Author Spotlight
Greyson Imm
It was third grade when sophomore Ash Hattrup knew.
During an overnight school trip, Hattrup and her two friends stayed up and sat on the floor playing board games and talking when the topic of crushes naturally came up in conversation.
“Do you like anyone?”
It was a simple question. So why was she confused? Glancing between her friends, Ash realized she had a crush on both. And she wanted to be in a relationship. With both.
“I didn’t want to just date one of them; I wanted to date both of them,” Hattrup said. “A bit later, I learned that that wasn’t a really weird thing.”
Later, after Hattrup further researched polyamory — romantic relationships with multiple partners involved — and immediately identified with the label.
Despite composing roughly 1-2% of East’s student population according to an Instagram poll of 185 East students, Hattrup and other polyamorous students believe that there is a lack of awareness of their community’s presence at school which leads to its stigmatization and association with negative stereotypes.
“I think that most [students] don’t even know that there are people at East that are poly, but for the ones that do, [polyamory] has a negative connotation,” polyamorous student and sophomore MK Hughes said.
Polyamory is how Hattrup, Hughes and 15 or so other self-identified East students love — and they’re proud of it.
Senior Jeanne Özkan feels fulfilled and affirmed in polyamorous relationships because it allows each person to bring in their own strengths and complement each other. During a previous relationship, she’d go out to the park and have picnics with one of her partners, then stay in for a movie night with another.
“I don’t need to find someone who fulfills everything that I need from a relationship,” Özkan said. “I just need to find people who can fulfill what they do, and then if it’s not everything, then I can find someone else who fulfills those other things.”
Polyamory is a broad term defined by the individuals that identify with it. Özkan has been in polycules — polyamorous relationships with multiple partners that can have a variety of dynamics — with several partners over the last few years. She is now happily in a “v-shaped” or “vee” triad, where her partner is dating both Özkan and another partner, whom Özkan is not dating. She explains it as a “hinge-shaped” dynamic.
The commonality in all polyamorous relationships despite their unique dynamics is feeling comfortable in multi-partner relationships, according to both Özkan and polyamorous senior Kurt Freeman. It’s just like enjoying common interests with your partner, they say.
“It’s just kind of euphoric, seeing someone you love happy, and someone else who makes that person happy,” Freeman said. “It’s like liking the same song.”
Polyamory is on the rise in younger generations, according to YouGov polls. In a January 2020 survey of more than 1,300 U.S. adults, 56% say that their ideal relationship is completely monogamous compared to a previous 61% in September 2016. Generationally, 56% of millennials say they wouldn’t be comfortable if their partner wanted to have a polyamorous relationship, compared to 69% of Generation X and 74% of Baby Boomers who say they wouldn’t be OK with this under any circumstances. In summary, generations are becoming increasingly accepting of polyamory.
Still, polyamory remains a taboo subject with little legal protections for its community, according to Brett Chamberlin, the non-monogamous co-founder and executive director of Bay Area-based polyamory rights nonprofit, OPEN.
Chamberlin says that as an openly polyamorous person, he frequently hears stories from friends and colleagues whose family members disowned them on account of their polyamorous lifestyle. He’s seen people hide their non-monogamous relationships for years from employers and potential to avoid losing yet another job for something that doesn’t affect their work in the slightest.
“Harm and stigmatization persist,” Chamberlin said. “It causes higher rates of anxiety and depression for people and can be compounding.”
As “relationship structure” is not a workplace-discrimination-protected status, it’s completely legal for employers to fire or discriminate against employees for being polyamorous, and even writing anti-polyamorous policies in workplace codes of conduct, according to Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition. Additionally, polyamorous people also face housing discrimination, inequitable access to health insurance and citizenship access, according to Harvard Law Today.
“The goal is to create a world that isn’t subject to social stigma or institutional discrimination,” Chamberlin said. We’re hoping to accomplish this by passing bills to protect people, and also just helping to create more media and visibility in which all relationships between consenting adults are accepted and protected.”
