One night, Natalie Davis, a married woman who also has a married boyfriend, is enjoying a first date at a bar with yet another man. He’s attractive and interesting, but as they talk she realizes they have something unexpected in common: He’s just gone out on a successful first date with her boyfriend’s wife, Winnie.
It’s an awkward situation even for a polyamorist.
Davis’ revealing memoir, “Saying Yes: My Adventures in Polyamory,” doesn’t shy away from such potential misfires. In this case, Davis is more amused than embarrassed, and soon cedes the new man to Winnie. “He was nice enough,” she writes, “but I did not feel the spark.”
In an author’s note, Davis, a lawyer, says that she changed “all names and some characteristics,” compressed time frames and re-created dialogue. But, apart from those narrative liberties, she purports to be chronicling true events, in all their messiness.
The book’s main thread is Davis’ journey from a conventional, mostly happy but imperfect marriage to a full-throated embrace of polyamory, a subject that’s recently earned its share of cultural buzz. This account has no great literary merit, but it’s an undeniable page-turner with utility to anyone contemplating the lifestyle.
Polyamory, meaning “many loves,” denotes a form of consensual, or ethical, nonmonogamy involving more than swinging or occasional hookups. It emphasizes relationships, not just sexual variety. Partners may be defined as primary or secondary or mere “comets,” who swoop in occasionally. Metamours, the partners of partners, may become friends or remain anxious rivals. And polyamorists may be linked in intricate relationship structures, or polycules, whose contours change over time. Davis’ book makes sense of all this without being overly didactic.
The idea of openly pursuing multiple romantic interests isn’t itself particularly exotic. As Davis notes, single people commonly embrace “dating around,” or what our 1950s-era mothers termed “playing the field.” As part of the search for the monogamous ideal, or an expression of anxiety about commitment, the practice is often time-limited. Polyamory is more permanent — a stable lifestyle flexible enough to accommodate instability and rupture.
Davis, to her credit, doesn’t sugarcoat just how difficult it can be, especially for those new to its often inchoate norms. Not everyone can shed jealousy, let alone manage “compersion,” which entails rejoicing in a partner’s happiness with someone else. Another issue is just how “out” to be, at work and elsewhere, about one’s preferences; the Davises worry about how and when to break the news to their teenage son.
Salient to Davis’ particular story is her lack of early romantic and sexual experience. She fell into an exclusive relationship with her future husband, Eric, at 19. It’s not surprising that there is a frantic, adolescent quality to her first ventures into the polyamorous dating pool, including bedding strangers, lying about her age and drinking to excess. “More often than I would have expected,” she writes, “polyamory made me feel like a teenager.”
None of this might have happened without the prodding of Eric, “extrovert, voyeur, risk-taker, kink appreciator” — and two-time adulterer. In each instance, despite her pain, Davis forgave him, trusting in the underlying strength of their bond. Sensing monogamy was not his jam, Davis agreed to try swinging. That meant going to sex clubs and looking online for couples who might be a fit for them both, a challenging endeavor — and just a waystation, it turned out, to something more ambitious.
With Davis’ uneasy acquiescence, Eric reconnected with the second of his adulterous lovers, a woman with whom his wife (unsurprisingly) never got along. “My first year of polyamory was one of the worst years of my life,” Davis admits. Eric eventually moved on to other (in Davis’ view, far nicer) girlfriends, and welcomed them into their marital home, practicing “kitchen table polyamory.” In Davis’ description, he is devoid of jealousy, a generous soul always rooting on her efforts to find worthy secondary partners.
Davis, in contrast, struggled. Finding lovers was not a problem. She comes across as intensely sex-positive, easily orgasmic and devoid of any trauma or shame around sex. (Explicit passages underline those points.) But for a while, a new love — a mutual one — proves elusive.
Felix, whom she meets on a kink site, is a sexy dominant who thrills her but keeps canceling dates. Hank, from OkCupid, describes himself as “completely bloody insane.” He nevertheless becomes both her first real boyfriend and an object of obsession. The main problem is his tempestuous marriage. His wife, Sylvia, has boyfriends of her own but can’t abide Hank’s obvious passion for Davis. “I cringed at being a sacrificial pawn in their game of relationship chess,” Davis writes. But it’s hard not to sympathize with Sylvia too.
As Davis becomes a more experienced polyamorist, her satisfaction grows. She chooses more emotionally intelligent partners and finds more accepting metamours too. She and Eric attend gatherings — from a poly conference to a “kink camp” — in which strangers quickly become lovers and friends.
Per her author bio, Davis is now a force in the poly community, presenting workshops on polyamory and editing an online publication called “Polyamory Today.” She’s also described as living in the Washington, D.C., area with her “partner and metamour.” Online research clarifies that the partner is still her husband, Eric, whose wandering eye started it all.
Klein is a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia.
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