Arundhati Ghosh: “No love is easy — you just choose your kind of hardship”
The author of All Our Loves: Journeys with Polyamory in India on the distinction between polyamorous and open relationships, and the backlash against feminism
People who subscribe to conventional ideas of love might fantasise about finding ‘the one’ or having a grand wedding. In your life or in your conversations with other polyamorous people, is there something analogous, say, a kind of romantic milestone to aspire to?
Many polyamorous people reject the idea of a linear progression in relationships. In a hetero monoamorous world, boy meets girl, falls in love, and after a couple of good and bad relationships, one sticks, culminating in marriage. Once you’re on this relationship escalator, it’s hard to get off, at least without getting hurt. These milestones are pre-decided; people don’t get to make sense of or create them.
In polyamory, you might have multiple relationships, so there would be many journeys, each with its own pace, nature, and texture. These journeys would also depend on how you define polyamory for yourself, since it encompasses diverse practices. You may or may not have a primary partner, prioritise your partnerships, or have common life goals.
Instead of milestones, I’d say there are points of arrival in the journey. While all relationships involve coming together, these journeys look different for different polyamorous people. For some, it might entail staying together; for others, going on holiday together or writing each other in their wills.
You are forthright about your experiences in your book and on social media. How has your experience of writing about personal matters publicly been?
I’ve never had problems sharing personal details because I’ve always led an open life. There is, however, a difference between the personal and the private. I don’t share private matters, except in a small, trusted circle.
What is personal is social and political too. Besides, sharing my stories gives me a way to connect with other people and invite them to share theirs. It builds trust — unless you put your life out there, nobody will trust you with theirs. Why should they, right?
At the same time, not all personal matters are your own. They are connected to other people, so you need their consent. I used to be married many years ago and we parted on good terms. My ex-husband is part of my chosen family. When I started writing about polyamory, he felt that I hadn’t taken his consent to share the part of my life that intersected with his. I realised it was a mistake to disclose things without knowing how it would impact people or infringe upon their privacy.
You write that the book had its origins in your social media posts on polyamory. How has social media shaped your writing and thinking processes?
I’m 53 years old — the Facebook generation. I still find Instagram difficult, but I’m trying. I’m told I must be there for my book since young people are there.
Social media taught me about the kindness of strangers and indifference of friends. I say this because I know many people only through social media. They comment on my posts and share personal, intimate stories because they know we’ll never meet in real life. That distance gives a sense of safety. The flipside is that it also creates trolls. People have abused me online for my political inclination and work. I ignored it because that’s the nature of social media.
When I talk about polyamory online, people’s reactions have been largely positive. They also sent me messages, sharing different perspectives and stories. Someone said, “You’re talking about polyamory, but many cis heterosexual men use it to sleep around and abuse women.” There were other such negative stories, which made me write a chapter on polyamory red flags in the book. If people hadn’t reached out to me, I wouldn’t have thought about those aspects.
However, the problem is that you can only take a discussion up to a point, as social media has a short shelf life. So, I would cut and paste people’s comments, which helped me frame the book.
In the book, you distinguish between polyamory and open relationships and focus on the former. Why was that the case? And what are the overlaps between the two relationship styles?
Let’s say the dominant structure in society is monoamory — a one-to-one love situation. Breaking that takes you to ethical non-monogamy. Under this, there are many ways of being. There are open relationships, which are generally defined as when two people in a mono relationship explore romance, intimacy, or sex with other partners. Love may or may not be there. They basically involve opening the door to being in other people’s lives in various ways.
Polyamory is specifically about relationships of love. It involves intimacy, care and building something together. Whether it gets built or not doesn’t matter — the intention is to build a nurturing relationship over time.
Open relationships are a whole different world from polyamory. I hope somebody writes a book on them, but I haven’t practised such relationships, so I don’t know much. I focused on polyamory because, for me, what is most fascinating is love and how it is defined.
For example, I can’t separate friendship and love. People easily say someone is in the friend zone, but I don’t know what that means. I only know degrees of love and intimacy. For me, love can be with or without sex. Some say friendship is love without sex and romantic love is love with sex. But there are so many romantic relationships where sex isn’t important. There are asexual and aromantic people too.
The main similarity between open relationships and polyamory would be that both break the mono existence. Both also need to be honest, ethical, and consensual — the rest is cheating.
Lately, there have been conservative reactions among young people in response to progressive or permissive mores, such as a resurgence of women play-acting as ‘traditional wives’ or people calling polyamory ‘gentrified cheating’. How do you view these trends?
I’m happy you asked this question. The first reason is that people misuse the liberty of polyamorous relationships to abuse, cheat, and emotionally manipulate other people. A feminist friend once wrote to me saying that a cishet man told her friend, “If you’re not polyamorous, you’re not progressive.” He wanted to have multiple relationships, so he coerced and gaslit her. So, seemingly progressive ideas can come with misogyny, queerphobia, or transphobia.
The second reason is that there is always a backlash of power. Power is seen as a zero-sum game in our world. Whenever the power balance is tilted and rocked, a backlash occurs. That’s why many young men become incels — feminism has attacked their sense of power and masculinity, and they become aggressive and abusive in response. They don’t understand that patriarchy makes them suffer as much as women and others. So, feminism is good for them too. Thus, what you may call a comeback of conservative values is a backlash. We see that in politics too.
The third reason is something I feel compassion towards. When you embark on a new journey, you will face hurdles. You might meet nice people, but you might encounter charlatans and impostors too. That can frighten some, making them want to return to what they had.
But it’s not as if what they had was safety. It’s just a case of better the devil you know. They’re accustomed to the problems and can deal with them. But they don’t know what problems might come with a new life. I feel compassion because that’s a genuine fear.
I was once talking to a friend who lives a more traditional life of a wife and mother. I was on a self-pity rant, talking about the price I pay for living a radical life and how people think I’m a ‘loose woman’ who sleeps around. She said, “You don’t realise the price we pay for leading a traditional life. People have forgotten there is a price because it has become so common and accepted.”
As I keep repeating in the book, no love is easy — you just choose your kind of hardship. The love you choose should make sense for your desires and dreams. That’s all there is to it; no one kind of life is better, easier, harder, cooler, or any of that.
What have been your struggles as a polyamorous person?
All of us inherit a legacy of definitions regarding life, love, and relationships, how they should be, and what we should want. We inherit these not just from our family but also from popular culture. That’s why I’m so upset with films — they don’t show different kinds of love.
My first struggle was with these definitions. I realised that instead of looking for answers, I had to begin asking different questions. For example, for me, loyalty does not mean what my partner will or won’t do with another person. I define it as what we offer each other. But it’s difficult to look at everything with a fresh perspective — it’s easier to fall back into old habits.
Dealing with jealousy was also tough. I had to work a lot on myself to understand that my jealousy arises from my insecurities. It’s my feeling, so I am responsible for fixing it rather than my partners, though, of course, they can help.
Another struggle was being able to forgive. We all make mistakes, especially when we start something new. So, we should be able to reflect, accept our mistakes, and apologise. At the same time, we should be able to forgive ourselves and other people. Humans have been practicing monoamory for thousands of years and haven’t perfected it, so we’re not going to perfect polyamory either. Life is messy.
Syed Saad Ahmed is a journalist and communications professional. In 2024, he was selected as a Boston Congress of Public Health Thought Leadership Fellow. He speaks five languages and has taught English in France.
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