Polyamory

Polyamory can lead to drama in bed.

"Open relationships are not nearly as socially accepted as they were in the 1960s and 1970s, at the peak of the sexual revolution. But they do work for some couples, provided there's a tremendous amount of trust and commitment."

— Dr. Laura Berman and Dr. Jennifer Berman, For Women Only: A Revolutionary Guide to Reclaiming Your Sex Life

Rather than requiring someone to pick one person out of several potential love interests, or adultery, all parties involved agree to be together and share cooperatively. This typically lacks any drama of the decision itself, but has a different form of drama in how people make arrangements with each other, manage jealousy and households, and deal with the disapproval of society as a whole.

Individuals who identify as polyamorous may consider themselves "Ethical Sluts". Not all ethical sluts are polyamorous, and not all people in polyamorous relationships have the "ethical slut" attitude. The difference between a polyamorist and a swinger is that a polyamorous person has broad-spectrum involvement in their partners' lives, including love. Swingers are largely there for the sex, often for the novelty of an unfamiliar partner.

Subtropes:

• Exotic Extended Marriage, when polyamory/non-monogamy is normal, if not the norm, for a foreign/nonhuman culture rather than a fringe practice.
• Marry Them All, when a Love Triangle or Love Dodecahedron is resolved by coming to this conclusion.
• Open Relationship Failure, where a non-monogamous relationship runs into problems directly related to it being non-monogamous.
• Royal Harem, when a powerful man's many wives and concubines have their own designated part of the palace or estate.

If it's just hinted at, it's Threesome Subtext. If it's not canon, but fans ship it, see One True Threesome. If it's just sex, not full-on relationships, see Three-Way Sex. If one partner receives preferential treatment over the others, then the former is Top Wife and the latter are a Supporting Harem.^note Not every case of Supporting Harem qualifies, though; it must involve a Marry Them All resolution. If there's families with both partners and it's done in secret, it's Secret Other Family.

Polygamy is a subtype of polyamory, as it means more than one spouse, while with polyamory, marriage and dating both count. In Real Life, it's often subject to Insistent Terminology, with polyamorists and polygamists trying to disassociate the two. The actual difference, though, is basically just the cultural trappings and whether the practice is considered traditional or modern. In most Western countries, polygamy is illegal, but multiple people living as though married in every way except for whatever legal benefits official marriage would give them isn't.

Not to be confused with Polyarmory.

For more details and some Real Life tidbits, visit Useful Notes On Polyamory. Truth in Television, obviously, though how culturally accepted it is varies wildly depending on the place, time period, and social standing. Currently, polygamy is Banned in China (plus all Western countries), but still legal in some parts of Africa and Asia. ^note For China, polygamy had always been banned. China practised a concubinage system, whereby a husband can only have one legal wife, but multiple concubines of lower legal status. Polygyny where wives are of equal status had always been illegal, and had been considered a crime in some dynasties. In family laws from the Tang to Qing dynasties, the status of a wife, concubines and maid-mistresses couldn't be altered.

