(liquid pouring) (chill music)
- Hey guys, it's Kat, and this is going to be
the "True Tea" call-in episode for my conversation
about whether or not polyamory makes somebody queer.
Now, to quickly go over my thoughts that I shared
in my podcast, I have divided feelings about this.
I've definitely met people who claim queerness
because they are polyamorous,
and these are usually people who are otherwise pretty cishet
and I guess I'm just fascinated by how people feel
about polyamory being something that someone would use
to claim queerness just on its own.
Because for my observation, as somebody who is straight
and dates and socializes predominantly
within straight polyamorous spaces,
it can be very viciously heterosexual.
So I'm very curious about that topic,
and we've got some people on the line who are interested
in having that conversation with me.
And yeah, let's get into some calls, then.
(phone ringing)
Who am I speaking to and what is your True Tea?
- [Mark] Hi, my name is Mark. I go by he/him.
I'm 25. I'm a gay man in an open relationship.
And I also am a researcher, and the project I'm working on,
I study sexuality, the project I'm working on
has multiple parts, but for part of that
I've interviewed 44 people
who practice consensual non-monogamy.
- Oh. - [Mark] Of varying types.
Yeah, varying types, varying gender
and sexuality combinations, what have you.
And so I actually have talked to a decent number
of straight polyamorous people.
And my True Tea, my kind of hot take it is I do think
that even for a lot of straight poly guys,
polyamory is queer. - Hmm, interesting.
- [Mark] I guess the best way to talk about that
is just to give stories so I'm gonna tell you things
that my some of my respondents have told me
and I guess explain why, like, the similarities that I see.
So for me, the most emblematic story, like the one
that was the most shocking to me was I had this guy.
He was in his mid-thirties. He's straight and polyamorous.
And so he actually started polyamory
after he had separated from his wife.
To the world at large, they actually didn't even know
about his separation let alone his polyamory,
sort of exploring that with the permission of his wife
post-separation, but to the world at large,
he's still happily monogamous, married, whatever.
- Interesting.
- [Mark] He basically fell in love with this woman
who had a husband, I believe it was.
He only had one partner,
but he was in a polyamorous relationship
because he was dating someone who had a husband.
So he basically falls in love with this woman,
and things are going really great until they're not
and then she breaks up with him.
So he comes to work visibly dejected, basically,
like very upset, and obviously everyone can see.
So people are like, "Hey, what's up?"
Like, "Why are you you sad?"
And so that's when he decides to come out to people
not only about having been separated from his wife
but also about being polyamorous.
And after talking to a few people about that
in his place of work, he then decided to reach out
to his boss who also is the head
of the LGBT organization where he worked.
So like, she's sort of like the designated person
you're kind of like supposed to go to
for like sexuality-related things.
And so he came up to her and he said,
"Hey, I know that I'm not queer or anything,"
but he was like, "I do feel like this
is like a sexuality-related issue that I'm going through,
and that you might be able to help me with this."
He said she was so like, furious
that he would seek resources from the LGBT community
on something like that,
and then she filed a sexual harassment claim against him.
- Oh, wow. - [Mark] And that him talking
about polyamory at work was creating
a sexually hostile work environment,
and he was forcing people to talk
about his sex life behind closed doors.
- Oh, wow. Interesting, wow. - [Mark] Yeah.
- And that's probably because a lot
of people's understanding of polyamory is,
oh so you fuck a bunch of people. (laughs)
- [Mark] Exactly, exactly.
And it's ironic because in this circumstance,
he was dating one person.
He was dating a woman who had a husband.
So anyway, I really firmly believe that example is a case
of discrimination on the basis of sexuality
or something like it, right?
Because he is doing this,
I would call it queer relationship structure thing,
but there are no, like, legal protections for it.
The person who filed it against him actually
is ostensibly a queer person, is a lesbian
so I think that's really interesting, too.
