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New Religions and the Mediation of
Non-Monogamy

New Religions and the Mediation of Non-Monogamy examines the

relation-ship between alternative American religions and the media
representation of non-monogamies on reality-TV shows like Sister
Wives, Seeking Sister Wife, and Polyamory: Married & Dating. The
book is the first full-length study informed by fieldwork with Mormon
polygamists and fieldwork with LGBTQ Neo-Pagan/Neo-Tantric
polyamorists. The book tracks community members’ responses to
the new media about them, their engagement with television and
other media, and the likeness of representations to actual
populations through fieldwork and interviews.
The book highlights differences in socioeconomic privileges that
shape Mormon polygamists’ lives and LGBTQ polyamorists’ lives,
respectively. The polyamory movement receives support from liberal
media. As reality TV has shifted the image of Mormon polygamy to
one of liberal American middle-class culture, Mormon polygamists
have gained in public favor. The media landscape of non-monogamy
is mediated by, in addition to these alternative religious populations,
the norms and practices of the reality-TV industry and by
sociocultural and economic realities, including race and class.
This book adds to the fields of media studies, critical race and
gender studies, new religious movements, and queer studies.
Michelle Mueller teaches religion and ethnography, sociology of
religion, and other courses at Santa Clara University. She is a faculty
fellow of the college’s Center for the Arts and Humanities.
Gender, Theology and Spirituality
Series editor
Lisa Isherwood
University of Winchester, UK

Shame, the Church and the Regulation of Female Sexuality

Miryam Clough

Living Out Sexuality and Faith

Body Admissions of Malaysian Gay and Bisexual Men
Joseph N. Goh

The Spirituality of Anorexia

A Goddess Feminist Thealogy
Emma White

Religion, Feminism, and Idoloclasm

Being and Becoming in the Women’s Liberation Movement
Melissa Raphael

Unlocking Orthodoxies for Inclusive Theologies

Queer Alternatives
Edited by Robert E. Shore-Goss and Joseph N. Goh

The Indecent Theologies of Marcella Althaus-Reid

Voices from Asia and Latin America
Edited by Lisa Isherwood and Hugo Córdova Quero
Contemporary Feminist Theologies
Power, Authority, Love
Edited by Kerrie Handasyde, Cathryn McKinney, and Rebekah Pryor

New Religions and the Mediation of Non-Monogamy

Polyamory, Polygamy, and Reality Television
Michelle Mueller

For more information and a full list of titles in the series, please visit:
https://www.routledge.com/religion/series/GTS
New Religions and the
Mediation of Non-Monogamy
Polyamory, Polygamy, and Reality
Television

Michelle Mueller
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa

business
© 2022 Michelle Mueller

The right of Michelle Mueller to be identified as author of this work

has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks

or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-18690-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-05167-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-19764-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
For the late High Priestess Judy Harrow and her
Mormon neighbors.

What is remembered lives.

Contents

Image credits
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Researching “swingers” and “saints”

on exhibit

1 Twenty-first-century Mormon fundamentalism:

Ethnographic observations

2 From raids to rallies: Polygamy, class, and new

media

3 Mormon polygamist spirituality in the twenty-first

century

4 Gnostic esoterism in Mormon fundamentalism

5 Polyamory as religious sexual counter-culture:
The new charmed circle

6 Sisterhood, patriarchy, and bromance: New

perspectives on gender, labor, and power in
polyamory and polygamy

7 Polygamy and polyamory in the era of The

Bachelor: Intersectional observations regarding
religion, media, and society

References
Index
Image credits

i.1 Photo of San Diego Superpod (2013) by Kondor Imaging,

courtesy of KamalaDevi McClure
i.2 Photo of Hannah Williams courtesy of Brady and Hannah
Williams
5.1 Gayle S. Rubin Diagram: “The sex hierarchy: the charmed
circle vs. the outer limits”
From: Culture, society and sexuality, Richard G Parker,
Copyright (1999) Routledge. Reproduced by permission of
Taylor & Francis Group.
5.2 Poly Pagan PROUD graphic, courtesy of Dinaya @ Beautifully
Chaotic Studios
5.3 Comic #534 by Tikva Wolf (@KimchiCuddles)
6.1 Briney family photo courtesy of The Briney Family
6.2 Photo of San Diego Quad (2012) by Kondor Imaging, courtesy
of KamalaDevi McClure
6.3 “Poly Calendar” courtesy of Lionell Pack
Preface

Interviewee 1: Are you LDS?

Author: No, I’m not Mormon.
Interviewee 1: How did you get into this?
Author: Well, I’m part of an alternative religious
movement myself. And, my experience has
led me to be both sympathetic to and
curious about other religious minority
populations.
Interviewee 1 (intrigued): Oh. What’s your religion?
Author: I’m Wiccan.

INTERVIEWEE 1 nods and smiles, then pauses abruptly. I (the

author) do not sense shock; rather, it seems the interviewee did not
recognize the word.

Interviewee 1: Wait. You’re what?

Author: I’m Wiccan. It’s a new religious movement. It was
founded in the 1950s in England. In your tradition,
you have Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father. We
call them Goddess and God. Our values include
honoring the earth as sacred and reducing harm
wherever possible, much like your tradition
 encourages kindness and compassion and reverence
for God’s creation.

Interviewee 2: Are you poly?

Author: I identify as poly-friendly and monogamous-by-choice
presently. I’m bisexual and I have been in poly
relationships in the past. Also, I’m part of the Pagan
community, so polyamory is present in my social
circle.
Interviewee 2: Why are you not poly now?
Author: Well, my current partner and I prefer monogamy; it’s
what we’ve found works for us and what we’ve
agreed on. I’ve never felt like I was either
monogamous or poly as a fixed orientation. It’s more
about what agreement I made with the person or
people I’m with.
Interviewee 2: So, monogamish?
Author: Kind of.

The above interview transcripts summarize my introductions within

two research fields: the first within Utah’s Mormon polygamist
population, the second within a US polyamorous context. The
question from informants in either population about my relation to
the subject has become so expected that the dialogue has become,
on my side, rehearsed and, on the other’s side, well, fairly uniform.
The majority of researchers studying Mormon fundamentalism are
Mormon; the majority of researchers studying polyamory are
polyamorous. Like others, my academic interest in the subject began
with my personal history, but I am neither polygamous nor
polyamorous, nor any shade of Mormon for that matter. Yet, my
interest in non-monogamy began during my undergraduate
education at Bryn Mawr College. I was heavily involved in
Philadelphia’s Wiccan/Pagan community, an alternative religious
population that values ecological balance; sacredness of all living
things; and emotional, intellectual, religious, and sexual freedom. I
was exposed to polyamory, in concept and in practice, primarily
through my Wiccan/Pagan mentors in Philadelphia. They were Gen
Xers and Baby Boomers. They were in their 40s, 50s, and 60s and I,
a Xillennial, was in my early 20s. As a young bisexual woman, I
entered a few polyamorous relationships during and after college.
My interest in Mormon polygamy and Mormon fundamentalism was
part of a comparative gender studies inquiry, furthered by empathy
and curiosity for new religious movements other than
Wicca/Paganism.
During this time, my intellectual questions around the alleged
boundaries of polyamory and polygamy emerged. The questions
were plentiful, but they could all be summed up in one overarching
question: How different are polygamy and polyamory really? A
budding intellectual immersed in feminist theory and anthropological
research on religious cultures, I questioned the dominant narrative in
the polyamory movement that polyamory was “evolved,” inherently
feminist in theory and in practice, and essentially morally superior to
polygamy, which, in opposition, was cast as inherently male-serving
and oppressive towards women. This inquiry was the initial fuel for
my later dissertation research, which then led to this book.
While I had been ultimately intrigued by the realities, myths, and
fictions of contemporary polygamist/polyamorist populations (which I
refer to as “poly(g)”) comparatively, I turned to study reality
television because poly(g) families were actively participating in the
medium during my doctoral coursework. Polyamory: Married &
Dating premiered just after my first year of coursework. I was
residing temporarily in Provo, Utah, at the time, as a participant in
BYU’s annual Mormon studies graduate summer seminar, when the
pilot aired. Sister Wives had premiered one year prior to the start of
my doctoral program and has continued until now (14 seasons and
counting).
Because of the television focus, my research took off in the
direction of Mormon studies, veering from my initial plan of studying
polygamy/polyamory in Mormonism, Paganism, and Islam. This book
focuses on Mormon polygamy in the USA and on polyamory in the
USA. But, comparative insights from Islamic studies are shared when
fitting. Researcher findings about Islamic polygamy—within historic
and contemporary cultures (Mernissi 1991; Dixon-Spear 2009;
Nurmila 2009; Majeed 2016)—quite frequently have a parallel range
as to researcher findings about Mormon polygamy. The competing
narratives about women’s status in polygamist families and
polygamist religious societies are similar. Although this book focuses
on Mormon polygamists on television, I preserve my initial interests
in further comparative work by assessing the factors in the absence
of Islamic polygamists from American reality television. These are,
unsurprisingly, racism, Islamophobia, and people of color’s efforts at
self-preservation against racism and Islamophobia.
Despite that I have practiced monogamy for the last decade
(“monogamous by choice,” in poly terminology), my prior
background—including personal experience in poly relationships—
has meant that I have been a “partial insider” (Wilcox 2002) when
studying polyamory (but not for polygamy). My identities as a
bisexual woman, a practicing Wiccan/Pagan, and a person with poly
experience have made me especially relatable to my polyamorous
informants.
I did not anticipate, however, how accessible and agreeable to
research Mormon fundamentalists would be. I studied Mormon
fundamentalist Independents, members and ex-members from the
Allred group (the Sister Wives family’s church of origin), members of
Christ’s Church, and members of the Kingston group. Nowhere in
this book, or in any other writing, do I state that there is no
distinction between polygamy and polyamory, nor between Paganism
and Mormonism. However, this book presents qualitative research
from two research fields. There have been many parallels,
particularly in kinship patterns and in philosophies of and best
practices for multi-partner relationships, and I share these with
stories from and about informants throughout this book.
I did not interview members of the FLDS sect. Whereas “FLDS” is
the most commonly known name for a Mormon fundamentalist
group, it actually refers to one church (or one sect) and it is no
longer the majority. In April 2008, news about a raid on an FLDS
ranch in Southern Texas reached me. By this point, I had been
stewing on a major research project about polygamy and polyamory,
but I knew very little about the fundamentalist Mormon landscape. I
did not know then that FLDS is one sect among many within
Mormon fundamentalism. I followed the news, as the event was
clearly one that I would need to understand if I were to continue
with that research trajectory.
Little did I know then that I would become a subject matter
expert of gender and sexuality in new religious movements,
particularly including spiritual polyamory and contemporary Mormon
polygamy. Little did I know then that I would have cell phone
contacts of and be texting buddies with members of other Mormon
fundamentalist sects. (Recall that this was 2008. Owning a cell
phone was relatively new in my life, so this was unexpected on
several accounts.)
At the late stages of my writing this manuscript, the world
changed. The coronavirus, “COVID-19,” became a pandemic,
existing on every continent and within every country. Various cities
and US states announced shelter-in-place orders. Federal
governments and local governments enforced restrictions previously
unimaginable to those of us in developed democracies. Much of the
world experienced economic recessions. By the end of 2020, months
into the crisis, worldwide COVID-19-related deaths had topped 1.5
million.
Like everyone else, I needed to rethink my priorities—personally
and professionally. Still, the world changed but it did not stop. The
stressors of the moment made my progress complicated, but, as I
reflected on the coronavirus and what it meant for me writing this
book, the importance of continuing came to light. My informants
continued to live their lives while adjusting to the new restrictions,
just like everyone else around them. Their stories as marginalized
religious and sexual cultures continued with as great, if not greater,
significance as before.
Fundamentalist Mormons celebrated the victory of polygamy
essentially being decriminalized in Utah, while under quarantine.
Isaiah Kingston, a member of a prominent Mormon fundamentalist
family, was identified in the news as among the prisoners
temporarily released because of the coronavirus threat.1 Popular
articles were written about how hard shelter-in-places were for new
relationships or for dating in general. Polyamorists blogged about
this with the poly twist: What factors do polys weigh as they
determine which partners to isolate themselves with and/or from?
Some hearts were broken as some partners did not “choose” each
other, some sheltering with a different lover to another lover’s
surprise.
Additionally, public interest in non-monogamy persevered and
was evidenced in trends of the moment. Tiger King and Waco were
among the most watched series on Netflix during the shelter-in-place
spring. In terms of religion and non-monogamy, Tiger King, a
docuseries about the players in the “big cat” zoo industry, had what
I call “three types of poly.” There was a gay polyamorous triad or
polygamist vee, a spiritual guru with several wives, and a husband
and wife who enjoy threesomes with bisexual women. As for Waco,
David Koresh instituted a doctrinal policy among the Branch
Davidians in the late 1980s, which limited sexual relationships except
those between him and the women of the group. Watching Tiger
King gave me some fresh insight for approaching the definitions of
polygamy and polyamory, as these would certainly be looked for by
readers of my book. (I discuss these ahead in the introduction.)

