Category: Sexual Taboos

Willow Smith has announced that she is polyamorous.

Speaking on Red Table Talk, a chat show hosted by her mother and grandmother, the 20-year-old musician said she would be open to having more than one partner, and said the approach helps people respect each other’s needs in relationships.

She said: “With polyamory I feel like the main foundation is the freedom to be able to create a relationship style that works for you and not just (to be) stepping into monogamy because that’s what everyone around you says is the right thing to do. So I was like, how can I structure the way that I approach relationships with that in mind?

She continued: “Let’s say you haven’t always been the person wanting sex all the time, but your partner is,” she added. “Are you going to be the person to say, ‘Just because I don’t have these needs, you can’t have them either?’”

But what actually is polyamory? And what does it involve? We’ve broken it down into four key points…

But what is polyamory?

Polyamory is the concept of having more than one sexual or romantic relationship at the same time – with the informed consent of all partners involved.

The term comes from the Greek word “poly” – meaning many, and the Latin “amor” – love.

What does it involve?

The term acts as an umbrella for any non-monogamous relationship.

It can involve someone having multiple partners who are not connected; being in a group of people who date (like a throuple); or having an open hierarchical relationship in which there is a primary couple who are closest to each other, but are allowed to form emotional or sexual bonds with other people.

That the label is not just about sex is key. Dedeker Winston, author of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Polyamory, told Glamour: “There are a lot of people in the polyamorous community who identify as (asexual), while Willow Smith said she has less sex than her friends.

Does it have its own symbol and day of recognition?

A polyamory pride flag was designed by Jim Evans in 1995. It has three horizontal stripes – blue, red and black – and a pi symbol in the centre.

The pi sign was chosen because it has infinite decimal places, a play on polyamorous people having “infinite” partners, while the colours chosen have various meanings including love and passion and openness among all partners.

The pi sign was chosen because it has infinite decimal places, a play on polyamorous people having “infinite” partners, while the colours chosen have various meanings including love and passion and openness among all partners.

In Canada, November 23 is National Polyamory Day, marking a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that confirmed the legality of polyamorous relationships.

Meanwhile, in the UK PolyDay is a one-day convention that has been held since 2006 to celebrate polyamory.

Which other celebrities are polyamorous?

Willow Smith is not the only celebrity to open up about this sexual identity. Big Little Lies actress Shailene Woodley said she has been in an open relationship, as has Megan Fox and YouTubers Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau.

There have been rumours that Willow Smith’s parents, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are also in an open relationship, with the latter once posting on social media: “Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship…this means we have a GROWN one.”

And this is not something limited to celebrity bubbles.

Nearly a third of American millennials surveyed in a 2020 YouGov poll said that their ideal relationship was non-monogamous to some degree.

 Reference: Indy 100: Kate Plummer 1 day ago

Cast your mind back to the last time you watched – with whatever level of arousal or discomfort – a sex scene that depicted individuals anything other than young, firm and athletic.

You’re likely to be pondering for quite some time. The truth is that there are few representations of this kind.

Yet, as sex therapist Gail Thorne from relationship charity Relate says, “We’re getting better at inclusivity; at showing all kinds of different people and situations – but there are still many older people who really want to feel represented as having, and being accepted as having, intimate and loving relationships.” They want, she says, to see themselves as the poster kids for more than just life insurance and funeral homes.

“You look at advertising for clothes, for example,” says Thorne, “and you now see plus-size models and older models – but if you were to look for representations of intimacy in older people, you’d be hard-pressed to find it. And that’s part of why this campaign is so amazing.”

The campaign to which she is referring was shot by British photographer Rankin, who has collaborated with Relate to shoot a series of black and white photos, depicting a range of couples and a single woman, all engaged in various moments of sexuality, vulnerability and intimacy.

The images in the campaign, titled ‘Let’s Talk the Joy of Later Life Sex,’ were created with input from the couples to ensure that nothing was too staged or unnatural. The impetus, says advertising and marketing agency Ogilvy, was a recognition of the fact that advertising most often fails to represent older generational intimacy, and to allow every photoshoot participant to feel “sincerely empowered.”

“We all need intimacy now more than ever,” says Rankin, who took the assignment on pro-bono. “Age… is just a number. The greatness of love and affection doesn’t need to change as we find our later years.”

According to research undertaken by 3Gem market research, there is a huge gap between how older people say they are represented in the media and how younger people perceive themselves to be: an astounding 67 per cent of over 65s say that sex and intimacy for their age group is rarely or never represented in media, compared with 20 per cent of 18-24 year olds.

Why is this the case, though? If we are to look at Maslow’s oft-touted Hierarchy of Needs, sex is a physiological need; up there with food and water – something that we cannot live without, even if we can muddle along without things further up the pyramid, such as achievement and creativity.

If we’re not uncomfortable with the idea of older people eating and drinking, then why should we feel awkward about the idea of them having sex? Equally, why should the individuals in that age group feel uncomfortable about the realities of their own sexuality? The study showed that most of the 60 per cent of over-65s who admitted to feeling uncomfortable about speaking with others about sex and intimacy cited ‘embarrassment’ as the primary reason.

Honesty and communication are, according to Thorne, key in any relationship. “Sex therapy is about encouraging people to feel confident and secure in saying what they want – what works for them; what doesn’t work for them; what feels good and what doesn’t,” she says.

By extension, it makes sense that talking about sex and intimacy – outside of the act itself – will further bolster confidence and trust: not only where people in that older age group are concerned, but also those for whom the prospect of getting older might be plagued with premature inklings of loss – loss of attractiveness, of desire and additionally, she says, of ability.

“Things change,” she says. “Women have babies, men become fathers, there are illnesses, there are bad backs … so many things happen to our bodies. Over our lifetimes, things change all of the time – and it’s important to be able to give voice to these changes and what they mean in terms of our sexual intimacy as time goes on.”

She is at pains, too, to point out that this intimacy – at any age – is what works for you: it’s not, and does not need to be, the sweaty rampancy depicted in literature and films.

“In reality, ‘sex and intimacy in later life’ means different things to different people,” she says. ”For some, it’s about exploring new and different sexual experiences, and for others, it’s simply about feeling able to express emotion through a gentle touch or kiss on the cheek.”

“I’m excited to see what kind of society-wide conversation this opens up,” she adds. “It’s  our hope that it will raise awareness of the fact that intimacy is something that can be accessed by everyone, regardless of age, and that, if you’re struggling, then Relate’s sex therapy service is there to help.”