Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Polyamory: When two just won't do
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
- 0:04Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
- 0:14Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, and there's
- 0:18Speaker 1: this stuff you should know. That's right. How all of
- 0:21Speaker 1: our wives and girlfriends are in the next room. Right,
- 0:24Speaker 1: How are you doing? Man? I'm good. I found this
- 0:26Speaker 1: topic to be super interesting. And um, I should say
- 0:30Speaker 1: up front that our our joky nous that we always
- 0:34Speaker 1: include in every podcast almost um is not meant to
- 0:38Speaker 1: be disrespectful to anyone who is in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah,
- 0:44Speaker 1: and we're not here to like just kind of look
- 0:45Speaker 1: at your relationship from the outside and poke at it
- 0:49Speaker 1: and make fun of it or light of it. If
- 0:51Speaker 1: you're enjoying yourself and everybody's on board and no one's
- 0:56Speaker 1: being hurt, then we always say to each his own,
- 0:58Speaker 1: that's right. But from the outside, uh, polyamory might seem
- 1:03Speaker 1: like a very strange arrangement. Well, I think to most
- 1:07Speaker 1: people it seems like swinging, that's right. But it's not. No,
- 1:11Speaker 1: it is not a lot of things. It's not cheating, right,
- 1:14Speaker 1: it's not swinging, right, it's not um, it's not polygamy.
- 1:20Speaker 1: It's not what was the other one. Well, it's not
- 1:22Speaker 1: a lot of things. Um, it's not dentistry, right, Well,
- 1:28Speaker 1: the point is that we should it's not promiscuous nous.
- 1:33Speaker 1: So what it is actually from? And I had no idea.
- 1:37Speaker 1: I think my conception of polyamory was that it was
- 1:40Speaker 1: basically kind of swinging and it was based on it
- 1:43Speaker 1: was I got the the root couple thing, but um
- 1:48Speaker 1: that it was mostly like a swinging kind of thing.
- 1:50Speaker 1: But from research, like I realized I was pretty far off.
- 1:55Speaker 1: Polyamory is in a very odd way of for of monogamy,
- 2:01Speaker 1: but that it includes more than two people in this
- 2:05Speaker 1: monogamous relationship. Well not necessarily monogamous either though, so because
- 2:10Speaker 1: there can be arrangements where you're allowed to go out
- 2:13Speaker 1: and do what you want, kick ends with people. So
- 2:16Speaker 1: I ran across something that that's technically considered monogamish, as
- 2:20Speaker 1: Dan Savage coined it. That sounds like a very new word, yeah,
- 2:24Speaker 1: I mean Dan Savage coined it. Yeah, But which means
- 2:28Speaker 1: that I'm probably not gonna put too much greens. But
- 2:30Speaker 1: in the from what I understand and this I got
- 2:32Speaker 1: this from a polyamory site called um more than two
- 2:38Speaker 1: more than two Franklin vow is how I'm pronouncing his
- 2:42Speaker 1: last name, vow. Yeah. And I'm not kidding when I
- 2:46Speaker 1: say it's a great side if you are interested in
- 2:48Speaker 1: exploring polyamory. It's super thorough and very very helpful. I
- 2:52Speaker 1: would think, yeah, just by going through it. And the
- 2:55Speaker 1: impression that I got from him from his f a
- 2:57Speaker 1: Q at least is that it is a It's like
- 3:00Speaker 1: the people in a polyamorous relationship are committed to one another,
- 3:05Speaker 1: and that like they're rather in the same way that
- 3:08Speaker 1: two people a couple come together to form a monogamous relationship.
- 3:13Speaker 1: If you if you take that bubble and add another
- 3:17Speaker 1: person or two other people or something like that, but
- 3:20Speaker 1: there's still that bubble of monogamy, of commitment, of affection um,
- 3:25Speaker 1: that that is more close to the the the definition
- 3:30Speaker 1: of polyamory. Now in real life, I'm sure it's different, um,
- 3:34Speaker 1: and that there are different aspects to it or whatever.
- 3:36Speaker 1: But supposedly that's what I gathered. But I think, uh,
- 3:40Speaker 1: polyamorous couples say, why would you even use a word
- 3:44Speaker 1: like monogamy when it means means more than one committed?
- 3:50Speaker 1: Is the word I should. Yeah, I think that's that's
- 3:52Speaker 1: the trip. And so Dan Savage come on monogamous. Yeah, yeah, Um,
- 3:59Speaker 1: I knew more about this um just because there was
- 4:02Speaker 1: a show I don't know if it was HBO, it's
- 4:06Speaker 1: probably Cinemax that UM followed some polyamorous relationships, and so
- 4:13Speaker 1: I knew that it was not just hey it's swinging,
- 4:17Speaker 1: or hey I just want an open relationship. It's you know,
- 4:20Speaker 1: I'm gonna tryad I've got a man and there's a
- 4:24Speaker 1: woman and there's another woman, or in another case, it
- 4:26Speaker 1: was two couples all lived together, they were all in
- 4:30Speaker 1: a committed relationship with one another. UM. I mean we'll
- 4:34Speaker 1: talk about there is no standard for a polyamorous relationship.
- 4:38Speaker 1: It can really be anything you want that works for you.
- 4:40Speaker 1: Sometimes it's bisexual, sometimes it's not. Sometimes um the two
- 4:49Speaker 1: it's really I mean, we could go over a million scenarios. Really,
- 4:53Speaker 1: I was starting to break him all down, but it's
- 4:55Speaker 1: like you really is whatever you can work out between
- 4:58Speaker 1: yourselves is polyann But the point is is ummm, to
- 5:03Speaker 1: maybe put it on less fine of a point, but
- 5:06Speaker 1: to get a little closer potentially to a correct definition.
- 5:09Speaker 1: Polyamory is not monogamy because there's more than two people, right,
- 5:13Speaker 1: and it's not cheating because all of the people involved
- 5:16Speaker 1: are on the on the same page about what they're doing,
- 5:22Speaker 1: what what they're doing, what their partners are doing, what
- 5:24Speaker 1: everybody's doing. Everyone's aware and consenting, that's right. So it's
- 5:28Speaker 1: between those two things. So this is the opposite of
- 5:30Speaker 1: the E s P podcast, where apparently we never even
- 5:34Speaker 1: said what ESP stood for. Yeah, a couple of people like,
- 5:38Speaker 1: we're like, hey, I didn't catch a ESP stands for?