Note
At the time of temporary release, Isaiah Kingston was awaiting
sentencing after pleading guilty for his part in a fraud scheme
(Miller 2020; US Department of Justice 2020).
Acknowledgments

This book began many years ago within the curious mind of a white,
upper-middle-class, bisexual, female Wiccan attending college near
Philadelphia in the early 2000s. The inquiry was made possible
through my involvement with mentors and friends in the Assembly of
the Sacred Wheel. I am grateful to the Gen Exers, Boomers, and
Silent Gen elders who nurtured me then. They provided strong
models for compassionate, progressive living, as well as intellectual
curiosity and moral courage. I attended handfasting rituals, had my
own romantic experiences, and established my own religious sexual
identity within the context of the Philadelphia/Mid-Atlantic
polyamorous Pagan community. Even while Zack (my spouse) and I
chose monogamy for ourselves, I had previously learned the
principle of direct communication from polyamorists. This poly
education informed our connection from day one. I am forever
mindful of my personal debt to the polyamory movement for these
teachings.
The real stars of this book are the many individuals and families
who took time out from their busy, satisfying lives to speak with me
about religion, non-monogamy, and media. Those who are public
figures as polygamists are identified here by their legal names; non-
public figures are listed here with my pseudonyms for them (denoted
by my use of quote marks). They are Brady, Nonie, Paulie, Robyn,
Rhonda, and Rosemary Williams; Alina, Joe, Val, and Vicki Darger;
Charlotte, Joshua, and Melissa “Kimball”; “Brienne and Jared
Christensen”; Anne Wilde; anonymous missionaries from Christ’s
Church; and Rockland Ranch resident families. The Utah polygamist
families took on a degree of risk, as polygamy was criminalized as a
felony under Utah’s bigamy law at the time of the study. Considering
this, their courageous commitment to the dissemination of accurate
information should be noted. Representatives from polyamory were
equally generous with their time. For the time they put into this
study, I thank KamalaDevi and Michael McClure, Dany Atkins and the
Rabbit Warren household, Dedeker Winston, Dawn Davidson,
Francesca Gentille, and Caroline Carrington. Other reality-TV stars
took time out as we met in passing, without advance notice, to
speak with me and answer questions, for the sake of contributing to
accurate information: Vanessa Carlisle; Rachel Rickards; Colton,
Sophie, and Tami Winder; Dwayne Mooney; and Suzy Morrison. I am
ever grateful to the individuals and families who invited me into their
homes, welcomed me at sacrament meetings, fireside chats, and
tantric pujas, and even arranged home stays for my son and myself.
Zack was rarely threatened when his bisexual wife departed for
stretches of field research with poly(g) families and—when he was—
behaved like a grown-up and talked with me about it. In all
seriousness, Zack has been an unseen editor for all of my writing
projects since we met, including this book. He has listened
generously as I thought aloud through analyses; asked questions to
further the work; and gave me editorial feedback when requested.
Quinn was my companion as a toddler during field research in Utah,
and his joy and excitement for dinosaur fossils, the butterfly garden,
and new friends made field research even more rewarding. As an
infant, Quinn seemed strangely calmed by Kody Brown’s voice
through the television, and I realized then it was all the Sister Wives
episodes he had heard while developing in my womb. Of my three
sisters, Caroline read the entire book proposal, Kathy read excerpts
and had many conversations with me about the material, and Erica
nurtured the can-do part of my ego as I sprinted toward book
completion. Thank you for a lifetime of love and friendship. And, to
my sister-in-law Katie, thank you for your support of our family,
especially for caring for Quinn during my fieldwork. To my “three
sets of parents”—my mom and dad, my in-laws Ken and Pat, and my
priest and priestess Don and Anna—thank you for contributing to my
fulfilling life.
This research, over many phases, was supported by several
funders: Association for the Sociology of Religion’s Joseph H. Fichter
Research Grant program, OPUS Archives at Pacifica Graduate
Institute via its Christine Downing Dissertation Fellowship, Santa
Clara University’s Center for the Arts and Humanities, and the
Graduate Theological Union’s Center for Arts, Religion, and
Education. My key mentors for this project were my doctoral
committee members: Sarah Pike, Janet Bennion, Scott Mitchell,
Gabriella Lettini, and Ibrahim Farajajé-Jones. Ibrahim, who was my
initial doctoral advisor, passed away before the project’s finish. Scott
advised the dissertation through my final year. Numerous friends,
colleagues, and community representatives provided feedback for
the book. I thank them especially for taking time out during the
coronavirus pandemic to help me improve the writing. They are SJ
Crasnow, Justin Clardy, Yvonne Aburrow, Benjamin Shaffer, David
Gray, Craig L. Foster, Nerine Mechanique, Angela Campbell, Travis
Stevens, and Ebony Ayers. My path would not be the same without
the confidence of senior scholars like Helen A. Berger, Chas S.
Clifton, and Mary E. Hunt, who took early interests in my career.
Mythri Jegathesan and her students pondered my material and
raised valuable questions. Tess Rosenberg, as an undergraduate
anthropology major, voluntarily proofread the entire draft manuscript
as an independent study in religion and ethnography.
My co-working support team, Ariela, Sarah, and Travis, helped
me stay balanced and on-track while writing a book, teaching, and
parenting during a most challenging year. I am grateful to my
lifelong and half-life-long friends who know who they are. Thank you
to Lisa Isherwood, the Taylor & Francis editorial and production
team, and the reviewers whose comments helped me improve the
manuscript.
Finally, I offer a shout-out to a handful of other junior scholars
working on gender and sexuality in new religious movements
including Mormon fundamentalism: Megan Goodwin, Christina
Rosetti, Phillipa Meek, and Stephanie Griswold. I once “joked” with
my youngest sister about the envy between sister-wives being
insignificant compared to the envy between the junior researchers
studying them. We are in a competitive field, and I have been
astounded by the collegiality of feminist junior researchers such as
those named here. Your examples make me a better person as well
as a better researcher.
This book is dedicated to the late High Priestess Judy Harrow.
She was my Pagan great-grandmother in more than one sense. And,
she was Pagan, poly, and proud.
Introduction: Researching
“swingers” and “saints” on exhibit

