Polyamory Goes Mainstream

I ran across this article from last year that explains how some Minnesotans are finding “love” by humping lots of different people.  50 years ago society would have called her a slut, but today she joins is called polyamorous and we celebrate her lifestyle.
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Over the past three years, the 31-year-old divorced mother with a ballerina’s physique, septum piercing, and “R-E-A-D M-O-R-E” inked on her knuckles has had three male partners—and subsequent heartbreaks.

She also dates a young married couple and occasionally sleeps with another married couple. Once, both married couples and Andy went camping together, children in tow.

She considers herself non-monogamous. Nationally, it’s estimated that 5 percent of the population has some sort of non-monogamous structure in their relationship. MN Poly, a St. Paul-based meetup group, boasts more than 1,200 members. Non-monogamy has recently caught on in pop culture, from onscreen interpretations in House of Cards, Insecure, and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women to advice columnist Dan Savage’s endorsement of “monogamish” relationships.

No two non-monogamous arrangements are exactly alike. People seek additional partners not just for sex but for affection, companionship, love, co-parenting, and socializing. These configurations require ongoing negotiations about appropriate partners, parameters of sex and dating, STD protection, and birth control.

Even the language non-monogamists use is carefully curated. Non-monogamy is an umbrella term; beneath it are myriad variations on the theme. Polyamory involves loving more than one person, with all the inherent emotional involvement and time investment. Sometimes polyamorous practitioners identify one partner as “primary,” creating a hierarchy to prioritize their many relationships. 

http://www.citypages.com/news/meet-the-minnesotans-finding-love-through-polyamory/475329423