- 5:40Speaker 1: Can you tell us? And I'm like, well, go listen again,
- 5:44Speaker 1: and enough people said it that I was like, oh,
- 5:47Speaker 1: extrasensory perception, by the way, And then we have just
- 5:51Speaker 1: now defined polyamory for the last ten minutes, so I
- 5:54Speaker 1: think we're covered. I think we finally landed on it. Though. Uh, yeah,
- 5:57Speaker 1: it's a very fascinating thing, and um, here's how it works. Well, Uh,
- 6:05Speaker 1: I think that the let's talk about why people are polyamorous, right,
- 6:09Speaker 1: So people who are polyamorous probably tend to think that
- 6:12Speaker 1: monogamy is not for them. And if you're speaking from
- 6:17Speaker 1: a um like a evolutionary perspective, monogamy is kind of
- 6:23Speaker 1: a puzzlement should we talk about that. Yeah, so monogamy
- 6:28Speaker 1: looking through the lens of natural selection, doesn't make sense
- 6:32Speaker 1: evolutionarily because it lowers a male's ability to um, It
- 6:37Speaker 1: lowers his number of opportunities to carry on his genetic
- 6:41Speaker 1: line and there for the species, right exactly. Yeah, and
- 6:45Speaker 1: it was long thought by some that UM it was
- 6:50Speaker 1: monogamy came about so males could assist in the raising
- 6:53Speaker 1: of the young UM. But there are some new theories
- 6:57Speaker 1: now that UM make that seem a little less likely
- 7:01Speaker 1: are actually a lot less likely. UM. And ironically, well
- 7:04Speaker 1: not ironically but coincidentally they were both published. They were
- 7:09Speaker 1: both published around the same time, these two new theories,
- 7:14Speaker 1: they came out and at the and enough time to
- 7:17Speaker 1: really kind of compete with one another. Yeah, because you know,
- 7:19Speaker 1: when you look around the the animal kingdom, among non
- 7:23Speaker 1: avian there are more birds that are supposedly cockroaches that
- 7:28Speaker 1: are monogamous. But if you if you rule out the
- 7:30Speaker 1: birds and the cockroaches, well specifically mammals too. Yeah, about
- 7:34Speaker 1: five percent of the four thousand mammal species give or
- 7:38Speaker 1: take UM, only about five percent are monogamous or mate
- 7:43Speaker 1: for life. And so again, if you are strictly looking
- 7:48Speaker 1: at it from the selfish gene theory, like the whole
- 7:51Speaker 1: point would be to run around and copulate with as
- 7:54Speaker 1: many females as you possibly can so that you can
- 7:58Speaker 1: have more and more chances of spreading your genetic line
- 8:01Speaker 1: and then, like you said, hence carry on the species.
- 8:03Speaker 1: So did not do that to just couple with one
- 8:06Speaker 1: other person and and have maybe a few kids rather
- 8:10Speaker 1: than thirty with a bunch of different males and females.
- 8:14Speaker 1: Right again, it doesn't really kind of make sense. So
- 8:17Speaker 1: they've tried to explain this, and there are some theories,
- 8:20Speaker 1: like you were saying, one of them is that, um,
- 8:24Speaker 1: if you are a rival male, one of the things
- 8:28Speaker 1: you have to do to get with another female. I
- 8:33Speaker 1: think that's what biologists call it getting with um you
- 8:36Speaker 1: have to kill her offspring, because while she's nursing, she
- 8:39Speaker 1: can't ovulate, and therefore you can't reproduce with her. But
- 8:44Speaker 1: kill her kids. She's gonna stop nursing, she'll be sad,
- 8:47Speaker 1: But then you guys can have your own offspring. If
- 8:52Speaker 1: you are a male that's staying behind after you reproduce
- 8:56Speaker 1: with a female, then you have the chance to defend
- 9:00Speaker 1: your offspring from being killed by arrival males. Explanation from
- 9:04Speaker 1: monogamy yep, and that was in the proceedings of the
- 9:06Speaker 1: National Academy of Sciences and um. They found that out
- 9:10Speaker 1: by studying behaviors of two d and thirty primate species. Uh.
- 9:14Speaker 1: And they felt so good about it that the guy
- 9:17Speaker 1: who ran the study said, this is it. We now
- 9:22Speaker 1: finally know for sure. But that's not necessarily true because
- 9:26Speaker 1: there's another really great theory where they actually published in
- 9:30Speaker 1: the journal Science and Studied Mammals, which is way more
- 9:34Speaker 1: than the other study. H. D. H. Lucas and Tim
- 9:38Speaker 1: Klutenbrock of Cambridge University, and they said, Uh, it's really
- 9:44Speaker 1: about low density and females. It's that simple. Like when
- 9:51Speaker 1: there aren't many females, that's where monogamy happens, right when
- 9:54Speaker 1: they're spread out, because they beat up on each other
- 9:58Speaker 1: when they're in the same place female. Um, so they
- 10:01Speaker 1: have to spread out geographically. Well, if you're a guy
- 10:04Speaker 1: who's just running from female the female, the female, you
- 10:07Speaker 1: don't know what she's doing while you're not around, so
- 10:10Speaker 1: you don't know whether those kids are yours or not.
- 10:12Speaker 1: So the best way to make sure that they're your kids,
- 10:15Speaker 1: is to hang around and be monogamous. So it's it's
- 10:20Speaker 1: really similar to the other theory, the you're staying around
- 10:25Speaker 1: to defend the kids, and this one it's a little
- 10:28Speaker 1: less magnanimous. You're staying around to make sure that the
- 10:32Speaker 1: female doesn't run around on you. Right. But then I
- 10:35Speaker 1: saw a third theory that also makes sense to um,
- 10:38Speaker 1: and that is that the idea of males staying around
- 10:43Speaker 1: to help raise kids was a strategy developed by lesser
- 10:48Speaker 1: males in the primate kingdom. So like the alpha male,
- 10:51Speaker 1: the top guys, they're having no trouble, they can go
- 10:54Speaker 1: wherever they want. They're getting plenty of action. Right, Hey,
- 10:58Speaker 1: I can care for the kids exactly. And that that's
- 11:01Speaker 1: a strategy that caught the attention of females who otherwise
- 11:04Speaker 1: wouldn't have made it with these guys because they're less
- 11:07Speaker 1: nestment and uh instead said, yeah, he's a dork, I
- 11:13Speaker 1: can't stand his bowtie in a short sleeve shirt, but
- 11:16Speaker 1: he does do a pretty good job with the kids,
- 11:18Speaker 1: So I'm going to be monogamous with this guy. So
- 11:21Speaker 1: three pretty good theories to explain monogamy. None of them
- 11:24Speaker 1: hold water for polyamorous. No, and and everyone under the
- 11:29Speaker 1: age of thirty five is now looking up. Who less
- 11:31Speaker 1: nestment is it was? That was a great reference, man. Thanks,
- 11:36Speaker 1: it just popped up. Um alright. So the benefits, I believe,
- 11:40Speaker 1: is what we were talking about before we delved into
- 11:42Speaker 1: the theory. And I've always said monogamy too, is not
- 11:45Speaker 1: a natural thing, and that the reward of saying with
- 11:49Speaker 1: one person is partly because of that. You know, you
- 11:52Speaker 1: it's not a natural thing. You sacrifice something in some
- 11:55Speaker 1: way by being with someone, but the payoff is rich.
