The prof’s polyamory is not as unusual as you’d think
Last week, courtesy of The Daily Telegraph, we were treated to a blistering scoop that was, refreshingly, more about sex than death. Prof Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, the virus modeller whose dire warnings triggered the lockdown, was discovered to have had his lover round shortly thereafter – including on days he went on Today to warn people about the perils of breaking the rules. Which include seeing people outside your household.
The details of Prof Ferguson’s relationship with his lover, Antonia Staats, caused almost as much surprise as his imprudence: they turn out to be in a polyamorous arrangement. She is married, and apparently in an open relationship with her husband. Not only does he seemingly know about his wife’s relationship with Ferguson, the two men are said to be friends.
Ferguson – who is estranged from his wife, with whom he has a child – is presumably allowed to have other girlfriends, too.
Such an arrangement is hardly what one pictures for a Government epidemiologist – particularly when our ruling classes generally appear to be in the longmarried, wedding ringsglinting camp.
And yet Ferguson’s love life is far less surprising than it might appear. You might even say it’s bang on trend. Sometime in the last few years, monogamy – complete with not cheating on your (one) partner – took a body blow. Profiles on mainstream dating sites changed from the usual: “likes snuggling by the fire as much as going out on the town” to the altogether more outré and complex. A preference for polyamory – having multiple partners at once, who know about each other – as well as for “open” and “ethically non-monogamous” relationships, has become as common as a love of “long walks on the beach with dogs”. It’s what all the
The dating site is the stamping ground of sexual adventurers
cool kids (and fiftysomethings) are doing.
Except unlike walking on the beach, polyamory is touted as a philosophy, one rooted in the sinistersounding concept of “radical candour” and “compersion”, which means taking pleasure in your partner getting their kicks elsewhere. It is taken up with relish by Lefties, for whom it seems to bolster a caring-and-sharing self-image. Staats, by all reports a very nice lady, is a Left-wing campaigner.
Ferguson and Staats met on OkCupid more than a year ago. The dating site is the stamping ground of Left and far-Left sexual adventurers, with those after anything like traditional monogamy or hookups, a fast-dwindling bunch. Wading through its sea of faces and profiles, it feels like everything is being offered with lashings of kink one can hardly bear to repeat – often in addition to common or garden polyamory.
Take this fairly typical bio. Its author, a man, as well as outlining an eye-watering fondness of terrifying-sounding things like “group play, burner games, torture garden”, devoted a section to his preferences where monogamy is concerned.
“If I’m being super honest,” he writes, “I’ve been in open relationships in the past, and I believe that open relationships/ polyamory/relationship anarchy can be an amazing thing. But as I’ve mentioned, finding a primary partner is definitely something I want to explore.”
It’s nice to know that if I could pass his 1,200-word obstacle-course of wants, I’d be in the running to be “explored” as a “primary partner”. Compared to his online stablemates, Ferguson’s sexual arrangements seem almost quaint.
There may be something counterintuitive about the idea of geeky science types having polyamorous lovers round, but once again Ferguson is on trend. Techy sorts can be strongly drawn to novel-sounding sex lives. The preference of Silicon Valley brains for “bold, unconventional” lifestyles, featuring “exclusive, drug-fuelled, sex-laced parties” was laid out in Emily Chang’s 2018 bestseller Brotopia. Meanwhile, polyamorists I’ve encountered around dinner tables have almost all been involved in maths, science or tech.
As for the professor’s infraction itself, I’m actually finding it hard to be furious. That he cautiously broke his own advice is rather reassuring. For we are, each of us, going to have to get used to making sensible risk assessments – including about when to have lovers round – as time drags on with no vaccine in sight.
Ferguson has said that since he had Staats over shortly after his own bout of the virus, he believed himself unlikely to be infectious. We don’t know yet about immunity, but it was a reasonable guess.
Rules is rules, but should be subject to constant, sensible personal review. Will I be letting every Tom, Dick and Harry into my flat? No, but like Ferguson, I might make an exception for the right one or, in his case, few.