Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] I want to say something that will annoy people on both sides of this argument equally, which usually means it's true.
[00:00:11] Hierarchy in polyamory is not inherently unethical, and the absence of hierarchy does not automatically make a relationship structure more ethical either.
[00:00:21] I have seen hierarchical relationships build on total transparency and genuine informed consent, where every person involved knew exactly where they stood and chose it freely. And I've seen relationship anarchy setups with unacknowledged, undiscussed hierarchy running quietly underneath the whole time, hurting someone who had no idea it even existed.
[00:00:46] The structure was never the ethical question. Today we're getting into what actually is, and I'll warn you now, this isn't going to resolve into a tidy verdict where one side wins the debate. If you're hoping I'll tell you hierarchy is bad or hierarchy is fine, that's not where this is going, because that framing was never the useful question to begin with.
[00:01:08] Welcome to untamed ember. I'm Dr. Misty. Last episode we took apart relationship anarchy what it actually means to build structure on purpose instead of inheriting it. Today we're looking directly at the other major structural choice in this community, hierarchy, and asking the question that actually matters clinically, not which structure is more evolved, but what makes any structure, hierarchical or not, genuinely ethical for everyone inside it.
[00:01:40] If you've ever felt pressured to justify your relationship structure to other people in this community, whichever direction that pressure came from, I want this episode to give you something more useful than a side to pick.
[00:01:54] Let's define our terms clearly, because this debate gets muddy fast without them. Hierarchical polyamory openly designates some relationships as holding more structural priority than others, often using language like primary and secondary, and often including practical mechanisms like a veto where a primary partner has agreed upon influence over whether a new relationship continues.
[00:02:21] Non hierarchical polyamory rejects that explicit ranking, aiming to let each relationship develop its own significance without a built in structure, ceiling or floor.
[00:02:33] Relationship anarchy, which we covered last episode, is one variety of non hierarchical practice, though not the only one.
[00:02:42] Both of these are legitimate structures chosen and practiced by people building genuine, healthy relationships.
[00:02:49] And both of them can be practiced badly in ways that cause real harm. The label itself was never the variable that determined which outcome you'd get.
[00:02:59] What actually determines the ethics of either structure comes down to three whether everyone involved consented to the actual terms with full information, whether those terms stay transparent and get honestly communicated over time, and whether the structure is used to protect people or to control them.
[00:03:20] Notice that none of those three factors are about which structure someone chose? A hierarchical relationship where every mechanism is disclosed up front and revisited honestly over time can score well on all three.
[00:03:34] A non hierarchical relationship where practical asymmetry goes unacknowledged for years can score poorly on all three, despite using none of the language usually associated with hierarchy at all.
[00:03:48] I want you to meet someone who learned this distinction the hard way from the position most vulnerable. To get it wrong, I'm calling him Milo. He's a composite drawn from patterns across a number of clients, not one specific person, with every identifying detail changed. Milo spent two years as what his partner's relationship structure called a secondary partner in a hierarchy. He had agreed to in theory, but had never actually seen the real terms of. He knew abstractly that his partner had a nesting partner who came first in some undefined way. What he didn't know was that a veto existed, that it had never been discussed with him directly, and that it could be exercised without warning.
[00:04:32] It was exercised eventually, and the way it happened taught Milo more about the actual ethics of hierarchy than any theoretical debate ever could.
[00:04:44] Before we get further into Milo's story. This particular argument generates so much heat in E M spaces, and the intensity itself is worth examining. Hierarchical polyamory sometimes gets treated in certain corners of the community as evidence of insufficient personal growth. A beginner stage people are supposed to eventually evolve out of non hierarchical practice, sometimes gets treated in other corners as naive idealism that ignores the practical realities of shared homes, finances and history.
[00:05:18] Both of those framings do the same thing. The compulsory monogamy conditioning we talked about back in episode one. Did they replace an honest situational ethical question with a moral hierarchy of relationship structures where the goal becomes proving you're doing the correct, more evolved version rather than actually building something honest for the specific people involved?
[00:05:45] I want to be direct about this because it matters for the rest of the episode. Neither structure is a finish line, neither one is a starting point you're supposed to graduate from.
[00:05:55] Treating either one as a moral achievement is exactly the kind of conditioning this show exists to take apart just wearing a new language.
[00:06:04] Here's the distinction that actually matters clinically, and it rarely gets named this cleanly in community debates. There is a real meaningful difference between agreed hierarchy, where every person involved, including anyone entering a secondary or non primary role, has full information about the structure and its mechanisms before consenting to it, and hidden hierarchy, where where a structural ranking exists and operates but was never disclosed to everyone it affects.
[00:06:36] Agreed hierarchy can be entirely ethical. If Milo had known from the start that a veto existed, understood roughly how and when it might be used, and chosen to enter the relationship with that information in hand. The eventual outcome would have been painful, but it wouldn't have been a violation.
