- Let's just say your girlfriend goes out for
a couple of weeks.
What do you do when you feel a
zing?
A lustful feeling you might say.
- Hmm.
- You're hungry.
You're hungry for some human meats.
(upbeat music)
- Hi.
- Hi, Naya, I'm Michelle.
How old are you?
- I am 10.
- You're 10?
So are you going into
fifth grade?
- Yeah.
- Do you know who your teacher's gonna be this year?
- Oh, I just started already.
- [Michelle] You started already?
- Yeah.
- [Michelle] How old are you, Tye?
- 12, I like your tattoo.
- Which one?
- "My Neighbor Totoro".
- You know "My Neighbor Totoro"?
- [Tye] Yes.
- My name is Xiaowan.
I'm five years old.
- You're five?
When's your birthday?
- Um, I dunno.
- [Michelle] So today I'm gonna talk to you about polyamory.
Have you ever heard about that before?
- No.
- Polyamory?
- It's where you like have either two boyfriends
or two girlfriends, like that or you have more?
- [Michelle] Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Even if I have a boyfriend or a girlfriend
that I'm open to the possibility of
connecting with somebody else.
- What?
That husband or that husband?
I don't get it.
- [Michelle] Like an example I like to give,
when I talk about polyamory is
do you have a favorite food?
- I like pizza a lot.
- I can't decide.
- [Michelle] You can't decide.
Perfect example, right?
Give me your top three favorite foods.
- Can I give restaurants?
- Sure, yeah.
- In-N-Out, Chipotle,
and Chili's.
- [Michelle] Okay, awesome.
Polyamory is saying,
"Great."
It's amazing that you love all of those restaurants
and you probably love them
for all like different reasons, right?
Whereas monogamy's like,
you can only eat at In-N-Out for the rest of your life
and you can never have another restaurant again.
- I like that.
- [Naya] Even though it's just food, it's food.
Doesn't either have feeling.
I feel like if you do get, like,
let's say two boyfriends
the other boyfriend would get jealous.
Or if you say the other one of it
the other boyfriend would get jealous.
- That's a really good point.
And that does actually happen.
I don't have to be equally in love with everybody, right?
Maybe you're at school and you wanna play with
your best friend, but then maybe the next day
somebody who you've never played with before
invites you over to the swing set.
Your best friend, she might be jealous.
But that doesn't mean that you don't love her anymore
that you don't wanna play with her ever again.
- [Tye] So is it basically this tri,
love hexagon or something?
- Sometimes that works
for people in polyamorous relationships.
Like you might have
three people who are all in a relationship together.
- [Tye] But what if he ends up
catching more feelings for her than you?
Yeah, you're not good for me anymore.
Me and Susie,
who I met last night
which you allowed me to date?
Yeah, we're leaving.
Bye.
- [Michelle] That's absolutely a possibility.
Everybody is allowed to follow their heart
in whatever way makes sense to them.
So even though it would be painful
that my partner might have stronger feelings
for somebody else,
I would want them to do whatever made them happiest.
- All right.
I guess.
What made you want to
date and go freaky, freaky with everyone.
- [Michelle] It wasn't like a lightning bolt from God
and all of a sudden I knew,
but it was like I want to allow myself to be as
close to my
like authentic self as possible.
- [Tye] Okay.
Say you were to get pregnant.
How would you know who the father was?
Because you're seeing all these men,
how could you keep track?
Would you just go to boyfriend number one?
"Are you the father?
Take a DNA test."
"Nope?
Okay, boyfriend number 69,420.
Are you the boyfriend?"
"No, okay.
Well that's all of them."
- [Michelle] Well, for me personally,
if I'm going to get pregnant
it's gonna be a very
intentional, purposeful thing.
And at that point I would probably just wanna focus
on the one person that I would wanna have a family with.
- All right.
All right.
- [Michelle] Does that make sense?
Yeah?
Well, thanks for your time.
- Bye.
- [Michelle] Bye.
- [Naya] Bye.
- [Michelle] Bye.
- Enjoy your free life.
- [Michelle] Bye.
- [Evan] Hello.
