401 - Are Elders Better at Polyamory? with Kathy Labriola
Aging in polyamory
Kathy Labriola has graciously rejoined us this week to discuss her newest book, Polyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships. Kathy is a nurse, counselor, and hypnotherapist in private practice in Berkeley, California. Her mission is providing affordable mental health services to alternative communities. She has been a card-carrying bisexual and polyamorist for fifty years. She is a political activist and community organizer. As you can guess, she is extra crunchy and lives in a housing co-op, rides a bike, and raises chickens and organic vegetables. Her other works about consensual non-monogamy include: Love in Abundance, The Jealousy Workbook, and The Polyamory Break-up Book.
Through her newest book, Kathy has tackled the difficult topics of how polyamory and other nontraditional relationships look later in life, how they change as we get older, challenges aging polyamorous folks face, advantages to being a polyamorous elder, and much more.
During this episode, Kathy shares her inspiration for writing Polyamorous Elders and discusses the following questions and ideas:
What about physical and mental health concerns and the need for care? On the surface, having multiple partners seems like a fantastic way to share the responsibilities of caring for each other, but how does that look in practice?
What about retirement communities? Is there a risk of discrimination for non-monogamous folks there, either from other residents or even from the staff?
Regarding a chapter of Polyamorous Elders titled “The Curious Phenomenon of Successful Older Poly-Mono Couples.” What is this all about?
What have you found working with your clients and researching the book in terms of how the life change of retirement impacts people?
Are older people better at navigating non-traditional relationships?
The last section of your book is on “Polyamory and the Developmental Tasks of Aging.” Research on the developmental tasks in old age is already a fascinating and relatively new topic. What does that mean in the context of polyamory and what is this section about?
Any insights about wills and power of attorney for polyamorous folks that is especially important to share?
Sex amongst older polyamorous people.
What are some of the highlights of reasons why aging can be an advantage or some surprisingly awesome things about dating as an older person?
Find more about Kathy on her website, where you can also order her books. Polyamorous Elders will be published December 15, 2022 and can be preordered at bookshop.org, directly from the publisher, or through any other bookstore, like Barnes & Noble.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are joined by one of our favorite authors, Kathy Labriola, to talk about her new book, Polyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships. The topic of what polyamory and other non-traditional relationships look like later in life is something that has been requested of us to cover on this show many times. Things like, how does it change as we get older? What's more challenging as you get older? What advantages might we have as we get older? What gets easier?
What are some things that we might not think about? Then also, how can I be a better person in relationships of any kind to people in my life who are older and are polyamorous or in open relationships? We're incredibly excited to share Kathy's new book with all of you today. For those of you that don't know, Kathy Labriola is a nurse counselor and hypnotherapist in private practice in Berkeley, California.
Her mission is providing affordable mental health services to alternative communities, and she's a card-carrying bisexual and polyamorous for 40 years, is a political activist and community organizer, and the author of four fantastic books on consensually non-monogamous relationships, which are Love and Abundance, The Jealousy Workbook, The Polyamory Breakup Book, and this newest book now, Polyamorous Elders. Kathy, thank you so much for joining us today.
Kathy: Thank you for having me. I realized I must have sent you an outdated bio because I actually been a card-carrying bisexual and polyamorous for 50 years and up.
Dedeker: Oh wow. Oh, another decade. Put another decade on the board.
Emily: Exactly.
Kathy: That's dementia setting in, I can't remember how many years I've been doing this.
Dedeker: Kathy, this book on Polyamorous Elders. Now, I think that culturally we have a little bit of this assumption right now that polyamory is something that was invented by young millennials, maybe about 20 years ago or so. I'm assuming maybe that's part of what inspired you to pull this project together but I'd love to hear from you, what was the seed of this book? How did this all begin?
Kathy: It is partly as you described, that people do seem to have the belief that polyamory is a very recent thing. People could be forgiven for thinking that because in the media, it seems like the only thing I see is very glamorous, very young, very White people in the media who have been being polyamorous for the last six months or two years or something.
That seems like it makes it sound like it's just been invented very recently and that only young people who look like supermodels and are very White or doing that. That's not my demographic at all. It's not the demographic of my clients or the people that I see in the polyamorous community in the San Francisco Bay area where I live there is much more diversity in terms of age, race, ethnicity, et cetera.
That the fact that I've have not been able to find anything at all that's really been written about the subject and my clients are asking me all the time about, "What happens with old people when they have been polyamorous for a long time? What are their relationships like?" I certainly tell them a lot about it because of all the people I know in that demographic but there's nothing when people say, "What could I read about this?" There really isn't anything so it's had to be invented.
Dedeker: Speaking of inventing that, I would definitely love to hear, just for the sake of our listeners I would love for you to give maybe a little bit of some highlights or some teasers of what is the scope of this book. Because it could go in many directions. It could just be this is just about aging when you've already been polyamorous for 20 years, or this is about aging and end-of-life care with your poly cool. Or this is about you just discovered your polyamorous in your 60s, and now what do you do? Can you give our listeners a sense of like, what are all the different places that you go in this book?
Kathy: Sure. The first part of the book is just trying to understand what is the current experience of polyamorous elders. What are their everyday lives like, what are their relationships like, and how are those relationships evolving as they age? That was just really the beginning of what I was trying to understand and study and write about. There is also a lot about, are polyamorous elders better at polyamory than younger people or not. Or are people more likely to become polyamorous as they get older?
