Lessons from a 20-person "Polycule"

from NEW YORK TIMES, April 15, 2024: 

The word “polycule” is a synthesis of polyamory — engaging in multiple romantic relationships — and molecule. It’s not clear when the word was coined, but it seems to have started catching on around 15 years ago to suggest an intricate structure formed of people with overlapping deep attachments: romantic, sexual, sensual, platonic. It’s difficult to describe a polycule. Words like “family” and “network” are used, but neither on its own captures it. Perhaps it’s best left to a polycule itself to offer descriptions. These are the voices and images of people who are part of a polycule in the Boston area.

These photographs were taken at a gathering of the polycule in Cambridge, Mass., in March. Some people pictured or interviewed asked that they not be identified and are using a middle name or a nickname.

Describing the Polycule

Katie
The polycule is like this weird family.

Ann
It’s chosen family. It works like complex kinship networks work — just a little kinkier. It reflects radical queer values.

Katie
Our polycule is large, 20 or a little more — people in their mid-20s to mid-40s. There are self-identified males who identify as heteroflexible, heterosexual, bisexual. There’s a nonbinary person. Every femme-presenting person or woman identifies as queer. A lot of people are married and have primary partnerships. They’re coming to it from the opening of a monogamous relationship.

Ashley
A bunch of couples met in the summer of 2020. Over the next year, we were all dating and developing friendships with several couples and individuals that eventually blossomed into this community. It’s an evolving organism that looks entirely different from everyone’s perspective.

Ann
It’s definitely not a fixed or closed thing, and the relations and connections have shifted and grown and continue to do so.

Nico
Our polycule is female-run. It’s the female-identified people who spearhead. We convene, we plan, we call the shots. It’s a bunch of queer women who say we’re not going to follow the rules.

Katie
It’s freedom. I am so grateful to be a part of it. I have this abundance of love to give. I feel so in my power. We all approach ENM, ethical nonmonogamy, differently. Everyone is so deeply in love with each other, whether or not it’s romantic love.

Katie (left) is dating Alex (second from left). Alex is legally married to Ashley (third from left). Chris (lower right) is legally married to Bine (not pictured), and Chris and Bine date Alex and Ashley as couples, while Bine has also dated Ashley individually.

Relationships With More Than One Person

Katie
I started by dating somebody on an ENM app who was in a different polycule who was connected to someone in this polycule. And then I started dating someone else in this polycule. He’s married, and his wife and I are metamours, which is simply a word for my partner’s partner. People have established relationships, people have newer relationships, and there are abiding deep friendships that are sometimes sensual, sometimes sexual, sometimes romantic, sometimes platonic.

M (Katie’s main partner)
I identified as a single guy. I went from that to dating nonmonogamously. And I fell in love with someone who was already in love with more than one other person. The fear of abandonment that I’d been programmed from Day 1 to expect, I had a huge amount of stress about that. And of expressing too much anxiety. I spent a lot of time suffering alone during the first months because I didn’t want to overwhelm my new partner and have them realize, Hey, you know what, this is just too much of a pain in the ass, and I need you to do more work to reach the level where you need to be.

Nico
I was enthralled in college with gender-studies theory. I started to articulate that I was queer. I identify anywhere from femme to nonbinary, depending on the day. My pronouns are she/they. Gender studies is where I realized that nonmonogamy was an option. I had a professor who showed us this wheel about the accepted forms of sexuality and gender identity, and at the outside of the wheel were all the forms that aren’t accepted. And I was like, Oh, I fall into the outside.

Ann
I’m 34, and I feel like I’ve been on and off nonmonogamous much of my life, even though I didn’t have the word. When I was 17, 18, I said free love. Around 2018, 2019, I swore off monogamy forevermore. I use the word “polyamorous,” though relationship anarchist is probably a more accurate representation.

My husband and I are very, very different, which is our strength. He’s a frat bro who loves sports, and I’m a radical alien witch academic nerd. In the beginning, we did all the typical stuff. Read the books on nonmonogamy, did the relationship check-ins. We’d sit down, take notes. We did every exercise in the books, listened to every podcast. We learned a strategy from the Multiamory podcast called “agile scrum,” which was adapted from business-meeting models. We utilized that format. We did that for a year and a half, at least once a month, sometimes six to 10 hours of hard poly-processing. That gave us great communication tactics.

