Ok, so don't literally carry a big stick, maybe just a metaphorical one.

If you haven't been around the internet over the course of the past month, you've missed at least five pieces of media related to polyamory. That, in turn, has produced a fair amount of response across the web from various sources. While some of the press has been negative, it's the comments that inevitably get me more riled up. And some of them aren't even negative comments.

So here's a plea: please - PLEASE - if you're going to respond to someone in favor of polyamory, open marriages, or any other alternative relationship style, do it will intelligence. It hurts our cause more than you might think to write what comes to mind first as a reaction to someone else. Intelligence, logic, reason, and well-thought prose makes for a better foundation to stand on than argumentative responses. One of the hardest things for me is taking things in stride, and I know that it's only going to get worse now that I'm out to the community at large. People will forever disagree with someone or some thing. Why? Because it's in our nature. But to defend your beliefs intelligently without the self-righteous tone of "my way is better than your way" is the best way for people to listen to you - or at least leave you alone because they can't dissect your argument.

Oh, and here's the media:
Jenny Block on AOL
Terisa Greenan on KOMO - 7/22/2009
Poly in Newsweek - 7/29/2009
Op-ed in Wall Street Times - 8/3/2009
FindLaw article on Polyamory and its legality - 8/3/2009
ComingOutPoly on TMJ4 - 7/17/2009
OnMilwaukee.com op-ed response to TMJ4 - 7/31/2009

The three of us will be on a radio show tonight at about 10pm. If you want to send/call in questions, see the information below. WBGU FM is the radio station for Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. They have a sex-positive show entitled "Sex Talk" every Sunday evening. Tonight's will be with us about polyamory.

Thanks!
Ashe

"You can have callers (friends) call in with live questions and/or comments through the same 800 number 1-888-7WBGUFM, and they can email questions at www.sexualitytutor.com and click on the email button, or IM/Yahoo/Aim at WBGUFM"

If you haven't checked out the YouTube web series, Family, before, you should. It's quirky, funny, and realistic - to a certain point.

Recently, it was featured on the Seattle news. It's another fair piece about polyamory and its "normalcy." It was also approached by The Kinsey Institute and Oprah. How awesome is that? It's good that people are becoming more aware of polyamory and how non-creepy it is.

So here's hoping that this will be another good bit of press for us.

Since our recent success has brought light not only to our local group but the cause of polyamory as a whole, I thought it might be nice to go about looking for groups in Wisconsin that I could become a part of - even if only online. There are a lot of them. (Do a Google search for "wisconsin polyamory groups" and you'll come up with about 14 on Yahoo alone). So I joined them - all of them.

Two of them accepted me in. Wisconsin Open Marriage and Poly In Wisconsin. I was told by most of the other group moderators (not all of them, because some of them just clicked the "deny" when they saw I wasn't from their area, I imagine) that because I wasn't local, that I shouldn't be a part of their group. I needed to just go to Poly In Wisconsin.

Why? Why should I be relegated to my area only? Isn't the point of a community to be as broad as possible to offer the most support? If I'm willing to go the extra length to find your group and join because I want to be a part of it, shouldn't I be granted that privilege? Perhaps not; perhaps I'm untrained in the ways of the community outside of my own Milwaukee one. I think something that Alan said makes a lot of sense, and perhaps that's why I get a little frustrated.

"...I have an impression that young polys, raised with the internet, are more ready to be out in public, compared to older generations who may have lives more deeply invested in conventional versions of respectability."

Am I intruding into someone's private space? Is the possibility of an outsider one more risk of exposure to the world? Even with as many reservations as I've had in the past about coming out publicly, I still understand and appreciate the nature of a support group, and I sincerely hope that all of the trouble we have gone to and headaches we're liable to create for ourselves with this media coverage will help others recognize that there are others like them, that there is a recognized support network, and that there are ways to go about acting on your desires in an ethical way. I also hope that it will show some of those groups that are reluctant to bring members in from outside of their immediate area that we're only here to help.

"Times, they are a-changin'." We have to change with them.

The long-awaited day has finally come (and gone) and now it really only remains to be seen what the general public have to say about it. The link below is the piece that TMJ4 did on us (Milwaukee's local channel 4, NBC affiliate).

http://www.todaystmj4.com/features/specialassignment/50975807.html?video...

A few comments:

The "catchy" promo for it that ran all day Friday was cheesy and racy. They intentionally used the phrases "love triangle" and "provocative new look on marriage." It wasn't terribly sensationalized, but it gave me a start when I first saw it.

The piece, in general, is tasteful. I think they did a decent job of portraying us in a generic - neither gung-ho positive or lynch-them-in-the-square negative - which I can deal with. We also didn't get any bad jokes from Mike Jacobs, which tends to happen after each of the "Special Assignment" pieces. That was nice.

A few corrections, though: they labeled a few people incorrectly. My girlfriend's name is Lyndzi. At about minute 1, they label her as Kris Jernberg, who is actually one of the members of our group - though the piece identifies her correctly in the script. So then at minute 1:40 that is Kris talking about not being a swinger; they label her as Rachel Keuler, who is Lyndzi's roommate. Lastly, Rachel (who is the woman with Jeff - the guy with the hat) is incorrectly labeled as the relationship - not sex - expert Judy Bruett.

It was obvious that the expert that they got to talk about relationships obviously has a) little knowledge about the practice of polyamory to generalized by saying "it would be asking for trouble" and b) doesn't agree with it. There are poly-friendly counselors and therapists in the area; I'm not sure why they didn't spend the time to look one of those up. But oh well.

I personally received five separate text messages last night with the general statement, "Hey, you're on tv." Some knew; some didn't, but they do now. It's nerve-wracking, but it's good to know that we're out there now, and anyone looking for a friendly face knows where to go.

Let us know what you think.