Are they more likely to revert to being monogamous as they get older? It's the things like jealousy and conversion change as people get older. How do people manage as they start to experience health problems and disabilities? That question particularly interested me because of the fact that so many polyamorous people of my age group, I'm 68 and people my age group, most of us were rejected by our families because of our polyamorous relationships.
Many of us have none or very distant relationships with parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, and other relatives, and many polyamorous elders have been rejected by their adult children and don't have as much of a relationship with their adult children and grandchildren as other elders do. Much more of a question in my mind in writing the book of, what is happening with elders who maybe don't have family support to call on when they are in their elder years when you'd expect they might need it?
When I was writing the book was at the very beginning of the COVID Pandemic, and that was having a huge impact on everyone but polyamorous elders particularly isolating impact and particularly scary in terms of the likelihood of death if we catch it. That was having a big impact on poly relationships in general, but elders particularly. I wrote quite a bit about that in the book.
Jase: That makes sense. Before we got started, something else I wanted to address is that you were mentioning that other shows that you've reached out to or that you've talked to have said, "I don't think my audience would be into a book about old people. That's not for us." First of all, I like to think that our audience is a little bit more aware than that of the fact that all of us get old.
This is something that even if it isn't relevant to you yet, it will be and so these kinds of resources are great. Then also I'm just curious what that reaction has been like in terms of to the idea of you writing this book at all. Are people scandalized by it? Are they into it? Do they feel like it's not interesting, but then they're surprised at how many things apply to them? Just what's that been like so far for you?
Kathy: I have certainly heard from some people that once they read a few chapters of it they thought, "Hell this is interesting after all. There's some fascinating information here." Particularly the people that seem most surprised and actually, but then find it interesting and they didn't expect to are younger poly people who are also queer because there's so much of a parallel amongst elder queer people and poly elders in terms of our being estranged from our biological families and not having that family support to count on and being ostracized from society in the same way that queer people who are elders particularly have experienced all their lives.
In terms of needing to potentially move into assisted living or some kind of senior housing, queer people have had to build their own assisted living because they were so uncomfortable and so stigmatized in the existing senior housing. It looks like poly elders may have to do the same.
Dedeker: Actually since we're talking about that, is it okay if we just go on a tangent on that? Because I think people would be curious thinking about that. Because I think, on the one hand, one of the benefits of non-monogamy and especially particular practices or styles of non-monogamy is that it seems like a fantastic way to share the responsibilities of caring for each other, of having multiple people able to care for each other. We're not just relying on the kids, the grandkids, or things like that.
I am curious about how you've seen that go into practice for people. Also, I know it sounds like you're making a prediction that non-monogamous folks are going to have to invent their own retirement communities or have to carve out that space. Is this a system where people are already being discriminated against that you know of?
Kathy: I'll answer the last question first, which is, the answer is yes. I spoke to quite a few poly elders who acknowledge that they had already postponed and delayed far too long in moving into some form of senior housing because they knew they weren't really safe in their homes that did not have access to the care they needed. Yet, they were terrified of moving into any senior housing because they were fearful of stigma and discrimination.
In fact, when they called or visited these places and try to find out what was going to happen to them if they try to move in there, they have faced discrimination right out of the gate because most of these places will not allow more than two people to move into an apartment and some of that is clearly out of their control. There's legality involved. The government has regulations and the goal is to protect seniors from overcrowding.
A certain amount of square footage is required to have more than one person living in an apartment and to have more than two people. A lot of the places that I've called and a lot of places that people I interviewed had visited, the apartments were so big, they were much bigger than their actual houses that they live in, in terms of square footage. Clearly, that was not the reason why they had a policy at these places of only two people at the most could move into an apartment.
A lot of these places have policies of no overnight guests. If you even appear in a more traditional poly couple without two partners, you're not allowed to have any overnight guests in the building. Again, I'm sure some of that is to protect seniors from someone possibly coming into the building who might assault someone or rob someone or simply so I'm sure part of that is protective but part of it is just so that they can discriminate against any family larger than two people.
Dedeker: What are the ways that people are getting around that? Are there ways that people are trying to avoid those systems altogether as much as they can?
Kathy: Some of the seniors I spoke to poly elders that I interviewed said that they had decided to invest their money in remodeling their homes to be disabled-accessible and are hiring caregivers to come into their homes to take care of them. That's also a danger if you're having to find people who are to provide care for you that are not going to be prejudiced against your relationships and lifestyle.
There's a higher risk of that in general, just because so many caregivers are immigrants from other countries who are in many cases, they've not seen poly people in their country, they don't see even see queer people out of the closet in their countries because it's so dangerous for queer people and even more dangerous in many ways for poly people to be out of the closet.
It's not that immigrants are more likely to be inherently prejudiced, it's just because of where they come from. They have not had any interaction or exposure to queer people who are out of the closet or public or out. That's dangerous, but at least then you have a lot more control over who's taking care of you and more control over your life and your environment if you are remodeling your house to make it accessible and you are in charge of who's going to come into your house and take care of you especially if you move into a building, a senior apartment building or assisted living. You have no control over who they're hiring to take care of you and how they're going to feel about you.
