{"id":6630,"date":"2018-02-12T14:42:22","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T13:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=6630"},"modified":"2018-02-12T14:45:13","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T13:45:13","slug":"swan-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/6630\/","title":{"rendered":"Swan Son"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few people have brought this article<\/a> to my attention:<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Tuesday\u2019s books podcast, we marked LGBT history month by interviewing Christine Burns, a campaigner for transgender rights, about her history of the UK\u2019s trans community. The next day, my son was in a TV documentary \u2013 deep breath \u2013 about polyamory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds edgy. Do go on.<\/p>\n

Love Unlimited wasn\u2019t about trans people, but about life choices that challenged traditional thinking about relationships. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word polyamory back to 1992 and says it is not to be confused with casual recreational sex, serial monogamy or swinging.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Similarly, Playboy<\/em> is not to be confused with pornography. Because of the articles.<\/p>\n

My 24-year-old son was one of a dozen or so young people \u2013 gay, straight, bisexual, trans and cis \u2013 interviewed about love lives that to them seem entirely normal, but which all involve the possibility of committed partnerships with multiple lovers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So there is no actual<\/em> committed partnership in these polyamorous arrangements, merely the possibility<\/em> of one. Meaning, it’s possible in theory or they spend time thinking about it. In which case, my own love life seems entirely normal but involves the possibility of weekly sessions in a hot tub with Maria Sharapova and two of her closest friends. Ahem.<\/p>\n

The interviewees included three gay men, two of whom work as nurses, who are filmed whiling away an evening with board games in their Edinburgh flat before retiring to their two bedrooms (there isn\u2019t room for all three to sleep comfortably in one bed, and shift work means often only two of them are in anyway). Their setup is known in polyamorous circles as a triad or \u201cthruple\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three gay men shagging each other is news? Did we suddenly slip back in time to 1950?<\/p>\n

What, they say, could be more ordinary?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed. The only mystery is why this became a TV show.<\/p>\n

My son\u2019s arrangement is a daisy chain, in which each person is free to have other lovers while remaining committed to each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An arrangement which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is not to be confused with casual recreational sex.<\/p>\n

He currently has only one partner, but \u201cthey\u201d \u2013 the pronoun of choice \u2013 are also in a lesbian relationship, so I resonate strongly with the splendidly upfront mother of one of the gay nurses as she recalled her initial reaction to the introduction of a third partner: \u201c[I thought] that\u2019s my baby\u2019s man \u2026 Does this mean they\u2019re not going to get married? Is my baby going to be lying in bed alone at night crying because his partner\u2019s not there and is away shagging some other bloke?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paraphrasing from Fawlty Towers, there’s enough material there for an entire conference.<\/p>\n

The film says my son and his partner regard themselves as non-binary \u201cin that they identify as neither exclusively masculine nor feminine\u201d. Wrong, says my son, when I discuss it with him: they see themselves as neither exclusively male nor female, but his partner strongly identifies as femme.<\/p>\n