And I just feel like something I keep coming up against
in my research is this tension
between these not gay poly people
or like people who practice consensual non-monogamy
who are looking for these opportunities for solidarity
and then these gay people who are very invested in like,
a certain level of normativity
and like maintaining the status quo
that are extremely resistant to wanting anything to do
with people in that category.
So to me, I'm almost, I don't know.
That experience of like, not being able to be who you are
at work and like the question of who you have sex with
even coming up at work when it's really not relevant
and now it's on like, public record for him
for anybody to go to 'cause there was a huge investigation
that they had to do afterwards.
It feels so reminiscent of the experiences of gay men
in the '50s or '60s.
Like I just, that parallel is so apparent to me.
- Yeah, yeah, being policed in any way
about what your relationships are
and then also having discussions of those relationships
be inherently read as you being like, overtly sexual.
- [Mark] Exactly.
- That does ring a lot of bells.
The topic of being discriminated because of your polyamory
came up a lot because a lot of people's understanding
of queerness is something that kind of comes
out of an experience of being discriminated
because you're non-normative.
So I guess I find the topic of discrimination on the basis
of polyamory to be a really interesting one because I feel
like I, even as a poly person don't have, you know,
a lot of working examples of that.
So I'm kind of curious, in your research what discrimination
on the basis of polyamory looks like for myself
and for other people who may scoff at the very idea
that especially cishet people are discriminated against.
Obviously that's one example, but I'm curious of others.
- [Mark] Yes, sure, absolutely.
So I started with that one
'cause I think that's the most extreme
and apparent example of that.
That's the example I use to say
that you can be discriminated against
on the basis of polyamory.
So I actually had another example.
The workplace in my work has come up as this arena
where people are constantly expected to perform
and prove their monogamy,
which is something I think a lot of us
don't realize we have to do,
especially if you're monogamous,
you don't even think about it.
So another example, this woman, she was bisexual
so perhaps you could put her in the queer category for that,
but she's a bisexual woman, polyamorous, similar situation,
only dating one person, but her boyfriend has a wife.
And she doesn't have a sexual relationship
or romantic relationship even with the wife,
but it's like a meta situation.
They know each other, they all hang out, that sort of thing.
He actually didn't even tell anyone at her job
that she is polyamorous.
Somehow, her coworker that found out
probably because they saw him in a Facebook post
or something and then talked to him and saw he had a wife.
So any time she would talk to a male coworker,
this other coworker would come in and be like,
"Oh, do you know that her boyfriend has a husband?
Like, you have a wife. Should you be talking to her?"
Like kind of saying whatever.
And then it eventually escalated to the point
of her verbally harassing my respondent at her workplace
basically saying like, "You're just a piece of shit."
Like, why would you blah, blah, blah, very publicly,
and her boss didn't do anything about it.
- Wow. - [Mark] And so this woman,
she quit that job. - Oh, wow.
- [Mark] And so I feel like she was pushed out of this job
because she was being harassed in her place of work.
She didn't even tell anyone that she was polyamorous.
She was just like, outed,
harassed under the purview of her boss.
And so I feel like that's another example of like,
I think that's discrimination on the basis of something.
I would call it- - [Kat] Yeah.
- [Mark] I don't know, sexuality, sexual orientation,
romantic, I don't know what you would call it,
but that feels discriminatory to me because if my coworker
found out I was gay and then started verbally harassing me
in the workplace- - Yeah.
- [Mark] I would expect my boss to speak up on my behalf.
- Yeah, and it sounds like it's just, that's because
of how misunderstood polyamory is to so many people.
Like, I have to explain to people often
that just because I'm polyamorous
doesn't mean I am very promiscuous or I'm having sex
with a bunch of people, maybe multiple people,
but that's not what it means for me.
And for some people that's what it means.
There ain't nothing, there ain't nothing wrong with that.
Let's make that clear. - [Mark] Right, yeah.
- But that's not what it means inherently.
- [Mark] Yeah. - Oh, and it's...
And I guess I really see that argument now
for people who would understand it
as queer just based on those experiences.
