Category: Non-monogamy

Non-monogamous blogger lays out the facts

Samantha Fraser, blogger at Not Your Mother's Playground, was interviewed for an article on non-monogamy in The Grid, an online city magazine run by the Toronto Star. The piece is decent, but the author spends a lot of time stressing how complicated, confusing, and exhausting non-monogamy seems.

Fraser wasn't too bothered by the coverage, but she did take the opportunity to clear up some things that the article left murky. In the process, she wrote a blog post more useful than the original article.

To be honest, the only issue that I have with it is that it seems to focus on the fact that -- a few months into non-monogamy I struggled extra with the little details -- like the visual cue of my husband’s date's wine glass being left behind in my kitchen. When we were relatively fresh other people fuckers, silly shit like that was hard to handle. So I share those stories with other people because those are the things that threw me for a loop back in the day. A few commenters on the article have latched onto the wine glass story, suggesting that if I’m not comfortable with that then I must not really be happy with non-monogamy at all.

And this is a mild challenge I always see that, for the most part, I ignore. There are a lot of assumptions out there about open relationships. First of all, people will often react strongly when they hear someone is in one. "Isn't that hard? What about jealousy? What if you fall in love?". On the flip side however, if I suggest mySELF that non-monogamy is hard and that sometimes those questions can have really tough answers, then I obviously must not be happy with it.

. . . I find this attitude so ridiculous which is why I will constantly strive to be honest when discussing open relationships . . . However in the interest of clarity, I will list a few points here that maybe I haven't said in some time.

Read Fraser's list of things she has personally learned from practicing non-monogamy.

Audiobook version of Opening Up

Yes, it's true! As of last fall, Opening Up is available as an audiobook. This is my first book ever to be converted into an audiobook, and it's unabridged -- a full 11 hours of non-monogamous goodness. The audiobook is narrated by Jo Anna Perrin and published by Tantor Audio.

You can buy the audiobook online on many sites, such as Amazon, Audible, and Tantor (where it is currently 50% off!). Mp3 audio samples are available on all of those sites, so you can preview the narration before purchase.

Battling breast cancer with multiple partners

Allena Gabosch is a polyamorous woman and the founder of Seattle's Center for Sex Positivity. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she turned to her partners for support and comfort. In "Breast Cancer and Polyamory: A Story of Non-Monogamy, Love and Commitment While Going Through Chemo," Rachel Rabbit White interviews Gabosch about the ups and downs of dealing with cancer as a poly woman.

Gabosch quickly found that being poly was a huge asset in her fight against breast cancer. Her partners were able to comfort each other. Gabosch became much closer with her partner's primary, Sophie, who treated her with an array of herbal remedies and vitamins, and she bonded with Sophie's daughter as well. She was always surrounded by love.

The most incredible part was I never went to the oncologist, to chemo, or to surgery without one or more of my partners with me. When I went in for the lobectomy . . . As they were wheeling me away, I showered each lover in kisses. The nurses did look at each other, like, 'well this is strange.'

There were other unforeseen benefits as well. When Gabosch's sex drive diminished, she did not have to worry about whether her partners' sexual needs were being met. Gabosch even met a new partner, right in the middle of her battle.

Dealing with cancer only strengthened Gabosch's belief in polyamory.

In both cancer and love, for me it is about not being at the whims of society and what you are supposed to do, but being proactive and finding what really works for you, and I think being poly has a lot to do with shaping that idea.

. . . I learned a lot about love and commitment and how committed these people truly are to me. One of the ideas people have about polyamory is “well you guys don’t know how to commit, that is why you are poly” I always knew that wasn’t true but here I was really seeing it, my partners were so committed to me, 100 percent . . . I never lacked for attention for my entire cancer experience, and that is a powerful place to come from.

This interview is an ultimately uplifting reminder of the shortness of life and the importance of support and love. Read the full interview in SexIs Magazine.

Female boxer: polyamorous?

Listening to Weekend Edition on the local NPR station today, I heard an interesting piece, "'I Am A Boxer': Fighter In The Ring, Lady Outside It," about female boxers who hope to make the U.S. Olympic Team for women's boxing. The first woman profiled was Bertha Aracil, a 29 year old amateur boxer. Talking about Aracil, reporter Marianne McCune said this (emphasis mine):

When I met her she was living in a basement apartment in the Bronx with a man and a woman she called her husband and her wife. They were cooking for a band of nieces, nephews, and sisters, part of a big family of Cuban immigrants. Aracil is 5'9" with jeans, boots, she says that her many tattoos tell the story of who she is.

Whoa, what? That's right. Not only was Aracil clearly open about her nontraditional and nonmonogamous (polyamorous?) relationship, but the NPR reporter treated it as completely ordinary, just part of the profile. Unfortunately, this little item is missing from the written piece on npr.org, but you can download the audio of the segment here.