’t you get jealous about your partner being f@cked by someone else?
I remember a friend, let’s call him Sam, telling me a story about a date he had with another guy called Jacob. Sam is in a polyamorous relationship with a man named Timothy, and Jacob, his date for the evening, couldn’t comprehend the concept of polyamory. “Isn’t your partner going to be jealous?” Jacob asked over and over again. So finally, Sam had to explain to Jacob that not only was his partner Timothy “okay with it,” but he knew about the date, and the two of them would probably gossip about this conversation later.
However, Jacob could not get over this arrangement. “If you were mine,” he said jealously, “I do not think I would let you go.”
There is a possessiveness in how many monogamous relationships are framed that remains largely unexamined. This idea that you “belong to someone” is deeply unhealthy and one that a lot of self-identified polyamorous couples actively reject. Again, you don’t belong to anyone, and many problems arise when this perspective is not examined.
Yet this concept seeps through media that allegedly seeks to represent polyamorous people, which is why you get shows like The Politician, where a polyamorous person frames his relationship through ideas of loyalty and exclusion. It is media that tackles polyamory through the lens of possession — a hallmark of many monogamist relationships.
There is so much more to polyamory than just sex. There are the conversations well into the early morning, parties with only people you have slept with, late nights cuddle fests, trips surrounded by people you know so very well, meticulously detailed parenting sessions, the occasional three-way, and of course, some polyamorous people don’t have sex at all (shout out to my aces!) Relationship dynamics are varied, and that’s part of what makes life beautiful.
We need more representation that not only focuses on communication and boundaries in our media, but a diversity of relationship structures. I want stories about three dads raising a child; an amicably married couple running a family’s finances together but seeking romance and sex elsewhere; a polycule building a compound in the middle of the woods. The sky is the limit with the stories left to tell!
Let’s stop objectifying polyamory in our stories and start portraying it as just another type of relationship. I think that many monogamous couples would benefit from the communication and boundary techniques that polyamorous couples have to employ as a standard act of survival.
Because healthy communication transcends labels.