In August 2012, polyamorous, or “poly,” families across the USA held

community viewing parties as premium television network Showtime
launched a reality television series, Polyamory: Married & Dating, all
about polyamory (an “ethical non-monogamy” or “many loves”
approach to intimate relationships). Community members, who
sometimes call themselves “polys,” were simultaneously excited and
nervous about their subculture’s forthcoming television portrayal. In
droves, polyamorists watched the episodes together as they aired
and used their scheduled discussion time afterwards to decompress
and exchange responses to their group’s representation. Polys’
responses to the show were mixed, across members and even
internally for many.
The show’s first season followed KamalaDevi and her San Diego
quad (a family of four lovers, often formed through the union of two
distinct couples) and, separately, a polyamorous triad in Riverside,
California: Vanessa Carlisle, Anthony Cristofani, and Lindsey
Cristofani. The episodes documented the families dealing with poly-
related transitions. The San Diego quad moved in together, various
members of the cast came out to relatives as poly, and so on. The
episodes documented couple sex, triad sex, foursomes, and
moresomes. Each episode fit neatly into 24 minutes (Showtime’s 30-
minute block minus ad time (Carlisle and Cristofani 2012)), with
some unexplored drama that carried into the next episode. The cast
members of the show were all middle-class, college-educated,
relatively young (20s, 30s, and 40s), able-bodied, cisgender, slender,
and physically fit. With the exception of KamalaDevi, who is biracial
(Mexican and Jewish), the central cast members were white.
Because many viewers perceived KamalaDevi, a light-skinned person
of color, as white, the show’s focus on a person of color was lost in
transmission, and the show inadvertently transmitted an image of
whiteness (M. 2013e). The show’s female cast members, from both
of its seasons, have all been bisexual. Aside from Tahl who came out
as bisexual in the sixth episode, the male stars of the show—
Anthony, Michael, Chris, and Jesse—presented as heterosexual.
The families’ belief systems were a component of the show, but
not a major focus, at least not explicitly. KamalaDevi (they/them)
spoke of being Tantric, and their spiritual community’s practices were
evident in scenes such as the house party that the other family
travelled from Riverside to attend.1 The family’s veganism was
mentioned. KamalaDevi informed me that they were prohibited from
referring to “God” during the show. The producers wanted to control
the show’s image of religiosity. Some of KamalaDevi’s off-beat
spiritual views were welcome, but it seems “God” positioned her too
much alongside traditional religion for the producers’ taste. In their
full life, KamalaDevi and Michael McClure are public leaders in
NeoTantra. They are affiliated with the International School for
Temple Arts (ISTA), a global organization that teaches “sexual
shamanism.” KamalaDevi is a key leader for the organization.
KamalaDevi has authored and co-authored several books that are
used as religious manuals within the group.2 On the show,
KamalaDevi claimed “sex and relationship coach” as their profession.
On their website, KamalaDevi describes coaching services that lead
to “radical sexual liberation” (McClure 2020a). KamalaDevi offers
coaching by phone (and limited in-person sessions in San Diego), for
writers, for erotic professionals who aspire to incorporate NeoTantra
into their practice, and for individuals and couples working on
personal and relationship issues. The other members of the quad
also held seemingly middle-class jobs: Michael in the field of
sustainable energy, Jen within her in-laws’ small jewelry business,
and Tahl studying to become an acupuncturist.
The second family (Vanessa, Anthony, and Lindsay from
Riverside) presented as non-religious and politically oriented. On the
show, they discussed the marginalization of non-normative families
including theirs. Beyond the show, they are recognized within the
poly community for their activism in the Occupy movement and their
solidarity with other social justice causes. At the time of filming,
Vanessa and Anthony were pursuing PhDs from the University of
California at Riverside, and Lindsay a BA from the University of
California at Berkeley. The only even remote exceptions to their non-
religious image were Lindsey’s ethnic but secular Jewish identity and
their selection of a handfasting as their commitment ceremony, a
ritual popularized by contemporary Pagans and adopted by others
who are not traditionally religious.
Largely, polys were grateful at being represented on television,
with particular criticisms. Some polys felt that the sex-focused nature
of the Showtime series hurt their already fragile image more than it
did any good. Polys in this camp argued that polyamory is about
family, and that sex is only one aspect of sustained and sustainable
relationships. The sex-obsessed image of polyamory does not factor
in the time it takes to be professionals, to attend college or graduate
school, to parent children and maintain other familial relationships,
and to spend quality non-sexual time with partners, they argued.
Some polys joked that they only wished their sex lives were as
exhilarating as was depicted on the show. Furthermore, polys
reacted en masse to the show’s lack of diversity on the show, which
they argued was not representative of their population. As social
progressives, they resented the imposition of Hollywood standards
on their population and the continued exclusion of people whose
bodies do not adhere to the dominant culture’s racist, ableist,
cissexist, classist, and otherwise limiting standards.
Meanwhile, in Herriman, Utah, a Salt Lake City suburb, Joe, Alina,
Val, and Vicki Darger, a family of Mormon fundamentalists, crowded
into a friend’s living room to watch their first televised interview.
Despite being a suburban American family of four professional adults
and roughly two dozen children, they did not own a single television.
Two or three years later, a young Mormon fundamentalist woman
responded to a solicitation from television producers to do an
episode for a polygamy exposé series. She had mixed feelings about
her parents’ religion; she did not abhor her family or her upbringing,
but she was uncertain about entering a plural family herself. She
understood that her upbringing was quite different from most
American youths’. She was curious about life beyond the sect. The
stipend available for participating in the episode seemed incentive
enough to choose that time to explore the option of life outside of
the sect. Later, she was exasperated seeing her representation on
television. She felt that the producers caught her in her most
vulnerable moment of self-reflection and used the footage to depict
her as an ignorant victim. Furthermore, she worried about the effect
the episode would have on her family relationships, which were
intricately interwoven with the religious sect.
In March 2017, at the first Sunstone Short Creek Symposium,
polygamist widow Anne Wilde discussed the recent history of pop
culture representations of Mormon polygamy beginning with Big
Love. She attributed positive changes in public opinion to the Kody
Brown family’s good work with the Sister Wives show. The talk was
attended by university-affiliated scholars, independent scholars,
socially progressive LDS Mormons, and Mormon fundamentalists
from several sects. Many nodded in agreement with Wilde’s points,
and none raised any counter. Though the majority of Mormon
polygamists I encountered appreciated the representation in Sister
Wives, some polygamist women responded negatively to what they
perceived as Kody Brown’s ultra-masculinity. They felt he was
insensitive to his wives, and at least one polygamist wife found Kody
more like her toxic monogamist ex-husband than her current
polygamist husband, whom she shared with one sister-wife. Others
thought Sister Wives depicted more rivalry among the women than
is actually common in Mormon polygamist families. Much like the
polyamorists who balked at the idea that they had the time for the
sex depicted on Polyamory, some polygamist women claimed that
Mormon sister-wives were too busy exercising collective childrearing
than to argue over their man. They perceived the show’s depiction of
polygamist women relating to each other as frivolous and inaccurate.
One family, who had never watched an episode of Sister Wives (the
longer running show), became avid viewers of Seeking Sister Wife
only when some of their best friends were cast for the show.

Who are these swingers and saints on exhibit?

