Poly Economics

Poly Economics—Capitalism, Class, and Polyamory
Author(s): Christian Klesse

Source: International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 27, No. 2 (June, 2014),
pp. 203-220
Published by: Springer
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Int J Polit Cult Soc (2014) 27:203-220
DOI 10.1007/s 10767-013-9157-4
Poly Economics—Capitalism, Class, and Polyamory
Christian Klesse
Published online: 12 October 2013

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Academic research and popular writing on nonmonogamy and polyamory has so
far paid insufficient attention to class divisions and questions of political economy. This is
striking since research indicates the significance of class and race privilege within many
polyamorous communities. This structure of privilege is mirrored in the exclusivist con
struction of these communities. The article aims to fill the gap created by the silence on class
by suggesting a research agenda which is attentive to class and socioeconomic inequality.
The paper addresses relevant research questions in the areas of intimacy and care, household
formation, and spaces and institutions and advances an intersectional perspective which
incorporates class as nondispensable core category. The author suggests that critical research
in the field can stimulate critical self-reflexive practice on the level of community relations
and activism. He further points to the critical relevance of Marxist and Postmarxist theories
as important resources for the study of polyamory and calls for the study of the contradic
tions within poly culture from a materialist point of view.
Keywords Polyamory • Nonmonogamy • Intimacy • Households • Class • Capitalism
Over recent years, polyamory has received a significant amount of attention in mainstream
media, popular psychology and social science literature. Sheff and Hammers (2011, p. 201)
describe polyamory as "a form of association in which people openly maintain multiple
romantic, sexual and/or affective relationships". For a long time, the term was only used among
small circles of people, who took an interest in countercultural debates on consensual
nonmonogamy. This situation has changed in the face of community building and campaigning
work by activists and the popularisation of the concept in mass-marketed pop-psychological
relationship manuals (Klesse 2007). Mainstream media accounts often stereotype polyamorists
as delusional and narcissistic, but positive representations are no longer exceptions (Ritchie
2010; Ritchie and Barker 2006). Although polyamory is still an under-researched topic, there
has been a steady growth of research, which took off with the publication of several pioneering
texts by activists and activists/scholars in the 1990s and gained momentum in the early-mid
2000s (Barker and Langdridge 2011). The common lack of engagement with power relations is
a striking feature of the emerging polyamory debate across the genres of self-help, activist, and
C. Klesse (SI)
Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamond
Street West, Manchester Ml5 6LL, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
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204 Klesse
academic literature (Haritaworn et al. 2006). Contemporary writing on nonmonogamy often fails
to deploy overarching frameworks of political analysis which go beyond narrowly defined identity
political concerns. This maries them as distinct from the wider political agenda of antimonogamy
arguments advanced in the 1960s and 1970s within feminism, gay liberation and anticapitalist
countercultural movements (Jackson and Scott 2004). Over recent years, only a handful of texts
have engaged with the social divisions and exclusive dynamics bound up with polyamory
(Haritaworn et al. 2006; Klesse 2007; Noël 2006; Rambukkana 2010,2013; Sheff and Hammers
2011; Willey 2006, 2010). More systematic discussions from the angle of political economy are
still outstanding. This article begins to fill this gap by applying Marxist and materialist feminist,
Black feminist and queer of colour critiques to the study of polyamory. My primary task here is to
sketch an agenda for future polyamory research from class and political economy perspectives.
The article is organised as follows: In the first part, I detail major characteristics of
polyamory as an intimate practice. In a review of the literature on polyamory, I show that poly
communities tend to reproduce a culture of multiple privileges, namely around class and
race/ethnicity. In the second part of the article, I present an outline for a class-focused research
agenda around the following three areas: intimacy and care, household formation, and spaces
and institutions. I conclude by arguing that the socioeconomic inequalities that are prevalent in
polyamorous communities can only ever be challenged effectively, if the ambivalent position of
polyamory with regard to the cultural dynamics of neoliberal capitalism are fully understood.
Revolutionary Love or a Culture of Privilege? Background and Literature Review
For many people, polyamory functions as an umbrella term for all "ethical forms of non
monogamy" (Lano and Parry 1995). Polyamory endorses the values of shared knowledge,
commitment, integrity and consent (Emens 2004). According to The Oxford English Dic
tionary, polyamory consists of "the custom or practice of engaging in multiple sexual
relationships with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned" (Polyamory
2007). In reality, of course, consent is contingent and always compromised by power
imbalances between partners (Klesse 2007). The same applies to other values, which are
salient in the philosophy of polyamory. Some authors suggest that feminist values of
egalitarianism have shaped polyamory as a discourse (Ritchie and Barker 2007; Klesse
2010). It is a core principle of polyamory that both men and women can enter multiple
partnerships, which distinguishes it from (patriarchal) polygyny, the most common practice
of polygamy worldwide (ShefF2005). Some authors consider potential overlaps between the
categories, for example in cases in which all partners in a polygamous relational setting
adhere to the values associated with polyamory (Emens 2004). Yet others point out that
polyamory designates not only a way of life, but also a distinctive social or erotic identity.
This is why they think the term should only be applied to people who self-identify in this
particular way (Tweedy 2011).' The verbal commitment to gender neutrality does not mean
' Christian polygynists in the USA and Canada usually distinguish their agenda from that of polyamory
communities. The latter, too, tend to emphasise differences between the approaches (Stacey and Meadow
2009). However, in comments to the debate on legal marriage reform, conservative journalists have frequently
conflated the concepts. The most common argument is that the legislation of same-sex marriage will lead—in
a slippery slope—to the cultural acceptance of multiple marriage of both polyamorous and polygynous kinds.
If same-sex marriage has not yet done it already, this will finally undermine the traditional values of marriage
(see, for example, Kurtz 2005; for a similar argument in a different context, see Duncan 2010). In many cases,
these arguments are presented with an explicitly racist slant, conjuring up the spectre of hyperpatriarchal
Muslim polygyny at the heart of a nation defined as Christian (Denike 2010; Ratnbukkana 2013).
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Poly Economics-Capitalism, Class, and Polyamory 205
that poly communities (and poly intimacies) are not profoundly troubled by gender inequal
ities in practice. The following problems are addressed in research publications: the sexual
objectification of women by men, men's refusal to engage in emotional labour or to
contribute a fair share to domestic labour, including child care (Klesse 2005, 2007; Sheff
2005, 2006). As Wilkins (2004) has shown in her study of nonmonogamy in USA Goth
culture, such contradictions are rendered invisible, if the definition of feminism is limited to
a concern with women's sexual emancipation only.
For Munson and Stelboum (1999b, p. 2), polyamory "includes many different styles of
multiple intimate involvements, such as polyfidelity, or group marriage; primary relation
ships, open to secondary affairs; and casual sexual involvements with two and more people".
The terminology of primary, secondary or tertiary relationships is commonly used to mark
differences between relationships in more complex relational networks in terms of prece
dence, intensity, or commitment. Geometrical shapes or letters are used to denote the
numbers of partners involved in certain constellations and the emotional or erotic dynamics
among them. Examples include the terms triangle or quad for multi-partner relationships in
which all people are closely involved with one another, or V, Y, Z, W or X for multi-partner
relationships, in which only some people in the group share a mutual connection (Benson
2008, pp. 48-49).
Polyamory stands for a patterned multiplicity and research indicates that rule-based
prioritisation (e.g. around primary/ secondary partner distinctions) is quite common (Klesse
2007). Wosik-Correa (2010) refers to this tendency of containment as "agentic fidelity" and
Finn (2010), as "dyadic commitment". Many multi-partner relationships raise children, a fact
which adds to the complexity of polyamorous relationship or family networks (Pallotta
Chiarolli 2010; Sheff 2010). Polyamorous parenting practices frequently transcend biolog
ical kinship ties and are prime examples of the "chosen families" phenomenon (Weston
1991). Yet as Emens (2004, p. 306) reminds us, the above-mentioned typologies can never
exhaustively represent polyamory: "[BJecause the number of people in poly relationships
has no theoretical limit, the models of poly relationships are also theoretically limitless".
Rigid typologies are therefore not helpful in this context.
Multiple Significations: Sexualities, Emotions, Politics, and Identities
Defining polyamory as responsible nonmonogamy implies that polyamorous relationships