- Hi.
- [Evan] Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, too.
- I'm Evan,
nice to meet you.
- Hello, Evan.
- [Evan] So how, how's it been going today?
Like, do you have any thoughts on kind of like,
monogamy or, or polyamory?
- Yeah, I say monogamy's not bad.
- Monogamy's not,
why don't you think it's bad?
- Like it's not bad.
It, yeah, like, yeah, it's good.
- [Tye] I am leaning on the other side
on being free
to choose
and to have many partners.
- [Evan] Free to choose.
Why, why do you say that?
- [Tye] Because you just don't wanna lock yourself
up with one person and say, "bam, that's your wife.
Great.
Now don't do anything else.
You must only love her.
And you must only be with her forever."
- That is intense.
Do you have a favorite
Disney princess?
- Yes.
- [Evan] Who is it?
- I have lots of them like Cinderella, Ariel, Belle.
- [Evan] And they all have
just one prince.
- Just one prince.
- [Evan] Yeah.
And that's kind of what like
makes it so amazing,
is that like Belle finds
her one prince.
It wouldn't really be the same thing if Belle had like
five princes.
- It would be silly.
- [Tye] How many girls have you dated?
And how many
times have you watched Netflix and chilled with them?
- [Naya] I've never met a person,
the other thing, the other like, pla,
I don't know how to say it.
- Do you think that it's good
that your parents are monogamous?
- Yeah.
- [Evan] Do you think, like,
your mom would like it if your dad had
another girlfriend?
- No.
- [Tye] High tens, high one hundreds.
You gotta, you gotta give me a ballpark here, man.
- More than two, less than a hundred.
- More than two, less than 100.
All right.
- [Naya] Do you, like,
see these just in movies
and that's why you decide to be a monogamous
or do you decide on your own decision?
- That's a really great question.
There is something about having, like,
one singular partner,
one person you can truly depend on,
that actually kind of help, like, simplifies everything.
Because it's about that stability
and about that person who you know,
no matter what happens in your life,
that they will be there for you.
- [Tye] 50?
- Less than 50
- 40?
- [Evan] It's narrow enough.
- Three?
- It's narrow enough.
- [Tye] Okay.
- Are you bored when with,
with one girlfriend?
- [Evan] No, because, you know, like,
my girlfriend's my princess
and just like Beast never gets bored of Belle,
I never get bored of my girlfriend.
Do you want to get married someday?
- That's if
I ever get married.
- If you get married.
- But first I'm gonna work on
trying to get a girlfriend first.
- You said a girlfriend though?
- [Tye] Yes.
- Like one girlfriend.
- [Tye] I have to work on getting one first
before I try to get more.
- Let's just say, I think you're gonna get a girl.
So once you have this girlfriend
are you cool with, like, her having another boyfriend?
- As long as she's cool with me having another girl.
- [Evan] You don't think that, like,
you would feel
jealous if she was, like, kissing another dude?
- Well,
as long as she doesn't feel jealous
that I'm kissing another girl.
But I have to ask you a question.
- Sure.
- [Tye] If monogamy is so great
then how come the divorce rates are so high?
- That's a really great,
- [Tye] Why are people getting married just to say,
"you know what, it's over.
I, I don't wanna be with you anymore.
Take, take the dog, okay?
I'm taking my son."
- I actually think that's a really great question.
But, like,
I think it's usually way more complicated than that.
And looking at people who have been divorced,
like, it's not
just because someone, like, wants another partner.
There's, like, a lot of reasons why people might
get divorced.
- Really?
- [Evan] Yeah.
- Is, is it really?
- Oh for sure.
- [Tye] Well, what's your favorite food?
- I don't really have a favorite food, man.
- Name a favorite restaurant.
- My favorite restaurant is Terra at Eataly.
And I would eat there seven days a week.
- If you were to only eat there just
for the rest of your life,
you wouldn't.
- No, but people aren't inanimate objects
that provide calories like food.
So I don't quite,
- It's a metaphor, dude.
It's a metaphor.
- It's a good metaphor.
- [Tye] Well, to make a nutritious and full circle meal
you have to have several things on it, correct?