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Other Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You revolves entirely around the protagonist gaining 100 soulmates, all of whom love him and are perfectly willing to share him.
• Chainsaw Man: Quanxi, a veteran Chinese devil hunter, is part of a polycule with four female Fiends, and all have sex with each other frequently. It's clearly a genuinely romantic relationship and not just a sexual one, as part of her fee for hunting Denji is ensuring her girlfriends are given legal citizenship and proper education.
• Implied to be how the Bisexual Love Triangle in Cross Ange ends. During the run up to the finale, Ange loses her virginity with her male primary Love Interest Tusk, and then kisses Hilda when the latter confesses to her. The three are shown running a cafe together in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue. So it's ultimately ambiguous whether Ange and Hilda just remained good friends, or she is romantically involved with both of them.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira, has three wives, since they come from a clan of ninja where polyamory is considered normal. However, normally, the women in the clan are only expected to keep producing kids, but Tengen wants his wives to be happy, which is one of the reasons that he left his clan.
• D.Gray-Man:
  • Cross Marian may be a practitioner of this. He has many lovers. We met one—Anita, and heard of another, which was her mother. Both seemed to love him, and want to help him. They support the Dark Order just to do something for him. He is apparently a good lover, and he seems chivalrous in general when it comes to women. He hates the Order, and has been hiding from them for 4 years, but stayed because Lenalee asked him to, which exposed his Fatal Flaw. Earlier he protected Lenalee on the crumbling ark. Word of God states he likes "good women." Apparently, he cares for his lovers outside of sex, otherwise whether or not they're good women probably wouldn't matter. And he isn't unethical about it, as Word of God lists his dislikes as "dirty bastards." Allen states that Cross lives with, and off of, lovers in different places. So, apparently, it's not just Anita and her mother that care enough to do things for him. Anita and her mom were also prostitutes, but Cross stated the former as a good woman when he finds out she's been killed.
  • Also, a scene in Jump SQ seems to hint at this. Allen visits Mother and Ba Ba's house, and he says underneath Cross' bed is filled with things he got from his lovers. We see, in his room in chapter 167, he has at least five pictures on his shelves, possibly pix of some of his lovers. So he apparently hangs on to things his lovers let him have.
• Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure: An Alternate Universe of Tenchi Muyo from the same creator, Kazuki Yosuga likewise ends up with all four of his romantic interests in a 3rd new reality, created by combining the previous 2 parallel worlds. The twist? It was created by the will of the formerly Clingy Jealous Girl Mizuki S. when she realized that Kazuki loved all of them equally.
• Rokujo Chikage, Durarara!!'s resident Ethical Slut and Chivalrous Pervert, is happy to be with any girl that doesn't mind sharing. The series introduces him dating eight girls at once.
  Girlfriend 1: Why are we dating such a playboy again?
  Girlfriend 2: Because it's one of our weird hobbies.
• In Girlfriend, Girlfriend, Naoya starts dating his childhood friend, Saki Saki, then receives an abrupt confession from Nagisa Minase. Unable to hurt Nagisa, or betray Saki, Naoya thinks up a "solution" to make both girls happy by dating both of them at the same time. Naoya later adds Saki's best friend Shino to the arrangement, specifically at Saki's request, and while Mirika is totally against it and wants Naoya to pick her over all of the girls, the final arc is breaking her down so that she'll accept.
• Proposed as a solution in Girl X Girl X Boy although it gets rejected in the end.
• Taiga is trying to invoke this in Gonin Hitoyaku demo Kimi ga Suki, due to being unable to tell which quintuplet saved him from the manure pit.
• In Gun-Ota ga Mahou Sekai ni Tensei Shitara..., Lute winds up married to all five of his harem girls, and it's not his idea, but theirs. He loves them all equally, and despite the marriage being officially recognized in-universe, it is treated as rather odd by those who hear of it.
• The relationship drama Hare-Kon features a "one-man-multiple-women" situation as a growing practice for the female lead's district in Tokyo, and only there for the time being. Harem marriages, or "Hare-kons", are typically marriages of one guy and a maximum of four women, encouraged due to lowered birth rates. The protagonist Koharu finds herself in a four person Hare-kon, but the series picks apart how stressful the situation can be, the jealousy and infighting that crops up, and how all the members contribute to the family dynamic.
• Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World: Michio's sex slaves are all perfectly fine sharing Michio with each other (it helps that Michio doesn't go sniffing around outside the home for his "needs"), although they draw the line at adding a domestic "home-keeper" slave.
• High School D×D is based around this trope. Initially set up as a traditional Harem Series, it deviates from the norm because none of the girls care that the others like him too; in fact, several of them actively help the others get closer to Issei, culminating in the rest of the harem helping Issei and Rias become an Official Couple. At least two of them stated that they were waiting for this to happen before they went any further with Issei themselves. And for her part, Rias has no problem with polygamy as long as she's number one.
• The Ideal Sponger Life: Has an interesting case where the main character, Zenjiro, is happily married to Queen Aura, and would rather stay married to her than take concubines. However, due to the politics revolving around Kings taking a wife and multiple concubines, he has no choice but to take lovers other than Aura, as her country would suffer if he didn't, despite his desire to be with her only. Aura herself is the one who (reluctantly) pushed this on him despite trying to honor his request that she be his only wife due to her love for him, but he agrees to avoid trouble for her on the condition she's the Top Wife. He takes Princess Freya and her bodyguard Victoria as a concubine in volume 12 of the series.
• If Her Flag Breaks: Not only do none of the girls (and one boy) in Souta's harem ever show signs of jealousy, when directly asked who will marry him or bear his children in the future, many of the girls (especially Akane) offer the honor to a girl that they feel would be better suited or would make cuter children. Even when they're all separated by the destruction of their virtual world at the end, they all rejoin Souta in Quest Dorm in the finale.
• Imaizumin-chi wa Douyara Gal no Tamariba ni Natteru Rashii: ~DEEP~: Imaizumi lives with three girls he has an offscreen sex life with, and neither he nor they have a problem with it.
• Her Royal Majesty Iono from Iono the Fanatics somehow manages to be in a romantic relationship with an entire kingdom worth of lesbians. And satisfy them all. Unless, of course, she is traveling abroad, in which case her paramours start a civil war, with one faction believing in her eventual return and the other striving to bring her back by force.
• This is basically the conclusion of the borderline hentai manga Kanojo De Ippai when all three main females agree to share the male protagonist since they all like him, and end up living under the same roof without much issue.
• Kanokon:
  • Done with after the credits in the anime's Gecko Ending—Chizuru wins, and Nozomu is Put on a Bus… but wait, she returns after the credits and they decide to share Kouta. Which kinda sucks for him, as both of them are extremely oversexed yōkai (Japanese demons), and he's mostly Asexual. Of course, he doesn't get a say in the matter.
  • It's also done part way through the manga, where after Kouta tells Nozomu he loves Chizuru, she leaves… then immediately comes back and declares herself his lover. Chizuru's reaction is basically "Gah, whatever, I'm still number one." However, while Kouta's opinion is not asked initially (like the anime) he later declares he loves them both and is going to be faithful to them both and no one else.
• Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl has an arc centered around this in volume 6, where a girl named Amane believes that you don’t have to restrict yourself to loving one person, while a girl named Ryô falls in love with her and Amane’s girlfriend Nina has trouble accepting her peculiar vision. They all end up forming a relationship in the end.
• YasaKan has this as its central plot, with the story starting as a love triangle between middle-schooler Mayuki, who wants to get in the same high school as her beloved senpai Akira, who is in love with her own friend Rin, who is herself in love with Mayuki, for whom she’s a private tutor. The drama of the first two volumes is about Rin and Akira wanting to form an exclusive bond with their respective crush, while Rin was scarred by her past experience of loving two girls and being unable to "choose" one. After some developments though, they end up accepting a shared relationship at the end of chapter 10.
• In Mahouno Iroha, Naoki marries 500 women in a Bad Future where he discovers magic and takes over the world although it turns out that the women are actually tributes from countries and companies that fear him. At the end of the story, he marries every single woman in the country after discovering ESP in another Bad Future.
• In Maoyu, while it's not flat-out stated that the three are romantically involved together, the fact that the Light Novels end with The Hero, The Demon Queen and Lady Knight deciding to retire and leave together, with no one else in tow, to live in some faraway place in peace, sure says something, especially since both girls had previously come into terms that they love The Hero.
• Marmalade Boy: Jin and Rumi Koishikawa, and Youji and Chiyako Matsura (later Jin and Chiyako Koishikawa, and Youji and Rumi Matsura) seem to hint at this. Swapping spouses is one thing; all moving into the same house together and spending all their free time together… awfully suggestive.
• The h-manga, Mating with Oni, a young man named Soichiro moved back into his grandparents' hometown after his parents died, and when playing with Momiji, a young red-oni girl, she invites him to her house to play another game. When Momiji's mother, Kaede, another red-oni woman, returns home after she scared off some wild boars that were eating the town's crops she finds Sochiro asking Momiji to untie him and play something else because his hands are getting numb. Kaede assumes that Momiji wants to kill and eat Socichiro, and although she's willing to cook him she still disapproves because they could be run out of town. However, Momiji explains that she brought Soichiro over because she likes him, and when Soichiro says he likes her too, Kaede becomes excited and explains that oni tradition states that when an oni falls in love with a human, then that human is to be abducted and forced into marriage. Soichiro tries to resist being forced to get married, but accepts his fate and marries Momiji, and even takes Kaede as a wife as well since Momiji is willing to share him. When Soichiro gets kidnapped by Ruri and Hari, members of the rival blue-oni clan, so he can be their husband instead, he tries going home explaining he's already married, only to be hypnotized into loving them. Soichiro's soon freed, and the hypnotism is undone, and months later a pregnant Momiji stills has to keep an eye on him so he won't be kidnapped again. Sometime after Momiji gives birth to a daughter, Soichiro takes her and Kaede to the city to clean his old apartment, and finds that Ruri and Hari broke in and after a passionate night, Soichiro ends up with a harem of four oni women that are more than happy to share him.
• Meguro-san wa Hajimete Janai features the character of Yuuma, who is in a consensual polyamorous relationship. He does consider himself a little weird for being in love with multiple girls at once, but decides to stay true to his feelings. His girlfriends have no such reservations.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans:
  • Naze Turbine has a Cool Starship, which is entirely crewed by his harem. All of the women appear to be okay with the arrangement, to the point that children are communally raised. We are shown five very young kids on board the ship, each from different mothers, and it's mentioned that Naze has more, older children back on the space colony he calls home. The second season clears things up a bit, explaining that while Naze did legally marry all the women on his crew, it was more about recruiting talented, capable women and getting them away from the crappy menial jobs they were stuck in thanks to scumbags who looked down on them because of their gender. He also only slept with the women who came to him, not pursuing any of them who didn't actually want a physical relationship. Naze himself outright says that he actually views the girls more as daughters than wives, and when Lafter begins showing romantic interest in another man, he's fully supportive of it and glad she's found someone she truly loves.
  • After meeting the Turbines, Atra gets the idea that maybe she and Kudelia could share Mikazuki instead of competing over him. In season 2, Atra first confesses to Mika, then gets Kudelia to join their relationship.
• Monster Musume: Lamias reproduce by abducting a single human male and using him for the purpose of reproduction. While he's usually "married" to the community leader as a symbolic gesture, the communal husband is expected to be available sexually to all members of the community. However, members of the community are permitted to seek out other males for their own convenience.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • It turns out that Nodoka views this as an acceptable solution to the Love Triangle between herself, her best friend Yue, and Negi, showing up in her ideal world. The sequel reveals that she and Yue actually went through with it (in the UQ Holder timeline anyways. In the timeline seen at the end of Negima he marries Chisame).
  • Luna aka Shiori's own ideal world shows that she wouldn't mind having both Negi and Fate.
• In Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! Cuuko proposes one between her, Mahiro and Nyarko, after she warms up to Mahiro, suggesting "I bear Nyarko's child, the boy bears mine." Unsurprisingly, neither Nyarko nor Mahiro are really down with this idea.
• One Piece: The world nobles practice extensive marriage, but given that they can ignore laws it also doesn't suggest if this is legal or not. These relationships are hardly healthy however given that many of the wives are grabbed off the street and dismissed whenever the male world noble grows tired of them.
• Pokémon: The Series has Brock sing a song about how much he wants this with Jenny and Joy.
• Psyren has Ageha/Sakurako/Abyss.
• Ranma ½: Kuno can't bring himself to decide whether he wants Akane or "the pigtail girl" more, so he declares that he shall have both of them.
• Used in Red River (1995), crossing with Twin Threesome Fantasy. Yuri's handmaidens Ryuhi and Shala both like Kail's advisor Kikkuri, and they bed him separately. They both get pregnant. Kikkuri had believed he was sleeping with one of the girls, but instead of "choosing" he marries them both. At the end of the story, the girls have given birth to… twins! (Ryuhi has two boys, Shala has two girls). They all live more or less happily under the same rooftop.
• Rosario + Vampire, where the entire harem wants this situation… except for the first girl, who doesn't want to share (though said girl is two for the price of one and might count just by herself). The boy hasn't made his views known.
• Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei has a rather complicated example of this. Nozomu loves the First Girl, Fuura Kafuka. However, it's revealed in the final chapters that she was Dead All Along. Her organs, however, went to the girls in Nozomu's class, causing him to see her in his students one at a time. (As his sister Rin puts it, he's in love with her corneas-in Abiru-then her lungs-in Komori-then her heart-in Chiri.) On paper, he's in an endless cycle of marriage and divorce between the girls. In Nozomu's eyes, he's married to Kafuka and Kafuka alone. To outsiders, it looks like this trope, especially since all the girls have children by him (that eerily look like Kafuka).
• Sekirei: When having multiple Sekirei, when they get winged is considered "marriage" for most. But for most Ashikabe's features them favoring one over the other with them hardly having healthy relationships for the sake of having multiple women in their lives. For the protagonist Minato however, he breaks away from this. As he ends up having 6 in his harem (1 being a child and the other being a man while the other 4 are beautiful and buxom women), he effectively fits the Marry Them All trope upon the epilogue with him loving and treating everyone in his harem equal. Even more is that all his Sekirei all love him unconditionally and are happy to share him as their husband.
• Chocolat/Carrot/Tira was almost canon in Sorcerer Hunters, and some fans still would have preferred that to the manga's actual ending. Then again, Chocolat did end up with Carrot's kids…
• Tales of Wedding Rings: Hime, Sato's childhood friend whom he's been in love with since they were kids, tries to be the Top Wife with the consent of the Supporting Harem, but by about volume 8, the girls agree to drop that and share him equally.
• Tenchi Muyo!: Seina slips into this trope at the end via a Marry Them All resolution, though it still has the feel of the former, and Word of God says Tenchi himself fits this trope. In both cases, it helps that they're in line for the throne of Jurai (Tenchi being the Crown Prince), a position that, as far as we can see, traditionally comes with multiple wives (the current one has two). It also helps that the Jurian equivalent of the Queen Mother fancies herself a matchmaker, is a master of The Plan, and seems to prefer this outcome. Word of God shows this also happens between Seina's oldest son and Ryoko and Ayeka's daughters, as well as Seina's second son and Ryo-ohki's three daughters, and Seina's youngest son and Mihoshi and Noike's daughters.
• The High School AU manga of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann features Simon/Nia/Dark Nia in its ending (Dark Nia in this version is a secondary persona/imaginary friend that Nia created from being denied any friends by her overprotective father).
• The last chapter of To Love Ru hints that this might be a viable option for Rito; at the very least, Lala is enthusiastic about to the point that it seems to be her preferred option. In the sequel, To Love-Ru Darkness, one of the girls tries to open up this route (Lala approves), and is only hindered by Rito's belief in monogamy.
• Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: This is rampant in Holfort Kingdom, mostly the noble women and their multiple lovers, but the King also has a lot of concubines. In fact, it's easier to mention which characters are not in this type of relationship, since the nobles tend to marry for status or politics rather than love. Main character Leon is the Heroic Bastard of his father's beloved mistress; his legal wife Zola also has her boytoys. Leon in turn is tricked into getting engaged to Angelica and Olivia by his own family and the Redgrave House, to Leon's chagrin and Angie and Livia's delight. He is ultimately happy with the arrangement as he loves both of them—and it doesn't hurt that they're also in love with each other.
• Tsugumomo: In the manga, Kazuya ends up with a harem of exorcists and tsukumogami. The ability to share him is hinted at multiple times by the girls, especially since some of them are bisexual. Their main point of contention mostly seems to be who will be the first to "deflower" him and share other intimate "firsts" with him. But beyond that, there's little attempt to hoard him for themselves.
• In Undead Unluck, Rip was very close to both the Mirah sisters, Leila and Latla, from an early age, but they were unable to resolve their dynamic due to the inherent friction from Leila's terminal illness. In the 101st loop, thanks to Fuuko's intervention and a more stable, equanimous dynamic between the three, Rip is able to propose to the both of them on the predicted happiest day of their lives, which they tearfully accept.
• Umi no Misaki ends with Nagi and his three girls in this agreement. The epilogue chapters show that the four of them are getting along perfectly well despite the oddity of their relationship.
• UQ Holder! has the main character, Touta eventually starting a sexual relationship with all three of his main love interests, all of whom agree to share him.