are of an erotic or sexual nature (Munson and Stelboum 1999b, p. 1). However, not
everybody agrees on this point. It is not uncommon to encounter the argument that
nonsexual relationships, too, can be polyamorous (Scherrer 2010). Ertman (2005, p. 487)
discusses the following scenario: "[I]f a lesbian couple has a child by alternative insemina
tion, using a gay man as a known donor to the father of the child, and the donor remains
involved in the child's life, I see the arrangement as polyamorous". Ertman then expands her
argument to also include relationships in which none of the participants has an erotic
connection with others in the network on the condition that "there is some requisite level
of intimacy associated with organizing lives together" (2005, p. 488). Moreover, the special
value placed on friendship in poly culture means that nonparenting and nondomestic
(nonsexual) relationships, too, can be construed as poly relationships.
The relative significance of love and sex in the definition of polyamory has been subject
to ongoing debates within polyamorous circles (Klesse 2006). Some see the predominance
of love in polyamory as instantiation of a regressive "poly romanticism" (Wilkinson 2010).
Polyamory reworks at least some key elements of late 20th century romantic love discourses.
There are also highly politicised discourses on poly love, such as, for example, its stylisation
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206 Klesse
as site for a bi/ queer contestation of heteronormativity (Anderlini-D'Onofrio 2009); an eco

