Polyskeptic is about to OWN you! February 15, 2013

Posted by shaunphilly in Culture and Society Tags: ducumentary

edit; The show has been moved up to the 5th of March, rather than the 12th.

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We here at polyskeptic have been involved, over the last few months, with a project that will hit reality in just a few weeks. Over a few days, separated by some weeks, there were cameras, a camera crew, and even a person whose name you might recognize–Lisa Ling–in our home in order to ask us questions about being polyamorous. And so on Tuesday, March 12th 2013 at 10pm (EST), on Oprah Winfrey’s Network (OWN), our family will be one of three families featured in an episode of Our America, with Lisa Ling.

We have not written about this yet. In the beginning, it was because we were not allowed to do so, but now that the current season is in progress and the website has already given us a glimpse of what’s coming, I have decided that I can write about it, and have been putting it off for no good reason at all. Some people close to us already know about it, and a few other people have contacted me (mostly through facebook) after seeing the TV ad for the coming season, which included most of our faces.

In the video below, if you pay attention at around 16 seconds and then 30 seconds, you may see some people you recognize:

Now, we have no way of knowing what kind of response we will get from friends and family or the polyamorous community itself. We will have an opportunity to find out what some of the polyamorous community has to say right after it airs, as the weekend after it airs we will be in Atlanta for the Atlanta Poly Weekend conference March 15-17. Whether we will be minor celebrities, run out of town with flaming torches and pitchforks, or merely treated as a few schmucks who were on TV once is yet to be seen. My guess is that we will be world-famous, wealthy, and more awesome than we already are overnight.

I may be biased.

I got a chance to meet Kamala Devi and Michael McClure from last year’s Showtime series at the Poly Living Conference. Robyn Trask, who is the head of Loving More and who I also got to meet last weekend, will also be featured along with her family in the OWN documentary (along with a third family I know little about). My recent experience in interacting with these people, as well as those around them at the conference, has made it clear how many polyamorous people appreciate the exposure of this lifestyle, as coming out as polyamorous can be a real concern for many people. We, here at polyskeptic, have not hid our identities and now that we are about to be on television (even if only on a cable channel many people don’t watch) we will have little choice about being out to the world. This privilege of ours is not universal, and for the same reasons atheists need to be out of the closet when they can, the same is true for polyamorous people.

I hope that you all watch, and I would be interested in feedback about the episode, which we have not seen yet.

Show: Our America: with Lisa Ling

Channel: Oprah Winfrey Network

Episode Title: “I Love You & You…& You” (4.8)

Air Date: Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

Time: 10/9c