Comic Books

• In Demon Knights, Jason Blood and Etrigan are two beings who were magically joined together by Merlin, and who are each married to Madame Xanadu. It sort of works because only one or the other can inhabit the human plane of existence at a given time; the one who isn't on the human plane ends up in Hell during that time.
• ElfQuest. Many of the elves end up "lifemating" with two others, and their relationships are generally loving and long-lasting (and in at least three cases, explicitly mentioned as a sane alternative to jealousy and rivalry). Problems tend to arise only with Recognition, a form of "love"/lust based entirely on involuntary instinct. Examples: Leetah/Cutter/Skywise, Skot/Krim/Pike, and Dewshine/Scouter/Tyleet.
• A DC Elseworlds story, "Superman/Wonder Woman: Whom Gods Destroy", written by Chris Claremont, is set in a world where Superman made his first public appearance in the 1930s, when he met Lois Lane. Cut to the present day, where Lois Lane and Lana Lang are in their seventies and are very close friends. Despite Superman's presence during WWII, the Nazis are still in power in Germany, due in part to the interference of Ares and several other Greek Gods. Another faction of Greek Gods, led by Artemis and Athena, grant Lois and Lana eternal youth and superpowers (Lana becomes the Oracle of Delphi and Lois becomes Wonder Woman; Diana had turned traitor and joined the Nazis in the interim), and they team with Superman to defeat Ares' faction. Part of Ares' plan is to separate Clark from Lois and Lana, since their powers somehow bind them together. When Lana explains to Superman, "Ares doesn't want the two of you together," (referring to Clark and Lois), Hecate, the Greek witch-goddess, corrects her, "No, the three of you." By the end of the four-issue arc, Clark, Lois and Lana are happily living together in his Fortress of Solitude (the now young Lois changed her name to Lois Lang) in a polyamorous relationship.
• Fine Print: Lauren is the submissive “third” to a man and woman (a married couple) for a time while doing BDSM with them. She's sad when they break things off and move on.
• Harley Quinn: Amanda and Jimmy refer to Harley and Ivy as "girlfriends without the jealousy of monogamy". During their run, Harley has at the very least serious flirtations and probably outright sexual relationships with Ivy, Mason, and Red Tool at much the same time, and none of them object despite their seeming awareness.
• The Incredible Hercules establishes that besides being The Casanova who beds any number of women he can, Hercules has several steady girlfriends all over the world. After his death at the end of the series, Venus and Namora find this out when they visit houses or businesses that Hercules has bought or built himself, each of which houses or employs a woman who loves Hercules and is shattered and heartbroken by his passing.
• In League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century, Mina, Allan, and Orlando are in a somewhat complicated polyamorous relationship. It's complicated because Orlando's a Gender Bender, and Mina doesn't seem to enjoy his company so much when he's male.
• In the last issue of the Secret Six ongoing, Scandal Savage decides she can't choose between her girlfriends and proposes to both of them at once. It's implied that they did marry, as in later stories Knockout reaches for Scandal's hand and whispers "Wife...", and a villain taunted Scandal by threatening to harm her "wives".
• Sleepless: Downplayed and Implied Star Reader Nnende mentions that she misses her "children and their fathers" back home in Mribesh, and Poppy (the daughter of another Star Reader) doesn't seem to be surprised to hear of Nnende's multiple partners. Queen Leotta of Harbeny publicly welcomed King Verato's mistress Amena into their family and openly declares her affection for the woman.
• Strangers in Paradise: Francine, David, Katchoo, Casey, Freddie and even Tambi all alternate between being friends, enemies, sexual partners and various places in between, and also rotate living with each other as one or more of those options. After David reveals to Casey and Katchoo that he is dying, they all (well, most) decide for Katchoo, Casey and David to form a sexual relationship in order to produce a child and because they all do love each other, even though Katchoo only really loves Francine, David only really loves Katchoo, and who Casey really loves is more complicated than even the reader thinks at the time. Once David dies the series settles down into Katchoo-Francine and Casey-Tambi (!?!?!?!?!?), though even then David sticks with both pairs in spirit and via his child with Katchoo.
• At the very end of Superman: Red Son (an Elseworld), when Lex Luthor uses his genius to turn Earth into a utopia, it's said that the "triple" replaces the "couple" as the most common format in human relationships.
• The Norns in The Wicked + The Divine are in a closed, triadic relationship, with Urdr/Cassandra submissive to Verdandi and Skuld.
• A common theme in erotic comic XXXenophile, created by Phil Foglio, (who later went on to do Girl Genius, which also has an entry on this page).
• In X-Men (2019), Jean Grey, her husband Scott Summers, and teammate Wolverine are depicted as being in a polyamorous relationship. This was first hinted at with a map of the Summers household showing Logan as a permanent resident, with Jean's bedroom in the middle of her husband's and Logan's, with their rooms connected by hidden doors. Later comics would show explicit romantic and sexual encounters with Jean, Scott, and Logan.
• A young Cable is dating all five of the Stepford Cuckoos. Sophie Cuckoo is also dating Quentin Quire.

Comic Strips

• In one Dream of the Rarebit Fiend strip, a man dreams that he has joined the Mormons and married ten women. He wakes up just as they're attacking him to get their share of his weekly paycheck.
• In one The Flintstones comic strip, Dino sees another dinosaur who has five wives. He then wonders why the other dinosaur is so sad when he has all those beautiful wives, and is informed that five wives means five mothers-in-law.

Films — Live-Action

• À l'aventure: Sophie tells Greg and Sandrine how she's now seeing a married couple in a BDSM relationship. They come along to observe a session after this.
• Played for laughs in The Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, when Captain Spaulding jokingly proposes to two women at once.
  Mrs. Rittenhouse: But that's bigamy.
  Captain Spaulding: Yes, and it's big of me too. It's big of all of us. Let's be big for a change.
• Bandits has both the main characters falling for their hostage turned ally. When she is pressed to chose she deliberately chooses "not to chose," and is last seen happily with both of them in Mexico.
• Nearly happens in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. Just as it seems like this will happen, with all four of the principals in bed together, they change their minds.
• Love Songs: Julie and Ismaël resolve Ismaël's attraction to his coworker Alice by forming a ménage à trois which doesn't survive the first act: when Julie dies, Alice and Ismaël go their separate ways.
• Der Philosoph: Georg the academic is delighted to get a sexy girlfriend, Franziska, but is a little bit startled when Franziska's two hot roommates also start making overt sexual advances towards him. When he finally tells Franziska, she reveals the truth: the three of them are immortal beings that have taken an interest in Georg, and they're all perfectly willing to have sex with him. The ending finds all four of them in bed together.
• The play and film Design for Living revolves around the three-way relationship between two (male) best friends who are both in love with the same woman. They try this, but jealousy breaks them up and the woman marries someone else… until she decides that she still loves her boys, and as they want her back, the three of them decide to give it another try.
• In Dodes'ka-den, two of the wives in the neighborhood amuse themselves by swapping husbands from time to time. The drunken husbands barely notice.
• DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story throws in a love triangle in the last 2 minutes—and promptly goes with this solution.
• In the 1999 TV movie Journey to the Center of the Earth, after arriving to the land beneath the crust, the adventurers encounter a village of humans. Their guide McNiff immediately takes a liking to the local women, who respond to the big man from above. He then sees men glaring at him and finds our they're the women's husbands. Apparently, they practice polygamy. He grins and takes two women to a shack to exchange cultural knowledge. The idea of limiting relationships to only two people seems ridiculous to the locals, one woman asking in disbelief if women from above really like monogamy.
• A Home at the End of the World has the main characters decide to form a family, only for it to eventually break down.
• Jules and Jim focuses on a three-way pairing, with an eye to determining whether it can possibly last. In and of itself, polyamory is deemed acceptable, but "pioneers must be humble and unselfish," and jealousy results in a Murder-Suicide.
• The Dutch movie Liever Verliefd ("Preferably In Love") has the main character marrying both of her love interests at the end.
• Maggie & Annie: Bill offers to share his wife Annie with her lover Maggie, because he can't stand seeing Annie's sadness when she leaves. Maggie happily accepts, but she then dies after she's struck by a drunk driver.
• Mediterraneo: Two brothers, Italian soldiers in World War II manning a lookout post on a remote island, meet a sexy shepherdess. They spend the rest of the war having Three-Way Sex with her. Their commanding officer is puzzled when they volunteer for permanent duty on the mountaintop lookout post.
• Professor Marston and the Wonder Women explores the relationship between William Moulton Marston, Elizabeth Marston, and Olive Byrne, and its effect on the creation of the lie detector (which the Marstons invented) and Wonder Woman (which Mr. Marston created and wrote under the pseudonym William Moulton). See Real Life, below.
• A woman and two men try this in Paint Your Wagon. It sort of works for a while; one of the men eventually departs, not so much because of the triangle, but because the area's becoming too civilized for his taste.
• Sappho: Sappho clearly wants Phil and Helene to have a trio with her. She encourages them to get involved. However, while they have sex, both reject this in the end.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:
  • Wallace Wells, Scott's gay roomate sleeps with Stacey Pilgrim's boyfriend Jimmy and another nameless guy later on. His boyfriend, "Other Scott" does not seem to mind as at one point they're all seen sleeping in the same bed together, as well as Scott.
  • Ramona Flowers also dated both Katayanagi Twins at the same time.
• Savages: The three main characters of Ben, O, and Chon are a heterosexual throuple.
• She's Gotta Have It revolves around the polyamorous life of the protagonist and its acceptance or not by people around her.
• She Hate Me: The Bisexual Love Triangle gets resolved at the end of the film, as Jack, Fatima and Alex end up in a relationship.
• Sweetwater: Josiah is a polygamist who has two wives, while still pretending he's only married to one.
• In Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Juan's ex-girlfriend shows up after Cristina is already living with him. Things go from awkward, to tense, to sexy, back to tense, to falling apart entirely.
• Strongly implied at the end of Viridiana. After Letting Her Hair Down, Viridiana, who is obviously very changed by her experiences, enters the bedroom and finds Jorge and his lover Ramona. She sits down at a table with them. Jorge, who has a deck of cards, starts dealing, looks at Viridiana, and says "When I first saw you, I knew that we would end up playing cards."
• The Voyeurs: Discussed when Pippa sees Sebastian having sex with other women, her friends suggesting he's not really cheating on Julia but they have an open relationship. It does seem to be the case at the end, as she's in on everything.
• Another one from Woody Allen. When Melodie's disapproving mother Marietta shows up in Whatever Works, she goes on to date two men that agree to share her.
• Brazilian erotic western comedy Um Pistoleiro Chamado Papaco has Linda, a woman with four husbands, all of which the gunslinging protagonist kills on a Showdown at High Noon.
• The Big Wedding: Muffin and Barry turn out to have an open marriage, letting each other both have sex with other people. He had slept with Ellie, while she's seen other women.

