Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jhenelle Monique. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jhenelle, appreciate you joining us today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

Honestly this is a tricky question for me. When I started in the podcast space, I thought it would just be my 10 friends listening to me ramble about polyamory and how being Jamaican has shaped my experiences navigating that in the US.

Now though, several years in, it’s grown to be much bigger than I ever thought it would be and I’ve been able to connect with people all over the world. I’ve had opportunities I never thought I would have and have made connections with the most amazing people.

What do I hope to be remembered for? My weirdness AND being the truest version of myself and sharing authentic stories about polyamory. Some deep and thought provoking, some that add a bit of levity. Giving people the ability to tell their stories, no matter how messy.

Jhenelle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi, I’m Jhen (she/her). Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and currently residing in Washington, D.C.

Black. Cis. Pansexual. Polyamorous. Etc etc etc.

I’ve always been a creative person and I’ve also known for the majority of my life that I was queer so it kind of makes sense in hindsight that I would fall into this.

A polyamorous friend and I had been talking about doing a podcast about polyamory in the context of Jamaica for YEARS and then we finally got our act together and recorded like 4 episodes and released our first episode into the wild in later 2019.

Monogamish Pod was just such a fun name to choose that it seemed super obvious in the moment, compared to our working title “the poly ish”.

It was just supposed to be a fun little thing for us to do. Yapping into a mic from 2 different countries with a shared cultural understanding, talking about our polyamorous experiences and non-monogamous news.

Those first few episodes were rough listening back to them. LOL. Totally unrefined with editing that really wasn’t our best.
The pandemic and lockdown really helped us tap into a new sphere though. We were able to meet different polyamorous people and start sharing their stories in interview format.

Eventually it just became way bigger than we thought it would and we realised the current format needed some tweaks to make it more refined. We honed in on our editing skills – self taught btw – and started plotting more and then it started to take over our lives kinda.

We started being MORE intentional about everything we were saying and putting out and the kind of stories we were sharing.

At the time most of the content out there publicly was still very much swinger related and so this was a niche market to tap into that everyone wasn’t doing. And we were doing pretty well by our standards.

Eventually my cohost transitioned to a more behind the scenes role because I had the most flexibility with my job for recording and he was not in that space where he could be all over it anymore.

There’s still so much love between us though and we connect regularly.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Sham and I met in university through mutual friends and just kinda stuck together.

I’ve always been open about my queerness and polyamorous life, and he realised I was a safe person to talk to about his own non-monogamous experiences and so we just went together.

We had a lot of the same interests and ideas so it seemed like a natural fit to do the podcast with each other.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I’m still surprised I have a “reputation” to be honest.

But a big part of it was just us being an authentic space and filling a niche that most people didn’t know existed.

Polyamory was (and still kinda is) viewed as some white people thing when you look at media and the books coming out and the podcasts already out there.

There weren’t a lot of Black people doing what we were doing, and there still isn’t.
I know a lot of Black people who are just now getting into that space and they reach out to me to ask questions about starting a podcast and how it worked for us.

Being one of the first and being successful by their metrics has helped the pod to keep growing.

I do conferences and collaborations with other Black polyamorous people and creators and the podcast is easy enough to follow, no matter where in your journey you are.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://monogamishpod.com
• Instagram: @monogamishpod
• Facebook: Monogamish Pod
• Twitter: @monogamishpod
• Youtube: Monogamish Pod
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7s9Iy0ZL6iHOeEEmK6mqpj?si=WQs18FVGTpq3Db132I4FPA

Image Credits

Chaneé Jackson-Kendall