A night at ‘Poly Poly Oxen Free,’ Brooklyn’s new polyamorous dating show

On a recent Tuesday night in Williamsburg, an audience of around 80 people gathered in the Brooklyn Art Haus theater for “Poly Poly Oxen Free,” an evening of polyamorous fun.

On stage, Rose Oser, the host and founder of the event, thanked the local sex shop Shag for sponsoring the show.

“We’re bringing you the hottest, most emotionally stable poly people in Brooklyn,” Oser told the cheering crowd.

Next, Paige Emerson introduced her primary partner Marquis Cunningham to the audience, pitching his strengths (thoughtfulness, an impeccable fashion sense, and silliness) with the assistance of a PowerPoint presentation. Her goal? To help him find other people to date.

Part entertainment, part performance art, part dating event, Poly Poly Oxen Free happens once a month in either New York or San Francisco.

Each live show features “the Catch,” who already has one partner and is looking for more. The Catch’s current partner acts as their wingperson, pitching them to the audience, followed by three or four contestants in the “Poly Pool,” who pitch themselves to win over the Catch.

Oser, who uses they/them pronouns, divides their time between New York and San Francisco and identifies as polyamorous. They started Poly Poly Oxen Free in May as a diverse and safe space for the queer and poly community, and to showcase positive narratives about polyamory. It has quickly grown a following online and its events often sell out.

“A lot of polyamory narratives are focused on jealousy in some way and the heightened feelings that could come up with some polyamory dynamics,” Oser said in a phone interview. Their event aims to create “positive representations of polyamory."

The show’s name is a riff on the line from children’s games, “olly olly oxen free,” and is intended as a call to poly folks to come out and play. True to its spirit, the audience hooted and cheered throughout the night in rousing support of the contestants on stage.

Poly Poly Oxen Free debuted at a time when interest in polyamory has been on the rise in America. About one-third of people said they’ve had a consensually nonmonogamous relationship, according to a 2024 survey of more than 5,000 single people by Match.

Meanwhile, the dating app Feeld, which bills itself as being for “open-minded individuals,” saw a 500% increase over the last three years in the number of people using the terms “ethically nonmonogamous” and “polyamorous” in their profiles, according to a recent Axios report.

Oser said there has been a steady rise in the number of applications for contestants on the show. The latest Brooklyn show had around 50 applicants, with just six selected as participants.

“It’s about normalizing polyamory and showing that people of all genders and racial identities are practicing polyamory right now,” Oser said. “Polyamory can be a very easy and fun way to relate to people. It’s about allowing audiences to imagine themselves in it, too.”

Cunningham, the October show’s “Catch,” said he began engaging in polyamorous relationships when he moved to New York in 2021. Dating different people allowed him to learn more about his own values, something he felt he couldn’t do growing up in Birmingham, Alabama.

“I’m into being able to be sexually expressive in multiple ways, and one of those ways is being able to do that with other people. Coming from the South, there’s a very conservative mindset,” Cunningham said.

On stage, Emerson shared how she met Cunningham five years ago on OkCupid. Though the two quickly connected and wanted to be in a serious relationship together, they also wanted to be open to dating other people.

“I knew that monogamy wasn’t working out for me, because I was interested in trying more things and meeting more people and being able to explore different sides of myself through different people,” Emerson said in a phone interview.

Emerson and Cunningham also shared with the audience that through dating other people, they’ve expanded their interests and become better communicators — and have brought those skills into their relationship.

The four contestants in the Poly Pool then took to the stage to pitch themselves. All four contestants were all quick to laugh and, coincidentally, all wore red-and-black outfits.

The group included a marketing manager who’s been poly for four years and described themselves as “really good at Google Calendar” and as a “sun worshiper” who once dressed up as Han Montan, Hannah Montana’s nonbinary twin, for Halloween.

Throughout the pitches, the members of the audience — some of whom were current partners of the people in the Poly Pool — cheered them on.

By the end of the night, Cunningham had successfully proposed dates to each of the four contestants in the pool, tailoring the invitations to each of their interests, which ranged from karaoke to gym sessions.

After the show, the five of them took a group selfie and exchanged numbers, while Emerson mingled with the audience.

Oser said they hope the supportive, inclusive environment that Poly Poly Oxen Free fosters will only continue to grow.

“We’re trying to think more expansively about what is gender anyway, and what is sexuality?” Oser said. "Once you start unpacking all of that, then you also have to wonder: What does it mean to make a commitment to one other person?”

The next Poly Poly Oxen Free show will be at Brooklyn Art Haus on Nov. 14. Tickets are $25.