In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into one of the most provocative cultural shifts happening today: the growing inclusion of polyamory as a protected sexual identity alongside the LGBT+ framework.

They explore:

* The historical “slippery slope” arguments from the gay rights movement (and how the left once fiercely rejected them)

* Why polyamory is now being mainstreamed in progressive spaces

* Biological, psychological, and cultural variance in monogamy vs. polyamory

* Striking parallels (and differences) between polyamory and same-sex attraction

* Why Malcolm now argues we should treat polyamory similarly to being gay — not as something to celebrate or condemn, but as a neutral biological/psychological variation

They also discuss family structure, reproductive fitness, leftist organizations like Black Lives Matter, legal changes in cities like Somerville and Cambridge, historical quotes from Dan Savage and Evan Wolfson, Catholic priests and lesbian nuns, biker culture in gay history, and much more.

A raw, nuance-heavy conversation that challenges both progressive orthodoxy and conservative reflexes. Expect tangents on everything from Mormon cuckoldry porn searches to ramp foraging and steak dinners.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re gonna be talking about L-G-G-B-D-T-T-T-I-Q-Q-A-A-P-P

Which was used by the Canadian Teachers Federation materials as example, wait no

Simone Collins: wait.

That there wasn’t a joke.

Malcolm Collins: No, that’s not a joke. One. That’s a, that’s a real one.

Speaker 2: They provided $0 to deal with the ongoing genocide of M-M-I-W-G.

Malcolm Collins: I could go through it all, but I think it’s probably more interesting for me to just get to the point of all this, which is the recent and, and increasing inclusion of polyamory as a discriminated sexual identity within the whiter, urban monocultural, or progressive framework.

Simone Collins: Okay. That’s interesting. Yeah. That it’s like, I guess, well, it is. Some people frame it as [00:01:00] a sexual orientation, so. I guess then it belongs there.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, I, I wanna talk about this, I wanna talk about it from a few angles. One, we are going to talk about it from the perspective of the early days of the gay rights movement.

Sorry, not even early days until around 2009, 2000, like 13. So, so up until like more recently the LGBT movement was fervent about the, this slippery slope argument on the right, that if we normalize. Same sex relationship today. We’ll be normalizing polyamorous relationships tomorrow. And they were very aggressive.

We’ll go over quotes and stuff. This is not the case. The movement will never turn into this.

Simone Collins: Wait, people actually said that. Really?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I always talk about, like, I remember when I was in school and I talk about my time in the GSA, the the Gay Straight Alliance. And I remember somebody being shouted out of the room because they suggested [00:02:00] that trans people may want to participate in sports of the gender they identify as.

And they were shouted out of the room because people said, that’s a far right slippery slope.

Simone Collins: You would ever do

Malcolm Collins: that argument. No one would ever do that. No one would ever argue that. You’d have to be crazy to think that. And oh, somebody would only present that as an idea in bad faith.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So they get shouted outta the room and I was like, Hmm, interesting.

Simone Collins: Indeed.

Malcolm Collins: So, I wanna go over it from that angle. I wanna go over it from a different angle as well, which is like, why is it culturally happening? Because I think it’s a, a shift in the way we see and think about sexual identities. Hmm. And finally, what I’m going to argue is I fundamentally think it’s a good thing, which is gonna surprise people

Simone Collins: to, to support it, to add it, to,

Malcolm Collins: to consider being polyamorous.

Mm-hmm. The same sort of lifestyle choice as being gay.

Simone Collins: Ah, [00:03:00] okay.

Malcolm Collins: And I’d actually say that I support it. Pretty much Exactly. As equally as I support being gay. Yeah, okay. Which is sort of like a, I wouldn’t advise it, but you know, if that’s what you’re gonna try, I am not gonna like, look down on you for it.

Right.

Yeah.

So what I mean by this, so people may wonder what I mean by this and why I think it is fundamentally a good thing. And I, and I actually do not think it is logically wrong now that we are identifying it as the same type of thing as being gay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There is obviously a variance biological variance in both the desire somebody has for additional partners when they are in a long-term loving relationship.

And the jealousy they feel when, you know, partners take other partners or like their, their ability to handle this. Yeah. I, I, I’d go so far as to argue that in some cultures seep people, because, you know, cultures interact with biology. Right. And if you’re in a culture where people take [00:04:00] multiple wives for many generations you are going to develop unique predilections, psychological predilections that people in other cultures are unlikely to have.

A great example of this that we go over is cing is really common in the Mormon community and statistically more common in Mormon areas if you look at like porn searches. Wow. So why would this be the case? Well, if you are in a community where multiple. Partners is common, and you as a female get hugely turned off or hugely jealous when you see your partner sleeping with somebody else.

You are going to be a more difficult partner. You are going to work less well with your sister wives and you are going to have fewer surviving and successful offspring. Sure. Yeah. Because the sister wives aren’t gonna help them as much. Whereas, and then people can be like, well then why are guys into it?

And it’s like, well, you know, evolution didn’t have that long to work in these regions. And so if it makes girls into it, it’s gonna accidentally make some guys into it as well. Right. You know? And so, you know, the, the, the. [00:05:00] The, there’s likely a biological component to this as well, like, I’m just being clear here.

It’s the same with same sex attraction, right? Like same sex attraction likely has a, a, a, a biological component and is going to be more common in some cultures and more rewarded by some cultures than others in terms of its reproductive fitness. Interestingly, by normalizing same sex relationships, you make same sex arousal dramatically more genetically unfit.

So for example, in the West, historically.

Simone Collins: Oh, I get it. Because basically you’re allowing people who experience same sex arousal to like not end up in heterosexual marriages and then not have kids. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Historically in the, in, in Western society, I guess you’d say more broadly same-sex attraction really wasn’t that much a hit to your genes because most same-sex attracted people just got married anyway and had kids anyway, right?

It was the normalization [00:06:00] of same-sex attraction that sort of nuked this as a a, a genetic trait that you super, super, super do not wanna have. If, if your goal is passing on as many of your genes to future generations as possible, but to continue here. But as we’ve said in other streams, so, so what I’m pointing out here is there is variance biologically in how much somebody might be compatible with a polyamorous lifestyle, and there is variance both genetically and, and you know, epigenetically and psychologically in terms of events that happened to you as you’re raised that are going to affect same sex attraction, right?

So, both of these variances, I think are equally arguable to be outside of an individual’s control. So I don’t think a you know, like what gay people would say historically is, well, I was born this way, right? As, as if the poly person was not. Potentially also to an extent born that way. It might have been less of a clear [00:07:00] gradient in terms of the psychological proclivities and arousal pathways.

But they were born that way just as much as a gay person was born this way. Or the gay person will say, well, this is part of my identity. It’s like, well, you chose to make same sex attraction part of your identity. You don’t have to do that. As we’ve pointed out, like in different cultures, like in the Catholic tradition they disproportionately join the priesthood with 25 to 50% of Catholic priesthood.

Simone Collins: A huge difference between how you feel and what you make your identity.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You, that, that, that is, and people are like, what? So they’re forced to go? It’s like, no, they choose it. You are the one who wants to force them to have same sex relationships. Right. The Catholic church is like, well, you can go and do that.

It is sinful, but like, we’re not gonna make it illegal. But I, I don’t think in any Catholic majority country is being gay illegal right now. But here is another option of ...

Polyamory Enters the LGTBQIA+ Pantheon (This is Good)