Populations discussed in this book—scope,
terminology, and demography
Across these anecdotes, minor populations that share in common
non-monogamy and (direct or indirect) religious influences are
seeing themselves disproportionately represented in popular
television shows, reality TV in particular. Sister Wives, which
premiered in 2010, led an explosion of similar shows: My Five Wives,
Polygamy USA, Three Wives One Husband, and Seeking Sister Wife.
Escaping Polygamy is instead told from the points of view of young
ex-members from Mormon polygamist sects. In addition to
Showtime’s Polyamory, reality shows from Fox and Bravo, Utopia and
Newlyweds, included polyamorists in their ensemble casts. Although
the US polyamorous population far exceeds the Mormon polygamist
population in size, each of the populations understand themselves as
minorities. Because of producers’, directors’, and viewers’ interests in
shows about these minority populations, Mormon fundamentalists
and polyamorists today are affected by the new media. Members
from both populations are actively involved in both mediating their
media image and in observing and responding to it, whether publicly
or privately.
So, who are these “swingers” and “saints” on exhibit? Firstly, to
clear up confusion, this book is not about swingers. Both classified
under “consensual non-monogamy” and “alternative relationships,”
polyamory and swinging diverge from each other in that polyamory
is defined by its practitioners as “many loves,” whereas swinging is
characterized more typically as married couples who, on occasion,
partner-swap with other married couples. In other words, the non-
monogamous aspect of swinging is, generally speaking, limited to
the sexual domain, whereas polyamory’s non-monogamy runs
through many relational cultural domains including sex, emotional
intimacy, commitment, wealth sharing, and family.
The main characters of this book, as with the shows, are twenty-
first century polyamorists and twenty-first-century Mormon
polygamists. My misuse of the term, “swingers,” within a book about
polyamory and Mormon polygamy, is deliberate, and, in addition to
being a play on words, it contains within it a statement about
audience reception of media. As with most other classifications
addressed in this book, there are insiders who challenge the division
between polyamory and swinging.3 Michael McClure from Polyamory
found polyamory through involvement in the swinger community and
continues to identify with swinging as well as polyamory. There are
others from the general population, whose journeys are similar.
Whereas some members of poly and swinging communities actively
challenge the binary between polyamory and swinging (especially
those who have participated in each), the media certainly conflate
polyamory and swinging.
In fact, polyamory, swinging, polygamy, and any other non-
monogamy are constantly conflated in popular media, such as in the
following example from Vicky Cristina Barcelona.4 Cristina, who is
justifying her new polyamorous relationship to Vicky and Vicky’s
fiancé Doug, says, “I started to think about all these standard,
accepted clichés of love… What’s right, what’s wrong, what’s
appropriate according to the ‘appropriate police,’ and you know, you
see how screwed up most relationships are.” Doug interrupts: “So
what you’re saying is you’re sharing a man. You’re like a Mormon
wife” (quoted in Szymanski, 167). Cristina’s non-religious three-way
relationship, which she arrived at after contemplation about social
standards, is compared with Mormon polygamy even though the
circumstances are quite different. Doug lacks a frame of reference
for understanding Cristina’s romantic dynamic and draws on a known
image of women sharing a man. Sometimes the conflation of non-
monogamies is an outcome of erroneous misunderstanding; other
times the conflation, like this one, is written knowingly as a source of
humorous entertainment. My reduction of polyamory via the
insertion of “swingers” in this introduction’s title is strategically
symbolic of the media landscape within which polyamorists and
Mormon polygamists are navigating. This book interprets polyamorist
and Mormon polygamist engagement with their media image,
particularly relating to (but not limited to) reality television.
Throughout a decade of observing non-monogamy, I have been
critical of the (popular and academic) definitions of polygamy and
polyamory that exist in contrast with one another (Easton and Hardy
2009; Chapman 2010, 4, 6; Scaglia 2010, 64–65; Corvino and
Gallagher 2012, 68; Sheff 2014a, 1; Wigington 2018). I am skeptical
surrounding their absolutist claims about rather diverse and complex
human structures.5 Such definitions indicate that polygamy
(polygyny) is an inherently patriarchal structure based on inequality
of reciprocity, whereas polyamory is founded on principles of
egalitarianism and freedom. This binary approach is shaped by
biases of Western liberal feminism favoring equal opportunity as the
only measure of women’s agency. Women’s networking and
evaluation of women’s labor are not interrogated in this common
binary approach.
The binary embedded in this approach traces back to the origin
of the term “polyamory.” For, the term itself was promoted by Neo-
Pagan priestess Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart in order that
members of her tribe effectively differentiate themselves from
polygamists (Zell-Ravenheart and Monserat 2011; Ravenhearts 2014,
under 1-A). Etymologically, polyamory, a compound of the Greek
poly and the Latin amor, means “many loves,” and polygamy, a
compound of Greek terms poly and gamos, means “many
marriages.” But, the cultural differences between polyamory and
polygamy are much more significant than the literal distinction of
“love” versus “marriage.” Such oppositional definitions pit
polygamists as religiously dogmatic and anti-feminist against
polyamorists as egalitarian and feminist, with a very antiquated
villain and socially enlightened superhero feel (Schippers 2016, 16).
While there are facts that are cited in these oppositional definitions,
there are also biases that privilege the younger movement and a
lack of critical examination of male domination and other inequities
that exist even in polyamory.
Sociologist Elisabeth Sheff, the leading ethnographer of
polyamory, differentiates polyamory and polygamy across five areas:
gender, religion, history, region, and social integration. I agree with
many of her points, in particular that “the most common form of
polygamy is … polygyny” and that polyamory permits people of any
gender to have multiple partners (Sheff 2018a). Still, there are
points that can be interrogated further. For example, she interprets
that “polyamory is only loosely associated with religion”; yet, even
she writes about nineteenth-century utopian and twentieth-century
Pagan influences throughout “the three waves of polyamory” (Sheff
2012). Of the nineteenth-century utopian movements, Sheff
rightfully points to Oneida Community and Brook Farm, both of
which, in addition to practicing non-monogamy, were religiously
informed. The role of religion in polyamory is addressed discursively
in research about polyamory: when Paganism seems a positive
influence, polyamory’s heritage from Paganism is acknowledged;
when distinguishing polyamory from patriarchal religious polygamy,
polyamory is branded as secular.
Furthermore, there were patterns of male domination in both the
nineteenth-century utopian and the mid-twentieth-century
movements that led to polyamory. Humphrey Noyes, founder of the
Oneida Community, created a religious sexual culture giving himself
extensive sexual privileges within the group. The “free love”
communes of the 1960s and 19670s were not much different in this
respect. Jim “Father Yod” Baker’s sexual access to women in the
Source Family, a hippie religious movement, paralleled Jim Jones’s
and David Koresh’s in their respective congregations, The Peoples
Temple and the Branch Davidians. Because the latter organizations
ended in tragedies, the historic figures of Jones and Koresh are more
known, including their relationships with women as one component
of greater patterns. Still, the example of Father Yod suggests that
polyamory’s history is not free of misogyny. The minimizing of
religious influence on polyamory is a discursive action performed in
liberal, secular media, with the outcome of separating “morally
superior” polyamory from “religiously regressive” polygamy.
While my concerns often seem to be minority views in the field of
polyamory studies, I have found good company with a few other
scholars. Communications scholar Nathan Rambukkana has argued
that polyamory defines itself as ethically superior “to what it
considers less ethical or less enlightened forms of intimacy
[including] not just compulsory monogamy but also other forms of
non-monogamy, hampering [the possibility of diverse, inclusive
discourse on non-monogamous practices]” (Rambukkana 2015,
133). Sociologist Christian Klesse writes: “The presentation of
polyamory as ‘responsible non-monogamy’ inherently evokes other
forms of both monogamy and non-monogamy that are less or not at
all responsible” (quoted in Rambukkana 2015, 118). In “Polyamory
Is to Polygamy as Queer Is to Barbaric?”, philosopher Shelley M.
Park writes: “Several of those who embrace polyamory as a
progressive form of kinship imagine polygamy as a regressive, even
barbaric, kinship form incompatible with the rights of women,
children, and queers that have been secured in late modernity” (S.
M. Park 2017, 298). She adds that, “the lines between the two forms
of kinship could easily blur if we were not antecedently committed to
positioning them as necessarily different” (S. M. Park 2017, 299). In
agreement with these scholarly views (see also Haritaworn, Lin, and
Klesse 2006), my experience with poly(g) families (the term that I
use to include polyamorous families and polygamous families) has
confirmed that the dichotomous frame deserves a re-examination.
Let’s begin.

Snowdens—New Age polygamists (spiritual

seekers from Seeking Sister Wife)
Dimitri and Ashley Snowden are the first African American poly(g)
family to be a central focus of a reality television series. The
Snowdens joined two Mormon fundamentalist families on Seeking
Sister Wife.6 From the beginning of the series, Dimitri and Ashley
have referred to themselves as polygamists. Unlike the majority of
African American polygamist families, the Snowdens do not identify
with Islam, nor with any other institutionalized religion.
Although the Snowdens did not approach the subject of religion
within the first season, the couple began to reveal their spiritual-but-
not-religious New Age beliefs in the next season. Ashley begins
wearing her scarlet bindi, which is usually a symbol of Hindu identity,
on screen.7 The Snowdens do not explicitly identify as Hindu, but
their notion of “universal awareness” (Snowden 2018; Didymus
2019; elleRH 2019; Robinson 2019; Thompson 2019; Information
Cradle 2021), supported by Ashley’s bindi, shows that they at least
draw on Hindu teachings and symbolism.8
In addition to breaking out the bindi, Ashley invites Vanessa to
join her in a yoni-cleansing ritual before Vanessa and Dimitri become
sexually intimate. In addition to a holistic mind-body cleanse and a
bonding activity between Vanessa and Ashley, the ritual is promised
to align their pH balances, preventing yeast infections, as they
prepare to share Dimitri as a sexual partner (Linden 2019). Upon
Vanessa and Dimitri’s engagement, Ashley paints the bindi on
Vanessa’s third eye, a symbolic welcoming ritual, as the family plans
for Vanessa to formally join them in plural matrimony, becoming
Ashley’s sister-wife (Thompson 2019).
The Snowdens call themselves polygamists, but their alternative
spiritual practices are more typical of those associated with the
polyamory movement than with polygamy. Are they “polygamists”
because their family’s affective orientation is polygyny? For, on the
show, Ashley expresses a desire for a sister-wife, and she does not
indicate interest in any other non-monogamous arrangement. Are
they “polygamists” because of their terminology—desiring a second
“wife” (rather than “girlfriend” or “lover”) in the family? Alternatively,
are they misidentified as polygamists because their New Age
religious practices are more consistent with those of polyamorists?
Within at least one Reddit forum, the Snowdens were accused of
falsifying their relationship structure, misrepresenting themselves
(allegedly polyamorists) as polygamists to be on the show (“What Do
the Snowden[s] Believe?” 2019). Or, does their existence as a
polygamist family boil down to their own identification and/or to
their sociocultural/ethnic orientation as African Americans?

Dwayne Mooney & Billie Jordan—Tantric

polyamorists who err on the side of traditional
gender roles (Newlyweds: The First Year)
Dwayne Mooney and Billie Jordan are almost the direct opposite to
the above. They are a Black family who identify as polyamorous but
who exhibit some of the traits associated with polygamy. Dwayne
and Billie appeared on Newlyweds as the polyamorous, Baby Boomer
parents to Adonis (and kooky in-laws to new wife Erika). Adonis is
the youngest in a succession of professional comics. He is the
grandson to Paul Mooney, a highly regarded, influential Black comic.
Dwayne and his brother, Paul Mooney Jr., are known as “The Mooney
Twins” (G. Smith 1988). On Newlyweds, Adonis explains that he
followed his father’s footsteps into comedy. Clearly, Dwayne and Paul
had done this before him, following in Paul Mooney Sr.’s example.
Particularly since the show, Dwayne has expanded beyond
comedy and has become a public figure within polyamory, having
become a book author and social media personality. Dwayne and
Billie identify sexually as polyamorous and religiously as Tantric.
Dwayne’s public ideals about gender are rather traditional and
binary, as compared with those of other polys, the latter being
predominantly white, middle-class progressives who emphasize
egalitarianism and the deconstruction of gender norms. Showing
more gender-binary ideals than those supported by the poly
majority, Dwayne affirms that his book Sacred Man is “about helping
men grow into their natural roles for women” (Mooney 2015a, under
“Foreword”). He recommends that “men [man] up and [accept] the
truth about the nature of both men and women” and advocates that
“men [stand] in their power and [enjoy] freedom [unapologetically]
while supporting women to do the same” (Mooney 2015a, under
“Foreword”). Dwayne’s rigid gender traditionalism (Mooney 2016c)—
which blends partnership rhetoric with hypermasculinity and
misogyny even9—might be attributable to his NeoTantric worldview.
NeoTantra is influenced by Hindu shiva-shaktism, which is a belief in
the cosmological balance between masculine and feminine energy
forces, and several other NeoTantric teachers emphasize the need
for healing between the sexes in their public ministries. Alternatively
or additionally, Dwayne’s views about gender might be attributable
to African American poly cultural norms (C.f. Pass, Benoit, and
Dunlap 2014, 178–81; Sheff 2014a, 31–36). Dwayne’s gender
traditionalism might stem from one or the other of these influences,
or both or neither for that matter.
Dwayne maintains relationships with girlfriends. Billie, his legal
wife, stands out as the primary. They do not make any extraneous
relationships of Billie’s well known, but neither does their writing
suggest any limitations on Billie. Are they actually polygynists? By
default or by design?

