#39 Pod Pop Cvltcure Clash (Media Representation)

Episode 39 of the Pod Pod Cvlt Cast Pod Pop Cvlture Clash (Media Representation about representation for nonmonogamy and kink and lgbtqia+ in the media.

Summary

Why is media representation important for people who are nonmonogamous or kinky or LGBTQ? How does it affect our personal growth and relationships? This week we talk about media representation in a broader sense and the trends we see in film and television.

We have a more focused discussion in our tenth episode of the Cvlt Cast Media Club. If you’re craving more Pod, consider supporting the podcast! Go to PodPodCvltCast.com/SupportThePod

Click here to jump to the FULL TRANSCRIPT of this episode.

Resources & References

Episode 39 Transcript

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Max
Yeah, I couldn’t find

Hannah
I would send you this this like how chesson doesn’t know how to make coffee.

Max
Now I was really I was gonna surprise everybody and make everybody so proud of me that I could find the intro if it didn’t work I don’t understand how you guys are able to find it.

Hannah
Oh, I get to see this flat fuck again.

Chastain
He says he’ll be back in just a second. He said two seconds. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Oh, that is me. I can see you know

Max
I got my new bike rode key

Hannah
fields as open doesn’t mean exposed. Yeah. So tell

Max
Eric about your new bike. Eric, I got my new bike.

Hannah
Describe it.

Max
I can’t hear you again. is Eric there? Oh, that’s why I can’t hear Eric again.

He just came back to tell you to stop singing and he left again. Eric

Erik
Well, the headphones aren’t plugged in. And I was trying not to be like my neighbors.

Oh, shouting

Erik
isn’t that loud? I’m sorry. Well, it was fairly loud without the headphones plugged in. And it wasn’t so much the volume as it was

content.

Chastain
Well, so max now tell Eric about your new bike.

Max
I got my new bike. That’s it. It’s a bike. I have to figure out I don’t remember anything else figure out how to have just the front brake calipers because they’re dragging and there’s something weird about the chain but I need to lube everything up and stuff I just put it together yesterday and rode it down the driveway but it’s pretty comfortable to ride

Chastain
before you write it. Yes, it’s a cool color.

Max
It is a cool color which I already scratched with the with the repair stamp. Oh, that’s fine. It’s just meant to be a beater. So

Erik
it’s Yeah, it’s its first badge of honor.

Chastain
We can socially distance and ride bicycles like in the Muppets take Manhattan.

Max
Yeah, the Amazon package head here. Had your new front tire, but I’m still waiting on inner tubes for you and inner tubes for my old bike. I don’t. You might be able to read my old bike. You’re not that much shorter than me. That’s true. If we lower the seat, you He might be able to

Hannah
manage it. And we can have socially distance adventures together.

Chastain
So, Justin’s pot adventures where Eric rides really fast and then comes

Max
back or you get that or you get a shit. stimulus check coming by you can also get a stimulus. You could buy a cool bike with streamers and

Chastain
buy groceries.

Hannah
I don’t know. I haven’t had a bike since I was like 17.

Max
Put a card and spoke so it makes motorcycle sounds.

Chastain
A mortgage. Yeah.

Max
Ah, I’m talking about Hana stimulus. Check out our stimulus check.

Chastain
Yeah, pay the mortgage. Whatever. How’s everybody doing this morning? Oh, it’s an afternoon. No, it’s still Morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Max
This is a podcast for

Chastain
now, you’re introducing Hi.

Max
Right. And that’s the introduction. Haven’t seen it.

No.

Chastain
I miss. You want to disclaim this morning?

Hannah
There’s not enough Wi Fi in this house to send a photo.

Max
I don’t understand. Well,

Erik
you always feel going right now. It’s probably like 37.

Max
Did you have 37 devices? I think three,

Erik
seven, no, just change to the five. There’s more than three just in that room. We changed rooms.

Chastain
You don’t know where we are?

Erik
Well, it’s a room in there. There’s at least three devices.

Chastain
Different room every time now just to surprise you.

Erik
Unless you’re overtop of the garage. There’s three devices in each room. You figured it

Chastain
out. It’s really warm up here. You also

Max
don’t know what I have. over top of the garage. is chock full of there.

Chastain
You got got anything fun.

Max
No, I just have any shit. I mean, I guess some of the sports stuff is out there. So that’s kind of fun. This is boring. Can we just,

Chastain
I’m just waiting for you to introduce the podcast.

Hannah
It says it sent it five minutes ago, but it also is still spinning. I don’t know what to do.

Chastain
Welcome to the Pod Pod Cvlt Cast where we talk about life love, learning and libido. I’m Chastain.

Hannah
I’m Hannah.

Max
I’m Max,

Erik
and I amErik.

Chastain
And today, today, we’re going to talk about representation for polyamory and maybe kink and just who we are as people in the media and why that’s important and what it means to us.

Hannah
It’s important enough that we talked to our patrons about it every month. Yes, we’re just doing that.

Chastain
Yes, we watch check it out clips of a topic. The Tamron Hall show, and we talked about that show specifically with our patrons and we actually chatted with a patron or so, in the podcast community which you can join at podpodcvltcast.com/community. Cvlt with aV. help with any, which our patrons know. And if you’re not a patron, that’s okay, you can still join our community for free. Or right now we have a special thing going till the end of the month, the end of April, where if you subscribe to our Patreon for $3, you get access to not only the community and our voice chat and are not safe for work stuff. But you also get access to all of our cast media club episodes, which is a special exclusive Podcast, where we talk about books and music and movies, all kinds of pop culture that have anything to do with kink, poly, whatever and if it doesn’t We kind of make it anyway. We will find a way to make every Disney movie about polyamory.