- 11:58Speaker 1: That is eyes words, Chuck. So we'll see if I
- 12:02Speaker 1: end up married in twenty years, I'll confirm all this.
- 12:06Speaker 1: Just kidding, of course, I will be UM. All right,
- 12:09Speaker 1: So let's talk about the benefits. It is not just
- 12:12Speaker 1: about UM having sex with more than one person. Now,
- 12:17Speaker 1: that's definitely part of it. It is part of it, Um,
- 12:19Speaker 1: But it is also about UM support in a greater
- 12:25Speaker 1: you know, it takes a village, they say, So if
- 12:28Speaker 1: you have a larger village, then you're gonna have more
- 12:30Speaker 1: support and care and love and emotional support. UM. All
- 12:34Speaker 1: that stuff right, exactly. And it's not polyamorous relationship or
- 12:40Speaker 1: group doesn't necessarily have sex with one another everybody. Um.
- 12:46Speaker 1: Sex is a big component of it, but you also
- 12:49Speaker 1: have what are called polly effective relationships where like, let's
- 12:54Speaker 1: say you have what you call it a tryad. Is
- 12:56Speaker 1: that a polly um is three people? Yeah, but that's
- 13:00Speaker 1: what polyamorous call it. UM. So let's say you have
- 13:03Speaker 1: a triad where neither of the of two women and
- 13:06Speaker 1: a guy, and neither of the women are bisexual, but
- 13:10Speaker 1: they're still in a polyamorous relationship. They would be poly effective,
- 13:14Speaker 1: like they have an emotional connection to one another like
- 13:17Speaker 1: a couple would, but they're not sexually involved with one another.
- 13:21Speaker 1: They're poly effective. That's another component of a polyamorous relationship.
- 13:26Speaker 1: So the whole thing is not just satisfying your every
- 13:29Speaker 1: sexual need with a bunch of different people. UM. It's
- 13:33Speaker 1: also that I think they believe that you have a
- 13:37Speaker 1: lot of different needs that one person can't necessarily satisfy
- 13:41Speaker 1: beyond sex as well. It could be cultural interests, it
- 13:45Speaker 1: can be past times, it can be what have you.
- 13:48Speaker 1: And so the idea behind polyamory is you find those
- 13:52Speaker 1: people in your life who combined make that single ideal
- 13:55Speaker 1: person rather than placing all that on one single person
- 14:00Speaker 1: for better for worse. Yeah, I looked at an example
- 14:02Speaker 1: on the what was it two for one, no two
- 14:07Speaker 1: or more more than more than two more more more
- 14:12Speaker 1: than two dot com? I looked at one. They had
- 14:14Speaker 1: a lot of just stories and examples of people, like
- 14:17Speaker 1: real stories. And this one lady UM was married to
- 14:20Speaker 1: a guy who quite simply was not into a lot
- 14:25Speaker 1: of the things she was into. Um, she was big
- 14:27Speaker 1: into the theater, I think in museums. Her husband didn't
- 14:30Speaker 1: like that. Uh. They developed into a polyamorous relationship, and
- 14:34Speaker 1: she had another man that was really into that stuff,
- 14:36Speaker 1: an old high school boyfriend I think, and he uh
- 14:41Speaker 1: took up with another woman who had similar interests as him,
- 14:44Speaker 1: and they all worked it out. And you know, people say, well,
- 14:47Speaker 1: why don't you just leave the husband then, who you
- 14:49Speaker 1: don't have these things in common with, and go with
- 14:50Speaker 1: the old high school boyfriend. That's a neat story. She
- 14:52Speaker 1: was like, well, because he's really needy and my husband
- 14:56Speaker 1: isn't and we have a lot of great stuff. Uh
- 14:58Speaker 1: So it is literally, like you said, satisfying all my
- 15:02Speaker 1: needs through multiple people, because who can expect one person
- 15:06Speaker 1: to be that soul mate that gives you everything you need,
- 15:10Speaker 1: and these suckers who are in monogamous marriages are just uh,
- 15:14Speaker 1: sacrificing certain parts of their life, like going to museums
- 15:17Speaker 1: or whatever. If it was this lady. So everybody, we're
- 15:19Speaker 1: about to satisfy all of your needs with this commercial break.
- 15:23Speaker 1: He now all right and we're back. So chuck um.
- 15:50Speaker 1: We were talking about why people do polyamory, Right, do polyamory.
- 15:57Speaker 1: Let's talk about how polyamory actually works. Yeah, I mean,
- 16:03Speaker 1: anyone in a marriage that's you know, things get more
- 16:06Speaker 1: complicated as you get older. So I don't mean to
- 16:09Speaker 1: talk down to people in the twenties, but relationships get
- 16:12Speaker 1: a little more complicated as you get older and you
- 16:13Speaker 1: get more responsibilities. So if you're married and you're in
- 16:16Speaker 1: your thirties or forties or fifties, you know it is
- 16:20Speaker 1: or any kind of committed relationship, you know, it's logistically
- 16:23Speaker 1: tough sometimes well yeah, because you're like I want this,
- 16:26Speaker 1: and this other person who you share half of your
- 16:28Speaker 1: estate with says no, I want this, or I want
- 16:31Speaker 1: to do this, or I want to do that, or
- 16:32Speaker 1: I want a vacation here there exactly, just in keeping
- 16:36Speaker 1: up with schedules. It's all very complicated. It's all compromise.
- 16:39Speaker 1: There's one big, complicent compromise, and you're compromising between two
- 16:43Speaker 1: people's opinions. Imagine just throwing in one extra opinion that
- 16:47Speaker 1: differs from the other two equal weight exactly. So that's
- 16:53Speaker 1: basically what we're getting at is, if you think your
- 16:56Speaker 1: marriage is complicated, polyamory can be even more complicated it
- 17:00Speaker 1: And they admit that it can be more complicated, but
- 17:03Speaker 1: they say that, Uh. And this is really what I
- 17:06Speaker 1: gathered from reading that site in a bunch of articles,
- 17:08Speaker 1: is that one to one you want to meet a
- 17:12Speaker 1: great communicator, go talk to someone in a polyamorous relationship. Yeah.