Kimballs—plural family converted from

LDS/monogamy
Charlotte, Joshua, and Melissa each grew up in LDS families. Several
years into Charlotte and Joshua’s marriage, Melissa and Charlotte
met and became fast friends. They bonded over an appreciation for
unpasteurized cow’s milk, which Melissa was selling at the time.10
Melissa and Charlotte continued in friendship (they called it a “soul
connection”) well before the possibility of a plural marriage entered
their worldviews.
Having grown up within the LDS Church and having accepted the
Church’s current disapproval of polygamy, each of Charlotte, Melissa,
and Joshua were biased against polygamists. Over time, however,
Charlotte and Melissa received “not quite visions, but senses” that
there was something significant ahead. When the idea of plural
marriage occurred to Charlotte, she and Joshua discussed it, and,
only then, brought the idea (basically a marriage proposal) to
Melissa. In agreement, the three converted from LDS Mormonism to
fundamentalist Mormonism, shocking their biological families.
They became independent fundamentalist Mormons, which
means they practice without joining a church or fundamentalist
denomination. They considered the groups but were not drawn in by
any. When describing her lack of interest in any of the
fundamentalist groups, Charlotte cited scripture, “There’s vomit on
every table” (Isaiah 28:8), referring to imperfection and even
corruption in all religious groups (see also Grief and Sorrow 2017;
Peterson 1978). No group struck them as flawless.
Seeing clear differences between men and women while valuing
each’s strengths, Melissa and Charlotte support a conservative
feminism. The affective bond between Charlotte and Melissa has
been, from the beginning, a pillar of their plural marriage. Charlotte
and Melissa at one point attempted to unite with an LGBTQ online
community and experienced a harsh rejection. They were met with
judgemental comments about their lifestyle and marriage oppressing
them. They walked away from the group, but it stung that others in
the online community were not willing to recognize the LGBTQ
aspect of their marriage. Their story led us into a conversation about
polygyny as orientation.11 The two women were aware of the
affectivity between them. They were neither lesbian nor bisexual,
but they felt that “sister-wife” could be recognized as an LGBTQ
relation.

Williamses—(ex-Mormon) polygynists by
circumstance (My Five Wives)
Brady, Nonie, Paulie, Rhonda, Robyn, and Rosemary Williams are a
polygamist family. They entered their plural marriage as members of
the Mormon fundamentalist Apostolic United Brethren (AUB), a
denomination more commonly known as “the Allred group.” As a
youth, Brady was introduced to fundamentalism when his parents
converted, joining the group.12 The Williams wives, on the other
hand, were raised within the Allred group from birth.13
As 30-somethings, Brady and his wives began to question the
teachings and values of their denomination. As a family, they made
the decision to leave the church. The Williamses left Mormon
fundamentalism but did not break up or dissolve their polygamous
marriage. Their grievances with the Allred group were separate from
their attachments to each other as a plural family. Because of their
unique situation—as ex-fundamentalist polygamists—they were of
interest to reality-TV director Brian Byers and became the subject for
My Five Wives. Their show is unique from the other polygamy shows
in their departure from Mormonism.
As the Williamses have continued their process of spiritual
growth, they have re-examined the core tenets and assumptions of
their plural relationship among other areas of their lives. Sharing
these developments with the public, Brady wrote a piece for
Sunstone Magazine, in which he argues that patriarchy, rather than
polygamy, is responsible for abuse in some polygamist societies. He
engages with Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by
Friedrich Engels, the close companion to Karl Marx who associated
monogamy with patriarchy (Engels [1884] 1978). In the article,
Brady states that his family is committed to dissolving the patriarchal
institution that initially informed their marriage. Having reflected on
the presence of inequality in their marriage contract, they are no
longer closed off to the possibility of the women having other
relationships, although, at least as of his writing, the women have
not acted upon it. Brady writes:

In my family’s case, we did away with our original marriage

contract, deciding that, in the spirit of equality, if I can have
 more than one sexual partner then my wives can as well.
Though we have all agreed on this arrangement, we haven’t
tested it yet. Honestly, I’m worried that I will get jealous if one
of my wives starts having sex with someone else, too, and I
worry that my feelings may dampen their willingness to act on
this right. But in order for this to be a truly egalitarian marriage,
this right, whether it is exercised or not, must exist. (Williams
2016, 53)

Brady has suggested his own flexibility regarding defining their

family’s identity as polygamous or as polyamorous. They started out
within a polygamist cultural (religious) background. They became a
plural family and raised children within the fundamentalist Mormon
religion. However, they departed from the religious culture and
remained together as secular polygamists. If the family has become
open to the possibility of the women having other partners but they
have not exercised the right, is this family polyamorous or
polygamous? And, up to whom is it to decide?

Gwydion Pendderwen and the Five Widows—

polyamory with an appearance of polygyny
Gwydion Pendderwen, known among Pagans for his musical
contributions (C.f. Pendderwen 1975, 1981), is lesser known for his
part in the establishment of polyamory within contemporary
Paganism. But, in fact, Gwydion was at the heart of the Pagan
polyamory movement in the 1970s.
Around 1975, Gwydion relocated from Oakland, alongside Wiccan
priestess Alison Harlow, to Greenfield Ranch, an established hippie
community in the Northern California redwoods. Gwydion named the
land he had purchased, “Annwfn,” after the Celtic underworld, which
he justified on the grounds that once you called something heaven,
you may as well kiss it goodbye (Korn 1991). Having befriended
Gwydion previously, Oberon and Morning Glory Zell followed
Gwydion and Alison to Greenfield Ranch (admittedly hoping to help
repair Gwydion and Alison’s relationship which had become
strained), arriving in 1977 (Sulak 2014, 144).
Like Morning Glory and Oberon, Gwydion was committed to
polyamorous living. The significance of his poly relationships with
women is highly evident when considering the details surrounding
his estate at the event of his unexpected death at the age of 36.
Although by the time of his death Gwydion had already formally
given the land to the Church of All Worlds (Wug 2019), his last will
and testament named five women—all of whom he had been
involved with romantically at one point or another—to be the
stewards of Annwfn in the event of his death. After Gwydion’s death,
the “Five Widows” regathered at Annwfn and divided responsibilities
(Korn, pers. comm.). Although it seems Gwydion was not actively
involved romantically with all five women at the time of his passing,
there was overlap in the relationships (Korn, pers. comm.).14 Some if
not all of the women were bisexual, and their relationships did not
prevent the women from having other lovers. Gwydion’s
heterosexual and non-monogamous orientations, together,
contribute to a partial resemblance to polygyny (one man having
multiple female partners), although the lack of limitations on the
women’s affairs is more in line with other polyamorous relationships.
The positioning of Gwydion Pendderwen as a polyamorist and
Brady Williams as a polygamist warrants inquiry. Gwydion is
associated with polyamory because his agreements with partners did
not limit their sexual activities with others and because his
sociocultural location and his ideals aligned with the 1960s/1970s
hippie movement. In addition to this contrast, Brady’s relationship
history has another characteristic in common with traditional
polygamy that is not shared in Gwydion’s: Brady married multiple
women whereas Gwydion’s relationships were not defined by the
same permanence and some relationships were more serious than
others (Korn, pers. comm.).
Despite that key differences can be found, I argue that Gwydion’s
and Brady’s family structures ought to be recognized for their
overlapping patterns more so than the popular oppositional
definitions permit. Gwydion and Brady share in common that they
are both straight, non-monogamous men, and as a result of this
there are similarities in their affective relationships. Although
Gwydion was not actively romantic with each of the five women
without cessation, the naming of the Five Widows in his will and,
additionally, the women’s commitment to supporting Gwydion’s
wishes suggest an affectivity between them similar to that between
the Williams women and Brady (the Williamses’ plural marriage
persevering even after they disaffiliated from Mormonism).

Joe Exotic and his two husbands—gay

polyandry (Tiger King)
Joe Exotic, the self-proclaimed “Tiger King” and star of the 2020
Netflix hit docu-series of the same name, refers to himself as a
“polygamist.” Partnered with John Finlay since the early 2000s, Joe
married Finlay and Travis Maldonado, together, in a three-way
commitment ceremony in 2014. While consensual non-monogamy is
common among gay American men, identification as “polygamists” is
quite rare. So, what factors contribute to someone being a
“polygamist,” in contrast with “polyamorist”?
The relationship between Joe, Chris, and Travis, at least as
portrayed in Netflix’s Tiger King documentary, resembles what polys
call a “vee,” named because of the structure’s likeness to the shape
of the letter “V.” Joe Exotic was involved sexually with each of Chris
and Travis, but Chris and Travis do not seem to have shared that
level of intimacy. Chris and Travis are the endpoints of the vee (“V”),
and Joe is the point that is connected to the others. A vee contrasts
with a triad, another type of poly relationship, in which all three are
in a sexual relationship.15
Anthropologically (or geometrically), a vee compares with
polygyny or polyandry. In polygyny or polyandry, one partner is
married to the other members of the family, but the relationships
between the other members of the marriage are not defined by
romantic or sexual intimacy. The difference between
polygyny/polyandry and the vee structure is gender specificity in
polygyny/polandry versus gender neutrality in the vee. The term
“vee” does not specify the sex, gender, or orientation of any of the
three, whereas “polygyny” refers to a presumably heterosexual male
partnered to two or more women and “polyandry” refers to a
presumably heterosexual female partnered to two or more men.16
The Joe Exotic family is neither polyandrous nor polygynous because
of the absence of females.
If their family structure most closely matches the polyamorous
vee, what makes other vees “polyamorous,” and Joe, John, and
Travis “polygamist”? Is it because they call themselves “married” or
they call each other “husbands” (terms associated with polygamy
and polyandry)? Is it because of Exotic’s politics? He after all refers
to himself as a “gay, gun-carrying redneck with a mullet.” What
makes Joe Exotic a polygamist rather than a polyamorist other than
his own nomenclature? Is Joe Exotic’s identification inaccurate—or
are others’ dichotomizing definitions faulty as overly limiting?

