"Polyamorous Family Raising 11 Year-Old Girl"

It's always nice to see polyamorous families with kids. I have yet to see a polyamorous family that is bad for its kids. Everything that defines a polyamorous family - multiple adults present, honesty, communication, resilience of key relationships, etc. - are good things for a kid to have in their life. Certainly, most kids of polyamorous families won't have to deal with divorce the way modern kids of monogamists do all the time. Maybe this is my inner conservatism, but one of the things I love most about polyamory and polygamy is the increased support network for children. Big, communal households are the way most humans have lived before industrialization, and they're very good for us.

"A Different Look at Modern Polygamy"

This is why they're my favorite polygamists in the public eye. They're so liberal and secular that at this point they're practically polyamorous. But god, it seems like so much work! I'm breaking into a nervous sweat just watching them.

Show: "Candy Boy"

Candy Boy 00 -prologue- (english subs)

One of the things I've been thinking about is the relationship between the queer community and the consanguinamorous. The overlap between the queer community and the consanguinamorous isn't going to be very large. Both parties would have to be the same sex, and have same-sex attractions, and find that other particular person appealing in spite of social taboo and (sometimes) the Westermark Effect. Then there's the fact that consanguinamorous heterosexuals get caught more, because they're the ones having their own biological children.

What I'm getting at here is that I think there's too little visibility for same-sex, consanguinamorous relationships in popular culture, especially healthy ones. Opposite-sex couples are usually depicted as mentally ill or dysfunctional, but the average depiction skews much worse for same-sex couples. I also think that heterosexuals interested in or accepting of consanguinamory tend to be more visible online.

So with that, I'm going to try to find media and accounts that deal specifically with queer consanguinamory in a positive way. My first entry is "Candy Boy", a Japanese animated slice-of-life miniseries that focuses on the romantic relationship between twin sisters attending art school in Tokyo, and the enamored freshman girl that stalks/befriends them. It shows a very open, loving, normal and normalized relationship. That's rare, even in Japanese media. (As a heads up, slice-of-life series are about the pleasure and drama inherent in little everyday moments. If the idea of watching two girls go shopping together and talking about their childhood bores you, then the whole show will.)

This is the first extra episode (a prequel episode). The full miniseries can be found here (日本語のアニメ). (The credits don't regularly come at the end of each episode, sometimes they're in the middle, so don't stop watching until you're sure an episode is over, because there's probably more.)

Film: "From Beginning to End"

This is the trailer for From Beginning to End (a.k.a. Do Começo ao Fim), a Brazilian movie about two half-brothers who fall in love the moment they set eyes on each other. (FYI, there's a brief NSFW shot in the trailer.) The movie is about their family, and the maturation of their relationship. Not only is it a great depiction of a gay relationship, but it is the single most positive depiction of consanguinamory I have ever seen. Period. The parents are wary, but ultimately accepting, and at no point does anyone try to shame them or break them up. There is no character, family-member, friend, or acquaintance, who is not a source of support. This is what I want our culture to look like. The film is not about bigotry, it's about their love, and how its strength is both a blessing and a curse which they have to manage. It's about the choices we make in our lives. It's amazing. This is my third attempt to highlight positive examples of same-sex consanguinamory in media. You can watch the film here.

Edit: I do admit, this is a really sappy film in many ways. But that's the point. It's the Kate and Leopold of consanguinamory. Out of all the films I've written about on my blog, How I Live Now is my favorite, and the only one I would recommend to someone who doesn't care about consanguinamory. It's by far the most entertaining. However, it is also the movie in which consanguinamory plays the smallest role. I have different standards for stories about consanguinamory, because there are so few depictions, and most of the depictions are awful and deal in stereotypes. From Beginning to End is cheesy, but it's the single most positive portrayal of consanguinamory in existence, at the moment, and so it has a special place.

Film: "Forbidden Relations"

"Visszaesok" (a.k.a. "Forbidden Relations) is a film made in 1983 Leninist Hungary, based on the real case of half-siblings who fell in love when they met as adults, and were thrown in jail repeatedly for refusing to abort their children. This is the second trial scene, and even though the movie is three decades old, the arguments made in it are still relevant. Watch the movie here. (Trigger warning: The gender relations in Hungary at the time were hardly progressive. There's one scene where they argue and he hits her.)

Film: "Shameless"

This is the movie "Shameless", by Polish director Michal Kwiecinsk. (You can watch it here.)

I have to say, I was surprised at how good a movie it is. It revolves around Tadzik, and his older half-sister Ana. He’s been in love with her his whole life, and she knows it, but she keeps pushing him farther away. Sometime in the past she kicked him out of her house, though it’s never explained why. (My guess is that they became too “close”, and she was uncomfortable with her own emotions.) When he visits unannounced over summer break, he finds that she’s engaged to the head of a local Neo-Nazi group. Tadzik is also befriended by Irmina, the daughter of a local Roma family. She bristles under the sexism in her family, and falls in love with Tadzik, possibly seeing him as a way out. During all this, her family is under constant attack by the Neo-Nazis. Rescuing Ana from her fiancée becomes Tadzik’s obsession, at the expense of everyone else.

I’ve watched quite a few movies involving consanguinamory. Usually, they’re melodramatic and try to make it seem inherently wrong or dysfunctional. "Shameless" doesn’t fall into any trap. It doesn’t have an agenda either way, to make it seem positive or negative. It just is. Kwiecinsk has said that he was just trying to depict life in Poland as it actually is, and that lack of agenda really helps the movie. It deals with consanguinamory, sexism, arranged marriage, racism, abusive relationships, sexual harassment, poverty, and political corruption.

So, yeah. I think it's a good movie.

Edit (SPOILERS): One scene in the movie has been bothering me. It's a weirdly racist scene, thematically out of place in the movie. I've been trying to figure out why it's there. I think perhaps it's to show that Ana sort of agrees with her boyfriend because of the one guy who harasses her, and that she doesn't deserve the pedestal that Tadzik puts her on. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the movie is trying to portray three primary characters whose motivations and behavior are sometimes sympathetic, and sometimes problematic. Tadzik's sometimes sweet, sometimes creepy behavior towards Ana is a good example of that.

Film: "Starcrossed"

This a short film called "Starcrossed". In less than 15 minutes, it covers harmful gender standards, homosexuality, consanguinamory, and the damage done by social stigma. This is part of my attempt to highlight positive same-sex consanguinamory in media. (While not pornographic, this is definitely NSFW.)

A deleted scene from "The L Word"

It's at the 3 minutes, 11 seconds mark. Too bad it was deleted, it would've added extra authenticity. Maybe opened up some people's minds. This kind of thing is more common than people realize.

Film: "The Unspeakable Act"

One of the funny things about being in love with your brother is that you can say almost anything you want about him, to anyone you want, because no-one wants to go there. People will bend over backwards to put the blandest possible interpretation on whatever you say.

- The Unspeakable Act

One of the most hipster movies I've ever seen, but dryly funny. Also, a pretty good psychological character study, except for the whole "it's an expression of narcissism" implication. (Watch it here.)

Full marriage equality makes sense, but the criticisms of it don't.

This photo set was originally from here, but was modified by me to include consanguinamory.