- 17:17Speaker 1: So that's one of the chief requirements of polyamory, be
- 17:22Speaker 1: able to talk about all this stuff I've seen it
- 17:24Speaker 1: put as you have highly evolved communication skills. I would
- 17:28Speaker 1: not a good polyamora man like I wouldn't last two days.
- 17:34Speaker 1: You know, I stink. I stink at communicating. I think
- 17:38Speaker 1: I'm just doing fine, and it turns out, oh wait,
- 17:40Speaker 1: I didn't say that, Chuck. Is this bothering? You know?
- 17:44Speaker 1: But it's really bothering. Well that's another thing too. Not
- 17:46Speaker 1: only do you have to be a great communicator and
- 17:49Speaker 1: get your point across and read other people and listen
- 17:51Speaker 1: in that kind of thing. But you also have to
- 17:53Speaker 1: be honest about your feelings. One of the things that
- 17:57Speaker 1: polyamorous face, just like anybody else's jealousy. We did a
- 18:02Speaker 1: pretty good episode on jealousy a while back, Jealousy with
- 18:07Speaker 1: a question mark um, and so they deal with jealousy
- 18:12Speaker 1: and and and they deal with it apparently ideally. Again
- 18:16Speaker 1: this is from more than two dot com in a
- 18:18Speaker 1: way where it would take a pretty intelligent, calm person
- 18:23Speaker 1: to approach the feelings of jealousy like this, which is
- 18:27Speaker 1: basically deconstructing it. So the guy at more than two
- 18:29Speaker 1: dot com I kind of gave a good example where
- 18:34Speaker 1: he was saying, um, you're in a polyamorous relationship and
- 18:39Speaker 1: it bugs you when your spouse kisses. There are other
- 18:44Speaker 1: spouse in front of you, right, And he says the
- 18:49Speaker 1: correct thing to do basically here is to stop and say, Okay,
- 18:53Speaker 1: why does that make me jealous? And if you are
- 18:56Speaker 1: honest with yourself, you'll say, well, it makes me jealous
- 18:58Speaker 1: because I worried that the your spouse. And by the way,
- 19:01Speaker 1: in a polyamorous relationship, the plural of spouse is spice. Yes,
- 19:06Speaker 1: so if you're married to two people, you have two spice. Um,
- 19:10Speaker 1: which is kind of funny. Sure you got spicy. I
- 19:13Speaker 1: love life anyway. When the other spouse, if if you're
- 19:16Speaker 1: worried that your spouse is kissing his other spouse, he's
- 19:18Speaker 1: going to think that that spouse is a better kisser
- 19:21Speaker 1: than you and think, well, that spouses, if he's better
- 19:25Speaker 1: kisser then you he wants to be with him more
- 19:28Speaker 1: than me. And if he wants to be with him
- 19:30Speaker 1: more than me, then uh, he's gonna leave me. Is
- 19:35Speaker 1: often rooted in your own insecurities. So what this guy
- 19:38Speaker 1: was saying is if you spell us out, you realize
- 19:40Speaker 1: that there's a lot of hidden assumptions and your jealous feelings,
- 19:43Speaker 1: and that when you confront them, you will probably discard
- 19:47Speaker 1: a lot of them. If you find that, no, this
- 19:49Speaker 1: is correct, this person really would leave me because that
- 19:51Speaker 1: person is a better kisser. Um, then you would ask yourself,
- 19:56Speaker 1: do I want to be with somebody who would leave
- 19:57Speaker 1: me because somebody else is a better kisser? Yeah? Um.
- 20:01Speaker 1: So if you can approach this kind of stuff in
- 20:04Speaker 1: this manner, that maybe you'd be a decent polyamorous. Yeah,
- 20:08Speaker 1: there's a lady named Terry Connelly, a professor of psychology
- 20:11Speaker 1: and women's Studies at University of Michigan. Uh go Wolverines,
- 20:16Speaker 1: and she's she's one of the well, not one of
- 20:18Speaker 1: the only people. But there haven't been many studies on polyamory. Um.
- 20:22Speaker 1: One reason is because it's underreported in a lot of
- 20:25Speaker 1: cases because people some people may not like to be
- 20:29Speaker 1: uh really out front with it for reasons. Yeah, for
- 20:32Speaker 1: very good reasons. But she did some studies and polls
- 20:35Speaker 1: and things, and she found that jealousy is, in fact,
- 20:38Speaker 1: she said, quote much higher end quote among monogamous pairs
- 20:42Speaker 1: than non monogamous ones. And I think for the reasons
- 20:45Speaker 1: you just said, um, she also found um. She interviewed
- 20:48Speaker 1: seventeen hundred individuals Polly, I'm sorry, monogamous individuals, hundred and
- 20:53Speaker 1: fifty swingers, hundred and seventy people in an open relationship,
- 20:57Speaker 1: and three hundred polyamorous individuals and said that polyamorous tended
- 21:01Speaker 1: to have equal or higher levels of sexual satisfaction. Uh
- 21:06Speaker 1: and people in open relationships tended to have lower sexual
- 21:09Speaker 1: satisfaction than their monogamous piers and polyamorous peers so, and
- 21:13Speaker 1: we should say open is not the same as polyamorous. Again,
- 21:16Speaker 1: in a polyamorous group, the people in the group form
- 21:20Speaker 1: a closed hole. In an open relationship, it's like there's
- 21:25Speaker 1: two people who are connected, but they're also facing outward
- 21:28Speaker 1: and the whole world up for grabs, basically right, in
- 21:32Speaker 1: an open relationship, you know, it's not so in polyamorous
- 21:37Speaker 1: is not an open relationship, and open relationship is not polyamorous.
- 21:40Speaker 1: But a polyamorous relationship could include swinging, from what I understand, Yes,
- 21:46Speaker 1: and did you know that swinging apparently started among World
- 21:51Speaker 1: War two Air Force pilots. You knew that, yeah, because
- 21:56Speaker 1: you supposedly if your husband died in battle, it was
- 22:01Speaker 1: just sort of understood that that woman would then take
- 22:03Speaker 1: up with another serviceman. Correct, I guess, but with another
- 22:07Speaker 1: married serviceman or what? I don't know about that. Well,
- 22:10Speaker 1: apparently it started out with like we called it, wife
- 22:13Speaker 1: swapping in World War two in the Air Force, like
- 22:16Speaker 1: specifically the Air Force, not like oh, American servicemen, like
- 22:20Speaker 1: the Air Force. So I guess they know who it was. Um.
