On a suburban street in Somerville, Massachusetts, there is a white clapboard house with a note next to the doorbell. “If no answer at No 3 please ring No 4,” it reads. “And vice versa.”
On the top floor lives Jay, 56. In the bedroom next door is his partner of 12 years, Ash, 44. Next door again is Ash’s husband of 19 years, Chris, also 44. Chris spends a lot of time in the connected apartment downstairs where his “sweetie”, Cal, 36, lives. Ash also has a boyfriend more than 3,000 miles away in California (they date over video calls), as well as a “sweetie” over the state border in Connecticut. Jay has another partner 1,000 miles away in Chicago. And he recently split up with a live-in girlfriend who has moved out. Are you keeping up?
This is, to use their vernacular, a “polycule” — a group of people who are romantically connected in one way or another. Perhaps obviously, their lifestyle is enabled by polyamory, which is when people have more than one romantic partner at the same time. There are signs that polyamory —previously associated with west coast hippies or suburban swinging — is becoming more common. In a 2020 YouGov poll of more than 1,300 American adults, 32 per cent said their ideal relationship is nonmonogamous to some degree. By 2023 the proportion had inched up to 34 per cent. There has been a rise in popularity in Britain too, where a 2019 YouGov survey found that 7 per cent of adults said they had been in consensually nonmonogamous relationships — up from 2 per cent in 2015. Just under a quarter of respondents said they were open to the idea of nonmonogamy. References to polyamory are increasingly laced through pop culture, in TV series such as Succession and Scenes from a Marriage, and reality shows including Channel 4’s Open House: The Great Sex Experiment. Last year we saw the publication of the instant New York Times bestseller More: A Memoir of an Open Marriage by Molly Roden Winter, a Brooklynite who battles through the peaks and troughs of nonmonogamy, all while the kids are at home. Somerville, a northern suburb of Boston, is the most polyamory-friendly city in America, a haven for people and their girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses, “them-friends”, “hunnies” and “sweeties”. It’s a left-leaning place with “smut slam” dirty poetry readings in church halls and yonic sculptures on front lawns. With the universities of Harvard and MIT down the road, this is where people thrash out the politics of relationships, creating an experimental idyll away from the confines and pitfalls of monogamy. In 2023 it became the first city in America to legally protect people in polyamorous relationships against discrimination. Three years earlier the city had extended the definition of a “domestic partnership” to include relationships involving more than two people. This grants nontraditional families similar rights and privileges as married couples under city law, including hospital visitation rights, bereavement leave and exemptions on the number of unrelated people who can live under one roof. It has made Somerville the Las Vegas of polyamory, with poly people from around the country travelling to its city hall to obtain domestic partnership certificates. I spent a week in Somerville, a tight-knit small world made even smaller by the fact that so many people in “the community” are dating each other, or have done. Meet the polys. JARED LEEDS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Jay, an IT consultant and self-confessed computer nerd, grew up in suburban New Jersey and became interested in polyamory at the age of ten after reading Robert A Heinlein sci-fi books featuring sexually promiscuous open marriages. His first teenage relationship was nonmonogamous. “I was poly before poly was a term,” he says, blue hair tied back, maroon nail varnish on his toes. After a brief career as a stockbroker on Wall Street he became interested in proto-internet culture and launched an early ecommerce company. “I got on the internet when it was very small,” he says. “At that point I knew everyone in New York who was capable of hooking it up correctly.” He moved to Somerville in the mid-1990s to find many people he knew coalescing around Boston’s university hub — either tech nerds he’d met in online chatrooms or those who attended the sci-fi conventions he would frequent. Large numbers of them were interested in polyamory. “We had all independently been working on this thing [polyamory], and we found each other and we had a lot to talk about,” he says. He started attending casual poly meet-ups in people’s homes, applying the same academic rigour to discussions about romance as they did to technology. “How do you handle jealousy? How do you handle getting a new partner when you’ve had one for a while?” Ash, who goes by “they/them” pronouns, grew up in a conservative family in the Midwest, moving further east with each university degree they acquired, eventually working in tech. At 25, Ash married Chris, their college sweetheart, and two years later asked him for an open marriage. “I’m, like, ‘I’m bi and I kind of would like to have the opportunity to have sex with [other] people,’ ” Ash says. “It was tough because for a long time I had a number of partners and Chris didn’t have any It’s been an evolution.” Jealousy can be a problem, Ash admits, recalling the arguments when one of Jay’s girlfriends moved in during Covid soon after they first occupied the property: “I was mad as I thought he and I were gonna get a nesting period. And then there was this other person around who was very exciting and sparkly and taking a lot of his time.” Tensions mounted over sleeping arrangements: Jay’s partners had their own bedrooms and he was switching between the two, without a room of his own. “There were points when each of them was, like, ‘Go away, I want to have the bed to myself,’ ” he says. “And points where each of them was, like, ‘I want you and I’m not getting enough cuddle time with you.’ So there were continuous adjustments. We say often in poly that love is infinite but time is not.” Many of the people I speak to share complicated Google calendars with their various partners to co-ordinate schedules. Jay and that girlfriend broke up recently, which he is sad about, but he says there’s an upside: “If you’re monogamous and you’re just seeing one person and something happens with [the relationship], it’s like your whole life is blown apart,” he explains. “I’m grateful that I’m not in that position.” • Forget the throuple, now it’s all about the polycule Like every generation who think they have invented good sex, today’s also did not. History is filled with nonmonogamy. Kings in Mesopotamia and Assyria were permitted to take multiple wives; male rulers in ancient Egypt were free to marry as many women as they wanted; and the ancient Greeks were encouraged to go wild with concubines. Polygamy — specifically polygyny, where a man has several wives — is still practised in some Muslim-majority countries today. But these set-ups are, conveniently, a boon to the men only. The 20th century marked the emergence of modern polyamory, the free love movements challenging societal norms around marriage. The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s, as well as the feminist and LGBTQ movements, further dismantled the rigidity of before. The word “polyamorous” was first published in 1990, in an essay titled A Bouquet of Lovers written by Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, a self-styled witch. “There were all these debates about what a terrible mash-up the word was, because people who come from a more prescriptive grammarian point of view were, like, you can’t mix Latin and Greek roots,” Jay says. “But I studied linguistics, so I’m very aware that language is super fungible.” “Nerds gotta nerd,” Ash says, shrugging. In 1997 The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy was published. Still seen as a foundational text — the “poly bible” — it popularised the word “polyamory” and defined it. The book clearly differentiated polygamy (one person having multiple spouses) from swinging (when couples explore sex outside of their relationship) and polyamory (when people are able to explore love, intimacy and romance outside of their relationships, as well as sex). Jealousy and discomfort, the authors wrote , were merely flags to your own insecurities, which should be worked through in order to find a lifetime of abundant love. In these early stages there was often a hierarchy. People had a “primary partner”, to whom they were most committed, followed by a secondary, and so on. In 2006 the Swedish activist Andie Nordgren published The Short Instructional Manifesto for Relationship Anarchy, promoting the idea that all relationships are equal, ie nonhierarchical. By this reckoning your husband of 40 years has no more right to your time than the woman you met last night. Nonhierarchical polyamory is now often held up as the “only” right way to do it, although this is hotly debated online. “There’s a popular view that polyamory should only be nonhierarchical, seen as the purest, most progressive and equitable, almost social justice-oriented,” says Jennifer Schneider, a Massachusetts-based relationship therapist. Others find this oddly prescriptive. Kathy Labriola, 70, was at the centre of the gay rights movement at Berkeley in the 1960s and 1970s, and is in two concurrent romantic relationships, each 50 years long. “There is no utopian way or morally or ethically ‘right’ way to be polyamorous,” she says. “It’s strange and ironic to me that some of these folks who are so into this nonhierarchical model are so puritanical and judgmental about it. It makes the individual king.” Willie Burnley Jr, 31, a socialist councillor and polyamorous mayoral candidate for Somerville, rejects any hierarchy in any relationship and describes himself as a “relationship anarchist”. We meet at the Diesel Cafe, a famous meeting point for poly folk in the area. Willie Burnley Jr, 31, Somerville’s socialist councillor and mayoral candidate, identifies as polyamorous JARED LEEDS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Burnley was “ardently and passionately monogamous” until 2015, when he had a shattering heartbreak. “I felt so bad that the relationship failed,” he says. “I realised the monogamous view of romance was very self-destructive. I realised my most important relationship is with myself. And frankly I’m a bit indulgent — I don’t like the idea of denying myself something that I want and could potentially have, just because society says no.” Surely there are some hierarchies in his relationships — is he closer to some friends than others? “Oh, certainly,” he replies. “But saying that you’re closer with someone isn’t saying that you will always be closer to someone.” Isn’t this just an exercise in semantics? “No, it’s an exercise in building life in the way that you want to build your life.” We walk out of the café and on to the street. “They’re another person in the community,” he says, waving to someone loading their shopping into the car. Does polyamory get complicated in a small place? “Oh, certainly.” Of course there are those for whom it does not work. Elisabeth