[00:06:55] He would have been a consenting adult making an informed choice about a real trade off.
[00:07:00] Hidden hierarchy is a different category entirely. Regardless of what label the relationship uses. Milo's partner hadn't deliberately deceived him in the sense of some calculated plan. The veto had simply never come up, treated as an internal matter between the partner and their nesting partner. The it didn't need to be shared with anyone outside that primary relationship, but not needing to share it and it not mattering to the person it would eventually affect are two very different claims, and only one of them is true.
[00:07:33] This is the actual ethical fault line in this whole debate, and it cuts across the hierarchical versus non hierarchical divide entirely.
[00:07:41] A relationship anarchy setup, where one relationship has quietly accumulated more practical priority through years of cohabitation, shared finances, and daily intent entanglement without ever naming that reality to a newer partner who might reasonably expect equal footing, has the exact same hidden hierarchy problem, just without the honest label attached to it.
[00:08:05] I want to be specific about why the word hidden does most of the ethical work here rather than the word hierarchy itself.
[00:08:13] A disclosed hierarchy gives the people affected by it a chance to weigh the trade off and decide for themselves whether it's one that they want to accept.
[00:08:23] A hidden one removes that choice entirely, regardless of anyone's intentions. Milo's partner likely never set out to withhold anything maliciously. But the effect on Milo was the same as if they had, because effect, not intention, is what determines whether informed consent actually happened.
[00:08:42] This is also why good intentions alone can't resolve the ethical question. Here a person can genuinely believe that they're being fair, genuinely love everyone involved, and still cause real harm through omission simply because they never stopped to ask whose job it was to volunteer information that someone else had no way of independently discovering.
[00:09:04] Milo's partner's intentions were never really in question.
[00:09:08] What was missing was the habit of checking proactively whether someone someone outside the primary relationship had the same picture everyone else already had.
[00:09:21] To understand why disclosure matters this much physiologically and not just ethically, we need to go into what predictability actually does for a nervous system entering any relationship structure.
[00:09:33] A nervous system entering a new relationship is constantly, often unconsciously, scanning for information about where it actually stands.
[00:09:41] The scanning isn't insecurity. It's a completely reasonable orientation response, the same kind that helps you navigate any new environment safely.
[00:09:51] When the real structural terms of a relationship are transparent from the start, that scanning process gets accurate information to work with. A nervous system can build genuine safety around real terms, even difficult ones, because the terms match reality.
[00:10:08] When the real terms are hidden, the scanning process keeps running, usually picking up on subtle, unnamed signals that something doesn't add up without ever getting confirmation of what that something actually is. That mismatch between an unconscious sense that something is off and no available information to explain it is its own distinct source of chronic activation, often more corrosive than a hard truth clearly stated.
[00:10:38] This is why agreed hierarchy, disclosed honestly and completely, tends to produce better outcomes than hidden hierarchy of any kind, hierarchical or not. It isn't that hierarchy itself is more or less regulating than its absence. It's that accurate information, however difficult, lets a nervous system orient correctly, and inaccurate or withheld information keeps it working overtime without ever resolving.
[00:11:06] There's a specific reason withheld information costs more than difficult disclosed information.
[00:11:15] A nervous system could build a stable, if painful, model of reality around a hard truth.
[00:11:22] It has something concrete to adapt to. A nervous system given incomplete or misleading information has no stable model to build on at all.
[00:11:31] It has to keep updating a picture that never fully resolves, which is a fundamentally more exhausting task than adapting to one clear, if unwelcome fact.
[00:11:41] Milo's two years in that relationship weren't marked by constant obvious distress. They were marked by a low grade persistent sense that something wasn't quite fully explained. A background hum he couldn't name and therefore couldn't address.
[00:11:56] His nervous system had picked up on the actual asymmetry in the relationship long before he had the words or information to understand what it was detecting.
[00:12:05] That background hum shows up just as often in relationships that call themselves non hierarchical as in ones that openly use the word time, cohabitation, shared finances, children, legal marriage, all of these create practical asymmetry between relationships, whether or not anyone intends it or names it. A relationship anarchist with a partner of 15 years and a nesting arrangement has more entangled practical priority in that relationship than in a six month old connection, regardless of what philosophy they subscribe to. Pretending otherwise doesn't remove the asymmetry, it just removes the shape. Shared language for acknowledging it.
[00:12:49] This is where a lot of well intentioned, non hierarchical practice recreates the exact harm hierarchy gets criticized for. Just without the vocabulary to name it or address it directly. A newer partner in that situation deserves the same transparency. Milo didn't get honest acknowledgment that practical Asymmetry exists even if no formal veto or ranking language is ever used.