Live-Action TV

• Subverted in American Horror Story: Asylum with Kit, Alma and Grace. They set up housekeeping together but it does not end well, especially for Grace. Not because of any jealousy, but because Grace doesn't view their alien abduction experiences as negatively as Alma does and Alma ultimately suffers a trauma-induced mental break and kills Grace out of the paranoid belief that she'll bring the aliens back. Alma realizes too late what she's done.
• Londo Mollari on Babylon 5 has three wives and a mistress, but it's kind of an aversion since he would gladly toss the polyamory and his three wives out the window, and marry just the mistress he truly loves (his marriages were political). He sums it up rather bluntly:
  Londo: Here. Look. These are my three wives: Pestilence, Famine, and Death. Do you think I married them for their personalities? Their personalities could shatter entire planets! Arranged marriages. Every one. But they worked out, they inspired me! Knowing that they were waiting at home for me is what keeps me here—75 light-years away!
• Big Love, being based around Fundamentalist Mormon polygyny, is both an example and a counterexample to this trope, especially since it's depicted that women are often wed as young teens, ergo matches are made outside of the realm of informed adult consent. However, the family of the main characters mostly came together as consenting adults, though Margene revealed in season 5 that she was only 16 when she married Bill. The age of consent in Utah is 18.
• In Black Sails:
  • Captain Flint's back story shows that he was in a polyamorous relationship with both Miranda and Thomas Barlow back in England. Thomas' rumored death is what drove Flint and Miranda to Nassau and began Flint's days of piracy.
  • Anne Bonny, Jack Rackham, and Max have a three-way relationship beginning in Season 2.
• Bones:
  • Brennan at one point had two boyfriends each satisfying a different need (one sexual, the other intellectual) and saw no problem with it. The men themselves, however, each felt they were missing out on the other's area and they both wound up breaking up with her.
  • One victim turned out to be married to three sisters (only one was a legal marriage). The wives' father clearly viewed it as toxic, but the women themselves didn't seem too bothered by the relationship. the wives' father killed the husband when he found out he was cheating with a fourth woman.
• In an episode of Boston Legal, two women come to Denise and ask her to defend their husband. He married each of them in a different state, and the three now live together and have children. They seem to be a sincerely happy family; one wife and the husband work, while the other wife stays home and takes care of the house and kids. Their children are well-adjusted and the spouses are all mutually affectionate and supportive. Unfortunately, someone found out and reported him for polygamy. The women argue that, while they did break the law, the law itself ought to be struck down; after all, it's a consensual relationship between three adults, and they're not hurting anyone. Denise agrees, but unfortunately loses; whether the law is fair or not, it's still the law. The DA agrees to drop the charges when the husband offers to legally divorce his wives (while still being in a relationship), a situation none are really happy with, but it beats their children's father being in jail.
• In Cable Girls, Carlota, Sara and Miguel are a trio.
• Sister Clarice Willow on Caprica is married to multiple men and women, who are all married to each other. This is implied to be unusual but perfectly legal. They're all part of a monotheistic sect, but this fact isn't public knowledge whereas the existence of their group marriage is, so clearly there are polytheists who practice it as well, which is confirmed by background materials like The Caprican newspaper.
• Chasing Life: Brenna dates Kieran and Greer at the same time for a while, after getting the two's consent to do this. However, it collapses almost immediately as neither likes this, and Brenna chooses to date Greer exclusively.
• Columbo: In the episode "Murder, a Self-Portrait", killer-of-the-week Max lives with and is in a polyamorous relationship with his ex-wife Louise, his current wife Vanessa, and his girlfriend Julie. He kills Louise when she tries to leave him, although that is more because she knows a dark secret from his past.
• CSI: NY: One of the cases in "Stealing Home" is the murder of a man with two wives. After only a year of marriage, the original couple had felt the need to spice things up so they'd added another woman to their relationship and even had a pseudo-wedding with her, which they called a commitment ceremony. Two years later, the three had become "bored in bed" again and had added another man to the mix. Naturally, it doesn't end well.
• Doctor Who has invoked this on a few occasions:
  • In "The Husbands of River Song" it's revealed that River Song became married to at least two other individuals (albeit one for the sake of a mission) while still considering herself to be married to the Doctor. The Doctor does not appear to be disturbed by this at all.
  • The Doctor unambiguously falls in love with Clara Oswald over the course of her time on the show, leading to an Act of True Love scenario covering billions of years leading to an Anchored Ship at the end of Series 9. In the very next episode (the aforementioned "Husbands of River Song"), we learn this all happened while he was still married to River Song. Due to the Doctor having undergone a self-inflicted Mind Rape that caused him to lose the memory of being in love with Clara, however, it is unclear whether River is ever made aware of his feelings for Clara.
  • Clara isn't immune to this either, as she attempts to balance relationships with both the Doctor and Danny Pink in Series 8, and in Series 9 while (per Word of God) enamoured with the Doctor, at some point she also enters into an off-screen love affair of some sort with Jane Austen. Clara's polyamoric tendencies are another ingredient in her becoming a Distaff Counterpart to the Doctor.
  • The ability to be polyamorous is considered a defining character trait of Series 1 companion Captain Jack Harkness (later the star of the spinoff Torchwood), who is shown as equally attracted to Rose Tyler and the Ninth Doctor. Although the series never follows this very far, when it is referenced neither Rose nor the Doctor appear too disturbed by it.
• In the Elementary episode "All My Exes Live in Essex" Holmes and Watson must solve the murder of a woman who was simultaneously married to two different men, and was also in an earlier 6-way group marriage with three other women and two men, before that one. It turns out the woman was murdered by one of her husbands, but their relationship wasn't the motive. She'd discovered that he'd been serially misdiagnosing people at their shared clinic and he killed her to stop her reporting him.
• Mexican series El Juego De Las Llaves has Bárbara and Leo fantasizing with Carmen, the stern babysitter they hired to take care of their children. Once Carmen runs into them having sex with Bárbara cosplaying as her, she's initially shocked... then reveals herself as a Covert Pervert who's attracted to both of her employers. The relationship between the three of them grows stronger over the episodes and is by far the most stable relationship in the series.
• The Expanse: In season 5, Drummer takes a ship to hunt down OPA terrorist Marco Inaros. She and her entire pirate crew of a dozen or so individuals are shown to be lovers.
• Feel Good: Elliot, who George dates briefly in Season 2, is a bisexual man who's into this. After they break up, he dates six people simultaneously (both men and women), while asking for George to join them (she declines).
• The Following: The rather twisted Emma/Jacob/Paul Love Triangle seemingly resolves as this in episode 4.
• Friends:
  • Phoebe finds out at the end of the third season that the mother who raised her isn't her biological mother; when she meets her bio mom in Montauk, she tells Phoebe that she and her parents were "kind of a couple" together.
  • In an early episode Chandler is in a relationship with a woman who's married and has another boyfriend. He's initially on board with the idea of just being together for the sex but quickly realises he wants more of a relationship. They break up after he learns she's started seeing a fourth guy.
  • In another episode, Joey finds out that his father has a mistress. As it turns out, his mother already knew, though she pretends otherwise. While it's not ideal, she finds the situation livable.
    Mrs. Tribbiani: Of course I knew! Whaddyou think? Your father is no James Bond. You should've heard some of his cover stories. […] Me? I'm fine. Look, honey, in an ideal world, there'd be no her, and your father would look like Sting. And I'll tell you something else. Ever since that poodle-stuffer came along, he's been so ashamed of himself that he's been more attentive, he's been more loving… I mean, it's like every day's our anniversary.
• Gossip Girl (2021) has Max, Aki, and Audrey as a throuple.
• In Gotham, mafia bosses Barbara Kean, Butch Gilzean, and Tabitha Galavan have become this as of mid-late season 3, with Tabitha being the centre of the relationship. Although there are no Love Triangle strains between them, Barbara and Tabitha's personal politics combined with Barbara's thirst for power are putting a strain on their side of the relationship by the end of the season.
• Hacks: Ava meets a lesbian couple on the cruise who open up their relationship while aboard the ship. They make out with her, though anything more is aborted by Deborah being kicked off.
• Frank and Claire Underwood from House of Cards (US) are polyamorous and accepting of each other's partners as long as they can keep their relationships discreet and out of the public eye. This also applies to their bodyguard Edward Meechum, who is in love with and undyingly loyal to both Claire and Frank. The feeling is mutual. In season 4, Claire is worried that she'll have a difficult time keeping her relationship with Tom Yates hidden and feels that the timing of their relationship, so close to the failed assassination attempt on Frank's life, is problematic, so she resolves to break up with Tom. Frank on the other hand believes that Tom is good for Claire and that she really loves him. He essentially vetoes her decision which leads to a heartwarming pep talk that reveals his views on polyamory and his long-standing relationship with Claire:
  Frank: He should stay on, because he can give you things that I can't. Look, Claire, we've been a great team. But one person—one person cannot give everything to another person. I can't travel with you. I don't keep you warm at night. I don't see you the way he sees you. It's not my permission to give, but you'll do what's right for you. But I want you to know, if you wanted, I know you'll be careful. And I'll be fine. I mean, if we're gonna go beyond marriage, let's go beyond it.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "Is My Very Nature That of a Devil", after Lestat openly flirts with and then seduces Antoinette while Louis watches and they sleep together off-screen, he (hesitantly) grants Louis permission to have sex with other people. However, once Louis does, Lestat reacts with deep jealousy.
• Irma Vep: Discussed as Mira claims she and Laurie had an open relationship, though this only allowed Mira to see other people while they were together.
• Island of the Sea Wolves: Marmot sisters Esmerelda and Bonnie both end up with the same mate, the three of them sharing a den.
• Mac on JAG has to defend a polygamist in "Killer Instinct".
• After the series finale of Leverage Hardison, Parker, and Eliot were Word of God confirmed a canon polyamourous relationship by co-creator John Rogers.
• Lip Service: Bea is in an open relationship, so when her girlfriend leaves town she sees Lexy. This turns out to be a lie. She's actually married to a man. He is not okay about it.
• The L Word: Generation Q: Alice, Nat and Nat's ex-wife Gigi become a "throuple" briefly, though this doesn't work out for them.
• The Magicians (2016):
  • Alice's parents turn out to have a man named Joe as their "third".
  • Fillory allows non-monogamous marriages for its rulers; they may each take one husband and one wife.
• Motive: The murderer in "Natural History" is a fundamentalist Christian who believes that polygamy is God's law, and a character the viewer had been led to assume was his daughter is actually his second, much younger, wife.
• The Murders: In "Black & Blue" it turns out that a rapper is a bisexual man, who'd formely had a relationship with his supposed rival. At the end of the episode he starts seeing them both, at her instigation. Nolan expresses surprise, and Meg explains a lot of modern young people are into it, especially the queer ones.
• No Tomorrow: Xavier practices this, calling it "ethical non-monogamy". Evie isn't comfortable with it though, and Xavier likes her enough to stay exclusive.
• Orange Is the New Black: Season 4's Judy King is very openly polyamorous. She has a husband, a boyfriend, and had a brief dalliance with Yoga Jones and Luschek.
• Parks and Recreation: In early seasons, April is briefly in a relationship that she introduces to her coworker Leslie thusly:
  April: This is my boyfriend Derek, and this is Derek's boyfriend Ben.
  Leslie: Oh. Wait, sorry. What's the situation?
  April: What do you mean?
  Leslie: How does this work?
  April: Derek is gay, but he's straight for me, and he's gay for Ben, and Ben's really gay for Derek. And I hate Ben.
  Derek: It's not that complicated.
  Ben: No.
  Leslie: Oh. Yeah. Sure.
  Leslie: [in confessional] The thing about youth culture is, I don't understand it.
• Portlandia: Fred and Carrie briefly simultaneously date their roommate Alexandra. After she breaks up with Carrie, Fred feels uncomfortable dating someone who broke his best friend's heart, and eventually breaks up with Alexandra too.
• One of the victims of the week in Pushing Daisies has four wives. The heroes are pissed about this—not for any moral reason, but because it makes "My wife killed me" a whole lot more complicated than it needs to be. It ultimately turns out to be one of the reasons he was murdered. His first wife resented having to share him and grew increasingly bitter with every new marriage. That, coupled with his plan to clone the beloved family dog, led to her poisoning him and framing the newest wife.
• Rake:
  • Practiced, of all people, by mob boss Mick Corella and his wife Kirsty.
  • One young woman who Cleaver meets during his Senate campaign also proposes he push for legalizing polygamy, adding that she's got four sisters and he could then marry them all.
• On Schitt's Creek Jake is bisexual and polyamorous and wants to be in a throuple with David and Stevie, both of whom he is dating. Alexis advises David against it, explaining that in her past experiences with throuples someone always gets jealous.
• In Sense8, Kala is in a Love Triangle with her husband Rajan and her fellow sensate Wolfgang for most of the series. In series finale "Amor Vincit Omnia", this resolves and ends in a threesome, as Rajan and Wolfgang becomes lovers as well.
• She's Gotta Have It: Nola has non-exclusive relationships with Jamie, Mars, Greer and Opal. She also even calls herself polyamorous while speaking with her therapist. Later she briefly tries to have an exclusive, committed relationship with Opal. This doesn't last very long though.
• Siren (2018): Maddie is involved with Ben when the series starts. However, both soon grow attracted to mermaid Ryn, and she reciprocates. Both of them kiss her before having a threesome in Season 2, where they settle on all being together since both like Ben as well. Maddie and Ben don't tell their friends or relatives, who find out on their own, expressing surprise though acceptance of this. However, at dinner with Ben's family Maddie (influenced by Ryn) openly declares it and kisses both of them.
• In a Sliders episode, the characters end up in a world where the bikers are raiding oil trucks to convert it to gas for their bikes. Apparently, all cars run on alternative fuels here. Mallory (not Q-ball) hooks up with a woman who turns out to be the leader of the local biker gang. One day, he enters her place to find her in bed with two guys (all still clothed, for PG reasons), who she calmly explains are her husbands. Furthermore, she invites him to join them. He refuses and later finds out that his friends knew that polygamy is legal and perfectly acceptable in this world.
• Special Ops: Lioness: Joe and her husband Neil have an open marriage, as they both mention having sex with other people while they're apart when talking together, just for physical comfort.
• Star Trek:
  • Dr. Phlox of Star Trek: Enterprise comes from a polyamorous culture. He has three wives, each of whom has two other husbands in addition to him, who themselves have three wives each. In a way you can say that all the Denobulans are part of one giant marriage group. There's also an indication that three ISN'T the limit, since Phlox's wife Feezal, already having three husbands, attempted to seduce Trip. Phlox felt that Trip should have gone for it, complimenting both Trip and Feezal by suggesting that it would be a very good time.
  • Several novels have indicated that group marriage is legal on Earth (at least two of which were written by Vonda McIntyre).
  • On DS9, there's a throwaway reference to a Bolian officer having a wife and a co-husband. Keiko and Miles also add Kira to their family as a co-parent, after an Imperiled in Pregnancy emergency results in her becoming surrogate for their second child, and discuss taking it further.
  • In the Next Generation episode "Data's Day", Data mentions that four-person marriage groups are the norm among Andorians. It should be noted, according to expanded works, that Andorians have four sexes (two of which appear masculine and two feminine), though canon entries have suggested otherwise.
  • In another Next Generation episode, "Up the Long Ladder", the solution to the genetic diversity problem faced by two groups of human colonists is for each woman to have children by at least three different husbands.
• S.W.A.T. (2017): Starting in Season 2, Chris becomes "third" to a man and woman. It doesn't work out in the end, though, as despite their reassurances she feels like she's never as important to them as they are to each other, which Chris dislikes. Plus she's also more into the woman.
• Ted Lasso: Dani Rojas is in a three-way relationship with two women. In one episode the three of them are shown in bed together, and in the finale he takes them both to Coach Beard's wedding.
• The Thai show Three Will Be Free has the main couple consisting of a gay son of a crime lord, a bisexual stripper and a bargirl all develop a relationship following fleeing together after killing a hitman.
• Suggested in Too Many Cooks, with Darren and Claire in an embrace being approached by T.L. and Sasha, and immediately turning around and kissing them.
• Trigonometry: Gemma and Kieran start first discussing being in a relationship with Ray after they have a threesome together, since both realize they want to be with her too in Episode 5. Ray agrees by the end of the episode, though saying it's such a bad idea. Afterward they have some friction with being equal partners, and telling their loved ones. Melanie, Kieran's work partner, it turns out once dated a married man in an open marriage and is happy having someone to share experiences with after he tells her this. Despite this, they end up as a happy triad still by the end.
• Twenties: Marie and Chuck, her fiancé, agree they'll have an open relationship after he comes out to her as being bisexual. After this Chuck sees a guy he finds attractive, while Marie has sex with her handsome boss. It's Marie's permission for Chuck to explore his attraction toward men at first. The pair decide to break up though, but remain friends.
• Vida: A couple who Emma hooks up with offer to have her be their third. She rejects the offer though, saying that never works in the end.
• In Weeds Andy ends up in a poly relationship with an artist and her husband. Although he ultimately ends it, he does so because the husband is dying and Andy is afraid of death, not because of the arrangement itself - he's "OK with the two-for one deal."
• The Wheel of Time (2021): Alanna and her two Warders have a trio relationship together. This is fairly common among Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah, which is the only Ajah that allows multiple Warders; indeed, Alanna tells Moraine that she could never have joined the Blue Ajah because one Warder would never do. (Although Aes Sedai and their Warders aren't always romantically involved; Moraine and Lan aren't, for instance.)
• Taylor and Eli in Why Women Kill have an open marriage, with the basic rule that, while they can each have casual sex with whoever they want, their primary commitment must always be to each other. This rule gets tested when Taylor's hookup Jade needs a place to stay, and Eli becomes interested in her as well.
• Wild Cards (2024): In "Howl to Get Away With Murder" it turns out that the victim was seeing two women and a man, while they all knew about each other with them accepting this arrangement. Nonetheless, at first they're suspects because Cole thinks at least one possibly murdered him out of envy since he was going to end the relationship with all his partners and monogamously date another woman. This turns out to not be the case however.
• You Me Her: The basis of the plot, and its title. After attempting to spice up his marriage through seeing escort Izzy, Jack soon falls for her, along with his wife Emma. She reciprocates for them both, and the trio get into relationship troubles, with realistic issues to overcome from this. First is that it's disapproved of by most people in their lives to start, with Izzy greatly resenting that they both hide her away at times. Jack further worries that they like each other more than him, and this means Emma's really a lesbian rather than bisexual. They overcome this though, even proposing having a baby together. Jack and Emma can't conceive naturally, so Izzy could be a surrogate. Emma however it turns out doesn't want this though, breaking up with both of them and moving. Soon though it's shown they all still want each other, having another threesome. They get back together later after Emma gets pregnant. After overcoming further humps, they commit to each other formally with a ceremony together. However, they still have to deal with issues, meeting many other poly couples and a coach offering seminars for them. Izzy later also temporarily leaves the relationship, but comes back and gets back together with them for good.

