Rewriting the dating rulebook: tales of non-monogamy from the East End
From polyamorous choirs and non-monogamy picnics to sex-positive kink parties, east London is a community hub for those redefining intimacy with a radical approach to love.
We’re almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and nearly all the rules in the dating handbook haven’t only been rewritten, but ceremonially lit and extinguished into flames.
If you haven’t heard already, monogamy’s going out of style, and many have turned to unconventional ways of loving. According to a 2019 YouGov survey, 7% of UK adults have tried non-monogamy — up from 2% in 2015 — and nearly a quarter say they’d be open to it.
The growth of Feeld — the ‘dating app for the curious’, or people interested in non-monogamy, polyamory, casual sex, kink and swinging — is indicative of our shifting culture. Over the past three years, Feeld’s monthly active users skyrocketed by 190% and paid memberships increased by 550%.
Our questioning of monogamy isn’t just changing how we date, it’s also transforming the way we bring up our children. Later in August, a new book by author Laura Boyle will be released, entitled Monogamy? In this economy?: Finances, Childrearing, and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamory, giving non-monogamous parents a step-by-step guide to rearing a family, 21st-century style.
But for those who’ve never questioned their allegiance to the all-encompassing, exclusive, until-death-do-us-part model of love sold to us in the movies, non-monogamy is a topic still shrouded in mystery. To mark the end of Non-Monogamy Week of Visibility, we reached out to its practitioners to get answers. Why do it? What’s there to be gained by doubling, or even tripling our partners? And never mind why, how?
Emma Ridges, 34
A bad breakup and the outbreak of Covid were enough to trigger a radical change in Emma Ridges’ life four years ago. The event manager from Stratford was 30 years old and decided she was entitled to some fun, so she downloaded Feeld. ‘I went down a rabbit hole and discovered the London kink and non-monogamous, sex-positive world, and built a sense of community for myself,’ she told me.
Ridges began attending sex-positive parties across east London, from Klub Verboten events in Limehouse to Colour Factory in Hackney Wick. She was introduced to a scene where monogamy wasn’t the norm, and found a way of life that felt authentic to her.
She identifies as non-monogamous and is open to exploring polyamory in the future. She’s in a romantic relationship with a polyamorous man who has multiple other committed partners, while she has one other casual partner that she’s been seeing for over a year.
‘I live a really busy life, I’ve always very much been solo and independent and lived my life for me. For me, non-monogamy allows me to have multiple relationships that bring different things,’ says Ridges.
‘I like the versatility of having all of these people in my life to fulfil different aspects of my mood as a living, breathing, loving human.’
Ridges has steadfastly never wanted children, and she’s not too interested in marriage either — decisions which tend to raise eyebrows among those who find it unfathomable that a woman might not crave the traditional markers of domestic bliss.
‘People who don’t really get it think, “Well, you just haven’t found the one yet”. In the same way, I would always encounter that when it came to talking about not wanting children,’ she says.
‘It’d be like, “Oh, you just haven’t met the right person yet to make you want to have children”. But no, it’s something that fundamentally, I don’t want, and that’s okay, in the same way that non-monogamy is something I fundamentally do want.’
Scott Cheek, 49
Scott Cheek is a Brick Lane-based drag queen, who’s been married to his husband for 15 years. The couple opened their relationship following three years of monogamy after Cheek cheated on his husband. The episode marked a critical crossroads in their relationship, leading to a new chapter of radical honesty.
‘I’m not excusing my behaviour because it was quite upsetting, but it brought out the recognition that I needed to experience sex with other people because we were hardly doing that anyway,’ Cheek says.
Now that they’re open, Cheek believes his bond with his husband has only strengthened. ‘I hear from many older couples, whether they’re gay or straight, that what starts off as an intense sexual relationship then develops into something else,’ he says. While sex is no longer at the centre of his relationship with his husband, the couple are closer than ever after having rewritten the rule book to work for them.
‘What’s really important is developing the companionship, and that’s what I think we’ve done. Sex is fleeting, it can happen with anyone, it can be 10 minutes or an hour, or if you’re lucky, two hours. But what’s really important is having that bond and having that for the rest of your life,’ he says.
‘We’ve been together 16 years, and for a gay relationship, it’s like dog years,’ he tells me. ‘So seven for every one, so I’ve really been like 90 years into a relationship, maybe longer.’
For a gay man like Cheek, non-monogamy is also a political act — a way to transgress the heteronormative conventions he has always felt excluded from. He has a civil partnership with his husband, as gay marriage wasn’t legal back in 2009 when they tied the knot. In this sense, Cheek has always felt barred from traditions, so why abide by them now?
‘We get to make up our own rules,’ he tells me. ‘Because the rulebook exists for straight, white people generally, in this country at least, and not everyone identifies as that.’
He went on: ‘For queer people, non-binary, or transgender, we don’t have to have the same rules as everyone else. We can make up our own rules. And I think that’s something that’s very unique.’
But according to Cheek, the urge to have mindless sex can also be a trauma response, a reaction to years of internalised homophobia. ‘Growing up in this day and age, and being made to feel for decades ashamed of who I am and what I am, a lot of people in our community will look for validation,’ he says.