[00:13:15] The ethical answer here isn't choosing hierarchy or choosing non hierarchy. It's refusing to let either structure become a way of avoiding an honest conversation about the real practical differences that already exist between relationships. Whether or not anyone has agreed to call that a hierarchy out loud.
[00:13:35] Knowing exactly what you're consenting to matters here too, because a lot of well meaning agreements stay vague about what the mechanism actually is.
[00:13:44] Veto isn't one single mechanism.
[00:13:48] Some couples build what's sometimes called a hard veto, where a primary partner can end another relationship unilaterally, no negotiation required. Others build something closer to a right to be heard, where concerns get raised and taken seriously. But the final decision doesn't rest with one person alone.
[00:14:08] These are meaningfully different agreements with very different ethical weight. And lumping them together under one word obscures exactly the distinction that matters most.
[00:14:19] The distinction that matters most to someone entering that structure.
[00:14:25] Milo's original relationship used something closer to a hard veto, though he didn't know that going in, because the mechanism itself was never described to him in any specific terms at all.
[00:14:37] Knowing which version of a veto exists and what it would actually take to trigger it is exactly the kind of concrete detail that turns an abstract structural label into something a person can genuinely consent to or decline.
[00:14:52] The veto happened during a difficult stretch in his partner's primary relationship. The nesting partner asks for the secondary relationship to end, framing it as a temporary pop cause that never actually became temporary. Milo learned about the mechanism that had ended his relationship at the same moment he learned it existed at all. Nobody had lied to him outright, but nobody had ever told him the truth either. What Milo did afterward is the part worth paying attention to. He didn't conclude that hierarchy itself was the problem. In therapy, he was able to separate two questions that had gotten fewer used together. Was the structure of that relationship unethical? And was the disclosure around that structure unethical? The answer to the second question was clearly yes. The answer to the first question he came to believe was actually more complicated and possibly no.
[00:15:47] A year later, Milo entered into a new relationship, again in a hierarchical structure, again as the non primary partner.
[00:15:55] This time, the entire mechanism was on the table before he agreed to anything. He knew a veto existed. He knew roughly what circumstances might trigger it. He asked direct questions about how it had been used before and got honest answers, including uncomfortable ones. He chose to proceed anyway with full information, because the actual terms, once visible, were ones that he could genuinely consent to.
[00:16:23] He told Me. The actual conversation felt strange at first, almost too direct, because he'd never seen anyone talk about a video this plainly before.
[00:16:32] His new partner's nesting partner joined one of the early conversations herself, answered Milo's questions directly, and described a situation from years earlier where the mechanism had almost been used and ultimately wasn't.
[00:16:47] That level of specific, uncomfortable honesty was exactly what had been missing the first time around.
[00:16:54] That relationship also eventually ended for reasons that had nothing to do with hierarchy at all. But Milo described the two experiences as categorically different, even though the structural label was identical both times.
[00:17:07] The first was a violation dressed up as a relationship. The second was a real relationship that happened to end the way relationships sometimes do, without ever costing him his sense of having been informed and respected throughout.
[00:17:21] Milo told me the clearest way he'd found to describe the difference to other people was this. The first ending left him distrustful of hierarchy as a structure for years afterward. The second ending, painful as it was, never once made him question whether hierarchical polyamory itself could be practiced ethically.
[00:17:40] It simply confirmed that it could and that the deciding factor had never been the structure at all.
[00:17:48] One more layer, because it complicates the whole picture in a way that matters some. Hierarchy isn't purely a preference. Marriage carries legal weight. Immigration status, health insurance, medical decision making authority, inheritance, shared children carry logistical realities but don't disappear because a philosophy says every relationship should be treated identically.
[00:18:11] In these cases, some degree of practical priority isn't a moral failing to apologize for, it's a description of real constraints. The ethical question doesn't disappear here, but it shifts slightly. It's not whether legal marriage should carry more practical weight than a six month relationship, because in many concrete ways it simply does, regardless of anyone's stated philosophy. The ethical question is whether that weight gets named honestly to everyone it affects, rather than pretending the relationships are structurally equal when the law, the shared mortgage, or the custody arrangement says otherwise.
[00:18:50] Milo's second relationship included exactly this kind of acknowledged practical asymmetry.
[00:18:57] His partner was legally married to her nesting partner, with a mortgage and a young child between them. Nobody pretended that that didn't matter.
[00:19:05] What made it ethical wasn't equal footing, which would have been dishonest given the actual facts. It was honest naming of an asymmetry that existed regardless of anyone's preference.
[00:19:17] Here's what building genuinely ethical structure, whichever model you choose actually requires.
[00:19:23] If any mechanism exists that could end or significantly alter a relationship or a veto, a priority clause and unspoken practical asymmetry, it needs to be disclosed to everyone it could affect before they agree to anything, not after.
