Defying heteronormativity can be as daunting as it is liberating, but when you come across Yau's posts on polyamory and queerness, it's impossible not to feel empowered. Drawing from her experience as a bisexual, neurodivergent, Chinese woman, Yau shares educational memes and bite-size tips on non-monogamy, queer relationships, and sex positivity, and hosts the Happy Polydays podcast.

#1: Poly Philia is a popular polyamory account that blends relatable observations about non-monogamy with humor in an entertaining and informative way… Much of Poly Philia’s content is bite-sized and punchy, blending videos that are relatable if you’re already non-monogamous, while also providing unique insights into the lifestyle if you’re not.

“A lot of people were forced to do some personal introspection [during the pandemic] and contemplate whether they were making the best choices for their lives and for their happiness, which is why we saw a boom in terms of people signing up to non-monogamous dating apps.”

“Being poly or ethically non-monogamous is about responsibility, and taking responsibility for your partners: you factor them into your decisions, you consider their feelings, you uphold your commitments to them and respect their boundaries. You strive to be open, honest, and compassionate towards them—it isn’t just a matter of reading someone their rights then doing whatever you want.”

“The variety, the novelty, the ability to customise your relationships and communicate more with your partner about where the boundaries are – there’s a lot more flexibility. That’s why it’s becoming more common…And I think people are becoming more sexually open, becoming more honest about their desires and more importantly, when their desires don’t match up and how to meet their partner’s needs.”

As long as everyone’s comfort levels and emotional needs are considered, Yau says, “KTP creates opportunities for a strong support network and found family, [and] it creates more opportunities for collaboration and compersion rather than competition.”

“The individual steps of the relationship escalator are not harmful in and of themselves. But I think that not questioning these steps, not questioning whether you actually want to do these things and just doing them because you think you’re supposed to, is where the harm originates.”

“Imposed hierarchies can be toxic and even abusive in some situations if not handled carefully,” warns polyamory educator Leanne Yau. “For example, veto power, where you give your primary partner the option to force a break up between you and your other partners if they feel they are being disruptive to your connection, dislike them, or literally any other reason.”

In seeking to force a real-life, non-mythical human being into this fantasy role, says Leanne Yau, creator of Poly Philia, many couples also end up “imposing strict, unreasonable and often contradictory demands that the third person is not allowed to question.” “Such dynamics often arise out of insecurity from the couple that someone will ‘threaten’ their relationship, so they set rigid parameters that do not allow for negotiation,” says Yau.

In Yau’s view, intentional, “healthy monogamous relationships” are not so different from non-monogamous ones anyway. Whether or not you’re having sex with more than one person, you can sustain multiple close relationships. “In non-monogamy all you’re doing [differently],” she says, “is doing romantic or sexual things with more than one person… You can adopt almost a polyamorous mindset while engaging in monogamy.”

“Normally, if you are going to be ‘gifting an experience’ to someone, you pay for that experience. So I really think that the only way to gift an experience like a threesome is by hiring a sex worker. With a sex worker, you pay them for their service, you tell them exactly what you want out of the experience, and they perform that service for you. Everyone has a good time, [the third is] appropriately compensated—no problems there.”

"The most annoying thing about unicorn hunters is that I do actually want to have a lovely threesome experience with a hot and respectful couple, but I know I'd have to sift through hundreds of dehumanising texts and be objectified/fetishised a ton to find just one good one." Dozens of comments on the post mirrored her sentiment. But in a twist that would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating, Leanne later had to edit the post when couples saw it as an invitation and started hitting up her DMs for sex.

“Even in a throuple, the relationship between the queer women is constantly sexualised, minimised, and generally portrayed as a titillating bonus to the two ‘real’ and ‘straight’ relationships… My one gripe is that it still upholds the misconception that all polyamory is triads and throuples, when in reality such configurations are much rarer in the polyamorous community than people think. However, I do think it is a step in the right direction.”

"No one says 'ethical' or 'consensual monogamy.' If people can be bad monogamists and still be considered monogamous, why can't non-monogamous people do the same? Why do we need to justify ourselves in a defensive way?"

"People have different needs when it comes to how much sex you want - at the end of the day we can't be everything to our partners. A lot of people assume that being poly is selfish and we're greedy and we want to have our cake and eat it. Actually, it's the most selfless thing you can do. I love my partner and I want other people to love them too.”