a pretty good article on polyamory

Newsweek just posted a pretty good article about polyamory and I have to say- it makes a nice change. Unlike many of the mainstream articles I’ve seen on the topic, they did a good job of describing the relationships and the concepts of polyamory in ways that reflect how poly folks actually live.

Of course, it is the mainstream media, so I’m not surprised that there’s some stuff that annoys me. Such as this snippet:

Terisa, 41, is at the center of this particular polyamorous cluster. A filmmaker and actress, she is well-spoken, slender and attractive, with dark, shoulder-length hair, porcelain skin—and a powerful need for attention. Twelve years ago, she started dating Scott, a writer and classical-album merchant. A couple years later, Scott introduced her to Larry, a software developer at Microsoft, and the two quickly fell in love, with Scott’s assent.

Why is it that we need to know her age and how attractive she is, but all we hear about the two men is what their jobs are? Sounds like garden-variety sexism to me, but who knows?

I’m also curious to know why they only interviewed one poly group. Maybe they just wanted to keep things a bit simple (as if anything is ever simple when you’re talking about polyamory), but there is so much diversity among poly folks that it might have been a useful addition to the article.

But when it comes down to it, it’s a really well-done bit of writing about a very complex topic. And I have to say that these three sound really sweet. Click on the link above and check the article out. It’s definitely worth reading.