Opening Up...

Multiple relationships force me to stay in the moment and on my toes emotionally, to communicate better, and to face fear on a weekly basis.
-- Elizabeth

Arianne Cohen has been in an open relationship for three years, so in this story she wrote for Britain’s The Guardian, she begins with the tale of her relationship. But she also profiles several other poly configurations.

Cohen lets the folks speak for themselves, so the article is chock full of quotes from people in various types of open relationships, as they discuss the logistics of their relationships and how being open works for them.

Cohen muses:

This seems to be a particularly British take on non-monogamy: comfort with the act, mixed with a compulsive need for privacy. Doing it? Fine. Speaking about it? Never. Claire struggles to articulate this side of her life. “It doesn’t come up terribly often, because most of the people to whom I might be describing it already know. I guess if I was describing it, I’d say ‘open’. Of our larger friend group of 25, it’s not new. Maybe a third are currently in open relationships.” I asked Claire if anyone had ever reacted badly. “Not recently, and possibly not ever,” she says. Her advice for other potential non-monogamists is straightforward: “Think first. Discuss first. Don’t be an idiot. Rules of life, really.”

Read the rest on The Guardian.

Have you registered for OpenSF yet? The OpenSF Conference will be held at the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway in San Francisco, June 8-10, and I’m keynoting! A description of the conference:

OpenSF is a vibrant new Bay Area conference, bringing together like minded people ready to share, explore and dialogue on creating acceptance of the non-monogamy community. OpenSF will have a diverse and rich menu of workshops, interactive seminars and after hours socializing. OpenSF strives to be welcoming and accessible across a range of backgrounds including race and ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, size, age, class and economic access, and physical and mental ability. Our goal is to create a conference where people find wonderful knowledge and experiences and forge amazing new connections.

Read all about the conference’s sessions, presenters, and special events (such as a play party and speed dating!).

Register now and be sure to also follow the conference on Twitter.

Have you ever wished you had a more articulate response to ill-informed arguments about non-monogamy? Bobbu of UK poly blog Polytical wrote a great post about the responses he has formulated over the years for the following arguments:

  • “It’s just an excuse for sleeping around”
  • “You’re young, it’s just a phase”
  • “Don’t you ever think you’ll ever settle down?”
  • “It’s not natural”
  • “It’s not normal”
  • “You can only love one person”

For example, in response to the “It’s not normal” argument, Bobbu writes:

The person who puts this argument forward is likely to have no actual idea of what “normal” is. Philosophy has a whole field dedicated to trying to figure out what it is, and what kind of effect it has in the world. In the thousands of years of trying to get a clear picture, we’ve had very little luck.

This is mostly because people change so much, and their cultures along with them. Once upon a time slavery was normal; at another time worshipping multiple deities; at another it was perfectly fine to kill someone for stealing some bread. So if you’re going to try to argue that I shouldn’t do something because it’s not normal right now, it’s probably best you take a step back and look at the sort of precedents you’ve got there.

Check out the full post on Polytical.

A study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, entitled “Unfaithful Individuals are Less Likely to Practice Safer Sex Than Openly Nonmonogamous Individuals,” has determined just that. Researchers Terri D. Conley, Amy C. Moors, Ali Ziegler, and Constantina Karathanasis undertook the study in order to determine whether sexually unfaithful individuals or negotiated non-monogamous individuals would be more likely utilize safer sex methods. In their introduction, they state:

Given the prevalence and harm of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), there is a need to examine safer sex strategies in the context of romantic relationships and extradyadic sexual encounters . . . little research has addressed the sexual health ramifications of sexually unfaithful partners and members of other high-risk nonmonogamous lifestyles.

Researchers gave an anonymous, online sexual health questionnaire to several hundred sexually unfaithful individuals and individuals with a negotiated non-monogamous agreement. In the end, sexually unfaithful participants demonstrated significantly lower rates of risk reduction behaviors in both their primary relationships and their extradyadic sexual experiences. They were also less likely to undergo frequent STI testing and to discuss safer sex concerns with new partners.

Unfortunately, access to the study is restricted to those with institutional access, a society membership, or those who wish to pay for a 24-hour period of access, but the abstract can be found online.

Despite its ominous title of “The New Sex: Strange Arrangements,” last Friday’s episode of 20/20 included a pretty reasonable 7-minute segment on a poly network. One of the interviewees was Sierra Black, a woman who has written several wonderful articles about parenting in an open marriage, for sites such as Salon and Babble.

You can watch the episode on ABC’s site or on Hulu, and ABC’s article about the open relationship segment is a fairly direct reflection of the segment.

The interviewees do a great job of dispelling the myths that are thrown at them, like that they’re committing adultery and must have jealousy issues. And although the interviewer, Elizabeth Vargas, calls their open relationship a “marital merry-go-round” that’s “a tad kooky,” the tone of the segment is not especially judgmental — and generally allows the folks speak for themselves. Especially touching was the moment when Vargas spoke to one of Sierra’s daughters:

You might think Sierra and Martin’s daughters think their parents’ arrangement is unusual, but when “20/20″ anchor Elizabeth Vargas asked their daughter, Rio, if she thought her family was different from other families, she replied, “Not really.”

Rio’s definition of an open marriage was fairly precise, for a 7-year-old: “Your parent or one of your parents is dating a different person that’s not part of your family,” she said.