- 22:24Speaker 1: I think I told the story about the Atlantis Swingers
- 22:26Speaker 1: Club was very close to my phone number growing up,
- 22:29Speaker 1: and we used to I was a kid. I had
- 22:31Speaker 1: no idea what it meant, of course, and I used
- 22:32Speaker 1: to answer the phone and people would be like just
- 22:34Speaker 1: the Atlanti singers, they'd just be like my mom would
- 22:38Speaker 1: just remember it was so like troublesome to her, and
- 22:41Speaker 1: how she kept the whistle next to the phone and
- 22:43Speaker 1: would blow a whistle into it. It's so funny to
- 22:47Speaker 1: think about, man, very funny. I still remember that number two.
- 22:54Speaker 1: Do you remember your original phone number? Nine? Isn't that crazy? UM,
- 23:00Speaker 1: I'm sorry for anyone who has those numbers today, or
- 23:03Speaker 1: to the Atlantic Swingers Club, which is still operational, I'm sure. UM.
- 23:09Speaker 1: All right, Another thing we need to talk about are
- 23:12Speaker 1: s t I s UM sexually transmitted infection. You would
- 23:16Speaker 1: think that UM, it would be higher in a polyamorous relationship,
- 23:21Speaker 1: and they don't have statistics that may or may not
- 23:24Speaker 1: be the case. But what they are adamant about is
- 23:29Speaker 1: lots of testing and lots of access to those results
- 23:32Speaker 1: and being super open about those results. UM apparently much
- 23:37Speaker 1: more so than UM. People in monogumous relationships like new
- 23:41Speaker 1: new relationships. They found that people in new monogamous relationships
- 23:46Speaker 1: are often very shy about talking about their sexual history
- 23:50Speaker 1: and potential UM infections and things, whereas they're really up
- 23:54Speaker 1: front about it in polyamory. Yeah, and and they kind
- 23:57Speaker 1: of have to be, and they kind of just make
- 23:59Speaker 1: it a normal, open thing. But that's part of that open,
- 24:02Speaker 1: honest communication. That's that's kind of a hallmark of polyamory.
- 24:07Speaker 1: And even it has a practical application and defending against
- 24:11Speaker 1: s t I S. Yeah, they did. There was one
- 24:13Speaker 1: study in twelve in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that
- 24:17Speaker 1: found that um unfaithful like cheaters, not like uh, like
- 24:24Speaker 1: a cheater, you're in a monogous relationship. In your cheating,
- 24:27Speaker 1: they're much more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior
- 24:30Speaker 1: and to keep it a secret than someone in a
- 24:33Speaker 1: polyamorous relationship. You go off and your cheat and you
- 24:36Speaker 1: keep quiet and you do something super risky, you know,
- 24:39Speaker 1: hook up with someone randomly that you don't know. And
- 24:42Speaker 1: that's just that's kind of like the opposite of polyamory
- 24:45Speaker 1: from what it sounds like. Right, with polyamory, it's like, Okay,
- 24:48Speaker 1: it's you, it's time for your weekly STD test, right,
- 24:52Speaker 1: I want to see the paper, and we're not hooking
- 24:55Speaker 1: up with some random person there. If there are one
- 24:57Speaker 1: thing that there's a lot of and a polyamorous for
- 25:00Speaker 1: relationships are rules. Yeah, if you haven't picked up on
- 25:03Speaker 1: that yet, Yeah, you gotta have the ground rules laid down. Um,
- 25:06Speaker 1: how much time are you going to spend with this
- 25:09Speaker 1: person versus that person? Um? All the way down to
- 25:13Speaker 1: rules in the bedroom. Um. It sounds a little gross,
- 25:16Speaker 1: but fluid swapping. Well, it's so there's a thing. One
- 25:19Speaker 1: of the ways they protect against um STDs is uh, well,
- 25:24Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the arrangements. Okay, alright, because
- 25:27Speaker 1: I think we need to because these different rules that
- 25:29Speaker 1: we're talking about here will apply differently to different types
- 25:32Speaker 1: of relationships. So obviously there's a triad. You can also
- 25:36Speaker 1: have a quad. I can imagine that you could go
- 25:39Speaker 1: up to six eight. Whatever the point is is, um,
- 25:42Speaker 1: when you have a group that are equal to one another,
- 25:47Speaker 1: where everybody's equal to one another, that's one. That's one
- 25:50Speaker 1: form of the polyamorous relationship. Right. There's another form that's hierarchical,
- 25:57Speaker 1: which is based on a core couple that are Yeah,
- 26:02Speaker 1: they would be the primary and then say each of
- 26:04Speaker 1: them has a significant other like a boyfriend or girlfriend.
- 26:09Speaker 1: Those would be the secondaries. And then maybe they have
- 26:12Speaker 1: another person that they're they're close to, they see once
- 26:16Speaker 1: in a while, maybe they live out of town, something
- 26:18Speaker 1: like that. That would be potentially a tertiary um relationship, right,
- 26:23Speaker 1: like you break the twister game out and they show up, right.
- 26:25Speaker 1: So the the the the difference between the two is
- 26:29Speaker 1: with the hierarchical relationship, with the hierarchical format, the the
- 26:36Speaker 1: person that your spouse, the core group, the core couple
- 26:39Speaker 1: of people. They're the ones who are gonna get the
- 26:41Speaker 1: most time, the most attention. They're gonna have more power
- 26:46Speaker 1: to say veto the others. Yeah, Um in a and
- 26:51Speaker 1: the other relationship that forms like a try it or
- 26:53Speaker 1: a quad or six people or something like that, where
- 26:55Speaker 1: everybody is equally weighted. That's that that that you wouldn't
- 27:01Speaker 1: have like a higher there's no hierarchical structure of that. Yeah,
- 27:04Speaker 1: And it depends on how you want to structure things.
- 27:06Speaker 1: They're both completely valid as polyamorous relationships. Um, it's just
- 27:12Speaker 1: you know, up to you basically. And so you said
- 27:14Speaker 1: the veto power is a big deal. Yeah, I think
- 27:16Speaker 1: it's always to be honored. Right. So with if um,
- 27:19Speaker 1: somebody is is is meeting somebody new and wants to
- 27:24Speaker 1: date them. They basically have to go to the rest
- 27:26Speaker 1: of the group that they're committed to in this committed
- 27:29Speaker 1: relationship with and say I got this person, I'd like
- 27:31Speaker 1: to bring them unto the group. I don't know this,
- 27:34Speaker 1: but I can imagine that is a huge thing, especially
- 27:38Speaker 1: in a long established um polyamorous relationship, you know, like
- 27:45Speaker 1: bringing a new person in all but that would be
- 27:47Speaker 1: really big deal. I can imagine being that dude and
- 27:49Speaker 1: showing up right, It's like the worst job interview of
- 27:52Speaker 1: all time, especially if you don't know what's going on.