Robert (Ann’s husband)
We have this motto: Feelings are not facts. That gets us through the hard times.

At the start, I was going through some depression, and when we had sex I had so much stress. There were issues in the bedroom with her, and that happened many times, which caused more stress. She started seeing this dude who was an absolute stud, having sex with him and having a great-ass time, and I felt totally lame and inadequate.

That was really hard for me, for obvious reasons. I felt like, I’m a hundred percent replaceable. It took a lot of conversations. She was like, There’s nothing wrong with you, this is going to pass, therapy will help. Lots of tears were shed. But medication helped me, talk therapy helped me, changing the way we do things helped. That’s where feelings are not facts really mattered. Because I would ask her questions, and she would be like, No, I don’t feel that way; and I would be like, I know you like being with him more than me; and she would say, I’m not lying to you, it’s different, but it doesn’t make me love you less, you provide so much more to my life than just sex. I totally get it now. That was the first instance of feelings are not facts. They feel like it. But they ain’t facts.

Bine and Chris.
They sometimes date Ann and Robert as couples.

Setting Boundaries

Bine
My husband and I met about 15 years ago as undergrads, fell in love and decided to get married. We had discussed opening up our relationship to a potential third, because I identified as bi, and that was important to me. And then five years into our marriage, he was the one to start talking about ethical nonmonogamy. At that point we were saying, Let’s just have some fun, but ours is really the primary relationship.

There were a lot of restrictions. I felt very insecure, like if we’re going to do this there’s going to have to be a laundry list of rules. It can be a one-night stand, but we’re not going to see this person again. It can’t be a friend. But it became clear that these rules didn’t make any sense. We felt deeper connections with people beyond the sexual. We had to shift things, and we kind of drifted into the polyamorous space in 2018.

Resources always help, books like “The Ethical Slut” and “Polysecure.” But undoing the monogamous script, the socialization, is really, really difficult.

Katie
There’s a lot of boundary-setting. Broken rules can be really damaging. Adhering to other people’s boundaries is a big part of being in the polycule. That’s paramount. In the polycule, it ranges from people who really don’t have rules to we’re only going to date people together or we’re going to participate in the group only as friendships, or as sensual friendships, or we’re only going to be sexually intimate at gatherings, and outside of that we’re not going to date anyone individually. We keep track in group chats. We also gather as a group for parties that are sometimes intentionally sexual but sometimes not at all, and that is a time for people to communicate about their interests. But group chats are big.

‘‘It’s an evolving organism that looks entirely different from everyone’s perspective,’’ one person who is part of the polycule says.

Making Time for Multiple Partners

M The capacity to love is not a finite thing. But time is. You can’t do two things at once.

Bine Scheduling can be very tricky. Making sure there’s still one or two evenings every week when we spend quality time together. Overnights is something we’re discussing now. We don’t sleep over individually with anyone we’re dating; we only do that when we’re dating someone together.

Ann My husband, my nesting partner, is the person I own a home with. I also have life-partnership friends, I call them my wives, who are core members in the polycule. One of their husbands is one of my best friends and occasional sexual partner, and I do have sex with my wives, but we’re not romantically involved. But I love them.

I don’t ask anyone’s permission on anything. I spend 60 percent of my time in my house with my nesting partner and about 25 percent of my time with another partner, and although I technically have one home right now, I’m in the process of building homes with multiple partners. There are check-ins, but the check-ins aren’t for permission. It’s, I’m doing these things, I’m going to be gone for these two weeks, what do you need from me?

Katie Poly-saturation is different for different people. For me, the maximum seems to be three partners at once, especially because I gravitate toward long-term committed in-depth relationships. I mean romantic partners. We have play parties that are intended to be a sexual space but more of a casual connection, and I’m not only with my partners there.

Benefits of the Polycule

Robert We have a lot of compersion — being happy seeing your partner happy with one of their other partners — for each other. There are times when my wife will meet someone she knows I’ll be attracted to, and she’ll say, You have to meet my husband. She’ll wingman me. Or I’m talking to this guy, and I think, She would really like this guy. We do that for each other.

