The portrayal of polyamory in pop culture feels increasingly hopeless. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images) A reality TV show I'd been watching for 17 seasons finally got interesting when it admitted the entire concept wasn't working.
Sister Wives has followed Kody Brown's Mormon polygamous family since 2010, but in 2021, one of his wives left. Then another, and another, and another. Now, he's monogamous.
In a voiceover during the TLC series' opening credits, Brown states that "love should be multiplied, not divided." In later seasons, the wives began giving the vibe that they weren't really feeling that love. The first one to flee their arrangement was Christine Brown Woolley. Her recently released tell-all memoir, Sister Wife, exposes the neglect and conflict that polygamous culture encouraged her to bury for decades.
Janelle Brown, Christine Brown, Kody Brown, Meri Brown and Robyn Brown present a united front in the first season of Sister Wives before it all fell apart. (TLC/Courtesy Everett Collection)Woolley's book hit shelves just days before Splitsville, a dark comedy about the trappings of marriage and the complexities of polyamory, was released in theaters everywhere. In the film, a woman asks for a divorce from her husband because she's been unfaithful. When he seeks advice from his married friends, they say the secret to their relationship's success is polyamory. Naturally, it all blows up in their faces, leading to an explosive fight that pokes fun at the lengths couples will go to in order to stay together for the sake of money and kids. It all feels so hopeless.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThese examples follow a spike in books and TV shows depicting poly lifestyles in 2023 and 2024, which some say sensationalized the concept as a revolutionary and potentially relationship-saving solution.
But polyamory isn't just a pop culture trope; it's become a more common practice in real-life relationships. According to Pew Research data from 2023, one-third of Americans surveyed said open marriages are somewhat or completely acceptable. It's popping up on dating apps as Hinge, Bumble and Tinder expanded their relationship options to include ethical nonmonogamy, and Feeld, which bills itself as the dating app for "open-minded individuals," is taking up more of the market share.
Writer Olga Khazan noted the shift in attitudes toward polyamory in early 2024, as the fallout of the #MeToo movement placed value on transparency in relationships and the pandemic made people anxious about the fleeting nature of life and more open to experiencing new things.
As of 2025, polyamory may be increasingly normalized, but its representation in pop culture has turned sour. As the pendulum of popularity shifts from monogamy to nonmonogamy to monogamy again, therapists point to a range of factors that could explain why it's become such a bummer onscreen.
It doesn't 'fix' a relationship"I think the obsession with polyamory missed what people were actually craving - sex with more people," Brooklyn, N.Y.-based therapist Julie Goldberg tells Yahoo. "To me, that's still alive and well in NYC, just not through a polyamorous lens."AdvertisementAdvertisementGoldberg, who jokes that she practices in the "heart of the polyamory bubble," says she's seen other therapists end their own polyamorous relationships. Even the author of Polysecure, a 2020 book about nonmonogamy and attachment, is now functionally monogamous, Goldberg says.
As a relationship construct, she says it's no longer intellectually appealing. Instead, Goldberg says serial dating and "hall passes" have become more popular for couples who might have considered committing to polyamory, and as a result," things are getting way less complicated."Michael Angelo Covino, Kyle Marvin, Adria Arjona and Dakota Johnson play the members of two different couples who dabble in polyamory in the movie Splitsville. (Neon/Courtesy Everett Collection)Because polyamory is sometimes deployed as a last-ditch effort to save a relationship, it can be blamed for making everything fall apart. That's not always the real reason for a breakup, which is likely deeper and more personal - like it is in Splitsville, when the couples just stop liking each other, or in Sister Wives, when relationships built upon a foundation of something less than true love started to fall apart.
It's no longer taboo - just difficult"Culturally, it's easy to scapegoat nonmonogamy because it makes for a cleaner narrative," sex therapist Lauren Consul tells Yahoo.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThat certainly applies to the couples in Splitsville, though the difficulties of polygamy were always at the root of the conflicts among the cast of Sister Wives. But they didn't turn to it because it was trendy - it was a religious necessity that people loved to gawk at.
There's less gawking now, some say. Polyamory was introduced to much of the public through shows like HBO's Big Love, which made it seem foreign and unusual, but