All of you, stop tormenting Nico Tortorella with your polyamory-bashing rhetoric. He’s sick and tired of it, and he’s still practicing polyamory, if only to spite you.
As People reports, the 29-year-old actor opens up about his open relationship on Bravo’s new digital talk show Personal Space, candidly discussing his life with Bethany Meyers, a fitness and lifestyle coach that he’s been dating for 11 years.
She identifies as gay, he identifies as pansexual, and they’re in a polyamorous relationship, and everyone needs to stop making a big deal out of it.
Related: Nico Tortorella says “the most flack I get for being bisexual comes from other LGBT people”
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“I’m not in an open relationship so I can go out and just fuck whoever I want,” he says. “For me, it’s more about the ability to emotionally connect with people outside of my primary partner.”
Steve Ward, the CEO of Matchmakers, appears absolutely befuddled about all this polyamory business happening right under all of our noses.
“Wow! That’s like the one thing every girl fears I think,” he says. “There’s a whole part of this country in between L.A. and New York where the bulk of these people fear their partner developing an emotional attachment to someone else.”
“The fact of the matter is,” Tortorella retorts, “we’ve only been shown one story since basically the beginning of time and that’s man, woman and family — and that’s it.”
“Are you a polyamorist?” Ward asks, somewhat redundantly.
“That is the word for it, yes,” Tortorella replies.
Then Ward opines that it isn’t “good practice to invite other people” into a relationship when “you’re talking about having a home and creating a life.”
“If you consider your life to be like a rock-faced wall, you can climb that wall by yourself or you can climb that wall in a group of people, like Nico here would prefer to do. Or you can climb that wall in tandem, and two people climbing that wall together are more likely to make it to the top easier, more safely than if you have too many people in your group or if you’re just doing it on your own.”
“I’m always climbing the wall with one other person,” Tortorella says, “but that person is just changing.”
Of course, an open relationship can totally work — but not if your significant other also wants to scream at you all the time.
It’s one or the other, bro.
Prax07
Just more of the same nonsense from this guy. A slut justifying being a slut wrapped in a thin layer of “emotional connection” with whoever he wants to bang outside of his “relationship”.
Loki
“I really like this idea of loving my fragile masculinity right now. And what I mean by that is that there are not a lot of men talking about being super vulnerable and emotional, and I think that is one of my favorite things about myself: my ability to cry and feel and emote and be an empath. I can watch a commercial and start crying, and it makes me so happy.”
This guy is an blithering idiot… literally. Everything that comes out of his face is utter nonsense.
Donston
Loki, his whole thing is people feeding his need to “feel”. He wants to feel a penis and a vagina. He wants to feel masculine and feminine. He wants to feel happy and sad. He wants to feel gay and straight (he doesn’t want to feel bisexual). He wants to feel conventional but also like a subversive outsider. It’s all about continuously getting sexual and romantic attention from different sources that will allow him to grasp at all these different feelings and people constantly indulging his megalomaniac impulses. It’s not about orientation. It’s not about sexual attraction or passion or romantic instincts.
Only an empty person with miniature esteem who has no idea what they want out of life and has a difficult time feeling anything real still has those types of instincts at 30+ years old.
jsmu
Prax07 You’re so desperately threatened by anything that continues the destruction of the ‘monogamy’ MYTH that it would be amusing if you weren’t so ignorant and so pathological. I’m sure to YOU anyone who has sex with more than one other human in their lifetime is a ‘slut.’ Well, shove your ‘slut’ shite where the sun don’t EVER shine, moronic BEEYOTCH!
Sam6969
If each partner agrees, I do not see any problem aside from others’ judgemental opinions.
Sam6969
Actualy, I envy him being able to fall in love with any gender/sex (pansexual), several people at the same time (polyamorous) and also being so charming and open-minded, because it means he is mentally and emotionnaly free from lots of alienating concepts. I’d love to meet someone like him, even just as a friend. I am sure I would learn a lot with him.
kent25
You can find a HOE in any town usa, There’s nothing unique about him
Dymension
It’s not so much about being judgemental as it is just saying this is what you want. Don’t try to wrap it up in so much bullshit.
