Guest Post: Consensual Non-monogamy and the Importance of Representation
This is a guest post by Allison Schnur, a senior at American University earning a degree in Public Relations & Strategic Communications with minors in French and Psychology. Her education has focused on media studies and the way popular culture both defines and reflects our experiences as humans. She hopes to build a career in the Entertainment Communication industry, working to promote authentic artistic expression and Human Rights advocacy. Click here to visit Allison’s portfolio.
Media as Power
Today’s world runs on digital media. The average American checks their phone 144 times a day (Kerai, 2023), and the average human watches 19 hours of video each week (Ceci, 2023). Because of this, our viewership is our reality.
We receive ideals and examples of acceptable behavior by observation of our shows, movies, news segments. Particularly where education fails, we seek to fill in those gaps with information from our technology and media systems – painting pictures of groups of people and what we should expect from them.
Consensual Non-monogamy (CNM)
When a study was conducted on public perception of non-monogamous individuals and relationships, participants rated this group of people higher than a 5 out of 7 in measures of promiscuity, unsafe sexual activity, sex drive, and extroversion (Hutzler et al., 2016).
These types of relationships receive some of the lowest coverage in media, rarely ever presented realistically or ethically in tv shows or movies.
When researching for equitable media, I came across OPEN’s site and media rubric, linked here.
I decided to analyze my own tv show exposure (Season 3 Episode 8 of “You”) through this lens, looking for things like consent, good motivations, diversity, etc. I was left with my portrayal only meeting three of the nine parameters presented.
“You” Depiction of CNM
Season 3 Episode 8 of the Netflix original show “You” can be found on the streaming platform, with the non-monogamous interactions taking place from 07:20-13:20 and 23:48-35:50. Though I am not able to include the clips themselves without ownership, many Youtubers have posted reaction or recap videos where you can view the episode in the background without a Netflix subscription: Chuuzus, YaBoyRoshi, Matty Reacts, The Recaps
The situation arises out of the two main characters’ (Love and Joe) feelings of disconnect. Love grasps at chances to save their relationship and make herself exciting again, but she doesn’t know that Joe has been cheating with another woman. Joe hopes that contacting their “swinger” neighbors will get Love to stop bothering him about their loss of passion. They take advantage of the actual CNM couple, Sherry and Cary.
Presented as the depiction for swingers, Sherry and Cary are sexually confident, promiscuous, and erratic. They first hint to Joe and Love about wanting a sexual relationship at a party, and they are elated to hear about foursome interest. They schedule a formal meeting with a non-disclosure agreement, expressing that they are experts and have done this already with most couples in the town. Cary says he is bisexual and “fully optimized” because of it.
When the actual sexual interaction takes place, Cary shows up to Joe and Love’s house with suitcases of sex toys, drugs, and means of pleasure. As their personalities would predict, their sexual behavior is hyperactive, satirized, and off-putting. They are portrayed as eager to dive right in, showing no safe sexual practices.
Both the couples are heterosexual and cisgender, and only one of the individuals in the interaction is a person of color. All involved are very wealthy, living in the rich suburbs of San Francisco.
Reality
Research has been done on the CNM population, and this is far from a realistic representation. While people perceive swingers, open couples, or polyamorous relationships to be more promiscuous and sexually risky, statistics show this is inaccurate, prejudicial. CNM individuals reported having safer sex and better sexual health than others, being diligent with contraceptives, condoms, and STI testing (Levine et al., 2018).
The demographic of consensual non-monogamous couples and relationships are not so privileged and one-dimensional. Participating in relationships with multiple sexual or romantic partners is not just something that rich, bored people do. It’s actually a way of viewing love and conducting real, connected relationships, and the population is diverse and progressive.
Many people in the CNM community are also part of the LGBTQIA+ community, with gay and lesbian relationships most reported to be open or polyamorous (Levine et al., 2018). Their identities are complex – Black, non-Hispanic individuals and others who identified as non-White were the highest count of CNM respondents in a large 2018 national survey (Levine et al., 2018). This is not a space dominated by privilege or impulsivity.
As a last correction, swingers and open relationships are not the only type of consensually non-monogamous situations – they get media attention because their dynamics are more sexualized. In reality, there are countless variations of relationship and family structures that receive no representation or validation in the public sphere. Forms of cohabitation and non-nuclear families with polyamorous, polygamous, triadic, etc. partners and parents can be found all over the world.
Takeaway
As a society, we need to be asking for accurate representation and education surrounding minority groups, including sexual or romantic minorities. Whether you are part of the community or not, it’s our responsibility as media consumers to hold networks and platforms accountable for putting out realistic and equitable depictions. If technology has become our education, it needs to be teaching us to see the world and people in it as they really are.
Interested in writing a guest post for OPEN’s blog? Send us your pitch at info@open-love.org!