revolutionary force of evolution (Heddle 1999); an anarchist subversion of identity catego
ries (Heckert 2010); or a nodal point for the development of environmentally sustainable
forms of life and anticapitalist politics (Wilkinson 2010). Polyamory has also been invested
with hopes for spiritual growth and the promise of self-actualisation and mutual empower
ment (Anapol 1997; Anderlini-D'Onofrio 2009).
Ertman's (2005) reference to lesbian and gay identities in the quotation above indicates
that polyamory can transcend heterosexual paradigms. Consensual nonmonogamous prac
tice is quite common in lesbian, gay male and bisexual (lesbigay)2 and certain transgender or
gender-queer cultures (Adam 2010; Anderlini-D'Onofrio 2004; Bauer 2010; Klesse 2007;
Munson and Stelboum 1999a). Yet polyamory is not confined to any particular sexual
identity category in terms of gendered object choice. Many poly-identified people are
heterosexual and many poly communities are predominantly heterosexual in composition
(Sheff 2011). Polyamory communities have sprung up in many localities in the USA,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. In the USA, the polyamory movement has
achieved a high degree of organisation (Anapol 2010; Aviram 2010). In many European
countries, processes of community formation are well on the way (Klesse 2011).
Research into polyamory has mostly drawn a rather homogeneous picture of polyamory
networks or communities (Klesse 2007; Ritchie and Barker 2007; Wosik-Correa 2010).
Sheff and Hammers' (2011) review of 36 research studies into polyamory and BDSM
shows that most of them present research samples composed of predominantly white
subjects holding above-average educational qualifications and occupying advanced socio
economic positions. Sheffs own extensive qualitative research into USA polyamory com
munities is illustrative of this trend. Sheff conducted two interconnected studies (Gender,
Family and Sexuality: Exploring Polyamorous Communities; 1996-2003; 40 in depth
interviews and the Polyamorous Families Study, 2007-present, an additional 41 partici
pants). 89 % of the interviewees identified as white; 74 % held professional jobs; 88 % had
some university education; 67 % held a Bachelors degree; and 21 % were currently
completing graduate degrees. Her Overlapping Identities Study conducted in 2005 sampled
64 respondents who identified as polyamorists, swingers or fetishists. In this study, 90 % of
the participants were white and 95 % had completed or were enrolled on an undergraduate
degree. Weber's survey (2002) for the Loving More Magazine mirrors this trend. This survey
was completed by 1000 respondents in the USA, who were recruited through a chain-referral
sampling method, 40 % of all participants had a postgraduate or graduate university degree,
30 % a college degree, 26 % had attended some college and 4 % had a high school diploma
or lower qualifications (2002, p. 4).4 Weber also points out that poly households have
higher income levels than the general population. In the 36 studies reviewed by Sheff and
Hammers (2011), people of colour make up between zero and 4 % of the respective research
samples.
Class and Race Privileges
There are a variety of possible explanations for the consistent reproduction of such homo
geneous depictions of polyamory communities. Sheff and Hammers (2011) deplore a
widespread lack of concern of many researchers with race, class, age, and disability as
2 The term lesbigay is used for example by Carrington (1999) and Sheff (2011).
' BDSM stands for Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission and Sadomasochism.
4 These are the degree categories used in Weber's (2002) survey.
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"demographic factors" and instantiations of power relations. Even those who make an effort
to recruit research participants from within subordinated groups often find that difficult
because of a widespread scepticism among minoritised communities towards social research
which has stereotyped and misrepresented their concerns (Klesse 2007; Phoenix 1994).
Other explanations derive not from scrutinising research culture, but poly and BDSM
communities. Researchers and activists have complained about the racial exclusivity of
many poly, BDSM, and other sexual dissident communities in European and North Amer
ican research (Butler et al. 2010; Haritawom et al. 2006). As I have argued elsewhere
(Klesse 2012), the endorsement of reflexivity, relationship talk, the rationalisation of emo
tions and carefully scripted negotiation in polyamory favours particular modes of habitus,
which are much more prevalent in middle class cultures (see Skeggs 2004). This, too,
reinforces class divisions.
Further explanations can be identified in the effects of the legacies of classed and
racialised politics of respectability. Bourgeois nationalism construed monogamy and sexual
respectability as the civilisational achievement of white Christians of European descent and
the prerequisite of the higher classes (Mosse 1985). This went hand in hand with the
denunciation of Black people and other ethnic or religious groups as oversexed and lacking
of sound ethical standards (Bhattacharyya 1998). Stereotypical representations of the work
ing classes stripped them, too, of the privilege of the status of respectability. Skeggs' (1997)
UK research shows how the confluence of sexist and classist discourses on lewdness impose
a regime of tight control with regard to young working class women's sexual behaviours and
erotic subjectivity. Notions of respectability and targeted promiscuity allegations have been
central to the histories of racism and the reproduction of class power. Black people (and
other racialised groups) and working class people are likely to be exposed to grave
stigmatisation if they publicly assume nonmonogamous identities. This underscores the
constitution of polyamoiy (and other nonmonogamous identities) as a site of privilege.
The complex interconnection between race and class privileges in education and the labour
market further explains the close correspondence of class and race based exclusions.5
Polyamorous people's lives are at odds with the conventions of compulsory monogamy.
As a result of this, they may face stigmatisation and discrimination. Some are shunned by
their families or peer groups, bullied at work or in school, or have custody rights for their
children contested (Emens 2004; Pallotta-Chiarolli 2010; Sheff 2005). Yet 1 agree with
Rambukkana (2013) that many poly people, too, hold privileges. Rambukkana defines
privilege "as a systematic relationship where one individual or group monopolizes some
resources to the detriment of other individuals or groups". Through the control of resources,
privileges establish relations of power across various territories, ranging "from the concrete
ly material (such as food, water, fuel, or land); to the social and cultural (such as employ
ment, opportunity for advancement, respectability, wealth, ability to walk the streets at
nights, ability to run for or hold high office); to the conceptual (such as 'rightness',
'norrnalness', 'naturalness', 'goodness', 'wholeness')" (2013). Rambukkana adds that priv
ileges always operate against the backdrop of structural forms of oppression, such as sexism,
racism or capitalism. This is why class perspectives and a concern with the "simultaneity of
5 Hall suggests that race and class need to be examined in their interconnections, but rightly assumes the
relative autonomy of each division: "combined and uneven relations between class and race are historically
more pertinent than their simple correspondence" (1980, p. 339). Yet he insists that race is the "modality in
which class is 'lived,' the medium through which class relations are experienced, the form in which it is
appropriated and 'fought through"" (p. 342).
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208 Klesse
interlocking systems of oppression" (Combahee River Collective 1979) are vitally important
for the study of polyamory.
In the context of polyamory, privilege is a pressing issue on various accounts: (a) the
structural exclusivity of poly communities in terms of class and race, (b) the marginalisation