Chris Penczak, Steve Kenson, & Adam Sartwell

—Pagan poly men
I turn next to a Pagan polyamorous triad or vee of three men. There
is a similarity between this family and the Joe Exotic family in that
the three partners are men. The most obvious differences are
religion and politics.
Chris Penczak, Steve Kenson, and Adam Sartwell are the
founders of The Temple of Witchcraft. They live in Salem, New
Hampshire and run the organization there.17 Of the three, Chris is
the most public as a Pagan figure. He is the author of several
Witchcraft books, the most relevant to polyamory being The Witch’s
Heart (Penczak 2011), a book about relationships written for
Wiccans/Pagans monogamous and non-monogamous, inclusively. In
June 2019, Penczak wrote that when same-sex marriage was
legalized, he “found [himself] in a poly triad and [they] didn’t want
to destabilize dynamics with two of three being married legally.” He
reflects, “I’m happy for those who want it and have it” (Penczak
2019).
Is the difference between polygamy and polyamory about family
structure, including the sexual and affective orientations within the
unit, or about cultural, sociopolitical values? What differentiates the
Chris Penczak family from the Joe Exotic family, justifying one as
polygamous and the other polyamorous? In anthropological kinship
terms, the family structure is similar. Chris, Steve, and Adam are
Pagan. Joe, John, and Travis are not vocal about having any religious
identity. Joe’s politics seem libertarian (Chaiklin and Goode 2020).
What other than politics, social location, and identification determine
one of these all-male families as polygamist and the other
polyamorist?

Morrisons—Mormon fundamentalists living in a

communal utopia … inside a rock (Three Wives
One Husband)
Anizella, Suzy, Beth, and Abel Morrison are a polygamous family
residing within the Rockland Ranch community, also known as “The
Rock.” The Rock is located within Moab, near Utah’s eastern border.
It is exactly as it sounds: The Rock is a giant, half-mile-wide
sandstone rock in the desert. Approximately 15 families who
believed in or were accepting of plural marriage came together in
the late 1970s and established the Rockland Ranch community. They
acquired licenses and used dynamite to blast hollows into the rock,
creating space for new homes. It was explained to me that the thick
sandstone walls provide natural insulation, meaning that “Rock life”
keeps the families warm and cool as needed during Utah’s extreme
seasons.
 The Morrisons are one of the two families who were filmed for
the show Three Wives One Husband. The show follows the
Morrisons and the Fosters. Like Sister Wives, the show portrays
white American polygamists as modern (the main cast members
being from Generation X) and comprised of empowered women and
casual, fun-loving men. In comparison with Sister Wives, more
expressions of the religious beliefs are included in this series, and
viewers learn that Mormon polygamists compare living the principle
to loving less discriminately … like God does.
Rockland Ranch by its very existence is a testament of Mormon
fundamentalism’s development alongside 1970s American
communes. Rockland Ranch settlers shared interests in communal
living and sustainability in common with the founders of other
communes.

KamalaDevi and the Superpod—NeoTantric

kinky queer polycule (Polyamory: Married &
Dating)
Introduced earlier, this family is heavily LGBTQ-affiliated, with
various sexual orientations among its members (Figure i.1). Whereas
many poly families are using the term “polycule” for their network of
connected lovers, KamalaDevi and family had chosen the name
“pod,” after the name for a dolphin colony. As they expanded in size,
they chose “Superpod” to refer to the bigger picture of their family.18
I cannot offer a finite list of the members of the Superpod because
that would be antithetical to their family’s reality and values. The
Superpod is so named because it is meant to include the large mass
of people involved with others in the group. People come and, well,
more people come. KamalaDevi, Michael, Jen, Tahl, Jesse, Rachel,
and Roxanne are some of the members of the Superpod. People do
break up. Jen and Tahl divorced after the show, but each seems to
have maintained emotionally intimate, if not physically intimate,
relationships with others in the Superpod. Polys talk about some
break-ups as “transitions.” They recognize that, once such deep,
interconnected relationships are established, it is neither practical
nor ideal to terminate them, and many remain part of the Superpod
even if certain bonds fizzle or transform.

Figure i.1 San Diego Superpod with show’s director (Polyamory: Married & Dating)

In the first season, KamalaDevi introduces Roxanne, “my

girlfriend,” to viewers. I have used quotation marks only to show
KamalaDevi’s emphasis on the exclusive relationship. KamalaDevi
does not want to share their lover Roxanne with Michael or,
presumably, with anyone else in the Pod. Roxanne seems
comfortable with this arrangement. The cast members use this
relationship as a teaching tool. Michael and KamalaDevi “process,”
meaning they talk about their feelings and gradually work toward a
new relationship agreement. KamalaDevi’s exclusivity does not sit
well with Michael, though he agrees to give KamalaDevi time to
warm up to sharing. Although this example does not radically
challenge the image of polyamory, it at least communicates that
limits can be and are set within polyamorous relationships. These
limits are not institutionalized along gender lines as they are in
polygyny; still, the example of KamalaDevi keeping Roxanne
intimately separate from Michael, against Michael’s hopes, merits
reflection here.

Recalibrating our readings of polyamory and

polygamy
Each of these families in some way or another expresses
characteristics commonly associated with polygamy and others
commonly associated with polyamory. Each of these families
identifies as one or the other—that is, as polygamous or as
polyamorous. And yet, each family defies some common
assumptions about or characteristics associated with that particular
family structure. Furthermore, there are many polyamorists who call
their additional partners “husbands,” “wives,” or “spouses” without
being legally married to more than one. Some polys choose to use
these established terms of kinship to convey their multiple
commitments, which challenges the common assertion that
polyamory differs from polygamy in that the latter is “multiple
marriages” while the former is “many loves.” In truth, individuals in
both groups sometimes use the nomenclature of marriage; yet only
religious polygamists have been prosecuted for bigamy and
cohabitation. Though I do not deny that there are cultural
differences across the groups, many families are living on the line
between “polygamy” and “polyamory” in some way or another. While
others have posited that the difference between polygamy and
polyamory is about institutionalized female subordination (associated
with polygamy), I argue that the distinction has much more to do
with identity and cultural location.
Polyamory in the USA
The term polyamory has been in use since at least the late 1980s
but polyamory itself was prevalent within communal societies earlier
than this. Neo-Pagan priestess Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart claims
to be the source for the term.19 Members of the movement
commonly gloss polyamory as “consensual non-monogamy” or
“ethical non-monogamy.”
However, as Sheff has explained, there were prototype polyamory
movements in American history. Sheff determines three historic
waves of polyamory. She includes Brook Farm and the Oneida
community in the first wave, under nineteenth-century
transcendentalism; the sexual revolution and feminist and
gay/lesbian/bisexual movements of the 1960s and 1970s as the
second wave; and the Internet age, which includes Millennial and
Gen Z polys, as the third wave (Sheff 2012). Lesbian feminists were
exploring non-monogamy in the 1970s, associating monogamy with
the heteropatriarchy (Vera 2008, 13). Polyamory, in practice and in
name, had burgeoned in lesbianism by the 1990s (Johnson 1991;
Munson and Stelboum 2008).
Today, polyamory is closely associated with the sociopolitical left
and with LGTBQ culture. Studies suggest that greater than 22% of
Americans have been in a consensually non-monogamous
relationship at some point in their life (Haupert, Gesselman, et al.
2017; Haupert, Moors, et al. 2017). Elisabeth Sheff estimates the US
polyamorous population at around two million (Sheff 2014b). Polys
are of many sexual orientations: they are gay, straight, bisexual,
pansexual, omnisexual, asexual, heteroflexible, and queer.20 While
there are many gay men who practice consensual non-monogamy,
only some self-identify as polyamorous and align themselves with
the polyamory movement. The latter may be initiated into the
polyamory culture via bisexual male partners, who are a higher
demographic in polyamory. Studies have suggested that
heterosexuality is the most common orientation for self-identifying
polyamorous men and that bisexuality is the most common
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Second census
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Second census

Author: John Victor Peterson

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Release date: September 14, 2023 [eBook #71645]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1957

