Fuse the Polycule / Split the Atom

Today: Anna Merlan, senior staff writer at Vice, and Osita Nwanevu, a contributing editor at The New Republic and columnist at The Guardian.

Issue No. 2

Hot Trends in Polyamory
Anna Merlan

The Ham-Handed Genius of 'Oppenheimer'
Osita Nwanevu

Hot Trends in Polyamory

by Anna Merlan

Polyamory is absolutely not for me. This isn’t for lack of trying on the part of its ardent defenders, who have done an admirably energetic job singing its praises and preaching its gospel. Now, a recent spate of books and magazine articles about poly relationships is reviving an aggressively titillating version of the same old discussion; the most talked about is Molly Roden Winter’s book More, which describes, in lavish detail, all the men who wanted to sleep with her, and their various personal failings, after she and her husband decided to open their marriage.

Winter’s book is, to be rude about it, the worst of the newish spate of polyamory books, although its shortcomings seem quite deliberate. Winter has been in a polyamorous marriage, at this point, for at least a decade; the book opens as she