Music

• "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" by Type O Negative
• The Patrick Fiori song "4 mots sur un piano"—it's the prettiest song about a triad you'll ever hear.
  Vous étiez ma vie comme la nuit et le jour
  Vous deux, nouez, filiez mon parfait amour
  Un matin vous m’avez condamnée à choisir
  Je ne vous aimais qu'à deux
  Je vous laisse, adieu
  Choisir serait nous trahir
• "You and Your Friend" by Snake River Conspiracy. "I just can't see you and me and her without each other…"
• Ben Lee has the song "Apple Candy", where the (male) POV desires a three-person relationship:
  I know you made a promise
  and told him he's your lover
  make me feel the same
  …I want you and I want him.
• "Family", "Move to the Country", "Three", "Perils of Poly" by "Christopher Bingham (Gaia Consort/Bone Poets Orchestra)".
• "My Boyfriend's Girlfriend (Isn't Me)" by Must Be Tuesday.
  Of all the ways I've ever dated
  It's never been so complicated
  The chain can extend to eternity
  'Cause my boyfriend's girlfriend isn't me
• "Millionaire Girlfriend" by Jonathan Coulton seems to suggest this, since it will be "my beloved and my millionaire girlfriend and I", until the last verse where it's revealed that he's just working to get power of attorney over all her assets.
• The David Crosby song "Triad", most famously recorded by Jefferson Airplane. Notably, contains multiple Shout Outs to Stranger in a Strange Land.
  ''You both stand there
  Your long hair flowin'
  Eyes alive
  Your mind still growin'
  Sayin' to me:
  "What can we do now that we both love you?"
  I love you too
  I don't really see
  Why can't we go on as three?//
• The Mechanisms' album High Noon Over Camelot is an adaptation of the Arthurian Legend. Among other such changes, Arthur, Lancelot, and Guienevere are now a mutually loving and faithful triad.
  Lancelot: Guinevere, you're my stars. Arthur, you're my night.
• The music video for Kurae! Telepathy by Maharajan initially portrays a love triangle between the singer, a woman, and a Bastard Boyfriend she's rescued from. By the end, though, the boyfriend winds up falling in love with the singer as well and undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, and the video ends on a montage of the three of them now dating as a group.

