His parents wanted him to follow Jesus. He chose polyamory instead.
A 39-year-old reflects on moving to Philadelphia this summer, with his wife and his girlfriend.
Franki Jupiter grew up in St. Louis, the son of a Presbyterian minister and a Bible Study teacher. He was raised to believe he should marry young and remain committed — to both Jesus and his wife — for life.
But Jupiter, 39, didn’t end up doing so.
“I love people, and I’m not great with impulse control,” he explained. (Franki Jupiter is a stage name, but it’s also the one everyone in his life uses.)
After years exploring his sexuality, Jupiter became polyamorous. He met his second wife, G, in 2018 in California, and the two married in 2020, first on Zoom during COVID lockdown and then in a four-day Indian wedding with G’s family.
From the beginning, Jupiter and G have been in an open relationship, but they still consider each other primary partners.
“We have a house together. We’re building a life together. We have two cats together,” Jupiter said. “When you’re in any kind of relationship, it always has to be a conversation.”
Jupiter moved to Manayunk this summer alongside G and his girlfriend of four years, A, who lives a 10-minute walk away. (The Inquirer is referring to his partners by their first initials because they requested privacy.)
He works as a relationship and career coach, and is a singer-songwriter trying to put together a band.
The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg, has been edited for length and clarity.
On being the son of a preacher, and queer
My life partnership, first and foremost, was supposed to be with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. After that, it was supposed to be with one person who you meet and then marry way too early because you’re both eager to have your first intimate relations.
Since I was born, I was queer. I was always putting on my sister’s and my mom’s clothes. There were boys at school that I thought were really cute. I was attracted to drag queens and trans people. I was told very explicitly by my parents and everyone in the church that was not OK.
On having sex before marriage, though he wasn’t supposed to
You’re a 13-year-old boy, and you’re like, “Damn, this is all I can think about. I’m supposed to just give this over to God and actually not think about it?” It just felt less and less biologically possible.
It also messed with my head, because it meant that every person I dated, I wondered, How do I make this person my spouse?
By the time I was 18, I finally had a girlfriend where I could genuinely see us being together forever, which in hindsight is crazy. But I could see it strongly enough that I thought we could probably have sex. And so that was when I decided, All right. This is okay for me.
Having sex as a teenager would not have been in the top 50 things I did that surprised my parents. There was a little bit of a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
On becoming ‘feral’ after leaving home
When I got to college, I went fully feral. I dropped out of school and joined a band. I started taking acid all the time, and moved to Rome briefly and studied photography, fell in love there.
The parts of me that had been repressed for so long all came a bit too much to a head.
After a few years I decided to dial it back and see what I was really looking for. I met someone who ended up being my first wife. She was wonderful and we had a lot of chemistry. We knew that the relationship might not stay steady, but instead of honoring that, we got married.
On discovering polyamory
We sold our car, bought a van, and drove out to California. Within a year of being there, we were separated.
One of the things I realized on the heels of our split was I’m really not a one partner kind of person.
Initially I thought maybe I’d just have to be single forever. Then I read a lot of Reddit threads on people with multiple partners. I read some of the Polyamory 101 hits: The Ethical Slut, Sex at Dawn, Polysecure. I knew lots of people in the Bay Area who were polyamorous.
My whole life, I’ve loved people so much that the idea of not being in some relationship was crazy to me. But I knew that if I was going to be in relationships, they were going to be open.
On meeting G, the women who would become his second wife
We met for dinner and it was great. One of the first things she asked me was, “Are you gay?” I was like, “I’m not not gay. But no, I’m not gay. I’m open for whatever.”
We went back to her place, had a one-night stand, and didn’t expect anything after that. But we kept coming back. There was this unspoken sense that even if we never see each other again, this has been excellent.
On forgetting to tell G he was still married
I was still legally married to my first wife. I had told G from the beginning, “I’m going to be seeing other people, and I actually don’t want to have a monogamous relationship, ever.” I had also been dating other people concurrently and had told everyone, “By the way, I am technically still married and we’re in the process of getting a divorce.”
I guess I neglected to say it to G.
A few months in, we were at her house and she was cooking dinner. I said something like, “I’d love for us to get together again next week, I just gotta wrap some stuff up with my wife.” She was like, “You gotta what?”
I said, “I gotta wrap some stuff up with my wife.” She said, “What are you talking about?”
I said, “Oh my God, did I not tell you?” She said, “No, you did not.”
I asked if she wanted me to leave and she said she didn’t think so. I asked if she wanted me to rub her feet and she said that would be okay.
After that, she said something along the lines of, “It’s OK. It doesn’t seem like this is something you meant to hide from me. I think we can figure out how to move on from here.”
On marrying G
With G having an Indian passport, our scope as a couple was extremely limited. I could see ways in which marrying her was extremely beneficial for both of us, but definitely for her, because she’d be able to move around much more freely.
Honestly, it felt a little bit like what marriage used to be way back in the day. It wasn’t strictly a love marriage.
She actually proposed to me. We went up to the border of Oregon and California and took a bunch of acid. She took a ring off me and put it back on and said, “Wanna get married?”
On meeting his girlfriend, A
Our first date was at a historical gay bar in Berkeley. I told A from the get-go, “I have a wife and my wife is going to be a big part of my life.”
She moved to Philadelphia a little before G and I did this summer. A and I see each other weekly, we take vacations sometimes. As far as I’m concerned, and hopefully as far as she’s concerned, we have no intentions of not being together.
One of the reasons we moved to Manayunk specifically was because she was dating a guy who now lives down the street from me. When we came out to see Philadelphia, he gave us the lay of the land. He and I are still buds. She and him are not dating anymore.
On the relationship between his wife and his girlfriend
My wife and girlfriend have very different personalities. I wouldn’t see them being friends independently of me, like if they had met each other and struck up a conversation, I don’t know that they would necessarily have gone back for seconds. But there’s no bad blood there.
There is a finite amount of time, so I don’t foresee adding other long-term partners. But also, who knows?
This story is part of a new series about life partners across the Philadelphia area. See other stories in the series here and here.
If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically or otherwise, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.