The Two Loves of Tilda Swinton (Or: Performers, Painters & Polyamory)

Tilda Swinton, the acclaimed British actress and now Oscar winner (for "Michael Clayton"), is a rarity in show business. Her choices in roles are extreme in their variety: from a gender-bending reincarnate in "Orlando", to big budget Hollywood flicks like "Vanilla Sky" and "Constantine", to the White Witch in "The Chronicles of Narnia". She has served as muse and inspiration for both actors and fashion designers; the Dutch fashionistas Viktor and Rolf made an entire collection inspired by her. Despite her ethereal, almost alarmingly-stunning beauty, she is down-to-earth, very funny and jarringly honest in interviews. She showed up to collect her Academy Award without a drop of makeup, adorned in an unusual but striking black dress that resembled a painter's smock.

And the smock analogy is quite appropriate for Swinton, 47. You see, she lives with her longtime companion, the artist John Byrne, 68, with whom she has twin sons. However, it is her boyfriend, New Zealand painter Sandro Kopp, 29, with whom she attended the Oscars. Yes, you read that right. Ms. Swinton lives with one man, raising their children together, and is also openly involved with another man. The arrangement, according to all three, works extremely well, and Swinton is wonderfully unapologetic, and even quite funny, when discussing it.

It may seem that the press Q & A, which follows immediately backstage after an Oscar winner give his/her speech and is whisked to the wings, is an odd place for this subject to come up. But this is Hollywood, folks, and of course Ms. Swinton's personal life was subject to some post-speech questions from the assembled journalists. One reporter backstage asked her about her husband, to which she promptly replied, "I don't have a husband, I've never been married."

But she does have two lovers, and to this I say, "Go Tilda!". The relationship with Byrne, according to interviews, comes across more as two old chums who love and care for each other, united by a mutual respect and the rearing of their two children. The relationship with Kopp, it can be deduced, is of a more physical, but no less emotional, nature. It's complicated, as I'm sure Swinton and her men fully understand. But it also works for them, which speaks volumes about the emotional maturity, security, and honesty all three of them must share.

People, being people, raise issue with how Ms. Swinton lives her life, and I raise issue with those people, not Swinton. We live in a society that has somehow evolved (or devolved - depending on how you look at it) to this mindset that Monogamy is King. Even though our ancient ancestors did not practice it, and very, very few animals do, we seem to have taken it upon ourselves to be paragons of monogamous virtue.

This is laden with problems, of course. The biggest being that many of us can't live up to the idea that we are paragons of anything, and we seek out affairs and fulfillment elsewhere, which is deceitful, hurtful, and wrong. So what then is the problem with having more than one loving, passionate relationship, with all the cards on the table? As long as everyone involved knows what's up, it seems to me that there is no problem here at all.

When I look at Tilda Swinton's life -- her remarkable, varied career and unusual living situation -- I feel a breath of fresh, exuberant air. Here is a woman who has bucked tradition and fearlessly declared what works for her. And that is all she needs to say. It's not any of our business how she and Byrne raise their children. There is obviously a lot of love, and a lot of honesty, in the Swinton-Byrne household, and I can't imagine a better environment in which to raise children.

Honesty is the key to the polyamorous life. You have to be flawlessly in touch with your emotions and be able to express them with great intimacy and articulation. This is precisely the reason that most people can't handle relationships like this. We are too laden with "proper" images and conventional understandings. In addition to the honesty thing, you also, quite literally, need to be able to share. And we as a people don't really excel at that.

What is just as important, though, is tact. I have read a lot of really positive responses regarding Swinton's lifestyle, but those responses are always capped off with something like, "...but these relationships NEVER work." Well, of course the ones you hear about are the ones that didn't work. Do you really think those in polyamorous relationships walk around declaring, "I got laid by TWO different men last night!"? Of course not. A natural offspring of the openness and honesty inherent in these situations is tactful discretion. Balancing an open relationship like Swinton's demands rigorous orchestration, and as long as all players involved know their parts, the results will undoubtedly be successful. These relationships can and do work.

With this said, do you think Adrien Brody will date me even though I'm married?