Hannah
I can’t wait until you watch all of the litter Lord of the Rings films with me, you’re gonna have so much fun. There are so many male relationships that you’re going to extrapolate

Max
seven hours

Chastain
fight at the end.

Oh,

Erik
I mean, I guess it was

Chastain
time to rewatch another Netflix party where we watch it all day. We’re gonna drink and punch Lord of the range. But that’s like next month during the pandemic.

Max
Yeah, so, you know, the pandemic in Virginia is supposed to peak on 420. So we know it’s a super chill vibe to Eric. That was Hannah’s joke.

Hannah
For Joe,

Max
because she wasn’t

Chastain
so I saw thing online. I said the state Eric but you know, this entire month is for 20 because it’s the fourth month of 2020. And it’s and it’s a pandemic so everybody has to stay home. So for like introverted stoners it’s 420. All month and we just don’t have to go anywhere. Mm hmm. There you go. All right. Yeah.

Hannah
What was your response? Eric? I wasn’t there. So

Erik
I was just a via text but my response was, this is just normal. Because it’s how it already was.

You don’t have to wait for for 20 Yeah, no.

Erik
Go home.

Max
I mean, we don’t have dispensaries here. I wonder what the dispensary situation is. Are they doing like curbside? I have no contact.

Chastain
You can get curbside cocktails in Virginia now.

Max
Yeah, we will. I’m not even a cocktail drinker, but we have

Chastain
two curbside milkshakes with booze and I’m excited. Yeah,

Max
yeah. And what was your discussion?

Yeah,

Max
but that thing wasn’t even a milkshake that was just

Chastain
gross weird

Erik
stuff rose green tequila, but it was still curbside because you were wrong.

Max
Oh yeah, she was on wheel so that does make us qualified. Yeah, good point there was a roll through

Chastain
today guys.

Erik
So that means to the ways that trailer testing

Max
because you’re the one that lays it

Erik
the experience and dry Fae drink getting

Chastain
I haven’t left the property since since March 16. And I don’t I don’t intend to break that streak. So I did

Erik
just run circles on the earth

Chastain
for quite a bike but I don’t consider that really leaving the property if I’m just like in the neighborhood.

Max
Well, we’re not going to get your your energies from Amazon until after April 16. So you’ll at least have a solid month. Okay, good. Yeah. A solid month of like, just not leaving. That’s cool. What was the weird conversation that you were having yesterday about it? I don’t understand how it’s a binary between curbside drinks and foreign lesbians.

Hannah
Okay, I did that cuz like the binary.

Chastain
So here’s what happened. So what happened was, I was sitting at the table maybe having coffee or lunch or something I don’t know. So I wanted to make a sourdough starter, so that we could just become the complete farm lesbians that Hannah and I are destined to be now that she is putting her garden plants in the garden like all her little plant babies moved to the garden. Most of them

Hannah
most of them. Yeah, it took me basically the whole day. Yeah, I’m sore, but that’s fine. Yeah, we have plans

Chastain
to garden Fuck you. Yeah, so so she garden all day and I posted a cute picture of, of our pod dog Oliver. With being not helpful in the garden, on our Instagram at cult heavy on Instagram

Max
and so we’ll be I’m sorry.

Chastain
So so we’re, you know, we have a garden and the garden was has been planned How long have you been planning that garden? Since he moved?

Yeah,

Chastain
yeah. And we’ve already had discussions about like after MAX SIZE, it’s just gonna be like us being close together. So, so yeah, so we’re gonna be foreign lesbians and I want to start sourdough so that we just have bread every week. And like we’ve we’ve been sort of not very well making masks

Hannah
than supposed to scared of getting better. Everyone is improved. Yeah,

Chastain
everyone has improved. The Max has two masks. I have one. I want to make Eric masks and our son mask. Yeah, so we’re talking about being farmed lesbians, and then she’s posted the thing about milkshakes. But I don’t know how that happened. Like what happened from there?

Hannah
Well, I said we should get boozy curbside milkshakes. And you said it would be more responsible right to make sushi farm lesbians and make our own. And I said, we can make cocktails at home and get cocktails to go. Yeah, that’s the kind of luxurious quarantine life we’re living.

Chastain
But then we realized that because today we’re we’re recording is a religious holiday dinner turned up the day drinking. That’s why after I have my my tea, I am going to switch to

Max
keela. A couple of years that I gave up booze for Lent, I got smashed on Easter.

Hannah
I feel like a lot of people probably fall into that category. Yeah, that’s a pretty popular.

Yeah.

Max
I mean, Easter’s not just a Catholic.