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND

CENSUS ***
 Second Census

By JOHN VICTOR PETERSON

Illustrated by SCHOENHERR

Quintuplets alone would be bad enough, without

a census taker who could count them in advance!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Infinity October 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
In addition to being a genius in applied atomics, Maitland Browne's a
speedster, a practical joker, and a spare-time dabbler in electronics.
As far as speed's concerned, I had a very special reason for wanting
to get home early tonight, and swift straight flight would have been
perfectly okay with me. The trouble was that Browne decided that this
was his night to work on Fitzgerald.
Browne lifted the three passenger jetcopter—his contribution to our
commuterpool—from the flight stage at Brookhaven National
Laboratories in a strictly prosaic manner. Then the flight-fiend in him
came out with a vengeance. Suddenly and simultaneously he set the
turbo-jets to full thrust and dived to treetop level; then he started
hedgehopping toward Long Island Sound. His heavy dark features
were sardonic in the rear-view mirror; his narrowed, speculative eyes
flicked to it intermittently to scan Ed Fitzgerald beside me.
Browne's action didn't surprise, startle, or even frighten me at first. I'd
seen the mildly irritated look in his eyes when Fitzgerald had come
meandering up—late as usual!—to the ship back on the stage. I had
rather expected some startling development; provoking Ed Fitzgerald
to a measurable nervous reaction was one of Browne's burning
ambitions. I also had a certain positive hunch that Fitzgerald's
tardiness was deliberate.
In any event my mind was ninety per cent elsewhere. Tessie—my
wife—had visifoned me from Doc Gardiner's office in New Canaan
just before I'd left my office at the Labs and had told me with high
elation that we were destined to become the proud parents of
quintuplets! I was, therefore, now going back bewilderedly over our
respective family trees, seeking a precedent in the genes.
I was shocked out of my genealogical pursuits when Browne
skimmed between the tall stereo towers near Middle Island. I
prayerfully looked at Fitzgerald for assistance in persuading Browne
to cease and desist, but Fitzgerald was staring as imperturbably as
ever at Browne's broad back, a faintly derisive smile on his face.
I should have expected that. Even a major cataclysm couldn't budge
Fitzgerald. I've seen him damp an atomic pile only milliseconds from
critical mass without batting an eye before, during or after.
I tried to console myself. But while I knew Browne's reaction time was
uncommonly fast and his years of 'copter flight singularly accident-
free, I still could not relax. Not tonight, with the knowledge that I was
a prospective father of not just the first but the first five. I wanted to
get home to Tessie in a hurry, certainly, but I wanted to get there all in
one proud piece.
Browne went from bad to worse and began kissing the 'copter's belly
on the waves in Long Island Sound. The skipping stone effect was
demoralizing. Then, trying to top that, he hedgehopped so low on the
mainland that the jets blew the last stubbornly clinging leaves from
every oak tree we near-missed crossing Connecticut to our
destination on the Massachusetts border.
Fitzgerald was the only one who talked on the way. Browne was too
intent on his alleged driving. I was, frankly, too scared for intelligible
conversation. It wasn't until later, in fact, that I realized that Ed
Fitzgerald's monologue had clearly solved a problem we were having
on adjusting the new cosmotron at the Labs.
"We made good time tonight," Browne said, finally easing up as we
neared home.
Fitzgerald grinned.
I found my voice after a moment and said, "It's a good thing radar
doesn't pick up objects that low or C.A.A. would be breathing down
your fat neck! As it is, I think the cops at Litchfield have probably 'cast
a summons to your p. o. tray by now. That was the mayor's 'copter
you almost clipped."
Browne shrugged as if he'd worry about it—maybe!—if it happened.
He's top physicist at the Labs. In addition to his abilities, that means
he has connections.
We dropped imperturbable Fitzgerald on his roofstage at the lower
end of Nutmeg Street; then Browne dropped a relieved me two blocks
up and proceeded the five blocks to his enormous solar house at the
hill's summit.
I energized the passenger shaft, buttoned it to optimum descent and
dropped to first. There was a note from Tessie saying she'd gone
shopping with Fitzgerald's wife, Miriam. So I'd start celebrating alone!
I punched the servomech for Scotch-on-the-rocks. As I sat sipping it I
kept thinking about Maitland Browne. It wasn't just the recollection of
the ride from Brookhaven. It was also the Scotch. Association.
I thought back to the night Tessie and I had gone up to Browne's to
spend the evening, and Browne invited me to sit in a new plush chair.
I sat all right, but promptly found that I was completely unable to rise
despite the fact that I was in full possession of my faculties. He'd then
taken our respective wives for a midnight 'copter ride, leaving me to
escape the chair's invisible embrace if I could. I couldn't.
Luckily he'd forgotten that his liquor cabinet was within arm's reach of
the chair; I'd made devastating inroads on a pinch bottle by the time
they'd returned. He switched off his psionic machine but fast then,
and didn't ever try to trap me in it again!
The visifone buzzed and I leaped to it, thinking of Tessie out shopping
in her delicate condition—
I felt momentary relief, then startlement.
It was Fitzgerald—Fitzgerald with fair features flushed, Fitzgerald the
imperturbable one stammering with excitement!
"Now, wait a second!" I said in amazement. "Calm down, for Heaven's
sake! What's this about a census?"
"Well, are they taking one now?"
"By 'they' I presume you mean the Bureau of the Census of the U. S.
Department of Commerce," I said, trying to slow him down, while
wondering what in the name of a reversed cyclotron could have jarred
him so.
He spluttered. "Who else? Well, are they?"
"Not to my knowledge. They took it only last year. Won't do it again
until 1970. Why?"
"As I was trying to tell you, a fellow who said he was a census taker
was just here and damn it, Jim, he wanted to know my considered
ideas of natural resources, birth control, immigration, racial
discrimination, UFO's and half a dozen other things. He threw the
questions at me so fast I became thoroughly confused. What with me
still thinking about the cosmotron, wondering if Brownie will stop
riding me before I do break down, and wondering where Miriam is, I
just had to slow him down so that I could piece together the answers.
"Just about then he staggered as if a fifth of hundred-proof bourbon
had caught up with him and reeled out without a fare-thee-well. I
didn't see which way he went because Jim Moran—he's the new
fellow in the house just down the hill—Jim called to see if the fellow
had been here yet and what I thought of him. If he hit Jim's before
me, that means he should be getting to you within the next half-hour
or so."
My front door chimed.
"Sorry, Fitz," I said. "This must be Tessie. She was coming home on
the surface bus. Miriam's with her, so that's one worry off your mind.
Take it easy. I'll call you back."

But it wasn't Tessie. It was a man, dressed in a dark brown business

suit that was tight on his big frame. His face was a disturbing one,
eyes set so wide apart you had trouble meeting them up close and
felt embarrassed shifting your gaze from one to the other.
"Mr. James Rainford?" he asked rhetorically.
"Yes?"
"I'm from the Bureau of the Census," he said calmly.
This couldn't be the same fellow Fitzgerald had encountered. There
must be a group of them covering the neighborhood. In any event,
this man was cold sober. Further, the fastest Olympic runner couldn't
have made the two long blocks from Fitzgerald's house in the time
that had elapsed and this fellow wasn't even breathing hard.
"Let's see your credentials," I said.
I wasn't sure whether he hesitated because he couldn't remember
which pocket they were in or for some other reason; anyway, he did
produce credentials and they were headed U. S. Department of
Commerce, Bureau of the Census, and looked very proper indeed.
But I still couldn't quite believe it. "But the census was taken last
year," I said.
"We have to recheck this area," he said smoothly. "We have reason
to believe that the records are inaccurate."
His eyes were harder to meet than ever.
"Excuse me," I said and stepped out on the stoop, looking down the
hill toward Fitzgerald's house.
Not only was Fitzgerald standing on his tropic forelawn, but so were
the dozen household heads in between, each and every one of them
staring fixedly at the pair of us on my stoop.
"Come in," I said perplexedly and led the way.
When I turned to face him I found that he'd swung a square black box
which resembled a miniature cathode ray oscilloscope from behind
his back and was busily engaged in punching multi-colored buttons
tinging the dim raster. I'm a gadget man—cybernetics is my forte—but
I'm afraid I stared. The most curious wave-forms I have ever seen
were purple-snaking across the 'scope.
"It's a combination memory storage bank and recorder," he explained.
"Electronic shorthand. I'm reading the data which your wife gave to us
and which I'll ask you to verify."
The gadget was a new one to me. I made a mental note to renew my
subscription to Scientific American.
"Married," he said. "Ah, yes, expecting!"
"Now will you stop right there!" I cried. "That couldn't be on your
records! A year ago we certainly weren't expecting! Now, look—"
But he kept on with most peculiar enthusiasm. "Quintuplets! Sure!
Three boys and two girls! My congratulations, Mr. Rainford. Thank
you for your time!"
I stood there dazed. Nobody but Doctor Gardiner, Tessie and myself
—well, maybe Miriam Fitzgerald by this time—knew we were
expecting. Even Gardiner couldn't know the division of sexes among
the foetal group at this early stage of development!
I had to find a way to delay this strange man.
"Let's see your credentials again," I demanded as my mind raced:
Oh, where's Tessie? What was it Fitz had said? Brownie, maybe
Brownie, can explain—
The census taker pulled papers from his pocket, then reeled as
though drunk. He staggered backward against and out of the door,
the autoclose slamming it behind him.
I jerked open the door and jumped out on the stoop.
In those few seconds the man had vanished—
No! There he was fifty feet away ringing Mike Kozulak's bell. And he
was erect, completely steady!
But nobody could move that fast!

I turned back and picked up the papers he'd dropped. There was a
little sheaf of them, printed on incredibly thin paper. The printing
resembled the wave-forms I had seen upon the 'scope. It was like
some twisted Arabic script. And this strange script was overprinted on
a star-chart which I thought I recognized.
I plumbed my mind, I had it! In a star identification course at M. I. T.
they had given us star-charts showing us the galaxy as seen from
another star which we were asked to identify. One of those charts at
M. I. T. had been almost exactly the same as this: the galaxy as
viewed from Alpha Centauri!
I was stunned. I staggered a bit as I went back out on the stoop and
looked down the street. I welcomed the sight of Ed Fitzgerald
hurrying up across the neighbors' forelawns, uprooting some of the
burbanked tropical plants en route.
By the time Fitzgerald reached me, the census taker had come out of
Mike Kozulak's like a fission-freed neutron, staggered a few times in
an orbit around one of Mike's greenhouse-shelled shrubs, and
actually streaked across the two vacant lots between Mike's and
Manny Cohen's.
"He's not human," I said to Ed. "Not Earth-human. I'll swear he's from
Alpha Centauri; look at these papers! What he's after Heaven knows,
but maybe we can find out. It's a cinch he'll eventually reach Maitland
Browne's. Let's get there fast; maybe we'll be able to trap him!"
I dragged Fitzgerald inside and we went up the passenger shaft
under optimum ascent.
My little Ponticopter's jets seared the roof garden as I blasted forward
before the vanes had lifted us clear of the stage. I think I out-Browned
Browne in going those five blocks and I know I laid the foundation for
a Mrs. Browne vs. Mr. Rainford feud as I dropped my 'copter with
dismaying results into the roof garden which was her idea of Eden. I
had to, though; Brownie's is a one-copter stage and his ship was on
it.
We beat the alien. We looked back down the hill before we entered
Brownie's passenger shaft. The fellow was just staggering out of Jack
Wohl's rancher at the lower end of this last block.
We found Browne working on a stripped-down stereo chassis which
had been carelessly laid without protective padding in the middle of
the highly polished dining table. I knew then that his wife couldn't
possibly be home.
Browne looked up as if he were accustomed to unannounced people
dropping into his reception chute.
"To what do I owe the honor of—" he started. Fitzgerald interrupted
him with a stammered burst that brought a pleased grin to his broad
features.
"Well, Fitz," Browne said. "Where's the old control?"
Fitzgerald fumed. I took over and explained swiftly.
"Well, this is a problem," Browne said thoughtfully. "Now why in the
world—"
His front door chimed and became one-way transparent. We saw the
alien standing on the stoop, erect and calm.
"Now what will—" Fitzgerald started. "We thought maybe—the chair,
Brownie!"
Browne grinned and pressed a button on the table console. He has
them in every room—to control at his whim any of the dozens of
electronic and mechanical equipments located throughout his
enormous house.
The front door opened and the alien entered as Browne cried "Come
in!"
Browne flicked over a switch marked Lock 1st Fl as he rose and went
into the living room. We followed him warily.