Black was content with the outcome of the interview, writing on her blog:

I did this because I wanted to give mainstream America a peek at a healthy, happy, thriving circle of poly families. It’s my hope that we’ve done just that, and that this is a step toward a future where news shows won’t want to do segments on how “kooky” polyamory is, because it’s just a thing some people do. I am fairly confident positive portrayals on TV can make a difference, and I’m grateful to ABC for their approach in this one.

ELIXHER is a website that publishes thought-provoking content relevant to the black queer community and experience. Ashley Young, a black feminist queer dyke, poet, writer, and teaching artist, wrote a wonderful piece about her experience discovering and embracing polyamory.

Young recounts how she first met her partner, Sara, in college. Sara was poly but Young was not, so Sara put her non-monogamous nature on hold until Young was ready to delve into it. After some road bumps, the couple came to a satisfying polyamorous arrangement.

But what makes our relationship special is the fact that we are more than just partners — we are best friends, lovers, sister girls, queer buddies, playmates, road dogs, femme bitches and the list goes on. Being able to explore relationships with other people helps our relationship grow. We share stories of other lovers as sister girls, flirt with men, women and gender variant folks as queer buddies and encourage each other’s sexual adventures as best friends.

Read the whole thing at ELIXHER.

UK sex toy shop Vibrations Direct invited Cunning Minx to write about her experience being poly on their blog. Her article covers a lot of ground, from poly relationship dynamics to her podcast (Polyamory Weekly) to what she loves about being poly:

What I love about being poly and part of the community is the sacredness of diversity. There is a lot of tolerance of weirdness and quirks and I love that, being a quirky person myself. I also love the sex-positivism. Poly people are not shy when talking about sex, sexual preferences and sexual acts in a frank and upfront manner. I love that I can ask a new partner to tell me his fantasies, and he will, without stuttering or shame. Lastly, I’m a big fan of the communication — turns me on. I really do get excited about someone with great communication skills, even more so than about someone with broad shoulders or a big cock.

She also relays her favorite sex toys of the moment and, at the end of the article, includes a list of tips for those new to polyamory. Check it out.

Non-monogamous sex educator Charlie Glickman is in the process of prepping a workshop for OpenSF (a poly, open, and non-monogamous conference which takes place June 8-10 in San Francisco) called “Sex, Shame, & Love.” In the interest of including an array of experiences in his presentation, he is looking for your input. Here’s what he’s looking for:

In my view, love is the emotion that both fosters and results from closer connection, while shame both creates and comes from disconnection. If we’re going to build our skills at seeking the ever-shifting balances in our relationships, we need to be able to encompass both sides. So in this workshop, we’re going to explore how people juggle that. How do we make room for connection and room for creating distance? How do we maintain a relationship with the resilience needed to allow for other romantic/sexual/loving partners? What do we do to manage different relationships with different levels of closeness and connection? What can we do to make room for the feelings that arise (and often challenge us) around both connection and disconnection? What tools do people use for these processes?

. . . I’m curious to know how you make it work. What do you do to make room for those different dynamics? What do you do to manage them? For example, some people don’t do sleepovers with secondary partners, or reserve certain sexual activities for a primary, because they find that that helps them maintain a different bond with their primary partner.

To contribute your voice, comment on Glickman’s post or send him a confidential message through his contact form.

Recently, there has been an explosion of articles about poly and non-monogamy posted on The Good Men Project, a website dedicated to examining men’s roles in modern life.

One article about non-monogamy was posted back in December, but there was a call for submissions that resulted in a good many more articles. Many of them have been posted in their polyamory section, but here’s a list of the best ones, with short snippets from each.

Polyamory, Fidelity and Faithfulness

The more honest you are with your lover about what you want from them, the more opportunities they will have to hurt you, but the more faithful to you it is possible for them to be.

The Poly Closet

. . . it often makes people uncomfortable when I come out as poly — revealing that I am not only capable of romantically loving more than one person, but I am doing so comfortably . . .

Bi Polyamory: Calling a Spade a Spade

Polyamory . . . is the recognition that there is no such thing as an ‘affair,’ ‘hook up,’ ‘mistress,’ ‘Fuck Buddy’ or a ‘Friends with Benefits’ but rather that such really IS a true relationship and that such labels are only the boundaries (positive or negative) that one chooses to practice it in.

Monogamy Isn’t For Everyone; Polyamory Isn’t Going to Ruin the World

I think it is important to set a discourse in motion that recognizes polyamory as a legitimate relational style, and that allows people to begin thinking differently about the variety of ways in which people can relate.

Polyamory: Rebooting Our Definitions of Love and Family

I do long for a world in which we can see the value and possibility of many different ways of forming relationships, and in which we can each freely form our own decisions about the kind of family we’d like to create.

Polyamory Is Pro-Family

We suspected that having multiple adults around to care for an infant would be great, but I don’t think any of us had any idea just how great it would be.

Marcia Baczynski, open relationship coach and co-creator of Cuddle Party,  has launched a website and series of videos featuring tips for successful non-monogamy. Baczynski has been working with open and poly folks for 8 years, so she has seen patterns, success stories, and missteps in her clients’ relationships.

The first video, which is live on Baczynski’s website, is about the three things that successful open relationships have in common. The following videos — which can be accessed by submitting a name and email address — detail the common mistakes that couples make when opening up their relationships, and how to avoid them.

Baczynski is holding a free teleclass on Thursday, March 22nd to answer viewer questions. She can also be found on Twitter.

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