Chastain
Not just Catholic all day. Rarely until

Hannah
last year I gave up eating between 8pm and noon. Yeah. Which was weird now I’m thinking back on that feeling like there was no purpose to that but it felt really powerful to do it for 40 days So this time I didn’t really I didn’t really celebrate

Chastain
Can I can I give Can I give you guys the update on Oliver’s Tick Tock Okay, so all of her has a tick tock he is at polyamory underscore Puggle on Tick Tock. If you are bored at home and you downloaded Tick Tock and so because I run all overs tik tok. Mostly I just see lesbians on Tick Tock and lesbian Tick Tock is amazing. And lesbian Tick Tock has taught me two things. That lesbian Tick Tock has a big crossover with which talk which is all of the like, weird alternate girl witches who are also lesbians and also has a big crossover With two categories, people who are in recovery who are just like hanging on for dear life right now from Yeah, that’s who are just trying not to use drugs and try not to drink and also people who are posting things like, like, I’m not the only one who’s just drinking everyday right? And definitely not the only one. Yeah, and a lot of people are just drinking every day. So people are posting videos of this just their like boozy bottle, like just bottles everywhere. And it’s like it’s amusing and also, like, people’s coping mechanisms are interesting to me. And so tik tok has become a place. Well, their algorithm has become a place for me, when I see what Oliver follows Oliver tends to follow, you know, sad women who are drinking alone at home, so

Hannah
you can check his favorite

Chastain
Yeah, you can check out his tic toc for some polyamory education and also cute little videos. If you’re bored, but also our other social

Erik
house polyamory Tick Tock on Oliver’s credentials,

Chastain
all over has great credentials. Oliver is very knowledgeable about polyamory he wants nothing to do with it.

Max
He’s polygamists. Yeah, there I’ve seen a million variations on Twitter of there’s only two times now coffee time and wine time. Yeah, that’s very popular sentiment, time and

Erik
time, the new and then sleep time, basic. Whatever they say no basic checks or whatever. That’s

Max
it. Let’s go ahead and disclaim and get into what we’re talking about.

Chastain
Did you find the disclaimer

Erik
I did not. I’ll do it. Okay.

Max
This is a podcast where we express our opinions about love and relationships, sex in kink, polyamory and LGBTQ issues, and whatever else comes up while we talk about about these things, we may also touch on stuff like violence, abuse and mental health challenges. These can be difficult topics. So keep that in mind moving ahead.

Chastain
representation in the media. So we watched the Tamron Hall show and we were talking about representation and media and why that’s important. The long and the short of it, here’s why I think representation is in the media is important for me. And then maybe we can open this up for discussion, and this will get us going. So I think it’s important and has been important in my life to see representation of kinky people and polyamorous people, because it helps me go, Oh, that’s a thing. And that, that means I can go research it. If it’s out there and somebody else is doing it. That means there’s probably information I can go find. So that’s been the most important thing for me in my journey as a non monogamous person who practices the life global relationship style choices. of polyamory, and also as a kinky person who engages in BDSM. So, you know, I’ve talked before about exit to eat and being kind of my like, oh, there’s this magical world of kink and power dynamics. And like, if that exists, if there’s an island somewhere where people actually do this, and there’s a movie about it, if there’s a movie about it, then that must mean that there’s someplace that this is actually happening. So that means that I will be able to find this one day and do it and it’s real. And it’s not just something that I see in my head. And with non monogamy like seeing that seeing people be in multiple relationships. There’s a great movie called Paris, France, and it has Leslie hope in it, who was also in what’s that movie with the garbageman and they work minute working work. Yes, she’s she’s the chicken that the lady in that the woman in that the grown up in that She is a woman who’s married. And she has a relationship which is an affair with a man, but ends up having sort of a cuckold situation with this other man. And she and her husband and this other man end up having kind of a weird relationship between the all of them where they’re all having sex together. And, you know, an entanglement. And I went when I saw those things, when I saw those sex things and those emotional entanglements in the 90s You know, I’m a teenager, I went, Oh my god, like, that can happen. This is a thing that can happen. And she also, you know, dressed up as a DOM and leather and, and that kind of stuff. So there, there were some kink elements, but seeing that opened the possibility to me. And so that made me ask questions when I was in relationships with other people and go like, Hey, I saw this thing. Would you like to talk about the possibility? So representation in media meant that I knew Oh, This these feelings I have are valid. These desires and fantasies I have are something that are attainable. And so I can go find information because it does exist out there in the world. It’s not just like, have a sense not just like a fairies or something that doesn’t exist. You know, it’s not just like, aliens were like, yeah, there are these, like, encounters or something. I’m not saying aliens don’t exist, but I’m not saying they do. You know, it’s not something that you made up. It’s a real thing that I exist elsewhere in the world. Exactly. Exactly. Get lends some tangibility to it. So that’s what seeing things in media has done is having things in books, having things come up in song lyrics and stuff like that. And poetry has done when people have loved multiple people like And is in and stuff like that. So

Max
I think that the practical thing that it has meant in my life that that we see these new shows, and the CBS special that we’ve talked about a number of times, and things, and also representations in fictional media is that I have to answer less questions. Now, you know, it’s just made a mainstream sort of knowledge of different relationship structures, so that I almost never now get the question like, What even is that? You know what I mean? Yeah.

Hannah
It gives you at least a starting point to talk about it. People want to talk. Yeah,

Erik
right. Well, that also marks a kind of a point in time, which gains enough public consciousness that it begins to creep into wider Media streams for, for lack of a better word for normalization.

Max
Yeah, absolutely. I think sorry. I think that the first representations that we started to see were like the series Big Love, which were about polygamy and specifically about fundamentalist Mormon based polygamy, which all the polyamorous people we know even those that practice multiple marriages, like kind of shy away from that word because of the kind of horrific history that it has with.

Hannah
Yeah, and thinking about that one of those Tamron Hall clips where she gave a definition of polyamory that was pretty limited. It really described like a closed triad. It seemed like that was put forward like specifically to contrast that like if your only experience with what polyamory is, is polygamy and You perceive that as like a goal of just collecting as many women as possible, polyamory is not that and so I appreciated that they wanted to sort of like create some boundaries around that. But also it’s so many things like that is what I read is one thing I didn’t draw along,

Max
which you know, I think let’s let’s take it back. Let’s take the word back like we can still because it’s technically a correct word polygamy is multiple marriage like,

Chastain
I mean,

Erik
well, isn’t the more Mormon sense of it? Isn’t that more bigger me than polygamy?

