Kenya Stevens is married to two men and seems quite comfortable with her arrangement and even seeks to expand the family. After around a dozen years of marriage, when her first husband Carl confessed to having affection for a coworker, she suggested taking the three of them out to dinner. Their polyamorous lifestyle scored them a new reality TV show on TLC called Seeking Brother Husband. People are amazed by her polyamorous lifestyle, and Kenya Stevens is always open to sharing. Some may consider it 'bizarre', but she takes no offence because she is 'proud and happy' to be polyamorous.
Kenya Stevens with her husbands Carl and Tiger.
The Beginning of a Non-Traditional Relationship
Texas couple Kenya and Carl Stevens had been married for a dozen years, when he confessed to his wife that he had feelings for a co-worker. They decided to see a marriage counselor, who told Kenya and Carl to stay monogamous, work on their relationship and “just forget about it” when they noticed other people. “And we didn’t want to do that anymore,” Kenya said.
Married for 26 years, Kenya and Carl, 52, are both Houston entrepreneurs and authors who preach about their lifestyle as part of their Progressive Love Academy. While Kenya’s only legally wed to Carl, she’s been “married” to her second husband, Tiger Moonstone, 40, an investor, for a decade.
Kenya (center) with her two “brother husbands,” Carl (left) and Tiger. Carl and Tiger also date other women - but among their trio, Kenya is the only one who has multiple live-in partners whom she considers spouses. And she told The Post she’s open to adding more. “What is too many?” she said. “We like community.
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“I think they became so close because every time I had an issue with Tiger, I would have Carl talk to him,” she said. “So, he became like a big brother. [Tiger] started out as a foreigner, somebody who is new to this family.
Family Dynamics and Acceptance
She told the outlet, “Most of their friends’ parents are divorced. So my children were excited that we still love each other and were not coming to have the divorce talk, like the majority of their other friends. They had questions-they wondered how would it work, would they have another father? Those types of logistical questions.
“We had to explain to Tiger’s ex-wife why his son should stay in a house with a married woman and her husband, and what that was like. I had to befriend his ex-wife and really explain the logistics of polyamory to them. That took years.
“When you’re an ex-wife, you still love your husband. I made it clear that they could still love each other [whether platonically or romantically] - that would be fine! She’s a good friend of ours, now.
Explaining why their relationship trumps others, she stated, “We’ve had people going, ‘Why are you doing this? This is wrong.’ We ask them, ‘Have you looked at the divorce rate? It’s 55%. Have you looked at the cheating rate? It’s 66% in the US and 75% in the UK.
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Seeking Brother Husband: A New Reality TV Show
In a recent interview with Fox26, ahead of the new reality TV show, Seeking Brother Husband, she referred to her husband of over 20 years, Carl Stevens as a 'legal husband' and her other husband, Tiger, as her 'spiritual' husband. Plus, Kenya also has partners her husbands know about.
Families and relationships that fall outside of the traditional nuclear norm.
TLC’s Seeking Brother Husband follows women looking for additional male partners. A number of women are in search of non-traditional relationships too, as seen in TLC’s latest show Seeking Brother Husband. The six-episode series focuses on four polyamorous relationships where the women are looking for additional male partners to enter into their current partnership(s). The Stevens have been married close to 30 years and Kenya has been in her second marriage for approximately ten.
As a result of their work, TLC asked them to be a part of their show. While the network has offered a platform where polyamory can be seen, properly defined, and in some ways debunked for the masses, it’s hard not to notice the ways in which the show feels limiting.
“The executives at TLC seemed to have a hard time understanding that women don’t set up our poly relationships like sister wives, where our partners cannot have other partners,” says Kenya. “I thought it was misleading. None of the women on the show are polyandrous. All of us are polyamorous. We are open to our partners having other partners,” she explains. “Even to the end of the show, they didn’t allow us to have our husband’s other partners on the show.
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The show is called Seeking Brother Husband, a clear nod to Seeking Sister Wife, where most couples are seeking multiple partners for religious reasons. How does your show represent the other side of that?
Kenya: We were honored to do Seeking Brother Husband, we really didn’t care what they called it. We trust that we’re going to be put on stages where people need us. We did Dr. Phil in 2011 and everybody said, “Don’t do it! He doesn’t do poly people right!” But so many people saw that show, even though it was somewhat humiliating for us. We don’t care because we knew that would plant a seed with people.
Carl: We understand the narrative that monogamous culture has put out there in terms of how men view themselves, how they view women and how they view relationships. We’re fighting those stereotypes. We’re looking to tear down that cultural paradigm. So, we totally get how men are going to look at it. “Carl, why would you let another man come into your house and have sex with your wife?” By all those narratives, that means you’re not a man. We’ve heard that stuff for years and years. I stand on the principle that me owning Kenya is not representative of my manhood. Or me having a woman who’s exclusive to me is not some kind of price about my manhood. We’re here to fight that narrative.