Religion

• The Book of Mormon:
  • Many Jaredite men are described as having multiple wives, though not much is made of it except that they had rather a lot of children.
  • The Nephites attempted it, but the prophet at the time slapped them down, saying that it was only acceptable with a direct command from God.
  • King Noah apparently had multiple wives and concubines, with whom he spent his time in "riotous living", and became the poster boy for wickedness and excess.

Tabletop Games

• In Pathfinder, Sarenrae (Goddess of the sun), Desna (Goddess of the stars) and Shelyn (Goddess of love) are canonically in a polyamorous relationship with each other.
• Warhammer Fantasy: The three most prominent dwarf Ancestor Gods are in a polyamorous relationship — Valaya, Goddess of Hearth and Home, is married to both the Ultimate Blacksmith Grungni and his brother Grimnir, the Slayer God.

Theater

• In A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Monty Navarro begins an affair with his childhood crush, Sibella Hallward, and later marries his distant cousin, Phoebe D'Ysquith. Upon his imprisonment, Phoebe questions Monty on the nature of his relationship with Sibella, after which the two women conspire to get Monty out of his murder charge and the two make an agreement to share him.
• The Noël Coward play Design for Living explores every possible combination of playwright Leo, artist Otto, and decorator Gilda before finally having them inform her husband Ernest that his services are no longer required, as the three of them intend to live in what Ernest decries as a "disgusting three-sided erotic hodgepodge."
• In Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury, someone proposes that the defendant (in a Breach of Promise of Marriage suit) "marry this lady today, and marry the other tomorrow". That's considered a satisfactory solution until one of the attorneys points out to the judge that such an arrangement would be illegal.
• Cabaret has a song about it: "Two Ladies".
  We switch partners daily
  To play as we please
  Twosies beats onesies,
  But nothing beats threes!

Video Games

• One of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey's more notable features, where Kassandra/Alexios can kiss and bang their way across the Greek isles. That said there's a specific explanation for this: every romance in the game exists as a side-quest "bubble" storyline that is never mentioned again outside of those storylines (outside of one incredibly minor exception), and so never have a chance to conflict with each other in the first place. Even the romance in the Legacy of the Hidden Blade DLC counts, because while the mithios treats it far more seriously than any of the other romances, it too exists entirely within a bubble like all the others.
• In Cultist Simulator, two of the romanceable cultists, Victor and Rose, are already in a relationship with one another, and won't break it off if they start dating the player. Even so, they all come to an understanding that suit everyone.
• You can suggest this as a solution to a Love Triangle in Dragon Age: Origins but the more prudish Love Interest rejects the idea and breaks off the relationship. But there are fan mods that let you have a relationship with more than one Love Interest, and one of them is outright called Polyamory. If you then marry Alistair to Anora and make him sleep with Morrigan or marry her yourself, the love polygon gets rather complicated, especially if you as the female Warden talk Alistair into keeping your character as The Mistress. At one point it's also possible to arrange a four-way tryst between the Warden, Alistair, Leliana, and an NPC.
• Dragon Quest VIII: Morrie, owner of the Monster Arena, is quite clearly in relationships with all four of the bunny girls working there. That lucky son of a bitch!
• In the final route of Duel Savior Destiny (And also the original Justice, though much more blatantly) this seems to be the final solution to the romance. Crea takes center stage, though.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Dibella, the Aedric Divine Goddess of Beauty who is also associated with the carnal and sexual aspects of love, holds no limit on the number of lovers one may have. Instead, she demands focus on the quality of the essence of love, not the quantity.
  • Mara, the Aedric Divine Goddess of Love, is associated with the familial, matrimonial, and fertility aspects of love. Despite this, depending on the religious tradition in question, she is coupled with several other gods. She's sometimes depicted as one of Shor's wives, along with Kyne. The old Nord tradition also makes references to her being the handmaiden of Kyne, concubine of Shor. Other traditions have her variously the wife of Akatosh, Lorkhan, or both. Sometimes the concubine of both. Yokudan tradition has her, as Morwha, as the wife of Ruptga. However, she has four arms so that she can "grab more husbands".
• Fallen London: The player has the option of taking a spouse from a wide range of choices, including two polyamorous options: the Mathematically Perfect Partnership consists of the player, the Roguish Semiotician, and the Infamous Mathematician, while the Bewildering Procession of Companions, Lovers, Suitors, and Paramours consists of an unspecified but undoubtedly large number of characters.
• In Fallout 4, you can romance multiple companions if you choose to, since Word of God is that they don't sweat that sort of stuff in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The catch is that if any previously-romanced companion is around when you flirt with someone else, you'll lose approval points with them, though not enough to jeopardize an existing relationship in itself. And if you've dismissed her to flirt behind her back, Piper Wright uniquely has a scene where you can find her talking with detective Nick Valentine about investigating your infidelity, though this has no effect on your relationship with her. Interestingly, if you're in a relationship with both Piper and Cait, swapping one out for the other results in unique, flirtatious dialog that suggests that the two of them might also hook up. No other romanceable companions act this way.
• Ryudo, Elena and Millenia, from Grandia II, though Elena and Millenia were, for most of the game, technically the same person.
• Hades allows Zagreus to pursue all of the game's romance options at the same time with no penalty. Since Zagreus is a Greek god, this isn't surprising, and it's mentioned by other characters that it's quite common for the gods to take multiple lovers. If you initiate a relationship with Thanatos while already dating Megaera, he explains that they've spoken about it and not only is she okay with Zagreus being with them both, she was the one who talked Thanatos into acting on his own feelings.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
  • Cal has four parents in all: his mother Tirah and her three partners (at least two of which are her boyfriends, Ceph and Perk), and they all work together to take care of him.
  • You can enter a polyamorous relationship with Marz and Rex since Marz doesn't mind sharing you with Rex. You can also have one with Dys and Symbiosis on certain routes.
• Jade Empire, allows you to do this if you keep insisting to Dawn Star and Silk Fox that you can't choose just one of them, to the point that if you do make a choice at the very last time they ask you to decide as opposed to maintaining your indecision, both will break it off with you, not wanting to hurt the other's feelings. After the game, though, you end up with only Silk Fox, Dawn Star going off to do her own thing. To make things even more amusing, at some point before the final decision, you might also find out that they're cousins.
• In Legends of Runeterra, Nami of League of Legends is depicted as being in a polyromantic relationship with a male and female lover. Nami's sexuality wasn't ever confirmed whichever way when she was first introduced in League, but due to the massive lore expansions in LoR, her writers took the opportunity to introduce her to the game as such to flesh out the unique culture of her tribe.
• In the Lonely Wolf Treat series, one of the two main sources of hardship for Treat (with racism being the other) are her own romantic feelings. In the delicacy comic, she admits that she has feelings for both Mochi and Moxie. In Dreaming Treat, despite being in a relationship with Moxie, she still has unrequited feelings for Mochi and starts having strange dreams due to her pent-up feelings. At the end of the game, Moxie organizes a beach date between Treat and Mochi so that Treat can finally confess to Mochi and reveal the real reason she ran away from her pack: She was afraid of being trapped in monogamy. In earlier games, Moxie is shown dreaming about Treat and Mochi, implying she has similar feelings.
• Mass Effect: You can suggest this as a solution to a Love Triangle, but the more prudish Love Interest rejects the idea and breaks off the relationship. Subsequent games allow for this through casual "flings" with off-deck characters, which aren't nearly as serious or developed as the main crew romances. This only happens because these casual romances exist in a bubble and are never acknowledged by anyone else (aside from one instance in Mass Effect 3 if your main romance is Liara).
• Male player characters in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark can suggest that Aribeth and Nathyrra share him. It actually works.
• Overlord II where you collect three mistresses over the course of the game, are allowed to keep them, and chose any one to be your primary one at any point in the game. It's possible to get all of them to "get along", with and without innuendo, if you use an equal amount of throne room decorations from each.
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker:
  • Octavia and Regongar are a bisexual couple with a great deal of trust in each other; romancing both at the same time is practically encouraged and even if you only express interest in one, the other doesn't mind sharing.
  • Kalikke and Kanerah can be persuaded into this during the end-game if the player character expresses interest in both of them and they remain friendly with each other. As Kalikke is a Shrinking Violet, she practically has to be pushed into revealing her interest in the player character by Kanerah either way.
• Subverted in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. You can pursue as many of the available Romance Sidequests as you please, but in the game's last act your various paramours will pigeonhole the Player Character and demand that they pick one—except for Daeran Arendae, who is pansexual and offers to share, but nobody else is willing to take him up on it.
• Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh has bisexual hero Curtis wishing he could run off and live with his girlfriend Jocilyn and his doomed gay coworker Trevor, both of whom are in love with him. At one point, Curtis was dating both Jocilyn and his BSDM loving coworker Therese, but only Therese was okay with the idea of their having an open relationship.
• Implied in River City Girls 2 in regards to the Lee Brothers and Marian. When asked which one she was "closest" to, she states that they were all pretty close, which Misako and Kyoko remark as sounding pretty hot. The cutscene even has the three wagging their eyebrows suggestively as part of the implication.
• Quest for Glory V: A glitch lets you propose to three love interests without objections from anyone. Though only one appears as the Hero's consort at the end.
• With the Ideology expansion in RimWorld, it's possible for colonists to embrace open relationships because their religion or ideology permits it.
• In Roots of Pacha, the romanceable characters can still ask you out on a date even if you're already dating one of them, fully aware of your relationship, but you can still pursue them without your initial partner getting mad at you. In fact, they'll fully acknowledge this and allow you to date the others. However, all of your additional relationships will be broken once you form a Union (get married) with someone.
• Polygamy was originally possible in The Sims; since the first game in the franchise didn’t keep married Sims from proposing again, a Sim could potentially have as many as seven spouses as long as they didn’t mind having fewer or no children (due to the eight Sim-per-household limit). Later games in the series allowed Sims to marry only one spouse at a time.
• You can try it in Star Wars: The Old Republic, particularly with a male Sith Warrior that's corrupted and romancing Jaesa, but is still nice to Vette; Jaesa is open-minded on the idea of sharing, but Vette is squicked out. Similar scenarios play out with the male Smuggler and Agent. On the other hand, the female Sith Inquisitor's love interest Andronikos Revel actually gains Relationship Values if she takes advantage of Optional Sexual Encounters while he's around, and in one case hooks up with a stable maid for the night (though he balks at the Inquisitor's suggestion afterwards that they and their respective paramours have a double date).
• World of Warcraft: Alexstraza, though widowed many times over, used to have several husband-equivalents at once.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Rex is in love with both Pyra and Mythra. While this is complicated by the fact that they are technically the same person, he treats them as different people and loves them both equally (and they love him back). At the end of the game, they are revived in two separate bodies, edging it towards a slightly more normal example. On the title screen after beating the game, Rex stands on a plain holding hands with Pyra and Mythra. After beating New Game Plus, Nia (who is also in love with Rex) jumps into the picture. She either holds hands with Rex and Pyra, or pushes him out of the way and takes the hands of both the other girls. In the ending of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, it's shown that Rex had children with all three; one for each girl.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: Angel Starr references having multiple boyfriends, even telling the judge that there's a slot open for him. Though it's suggested that she might actually mean informants, as she's trying to investigate the police department's involvement in the SL-9 Incident.
• Cross Days: You can do this in another very hard to get ending with Makoto, Yuuki, and Kotonoha. Makoto describes it as Kotonoha being the girl he loves most and Yuuki being the boy he loves most. Except Kotonoha doesn't know the all important details. She is seemingly okay knowing she is not Makoto's only lover, happy enough knowing she is the girl he loves most, but she wasn't told that "other woman" is actually a boy, and that Makoto loves him equally to her, in a perfect example of Metaphorically True. And if she ever found out she could possibly murder Yuuki with some form of deadly weapon as she does in other ending where she overhears them having sex, and while Makoto is planning on trying to get her some mental help, this is the best solution he can come up with in the meantime.
• Possible in The Hayseed Knight. Ader enters a loving, but not exclusive, relationship with Sep. He also has an obvious affection for his friend Eina, whom Sep is also attracted to. Sep naturally pushes the two friends towards one another while flirting with Eina herself. Whether or not it it coalesces into a three-partner situation depends on player choices. Turns out, the three being a throuple is required to get the game's Golden Ending.
• In Long Live the Queen, this is one of the possible ways Elodie can pursue a romance with Brin. If Elodie has the opportunity to choose her fiance at the end of the game, Brin will suggest that she marry her brother Banion so that Elodie and Brin can spend more time together as sisters-in-law; Elodie ends up being close to both of them. And if Brin and Joslyn aren't already entangled with other matters, Brin will even marry him to doubly ensure a connection to Elodie as her stepmother. Elodie is much closer to Brin than to Banion in this scenario, though, but their respective husbands still seem happy with this arrangement. Depending on what else happens to all involved characters, there are further variations of whose kids are being raised by whom. Including the Banion+Elodie and Brin+Joslyn children all being raised together, making them pseudo-siblings on top of everything else.
• Monster Prom: It's heavily implied that, while not in a relationship like that, the player character is polyamorous and actually wouldn't mind to date all of the Love Interest characters. The achievement for getting all characters to prom is actually called "Polyamorous". There are some moments that the player character will also voice wanting to date more than one person, including stating to dream about both Polly and Damien, as well as going on a triple date with Damien and Miranda (during the "Dragon Heat" events). Even the Golden Ending goes along with this as it's about getting all of the main characters together for an orgy. The CG is of all of them waiting for you to join them in a hot tub. The "You Do You" Valentine's Day update in 2020 adds a route focusing on this kind of relationship, featuring the Interdimensional Prince and Dmitri.
• In Nekojishi this is the canon outcome. To the outside world Liao is dating Yan Shu-chi, but as seen in the DLC all three cats come to more-or-less share Liao.
• Rose Guns Days features what seems to be this between mafia boss Caleb, his underling Miguel and his mistress Amanda. While Miguel and Amanda quite clearly hate each other, the latter is in an official relationship with Caleb and the former has a lot of Ho Yay moments with him (which remain mere subtext in the VN but are more explictly romantic in the manga). Caleb, on the other hand, shows affection for both.
• One of the (very hard to get) endings in School Days has Sekai and Kotonoha do this to the protagonist Itou Makoto.
• The English Dating Sim Summer Session features a three-person relationship as one of the canon endings; indeed it's impossible to get that particular girl without sharing her with your roommate. It's unclear whether the two male characters are actually involved with each other or just sharing the girl in a V.
• In Amber's Magic Shop, a hybrid of Visual Novel and Time Management Game by Winter Wolves, there are two different kinds of polyamorous endings possible. In one the PC (the titular Amber) can be in a polygamous marriage with a man and a woman at the same time and in another she can be the girlfriend of a married woman with the full permission of the husband (but not being in a romantic relationship with him).
• In We Know the Devil, after each ending sees two of the kids hook up at the cost of the "third wheel" being pushed out of the friend group and possessed by the devil, the Golden Ending features Venus, Jupiter, and Neptune coming together after refusing to choose a scapegoat. Not only are all three girls together romantically, but all of them accept the Devil and reject God, bringing about "a new apple."
• In Heaven Will Be Mine, the Non-Linear Sequel to We Know The Devil, every ending sees all three of the protagonists end up together.