CaliKyle
Exactly.
Sam6969
Well, my thinking process is certainly beyond what you can grasp.
Prax07
Being a slut isn’t an enlightened concept. Owning being a slut isn’t an enlightened concept. Wrapping up your rationale about being a slut in fancy words is just wrapping up your rationale in fancy words, nothing more. This guy is just another pretty face with nothing inside except for a high sex drive and a narcissistic need to tell everyone he can that he can sleep around all he wants with no repercussions. Just another dumb slut.
Sam6969
“Slut” only translates what you (can) understand of pansexuality and polyamory. You are just exposing how much you are uneducated on those concepts. Make some research before judging, please. Not considering it could be something else than “being a slut” is purely judgemental.
Do not act like bigoted homophobic people, who are full of prejudice against us. I have read so many of them writing homosexuals are “slut”, “pervert”, etc. Let’s not act like them.
KaiserVonScheiss
More pro-sluttery. Promiscuity ? gay rights. Two different things. Promiscuity and the pro-promiscuity agenda only makes gays look bad.
Promiscuity increases risk of STDs. It is unhealthy and risky, but the sluttery advocates will cry bloody murder when the insurance company won’t pay for prep (insurance should really pay for prescriptions anyway, but I digress). They seem to think the insurance pool should subsidise their risky lifestyle. No, grow up and settle down like a responsible person.
Danny595
I’m not religious, but amen!
jsmu
More proto-fascism from bootlicking N*zi Kaiser himself. Horseshit. ‘Monogamy,’ my dear MORON, is all about jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity, property rights, and impotence.
Kenney G
lol It make Bisexuals look twice as bad since they taking off their clothes for everybody
JerseyMike
Do you bro… If you want to sleep with 0-100, that’s your business. Male or Female… As long as they are consenting adults.. FCUK the $lu# shamers.. they are mad they can’t be you…
Donston
Mo Bro/Sarcastic Whatever… is that you?
I don’t think anyone cares who this guy fvcks or has relationships with. And most people can fvck multiple people and genders at once if they wished. It’s his constant attention-seeking, contradictory statements, pretentious blathering and his attempt to attach his “cause” to lgbt that most have issue with.
Sam6969
JerseyMike thanks for your refreshing open mind 🙂 It seems rare, here.
Sam6969
Pansexuality and polyamory are sexual and romantic or relational orientations in their own rights, not directly related to promiscuity (such as sex in backrooms, for instance). LGBTQI+ rights defend sexual and romantic orientations. Therefore, it has everything to do with the LGBTQI+ cause and respect of other people’s orientations.
Plus, he did not say he sleeps with anybody, but that he could, as a pansexual. Also, he is looking for emotional connections. So, it does not look as something compulsive, pathological to me. On the contrary, it is possibly one of the most evolved form of romantic love.
I think you are confusing sexual and romantic orientation with losing oneself into sex (what you call “promiscuity”).
The concept of fidelity in polyamous people is different from yours, and both of you have your own rights to think that way…in mutual respect.
Danny595
“LGBTQI+ rights defend sexual and romantic orientations. Therefore, it has everything to do with the LGBTQI+ cause and respect of other people’s orientations.”
Gee, it’s almost as if people invented a grouping of letters in order to constrict the thought and autonomy of LGB people and to force us to fight battles which aren’t ours.
Prax07
Poly-this, Pan-that… it’s all bullshit made up by idiots that have nothing better to do than make up fictional names for their being narcissistic sluts. There should be LGB, and even the B is questionable. Adding on an alphebet of letters does absolutely nothing for any L & G causes. All the other letter additions are bullshit.