Emily: I wanted to pivot and move to a different topic of the book a specific chapter that you titled The curious phenomenon of successful older poly mono couples. That's an awesome title. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I think that's one of the things that a lot of people discuss with us, but because you're putting in the context of older poly-mono couples, what does that look like exactly? Can you tell us more about that?
Kathy: Yes, it's almost 100% heterosexual women who have always considered themselves strictly monogamous, partnering with heterosexual men who are poly and are already married or married to or living with someone else. These are women who, as I said, have always considered themselves monogamous. A lot of the reasons that they needed or wanted a monogamous relationship when they were younger, no longer exist. So the allure of polyamory is suddenly starting to outweigh the negatives that they previously didn't like about it, for instance, their children are grown so they are not looking for a father for their children.
They are financially independent, at least to the point of they've retired and they've got a pension or they've got Social Security or they're not looking for a man to support them financially or to even partner with financially there, they have already established themselves as being able to support themselves. Many of them have adult children and grandchildren so they want to spend a lot of time with their families. They're not really looking for marriage and a full-time partnership.
In fact, many of them complained quite a bit about dating other guys who are not poly guys, who were constantly complaining that they didn't have time for them and that they were spending so much time with their kids and grandkids that they didn't have time to have a full-time relationship. Many were saying, "I don't want a husband, I don't want to have to cook for a man, I don't want to have to take care of them if they're sick. I've been doing that all my life and now I just want to do my thing."
A few of them have said that they were pursuing college degrees and starting businesses and other things that they had never been able to do because they were so busy taking care of children and trying to make a living, that now they're finally free to do that but that if they settled down in a marriage that that would impair their ability to pursue whatever their dreams were that they had deferred for all these years.
Dedeker: That's so interesting because I'm looking at that and I'm like, "Oh, interesting." How do we reverse engineer that as Emily said, I think somebody will all the time ask, "I'm mono, they're poly, is that ever going to work? Can the mono-poly or poly-mono relationship ever work? Is it ever going to work?" There are so many opinions out there about whether or not that's even viable. It's so interesting to hear you share that I've seen this be viable for people at this particular stage of life.
I'm thinking like, outside of it just being these people are older, it sounds like there's something about the monogamous persons having different needs around monogamy, having a different sense of what fulfills them in life or what they're looking for out of the relationship that seems to foster that pairing actually being successful. Am I tracking that correctly?
Kathy: Yes. One of the key factors is that if you'll excuse me just being blunt, most of the men are dead by then. A lot of these women are saying, "My husband died 10 years ago or 15 years ago or I've been divorced for 20 years and I can't get a date to save my life." Because there are so many wonderful, attractive, older women out there and the men have all died or the rest of them are married.
There's really not much of an option. It's very difficult to find a man who is free and available and is actually someone that you want to date and want to get involved with. That's a big factor that a lot of these women stated that they tried for years to find someone that would be available for a monogamous relationship. They've very reluctantly entered into a poly relationship and discovered that they loved it a lot better than they had expected.
Jase: That's actually a great segue to the next question that we had here, which is that like we were mentioning before, there's this assumption that, oh, as you get older, you've just got less energy or enthusiasm for dating and that's not really something you'd want to do, and clearly that's not true, that there is a desire for that. In thinking about that, retirement seems like a dream come true for dating. You've suddenly got all this time to date that you didn't before.
I think that's something a lot of people don't think about. I was curious what you found working with your clients and in researching this book of how that potentially huge life change of going from working full time to suddenly being retired. How does that affect the landscape of dating and poly relationships and relationships in general?
Kathy: In a lot of different ways actually. It can go either way. For some people, after they retire, they have a lot of other things they'd rather do than have five relationships. They have one or maybe two, and they're like, "I want to travel around the world, or I want to start a new business, or I want to start a nonprofit to stop world hunger or something, or I want to pursue my dream of having a successful band and going on a world tour or something."
Some people just say, "I've had a great run with polyamory and I've had lots of great relationships and I have one or two really long-term committed stable relationships, and I'm not really looking for any additional partners right now, I'd rather do other things." Other people have the opposite, where they're like, "Gosh, I was working 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week all these years and now suddenly I have plenty of time to get eight hours sleep or take naps during the day. I have energy for additional relationships." It really can go in either direction in terms of just what your priorities are and what you have time for.
I also find that poly elders in general, because they've had so much experience with having relationships, they have developed a much better skill set for time and energy management, as well as just a better skill set for poly relationships, which as you know, are very labor intensive. Really require time, energy, and really a very specific skill set that a lot of people spend years or even decades developing. Either by the time you're 55, 60, 65, or 70, either you've got that skill or you might as well give up, and plenty of people do. Plenty of people don't ever develop that skillset and they just go, "God, I suck at polyamory, I give up, I'm quitting." I've seen that.
Dedeker: Okay. That comes down then to the ultimate question. Looking at polyamorous folks, do you think on average older polyamorous folks are just better at it than the younger folks, even if we're accounting for the same number of years of experience or things like that?
