Courtesy of Netflix

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What’s Wrong If A Politician Is Polyamorous?

Throuples are no big deal in Netflix’s ‘The Politician’

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A politician who’s having an affair? That’s so common that it hardly surprises anyone anymore. But a politician in a consensual non-monogamous relationship? We’ve never experienced that, but Netflix’s The Politician asks us to.

Would it help or hinder their career?

Without getting into all the details of the comedy-drama that centers on the numerous political races of Payton Hobart (Ben Platt), a wealthy young man from Santa Barbara, viewers in Season 2 get introduced to a politician who’s part of a throuple — an intimate, sexual relationship among three people.

Dede Standish (Judith Light) is a longtime New York state senator who is being considered for the vice presidential spot for aspiring presidential candidate Tino McCutcheon (Sam Jaeger) while facing, for the first time in years, competition for her senate seat, from Hobart. It is only then that her 10-year-long throuple relationship with her husband, Marcus, and their younger partner, William, is discovered (and it’s amazing that they were able to keep it secret for that long) and is suddenly an issue in her political life.

Standish refuses to dissolve her throuple, imagining that if they can no longer keep it secret…

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Vicki Larson
Vicki Larson

Written by Vicki Larson

Award-winning journalist, author of “Not Too Old For That" & "LATitude: How You Can Make a Live Apart Together Relationship Work, coauthor of “The New I Do,”

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