The alien glanced back at the closed door with a trace of annoyance
on his broad features; then regarded us imperturbably as we
advanced.
"Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Rainford," he said flatly. "Well, this is a
surprise!"
He didn't sound sincere.
"Have a seat," Browne said, waving a big hand toward the chair.
The alien shook his head negatively.
Browne gave Fitzgerald and me a quick glance, inclining his head
forward. We promptly accelerated our advance.
"Look," Browne said, his dark face intense, "we know you're not what
you pretend to be. We know you're not of our country, not of our
world, not even of our solar system. Sit down in that chair!"
He lunged forward, grasping with his big hands, as we leaped at the
alien from either flank.
The alien didn't just move—he streaked, shooting between Browne
and Fitzgerald, heading unerringly toward the open passenger shaft
—into it!
Browne leaped to a console and punched the roof-lock button. A split
second later we heard a riveting machine burst of what was obviously
Centaurian profanity coming down the shaft as the alien found the
exit closed. Browne's fingers darted on the console, locking all the
upstairs windows.
"Browne," I said, "what good will that do? If we do manage to corner
him, just how long do you think we can stand up against him? With
his speed he could evade us until doomsday, to say nothing about
beating our brains out while we tried to land one, solid punch!"
Fitzgerald said, "If we can keep him on the run, maybe he'll get tired."
"Yeah, maybe," I said. "What if that's his normal speed? And who's
likely to get tired first? I'm dragging as of now."
"Well," Fitzgerald said, "we could get more people in and go at him in
shifts—or, well, what about tear gas or an anesthetic gas or—"
"Now, wait!" Browne snapped, unquestionably seizing command. "I'll
admit I started him on the run just now. Perhaps it was the wrong
approach. After all, he's done nothing wrong as far as we know. I—I
guess all of us—leaped to the illogical conclusion that he's out for no
good just because he's an alien. Sure, he's after something or he
wouldn't be going from door to door posing as a census taker. The
way you talk, Jim, would seem to indicate you're not curious. Well, I
am, and I'm going to do everything in my power to find out what he's
after.
"We've got to make him tell us. We can't deduce anything from the
data we have now. Sure, we know he has what you, Jim, say look like
bona fide credentials from the Census Bureau, but we also have right
here I. D. papers or something which show he's apparently from
Alpha Centauri. We know he speaks our language perfectly; ergo he
either learned it here first-hand or acquired it from someone else who
had learned it here.
"Whatever he's after, his approach certainly varies. He asked you a
lot of questions, Fitz, but, Jim, practically all he did in your house was
tell you your wife was pregnant with quintuplets. And whatever his
approach has been, he never seems to finish whatever he comes to
do. Something about you two—and from what you two have said,
Kozulak and Wohl—seems to have a most peculiar effect on him; you
say he's staggered out of every house he's entered only to recover
again in a matter of seconds.
"Just try to equate that!"
He stopped, pondering, and we didn't interrupt.
"Look," he said, "you two go upstairs. Take opposite sides of the
house and find him. Go slowly so that he won't be alarmed. Try to talk
with him, to persuade him we mean him no harm. If you find you can't
persuade him to come willingly, try to work him back to the passenger
shaft. I'll watch through the console—I've kinescopes in every room—
and I'll lock off one room at a time so that he can't reverse himself. I
won't activate the kinescopes until you're upstairs; he might
deactivate them if he weren't kept busy. Get him back to the
passenger shaft and I'll take over from there."
"But what—" Fitzgerald started.
Browne scowled and we went. Fitzgerald should have known better;
there are no buts when Browne gives orders.

We reached the second floor, floated off the up column into the foyer,
and separated.
Browne's first floor rooms are spacious, but most of those on the
second floor are not. I'd never been on the second floor before; I
found it a honeycomb of interconnected rooms of varying sizes and
shapes. I was apparently in Mrs. Browne's quarters; there were half a
dozen hobby rooms alone: a sewing room, a painting room, a
sculpture room, a writing room, others—And here was her spacious
bedroom and on its far side the alien was vainly trying to force one of
its windows.
He turned as I entered, his curious eyes darting around for an avenue
of escape.
"Now, wait," I said as soothingly as I could. "We don't mean any
harm. I think we're justified in being curious as to why you're here.
Who are you anyway? What are you looking for and why?"
He shook his head as if bewildered and seemed suddenly to become
unsteady.
"One question at a time, please," he said, temporizingly. "Your school
system isn't exacting enough; you all think of too many things at
once. It shocks a mind trained to single subject concentration,
especially when one has been educated in telepathic reception."
He grinned at me as I mentally recalled his staggering moments of
seeming drunkenness.
One question at a time, he'd said. Well, I'd ask him the one that was
burning at the threshold of my mind. I said quickly:
"I realize that you probably read in my mind that my wife and I are
expecting quintuplets, but how did you know the rest—about the
division of sexes—or did you guess?"
"I'll have to explain," he said; then hesitated, seeming to debate
mentally with himself as to whether he should go on. Suddenly he
started to talk so fast that the words nearly blurred into
unrecognizability, like a 45 rpm record at 78.
"I am Hirm Sulay of Alpha Centauri Five," he burst. "My people have
warred with the race of Beta Centauri Three for fifty of your years. We
secretly bring our children here to protect them from sporadic
bombing, insuring their upbringing through placing them in
orphanages or directly into homes."
A horrible suspicion flamed in my mind. I'd tried vainly to account for
the multiple birth we were expecting. I cried at him: "Then my wife—"
and he said,
"She will have twin girls, Doc Gardiner tells me. We had planned to
have three newborn boys ready in the delivery room."
"Then Doc Gardiner—"
"He and his staff are all of my race," Hirm Sulay said. "I see how your
mind leaped when I said 'newborn boys.' Your UFO sightings
frequently describe a 'mother' ship. Considering the gravid women
aboard I'd say the description is quite apt."

For some reason anger flared in me, and I rushed at him. He blurred
and went around me and out the way I'd come. I raced after him and
heard Fitzgerald cry, "Oh, no you don't!" and machine-gun footfalls
were doubling back toward me.
I hurried on and he flashed at and by me, then turned back as he
came to a door Browne had remotely locked. Back at and past me
again. I gave chase.
Fitzgerald yelled, "He's slowing down, Jim. He's tiring!"
And the doors kept closing under Browne's nimble fingering at the
console down below. Suddenly the area was cut down to the
passenger shaft foyer, and the three of us were weaving about, like
two tackles after the fastest fullback of all time. I leaped forward and
actually laid a hand on the alien for a split second, just enough to
topple him off balance so that Fitzgerald, charging in, managed to
bump him successfully into the shaft. A surprised cry came ringing
back up the shaft; Browne had obviously cut the lift's power supply
completely.
Browne's voice came ringing up: "Come on down, fellows; I've got
him!"
The shaft guard light flicked to green. Fitzgerald and I dropped down
to first.
Browne had apparently had his chair directly under the shaft; it was
back from the touchdown pad now and Hirm Sulay was in it, vainly
wriggling, shame-faced.
"Now maybe we'll find out a thing or two—" Browne said
meaningfully, bending toward the alien.
"Wait a minute," I cut in and related what Hirm Sulay had told me
upstairs.
"Is it true?" Browne demanded.
Hirm Sulay nodded.
"But why are you going from door to door? Surely you know where
those children are!"
"Sorry," Hirm Sulay said, "we don't. Some of the older and more
important records were lost. I say more important because the
missing ones I seek are grown. We're fighting a war, as I told you,
Jim. You can't keep fighting a war without young recruits!"
Browne's nearly fantastic dexterity came to my mind then. It
apparently came to his simultaneously; he asked abruptly,
"Could I be one of you?"
"What do you think?" Hirm Sulay countered, his face enigmatic.
"Well, I certainly can't move as fast as you!"
"Have you ever tried? Have you ever gone in for athletics? I'd say no.
Most scientists are essentially inactive—physically, that is."
"Are you saying 'yes'?" Browne cried.
Hirm Sulay looked us over, one by one. "Each of you is of our blood,"
he said. "I knew Jim and Fitz were when Fitz said I was slowing down
upstairs. I wasn't; they were speeding up to normalcy for the first
time."
I was stunned for a moment, only dimly aware that he went on to say,
"Now please turn off this blasted chair and tell me how it works. The
principle applied as a tractor beam could win our war!"
"I haven't the vaguest idea," Browne said. "But I bet you can figure it
out!"
Browne went to the servomech for drinks. He was gone for precisely
three seconds. Of those the servomech took two. Slow machine.
I don't know what to tell Tessie. Maybe she'd feel strange with the
boys if she knew. I'll certainly have to tell her part of the truth, though,
because I just can't let Browne and Fitzgerald go to help win our war
without me.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND
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