Kathy: I would say yes, they definitely are better at it, but it is because they have more years of experience and because they've really put the time and effort into acquiring that skill set. I think a lot of younger people just figure, "If this relationship doesn't work out, I'll just go out and get another relationship." I'm not sure they're thinking that consciously, but I've certainly seen plenty of my clients who I've kind of had to slap them around in the therapy chair and say, "Keep making the same mistakes, you're not really learning the skills you need.
You got to stop hurting people by doing this, or you've got to learn how to do this right." I think there is that unfortunate tendency amongst the, I'd say it's a small percentage, but there is definitely a small but significant minority of poly folks who just seem to have this, "There's so many fish in the sea," attitude and that they can keep doing everything wrong and somehow if they're eventually going to succeed or find a number of people that are willing to put up with their bad habits and bad behavior. I think most people if they're still polyamorous when they're older, they have learned how to do it right.
Emily: I feel even outside of the skill set that one needs to be polyamorous, as we age, at least this is for me, I think probably I've heard this from the two of you as well, Jase and Dedeker, but we get more comfortable with ourselves, and a lot of the hang-ups that we have when we're younger tend to start fading away. It seems like perhaps polyamorous elders also have that, things like jealousy or some of the worries or cares that you may have had when you were younger just aren't as much of an issue when you're older as well.
I'd like to think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that those types of things also make dating a little bit easier as you age or just perhaps you don't worry about certain things as much as you once did.
Kathy: I think that's very true. I think as people get older, you know that you're not that gorgeous, you've got gray hair and you're getting saggy and dumpy and you're just not trying to live up to some ridiculous ideal that we never, I don't know, I certainly-
Emily: It's hard to--
Kathy: -couldn't fulfill even when I was 20. Yes. I think in terms of just the physical thing of always thinking, "Oh, some other person is going to come along who's sexier than me and is a better lover than me, and so my partner's going to dump me for them," I think you just get over that at a certain point and think, "They've been in this relationship with me for 45 years, they're not probably going anywhere just because somebody cute comes along."
Jase: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Like Emily was saying that we've just noticed so much change over the years that we've been doing this. I think partly in terms of the comfort of being polyamorous and just getting used to it so that this less unlearning to do as we've done it longer and it just becomes easier and easier. I always try to tell that to people who are just starting out or in their first year or two of that, "I know this is a lot of work right now or it can feel that way, a lot of personal work, but it does get better. You do get used to it."
What I'm curious to ask you about is with older people who are becoming polyamorous later in life, you mentioned a little bit about those women who meet a man who's already married, who's polyamorous, but I imagine there are also some who just later in life go, "Huh, this may be something I never let myself do and maybe I could explore now." Specifically what I'm curious about is I notice when people first transition from being just monogamy by default to being polyamorous, there's this, it's almost like they become a teenager again when they first started dating where it's like everything is super intense.
All the feelings are up at 11, all the heartbreaks are the worst in the world, all the new relationships are the best thing in the world and we're all going to live together on a farm and it's going to be amazing. There's kind of that extreme, just like we had when we're, 15, 16 of like, "Oh my gosh, this is the love of my life," because you just don't have anything to compare it to. I'm curious if you see that or how does that work out for people who find polyamory later in life?
Kathy: Aside from the women that I was describing that have always been monogamous and then decide to try poly relationships, aside from that group, I see very few people becoming polyamorous for the first time in their old age. I do see a lot of married couples who were polyamorous or were so-called swingers or something like that when they were in their 20s and 30s, but they quit for some period of time while they were raising kids and had such a heavy responsibility with careers and families that they didn't really have the time or energy for it, or because at that time when that group was in their 20s and 30s, was in the '70s and '80s when you could lose your jobs, lose your children.
It would cost you your children for being polyamorous. A lot of these folks when they really needed to focus on careers and raising kids, they stopped being polyamorous or swingers or whatever flavor of non-monogamy they were doing at the time. Now that the kids are grown and a lot of them are retired now, they don't feel like there's any real danger, except possibly their adult children not letting them see their grandchildren because they're into this weird lifestyle. They're not going to lose their kids, they're not going to lose their jobs, and they have more time and energy, so they're going to try it again.
Jase: Yes, that makes sense.
Kathy: I've seen that a lot. They're not doing the highs and lows thing that you described, or the intensity is not the same because they've done it before. A lot of them actually were "swingers" where they went to swing parties just because the polyamorous community was, the term polyamory hadn't been invented yet when they were in their 20s and 30s. Consensual non-monogamy as a lifestyle was not very well known at the time, most people were very closeted. A lot of them were active in the swing community just because that was the only organized, non-monogamous lifestyle out there that was easy to find and easy to participate in.
Jase: That makes sense. In the second half of this episode, we want to get into some things about the developmental tasks of aging, some legal concerns about aging that honestly apply to those of us who are not as old as well. They're good things to think about. First, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways that you can support this show, to help us to keep bringing this information to everyone out there for free. Please take a moment, and listen to them. If any seem interesting to you, go check them out because it does directly help support this show.
Emily: We're back. As Jace discussed earlier, the last section of your book is titled Polyamory and the Developmental Tasks of Aging. There is some research on developmental tasks in old age. It's a really fascinating and new topic, but we're curious about how polyamory fits into that. For our listeners, what does that even mean? Can you talk a little bit more about that and how polyamory does fit into this specific topic?