JerseyMike
The bullshit you are talking is expressed by most straight people when it comes to the L & G…
Donston
Prax07 is clearly prejudice on the this particular subject. But as much as people harp about “bi-phobia” nowadays the majority of these outspoken “proud to be bi” guys continue to reveal that their sense of self and their behavior is not driven by sexual attractions (Nico has flat-out admitted that he has sex with genders he’s not sexually attracted to) or driven by romantic instincts (liking “different people’s energy” or having a relationship with someone has nothing to do with developing romantic feelings for someone). We need to start talking about sexual attractions, sexual instincts, sexual pleasures and understanding the degrees, dimensions and differences between those three things as well as talking about how much sexual behavior and identity can be attached to sociology and ego and therefore adjust and evolve terminology.
People like Nico and other evasive individuals don’t want to have these types of straight-forward, open conversations because it doesn’t allow them to see the world and people the way they wish and to be seen by people the way they want to be seen.
Jaxton
Nic Tortorella is entitled to bonk whomever he chooses – male, female or Calithumpian.
How that affects his relationships is beyond his total control, however. Not many women embrace male bisexuality. Even if a bisexual male is monogamous to a woman, the mere idea of her man desiring men is enough to cause her tampon to shudder.
Donston
If he were living a completely “gay lifestyle” you would be shaming him like you have recently done. But because he still wants to have sex and relationships with women it’s all good. Your hypocrisy and internalized homophobia is boundless.
kent25
could you blame her? Nico’s a HOE, I’m sure his asshole looks like a half dollar, The poor thing will bend over for anything
Prax07
When it comes to straight people thinking all L & G’s are sex crazed perverts incapable of monogamous relationships, well idiots like Nico aren’t helping change those views, he’s just reinforcing it with this poly-crap sex with anyone nonsense.
Jaxton
How do you know that Nico wants to be part of the GLBT identity train? Maybe he doesn’t.
Most male homosexuality exists outside of the GLBT identity. That’s because men in general don’t like to be taken for granted when it comes to sexuality. Identity politics is an unnatural thing to most men.
Donston
Nico has indeed said that he wants to be considered apart of LGBT but he also wants to feel like he’s apart of the straight world. If you are lgbt and claim to be super proud of it and promote it endlessly through your social media (like Nico has been doing unrelentingly for the past year) then you’re officially not apart of the “straight world”. It’s not about being taken for granted. It’s about self-acknowledgement, self-truth and self-comfort. As I’ve mentioned many times, his behavior, identity and need to constantly speak on such do not at all seem to be attached to his orientation but ego and sociology.
There is also nothing wrong with admitting that your sexual attractions are greatly gay-leaning but you still want to have sex and relationships with women. Or that they’re straight-leaning but you enjoy the sexual/romantic company of men sometimes. Or that you have some sadomasochistic instincts. etc.
Nico doesn’t have the balls to admit these sort of things. Yet, he still wants constant attention for his “complexity” and “lifestyle”. So, in order to continue to get that attention while not being overly revealing about himself and his motivations he covers himself up in cliches and nondescript sayings about emotions and liking different people’s energy and being “open-minded” and fluidity. That is why people consistently call him a narcissistic and megalomaniac. Never mind that he feels polygamy is some political platform. While hetero-worshiping/self-hating/lacking self-esteem gay and homo-dominant men just eat it up because they think he’s cute and “sensitive” and is willing to admit to screwing men.
Danny595
Sad and gross. Thank heaven that monogamy, which was on a slow, steady increase from 1979-2003, began to increase dramatically in 2004, particularly among Millennials. We are leaving promiscuity behind, no matter how it is dressed up and sold to us.
paul dorian lord fredine
and i’m sure we can thank our party of family values and it’s leaders like newt and donald. what’s sad and gross is the sanctimonious judgmental attitudes displayed here. don’t like the way he lives? tough shit. he’s not asking you for your approval or to join him (though i have a feeling there are a few here who would give their left nut for just one romp in the hay). seems too many people need to get a life and stop being so interested in who or what other people have sex with. yeah, maybe if he wants people to stop commenting on his sex life he should stop talking about it but from comments here it seems there are people drooling to read/hear about it. i never heard about him until i read this and i don’t care if i ever hear about him again.