Max
Now that’s just a really good joke from the Marx Brothers. Yeah, no, I mean, because typically it’s not just I mean, would bigamy just mean two marriages?

Erik
No. Yeah, one man with multiple wives rather than

Hannah
Hello, no big me just means that you have Well, two part two part marry

Chastain
Going through a marriage ceremony while already married to another person bigamy is typically you’re married to one person and it’s usually unwittingly somebody unwittingly marries you.

Hannah
Yeah, there’s a negative connotation because it’s illegal.

Max
Yeah, yeah.

Chastain
Yeah, yeah. It has the It’s, uh, you know, carrying on two separate lives. And it’s usually the dude has a wife and two towns kind of thing. It has a lot of negative connotation,

Max
right, typically. Yeah, like, like, I think something Hannah just said, you know, it’s typically just a legal terminology, right. You know, in that show Big Love. They try to dance around that issue of all the really horrific parts of fundamentalist Mormon polygamy by saying that, though, that that family group has separated from their fundamentalist sect and they’re sort of at war with them. You know, I read a book. I don’t know how many years ago When Catherine, you and I were first starting on our sort of intentional journey into multiple relationships, called the lonely polygamist, which was also Oh, Val mun, fundamentalist Mormon polygamy. And I don’t remember exactly how they dealt with it, but they definitely talked about, you know, the fact that these were all consensual relationships between adults that like that it was no child marriage and that manner of thing. And that book, The novel was about how one can feel lonely inside of having four wives and 20 kids. And it really touched me in a way because, you know, as a person who has anxiety and gets down a lot and has had some mental health challenges, like you can be lonely, even when you have multiple relationships, and you have a kid and you have Work relationships and stuff. And it kind of made me go like, Oh, it’s it’s these feelings that I have are like okay and kind of normal to have a bunch of people around and still feel lonesome.

Erik
Honestly, if, if I had four wives and 20 kids, I don’t know how else I would feel but

Hannah
overwhelming.

Erik
That’s overwhelming, they

Chastain
would have to live separately from you, you would still have to live in your apartment. And then you would have a compound where you kept them.

Erik
I don’t like to try to keep track of more than three to six people at a time.

Just as a general rule,

Chastain
you have me your best friend, your parents and your best friends like family.

Erik
Yeah, that’s already that’s already.

Chastain
You have a lot of people, you

Hannah
know, whether it’s relevant to point out that like that is exactly how like historically in various places throughout the world, multiple wives have looked. They are Individuals who run their own households in separate but nearby physical locations. So the idea of like 30 people living under the same roof is kind of unique, I think more to modern times and untenable.

Erik
Not necessarily actually, a lot of Celtic tribes from thousand years ago. That’s exactly how they lived,

Chastain
and Norse tribes. And if you look at a lot of European families, not necessarily multiple spouses or partners, but you do have large families where you have multiple couples living under the same roof for sure. You know, in Eastern cultures, you have a lot of like children and parents living in the same under the same roof, like navigating those relationships and space. You know,

Hannah
I just think if you’re trying to take a model of marriage and family relating that is based on one man, one woman and then apply it to Those larger family structures that usually doesn’t work out the way that people think.

Erik
No, because it’s not the same thing. It’s not really a simple notion to try to square that circle.

Chastain
Hey, it’s Chastain here from Pod Pod Cvlt Cast. If you’re enjoying what you hear if you love the Pod, consider supporting us on Patreon. It’s PodPodCvltCast.com/SupportThePod. Easy as that, check out our membership levels, check out our exclusive podcast that covers books, music, movies, anything that has to do with kink, or polyamory non monogamy, and also check out our new community. We are loving chatting with our patrons hanging out with people is a free community. You don’t have to be a member to join, but you get awesome bonuses if you do like live chats and access to our not safe for work section. So consider supporting us we’d appreciate it. I’ll let you get back to them. Episode. As a Western, our Western culture monogamy is the default. Right? So when we think of dating something, somebody, we go, I’m going to date this person, they’re going to date me. And that’s the relationship. Because we don’t consider that there are options in our relationship styles and I’m speaking for like, all of society, not me individually. So I, as a non monogamous person go, Okay, what kind of relationship do I want to have with this person? You know, Max, you and I have an open marriage, Eric, you and I have kind of his closed poly relationship where we’re open to doing things. We just Talk about it right. And so those are conversations that we have. And when we go into things, it’s about discovering what kind of relationship we want to have with people. You know, when I when you and I were dating, you said to me like, I’m new and I don’t know. And I was like, I accept that you were new. I know that there are going to be challenges with that. Yeah, but also you’re hot.

Hannah
Yeah, and it gets complicated, I think because like, I, since we’ve started podcasting, I’ve joined a lot of polyamory Facebook groups, just to sort of get in touch with, you know, what the conversations are. In over the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen quite a few negative comments where people are basically expressing that they feel like there is a predatory side of polyamory where people rely on the assumption that like, people just won’t ask them questions and they have control over when and how they They sort of reveal that information about themselves. And you know, I haven’t experienced that, fortunately. But it’s very easy for me to see how like it’s an awkward conversation to have, at what point in your dating life do you say like, Hey, I have other partners or I’m interested in other partners. At what point do you have an exclusivity conversation? And we’ve talked about it before that, you know, that that’s difficult and just having open relating and open communication in and of itself is difficult and sort of, not as supported in our culture as it should be. by it. It does kind of hurt to see that, you know, people out there have a perception that, you know, people are getting involved. Yeah, that we’re trying to trick people.