Like, something I'm realizing is because I've worked
in such an atypical way for most of my life as a YouTuber
and then I also have surrounded myself with queer,
polyamorous, BDSM, gothy weirdo people that are great,
and I often forget that that's something
that you have to do in a lot of contexts.
You have to, as you say, perform monogamy
as a means of gaining social capital for some people.
And that is really terrible.
And I can see how, and going back
to what I've said in my podcast, I can see how polyamory
being the thing that I personally feel
is probably the biggest way
that I'm different from most people,
I can see how people could have that emotion
and inherently define themselves as queer for that reason.
Wow, thank you for calling in
and giving me some of your insight based on your research.
I've gotta take the next call,
but thank you so much for calling in and sharing.
- [Mark] Yeah, of course. Thanks for listening.
- Bye.
(phone ringing)
Hi there! Who am I speaking to?
And what is your True Tea?
- [CJ] Hi, so my name is CJ,
and I'm just gonna say what state I'm from
'cause what I'm going to say will make it very obvious.
I am actually from Utah.
- Okay, there we go. We just talked about Utah.
- [CJ] Yup, so I'm a member of the mainstream church,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
which historically practiced polygamy,
and today there are offshoot groups in Utah
and around just like the West United States and even Mexico.
But anyway, those are offshoot groups
that still practice it.
But I am wanting to talk about more the history
of all of that and just how it applies.
I'm not really on either side of the debate.
Like, I don't come firmly down on polyamory is queer,
polyamory is not queer.
I just have...
I feel like I have things that I think can help
bring some things to light in the discussion.
- Okay. I'm interested to hear what those things are.
- [CJ] So when we talk about like historical polygamy
like in the context of my religious tradition,
I am not going to deny that it was coming from a place
of misogyny as are the offshoot groups
that still practice it today,
at least as I understand and know about it.
But I will say, so we're going to 1890
which is when the mainstream church
officially stopped practicing polygamy.
And ending polygamy in the mainstream church,
I feel, didn't have any major effect on the general levels
of misogyny within the church.
There was misogyny in the church before
and misogyny after polygamy ended.
There was feminism in the church before and after it ended.
It's a mixed bag. It really is.
And there's a lot to criticize.
It's just a mixed legacy with a lot of things
when you go into historical, all of that.
But one thing I will say about how just in practice
how the church ended polygamy was they basically made it
so that you couldn't be baptized
unless you no longer practiced polygamy.
And if your parents did, you had to publicly disavow it.
- [Kat] Oh, wow. - [CJ] Yeah, yeah.
And I will, and I'll say now, in 2015 when gay marriage
was made legal in the United States, the church
instituted a similar policy- - [Kat] Wow.
- [CJ] Where if you were a child,
and your parents were in a gay marriage,
you had to be 18 before you could be baptized.
Yeah, and you had to publicly disavow
your parents' marriage. - [Kat] Wow.
- [CJ] In order to be baptized in the church.
- Wow. Gee, that's intense.
It's very intense. - [CJ] It was.
And going into the kind of pain
that queer folks in the church felt
when that policy was announced in 2015,
it would take too much time for me to go into that.
But thankfully the policy was rolled back in 2019,
but the policy for polygamy remains the same.
- [Kat] Wow, wow. - [CJ] In the church.
And so I, yeah, and I think what's interesting about...
I think it's not just queerness,
but just a lot of general things
have been affected by polygamy in the church
because after 1890, early 1900s
when polygamy stopped being practiced,
that's when the church decided,
hey, we're just like any other Christian church.
We're totally normal. We're just like everybody else.
We're going to assimilate and we're going into,
we're gonna go hard into the religious right and everything.
And not to say that there weren't probably elements
of that beforehand, but I feel like the kind of backlash
from ending polygamy in the church did make it
so that queerness was also part of that battle in a way.
- Hmm, interesting.
So you're saying that especially in the context
of your religion, queerness and polyamory
were basically treated the same.