of certain groups within poly communities and (c) the difficulties of intersubjectively
negotiating power differentials within crossclass or crossracial intimacies. The latter two
issues are important, because even if poly communities are predominantly white, highly
educated and middle class, they are not necessarily exclusively so. Tensions regarding class
and racial/ethnic differences thus do occur within polyamorous communities and relation
ships (see Klesse 2007; Sheff2006).
Polyamorous communities will only be able to measure up to their self-set expectation to
advance "egalitarian" routes to intimacy and eroticism, if the culture of privilege which
underpins current poly relationship and community practices is fully understood. I believe
that social research can play an important role in assisting and sustaining practices of critical
self-reflection within social movements and countercultural settings. This is why I present an
agenda for future research into polyamory which is attentive to questions around class and
economy in the remainder of the article. I focus on the three core themes of intimacy and
care, household formation, and spaces and institutions, and show how class perspectives are
vital for understanding how social divisions shape polyamorous people's lives.
Intimacy and Care
Research concerned with power relations has frequently looked at how access to and control
of resources impacts on decision making in relationships. Resource theory was first applied
to the study of married (Blood and Wolfe 1960) and later nonmarried cohabiting heterosex
ual couples (see Felmlee 1994). Relationship research, which has paid attention to class has
often looked at differences in earning as a source for "differential defining power" (Peplau
et al. 1997). Weeks et al. (2001) adopted this term in their research into same-sex relation
ships in the UK to understand how differential access to economic resources may impact the
power balance between partners to bring about certain decisions. They expanded the concept
to include a consideration of social capital in Bourdieu's (1986) sense, to take account of
"the extent to which individuals can access local or community knowledge and support" (pp.
117/18). Other work has argued that this kind of analysis should incorporate the whole range
of typologies of capital defined by Bourdieu (1986), in particular his notion of cultural
capital, because social capital is always mediated by cultural value attributions (Erel 2010).
The concept of "relationship defining power" is certainly helpful, but it has its drawbacks,
too. While it can be used to highlight material inequalities, it approaches these problems
primarily as a matter of negotiation and mutual decision making. The negotiation model has
sustained hegemonic liberal conceptualisations of relationship life in Euro American soci
eties under sign of "reflexive individualization" (Giddens 1992). This framework forecloses
the consideration of more radical dependencies, which may apply to situations in which
people do not have the chance to leave a relationship without abandoning their home, basic
care provision, or access to their children. Material dependency is translated into an
ultimately idealist understanding of intimate power as a matter of intersubjective psycho
logical power imbalance. While this interpretation is to a certain extent valid and legitimate,
it may be more adequate for some situations than for others.
I did use the concept "relationship defining power" myself in my study of gay male and
bisexual consensual nonmonogamies in the UK, to analyse the power asymmetry in a
polyamorous family which was about to purchase a house. In this situation, according to a
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partner who could not contribute to the mortgage, most important decisions regarding the
purchase, the distribution of living space, etc. were left to the ones with more financial
resources (Klesse 2007, pp. 125-127). Yet in this scenario, too, not only was the weight of
this partner's voice in the decision making process at stake, but also questions of property
ownership, which have an impact on future life prospects, in particular in case of separation.
Detailed research into the question of how class differences are articulated in polyamorous
relationships and families is urgently needed. Relevant research topics include financial and
spatial arrangements, income generation, property relations, division of labour, work and
care biographies, distribution of finances, consumption patterns, etc. In the following
section, I will discuss in particular the question of care work in more detail.
The organisation of care work and the division of labour between partners and family
members or within (or between) households has been an important focus of feminist research.
Marxist and materialist feminists have extended the analysis of the gendered division of labour
and the "feminization of care work" towards a wider theorisation of class relations and the mode
of production/reproduction nexus (Delphy and Leonard 1992; Ferguson 1988; Sargant 1981).
Antiracist feminists have further highlighted the exploitation of racialised female labour in the
(post)colonial organisation of labour in global capitalism (Anderson 2000; Gutiérrez Rodriguez
2010 and this volume). While writing on polyamorous parenting suggests that poly relation
ships and families can pool resources and share parenting and care responsibilities among
multiple adults (Emens 2004; Riggs 2010; Sheff 2010), it may still be of great importance for
some poly families to have access to professional child care services. Such services are usually
very costly (Jackson 2011). The outsourcing of domestic labour is a common prerequisite of
middle class families or relationships. Research into couple relations shows that domestic
workers are often employed to avoid conflicts regarding the division of domestic labour. The
record for egalitarian patterns of distribution of housework is poor within heterosexual relations
(Jamieson 1998). Studies of same-sex relationships suggest that only those who can afford
childcare or who draw on substantial out-of-home services (such as meals in restaurants,
laundries, etc.), come close to an egalitarian ideal (Carrington 1999). In many cases, one partner
specialises in homemaking, a decision which is usually driven by economic reasoning (respec
tive career chances, pension arrangements, etc.). The structural disadvantages of women and
Black people in the labour market (through, for example, differential pay and employment
discrimination) means that gender and race have to be considered as structural and structuring
factors here. Even if there tends to be an emphasis on equality (notably gender equality) in
polyamory discourse (Emens 2004, p. 25), it is not reasonable to assume that poly relations
address these problems any better than other intimacies (see Sheff 2005).
Feminist writing on gender relations in communes suggest that even projects which set
out with a decisively political vision of egalitarianism, tend to reproduce gender and class
divisions in their everyday lives (Glenk et al. 2010). Asymmetries include gendered differ
ences in the amount of time people spend on certain tasks, gendered differences in terms of
the consumption of certain goods, and class differences in terms of living standards once
people decide to leave a communal project, even where this was based on collective property
arrangements. Only on the basis of detailed research into the organisation of care work in
poly relationships and households can we understand the position of polyamory in the wider
"total organization of labour" (Glucksmann 2005).
Household Formation
Household models have been central for developing policies within transnational, national
and subnational bodies of governance. For example, the social policy provision of European
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210 Klesse
welfare states has traditionally been modelled upon a universalised heteronormative model
of the nuclear family (Carabine 1996; Cooper 1993). Many European societies have over the
last two decades witnessed statutory changes which signal a growing trend towards legal
recognition of same-sex relationships and families (Kollman 2009). In the UK, the intro