- 27:55Speaker 1: Plus in the hierarchical structure, then I can imagine the
- 28:01Speaker 1: veto power probably just rests with the two core people,
- 28:05Speaker 1: maybe slightly in the secondary people, probably not at all.
- 28:09Speaker 1: In the tertiary people, they're just there for twister. But
- 28:12Speaker 1: with the um the s t I thing. Um, if
- 28:16Speaker 1: you are what's called body fluid, uh monogamous, yeah, which
- 28:21Speaker 1: I was kind of joking about that it sounds gross,
- 28:23Speaker 1: it's really not at all. That's basically saying that we
- 28:26Speaker 1: can have sex with each other without condoms. And I'm sorry,
- 28:29Speaker 1: I'm saying you and me. I thought you were talking
- 28:32Speaker 1: to somebody behind. But um, maybe the secondary and I
- 28:38Speaker 1: have to wear condoms and we don't exchange those fluids
- 28:41Speaker 1: so intimately and freely. Or um, if you're in a group,
- 28:45Speaker 1: like everybody in the group might be body fluid monogamous,
- 28:48Speaker 1: but that if they are agreed that they can go
- 28:51Speaker 1: outside of the group, they would not be. Or if
- 28:53Speaker 1: it's a hierarchical structure, yeah, that primary couple would just
- 28:57Speaker 1: be body flu monogamous and everybody else would be right,
- 29:00Speaker 1: you'd have to worry conovering. Yeah, Or it may not
- 29:02Speaker 1: even involve sex. Maybe your your secondaries or you go
- 29:06Speaker 1: on dates with and you can um, you know, go
- 29:08Speaker 1: to first and second base and that's where it ends.
- 29:11Speaker 1: Like it's really all about the people in the relationship
- 29:14Speaker 1: working out what works best for them. All right, So
- 29:17Speaker 1: let's take a break here and talk more about the
- 29:21Speaker 1: polyamory right after this. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Um. It's
- 29:49Speaker 1: one of the things that I found interesting about polyamory
- 29:52Speaker 1: um was that they had to coin some terms because
- 29:56Speaker 1: they were really breaking new ground here and trying things
- 30:00Speaker 1: with relation. There's a whole glossary two or more. Spice
- 30:04Speaker 1: is the plural of spouse. Um. And then there's a
- 30:07Speaker 1: word called compersion that's very much associated with polyamory, and
- 30:11Speaker 1: it is basically the mirror image of jealousy. Yeah, it's
- 30:15Speaker 1: being super happy that you're primary has found someone else
- 30:20Speaker 1: that they really love and are satisfied with. Yeah, and
- 30:24Speaker 1: not just your primary, anybody your polyamorous relationship with. Yeah,
- 30:27Speaker 1: that they've found happiness with somebody else. You're happy for
- 30:31Speaker 1: them because of that. So yeah, that's not a normal
- 30:35Speaker 1: thing for most people, especially people in traditional monogamous relationships.
- 30:41Speaker 1: So polyamorous people kind of, I guess stumbled upon this
- 30:44Speaker 1: thing and had to come up with the name for it,
- 30:46Speaker 1: and they call it compersion. Yeah. And if you know,
- 30:48Speaker 1: if you think to yourself as a monogamous person, well,
- 30:51Speaker 1: what you know, this person goes off your wife all
- 30:53Speaker 1: of a sudden is sleeping with another man. What's to
- 30:57Speaker 1: keep her from really falling in love with them to
- 31:00Speaker 1: the extent that she no longer wants to be with you.
- 31:02Speaker 1: Of course, that can happen, but that can happen in
- 31:05Speaker 1: your regular marriage as well. And if the only thing
- 31:09Speaker 1: that's binding your marriage is that, um, you've got bigger
- 31:15Speaker 1: problems in your marriage. If the only thing binding you do.
- 31:17Speaker 1: That marriage is like the marital contract that you feel
- 31:21Speaker 1: like you have to stay you know, true too, you know,
- 31:26Speaker 1: like in a regular marriage, you should want to be
- 31:28Speaker 1: with your husband your wife, like it doesn't matter what
- 31:31Speaker 1: the piece of paper says. Um. I would guess, and
- 31:34Speaker 1: again I don't know. I would guess that polyamorousts have
- 31:38Speaker 1: some sort of structure or mechanism to deal with that,
- 31:43Speaker 1: Like if, especially if there is a if that happens
- 31:47Speaker 1: where somebody starts out as a married couple, but then
- 31:50Speaker 1: they include a third person and become a triad. If
- 31:54Speaker 1: one of them really starts to fall for the other one,
- 31:57Speaker 1: that that doesn't mean that the the initial couple is
- 32:00Speaker 1: going to break up and that couple is going to
- 32:02Speaker 1: split off. That's not polyamory. That's not how it works.
- 32:05Speaker 1: So I wonder what kind of mechanism they have to
- 32:07Speaker 1: deal with checks and balances. Yeah, there's got to be
- 32:10Speaker 1: something they did do. There was one study in the
- 32:13Speaker 1: Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality in two thousand five that
- 32:16Speaker 1: said um polyamorous couples who had been together more than
- 32:19Speaker 1: ten years listed love and connection as the most important
- 32:23Speaker 1: factors in their longevity and monogamous couples listed religion and
- 32:27Speaker 1: family as the most important reasons. Uh, and that's what
- 32:30Speaker 1: I was sort of clumsily trying to say. The only
- 32:33Speaker 1: thing keeping you together is the fact that your husband
- 32:36Speaker 1: or wife hasn't slept with someone else. Are your parents
- 32:38Speaker 1: are going to be disappointed? Yeah, it's I mean, those
- 32:40Speaker 1: aren't reasons to stay married, you know. So, UM we
- 32:44Speaker 1: already touched on also the idea that if you are
- 32:47Speaker 1: in a polyamorous relationship, you you know, you might not
- 32:50Speaker 1: share a lot of interests with your primary, but you've
- 32:53Speaker 1: got the ones that your primary is not interested in
- 32:55Speaker 1: you get to share with your secondary or your tertiary
- 32:58Speaker 1: or whatever. Right. Um. So just having more people to
- 33:02Speaker 1: spend life with, that's another benefit of it. There's a
- 33:05Speaker 1: lot of drawbacks to being in a polyamorous relationship that
- 33:10Speaker 1: I think any polyamorous would readily admit as well. Um
- 33:14Speaker 1: to be in in a quote fringe sexual sexuality, I
- 33:18Speaker 1: think living your romantic and reproductive life, as we'll talk
- 33:22Speaker 1: about a minute, um in complete contrast to societal values
- 33:32Speaker 1: is um. That's gotta be tough. Yeah, And you know,
- 33:35Speaker 1: over the years, acceptance of this is um been zilch too,
- 33:41Speaker 1: better be saying peaked now zilts to confusion to UM
- 33:45Speaker 1: these days a little more open minded about things. I
- 33:48Speaker 1: did see one pole here from I think it was
- 33:51Speaker 1: in April of this year actually, where they pulled about
- 33:55Speaker 1: heterosexuals on how willing they would be on a scale
- 33:58Speaker 1: of one to seven to commit non monogamous acts like
- 34:02Speaker 1: adding a third party to the relationship, and depending on
- 34:05Speaker 1: the scenario, sixtent of women and of men chose four
- 34:09Speaker 1: or higher on that scale, would ask if they'd be
- 34:12Speaker 1: willing to pursue and like try something like that out basically,
- 34:16Speaker 1: So it's I wonder before I don't know lower did you?