[00:19:40] Full information before. Consent isn't an optional courtesy, it's the entire ethical foundation the rest of the structure stands on.
[00:19:49] Revisit these disclosures periodically, not just once at the start.
[00:19:53] Structures and circumstances Circumstances change. A veto that was purely theoretical when a relationship began can become active years later, and the people affected by it deserve updated information, not just an initial disclosure that quietly goes stale.
[00:20:11] If you're practicing non hierarchy, get honest about practical asymmetry anyway.
[00:20:18] Naming that one relationship carries more entangled weight through time, cohabitation or shared history isn't abandoning your values, it's applying them honestly instead of using the absence of a formal label to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.
[00:20:34] If you're the partner holding structural power in a hierarchical arrangement, treat the person in the less powerful position as someone who deserves the same respect and information you'd want in their position.
[00:20:46] The mechanism existing isn't the ethical problem. Using it as a surprise is.
[00:20:53] Separate your evaluation of a specific relationship's ethics from a general verdict on hierarchy or non hierarchy as concepts. Milo's two hierarchical relationships were both structurally identical and ethically worlds apart.
[00:21:10] The label was never going to tell you which one you were in, only the disclosure would.
[00:21:18] If you're building a veto or similar mechanism into a relationship, get specific about which version you actually mean. A hard veto and a right to be heard are different agreements. And vague language between partners about how a mechanism works sets up exactly the kind of ambiguity that hurt Milo the first time.
[00:21:39] If you're on the receiving end of a disclosure and something about it doesn't seem sit right, that discomfort is information worth taking seriously before you agree to anything, not something to push past because you don't want to seem difficult.
[00:21:53] A structure you can't genuinely consent to isn't made ethical just because you agreed to it under pressure.
[00:22:01] If you're a primary partner holding structural power, check in periodically about whether your non primary partner still has crossed questions or discomfort about the mechanism, rather than assuming the initial disclosure settled everything permanently.
[00:22:16] Ongoing consent requires ongoing conversation, not a single agreement treated as good forever.
[00:22:22] Now I want to speak directly to anyone listening from the position Milo was in, whatever your relationship's label, you deserve full information about any mechanism that could end or reshape your relationship before you agree to anything not discovered at the moment it's used against you.
[00:22:42] You deserve honest answers.
[00:22:45] You deserve honest answers about how that mechanism has been used before if it has, and you deserve the option to walk away with that information in hand, rather than only learning the real terms retroactively once they've already cost you something.
[00:23:01] None of this requires rejecting hierarchy as a structure. It requires refusing to let hierarchy, or the absence of it, become a shield that protects anyone from having an honest conversation that they'd rather avoid.
[00:23:17] And if you're currently in the position Milo was in the first time uncertain whether you have the full picture, it is completely fair to ask directly, not accusingly me, just plainly is there anything about how this relationship is structured that I don't currently know?
[00:23:33] A partner who respects you will treat that question as reasonable, not as a sign of distrust.
[00:23:40] This week, I want you to look honestly at your own relationship structure, whatever that is, and ask whether everyone affected by it actually has full information about how it works, including any mechanism that could end or reshape their relationship.
[00:23:56] If the answer is uncertain, that uncertainty itself is worth addressing directly.
[00:24:02] Next episode, we're staying with this topic and turning toward a structure that gets treated as a consolation prize far too often. Solo polyamory and why choosing not to nest with anyone is a complete relationship structure in its own right, Not a waiting room before something more serious before we close, I want to give you somewhere to land with this.
[00:24:26] Think of a piece of information about one of your relationships that you're either withholding from someone or that you suspect is being withheld from you.
[00:24:37] Not to solve anything right now, just notice it Honest. Just notice it honestly, without deciding yet what to do about it. Notice. Notice whether any part of you has been using a structure, hierarchical or not, as a reason not to have that conversation.
[00:24:54] Structure was never meant to be a substitute for honesty. At its best, it's just an honest description of something true, spoken out loud to everyone it affects.
[00:25:06] If you're the one who might be withholding something, notice what you're actually afraid will happen if you say it.
[00:25:13] If you're the one who suspects something is being withheld from you, notice that your nervous system may already be picking up on something real, even without proof. Yet whatever shape your relationships take, the question was never which structure was correct. It was always whether everyone standing inside that structure actually knows what they agreed to.
[00:25:38] This has been untamed. Ember hi, I'm Dr. Misty. Hierarchy isn't the ethical problem, and non hierarchy isn't the automatic solution.
[00:25:46] Full information and honest disclosure are what actually makes any structure something people can genuinely consent to.
[00:25:54] Subscribe to the Untamed denver newsletter@untamedenber kit.com for deep dives, bonus material and the behind the scenes content that doesn't make it into the episode. Next episode, we're talking about solo polyamory as a complete structure in its own right. We'll see you next time.