duction of a range of laws, including the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the Civil
Partnership Act 2004, the Equality Regulations (Sexual Orientation) and the Equality Act
2010, has resulted in a liberalisation and diversification of policy provisions and to an
incomplete and uneven institutionalisation of lesbian, gay and bisexual equality work across
various levels and sectors of government (Monro 2010). In the USA, same-sex marriage has
been recognised in several jurisdictions, although recognition of the federal level has been
blocked by the Defence of Marriage Act 1996, which has only recently been declared to be
unconstitutional in Supreme Court ruling in June 2013. The category sexual orientation
(usually referring to gay and lesbian and occasionally to bisexuality) has been included in
many workplace equality statutes in the USA (Tweedy 2011). However, the creation of such
laws does not guarantee that the development of policies and public opinion mirror their
liberal intention. The legal recognition of same-sex intimacies often coexists with high levels
of popular hostility towards LGBTQ people (Klesse 2007; Stacey and Meadow 2009)
Yet it is noteworthy that there have not yet been any remarkable legal provisions which
aim at safeguarding the recognition and equal treatment nonmonogamous or polyamorous
people, relationships or families (Emens 2004; Klesse 2013; Tweedy 2011).
Models of economic development which have driven the programmes of financial
institutions such as the World Bank have been criticised by feminist and queer scholars
for their implicitly heteronormative framing of family and gender relations (Bedford 2009,
2010). A unitary model of the nuclear family has shaped both the dominant model of "new
home economics" (based on a family unit in which women do unproductive care work and
men act as breadwinners and altruistic decision makers about family resources) (see Becker
1991) and its feminist critiques since the 1980s from within bargaining perspectives (which
envision partners and other family members as independent agents with different interests).
Standard accounts of development policies frequently use the terms "household", "fam
ily, "married couple" or "husband and wife" interchangeably. The fusion of the household
with heterosexuality results in the exclusion of transgender intimacies, same-sex desire and
homosocial bonds. It further renders it impossible to recognise the role of friends or
nonbiological kin in the production of care work and reproductive labour (Bergeron 2010,
see Roseneil 2004). The discussion so far reveals that governmental bodies (including
transnational institutions, national and local governments) operate with economic household
models derived from the image of the nuclear (heterosexual) couple based family.
The lack of consideration of alternative households and families leads to biased
strategising in planning which has negative implications among others for polyamorou
households. Housing is an important and obvious issue here. Suitable housing is a prer
uisite for the creation of larger poly households. Since landlords are not necessarily
sympathetic to polyamorous families, urban planning and social housing providers ar
usually not familiar with or prepared to engage with the housing needs of non couple bas
multiadult family formations. Moreover, bullying within neighbourhoods is a not unco
mon experience for poly families which is why suitable housing may present a significan
problem (Andersson 2007). Whereas poly families who have the resources to get a mo
gage, tend to find advice in guidebooks to polyamory (for example Benson 2008; Easton an
Liszt 1997), no consideration is usually given to the practical concerns of those who do no
have such resources. "Money makes everything easier" is the lapidary last comment of
housing advice page of the website Polyfamilies (How to Find Housing for the Poly Family
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2004). Having the financial assets to buy a home or to pay a certain amount of rent creates
options regarding the question of where to live. In a social context where geography is an
important mediator in class based value determination, and in which postcodes determine
access to schools, higher education institutions, etc. (mediated by classist and racist map
pings), housing turns into a significant factor regulating resource distribution (Byrne 2006;
Taylor 2007).
Queer friendliness is often stylised as the requisite of an enlightened middle class
cosmopolitanism, a fact which masks the fact that homophobia transcends class barriers
and that working class queers and queers of colour may get victimised in acts of antiqueer
violence, often shaped by dimensions of both classism and racism (Mason 2002). Yet as we
have seen above, claiming ownership of a jointly inhabited house also grants a significant
amount of power, which includes the act of power to eject a partner or ex partner from the
house, if a conflict happens to escalate.
Many people may not have any desire to live in the same home with their partner/s (or
any one of them). Others may find it easier to keep up with the conflicting demands of
multiple relationships, if not all partners live in the same space. Yet it is necessary to have
significant resources for travelling in order to keep long distance relations alive (Jackson
2011). Housing, household formation, and relationship or lifestyle contingent mobilities are
relevant themes for future class focused research into polyamories and consensual
nonmonogamies.
Badgett (2008) has argued that economists need to profoundly rethink their basic concepts,
including the household model, if they want to adequately theorise erotic diversity. "Making
lesbian, gay, and, bisexual people visible within economic theory requires more than forcing
them into standard economic conceptions of family based on gender differences alone" (p. 21).
She goes on to argue "that lesbian, gay and bisexual people do not emulate the heterosexual
marriage model when creating interpersonal relationships characterized by love, commitment,
sacrifice, and interdependence, in other words, in creating what we might commonly think of as
'family'" (p. 21). Badgett argues that even if same-sex couples may appear to be similar to
heterosexual couples at first sight (for example with regard to the nature of commitment and the
kind of emotional or physical intimacy), economic models derived from heterosexual house
holds (whether based on the premises of a single family utility or a bargaining dynamics) will
always fail to explain certain aspects of lesbigay household members' behaviours (p. 26).
Drawing boundaries around families based on assumptions regarding romantic love, erotic
activity, and/or legal relationship status further underestimates the scope of expansion of many
lesbigay families. According to Sheff (2011, p. 487), lesbigay (couple based) families do
converge with poly families to the extent that "[e]ach constructs chosen families from a mélange
of biolegal family members, lifelong friends, and/or current and former lovers". As 1 have
shown elsewhere (Klesse 2007), lesbigay and poly families are not mutually exclusive sets of
entities. Yet, due to their potentially quite complex structure, polyamorous multipartner families
are even more likely to display patterns too variable to be mapped through one dimensional
nuclear family household models.
Although detailed research into the household arrangements of poly families is still to be
carried out, existing ethnographic studies show that many poly families are families with
multiple incomes (Sheff 2011). Many publications on polyamory emphasise the common
practice of pooling resources, including income gained through wage labour of several
family members (Emens 2004; Sheff 2010). Benson (2008) discusses a variety of different
formal and pragmatic approaches which household members may adopt when dealing with
multiple incomes and multiple categories of expenditure (such as goods for individual or
collective consumption). Closer insight into the economic arrangements of poly families and
Springer
212 Kl esse
relationships is of high importance, if we want to gain an adequate understanding of the