Donston
Anybody can sleep with whoever the hell they like. That’s not my issue with this dude or my issue with “gay media’s attachment to him and his “cause”.
Nico relentlessly claims that he wishes people would understand his “complexity”. Yet, all he does to give people insight into himself is blather contradictory, vague, pretentious nonsense. He keeps talking about his precious sexuality, yet he refuses to talk about the dimensions and degrees of his sexual attractions, his sexual instincts or his romantic instincts. The only true insight he’s given about his orientation is that his behavior is not driven by sexual attraction but “physical attraction” and that he “likes different people’s energy”. No matter how you flip it or frame it that’s behavior driven by narcissism/megalomania/ego/fetish/sociology and not orientation. He doesn’t seem interested in educating people so much as continuously getting attention and continuously looking for approval for his “lifestyle”.
And having sex and relationships with multiple people at once is not an lgbt. No matter how this site and other “gay media” tries to attach promiscuity and polygamy to homosexuality or even bisexuality. Those are individual choices, and if that’s what you feel is best you then cool. But it’s not a “cause”. And trying to attach it to lgbt does an incredible amount of harm.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
“Yet, all he does to give people insight into himself is blather contradictory, vague, pretentious nonsense”
)))Irony Klaxon(((
Hey, it could be worse. He could continuously rehash the same tedious comment over and over and over again (even multiple times in the same thread!)
Donston
I’d rather do what I’m doing than be so insecure that I have to use different handle names to boost my non-points. Like, do you actually have any real insight on anything? I used to think you were somewhat intelligent but I realize that you feel like you can’t rip apart someone’s opinion you just turn into an a-hole/starts using different monikers to back your basic “points”.
I don’t care who this dude has sex and relationships with. But his thing is not apart of the lgbtq “agenda”. This is why so many accuse the “movement” as just a bunch of narcissistic “lifestyle” prattle. The “ultimate goal” isn’t about having sex with whoever or even relationships with whoever. The ultimate goal is understanding who you are and being able to communicate that honestly and straight-forwardly to others without embarrassment. The ultimate goal is gaining self-comfort and self-respect and a sound, intact ego and not constantly needing people’s attention and approval or dis-approval and needing people to constantly indulge every one of your instincts. None of his thing has anything to do with lgbt.
Donston
But seriously, dude. Stop using multiple monikers. It’s embarrassingly obvious and it makes you come off like a troll or crybaby and it de-legitimizes whatever minor legitimacy this comment section has. Stand by your contradictory, often gay-shame-y nonsense with some real convictions as an individual.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Sadly, it’s just me:and the voices in your head. 🙁
Thank you for acknowledging my intelligence. Think of me as Socrates to your Plato. I Just wanna help you UP your genius IQ game and DOWN your word count.
DCguy
Oh look, another excuse to not call somebody bisexual. The sheer desperation of some people to seem interesting is mind boggling.
Donston
He actually doesn’t like referring to himself as “bisexual” still. He continues to stick with “fluid” and “pan” in his social media. He also says that his behavior is not driven by sexual attraction or romantic instincts but rather “physical attraction” and “liking different people’s energy”. That fits under no definition of “bisexual”.
It’s not about desperation (okay, yeah, some are desperate). It’s about people being willing to be honest about themselves and what motivates their behavior. It’s also about not wanting the “polygamy cause” connected to lgbt. I’m tired of these extreme conversations on both side (which is all these comment sections have to offer) and the utter refusal to talk about the dimensions of human psychology because it scares people and goes against agenda. It’s getting lame how I keep reading the same cliches and have to keep trying to have real discussion but people are either dismissive or hateful (and I’m talking about people of varying opinions). It’s getting exhausting from my end even.
If more people were open to honest conversation here, in public, in interviews, most of the friction would go away. Unfortunately, this place is made up of mostly trolls, simpletons and self-haters and too many famous, semi famous and wannabe famous are scared to get truly real.