Webcomics

• In The Accidental Space Spy, Datima males have more than one wife.
• In Always Human, Sunati's parents Nisa and Prav are a Happily Married couple who also have a boyfriend, Vish.
• Arthur, King of Time and Space: The Flash Forward strips in the Space Arc suggest that the Arthur/Guenevere/Lancelot triangle resolves this way in at least one timeline. Other strips hint that Arthur is well aware of the affair between his wife and his best friend in at least some of the other timelines, as well, but studiously ignores it.
• Boyfriends.: The story is about four college students who begin a polyamorous relationship, and navigate the adventure that is their dating life.
• Cats N' Cameras: Main characters Jim, Josephine, and Sari are in what appears to be casual threesome. Jim and Jo are an established couple. Sari seems to be Friends with Benefits to both of them.
• Ennui GO!: While there are a few genuine relationships between the members of the main cast (Noah and Len, Hashim and Sarah, for instance), everyone that lives with Izzy has sex with everyone on a fairly regular basis. The twists are that Darcy is a lesbian and focuses on Izzy and Tanya (the cast page specifically describes their relationship as poly), and the men usually only have sex with the women, although Hashim and Hiro had sex once on a whim. Izzy, Darcy, and Tanya eventually enter a polygamous marriage at the close of Volume 6/Part 1, though whether or not they still engage in casual sex with everyone else is unstated.
• Fans!: Rikk, Alisin, and Rumy become a triple. This arc continued with the marriage surviving some storms to the point where thanks to alien medtech Alisin is currently carrying a baby Rumy and Rikk conceived.
• FreakAngels: Sirkka lives with a harem. This causes problems for her and her childhood friend Jack — Jack is in love with Sirkka and doesn't approve of her polyamorous ways, but rather than object, he just stays away from her. This makes Sirkka, who loves him back, absolutely miserable.
• Girl Genius:
  • The Heterodyne Castle seems to prefer this as the ultimate solution for the Love Triangle between Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek. Comments by the Castle indicate that this was likely a common practice for previous Heterodynes, and plenty of other characters have suggested it too. The Threesome Subtext between Gil and Tarvek doesn't really do much to rule out such a solution.
    Violetta: Say—you wanna make a bet on who she'll pick?
    von Zinzer: Sure! But, hey—she's the Heterodyne. Maybe she'll just keep 'em both.
  • It's teased in some non-canon spin-offs, too.
    Phil: Who thought having two boyfriends was a good idea?!
    [cue Cheshire Cat Grins from Agatha, Zeetha and Kaja]
• Go Get a Roomie!: Part of a side-plot involves Allan, Evelyne and Steve being in a polyamorous relationship. Only Allan and Evelyne are engaged though, and in the beginning Evelyne makes it very clear that she doesn't have feelings for Steve and that Allan belongs to her while Steve is merely tolerated as a sex partner. Their relationship develops as the comic progresses, and when Evelyne gets pregnant and Steve tries to remove himself from the relationship altogether, she and Allen stop him, accepting him as an equal member of their partnership.
• The Hero of Three Faces: There are three prominent poly relationships — Riker/Troi/Worf, Archer/T'Pol/Trip, and Kirk/Spock/Uhura.
• Homestuck: The trolls have a romance system that's quite different from ours. They have four kinds of romantic relationships or "quadrants", only one of which corresponds to human romance norms. The ideal for a troll is to have one partner in each quadrant. As you can imagine, this makes for some very complicated situations.
• The Homestuck Epilogues: in the "Candy" epilogue, both Jane and Jade attempt a polyamorous relationship. Jane with Jake and Gamzee, Jade with Dave and Karkat. Neither of these end well for anyone involved.
• Housepets! features Fox Lindhberg, who during his stay in Heaven meets a pair of angelic Huskies and spends his entire trip on an island with them. This remains ambiguous until their next encounter, when he explicitly calls them "my two girlfriends" and it is revealed he becomes committed with them when he dies in the future. Their Theme Naming (Spring and Summer, with a future version of Fox referred to as Winter) seems to imply a fourth member, which Fox lampshades.
• Insecticomics: There's a lot of polyamory involved, usually in the form of open relationships.
• The short-lived webcomic Jake the Rake.
• Karin-dou 4koma: Ran/Shizuki/Tamaryu, as per Ran and Shizuki's decision to resolve their rivalry over Tamaryu by having Shizuki be Tamaryu's wife, Tamaryu be Ran's wife, and Ran be Shizuki's wife. Ran explicitly says that the three of them are together a monogamous couple. Although Tamaryu isn't happy about the romantic aspect, they do get along quite well. When Eldelita attends a sleepover with them, she feels as awkward as someone invited to play and stay overnight at a newlywed's house.
• Kimchi Cuddles has become about philosophizing, but the earlier parts of the comics are about a group of poly friends.
• Latchkey Kingdom has two nameless women present a Judgment of Solomon to King Jeff, who abdicates and crowns the next guy in line, who then marries the women to each other ("Baby gets two mommies! Twice as good!"). They then wonder how their husbands will react.
  Woman 1: My husband's not gonna like this.
  Woman 2: I'm afraid mine will.
• Leftover Soup: Maxine is part of a five-way. When a second woman entered the relationship she even forcefully reprogrammed her brain into bisexuality just so that she wouldn't be missing out on anything.
• Niels: The titular mob boss is in a relationship with a married couple, Duncan and Natalie, whose young son Elliot sees Niels as a second father. They live together happily — Elliot's horror at once walking in on a three-way Primal Scene notwithstanding.
• ThePigpen: The plot revolves around a dorky wolf dating three pig brothers.
• Poly In Pictures: As indicated by the title, the comic depicts moments in the life of polyamorous, queer and neuroatypical people.
• Punch an' Pie: Angela believes in polyamory, but all this does is turn her into a Clingy Jealous Girl who is paranoid that her girlfriend is cheating on her with literally everyone she knows.
• Mentioned in Queen of Wands.
• Questionable Content: Polyamorous relationships are evidently a fairly common situation in the absurdly complex social circles at the university.
• Rascals: This is the current dating situation with Quick, Raven, Chrissy, and Jazmin. Later, Amanda is thrown into the mix.
• Scarlet Lady: This seems to be Rose's approach to loving both Juleka and Prince Ali, to which Juleka does not appear the least bit jealous about. As Princess Fragrance, she is more vocal about her intentions: when Marigold reminds her that she has a girlfriend, she responds, "I have two hands, busybody!" After the akuma is gone, Prince Ali is fine with the arrangement. He introduces his chaperone to "my girlfriend, Rose" and "her girlfriend, Juleka". The author's tag even explains, "#boom they're all dating no further questions."
  Prince Ali: This is my girlfriend, Rose. And this is her girlfriend, Juleka!
• Sister Claire has two prominent poly relationships: Maman/Michele/Sylvia (with Maman the latercomer) and Hana/Hawk/Lark/Pidge (with Hana coming in much later).
• S.S.D.D.:
  • In the backstory, Richard briefly attempted a threeway with the lesbian couple he roomed with in college, it didn't work out.
  • After Annie confessed to cheating on Richard they made arrangements for a semi-open relationship.
  • In the future arcs, Tessa's adoptive parents have a seemingly healthy open marriage. Which squicks their daughter out to no end.
• In Strangetown, Here We Come, the main trio eventually end up like this with Ripp and Johnny both going out with Ophelia, and before the fic died it was implied that Johnny and Ripp might start going out as well—Ripp was canonically interested, and Johnny at least had a whole lot of Ho Yay on his side.
• Total Trauma: Noah, Owen, and Justin are all dating each other. It's never explained how they fell in love, just that things "kinda fell into place naturally." A minor arc in Volume One has Noah upset that they came out on television before he was ready, noting how his boyfriends are both more optimistic and pure than he is, and how he needs them both to keep him from spiraling into depression.
• Unsounded:
  • Crescians can apply for extended marriages, though they're usually only granted for nobles and farmers.
  • Queen Sonorie has four husbands. The children she has had with them have been acomplished through surrogates as Cresce doesn't expect their queen to deal with pregnancy while running a country and cares more about whose raised in the royal family than who has royal blood. The current Queen was adopted by the Sonories after she and her sister were orphaned.