- 34:22Speaker 1: Did you say before that there was this two thousand
- 34:25Speaker 1: two survey that found that UM that predicted as much
- 34:29Speaker 1: as ten percent. Yeah, people, that's high compared to other
- 34:32Speaker 1: studies I've seen. I saw like it the most, maybe
- 34:35Speaker 1: four percent. Yeah, I can't imagine ten percent. There's just
- 34:39Speaker 1: no way, UM, because I mean I'm pretty hip, you know,
- 34:42Speaker 1: I know what's going on, and I would just be
- 34:45Speaker 1: blown away if it turned out that one in ten
- 34:47Speaker 1: people were in a polyamorous relationship and and just managed
- 34:51Speaker 1: to keep it secret that much secrecy is a big
- 34:55Speaker 1: part of this. And that's not to say that shame
- 34:57Speaker 1: is a part of a polyamorous relationship, but secrecy is
- 35:02Speaker 1: just out of necessity a um, a pretty big aspect
- 35:07Speaker 1: of polyamorous relationships, mainly because, like we said, it's in
- 35:11Speaker 1: stark contrast to social values, and if you've got a kid,
- 35:15Speaker 1: you're at risk of having your kid taken away. Yeah. Plus,
- 35:19Speaker 1: I mean you'd spend half your life explaining this to everybody,
- 35:22Speaker 1: you know. Um, there was the one case and uh,
- 35:24Speaker 1: and I couldn't find up any follow up about this
- 35:27Speaker 1: young woman, but April what's her last name? Yeah, she
- 35:33Speaker 1: was on the MTV show in the late nineties and
- 35:35Speaker 1: had a child and had two men in her life,
- 35:39Speaker 1: a triad, and everyone was happy. The kid was healthy
- 35:43Speaker 1: and happy and everything was great. And the grandmother sued
- 35:48Speaker 1: for custody and one it because the court basically made
- 35:51Speaker 1: a moral judgment. So this is a depraved lifestyle. And
- 35:56Speaker 1: this is in spite of the fact that the court
- 35:58Speaker 1: sent its own shrinks to go evaluate the home and
- 36:02Speaker 1: the family and didn't find that the kids were any
- 36:05Speaker 1: in anything but a loving, supporting home and we're happy
- 36:08Speaker 1: and healthy. Uh. Still it didn't matter because it was
- 36:12Speaker 1: she was living a depraved lifestyle. So she lost her kid. Um.
- 36:15Speaker 1: I can imagine that in almost any state in the Union,
- 36:20Speaker 1: you would be at great risk of losing your kid
- 36:23Speaker 1: if you came out as a polyamorous family. It's one
- 36:26Speaker 1: thing I think as far as society goes to be like, Okay,
- 36:30Speaker 1: you guys, just go do your own thing. Whatever floats
- 36:33Speaker 1: your boat, that's fine, keep it out of our faces,
- 36:36Speaker 1: keep your your little polyamorous lifestyle quiet. But if it
- 36:40Speaker 1: turns out that there's kids that are being brought into that,
- 36:44Speaker 1: like either they already existed or you're having kids with
- 36:47Speaker 1: multiple partners in this polyamorous relationship, I think society's threshold
- 36:52Speaker 1: for understanding and looking the other way really reaches an
- 36:56Speaker 1: end for better for worse. Right. Um, So, I think
- 37:00Speaker 1: there is a real threat, and there's there's a real
- 37:02Speaker 1: threat still in part because there's very little scholarship on
- 37:06Speaker 1: the impact that a polyamorous upbringing has on children. No
- 37:11Speaker 1: no one knows. Polyamorous will say, look, dude, you have
- 37:15Speaker 1: no idea how much our child is loved. My wife
- 37:20Speaker 1: loves our kid. I love our kid. Our wife loves
- 37:23Speaker 1: our kid. So not only does our kid get to
- 37:25Speaker 1: like be raised by two loving parents, our kid gets
- 37:28Speaker 1: to be raised by three loving parents equally. Um, there's
- 37:31Speaker 1: more of a division of labor. Uh it's it's just
- 37:34Speaker 1: the kids great. And on the other side you'll find
- 37:39Speaker 1: blog posts by people who are authorities on the other
- 37:42Speaker 1: side saying no, there's just no way because you're you're
- 37:46Speaker 1: at risk of a divorce. But it's a nontraditional divorce,
- 37:49Speaker 1: whereas under a normal divorce we have a social structure
- 37:51Speaker 1: to support kids who are going through that. With this,
- 37:54Speaker 1: it's like that doesn't make any sense, and the kid's
- 37:56Speaker 1: gonna be have all sorts of issues. And then if
- 37:59Speaker 1: you don't your kid while you're raising them, when they
- 38:01Speaker 1: get to college and figure out what was going on,
- 38:03Speaker 1: they're not gonna trust you any longer. Like, but none
- 38:06Speaker 1: of this, almost none of it is based on studies.
- 38:10Speaker 1: It's all just moral judgments one way or the other. Yeah,
- 38:14Speaker 1: I think it's pretty funny. That's I bet the same
- 38:16Speaker 1: people that I don't think a child should be raised
- 38:19Speaker 1: by a single parent also probably think three or more.
- 38:23Speaker 1: They're like just two, not one, not three or four? Five?