- [CJ] I think the treatment of polyamory
definitely informed how queerness
is treated in the church today.
- I'm curious what...
So as an atheist who is very much not involved
in the church, I'm curious, why would someone need
to disavow publicly that their parents
were in a certain type of relationship?
What function does that serve other than saying,
I'm morally aligned with the church?
- [CJ] I don't know exactly what the specifics of that are.
I think it might just be like,
you're speaking with the religious leader and you're saying,
"Hey, no, I don't agree with that.
I don't think that's the way to do things," basically.
- Interesting, interesting. - [CJ] Yeah.
- And so like in Utah, I just had a conversation
with someone that said that it's even illegal to acknowledge
like socially that you have more than one wife.
Is it tied to that sort of thing, too, where like,
the church doesn't wanna be seen as like,
harboring people who are in those sorts of relationships?
- [CJ] Yeah, part of it, it has been a legal thing
because the reason why polygamy ended
was because basically the US government
forced the church to end it. - [Kat] Ah.
- [CJ] Like they were receiving assets and all of that.
And I think it says a lot for about how changes
in the church generally happen.
That's a whole other conversation.
But the thing is, I guess I'll, another way I'll explain it
is my roommate and I who is also queer,
we were watching a show about polygamist,
people escaping polygamy in Utah.
And there was one girl who said
that she didn't want to keep,
she didn't want polygamy to become legal in Utah
because when she was a child and in that abusive situation
in polygamy, she said that the cops,
no authorities listened to her
when she said she was being abused.
But they did listen to her when she said,
"They're practicing polygamy." - [Kat] Oh, interesting.
- [CJ] And that's when the law got involved.
- [Kat] Oh, wow. - [CJ] Mm-hmm.
And I have my own feelings about that.
Like personally, I think that it would open a lot of doors
just socially and in so many other ways
for people to legally be married to more than one person.
But on the other hand, like I think that does need to,
especially here in Utah, it does need to come hand in hand
with different structures
that will help people leave abusive situations.
- Because a lot of people are trapped
within those situations right now.
- [CJ] It's just a complicated situation on all sides.
And I don't know if what I've said has drawn any lines
in the sand, so to speak.
But I do think that hopefully can help shed some light
and help see more of the nuances here.
- I'm in my little California bubble where we openly speak
about having, at least in my circles, more than one partner.
And there's some people who definitely speak
about more than one wife or husband.
And it's interesting that in other places that's not legal
'cause that kind of does reinforce a lot
of the previous callers who said, because queerness
for a lot of people is defined so closely
with discrimination and experiencing discrimination
for not adhering to cis-hetero norms, that poly,
especially as it's being actively discriminated,
shares a lot of similar experiences.
And I didn't know that Utah
was that intense at all about it.
So I'm appreciative for the people calling in
and giving me a perspective on that
'cause it's not something that I knew
before this conversation.
Very surprising.
Makes me feel very privileged
to live in California for sure.
- [CJ] Well, I'm grateful that I was able to come on
and to share my True Tea.
- Hopefully you'll call in again down the line
and share more about Utah.
All right, so that's gonna do it for the calls.
We got some really amazing calls today.
I really appreciate all of you guys who called in
and shared your brew with me.
I learned a lot of things, a lot of things I didn't know.
I didn't know any of the very tangible experiences
of discrimination that a lot of people in other parts
of the country experience because they're polyamorous.
So thank you so much for shedding light on that
and for giving me your True Tea.
If you guys wanna see the full unedited version
of this call-in show, you can do so
by going to my Patreon, patreon.com/katblaque
and you guys can get these episodes
of "True Tea" early on Patreon as well.
"True Tea" goes live on my YouTube channel
the first Saturday of every month.
But you can get it earlier on the first Wednesday
of every month on my podcast,
which is available on all podcasting platforms.
Anyway, on that note, I will talk to you guys next time.
I want you to always remember and to never forget
that you are beautiful and you are loved.
(chill music)