Bine  There’s something that feels radical about it, that feels liberating, that really speaks to empowerment, especially for women or queer or nonbinary individuals. It’s loving people in a very unapologetic way, not conforming to norms. We know why monogamy is still the dominant structure. The patriarchy. The lack of rights women had. As a woman, and as a queer woman, being able to live my life as authentically as possible without needing my husband’s permission, that’s empowering.

Nico I was in a very bad car accident in the fall, and I felt so supported. I had 20 text messages from people in the polycule — this is the doctor I know, this is the lawyer I have, this is the physical therapist, so many resources.

Ann I have one partner now with three kids. He is transmasc, and he’s radical about the way he raises them. They’re radically home-schooled. They’re 17 and nonbinary, 6 and 5. They know everything in age-appropriate ways. They’ve seen their mommy undergo the transmasc experience, seen their mom become who they really are.

I was up late last night with him in a hotel room, and the 17-year-old was in the room snoozing, so we just sat on the bathroom floor chatting about our relationship all night, and while that was happening my husband was texting to say, Oh, I got a last-minute match, so I’m going to meet this girl for a date. And then I get a text while we were still on the bathroom floor vibing, it was 4 in the morning, and he said, We had a great date, a great connection, she’s looking for friends with benefits, we had sex. And I was smiling. You know you’re really poly when you’re with one of your partners talking about how much you love each other and you’re so happy your husband had this awesome night. Of course, I experience pangs of jealousy, but there are these moments, these gems, of being so happy for someone else’s happiness.

Katie Last night I was at a party that was full of poly people, and at the end of the night we wound up in this big cuddle pile. There were eight of us fit together like puzzle pieces, snuggling. It felt so cozy, so much oxytocin flowing. We were all envisioning living together, not having to worry about individual mortgages, just having some big house. Can’t we just do that? Why can’t we do that? An adult sleepover camp, that’s the vibe. It is my mission to make that happen for me and whoever wants to join me.

Ashley
and her husband, Alex, photographed in Cambridge, Mass.

Poly as an Identity or a Movement or Both

Ashley
Whenever you veer outside the confines of the status quo, it is political. We’re really intentional about the way we want to connect, really questioning why one type of relationship has to be more significant than others. For the first time in my life, I’ve found community, in a true sense. These are people who really show up for each other in beautiful ways, people who aren’t guarded around each other. It’s just pure love. I can’t imagine my life without it now.

Ann
It is very much about social change. It is about making the world a better place. I want to be in relationships and be with people who make me live in this world better.

Nico
Some of us are survivors of sexual assault and have reclaimed what it means to be a sexual woman, to be radically and unapologetically ourselves. Some don’t really ever have sex — I think there is a power in female sexuality that doesn’t necessarily mean having a lot of sex; I don’t know how to explain that. It’s about making decisions for yourself, how you want your relationships to look.

The men are important; they do have value. What has been valuable is being around men who want to be around empowered women, who aren’t intimidated. It’s not like they’re wimpy guys — to me, they’re strong because they’re not threatened.

There are so many things we’re pushing against, but we still have to live within. My husband and I married for the legal benefits, for taxes and things like that. Our society’s laws benefit married people. But I’ve talked to my girlfriend about us being married as well, and while that can’t be legal right now, we would like to have that for ourselves, maybe a small ceremony, rings on the other hand, something that signifies our bond and our life commitment. In Somerville, which is the city right next to mine, the city legally recognizes multiple domestic partners. I think our society is moving toward that, but it’s a slow process.

Katie
I hope this is a social movement. I hope people will feel more freedom about how they want to live and about pooling resources and living their best life. The structure of the nuclear family, the nuclear marriage, needs to shift. It’s really hard to afford a house. Some of us are thinking of moving into a place with four or five bedrooms where eight or nine of us could live together. We could share the burden of bills. It’s just more realistic. And it would be a community space. We would hold events and gather and play and have this endless sleepover. If I get to do this, I will have achieved something great — great emotionally and great in terms of social transformation.