News flash: sex sells. And that’s why even Americans who loathe the New York Times have read its recent glossy article about a group of Boston polyamorists who call their promiscuous entanglement a “polycule.” “Polycule” is a portmanteau word invented from “polyamory” and “molecule,” but unlike a molecule, a polycule has little to no structure—physical or moral.
In case you missed the NYTimes article, here’s a summary as neutral as something produced by NPR.
The mass of libertines profiled in the NYTimes piece constitutes a particularly protean polycule composed of twenty narcissists who expel a lot of hot air rationalizing their sexcapades. While hedonistic sex-rangements are nothing new, their sophistry in defense of wayward sexuality is new-ish.
A polycule—sometimes called a “pod”—is a messy, anti-social, pseudo-structure composed of self-indulgent adults stuck in adolescence and held together by erotic desire, rebellion, mental illness, and sophistry.
It’s described by one of the members as “relationship anarchy” and by another as “work[ing] like complex kinship networks work — just a little kinkier. It reflects radical queer values.”
Kinky it indeed is. Included in the twenty plus members of the sex pod are married couples, girlfriends, boyfriends, and a “radical alien witch academic nerd.” In addition, the polycule includes,
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.
There are likely many factors and forces that contribute to the growing popularity of polyamory or what is oxymoronically called “ethical non-monogamy.” (It could also be called by its former terms: promiscuity or swinging. Adding a dollop of sophistry to the pile of naked bodies doesn’t change its nature.)
Two of the causes are identified in the NYTimes article. They are “gender studies” and sexual abuse.
One of the female members shared that “Some of us are survivors of sexual assault and have reclaimed what it means to be a sexual woman.” Sadly, those victims have utterly lost their way. Allowing themselves to be sexually degraded in non-marital or extra-marital hook-ups is not a reclamation of sexual womanhood.
Another cause for the embrace of a poly lifestyle is gender studies, a socially constructed leftist ideology that emerged from other socially constructed leftist ideologies, including feminism, queer theory, and post-modernism. One member shared her poly-origin story:
I was enthralled in college with gender-studies theory. I started to articulate that I was queer. … 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.
Somehow, I doubt that’s what her parents sent her to college to learn.
Other factors that contribute to the rise of the pod people are our easy-peasy divorce culture and the intellectual and legal destruction of marriage by the homosexual community—both phenomena of which have resulted in two generations of children growing up in familial chaos resulting in cynicism about marriage.
The unethical non-monogamists admit that the poly lifestyle is “very, very difficult,” entailing depression, jealousy, therapy, and medication. But none of that matters to the activists who support this revolutionary movement. Libidinous polys are on a mission to change society:
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.
…
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.
Eroticism, materialism, and childish irresponsibility are the unholy drivers of the polymorphous perversity movement—a movement that damages far more than just those who choose a pod life.
One woman describes one of her partners, a confused woman who has adopted a masculine—but not male—identity:
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.
These children are victims of both the perverse ideology of their mother and of a society that no longer protects children.
No article about leftists would be complete without mention of “authenticity” (i.e., satiating all desires) and “empowerment” (i.e., having no constraints):
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.
Pride and rebellion lie at the heart of the sexual anarchist who hates norms and authority—including even legitimate authority that preserves and protects. They don’t, however, hate all boundaries because poly “Katie” admitted,
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.
To be clear, each person invents their own set of rules to which everyone is obligated to adhere. But rules and norms established by society or God are a bridge too far.
Maybe someone will follow-up with these pod people in thirty years to see what their radically queer relationships look like, and how all the relationship anarchy affected their children.
As it turns out, ideas do, indeed, have consequences. And the consequences of the cultural untethering of sex from marriage are catastrophic for individual lives and society at large. Unfortunately, Western societies are abandoning the source of sexual boundaries: Christianity. And we are paying the price.