‘If you can get validated by lots of different people, your self-image is restored for a short period of time, you don’t hate yourself for a little period of time. Sometimes you do afterwards, because maybe you did things that you weren’t really comfortable doing, but you weren’t brave enough to say no.’
To make non-monogamy work in his own marriage, boundaries are everything. ‘We won’t talk about it,’ Cheek says. The pair will say to each other, ‘You go have your fun, I’ll have my fun, and just make sure you’re safe’, without divulging details. The fact that Cheek’s husband works for British Airways helps. ‘While he’s away, he can have his fun abroad and I can have my fun here. And then when we’re together, that’s it,’ he says. Another rule is they generally don’t know the names of the men they’re sleeping with. This way, it never becomes more than just sex.
For Cheek, non-monogamy has allowed him to remain committed to his life partner without sacrificing a fundamental part of his identity. ‘It’s freeing,’ he tells me. ‘It has strengthened our relationship, it’s made us care more, trust more, we’re really close.’
Roy Graff, 54
Roy Graff is a relationship coach and counsellor based in south-east London. On Saturday, he helped to organise a non-monogamous community picnic in Victoria Park — fostering solidarity and support among a network of people who often feel judged by mainstream society.
‘There’s the integrated stigma that if you’re polyamorous, you’ll just have casual sex with anybody,’ he tells me. ‘And that’s not true. There are many people who are polyamorous and asexual or demisexual – it’s got nothing to do with the sex part.’
Graff was monogamous until his late 40s, but one divorce and another failed five-year relationship made him realise something wasn’t working. At first, he blamed himself, until he realised that the way he had been dating wasn’t the only option. After discovering polyamory, he felt like he finally found his orientation, and he hasn’t turned back since.
For Graff, the expectation that a single person could satisfy all our sexual and emotional needs is insane, but deeply human, deriving from childhood memories (or fantasies) of total devotion from our mothers and fathers. ‘We jump from having our parents providing all of our security and safety, and normally, we just are looking for somebody to replace that.’
He’s the first to admit it’s painful seeing someone you love, love someone else. He said: ‘If you’re monogamous, you may not ever have to confront your own fears that your partner might cheat on you or like somebody else. All of a sudden this is happening, and you have to deal with what that means to you.
‘You lose the ground beneath your feet, because your foundation, what you thought you were standing on, is this big belief that your value is only there as the husband or as the wife.’
But once you’ve worked through that trauma, the freedom is ecstatic.’On the other side, the path of this catharsis is this incredible knowledge that you are a lot more grounded, a lot more based in your own self-security,’ says Graff. ‘You are with partners by choice, never because of necessity or fear. It’s always out of an act of love.’
As well as coaching and counselling, Graff offers online peer support sessions for people in non-traditional relationships and organises monthly polyamory socials in London. His picnic on Saturday was a way to raise awareness about this minority, but growing community.
‘We’ve grown past “God told you to get married and that’s the path that everyone should take”, there are alternative relationship styles,’ says Pete, who attended the picnic. ‘These kinds of events are good to raise visibility and reduce the stigma of alternative relationship styles.’
Rosa Lennox, 28
Rosa Lennox, an actor and musician based in Lewisham, has been poly for seven years. ‘People think everyone poly is just a raging slut, that we just want all the sex,’ they tell me.
Lennox is comfortable in their identity, but they know others find it isolating. That’s why in 2023, they co-founded Polyphonics, a choir for the polyamorous, the non-monogamous and their allies to gather at the Portsoken Community Centre near Shadwell to sing and socialise without judgement.
‘For lots of people, myself included, it is an orientation, so the more communities you have where it’s normalised, where you feel seen and safe and you can talk to people about your life, without the rest of the world – half of them not knowing what it is half the time – the more you can just feel happy with your choices and be your wonderful self.’
Covering a range of genres from indie, pop and folk to musical theatre, Polyphonics offers a joyful and musical safe space for those who’re sick of singing songs which glorify monogamy. ‘We sing songs which aren’t focused around loving one person and being obsessed with one person, which is a lot harder than people think,’ they say.
They met their partner five and a half years ago on Her, a dating app for the lesbian, queer and bisexual community. ‘From then, it’s just kind of snowballed, with me meeting another couple that they met. And now we’ve got a huge polycule, which maybe doesn’t even count as a polycule because it’s just almost too big.’ (A polycule, from molecule, is a network of non-monogamous people linked by sexual and/or romantic relationships.)
As well their partner, Lennox is in a relationship with a couple they’ve been seeing for almost three years and who they’re about to move in with. They’ve also see three to four others more casually, each for one to two years.
‘You don’t put all your eggs in one basket, you keep your spoons to be spread out to give to people, and that makes it a lot healthier for everyone’s brains involved, and a lot more fun,’ says Lennox.
While many aren’t ready to close the door on monogamy, it’s clear growing amounts of us are finding fulfilment through experimenting with alternative relationship styles. And while society has a long way to go before it fully embraces every kind of love, east London offers a sense of belonging to those rewriting tradition.
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