2010 Oscar Winner Mo'Nique Declares Hers an Open Marriage

3/7/10 UPDATE:  I wrote this post before Mo'Nique's interview with Barbara Walters aired on Sunday night just before the Academy Awards program.  Now that I've seen it I must make a correction.  Sidney and Mo'Nique have been married a few years amd have been best friends for over 25 years.  Sidney is Mo'Nique's third husband. 

Congratulations to Mo'Nique for winning the Oscar for best supporting actress!  - AW
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Practical Polyamory reader Renee for this tip.  Actress Mo'Nique, who is nominated to win an academy award Sunday evening for her role as an abusive mother in the oscar-nominated film Precious, has said in her segment of Barbara Walters' oscar special that she and her husband of 25 years, Sidney Hicks, have an open marriage. 

This is remarkable on two fronts.  First, it's remarkable that she has said this in such a visible media event - the few celebrities who have acknowledged their open relationships, most notably oscar winner Tilda Swinton and action hero Will Smith and actress wife Jada Pinkett Smith, have said as much, but not in anything close to such a high profile interview as this.  Second, and more important, is what she says in this quote from the MSNBC article reported on by Entertainment Tonight about her interview with Walters:

“What if [your husband has sex with another] 20 times?” [Walters] asked, to which Mo'Nique replies, "So what? We’ve been best friends for over 25 years, and we truly know who we are. Oftentimes, people get into marriages and they don’t know who they’re laying next to. I’m very comfortable and secure with my husband.”

And there you have it.  This relationship has lasted 25 years and appears to still be strong.  It's pretty clear that one of the reasons is that Mo'Nique and Sidney know and trust each other and are wise enough not to use marriage as an emotional and sexual prison.  Mo'Nique goes on to say that she herself hasn't engaged in affairs with anyone but her husband.  She is surely a strong woman who understands what I call The Secret of Polyamory, or so I like to think.  And still, advocates for traditional marriage continue to cling to and aggressively promote a paradigm that clearly doesn't bring long-term happiness to many people and, in fact, poses significant risks to a marriage's long-term prospects by attempting to cage human romantic love and sexuality.

We advocates for polyamory and open relationships have believed for quite a while now that there are surely many celebrities in such marriages who have not seen fit to make it public, but it would come as a considerable surprise if this turns out not to be the case.  Considering how much celebrities travel, how often they are separated from their spouses for fairly lengthy periods of time, how lonely that must be for them and how many other attractive people they interact with, open relationships would seem a logical choice, so long as the marriage/relationship in question is as strong and intentionally well defined as those of Swinton, the Smiths, and my new heroine, Mo'Nique.

More on Tilda Swinton's Poly Family

Back in February when the fabulous actress Tilda Swinton won a best supporting actress oscar, I posted here about her win and details about her poly family and her lover, Sandro Kopp, all of which she has been very open about in the press.

Now the Australian online news source LiveNews has published an article called "Love Geometry" that tells us that Swinton's partner, John Byrne, has had another partner for two years now, 42 y.o. theatre lighting director Jeanine Davis. Byrne is quoted as saying "“It’s all very relaxed and amicable. We have not hidden away and Jeanine is very much part of my life. Tilda knows all about it and is more than happy with the situation. It’s all very relaxed and amicable. Tilda has Sandro and the arrangement works very well.”

I hope we'll see many more celebrities go public about their own open relationships - doing so will be quite a boon to mainstream tolerance and even acceptance of polyamory as a legitimate choice and relationship orientation.

Polyamory Advocacy's Chicken-and-Egg Problem

Today the Chicago Sun-Times printed it's article on polyamory, Wedded to Variety. As it happen's, Oscar winner Tilda Swinton's poly family has become newsworthy and is responsible for this newspaper's interest in an article on Chicago-area polyamorists. (Thanks, Tilda, for setting such a great example! We love you!)

CunningMinx of the Polyamory Weekly podcast, who lives in the Chicago area, and I were interviewed and are quoted. Also, we both sought at the journalist's urging a Chicago area married poly couple to be interviewed, but with no luck. This is often what we are asked for, presumably because this form of poly family is most analogous to a monogamous married couple. The other form we are often asked for that is even harder to supply is a triad, quad, or other group of cohabitating multiples. That's because so few of them actually exist, with very few of those being made up of people who are all comfortable with being out.

Understandably, journalists don't realize that it is often very difficult to meet these demands. We educate them about the realities of poly life and about people's fears of outing themselves, especially on their home turf. The journalist typically wants a local person or persons to give the article local context. Though Paige was insistent that she must have a married couple, apparently her editor relented and decided the article was worth running without that perspective - good for them.

As long as people have to be afraid to be out as polyamorous, there is going to continue to be a conflict between the needs of polyfolk and the needs of journalists and we activists who must work with them to find suitable interviewees - a real chicken-and-egg problem. The more reasonably fair press exposure we get, the more awareness will be raised, the less stigmatized we'll eventually be, and the safer it will be to be out as a polyamorist. Yet without suitable interviewees, getting the story out becomes more difficult. Hence the chicken-and-egg reference.

The good news is that this is yet again another newspaper article that is positive and not in the least disparaging.

Polyamorist Wins an Oscar!

Last evening 47 y.o. actress Tilda Swinton won the Oscar for best actress in a supporting role for her work in Michael Clayton. Tilda recently revealed that she has a 29 y.o. German artist lover, Sandro Kopp, who often accompanies her on the road when she is working. When she's home in Scotland, Sandro spends time with Tilda, her 68 y.o. partner of 18 years, playwrite John Byrne, and Tilda and John's 10 y.o. twin boys.

Here are Tilda's guys:



Kopp painted Tilda - see it here. He's also painted yonis and other genitalia - they are so breathtakingly beautiful (as is the man himself) that Betty Dodson features them on her website.

What a perfect scenario for a poly relationship - actors spend a lot of time away from home, and the combination of time away, loneliness, and working with beautiful people has resulted in affairs that have broken up many a Hollywood marriage and relationship. How courageous of these three to be honest - not to mention their creative problem solving skills! Then again, it seems like the rich and famous tend to get a pass on such controversial practices while we regular folks often face greater challenges being public with our polyness.