Web Original

• Blood and the Stars has Arthur Dage taking two wives: Pearl and Violeta. There's also a third wife, Marie Dage, although she is currently dead at this point.
• Very common in Chakona Space
  • The titular Chakats having a certain saying, "love doesn't divide, it multiplies."
  • In addition, Foxtaurs are polygynous due to a 3:1 ratio of vixens to todds and todds are "obligated" to make themselves available for stud duty once every five years.
  • Caitians (aliens based on lions) are even worse, with an 8:1 ratio. Each harem usually consists of up to six women.
  • Stellar Foxtaurs, having been designed with the best traits of Chakats and Foxtaurs, tend to have similar views towards casual sex. Though mating habits vary with some breeds, Polars don't form permanent relationships while Deserts tend towards triads, and Starwalkers mate as a large group but carefully control breeding.
• Dream SMP:
  • The characters of Quackity, Karl and Sapnap are engaged to each other in a polyamorous relationship. However, this is ultimately deconstructed as of Season 3 — the Fiancés have still fallen victim to the most well-known problem within polyamory and relationships in general, i.e. miscommunication, where two of the three parties have been keeping secret some very personal issues from each other.^{Context (Spoilers)}For Karl, it's the fact that he has the power to time-travel, but it happens involuntarily and he loses his some of his memory every time he does so; for Quackity, it's presumed to be related to his Trauma Conga Line (including relationship trauma) and subsequent mental health problems, triggers, and abandonment issues. As a result of this, Season 3 has so far ended with those aforementioned two parties having a Second-Act Breakup. Although Karl the content creator has said that the "Karlnapity marriage" isn't "shelved", which implies this may be reconstructed in a future arc, the SMP has ended without a proper resolution for their relationship. It's interesting to note that this particular polycule was the singular most written-about polyamorous ship on Archive of Our Own in 2020-2021, which goes to show how general fan reception for the ship goes.
  • In a more ambiguously canon take on this, Eret used to be engaged to Karl and Quackity, but that relationship essentially fell apart before it even got off the ground.
• Family, an Internet television show, features a polyamorous triad (V formation).
• Parodied by Hardly Working in "My Two True Loves", in which Pat sings about his dream to have this sort of relationship.
  Pat: It'll be just you and me! ...and her!
• Nene Momosuzu of hololive gleefully accepts all marriage proposals from her fans and adds them to her collection of husbands.
• Due to being one infinite being with a consciousness shared between a literal infinity of bodies across The Multiverse, Jenny Everywhere is necessarily polyamorous; one of her earliest comics, My Bloody Valentine, showed her maintaining romantic relationships with several individuals (of various genders and species) simultaneously, in different dimensions.
• The Jenkinsverse has a triad relationship forming between Allison Buehler, Julian Etsicitty, and Xiù Chang as of Deathworlders Chapter 24.
• Metamor City has the Psi Collective members live in families/cells, with (preferably) one male and several females. This is because they believe that a war with the "mundies" (unpowered humans) is inevitable and that they'll need to prepare by breeding as many psychics as possible, but there aren't many powerful males. At the end of Making the Cut they even considered Gender Flipping "surplus" males.
• Mommy Sleeps in the Basement is set in Utah, so when Paisley mentions as part of her poem that she has two mothers ("Mom", Betty, and "Mommy", her biological mother Claire), Ms. June figures that her family are polygamist Mormons, which are relatively common regardless of what the law or the Church of Latter-Day Saints says on the subject. She is very, very wrong. It's much worse.
• The Polyamory Bear, a parody of a “Purity Bear” video.
• Mackenzie in Tales of MU falls into this situation pretty quickly. As things stand, she is the lover of Ian, Steff, and Amaranth, the former two also being Amaranth's lovers (but not with each other as well).
• Bladedancer, Gateway, and Chain Lightning have this in the Whateley Universe.
• In LA By Night, main character Annabelle has both a boyfriend named Mark and a girlfriend named Ellenore. (It's unclear whether they're also involved with each other, though they are at least shown to be good friends.)
• In Jreg's Centricide, the members of the Anarchist commune^note Queer Anarchist, Anarcho-Pacifist, Insurrectionary Anarchist, Mutualist, Anarcho-Fascist, and eventually Post-Left (possibly also including Anarcho-Monarchist and Anarcho-Primitivist) are a polycule.
• Implied, perhaps unintentionally, in the porno where the "Right in front of my salad?!" meme comes from. In the full video, the woman's husband hires a personal chef who works naked. The husband can't keep his hands off him and the two have sex right there in the kitchen after he makes a bowl of salad. The wife walks in and starts eating the salad, then slowly realizes what they're doing behind the counter. But she doesn't seem the least bit surprised or betrayed by her husband's affair; her only reaction is disgust that they're doing it while she's in the room eating.

Western Animation

• BoJack Horseman: Hollyhock was adopted by eight gay men in a polyamorous relationship, explaining her inverted Sesquipedalian Smith name: Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzarelli-McQuack.
• The Dover Boys: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gag, Dora Standpipe is said to be the fiancée of all three Dover Boys.
• Futurama:
  • In the movie "The Beast With a Billion Backs", Fry briefly dates a girl named Colleen who is living with her four other boyfriends. The main plot is centered around Yivo, a massive, hermaphroditous alien who starts a relationship with every organic being in the universe. At the end of the movie, both relationships end, as Colleen goes back to Yivo's universe with shkler, closing the portal between the universes behind them, and the movie ends with the Aesop that "love doesn't share itself with the world".
  • Old Man Waterfall states that he loves his seven wives, and his husband.
    Crowd: BOO!!!
  • In "Future Stock", Fry refers to traditional families like "the lesbian coven across the street".
• In a truly bizarre example, the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Hard to Say Anything" has Sweetie Belle pairing up Feather Bangs, who had just lost to Big Mac in a contest to win somepony's love, with the three fangirls who had been following him throughout the episode. It's not even a matter of "Pick one," she just encourages him to go with all three of them, and nopony acknowledges this as being out of the ordinary. Perhaps it's just another example of real-life horse behaviour leaking into pony society.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Show creator Nate/ND Stevenson confirmed after the series finale that former Horde cadets Kyle, Rogelio and Lonnie are in this kind of relationship on his Twitter account.
• The Simpsons: In "Holidays of Future Passed", it's shown that Lisa had two girlfriends in college.
• Steven Universe:
  • While the title character's parents loved each other, it becomes apparent Rose had a much longer-term relationship with Pearl that didn't stop when she hooked up with Greg. "Mr. Greg" states that Rose loved them both and saw no reason to choose, and she'd even had several lovers simultaneous with Pearl over the course of history. However, Rose had a rather naive view of love, and wasn't really considering Pearl's feelings. She thought Rose's other lovers were simply ignorable, and when Greg got into a deeper relationship with her, Pearl still felt that she was "losing" Rose to him.
    Greg: Well, you know Rose.
    Greg and Pearl: She always did what she wanted.
  • A Gem known as Fluorite is a fusion who consists of six gems. Her dialogue implies ("if we find the right Gem") that the relationship between all of the Gems that make her is romantic. Unlike with Rose, Pearl, and Greg, there's no sign of any resentment between them, and Fluorite even mentions a willingness to add another Gem if they are compatible.
• Triangle: In this abstract animated short, the relationship between a man and a woman is interrupted when a second woman appears, forming, well, a Love Triangle. The triangle unexpectedly resolves with all three characters embarking on a polyamorous relationship.
• Young Justice: Phantoms: Starting with the episode "Nautical Twilight", it's revealed that Lagoon Boy managed to get into a polyamorous relationship since viewers last saw him prominently in the Invasion season. Coral, his pregnant emissary wife, and Rodunn, his royal guard husband, living happily as a Badass Family of their own.

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