Rob—yes, among under-30s in the US, UK, and Europe, consensual non-monogamy is pretty popular; good reliable data are hard to come by, but it’s certainly NOT the case that polyamory is a ‘wildly unusual social practice’.
The most recent Census-based quota sample (Moors et al, 2021) of single adults in the US (N = 3,438) shows that about 17% of people would like to engage in polyamory, and about 11% have done so at some point. (Compare that to circa 4.5% of Americans being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans). So, polyamory as a relationship orientation is arguably about as common as (or maybe more common than) gay/lesbian as a sexual orientation.
Rob—yes, among under-30s in the US, UK, and Europe, consensual non-monogamy is pretty popular; good reliable data are hard to come by, but it’s certainly NOT the case that polyamory is a ‘wildly unusual social practice’.
The most recent Census-based quota sample (Moors et al, 2021) of single adults in the US (N = 3,438) shows that about 17% of people would like to engage in polyamory, and about 11% have done so at some point. (Compare that to circa 4.5% of Americans being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans). So, polyamory as a relationship orientation is arguably about as common as (or maybe more common than) gay/lesbian as a sexual orientation.