power dynamics and structure of privileges within poly relationships.
The economic underpinning of the families of marginalised groups is often a powerful
theme in the misrepresentation of these groups in the public sphere. For example, the myth
of gay male affluence, which sustains powerful popular antigay sentiments has depicted gay
men and lesbians as hedonistic consumers through the DINKY (Double-Income-No Kids)
discourse, that is, as people who are well off without having any parental responsibilities
(Chasin 2000; Hardisty and Gluckman 1997).
Far from being reality, the representation of gay men and lesbians as an economically
privileged group has the effect of masking common employment discrimination against
lesbigay people and ignoring the practice of lesbigay parenting (Badgett 1997; Binnie 2009).
In the case of the stereotype of gay and lesbian affluence, popular resentment is primarily
mobilised on the grounds of class envy. Yet the denigration of particular familial and
relationship practices can also be stirred by resentments stemming from contempt and
disgust. Working class women who raise children out of wedlock and on their own are
frequently framed as promiscuous and cast as welfare scroungers (Reekie 1998). In the
USA, Black working class women in particular are stereotyped through the figure of the
"Welfare Queen" (Cohen 2001 ).
The conviction of Mick Philpott in the UK for killing six of his children in an arson attack
for which he was convicted for manslaughter (alongside with his wife Mairead and a friend,
Paul Mosely) in early April 2013, triggered intense media coverage and a public debate
about violence, class, benefit culture, illegitimacy and nonmonogamy. Mick Philpott had
been at the centre of media attention since the mid 2000s. An unemployed father of 18
children6 Philpott had lived for many years with his wife and an unmarried female partner
and several children. Before his unmarried partner, Lisa Willis, left their joint home with her
five children, 11 children had lived at the household. The family had become subject of
angry attacks in the tabloid media already in 2006 because they claimed child benefits and
had requested a larger council house. The Philpott case gained national notoriety in 2007
when Philpott appeared on the Jeremy Kyle show in 2007 to defend his way of life. Philpott
became a kind of anticelebrity, built up as a public enemy figure by conservative critics who
pointed to his case as a symbol for the alleged excesses of British welfare culture and the
fading of moral standards. Due to intense media coverage, it also became common knowl
edge that Philpott had been convicted of attempted murder of an ex partner as well as a
violent attack on her mother, and had been charged repeatedly for other acts of violence in
the past. There is evidence that he had a long history of domestic violence and of system
atically controlling, manipulating and abusing the women who were his intimate partners
(Mick Philpott jailed for life 2013). Yet when he was convicted for the death of his children,
who were killed as a result of a failed plan to frame his ex partner Lisa Willis for attempted
murder, in order to gain custody, there were few mentions of "domestic violence" (Neate
2013). At a moment, when the UK government was implementing harsh cuts to benefits,
media outrage about his deeds was channelled into targeted and histrionic attacks on the
welfare system. The Daily Mail run the headline: "Michael Philpott: a perfect parable for our
age: His story shows the pervasiveness of evil born out of welfare dependency" (Wilson
2013). A day later, the newspaper called him the "vile product of Welfare UK" (Dolan and
Bentley 2013). UK Finance minister George Osborne stated at an official visit to Derby (the
Philpott's home) that "there is a question for government and for society about the welfare
6 Some media articles talk of 17 children, however, the judge referred to 18 in court (Philpott jailed
for life 2013).
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state—and the taxpayers who pay for the welfare state—subsidising lifestyles like that" and
closed by calling for a public debate (Mick Philpott case 2013). Yet is not only welfare
spending, but also particular family practices which have been scrutinised. On the 5th of
April, The BBC News (Derby) ran a feature entitled "Philpott fire deaths trials shines light
on polyamory" (Lowbridge 2013). The Wikipedia page on Philpott has set a direct link in the
first paragraph to the Wikipedia entry on Polyamory (Polyamory 2013; Mick Philpott 2013).
Some polyamorists have therefore felt the need to caution that not all nonmonogamous
households are violent and that polyamory does not equate with domestic violence (Hallam
2013).7
The Philpott case made it possible for conservative media to revitalise longstanding
"Malthusian anxieties about the over-production of dependent citizens", working class
promiscuity and the perceived problem of illegitimacy which "surface constantly in con
temporary welfare debates" (Reekie 1998, p. 58). The economy sustaining alternative family
practices can thus play a vital role in their public denigration. Polyamory is potentially
vulnerable to attacks both on the grounds of envy (where a case regarding high wages and
multiple incomes can be made) or alternatively, on the grounds of contempt (in the case of
poverty and welfare dependency).0
Spaces and Institutions
Research into LGBTQ sexualities has emphasised that the creation of community spaces has
been a significant step in securing survival in a heterosexist society. For example, bars (but
also baths and bookstores) have been vital for the creation of a sustainable gay culture since
the 1940s in the USA (Chauncey 1994; Escoffier 1997). Bar culture created a nucleus for
social networks, including working class communities, to blossom. Boyd (2005) highlights
that even if bar life can be said to be "pre-political" in some regards, it worked as an
accelerator for collective identities and early attempts of political organising. The same has
been the case with regard to the history of lesbian politics and communities in the USA
(Kennedy and Davis 1993; Nestle 1996).
However, neoliberal urban development and changes in the composition of capital within
the "pink economy" have altered the face of many commercial spaces and restructured them
around different cultural orientations, including a normative trend towards desexualisation
(Floyd 2009).9
An intensification of value extraction in lesbian and gay commercial spaces reinforces the
marginalisation of working class queers (Bassi 2006; Binnie and Skeggs 2004; Evans 1993).
Commercial LGBTQ spaces tend to operate normative practices of inclusion/exclusion,
which construct certain bodies, inclusive of working class and racialised bodies as undesir
able and not welcome (Taylor 2007). To the extent that poly identified people consider
This does not mean to argue that domestic violence does not take place in poly relationships and families.
Yet it highlights that the problem in the Philpott case was domestic violence and not polygamy or polyamory.
8 On a deeper level, envy and contempt may—paradoxically—also meet. A good example is the role of
straight envy in the culture of homophobia. Bronski (1999) argues that gay men are frequently hated not only
because they are allegedly immoral and perverted, but also because they are believed to have a lot of pleasure
and unrestrained sex.
4 Neoliberal urban regeneration has gone hand in hand with processes of desexualisation in some settings
(such as, for example, gentrification programmes in New York throughout the 1990s), but not in others (such
as, for example, development in the London Vauxhall area in the new millennium), where capital has provided
for a strongly commercialised club-based public sex culture (see Andersson 2011; Warner 1999).
Ô Springer
214 Klcssc
themselves part of a wider assemblage of LGBTQ communities, these exclusions may