Erik
Okay, here’s the thing. That kind of prediction has nothing to do with polyamory because it also exists in monogamous structures. That’s not a belief or a mana thing. Yeah, totally different avenue.

Hannah
That’s an asshole thing. Yeah.

Max
Mostly. Well, yeah. And it’s not just that the default and the assumption is monogamy is the default and the assumption is that monogamy means we’re, you know, two people together until one of us dies. Right? Which it doesn’t have to even in monogamous relationships, you can choose what that relationship structure looks like. And you know, maybe we’re not saying we’re gonna be together until we die maybe worse then we’re gonna be together for right now. And that’s okay.

Hannah
We were together for lockdown. I respect that. Yeah.

Chastain
I think that you know, all of us have that we are in some kind of non monogamous thing on our dating profiles, right? I think I think so. Hey, I know you’re a little more careful about things because of work stuff. Yeah, I’ve only really using OkCupid right now. And I have had that up there. That doesn’t seem with their algorithm, like we’ve talked about before that that actually does anything about your recommendations. But at least it’s there. So if somebody cares to look, they can see it right away, before they even have to talk to me. Exactly, exactly. And I think that, you know, it opens up the opportunity for conversation. So I absolutely recommend putting it on a profile if you feel comfortable about it, but I want to remind people that being non monogamous in any way being an open relationship being a swinger, none of that is a protected class, so you can lose your job for it. It’s not something you know, right now, there’s no legal thing anywhere that says that if you have made a relationship choice that is outside the social norm, you can’t get fired for it. So you know, you want to be aware of what you put on your dating profile. So if you enter in a position where you feel like that can endanger your job, you Maybe save it for the private conversations that you have with someone. But definitely reveal it early on, you don’t want to hide that information. And if it feels like an awkward conversation, that means you’re in that you are feeling insecure about it. That’s what makes things feel makes things feel awkward is that we’re worried about the other person is going to think we’re worried that they’re going to judge us. So if you’ve made a choice to live a certain way, embrace that choice and ask yourself, why am I feeling insecure? Why do I feel like I’m going to be judged? And if you know that people are going to have questions, have some answers for that question, or say things like, Hey, this is my relationship style. I don’t have the emotional energy to educate you on my choices. So, you know,

Hannah
you have access to Google. Look it up. You know, I spent a lot of time educating people on you know, my I, you know, queer identity My relationship choices, my all that stuff. And it’s tiring. It has to be a book, you don’t have to be a dictionary. That’s where what Max was saying about, you know, even just having a handful of imperfect examples that might not even look exactly like yourself for what you want for your life. It’s still a really good jumping off point, it opens up this conversation. So at least people have a hook to hang the information on and say like, Oh, I know, this television show, or I know this celebrity and like, I relate to that so I can relate to this. For me, I think Amanda Palmer’s art of asking was that and we might have, I think we talked about that before, which is a book about radical relating. It’s not a book about romantic relationships or sexual relationships. It’s about artists relating to their, you know, their patrons, their communities. But there’s like, one paragraph in They’re where she talks about her hesitations about getting married. And one of the conversations that they had was Do we have to stop sleeping with other people? You know, we’re independent artists with separate lives and a hectic travel schedule. Like how does this all work out? And she doesn’t default to a lot of personal details in that book. But it opened up my mind to say like, oh, here is a couple of, you know, people that I admire that lots of people know. And lots of people appreciate their work and relate to them and they have a relationship style that looks like mine. That was hugely valuable to me.

Chastain
Okay, I’m looking for that quote from her book. Okay. So this is what she said, I want to live and work alone. If we get married, do I have to live with you? No. He said, Will you marry me? Do I have to act like a wife? I don’t really want to be a wife. No, you don’t need to be a wife. He said Will you marry me? If we get married? Will he be able to sleep with other people? Yep. He said, Will you marry me? Can I maintain total control of my life? I need total control of my life. Yes, darling. I’m not trying to control you at all. Will you marry me? I probably don’t want kids. That’s fine. I already have three. They’re great. Will you marry me? If I marry you and it doesn’t work? Can we just get a divorce? Sure. He said, Breitling.

Max
That’s Neil Gaiman, right? Yeah. Yes.

Chastain
Neil Gaiman and that’s from her book, The Art of asking How I Learned to Stop worrying and let people help. We’ll put a link to that in our show notes at podpodcvltcast.com.

Hannah
They have a beautiful relationship and a beautiful four year old and you should follow them on all the places Yeah.

Max
So when we were starting to talk about talking about this on for this episode, I just googled, you know, media that has examples of polyamorous relationship chips and things. And I started writing out a list, which turned out to be the wrong tack. But what it did make me think about is the different types that are represented as having multiple relationships. And so we already talked about the religious leaders. Yeah, you know, that’s one there’s sort of a like, predatory type, like bad guys in supernatural stuff, typically,

Chastain
will know that movie wild things where there’s their bad guy, they’re like, wicked. And he’s got the two chicks these playing off of each other. Right? So like,

Hannah
What are you talking about, like having a harem? Like, the bad guys like yeah, or beautiful partners? It’s just

Max
being like sexually villainous, right? Like, you know, I’m so bad and so if not immoral, amoral, yeah, that like I have, I’ve got this too.

Hannah
I am a consumer of

Max
right I have all of these pretty people, you know, and it can be the You know, bad lady too. It doesn’t have to be. Yeah.