Sheff, an academic and author, has researched nonmonogamy in America for decades. She started practising polyamory in the 1990s after her boyfriend told her that he couldn’t imagine a life without it. Sheff went on to have a polyamorous relationship with that partner and again in her later marriage to a woman. But as the years went on she became increasingly unhappy. “We realised that while I had full access to other people, I had never dated anyone,” she says. “I never wanted to.” After some soul searching she realised she was monogamous — and has been since. “Though I don’t think it is malicious, some people within the polyamorous community are very self-impressed with their own evolved, spiritual superiority,” she says. “They feel like everyone is truly polyamorous, and if we could just be honest we could get rid of monogamy completely. But some people are wired towards exclusivity — and that’s not a moral failing.” • Want a happy relationship? Monogamy is not the only way, study finds In another suburban home about ten minutes’ walk from the high street is another polycule. Ryan Malone, 39, a biochemist, lives here with his girlfriend, Emily, 31, a veterinary nurse. “Four cats is too many,” says Malone, 39, as their pets go scampering down corridors covered in fake vines, psychedelic art and fairy lights. Ryan Malone, 39, and Marissa, 38, are in a relationship with each other and numerous other people JARED LEEDS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Emily has a girlfriend, Anna, living nearby, whom she met while Anna was dating Malone, a bouncing labrador of a man with a jaunty quiff and bright blue patchwork denim trousers. Among Malone’s many lovers is a “comet” partner in Toronto — so called because they only see each other about four times a year — another lover, Marissa, and a married woman in Vermont who has children aged 11 and 9. “I’m like an uncle to the kids,” Malone says. “She’s very open about it, they know that their mom’s poly. The oldest son and I read the same books and play chess together.” In an apartment upstairs live Nick and his “nesting partner”, Kit; they’re both 39 and trying for a baby. Kit is an occasional romantic/sexual partner of Malone and also has a number of other lovers. And so there is no room for the cats, two of which are kittens adopted after Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina last year. “I get attached,” Emily says. “I wish they could stay.” Instead the kittens are being adopted by another couple in the polycule who live elsewhere in Somerville. “There are probably over 80 of us in our polycule,” Malone says. One member — “a data nerd at Harvard” — tried to build a 3D map of all their romantic connections but it got so convoluted that it stopped being able to show information meaningfully. “It was just showing how complicated everything was,” Malone adds. How does he manage having so many partners? “I have a comfort with complexity,” he says, grinning widely. Their polycule was “formed after a failed orgy”, Kit says. “A bunch of us rented a cabin, one person didn’t get the memo and invited some co-workers. We had to wait each night until they went to bed before the shenanigans could happen. It was very awkward. But we were, like, OK, we have to be more intentional about this.” As a result they organised an annual sex party and now throw smaller fantasy parties and raves. One was at a ski lodge, another in a cabin in the woods. The themes of their parties have included a postapocalyptic Atlantis, with “trials by sex to determine who the new royalty was”, an “alien petting zoo” and a “murder mystery bonk”. Though their polycule doesn’t have formal membership, people have to be vetted and sometimes interviewed before attending a party or meet-up. “We try to find out if this person has any history of problematic behaviour in terms of consent violations,” says Kit, one of the main organisers. “For example, we found out one person would constantly drag people in to dance [on a dancefloor] and not take no for an answer. And we’re, like, that’s kind of a red flag. It shows that you just don’t really respect someone’s bodily autonomy.” Another person who organises social events in Somerville, who wanted to remain anonymous, tells me it can be a “slow and selective process” to make friends here. “You almost need ten references for whether you’re going to be invited to a group hangout,” they tell me. “There is also this social ostracism, this call-out culture, which I’m not sure is as productive as people often hope it is. Every so often there will be a Facebook post that circulates that’s, like, ‘Just so everyone knows, this person did this thing on this date and I no longer feel safe around them and you shouldn’t either.’ It feels like we’re boycotting people the same way we boycott companies.” JARED LEEDS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Kit, who uses the pronouns they/them, is British and grew up in west London. Their first teenage relationship was a “triad”. Polyamory has felt like a natural part of Kit’s life ever since. After a career in management consulting on both sides of the Atlantic, Kit now runs a workers’ co-operative, moving from London to Somerville full time in 2023 “because of the legal environment” — Somerville’s new antidiscrimination and domestic partnership laws. “I know my way of life is protected here and that it won’t be a problem at the school gate.” Kit first met Nick on the internet dating site OkCupid, but they only dated briefly. More recently they found that they both wanted to have children, having seen poly friends start