painfully affect them.
Polyamorous community structures are currently in the making. Even if social events in
the UK, such as Polyday or the occasional poly gatherings at the annual Bisexual Conven
tion (BiCon), are organised in a DIY spirit and aim to be inclusive, participation fees and
accommodation are costly. It remains to be seen whether the polyamory movement can resist
pressures towards intensified commercialisation and corporatisation in the long run.
Further issues may emerge for those poly people who participate in BDSM. Some
researchers have emphasised a certain overlap between poly and BDSM communities (Sheff
and Hammers 2011). Kinky events take place only sporadically, often in larger cities. The
common pathologisation and threat of criminalisation may render it safer for some people to
engage in BDSM in places where they are less likely to be recognised (Langdridge and
Barker 2007). Depending on their place of residence, people who wish to partake in such
events may need financial resources to travel. BDSM culture puts a great emphasis on
fetishes, and fetish gear, toys and equipment can be very costly (Weiss 2011). Of course,
there are only a fraction of poly people, who consider themselves to be part of BDSM (or
other queer or sex positive) communities. Yet multiple community affiliations are not
uncommon.
Apart from the question of whether or not to have access to certain

negotiate the cultural codes around which they are structured, dealing wit
too, may pose a problem for some polyamorous people. Pallotta-Chiaroll
bisexual and polyamorous adolescents' schooling experiences in Aust
pervasive nonfamiliarity with and ignorance of what she calls "border s
families". It reports widespread experiences of alienation, marginalisat
teachers' indifference towards the latter and high degrees of fear among
that their children may suffer discrimination, or that government inst
protection services) may break up their families.
While many adolescents and families find proactive and assertive wa
issues, others consider it wise to stay in the closet to protect their
families. However, confident upfront ways of addressing one's ow
difference or of dealing with biphobia and mononormativity also
ethnic/ racial privileges (Pallotta-Chiarolli 2006). This research under
out" is a strategy which is mediated by multiple privileges, an argum
long time in particular by queer of colour authors (Butler et al. 201
elsewhere, gender is also an important factor which mediates the ris
nonmonogamous and polyamorous, which, in the face of a double st
tial antipromsicuity discourses, renders it potentially more costly for
as nonmonogamous than for men, with further issues involved for w
working class background (Klesse 2005).
Class barriers to access in higher education are a further proble
McDermott (2011a, b) has shown that many adolescents in the UK ex
as a comparatively liberal space, which gives them more opportun
sexuality and in many cases to come out. The same research also dem
experiences are enabled through the mobilisation of class resources,
support, confidence regarding one's own educational success, and em
towards engaging with the institution. The problem of class elitism and
at many higher education institutions in the UK, differential access to
consequently shape the intersections between sexuality, class and ra
Reay 2005).
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The experience of dealing with public institutions is a critical issue for many polyamo
rous people. This experience is profoundly mediated by the impact of class divisions. 1 have
here discussed the example of educational institutions, because significant research has
recently appeared in this field. Yet the experience of polyamorous people in their dealings
with other institutions is also virtually unexplored. Much work remains to be done, for
example regarding the work place, the health services, financial institutions, the courts, etc.
Such lines of research will also help deepening the reflection on the significance of
polyamory within the wider equalities and antidiscrimination agenda (Tweedy 2011).
Conclusion
Polyamory is often described by its practitioners as an ethical practice of nonmonogamy. In