Chastain
There’s a movie that came out in 1995 was around the same. Look how excited you are. So this was this was one of my favorite like, lesbian sexual experience movies because this was the first time I think I saw lesbian sex portrayed in a way that like made me go like, Oh, that looks like real sex between two women. Okay, so there’s this movie with Joan chin, and Anne hash. And it also has Christopher Walken is the bad guy. And Anne has she’s sleeping with Christopher Walken. And Joan Chen, who plays his wife, and Christopher walkins. The bad guy and Anne has she’s kind of like playing them involved with them. But she has the sex scene with Jerome Chen in the bathroom. This came out the same year as the other movie. Oh, crap. Can’t think of the name. exits even so this was like fifth age 15 was like my whole like, Well fuck your opening. And all this stuff. Yeah, but has this amazing sex scene where they’re in a bathroom and like, she just touches your feet and stuffs really fucking good, but that they’re in this like three way thing and she’s having sex with both of them. And there’s an awareness of that. And like there he’s the bad guy.

Max
Right? Yeah. So the show house of cards like is a different kind and I think that represents what we assume the relationships that a lot of like powerful people have. Which is like, yeah, we’re open because you know, we got a lot of other shit going on. I’m not always going to be available and you know, you’re a powerful person and people are going to throw themselves at you. So we might as well fuck other people.

Chastain
You and I did that when we weren’t living together and we weren’t able to see each other hole right here. Merry Christmas. Here’s somebody for you to fuck,

Max
right? Well, yeah, I’m just saying that this is another type that’s representative and I

Erik
suppose Yeah, people in mafia. movies. Yeah, absolutely. Sopranos

Max
all know that’s supposed to be like a ask don’t ask don’t tell kind of thing usually right? Like the wife is supposed to know good depiction of it in media. Yeah, yeah, he’s just not

Erik
positive or negative or whatever. It’s it’s all over the place. And I think that that’s one that’s not even really looked at as a poly dynamic really because you’re still framed so strongly within like the, the Catholic heritage and such.

Max
Right. Henry stern Say something.

Hannah
No, I was just gonna say that sort of the immune because of class thing, right? We’re like, well, there, there’s celebrity actors, so they’re never really together anyway or like, whatever rationale that as a society we’re like, well, we don’t hold y’all to the exact same standards as everybody else. Right, normal people can get away with that. But you can, you know, we look at athletes that way, because they’re on the road, right 300 days a year, or politicians or, or musicians or what have you.

Max
And then you know that there are examples of probably more typical polyamory or open relationships. There was at least one season of shameless, where the and Kevin were having a, they refer to it as a throwable. I think with their Russian employee then, like, took over their bar and stuff. But yeah, so I don’t know, dude, those were sort of the type ologies that I could come up with and think of as I was writing down this list off the top of the dome, you guys got any ideas?

I think that

Chastain
you know, so we’ve talked about the fact that representation can help us go like, Oh, this is a real thing. We’ve talked about the fact that representation is something that can help us relate to other people and explain what we’re doing to other people and go like, hey, so, you know, you know, this movie, you know, Doctor, whatever and the Superwoman, or

Max
professor Marston and the Wonder Woman professor,

Chastain
it was like some titles or names or anything. So, um, and we’ve talked about how it can help us realize that there are more choices out

Max
there and, and that one would be again, the what I would think of as the more like typical type ology of relationships like they haven’t, like regular normal relationship like many of us have, and there’s nothing like overly predatory about it or religious about it or anything. Oh, wait. Cast I’m sorry. I’m gonna let you finish what you’re saying. But I there was another type.

Chastain
Wait, wait, Imma let you finish Yeah,

Max
there’s another type that I’ve thought of the like free spirit type. We talked about Dharma and Greg. Last week, the week before There’s a type that’s just represented is like, you know, I’m to free spirited to be tied down to any one person like I’m just flitting through the world, you know?

Chastain
So I was, I was a guest on the women who starcast podcast and that’s coming out in May. And I’ll you know, I’ll make sure that I share a link so you can hear my conversation there and I just talked about, you know what polyamory is some some pitfalls we get into and stuff like that. But one of the questions that Kath the host of women who starcast asked was, you know, what are some tensions and some similarities between the LGBTQ community and the polyamory community? And I said that there seems to be like this old guard and this new guard, there seems to be the like the people who have like, done the activism and live the lifestyle. And then there seems to be this new guard of like, kind of bright eyed fresh, like, you know, like we’re just living our lives and like making our French press coffee. And just loving all of our partners like I love Tom and Katie, like, we’re great. And there’s and you know, and in the LGBTQ community there’s they’re about old leather people and like the older queers who, like did the marches and understand what pride means and understand this and then there are the young queers who are just like, we’re just here to party man, we’re fluid everything’s loose. And it seems like identity ism and I didn’t he enrolls are, are less varied and harder, have harder lines with the more traditionalist queer people and also the more traditionalist polyamory people when you get to the like older hippie types and the older, even older cake types, like the older leather types, if there’s a little bit of conservativism and I don’t mean like, Red Hat wearing conservativism I mean, just like being more conservative in terms of lifestyle and a little less fluid, a little less open minded about other people’s choices within that community. Am I making any sense?

Erik
Yeah, that’s the nature of systems.

