On any given day a person can turn on the television and find a show about infidelity; Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Dr. Phil or Cheaters.  These seedy programs draw audiences by the masses with women crying because their partners have cheated on them or men stomping off in a dumbfounded huff.  More often than not the host always asks if forgiveness is an option. 

American society appears to have accepted cheating on a partner as comfortably as watching funny commercials between the melodramatic segments.  With all the cheating that is taking place it only seems natural to have a follow up show on people involved in multi-partner relationships, also known as polyamory.  However, these types of relationships based on awareness of the other partners do not frequent television as often as cheating.  Often times the audiences are appalled by the lifestyle or suggest that those involved are living dangerously and spreading disease.  However, some of these relationships last many years (Matthesen, 6).  Why is cheating on a partner while in a monogamous relationship more accepted in American Society than polyamory relationships?

A common misnomer made with the term polyamory is to call it “cheating.”  A more in depth definition of this term is found in the article “Polyamorous Women, Sexual Subjectivity and Power,” by Elisabeth Sheff:

Polyamory differs from swinging with its emphasis on long-term, emotionally intimate relationships and from adultery with its focus on honesty and (ideally) full disclosure of the network of sexual relationships to all who participate in or are affected by them.  Both men and women have access to additional partners in polyamorous relationships, distinguishing them from polygamy (Sheff, 252).