Josh Vow watches his girlfriend sleep with other men for fun.
He also wants women to run the world, and he can’t see why anyone thinks those two things clash.
The 40-year-old from Somerset went viral over the summer alongside Jade, 27, his partner of eight years, after the pair described sleeping with other people as their “hobby”.
The internet did what the internet does.
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Trolls queued up to tell Josh his girlfriend was cheating on him.
Josh says they’ve got it wrong, and the people judging him are “fuelled by ignorance”.
“I would feel much better if that dictator was a woman”
Josh, who now lives in Cyprus with Jade, describes himself as the “ultimate feminist”. He doesn’t do half measures.
“I want women to rule the world,” he said.
“Overall I prefer them, and I think they’d rule a lot better than men do, too.
“If you had to choose someone to dictate to your village or your neighbourhood, I would feel much better if that dictator was a woman, put it that way.”
Jade goes further. She reckons Josh is a misandrist, someone who dislikes or mistrusts men, and she doesn’t see that as a problem.
“You think women are better than men, and so do I,” she told him.
“Men had their chance and honestly, they’ve fked the world up.”
Threesomes, cash targets and the stud problem
Watching Jade with other men is Josh’s kink, and the couple regularly have threesomes.
He insists none of it means he values her less.
“Just because we’re sexually open, it doesn’t mean I don’t value my girlfriend. I actually treat her better than a lot of other men I know.”
The couple make adult content, and Jade has more than 85,000 followers on Instagram at @littlepidge. Josh sees her earnings as part of the point.
“When Jade runs to tell me she’s hit her cash target for that day, I’m so proud,” he said.
“I want her to have financial freedom, wear whatever she likes, flirt with whoever she wants to and express herself sexually.”
He has little time for the old double standard.
“If a man sleeps with a lot of women, he gets called a stud, whereas if a woman sleeps with a lot of men, she gets called a slut. It’s not right.”
Choice matters most to him. “Women should have the ability to make good money, wherever they live in the world.
It doesn’t mean every woman’s going to rush to be a marine, but if they want to they should have the freedom to do it.”
At home, the arrangement turns surprisingly conventional. Jade cleans. Josh cooks.
“Everyone should share the chores,” Jade said.
“Men and women.”
“I’ve never cheated on a partner”
The confusion, as Jade sees it, comes from people assuming an open relationship means something’s missing.
“We get everything that we need from each other so we wouldn’t ‘cheat’ in the conventional way,” she said.
“That’s not why we’re open. We do it for added sexual thrills.”
Josh thinks monogamy has a worse record than people admit.
“I’d love to know how many happy, openly poly relationships there are versus how many monogamous people are cheating. I’m sure there would be a lot more cheating.
“It’s so common for men to cheat and I think nowadays it’s gotten to the point where women almost roll their eyes. Personally, I’ve never cheated on a partner.”
What winds him up most is partners talking about each other as property.
“I hate that kind of speech. It really triggers me,” he said.
“Friends don’t possess each other, but friendship is your base and your relationship should build on that.”
He hopes speaking out will chip away at the stigma.
“It shouldn’t be a taboo subject. It’s good to talk about because it shows people that it’s not this seedy, horrible industry or way of living.”
Why it matters
Couples like the Vows have worked out that the relationship itself is the content.
The backlash brings the clicks, the clicks bring the followers, and the followers become subscribers.
For adult creators, defending your lifestyle in public now sits alongside filming as part of the job, and the more people object, the more people look.
Open relationships and ethical non-monogamy have moved from niche forums to mainstream feeds, with couples openly building audiences around them.
The trolls show no sign of logging off.
Then again, Jade’s daily cash target suggests they might be doing her a favour.
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