Chastain
Right? Right. So those are the similarities I saw and I and I, we didn’t really get to talk about the tensions, but I’ll I’ll sort of touch on it here. And tensions I saw were just that there seems to be a lot of appropriation that happens with the queer community and the polyamory community, a non monogamous community, in the kink community, I think community too, because kink and polyamory or non monogamy are not like I said, protected classes. And there seem to be a lot of like, we have the, you know, showing up at pride, like, take, you know, I don’t know how to explain why.

Max
Yeah, I mean, I think that we space Yeah, I think we all have the sort of uneasy feelings with with that with with taking, using terminology and taking space and using identities that don’t belong to us and that other people really had to struggle with and struggle for

Hannah
A lot of people united around marriage equality, which is something that affects everybody. So it’s easy to understand how that happened and how, you know, groups came together. But you’re right, there’s a little bit of tension there where we haven’t figured out and especially maybe younger generations of people who are just assuming that now, things are there for the taking, and that we get to build on the work that older people have done for us. There’s a little bit of like, what’s the big deal? Right? What’s the big deal? Like we’re all just here right to, to do our thing and like get along. Maybe there’s a little bit of negativity there.

Max
Yeah. So is there did you have something that you wanted to say about how it’s represented in the media testing or

Chastain
so I just I think that we see a lot of that fluidity expressed when shows that are like 10 things.

Max
10 things. I mean, I see, I think we see a lot of like the teenage dramas and things like that express things in a very casual way where it shows, people seem to make it more like in your face. Do you think that’s people in their 30s writing about people in their teens and 20s going like this is what’s cool, you know, just making assumptions about what’s what seems like what a cool teen would do, which is to have a relationship with a boy and a girl and a girl and a boy. And I

Chastain
think it’s also like we have that kind of wishful thinking. We’ve talked a lot about how it’s different now in school and in teenage years and in your communities and for Gen Xers than it was for millennials and whatever generation I don’t know generation I and I’m 40 so it’s different for for me now. So that said, Maybe it’s just a lot of wishful thinking maybe it’s just a lot of like, this is how I want it. This is how I see it, maybe and want it to be for them. I want them to be like that locking key show on Netflix. I want it to be like, Hey, I like him. I also like him. So I would like to take you both. What do you think about that? Hmm, I think that maybe that’s not for me. But I’d like to be friends. Okay, cool. Let’s be friends.

Max
Yeah, I think that I think that probably what a lot of what you have in the supernatural kind of shows like Sabrina and whatnot. And the like, edgy teen shows like Riverdale or whatever, is that thing is older people writing younger people trying to think of what’s the coolest thing that a young person can do? Well, a cool young person has tattoos, and listens to music that I don’t understand and has sex with lots of people, but and they’re totally cool about it. You know, it’s not some it’s not some weird thing. It’s just like What it’s like, and it’s totally cool.

Hannah
And there’s no appropriate timeline or distancing. They just sort of fall for one relationship to the other. That whole, like, supernatural soap. genre is like, I mean, so much fun. Every everybody finds something to love in that candy. Right. But it’s also a big place where a lot of our culture ideas about BDSM in particular, and also, I think, open relating have come from, like, that’s where it’s okay, because you’re dancing on this line of what’s fantasy. And since you mentioned, Sabrina, I mean, that is sort of one a very blatant culprit for presenting somebody who has like, a normal life where she has a boyfriend and structure. And then there’s the dark side, the like unbridled passion side where everyone just has as much sex as they want with whomever and that’s fine. Because there’s different rules when you’re in which land? Yeah.

Chastain
They as part of you should watch the show and which land part as part of just like normal which cool. You have to go into the woods and just fuck a person. Like, that’s cool. Oh, no Sabrina, the Teenage Witch the new Sabrina? Oh,

Max
first world is Sabrina. Chilling Adventures of so

Hannah
we should have a bigger conversation about that, if everyone is, you know, is about that show, in particular in their relationships. And I think I think that this last season’s like, had some interesting stuff about the relationships and what it means to cheat and how we define Yeah, some of that. Yeah.

Max
I think that another place that the representation in fictional media that we’re seeing of having multiple relationships also comes from is the fact that in normal life, normal People have times where they have even, you know, monogamous people have love triangles, right? It happens. And it is a excellent way to drive a story to have a love triangle in a story, right? It’s like automatic tension. It’s a thing in normal life. Yeah.

Hannah
But these are triangles though, right? There’s something you want that is in conflict with something else that you want, whether that’s a relationship or

Chastain
whatever it is, yeah, Ross and Rachel thing. So it’s an added element,

Max
you know, so now that there’s sort of a cultural acceptance that also polyamorous relationships happen, then you can write a love triangle where not everybody’s happy about it, but everybody at least knows that it’s happening. Right? So I think that some of the representation of polyamorous relationships that we see is just a love triangle that you would have seen a Burt Reynolds movie from 1983 except that everybody knows what’s going on.

Hannah
Mexican I just finished sharp objects. So good. Yeah, I haven’t read it. I just watched the

Max
same. Gillian Flynn I was broke

Chastain
on girl, correct.

Hannah
I don’t think that would be held up as any example of a type of relationship that someone should have. But there was one of those circumstances where there, you know, there’s tension between two people who apparently love the same woman, and they have this like, ongoing conflict of like, we all know that this is happening, but we don’t want to like blow up our whole relationship by calling it out. So we’re just gonna need to let each other the whole time. I feel like that is a pretty typical way that you see a triad expressed.

Max
Yeah, and there’s a you know, it’s not necessarily a poly thing, but it’s a thing that we see in all of these things. Where she the main character has like A sexual encounter a sort of casual ish sexual encounter with one guy, and he thinks it’s great. And then when she has a casual sexual encounter with another guy, she is a slut.