Kathy: Sociologists and philosophers, or psychologists, all that whole gang has talked for hundreds of years about the developmental tasks of life at different developmental stages of life. When you're an infant, you're learning to walk and when you're in your 20s, you're differentiating from your parents and establishing your own life to deciding on careers and trying to find a mate and all of those things.
That the sociologists and all of those folks have not had as much consensus on the developmental tasks of aging just because until 100 years ago old age was a rare thing. The fact that people are living to be 100 or 80 or 90 now is a new thing. There's not as much agreement on what those tasks are as on the other stages of life. Generally, they're considered things like a life review, like where you are trying to make sense of your life, figure out what you've done and what time you have left and what you want to do with it.
A lot of that life review involves looking at the things you are proud of, the things you see as accomplishments, as well as looking at any regrets that you have. My experience is that poly people seem to have a lot less regret than other people because they have just gone for it essentially and done whatever they wanted. People who are not poly have more of a tendency to say, "I cared too much about what other people thought of me, and I did what society expected of me rather than what I actually wanted to do.
I didn't spend enough time with my family and loved ones, I spent too much time at work." Whereas poly people tend to feel like they really did pursue the things they wanted to do in life, and they didn't let prejudices from society hold them back. However, almost every poly person of my age or older that I talked to had at least some regrets about, excuse my language, not knowing what the fuck they were doing when they first started being polyamorous.
Jase: Interesting.
Dedeker: Oh, I have that regret.
Jase: Oh, I've got tons of those regrets already.
Dedeker: We already have that under our belts so that track.
Kathy: Okay, it's not just us old people. I haven't heard that as much from younger people. I haven't heard it partly at all from younger people.
Emily: They just haven't admitted to themselves that that is the case yet perhaps.
Jase: You got to be several years in before you go, "Oh, no."
Kathy: I think for a lot of people of my age or older, because we did not have any resources, couldn't find a therapist that could give you a clue on how to be ethically non-monogamous you could not find any books or articles. When we were younger, the internet didn't exist as hard as it is for youngsters like you to imagine that the internet didn't exist until I was in my late 40s.
For people of my age, there was no such thing as looking it up on Google or taking an online class or finding websites that had information. I've talked to many people who went to many therapists who just pathologized them for being polyamorous and told them not to. That was about as far as they got. I think that is the main regret that I hear from poly people.
That they have had at least one disastrous poly relationship at some point in their past, usually in the 1970s, where they've really just either, they didn't pick the right person to be in a relationship with, or they themselves were not the right person for really being able to be polyamorous and really do it in a way that was ethical and healthy and was really going to make other people happy.
Dedeker: How do we extrapolate that? Because I do love talking to people of all age groups about their regrets in life. I think this is a really fascinating topic and it's a very rich topic. Hearing that about, "Oh, I just didn't know what I was doing." Then also the three of us being like, "Gosh, we all really regret we didn't know what we were doing." I guess I wonder what we hope people extrapolate from that. I guess that's why we made a freaking podcast was to help prevent-- Okay, I answered my own question. Whatever. It's fine, we can move on.
Kathy: It's certainly the key reason that I wrote the books that I wrote because there are lots of people that don't live in my area, the San Francisco Bay area, where you can't throw a rock without hitting a poly person or a poly therapist or a poly podcast or a poly book or article or a website or something. A lot of people do not live in areas where they have access to this information. Your podcast is extremely valuable as well as all the other resources that now exist on the internet that people can get video therapy and phone therapy from therapists that don't live in their area.
Jase: Maybe the lesson to take away, Dedeker, is just to remind people and ourselves to take advantage of those resources to try to make fewer mistakes. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes that I just looked up right now cause I didn't even know who it was by. Apparently, it's by Otto von Bismarck, a German author. The English version of it is only a fool learns from his own mistakes, the wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
Kathy: That's a great one. I love it.
Jase: We're here to share all the mistakes so that you can learn from those.
Dedeker: All of our mistakes.
Kathy: Yes. I always tell my clients learn from my mistakes and the mistakes from of others so you can go out and make new and very creative mistakes of your own.
Dedeker: Exactly.
Jase: There you go.
Dedeker: Then you can make your own podcast or write your own book.
Emily: Hopefully mistakes that won't be as disastrous, I hope they can avoid the really disastrous ones. Or like my sister likes to say, "Take my device, I'm not using it."
Jase: I love that.
Dedeker: That's good.
Kathy: In our case, it's accurate.
Jase: That's amazing. I want to change gears again a little bit and this one, so a few episodes back we did an episode with Lawyer Melissa Hall, and in that episode, we talked a fair amount about things like wills and power of attorney and treating death in a more matter of fact way. This is also something that you discuss in this book, and I was just curious, what were some of your biggest takeaways from talking to people and working with people about that?
Kathy: The biggest takeaway is just how so many people do not write their wills and then disaster happens and it's too late. I've certainly seen it with people who are not poly, but it usually doesn't have nearly as disastrous consequences for them because usually there are blood relatives or they're legally married to someone or they have children that are going to inherit or children that will have some control over the estate.
Whereas with poly people, almost always, the people you're involved with, you are not legally connected with in any way unless you write up forms and write up documents such as will in order to make sure that whatever you want to happen is actually going to happen. With a will, you may say, "I don't care, I'll be dead," but some of these other documents are way more important in terms of while you're still alive like a durable power of attorney for financial matters, and a directive to position to know to tell your doctor what you want to happen if you're in a coma, who you want to make decisions for you, and what medical treatments you do and don't want.