- Mmhmm.
- For some guidelines, you must have
your grains, which could be a girlfriend.
You could have your vegetables,
which could be another girlfriend.
And then 50% protein,
which could be your wife.
The other drink on the side,
could be,
I don't know,
maybe another girlfriend?
It takes many pieces of the pie
to create one dish.
- When it comes to food,
That's
true.
But I just,
- Let's just say your girlfriend goes out for
a couple of weeks.
What do you do when you feel a
zing?
A lustful feeling, you might say.
What do you do?
You're hungry.
You're hungry for some human meats.
- [Evan] Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I would fast.
And then that meal would be even more delicious
once I finally had it.
- Well, what if she
is somewhere off getting her human meat from someone else
and making a muck bong video?
- Well, assuming you don't literally mean she's a cannibal,
'cause that would,
- No, of course not.
- [Evan] That would prompt some other issues.
- We're not savages here.
- [Evan] You know, I have
a lot of confidence in the nutrition that I provide.
Once you,
you go to the buffet
and once you, like, pig out, like, you might get sick
and then maybe you'll change your mind.
But, look, you haven't even had a girlfriend yet.
- Ouch.
- [Evan] Monogamy doesn't mean
you only eat one thing to start.
It means you try everything
and then you settle on your favorite food.
Anything else?
- [Tye] That's all my questions.
I am satisfied.
- See,
thanks man.
- [Tye] I almost made him break, but we ran outta time.
- [Ragini] Can you move your chair towards
whoever convinced you?
- [Naya] Okay.
Even though
it's good to have more than one person in your life,
I feel like when you love someone,
you just love that one person.
- If you have a lot of friends,
that's okay.
But for boyfriend,
that will be
a little bit silly
if you have a lot of boyfriends.
- [Tye] I am undecided
because I choose both.
I would rather choose my palette
and taste other different types of foods
and then settle on one.
- What did you say at the end there?
- And then settle on one.
- [Evan] Wait, one more time?
- Settle on one.
- Come on over, Tye.
- Hey, that doesn't mean that I still can't taste
other foods when I'm having my entree
'cause it's kind of like eating at Yogurtland.
When you're still eating,
you could still sneak on over to the,
to the side
and add a little more to your dish.
I can't cut this chair in half so
I'll just put it right there.
Do I have to choose a side?
Okay.
- [Ragini] Take your time.
- I'm ready.
- [Evan] Oh, here it comes.
- [Tye] Because why do I have to choose
when I could just do both?
- [Michelle] Which I think that's technically polyamory
just saying.
- Oh,
okay, then.
- I disagree.
I think that it's
monogamy.
It's like dating and then settling on one.
- You guys sound like politicians.
I'd rather end in a,
in a tie.
- [Michelle] But if you have five boyfriends
on Valentine's day you would get five boxes of chocolate.
- That's too much.
I will have a tummy ache.
- [Michelle] I respect your choice.
And I think that as you get older
you're going to see that you
have the opportunity to make whatever choices
make you happy.
And if monogamy makes you happy, that's okay.
And if polyamory makes you happy, that's okay too.
- [Evan] I think something that's really interesting
is that, like, when I made my arguments,
I didn't have to really, like, explain anything other
than point out, like, their parents
and I could reference Disney
or anything else that just, like, reinforces
monogamy.
And I, and I did that and that was,
you know, manipulative and my strategy.
But I think it's really important to be
just aware of, like, how strong that influence is.
- [Michelle] Thank you.
Regardless of where the kids stand today.
I think it's important for them to know
that an alternative to that narrative exists.
- It's kind of like both sides are like yin and yang.
The chaos and the good
and the good and the chaos
- [Michelle] Well said.
- [All] Bye.
- [Evan] See you.
- Hi everyone.
Thank you for watching this episode.
If you have any suggestions for future topics
please leave them in the comment section below.
Also, if there are any comments
that are directed towards the kids,
I really hope that they're filled with love
and are words of encouragement
because at the end of the day they're just kids,
and they also scroll through comments.
Thank you for watching this video
and I'll see you next time.