Hannah
Yeah.

Max
You know, he called he says you’re drunk and a slut. And that’s all you are like. Well, it was a little bit different because it was

Hannah
one week courting her.

Max
Yeah. A little bit different when it was you hug.

Chastain
All right.

Erik
I haven’t seen that. Oh, we were talking about so yeah. What to say about it?

Chastain
Yeah. Um, so I have we covered media stuff.

Erik
I have one more thing. Yeah. I think a lot of the coverage can be parsed into top down or bottom up coverage. Or what do you mean dissemination of any poly themes into the broader public consciousness, and like the shows and everything, those are all top down. Those are all Like lots of writers that have pushed to have this in something or whatever that has to be approved by higher up and higher up and higher up, so that eventually gets broadcast. And that’s a kind of a tamping down force on its exposure, but now that will literally isolated in broadcasting ourselves. Right, then there’s a whole lot more bottom up, which is shorten the cycle with which new things can come to prominence. And I think this is one of those things that’s kind of riding that wave.

Chastain
I agree with that. I think. I think that we’ve seen a lot more people engaged and creative processes. I’ve seen a huge influx of new Patreon creators. I’ve seen a huge influx in the podcasting groups I’m in I’ve seen a lot of podcasters go, you know what, I’m going to start that second project. I’m going to talk about sex. I’m going to talk about polyamory. I’m going to talk about the things that I was afraid to talk about before but right now Fuck it, like, what else do I have to do?

Erik
Before any quarantine thing? So it was already happening. It’s it’s just as simple as mentioning that in a dating profile, where the words get used more and more, and they’re visible, you know what I mean? And that in and of itself is spreading it from the bottom up.

Hannah
Right. I think that’s one of the great things about the videos we watched from Polly role models this week, is to see that, you know, maybe they only got a minute and a half released on a website of what they were trying to put into a national television program. But then they have their own platform and you know, their patrons and their voice on YouTube to unpack that experience over multiple videos, and really kind of make the most of that to their intended audience. And so I think, you know, we can come at it kind of from both angles, and hopefully meet more towards the middle.

Erik
Yeah, and they use their minute and a half very well.

Chastain
I think that When we get that, when we get that moment when we get that opportunity, we really need to take it. So you know, anytime, anytime I like go on another podcast or I get an opportunity to speak somewhere, I make sure that I mentioned the podcast and what we talked about, you know, what we’re all about? Because that’s exposure for that one person who goes like, Oh, wait, curious about that, you know, we’re part of a podcasting network, the OSA collective. And we have meetings every week where we get to talk to other people who are other podcasters. And there are all kinds of different podcasts. And every time I go, Well, our our podcast is about polyamory and kink. And people send me messages and ask me questions and go like, would you be interested in you know, talking on the show, could we get a lot of you to talk on the show? Could you know, what can we do to connect with you? So I think that’s cool because typically people have questions. They just have haven’t felt like it’s okay to ask. And I think that just being present somewhere makes it okay to ask. Just having social media presence makes it okay to ask.

Hannah
Yeah, I think

Max
a lot of the representation of Polycom relationships in not in the fictional shows, but in the TV specials that we’ve watched in the, in the new shows and stuff is there because it’s titillating, right? People automatically go to sex, people automatically think this is about your sex life. Right? So they want those segments on those shows because they know that middle of the day view or whether they, whether they find it exciting, whether they find it achy, or whether they find it exciting and at the same time, or achy but also exciting or whatever. Like that’s, that’s why they’re that’s why they’re going to view that. But then it is an opportunity for people to talk about how they’re related. And ships work and why it’s okay and how their kids are okay? And it’s, you know, and that’s kind of what we’re doing here. And that’s what I suspect happens with your other interviews and appearances Chaston is there probably are people who go like, that’s weird, but I kinda want to hear this person with a nice voice talk about sex stuff. You know? Yeah.

Chastain
Well, so I think that was a good conversation, everybody. How’s everybody feeling? Does anybody need anything?

Max
Nope. I’m gonna hang on IRA gonna go figure out how to water her garden. You’re gonna drink tequila, apparently.

Chastain
Tequila and make a make a big huge monster candle out of all of my Oh yeah, I have to get that little crock pot for you. So I’m going to use that use the garage crock pot and melt down candles while I drink tequila. I’ll just breathe in my face. Is there going bike riding good. Going bike riding? Are you going to soak in Epsom salt

Max
Perfect bath. Hell yeah, like some salts.

Chastain
Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening. This has been another episode of the podpodcvltcast. You can find us atpodpodcvltcast.com that is

Max
with a V

Chastain
and please support us on Patreon our patrons make everything possible. You can find our Patreon at podpodcvltcast.com/supportthepod. And you can also access our community on our website. And yeah, just thank you for keeping us running to our patrons. Thank you especially to our patron Kate who hung out with us in our chat today. So everyone, have a great week and we’ll talk to you next time.

Erik
Bye. Bye everybody later.

Chastain
You’ve been listening to the Pod Pod Cvlt Cast with your hosts, Max, Chastain , Hannah and Erik. Our theme music is by Lobo Loco our break music is Goberino with Pale Blue you can find us on the web at podpodcvltcast.com remember that’s cvlt with a V and access our social media show notes, transcripts and so much more. Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters, so consider becoming a patron help us make this show. Thank you so much for listening

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Hosts: Max, Chastain, Hannah, & Erik
Website: www.podpodcvltcast.com
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Title Music: “Spencer – Bluegrass” by Lobo Loco
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