Though polyamorous students at East don’t deal with housing, workplace or healthcare struggles, they still are subject to anti-polyamorous rhetoric.
“Weird.” “Gross.” These are both comments polyamorous student and sophomore Mimi Suptic has heard in the hallways. Suptic is thankful that their family has been supportive since coming out, but wishes classmates wouldn’t be so quick to judge.
“A lot of people outside of the community view it as really weird, and I find a lot of people being so [quick] to judge,” Suptic said. “Last year, my friend group had a polycule. A lot of people outside of the friend group didn’t really know much about it or understand, and so there were a lot of untrue rumors spread.”
Suptic has heard classmates referring to polyamorous relationships as an “easy way to cheat on their partner.” Özkan is often reminded on social media of the untrue misconception that polyamory is just based on sex. And Hattrup recalls classmates saying that polyamorous people never get jealous. They all feel that lack of awareness and education surrounding polyamorous people drive these stereotypes.
These students want monogamous people to know that, no, polyamorous people are not driven to this relationship style by a desire to cheat or sleep around, and instead polyamory is all about love — Özkan herself is asexual. And, yes, even polyamorous people get jealous — the same as any other relationship style.
Misconceptions like these discourage people from coming out, make openly polyamorous people feel uncomfortable and damage existing relationships, according to Hattrup.
“It makes people who are still figuring themselves out feel like it’s wrong,” Hattrup said. “I know two of my friends used to date and they were dating someone else and people would constantly ask, ‘Hey, are you cheating on her?’ or tell one of them ‘Your boyfriend’s cheating on you.’ Those types of comments can really hurt a relationship.”
Shifting the narrative from these false notions requires cooperation and communication between polyamorous and monogamous people, according to Kristian Einstman, founder of the 30,000-member international polyamorous rights organization PolyamProud.
Einstman said that his activism stems from the ostracization he faced from a family member after coming out as polyamorous. The organization shares polyamorous education via social media and even redesigned and voted on a new pride flag to best unite non-monogomous people.
“Misunderstandings and unkind things that are said about non-monogamy and polyamory are rooted in this idea that others believe that it’s wrong and that it’s their job to tell you it’s wrong,” Einstman said. “But it’s not wrong. And more than that, it’s not their job, and more than that, my relationships don’t affect them in any way.”
On a societal scale, Chamberlin is combatting these problems by organizing in-person and social media-based educational campaigns. He supports grassroots leaders advancing non-discrimination legislation.
“Utimately, we believe that in just helping people open up about [polyamory] by creating more education within the broader culture, less [people will be] exposed to stigma, discrimination and they can have greater access to community,” Chamberlin said. “The bigger picture is part of the broader push towards a world where we can kind of relate to one another a little bit.”
This mission isn’t exclusive to Chamberlin’s circles. Polyamorous East students aim to incorporate these same ideals in school by fostering honest and open conversations about polyamory and being authentic about how they love. To make East a more accepting place, Özkan has built a community of people that accept her by surrounding herself with supportive friends.
“East, for me at least, has been a really accepting community,” Özkan said. “I know that there’s a large part that’s not, but I have stayed away from that, and I’ve made my own community of people.”
To invoke this cultural change, both she and Hattrup say that education and awareness on these issues are essential. Understanding polyamory and what students face in a monogamous-normative environment, they say, fosters mutual respect in all students of various identities.
“With anything you don’t understand, you’re geared to be judgmental towards it at first,” Hattrup said. “Understanding the entirety of [polyamory] usually changes your mind.”
Freeman asks students to research polyamory online and through social media. Ask non-invasive questions to polyamorous classmates. Build relationships in the community. This is how East can create a supportive and productive environment of monogamous and polyamorous students, he said.
“All you have to do is a quick Google search and you’ll come to find that it’s not the malicious thing that some people seem to make it out to be, and that it really is a pretty beautiful community,” Freeman said.
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