These are important questions for anyone of any age, but for older people, it's a lot more likely that sometime in the near future, you're going to need these documents where people of your age could probably put it off for a while, but you never know.
Jase: We probably shouldn't--
Dedeker: I'm on a huge soapbox about this, Kathy. I've already got mine squared away. I need to update mine because I had a breakup. I need to do some of that, but no, I'm on a big soapbox about that because I think another factor is that if you don't have something in place, often, that means the state gets involved, and the state's going to default to whoever your blood relatives are, and your blood relatives maybe those people who are like, "I don't want any of your polycule at the funeral."
It's not even a matter of where your money and your possessions go, it's-- Or it could be someone who's like, "We're not going to dress you for the funeral in what your gender is. We're going to address you in the gender that I think that you are." It's like, "Yes, I know." You're going to be dead, and so in theory you're not going to care, but it's like if you still want your sense of your values, and that's not only your values about who you are but also who your family is to continue on into the future, really highly recommend people get on top of that.
Jase: Thank you for the reminder.
Dedeker: That's my soapbox there.
Emily: Me too.
Jase: Me too.
Kathy: I had a previous career for nearly 20 years as an intensive care unit nurse. I saw a lot of people in the ICU having a lot of medical things done to them that they would never have wanted and that if they had any idea that this was going to happen, would have written something, a directive transition to tell their doctor and their loved ones what they wanted.
I also saw in those days queer people and their partners being refused to come in and see them in the hospital and their partners not being allowed to make decisions about their medical care. Instead, the estranged whacked out, born-again Christian parents or siblings from Kansas showing up and making those decisions, literally decisions over life and death, whether that person is going to be allowed to go home and die with dignity, rather than be forced to it'll be in the hospital and be intubated or be on a ventilator and all those horrible things.
Those things can happen whether you're young or old, but the likelihood increases dramatically as you age, especially if, like me, you've been living with two partners for decades who you're not married to either one of them legally. You need those documents in place. I mentioned in the book that a number of years ago, one of my partners had to have brain surgery for a brain tumor. I was being barred from coming into the ICU to see my partner. I literally had to pull out the directive to the physician and the doable power attorney saying that I was the person that is in charge of these medical decisions rather than his parents and/or siblings who were all still living at that time.
Dedeker: I'm going to pivot us from death into sex, actually.
Kathy: Oh, what a great idea. Much more exciting of a topic in my mind.
Dedeker: I think, again, there's this cultural narrative that as you get older, at some point, you just stop being a sexual being. There's at some point where it's just the sex switch just switches off in your brain and that's where we get this assumption that old people just don't have sex, and therefore if old people don't have sex, who would be interested in polyamory because that's clearly all that polyamory is about.
I guess I'm assuming that this must be part of some of the pushback or lack of interest from certain places that you get about this polyamorous elders book. There's this assumption of like, "There's no sex involved. It must not be that interesting. There must not be that many older people who are actually interested in this. Why do we care?"
Kathy: I think a lot of people think of the ideas of old people having sex as being pathetic or they just don't want to think about it, and as you've said, they seem to think that sex is all that polyamory is about. The fact is that there are some people that the sex switch does switch off in their brains as they get older, but it's a very small percentage. Most of us continue to be sexual beings and want some form of sexual expression throughout our lifespan. For many older people, sex becomes less important than it was when we were younger.
A number of people have said things to me like, "I've been having sex for 60 years with lots of people. Been there, done that, and I haven't missed a thing. I haven't missed out on it. If I'm only having sex with one or two people now, so what? I've had all those opportunities and had wonderful hot love affairs and delightful liaisons and I'm not feeling like I have to keep finding all these new partners. It's just not my priority right now."
I think it's certainly true of some people with other things like travel. People who've traveled around the world and gone to 85 countries, they may say, "Oh, I think I don't need to travel anymore now that I'm old." To me, that's part of it, but I think certainly for a lot of women, after menopause, their sex drive decreases, their interest in sex decreases. It doesn't mean they don't want sex anymore. They just may not be deranged sex maniacs like me.
They may be less sexual than they were, but they just still want and like sex. Sex changes a lot however because of menopause for women, it changes a lot in terms of what kind of sex we may enjoy more or less, it changes for men in terms of their ability to maintain erections, and for men and women, and probably all genders the ability to have orgasm changes and the way you have orgasm changes, all of those things change. That doesn't have to be a bad thing.
It can be just an opportunity to be more creative sexually. I observed a really interesting thing with a lot of couples that have been together for 40 or 50 years, that when they have new partners, they discover that they're not expecting that crazy, wild sex you maybe have when you're younger because if you have a new partner at age 60, for instance, you and the partner are both understanding that you're not going to be able to have sex exactly the same way as you did 40 years ago, but if you're with the same person for all those years, you somehow think you should be able to keep doing exactly what you've been doing since you were 21.
Dedeker: That's interesting.