- 38:27Speaker 1: Two is perfect? Uh So, who are polyamorous um. Elizabeth
- 38:33Speaker 1: Chef as a sociologist who's done a lot of interviewing,
- 38:36Speaker 1: and she finds generally they are in their thirties, forties
- 38:39Speaker 1: and fifties, generally white and liberal and educated, many of
- 38:45Speaker 1: them highly educated master's degrees to the tune of like
- 38:50Speaker 1: compared to eight percent forty percent master's degrees. Yeah, that's
- 38:53Speaker 1: what I saw, compared to eight percent in the general population.
- 38:57Speaker 1: And she says, rarely are they religious. When they do,
- 39:00Speaker 1: it's usually paganism or Unitarian universalism. Apparently there's a lot
- 39:04Speaker 1: of overlap with the b D s M and cosplay communities.
- 39:09Speaker 1: And here's another term, hunting the unicorn. Did you come
- 39:12Speaker 1: across that? No, I didn't. I'm disappointed in myself. That
- 39:15Speaker 1: is um. She said that a lot of couples are
- 39:18Speaker 1: introduced or interested in polyamory by start looking for a
- 39:24Speaker 1: woman bisexual women to enter their relationship. So I want
- 39:29Speaker 1: to try ad, I want two women. The woman's like
- 39:32Speaker 1: I would like a woman as well, and so let's
- 39:34Speaker 1: go out and find that. That's that's called hunting the unicorn.
- 39:38Speaker 1: What else I got nothing else? I mean, I did
- 39:42Speaker 1: look up a little bit of the history of this
- 39:44Speaker 1: kind of thing, and it's there was Have you ever
- 39:47Speaker 1: heard of the Oneida Commune? Yeah, I think we touched
- 39:51Speaker 1: upon the communism. Oh really, I think so? Well they were.
- 39:58Speaker 1: It sounds like a cult, but um, it's super interesting
- 40:01Speaker 1: because it was in the eighteen forties in upstate New
- 40:04Speaker 1: York and not in New York where you usually don't
- 40:07Speaker 1: in the eighteen forties here about things like um, free
- 40:11Speaker 1: sex and polyamory. But that's exactly what was going on there.
- 40:14Speaker 1: A lawyer named John Humphrey noise Uh basically started a
- 40:19Speaker 1: free love commune in the eighteen forties in New York,
- 40:23Speaker 1: and by some accounts, it was a very um feminist
- 40:26Speaker 1: group because women were encouraged to only have sex when
- 40:30Speaker 1: they wanted to, which you know, in the eighteen forties
- 40:33Speaker 1: that wasn't the norm um. But it was also, as
- 40:36Speaker 1: it turned out, not so great in many ways because
- 40:39Speaker 1: they like had sex with teenagers. And the more I
- 40:43Speaker 1: read about it, at first it sounded like this commune,
- 40:45Speaker 1: and then ten minutes later I was like, no, this
- 40:47Speaker 1: was a cult and it had religious undertones. And the
- 40:51Speaker 1: weirdest thing out of all is Oneita silverware that is
- 40:54Speaker 1: still popular today. It was formed from that commune. I
- 40:58Speaker 1: remember hearing it as like some sort of cautionary tail
- 41:01Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah, and there was only like three hundred
- 41:04Speaker 1: of them, but apparently they I think it was all
- 41:06Speaker 1: about having lots of kids to keep that commune going
- 41:12Speaker 1: was the main reason. But they did not encourage monogamy
- 41:16Speaker 1: at all. They they shunned it. If you were caught,
- 41:19Speaker 1: like really rooting down with one person, they were like, no, no, no, no, no,
- 41:22Speaker 1: no no, you can't do that. Go off and have
- 41:25Speaker 1: sex with someone else right now. Pities in order basically
- 41:30Speaker 1: get your head together. Yeah, I'm sure there's a documentary
- 41:33Speaker 1: on that clan. They'll be interesting. Uh. If you want
- 41:37Speaker 1: to know more about polyamory and other alternative lifestyles, you
- 41:41Speaker 1: can search those in the search part how stuff works
- 41:43Speaker 1: dot com. And uh, since I said search parts, time
- 41:47Speaker 1: for a listener mail. Here's more on T. Hey guys,
- 41:53Speaker 1: listen to T and a massive tea connoisseur for the
- 41:55Speaker 1: last seven years. I was really impressed. I expected to
- 41:57Speaker 1: listen and pick out a bunch of little mistakes, but
- 42:00Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised. However, you guys did leave out
- 42:03Speaker 1: but one, No, I don't think so. Aaron, sounds like
- 42:08Speaker 1: a nice dude. Um, you left out one major category
- 42:11Speaker 1: of T though, and it's spelled pu dash e r
- 42:14Speaker 1: h pu air. That's what I'm gonna say, he said.
- 42:18Speaker 1: It's probably the most unique t out of the six types.
- 42:20Speaker 1: Home to the Union Province of China. There's only t
- 42:25Speaker 1: to be fermented, not oxidized. What this means is that
- 42:29Speaker 1: pe air is and I know that's wrong, is able
- 42:33Speaker 1: to be aged for years and years and taste better
- 42:36Speaker 1: as it ages, just like wine. And some pure air
- 42:39Speaker 1: on the market that several decades old goes for thousands
- 42:42Speaker 1: of dollars per disc disc. Yes disc. Traditionally, purere is
- 42:46Speaker 1: stone pressed into a disc form called a being cha
- 42:50Speaker 1: and is sold um in that disc form, and it
- 42:54Speaker 1: has a forced floor flavor and has brooded about two
- 42:58Speaker 1: five to two and ten degrees fahrenheit. I gotta try
- 43:01Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, it sounds good. Um, he said. I
- 43:03Speaker 1: could go on and on, but that suggests a great
- 43:05Speaker 1: job overall, guys, And now it's tough to fit it all.
- 43:07Speaker 1: One episode could easily be its own college class with
- 43:11Speaker 1: all the cultural history behind it. Take care. And that
- 43:14Speaker 1: is from Aaron Krauss, who's developer at the Society dot org.
- 43:20Speaker 1: That is t h E S O c I E
- 43:22Speaker 1: t e A dot org. Thanks a lot, Aaron and
- 43:26Speaker 1: your cohorts at the Society. Sounds neat. Uh. It sounds
- 43:31Speaker 1: like the one needed call mm hmm yeah like it?
- 43:35Speaker 1: Okay uh. If you want to get in touch with us,
- 43:38Speaker 1: you can let's see what can you do? Chuck tweet
- 43:41Speaker 1: to us yeah s y s K podcast. You can
- 43:44Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
- 43:47Speaker 1: You can send us an email to stuff Podcast at
- 43:49Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, and as always, join us
- 43:52Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you should Know
- 43:54Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
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