DCguy
However it’s also a way to try to be different. “Oh Gee, I hate labels but we’ll use the lable hetro-flexible pan etc…”
Bisexual, sleeps with both sexes. That absolutely describes what he does. He claims that it isn’t about sexual attraction but about physical attraction.
I’m sorry but the desperation to be different is apparent in that phrase right there.
Sam6969
Donston,
Well, I think you are a bit too sure about what people (such as Nico) should feel and explain to look authentic in your eyes, as to their sexual and romantic orientations (and preferences). As I see it, reality looks much more complex than what you seem to fathom.
Yes, romantic orientation can be dissociated from sexual orientation in real people: it has long been documented in published articles on non-binarity during many years. Please, just start reading them (even on Wikipedia) and then you could ask questions.
Also, i see nothing contradictory in Nico’s comments. He obviously has been wrongly quoted in this contradictory Queerty article, which is clearly a copy/paste of an online People Magazine, full of quoting mistakes (always go and see the source of quotes). Nico says he gives great importance to an emotional and energetical or spiritual connection to fall in love with someone; and I do not see why one should say it is not true or “bullshit”.
I do not need him to intellectually explain me pansexuality or polyamory, since I already know the definitions by myself through studying many articles on the Internet. Besides, feelings and spiritual connections are not always easy to put and reduce in words. Things have to be lived to be fully understood. That is why I wrotel I would love to be his friend and interact with him on different levels.
Deepdow
I like him.
barkomatic
If some of these commentators weren’t already openly gay, they’d be evangelical pastors screaming about fire and brimstone for gay people from their pulpits. It’s only been within the last decade or so the the work of activists have moved society to the point where these types can modify their judgemental nature so that they can be gay and look down on others who are different than them at the same time.
Why do you care so much about who this guy sleeps with? My suspicion is that Nico is a very attractive guy–and *they* want to sleep with him or someone like him. However, then they would no longer be in a position to get that high they feel when they look down on someone else. What a hard choice that must be! Ultimately, they’ll do what other judgy queens do in this situation, which is to create a Grindr profile asking for “discretion” and then go in secret to do all the things they condemn others for.
DCguy
No sweetie, nobody cares about who he sleeps with. What we do care about is erasing the existence of LGBTs.
Does he sleep with all sexes? Oooops then he’s bisexual. Trying to come up with these ridiculously sad labels to try to seem different is boring, it was boring when Sophie B Hawkins did it decades ago and it’s boring now. Go ahead and ask bisexuals how they feel about the desperation for guys like this to call himself anything but what he is.
Sam6969
“If some of these commentators weren’t already openly gay, they’d be evangelical pastors screaming about fire and brimstone for gay people from their pulpits. It’s only been within the last decade or so the the work of activists have moved society to the point where these types can modify their judgemental nature so that they can be gay and look down on others who are different than them at the same time.”
SO TRUE.
And they benefit from LGBTQI+ militantism, in many ways, but are still ungrateful. Also, LGBTQI+ include them, but not only…So, they are fine activits work for their rights, as long as they do not for other minorities like they are. Did I hear : “selfish”?
gayjim1969
It is interesting how people in the LGBT claim to know what is in someone’s heart based on a few comments in interviews, which are bound to be vague. It is possible that Nico doesn’t have the words to sufficiently express what he is trying to describe, instead of being deliberately vague or Sphinx-like regarding his sexuality; some people equate sexual attraction with “energy,” especially if they are New Age-inclined. While he may use a different vocabulary or point of reference, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is a liar or is trying to ride the community’s coat tails.
Prax07
@jsmu Did I touch a delicate nerve?
I see nothing at all wrong with saying a slut is a slut, if you have no shame with being one then it shouldn’t upset you right?
CarlIsle
I’m totally ok with the polyamorous thing if both partners agree to it.
But…
His partner “identifies as gay”? Why is a lesbian in a relationship with a man?
I’m not judging, I just don’t get it.
miserylovedme24
That was the exact question I had after reading this. In what world does a lesbian maintain a long-term relationship with a guy? Why? It has nothing to do with polyamory, it just doesn’t make sense considering she’s supposedly only into women.
