review

Psychologist Alice Kahn Ladas introduces “What Does Polyamory Look Like?” as “delightfully lighthearted, inclusively descriptive, and relevantly self-revealing,” and I agree with this assessment. For anyone interested in learning about open relationships – possibly to practice them, counsel people in them, or understand friends or family in them – this book offers a helpful overview of the basic forms this lifestyle can take. The first two chapters contain simple introductory material about polyamory, which the author defines as “a lifestyle based on the belief that it is not only possible but also perfectly normal to love more than one person at the same time.” In distinguishing polyamory from swinging, Chapman writes that the former allows more freedom to develop emotional intimacy with others while the latter emphasizes sexual intimacy. This distinction may not be universally accepted (I’ve seen polyamory used as the umbrella term under which swinging falls, for instance), but it’s the author’s right to define terms as she’ll use them throughout her work. Continue Reading →