🌐The Rise of Non-Monogamy in the Age of Social Media
Prefer to listen instead of read? Check out the episode of The Sovereign Heart Podcast on the same topic: “New Earth Relationships & The Evolution of Non-Monogamy in the Digital Era.”
In a world where Instagram knows your desires better than your therapist...
It’s no surprise that the algorithm of intimacy is shifting too.
Welcome to the digital age of love — where swipes meet ancient sovereignty, and non-monogamy is no longer whispered in corners, but discussed in DMs, memes, and community threads across the globe.
This isn’t a trend. It’s a tectonic shift.
📝 (Full disclosure, I asked ChatGPT to help me write this ( — specifically, I gave it a prompt to explore the correlation between the rise of non-monogamy and the use of social media to broaden our minds and awareness of what's possible. I also asked it to project into the future, drawing from historical movements like gay rights and including anthropological and psychological data to explain how love and sexuality are evolving worldwide. This is the distilled version of what we created — part research brief, part love letter to the future.)
📲 How Social Media is Reprogramming Relational Norms
Non-monogamy has always existed — but the internet handed it a megaphone.
This part of the shift is loud. Algorithmic. Visual. Viral.
Social media didn’t invent non-monogamy.
But it did give it a stage.
And the scroll has become a kind of spell — a steady drip of normalization that dissolves shame and ignites curiosity in real time.
We’re not just being entertained.
We’re being reconditioned — pixel by pixel — to remember a wider way of loving.
Visibility is liberation. In Italy, a 2020 study showed a tenfold increase in polyamory Facebook groups between 2015 and 2020. These platforms became digital hearths for connection and identity【1】.
Global normalization through scrolling. As of 2024, over 5.1 billion people — 62% of the global population — use social media. That’s five billion opportunities to witness a post from a triad celebrating their anniversary or a polycule navigating parenting【2】.
The influence of creators. TikTok therapists. YouTube poly vloggers. Instagram reels on compersion. These creators aren’t just spreading awareness — they’re humanizing what once felt taboo or fringe.
Dating app data doesn’t lie.
Feeld saw a 500% increase in ENM users between 2020–2023.
OkCupid found that 33% of users are open to non-monogamy — a rise from 27% in 2014【3】.
A 2024 YouGov poll confirmed that 1 in 3 Americans has either practiced or considered consensual non-monogamy【4】.
Generational shifts. Younger people are leading the way. Gen Z is nearly twice as likely as Baby Boomers to see CNM as a valid and healthy relational model【5】.
We aren’t becoming more radical.
We’re becoming more visible.
And that visibility?
It’s dissolving the illusion of the “one right way.”
🛣️ Where We’re Headed — Future Projections & Public Imagination
Polyamory isn’t just personal — it’s political.
This part of the shift is slow. Structural. Cultural. Legal.
It’s where imagination becomes infrastructure.
When love stops fitting the laws, the laws begin to bend.
It’s not just about dating differently…
But recognizing non-monogamy as part of the collective evolution of human rights, autonomy, and family systems.
Legal shifts already happening. Cities like Somerville and Cambridge, MA, have passed ordinances recognizing multi-partner domestic partnerships【6】.
Precedents in law. Legal scholars say the same logic that led to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage could support legal protections for polyamorous families in the future【7】.
Mainstream spotlight.
Shows like You Me Her, Polyamory: Married & Dating, Trigonometry, The Expanse, and Polyfamily explore non-monogamous storylines & real stories alike.
Media outlets including The Guardian, BBC, and Axios have run features on CNM in the last year alone【8】.
Shifting public opinion.
In 2022, 35% of U.S. adults said non-monogamy could be as healthy as monogamy.
By 2024, that number had grown to 42% among adults aged 25–45 in major U.S. cities【9】.
It’s not a subculture — it’s a shift in values. Just as queer marriage once seemed unimaginable to the mainstream, CNM is steadily becoming part of the larger conversation about what love can look like.
The laws may lag behind the love.
But the culture is catching up.
🧬 What This Says About the Human Psyche
This isn’t new… it’s rooted deep in our cultural & psychological roots worldwide.
This part of the shift is ancient. Internal. Biological. Archetypal.
It lives in the bones.
In the dreams.
In the way your body relaxes when someone finally says something true.
Long before apps and ordinances, humans were capable of holding more than one intimate bond with clarity and care.
It’s not polyamory that’s new — it’s the systems that made us forget.
This is the part where the rewilding begins…
Historical truth: 83% of traditional cultures worldwide have permitted some form of plural partnership. The idea of “just two” is far more modern than we’re taught【10】.
We are capable of more. Research shows humans can form multiple secure romantic attachments at once without diminishing emotional depth【11】. Feelings like compersion — joy in a partner’s joy — are becoming more recognized, even in clinical settings.
Indigenous wisdom echoes this.
The Iroquois practiced communal parenting and polyamorous family structures【12】.
Amazonian tribes believe in “partible paternity” — the idea that a child can have more than one father — and build parenting partnerships accordingly【13】.
Modern needs, ancient patterns. As relationships evolve from survival-based to self-actualizing, the pressure on one partner to be everything becomes untenable. Polyamory isn’t about “more sex” — it’s about more support, honesty, and resonance.
The psyche is stretching.
And it’s remembering something it once knew.
💎 Sovereignty in the Swipe Era
This is bigger than dating trends.
It’s the detoxification of domination.
The holy disruption of the mononormative trance.
A global remembering of what love can be —
When we release performance…
And return to presence.
Whether you identify as monogamous, polyamorous, or undefined — one thing is clear:
Love that is honest, ethical, and expansive will always find its way home.
📚 Citations & Sources
Paccagnella, L. First Monday, “Social Network Sites as Empowerment Tools,” 2020.
Chaffey, D. Smart Insights, “Global Social Media Statistics 2025.”
Axios, “Polyamory and Legal Protection,” 2024.
YouGov Poll, “Attitudes Toward CNM in the U.S.,” 2024.
Kinsey Institute Study, “Generational Views on Non-Monogamy,” 2023.
McArdle, E. Harvard Law Today, “Polyamory and the Law,” 2021.
Supreme Court Dissent, Chief Justice Roberts, Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015.
BBC, The Guardian, UnHerd, “Polyamory in Popular Culture,” 2023–2024.
Psychology Today, “Public Health & Relationship Structure,” 2024.
The Guardian, “Why Early Humans Weren’t the Flintstones,” 2015.
Kraft, R. “Societal Implications of CNM,” Psychology Today, 2024.
Equality and Polyamory, The Guardian.
Hogenboom, M. “Polyamorous Parenting Traditions,” BBC Future, 2016.The best medicine? Listening to my body with a kind ear & a compassionate touch.
