{"id":22935,"date":"2010-02-20T13:17:55","date_gmt":"2010-02-20T18:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=22935"},"modified":"2010-02-23T18:07:28","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T23:07:28","slug":"polyamory-in-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/polyamory-in-the-news\/","title":{"rendered":"You probably did read it here first"},"content":{"rendered":"

I managed to get myself up and going in time for the second round of workshops, which included a section on “Polyamory in the Media’s Spotlight.” This was presented by Anita Wagner<\/a><\/strong> and Alan M., who edits the Poly in the News<\/a><\/strong> blog (and who recently reminded me that he got his start writing about polyamory on Planet Waves). Now he is the leading expert on how alternate relationship and household ideas are presented in the news.<\/p>\n

\"Eric<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once again, this was one of the most practical, well informed discussions I’ve ever heard at a polyamory conference. Apparently, polyamory is suddenly enjoying an excellent reputation in the news media. It’s been covered everywhere from the Washington Post<\/em> to the New York Post<\/em> to the New York Times<\/em> to the Seattle Times<\/em> to WebMD — not as a freak show but as a real subject.<\/p>\n

The Newsweek<\/em> reporter is here, doing research for a second article. This workshop documented the scope of that press and was a public relations coaching session for poly activists and participants in how to handle the reporters when they get the opportunity to give an interview.<\/p>\n

Why exactly is polyamory so popular with the press all of a sudden? There are a few theories going around; one is that alt relationship advocates are doing their job presenting themselves as an ethics and honesty movement. Alan pointed out that “everyone loves a lover.” When any reporter interviews a person about polyamory, they get an interview with someone who is positive about relationships; positive about their partners; and expressing a position that many people feel the need to talk about and moreover to be — but don’t have the voice, the language or the guts to express. Personally, I think that the Internet is starting to show some results. Type in the word polyamory and you get 477,000 results. It’s ridiculous to claim that this is some kind of weirdo underground thing that nobody has heard of; the press is picking up the beat.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Still, it’s a bit confounding: for example at a time when a big issue in the news is pro or con, gay marriage: a monogamy movement; a battle over one kind of monogamy or another. Then off to the side there’s this conversation going on in hundreds of articles and thousands of blogs that is talking about the freedom to choose the kind of relationship that one wants. This is part of the odd schizophrenia or perhaps it’s multiple personality syndrome of the American psyche.<\/p>\n

Yet we have to remember that like many things, we are seeing is a position in the media — not on the ground in peoples’ lives. Many individuals struggle within their community to make relationship choices; as Anita pointed out, many places discrimination is alive and well. Many people don’t even know what to term to search in Google. The conversation is not happening many places, even places you would expect it. The only press coverage that I know of in the Hudson Valley — a huge suburb of New York City — is authored by yours truly, and I am tenacious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We have some issues about the way matters of sexual health are presented.”<\/p>\n

“A lot of reputable people have concluded that it’s not in the intrest in safer sex to to advocate for the idea for the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}