Sam6969
Interesting, is not it?
She explained it in an interview for the Advocate (I advise you to read it):
“She says Tortorella is the only man she can imagine having a relationship with.”
So, she identifies as gay, but also as queer, if we need to put labels.
What is interesting to understand is that labels are important to satisfy a part of all of us that needs to feel secure about who we are, but at the end of the process, labels may be dropped. Deeply, we are free humans and reaching that truly open state of mind, we may surprise ourselves with what life brings to us. So, Tortorella explains he is exploring his sexuality and ability to love in various ways.
Also:
“Tortorella says he’d rather wait to have sex until the love blossoms in a relationship, while Meyers has no qualms about her love of casual sex”.
Sam6969
We may have difficulties to understand that because we have been raised to put people, including ourselves, in binary or fixed categories, though sexuality and love are essentially fluids. Our ego wants to control and fix them through a process of identification.
DCguy
His girlfriend who identifies as gay says ““She says Tortorella is the only man she can imagine having a relationship with.”
So, she identifies as gay, but also as queer, if we need to put labels. ”
———————
In other words, she is either just like all of those other “Queer” women who claim to be queer but area all dating or married to men and do it for a publicity boost.
Or she is “Gay” but doesn’t mind crossing over if the guy is rich and/or famous enough to buy her pretty things.
Or, they had a fake relationship when he was trying to make it in the business and needed to pretend they were straight, and now if they ended it it would be obvious that’s what it was, but it’s also impossible to hide sleeping with somebody else, so they started off the story that they are in an open relationship.
Sam6969
Wow, I am impressed. You clearly know a great deal on human nature. I cannot wait to read your novels.
Donston
I’m sorry but I can’t relate to people who are only truly sexually attracted to one gender or whose sexual attractions lean greatly towards one gender but they still want to persistently have sex with and/or relationships with other genders and people. That is where the ego comes into play. Not the other way around. And the fact that both Nico and his girl, despite talking ad-nauseam about how complex they are, refuse to give any insight into their sexual attractions and passions leaves one to think that their identities and perhaps behaviors are more driven by ego, narcissism, attention-seeking and how they wish to be seen by the world rather than sexual attraction or even “feelings”.
And, no, DC sleeping with men and women doesn’t make you bi. Just like there are inherent bi people who have no interest in having sex or with multiple gender. Behavior and orientation are different things. Sexual orientation has always meant sexual attraction not who you have sex with. That’s why the terminology needs to evolve. Sexual attraction, passion, romantic instincts and ego all have great affect on people behaviors and they’re all distinctly different things. We need to start acknowledging the differences and come up with new terminology. “Bisexual” is too much of a broad stroke nowadays. But fluid/flexible/queer don’t really mean anything. (There are people whose sexual attractions and passions are entirely with one gender or leans greatly towards a certain gender but they want to have sex and/or relationships with multiple genders. That’s not really comparable to people who have have substantial sexual attraction and passion for multiple genders and have the ability to love and commit to someone beyond one gender. While that’s completely different than people who are merely turned on by singular body parts- a penis, a vagina, some boobs, a butt- rather than finding a whole gender appealing. And that’s different than someone who is only sexually attracted to one gender but chooses to only date and have sex with another gender. And that’s different than someone who has some slight sexual attraction to a gender but their substantial attractions, passions and romantic instincts lie with another gender). Too much of what’s going on are people trying to shield themselves behind “labels” rather than being honest about who they inherently are and what drives them. And that is what leads to suspicion and resentment.
kent25
Because she’s not a lesbian, that chick is bi or pan or queer or whatever the next letter they’ve added to the acronym or Nico’s a Hermaphrodite and has a vagina between his legs lmao
kent25
He needs to tell his nasty ass sex life story to TV Guide or Time or News week.
Kenney G
Nico changes his sexuality as often as he change his drawers, Next week he will be a lesbian