Kathy: Some of these couples, a lot of them have said to me, "Gosh, having these other newer partners in our old age has really helped us redefine our own sex life and change our expectations instead of being disappointed that we can't have intercourse for three hours like we used to. We're just thrilled we could have it at all or we're thrilled we can do certain sexual activities at all, which rather than doing them exactly the same way and for the same amount of time and with the same frequency as we used."
Jase: This also brings me back to one of the topics that we mentioned at the beginning of this episode about retirement communities and elder care communities, things like that, with some discrimination against polyamorous people because I feel like just in the last few years, we've heard several articles about how much sex there is in retirement homes because people are like, "I can't get pregnant anymore, and what else do I have to do?" Like, "Cool, we're just hooking up and having sex all the time."
While maybe some people are like, "Yucks, I don't want to think about that or imagine that," but we're like, "Okay, cool. That's great they're doing that," but then when it's in the context of polyamory, it's like, "Ew, what are you doing? Don't do that." I guess it's just the fact that we so rarely even talk about or think about sex when we're older, I think just leads to a lot of weird inconsistencies in the way that we react to these things culturally.
Dedeker: It reminds me of a story that I read a while ago that there was this coalition of nurses who were actually trying to push for more sexual healthcare and sex education in senior centers or assisted living centers or things like that. Of course, they got a lot of pushback on that, and they shared about giving a presentation at a convention or something. They asked their audience who are all people who facilitated these centers or administrators or things like that. They ask their audience like, "Okay, who of you know that there's sex going on in your senior center, in your assisted living center, or whatever."
They said the only people who are actually honest were the three Catholic nuns in the front who run the Catholic Center, but they're the ones like, "Oh, no, we know what sex is going on." To reiterate, I know you think that it's not, but it is. This is also a part of healthcare that we're giving to people is sexual healthcare as well. That is interesting. I hope that that shifts and changes over time.
Kathy: I'd like to just add to that, that a number of people that I spoke to who had moved into assisted living apartments were distraught about the fact that apparently, they didn't tell them before they moved in there that they're not allowed to lock the door of their apartment. One person was actually lobbying and trying to change that policy. How can you have sex or even affection when you don't have privacy?
Some good reason for that policy is that someone might fall and be injured and they do need to get in that apartment to help them, but the staff has a key to the door of the apartment. If someone needed help, they could get in an emergency. That really to me is something that is just clearly you're saying to your residents, you're not allowed to have any privacy, which is a base necessity for sex. Even cuddling or affection, you need to feel like you're having privacy.
Emily: We all know that getting older is challenging and I think there's a cultural narrative that's fed to us, especially women, that aging is not a thing that we should be doing. We should try to stave it off as long as possible and do things to make ourselves appear and act younger, but I think we've talked today about a lot of the reasons why aging can be a beautiful good thing that actually elevates our life. I'm curious, just from this project of doing this book and in doing the research, what are some of the benefits that you found of aging and specifically how it relates to polyamory and relationships? I know we've talked about some of them, but if there are any additional ones that you can add.
Kathy: There are two things that I would say are the biggest benefits. One is that most people have gotten over their jealousy and their discomfort with their partners having other partners. Mostly because the person or persons that are in your partner's life, they've been around and those relationships have stood the test of time. If at a certain point, you just realize, "That person is good for my partner, that relationship is working well for them and they're part of the family . I'm just going to get over whatever jealousy I may have had." It naturally seems to disappear over time.
That other person or the other people that are in your partner's life also have proved to be a boom to the family in that they have shown up at times of crisis. When you are sick or when you are going through a crisis, they have shown up for you as well as your partner that they're in a relationship with. You have formed a relationship with that person. They really have something to really benefit from. They really benefited you as well as benefited your relationship with your spouse, but there also is strength in numbers in terms of when caregiving is needed if your partner or you become disabled and you need some additional caregiving.
Many monogamous couples that I've seen, the woman is usually stuck with taking care of the disabled husband, who is very much likely to get sick and die before her. She's the one that ends up in the caregiving role. Then when he dies, there's no one left to take care of her. Whereas I've seen a number of women who are in situations where they and their other partner took care of the husband or male partner while he was sick and dying, and then they still had each other, even if they were not in a sexual or romantic relationship. They had each other. They were not alone. For so many widows, it's just horrible. The husband dies, and suddenly you're alone 24/7.
When you're used to living with someone all those years, you're used to having meals together, you're used to having someone that you get up with and spend the time with, and suddenly you're all alone. Whereas if you have another spouse or a metamere who's been either living with you all the time or part of the time, then you still have a family member that's really there for you. You have that emotional support in grieving because you're grieving the same husband, you're both grieving the same person. Who else could ever know better than that person what you're going through?
Jase: Wow.
Kathy: I've unfortunately seen the opposite where there's a growing number of women who are, what I describe as doubly widowed, where they've had two male partners for several decades and both have died. That is really rough. That's a group I am expecting to join at some point in the next 20 years that I'm expecting to become doubly widowed, but just a reality that most women will outlive not only one husband but two.
Dedeker: I think you're saying just don't be in a relationship with anybody. Just don't open your heart.
Kathy: No, no, no. I'm saying pick at least one woman because they might outlive you. My partner definitely says that. Like, "You know what, I'm going to die before you and I'm really glad about that." I'm like, "Wow, okay."
Dedeker: That didn't happen in at least on my mom's side of the family. I had the opposite-
Jase: Same on my mom's side of the family actually. My grandma died first.