families themselves. “Seeing others has been really inspirational — you can do something weird and out there and have a loving family,” Nick says. In fact the sense of community the polycule provides was one of the reasons he decided to have children in the first place. It takes a village to raise a child, after all. “What stressed me out about monogamous relationships is that you had to be co-parents, lovers, owners of a home, friends all in alignment. And if one stops working, then that’s a problem that could crater the whole relationship. Being able to not need all of those things, all the time, from one person feels very freeing.” They decided to move in together and begin the IVF process, Kit undergoing egg retrieval to eventually hopefully carry the child. “Our relationship evolved to become romantic but we started from a point of being friends,” Nick says. They have separate bedrooms so they can bring other people home after dates for the night. “It doesn’t always feel great to hear your partner having sex with someone else,” Nick admits. • Me, my husband and our many lovers: inside our open marriage Another of those connected to the group is James, 43, whom I meet for lunch at the Life Alive Organic Cafe in Somerville. He and his wife are the people adopting Malone and Emily’s kittens. James, a web developer who has lived here for 15 years, has a varnished wooden ring on his marriage finger. As well as his wife, he has a girlfriend with whom he has “an ‘I love you’-style relationship” and he is casually dating two other people. His wife dates Malone, among several others. It wasn’t always this way. “I was monogamous, I had this idea of white picket fence, having a wife in the suburbs, very standard stuff,” James says. “But I had this ennui, like there’s got to be something else. I was just f***ing bored.” Around 2018 he started dating someone “very exciting, slightly chaotic and dangerous and incredibly gorgeous”. They were polyamorous. “Every time I came up with some argument like, hey, this feels kind of crazy, they would have a really good answer,” he says. He has since learnt there are two types of people who enter polyamory: those who feel as if it has always been innate and generally find it easy, and those who have to unlearn everything they thought they knew and battle through extreme discomfort, after which, he insists, comes a sort of nirvana. James was in the latter group, reading books and listening to podcasts and talking and talking, trying to reason his way through the jealousy and fear. “I felt like I was on fire all the time, in both a good way and a bad way,” he says. “I went through a long process of figuring out why these things were so upsetting and then changing myself so they were not upsetting any more.” He calls it “deprogramming”, as if his brain is a computer he wants to work more efficiently. In fact there is a feeling in this city that people want to create a sort of moral, sexual, romantic and economic paradise, a safe space far away from possession and monogamy, a city of overeducated nerds all conducting a longitudinal study into whether human emotion and attachments can be done better. But is this about abundance of love or obsessive optimising of life? Is polyamory simply a cheat code to avoid negative emotions by no longer relying on one person? “It does help to have more than one basket your eggs are in,” James says with a smile. “Absolutely.” • Polycule A network of interconnected romantic relationships
Inside the polycule
The origins of the movement
Mapping the chaos
Orgies and heavy vetting
The dream of raising kids
Mind over matter
Don’t know your hinge from your comet? Learn the language of poly love
• Dyad Two people in a relationship within a polyamorous network
• Triad Three people in a relationship, all of whom are romantically involved with one another
• V Two people who are dating one person, but not one another
• Hinge The person in the middle of a “V” relationship
• Comet A long-distance partner whom you see rarely and are not often in touch with
• Hierarchical When certain partnerships are prioritised over others
• Nonhierarchical When there is no ranking system of importance applied to relationships
• Anchor partner The person you consider the central figure in your life, a term designed to be nonhierarchical
• Nesting partner The partner you live with, a term that’s also meant to be nonhierarchical
• Meta(mour) The partner of your partner
• Polyfidelity Where a group of people do not date others outside of their existing relationship structure
• Relationship escalator The monogamous assumption that romantic relationships progress in linear stages (dating, exclusivity, cohabitation, marriage, children)
• Veto The power granted to call off a relationship your existing partner is involved in with someone else
• Relationship anarchy A more extreme nonhierarchical ideology that emphasises individual autonomy, meaning people are free to come and go in others’ lives as they please
• Solo poly When an individual decides to be their own “primary partner”, partaking in romantic attachments but choosing not to permanently enmesh their life with anyone else’s
• Compersion The joy you (might) feel seeing your partner in a relationship with someone else
• NRE New relationship energy: the excitement and giddiness of the early stages of love
• KTP Kitchen table polyamory: when a polycule is all friendly with one another and can socialise as a wider group
• Parallel polyamory Where individuals maintain separate, independent relationships, with little to no interaction with their partners’ other relationships