The Meaning of Polyamory
The conversation around polyamorous relationships isn’t new.
“It’s hard to say whether the representation has gotten better because the concept of polyamory is very new to most people,” says Willie Burnley Jr., city councilor of Somerville, Massachusetts, and a polyamory advocate. “More people are familiar with swinging and polygamy, so the media portrayals often revert back to those understandings, and I think that is where [television] titles like Sister Wives and Brother Husband are rooted in ideas of the patriarchal portrayal of multiple relationships. Even the terminology of non-monogamy and polyamory can be specific and nuanced. Consensual non-monogamy, an umbrella term that polyamory and polygamy fall under, takes different forms depending on the relationship pairing(s). It could mean having multiple concurrent sexual relationships where partners agree not to emotionally connect to other people.
“I think media portrayals are becoming more informed and we are seeing an increasing number of media outlets that are covering it in a neutral to positive way,” says Heath Schechinger, co-founder of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition. “This is part of a broader movement that is focusing on families and relationships that fall outside of the traditional nuclear norm. In conducting studies regarding American family life, Schechinger has found that most Americans are single or are a member of blended families.
“Marriage has always been a tool of social control,” reasons Alexander Chen, founding director of the Harvard Law School’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic who works alongside Schechinger to advocate for policy changes for poly families. “It’s been a tool to allocate property between wealthy families, like who gets the castle or who owns the river. In medieval Europe, nobody cared if peasants got married to each other, it wasn’t always legally recognized, and the history of whose marriages were recognized in America reflect that as well. During Reconstruction, this was forced upon people. And yet, there is a slow shift taking place in Massachusetts.
Chen, Schechinger and Burnley Jr. are part of a collection of folks who just got the first city ordinance passed in Somerville allowing people to have more than one domestic partner.
“There are three municipalities in Massachusetts: Somerville, Cambridge, and Arlington,” explains Chen, “That have passed ordinances that let more than two people be domestically partnered, which is a legal status but not the same as a marriage. Domestic partnerships were first pioneered in the LGBTQ+ context as a way for cities and states to recognize same-sex relationships that weren’t being recognized by the federal government.
It’s unclear what the future of Seeking Brother Husband is, as only one episode has aired (and was provided to press).
“As humans we are free, we should be free. I’m free to choose my life path, choose my own objectives,” says Kenya.
Kenya Stevens says she is happy with her lifestyle. All images via Kenya K Stevens/Instagram
Free-spirited Kenya lives in North Carolina in the US and is widely known for her polyamory advocacy. When we ask about her boyfriends, a candid Kenya says, "That's uncountable. I have many partners, boyfriends and connections.
Polyamory is not for everyone because it can be complex in a society where monogamy is a norm."She is the founder of the Progressive Love Academy (PSALMS), an online relationships, empowerment, and metaphysical school, which is said to help improve every aspect of life.
Carl told Fox26: "We had genuine feelings for other people. Kenya and I talked about it," adding that they decided to go for it and see where it leads.
"Many couples are waking up to the fact that humans are living outside our natural paradigm, meaning humans are not a monogamous species," the mother of three said, adding that marriages and families are breaking up, riddled with adultery. "We are creating solutions here at Progressive Love Academy that support couples in moving smoothly from monogamy to polyamory - for the sake of family and love," Kenya explained. Kenya Stevens and her husbands, Tiger and Carl.
She said it is easy to introduce the conversation to her partners. "I am upfront. I don't waste any time. I tell any potential partner or boyfriend that I am married and I don't plan to have a divorce. I tell them I don't believe in divorce, I will always be polyamorous, and I don't believe in monogamy," she explained.
There are questions and judgement from people who are either fascinated or shocked by her lifestyle. "The most common question is: why get married? But that does not seem like a logical question because I want to marry everyone I love. Who would not want to marry people they love? Many advantages come with polyamory. Anytime I want affection and attention, I can have that without any guilt and shame," she said.
But the disadvantage is that not everyone knows how to go about the lifestyle. "The basic misconception is that it is all about sex or that it is selfish. I don't think it is selfish to want to love more. It is actually selfless. If I can share more of myself and love more people, that sort of love heals the planet.
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Relationship Structure | Polyamorous, with Kenya having two husbands and multiple partners |
| Key Figures | Kenya Stevens, Carl Stevens, Tiger Moonstone |
| Reality TV Show | Seeking Brother Husband on TLC |
| Core Belief | Freedom for all in relationships, challenging monogamous norms |
| Progressive Love Academy | Online school supporting couples transitioning from monogamy to polyamory |
Kenya claimed that she and her first husband were “not interested in sharing a bedroom any longer” after staying in the same bed for decades. She mentioned, “That’s uncountable. I have many partners, boyfriends and connections.
Kenya Stevens has two husbands and 'uncountable' boyfriends. She is 'proud and happy' to be polyamorous.She has been married to her first husband for 26 years and the second for nine years.
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