this paper, I have shown that existing research persistently highlights the exclusive nature of
most poly communities in terms of race and class. I have sketched an agenda for future
research around the three key areas of intimacy and care, household formation, and spaces
and institutions because I believe that without a sustained commitment to socioeconomic
equality it is impossible to do justice to the common self-representation of polyamory as an
egalitarian practice. I consider it as problematic that research into polyamory has so far
shared the disregard for class analysis with most critical work within sexualities studies
(Binnie 2011; McDermott 2011; Taylor 2011). I argue that class perspectives need to be
integrated as an indispensible element in intersectional analysis of gender, intimacy, and
sexual politics (Erel et al. 2011; Anthias this volume). The absence of any proactive debate
about class issues in most currents of poly culture and politics, together with the exclusive
nature of many poly community networks in terms of class positioning, raises questions
regarding the common claims that polyamory could be seen as a revolutionary practice
(Song 2012; compare White 2010). Peller (2013) argues in a Blog entry titled "Polyamory as
a Reserve Army of Care Labor": "Relationships are not objects that, depending on the
formation, determines whether or not the relationship is "feminist". Relationships are a
social relation, one that necessarily falls within the paradigm of all other capitalist social
relations, no matter what form it takes." Peller's argument invites readers to think about
polyamory from a materialist point of view and place it within the wider economic relations
of capital. According to Hennessy (2000), historical materialist perspectives rest on "the
assumption that the history of sexual identity - in all of the varied ways it has been culturally
differentiated and lived - has been fundamentally, though never simply, affected by several
aspects of capitalism: wage labor, commodity production and consumption" (p. 4). People
who have discussed polyamory from the angle of political economy have usually described
it as a distinctively Postfordist intimate and erotic formation (Pieper and Bauer 2005;
Sigusch 2005, 2011; Woltersdorff 2011). Exploring polyamory within the contradictory
field of the cultural dynamics bound up with Postfordism and the neoliberal policies, which
have determined economic governance in the societies where poly communities blossomed,
may help us to understand the contradictions which shape poly discourse and practice with
regard to class issues. Writers inspired by Marxist perspectives have shown that social
movements around gender and sexuality (including their actions, discourses, and cultural
imaginaries) do not unfold independently from economic processes, market forces, state or
class politics (Duggan 2003; Evans 1993; Floyd 2009). With regard to the study of
polyamory, economic questions are virtually unexplored territory. For those who wish to
embark on this joumey, theories which aim to merge Marxist and Postmarxist, feminist,
queer and anti- and postcolonial theories may provide a good starting point.
<0 Springer
216 Klesse
Acknowledgments I am grateful to Chiara Addis, Jon Binnie, and Susie Jacobs, who have given me
important feedback and stimulating ideas after reading previous drafts of this article.
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Poly Economics—Capitalism, Class, and Polyamory

Author(s): Christian Klesse

Poly Economics—Capitalism, Class, and Polyamory

Published online: 12 October 2013

Keywords Polyamory • Nonmonogamy • Intimacy • Households • Class • Capitalism

Revolutionary Love or a Culture of Privilege? Background and Literature Review

Multiple Significations: Sexualities, Emotions, Politics, and Identities

Defining polyamory as responsible nonmonogamy implies that polyamorous relationships

as site for a bi/ queer contestation of heteronormativity (Anderlini-D'Onofrio 2009); an eco

Class and Race Privileges

Intimacy and Care

relationships is of high importance, if we want to gain an adequate understanding of the

Spaces and Institutions

themselves part of a wider assemblage of LGBTQ communities, these exclusions may

Apart from the question of whether or not to have access to certain

Polyamory is often described by its practitioners as an ethical practice of nonmonogamy. In

Carabine, J. (1996). Heterosexuality and social policy. în D. Richardson (Ed.), T

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