Kathy: Interesting.
Dedeker: I think to tie this together, I do think it is interesting that I think a recurring theme here is as you're getting older, we're moving maybe even more and more towards this intentional relationship crafting. Where it's a little bit less about, "I'm in my 20s and you're hot, let's do this thing. Let's try it." Why not? Maybe I don't spend a ton of time thinking about do I want to be with you for another 40 years, or do I want you taking care of me while I'm sick. That as we get older, we need to think about those things a little bit more frequently.
I feel like, honestly, even now in my 30s, when I'm thinking about relationships I'm trying to think about not just like right now, but think about, do I want this person in the inner circle? Do I want this person to be part of that safety in numbers? I think that's definitely something that I think a lot of us could incorporate in our partner selection and in the way that we build our relationships, but as always, Kathy, this has been just such a wonderful conversation. Can you share with our listeners where they can find more of your work and also where they can get this book or one of the 6,000 other books that you have written,
Kathy: First of all, I just have to say Dedeker don't get so serious about this. Don't pass up those beautiful love affairs just because they're not someone that you're going to spend the rest of your life with.
Dedeker: That's fair. That does tend to be my struggle. I will say--
Jase: Dedeker is very pragmatic if you haven't noticed.
Dedeker: I will take that.
Kathy: To me, that's part of what's so fantastic about any consensual non-monogamy. You can have one or two or even three spouses that you're going to live with for the rest of your life. You also get to have these beautiful summer romances and things like that, so don't pass those up, or else when you're in that life review in the developmental stage of aging you're going to be regretting the one that got away or the one that you passed up. Anyway, sorry. That's just--
Dedeker: Kathy's prescription of more love affairs.
Kathy: Not more than you can handle, but we've seen a lot of poly people do that kid in the candy store thing where they take on too much, and then they can't quite-
Dedeker: That doesn't tend to be my issue these days. It does tend to be the more hyper-pragmatic. A little too serious, a little too reserved. I could use a little bit more of a swing in the other direction.
Kathy: Oh, good. Glad to hear that. You asked about the book wording. This book is published by Rowman & Littlefield, which is scary because they're an actual real publisher, which I've never had a book published before. They actually are planning on using it in some grad school classes for psychologists and things.
Jase: Wow.
Dedeker: Awesome.
Kathy: Don't let that dissuade you from reading the book because it's actually very funny and very fun. It's not scholarly in any-
Jase: Yes, it's very approachable, I will say.
Kathy: -way, shape, or form. I just wouldn't want to scare you off of it. I wouldn't be capable of writing that kind of book anyway, because I don't have any academic credentials whatsoever. You can get it through Rowman & Littlefield. You can also get it at IndieBound, and bookshop.com. IndieBound is .org and bookshops.com. Whatever you do, please don't buy it on Amazon because they're evil incarnate and I don't believe in hell or Satan.
Emily: We don't need need to give Jeff Bezos any more money.
Dedeker: There are plenty of other good options that will send money to people much more deserving.
Kathy: At some point in the near future, you can probably get it from me, on my website, kathylabriola.com. I'm not certain how soon that will be, when they're going to be able to send me a few boxes of some, to sell you directly if you want to do that. You can buy my other three books on my website if you feel like it at kathylabriola.com.
Jase: I was just going to say, it's unfortunate that this is a different publisher than the others because a box set, the Kathy Labriola box set with all of those would be a real nice little gift.
Dedeker: Yes, it's time. If Rowman & Littlefield Publishers really want to get some money off of this, they got to do the special edition, the Special Kathy Labriola box--
Jase: The hardcover nice version of all those. Because we recommend your books a lot, Kathy.
Kathy: Oh, thank you.
Jase: We really appreciate the work that you do for this community and all of the resources that you put out there, so we're so glad to have you here.
Kathy: Thank you. I'm currently writing a second addition to Love and Abundance.
Dedeker: Oh nice.
Kathy: There's nothing wrong with that book, there's nothing out of date in the book except the fact that a number of words have been invented since then that could not have appeared in the book, such as non-binary. That was a term that wasn't around. I get a lot of angry emails from people that are upset that, that book, since it was written in 2008, makes it sound like there are only two genders in the world. I didn't believe that then and of course, don't believe that now, but there were some terms that weren't invented. Relationship anarchy had not been invented. I get a lot of angry emails about that too, like why I haven't talked about that in the book. I think it's usually from young people who don't realize that those terms were recently invented.
Dedeker: We're also anticipating getting those angry emails and wanting people to at least have a sense of perspective of, "Yes, we know." The people who've been doing this-
Kathy: This is Dedeker's primer, everyone for that specific episode, yes.
Dedeker: Yes. Basically, what I'm saying is, don't send us angry emails just because people didn't use the 100% correct term. I'm glad you're not the only one who's run into that, Kathy.
Jase: All right. Thank you so much, Kathy. Again, for everyone out there, the book is called Polyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships. You can just look that up and buy it from anywhere but Amazon, as Kathy said. We also have a Question of the Week for you out there, that will be on our Instagram stories. We wanted to turn this a little bit on its head from the normal narrative, and that is, what are you looking forward to about getting older? We would love to hear what ideas you have, what things come to mind, especially after listening to this episode.