PS002 - Open Relationships - February Podcast

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podcast002

Episode: https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/open-relationships

February's Podcast on Erotic Awakening, join me as I talk about all things non-monogamy. Starting with exploring a break down of open relationships, polyamory, emotional monogamy, and all kinds of other combination. I shares examples from his experience though his non-monogamous life, and explore the mathmatics of the real complexities behind our complex ecosystems. Plus jealousy, valuing the variety of relationships, security, and how to ask for a really yummy date. Then Dan & dawn share a cup of tea with Lucar and PolyAnna as they tell us about there new polyamory themed website lookingthrough.us, "an album of experiences with non-monogamy, polyamory, and modern love."

Reminder, next month’s topic is age roleplay, from adult babies and schoolgirls to bullies and playing Santa Claus… and everything inbetween. If you have questions, they can be sent to Lee@PassionAndSoul.com, with the subject line “Ask Lee” Questions will be looked into both on this podcast, as well as my Ask Lee column on PassionAndSoul.com 

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• Passion & Soul Episode 002 Transcript

  [music intro]

  Announcer:
  Welcome to Erotic Awakening, a weekly view of all things erotic. From BDSM to erotic spirituality, from swinging as a lifestyle to simply fun kink, each week we bring you a diverse offering of erotic and alternative lifestyles in its many forms.

  This podcast includes frank discussions of highly sexual topics. This podcast is intended for consenting adults over the age of 18. If you are offended by this type of content, we recommend you stop listening right now.

  Lee:
  Hello, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington. I'm so glad to be back for a second month in a row.

  This month, we're going to be talking about consensual non-monogamy, sometimes known as polyamory, sometimes known as swinging, sometimes known as alternatively structured monogamy, or open marriages. We're going to be talking about all of that kind of stuff. And I want to thank Dan and Dawn again for opening up their podcast for me being able to come back for every third Monday.

  At the end of last month's podcast, I opened up for any of you who wanted to write me and ask me questions about consensual non-monogamy to do so, because I'm announcing next month's topic a month in advance. So for folks who are paying attention for March, that means that our topic is going to be age play, which is going to be everything from adult babies to dressing up like Santa Claus and everything in between, And I'll talk more about that at the end of the show.

  But for people who wanted to write in and talk about consensual non-monogamy and polyamory, I had five or six different people write in, and a lot of you had overlapping questions and a lot of overlapping concepts, which tells me that the threads that run through relationships in general, not just non-monogamous ones, but relationships in general are universal concepts.

  So I'd like to actually dive in and talk about a question that we got from one person, which was: "Seriously though, what does polyamory even mean? I mean, can you at least give me an example or an explanation of the various dynamics in poly relationships?"

  What a great question. I really appreciate that you were willing to write in and ask that question, Jay. And it's been interesting for me. I last week was out in St. Louis, Missouri, at Washington University in St. Louis, which is a big college out there, and I was doing a class on open relationship structures.

  And it was really fascinating to me to see all of the different ways people interpreted these words, "consensual non-monogamy," because some people were like, oh, well, you mean like Mormon marriages? And other people were like, oh, you're talking about when people are really just cool with having affairs, while other folks were like, no no no, we're talking about constructed triads where three people are in a relationship for life. And the answer is yes, on all of the above.

  There's a really diverse set of types of relationships that are consensual non-monogamy. For some people, this is monogamy where people have non-sexual exceptions. So what that might look like is that people are in a monogamous, one partner only, "I am dedicated towards one individual," but they might have somebody that's okay to go and cuddle with. Or it might be acceptable to go and do BDSM play, but not sex. Where the sexual relationship is just between the two partners, but there might be other non-sexual experiences.

  For some folks that means - oh, you can curl up with anybody, or I'm okay with you making out with people, but not going to bed with them. For other people, it's no no no, really, when I say non-sexual exceptions, I mean that it's okay for you to go shopping, or to say "I love you" to someone else, but if you touch them, that's no longer cool within our relationship.

  Some people call that monogamy with non-sexual exceptions. I know other people who call it open marriage. I know other people who just say, I don't know, that's just kind of life. Why would we even have to negotiate that? Why should anyone, even that I'm dating, care if I happen to hug my friends, or curl up and sleep next to them?

  And the answer to that is that every single relationship is different. Whether we call it monogamous or polyamorous, or swinging, or anything else, what my definition of these words are might not be what your definition of the words are.

  So if I say we're monogamous, you might think, oh, so you're sexually only involved with this one person. Well, for other people, they might be emotionally monogamous. So emotional monogamy is where people are only in love with or only in an emotional dyadic relationship with one other person. So it's you and me, and no one else, as far as it comes to love.

  But maybe there's sexual exceptions. I know a number of people who I would define as swingers. Swingers are individuals - or couples or groups - that show up to specific encounters, have sexual relations with other people, and then leave those encounters. At least that's my definition.

  But I know some people who consider themselves, that go to swinger parties and it's a pair of people who show up together and either split up and have their own fun but then leave together, or show up together, have fun with each other, adding in an extra person, and then leave together. Who consider themselves monogamous, because at the end of the day, in 99.9% of their life, it's just the two of them. As far as their kids are concerned, it's just the two of them. As far as their parents are concerned, it's just the two of them. And to them, it's no one else's business if they happen to put out a Craigslist ad or a FetLife profile looking to swing with someone every once in a blue moon. And those people consider themselves monogamous.

  Now, I know other people who say, that's not monogamy, that's polyamory. Because polyamory is - now, I apologize ahead of time for the word because it is a broken word, it's part Greek and part Latin, but - poly, many, amory, love. Many loves.

  I know some people who interpret polyamory as meaning that I have multiple emotional or romantic relationships at the same time. I know other people who define polyamory as being, oh, I have multiple sexual relationships at the same time.

  I know some people who define polyamory as, I am open to loving many, and that love is not a finite resource that I have to dole out and worry on whether I have enough credit left in the bank to love another person. That love is not something that I have to weigh out by measures, and for some polyamorous, the notion that love grows. That if I love you, and you, and you, the total amount of love in my life grows exponentially.

  Now, this can get really tricky for people who say, well, I'm polyamorous and I'm thinking, oh, that means you're open to loving many people, and what they mean is I'm open to having sex with many people. Or I'm currently dating many people.

  It gets even more confusing when people start using the word poly. Poly simply means many. Does that mean that you're polysexual and happen to have many sexual encounters? Does it mean you're polyromantic and you have multiple romantic partners?

  Does that mean you're polytribal, which is a coin from a friend of mine in Arizona, who thinks of himself as being open to multiple relationships but only within the tribe of his heart. That he doesn't have those encounters with people outside his circle of about 20 close friends who he loves and cherishes, who are the people that he would drop everything in a moment's notice to take care of them in a hospital?

  For some people, it means, when I say polyfidelitous, it's the notion of, oh, I am dedicated, fidelitous, I am dedicated to a few people instead of just one. Polyfidelity can take on the shape of a triad. Three people who have decided to enter into a long-term or even a marriage-type relationship with each other.

  Polyamory gets a little bit interesting when we start looking at the mathematics of polyamory. What do I mean by the mathematics of polyamory?

  So, when I first was talking about open relationships, gosh, I've been in open relationship structures now for... oh, wow, I'm getting old, 17 years? Yeah, yeah, for 17 years.

  My first serious boyfriend, he and I, I was genderqueer at the time, and I wasn't sure whether I was going to transition or not or what was going to go on with that. But he looked at me and said, well, are you sure you want to transition? How is that going to affect your sex life? And I'm like, I don't know, I date guys, so I guess that means I'll only be dating gay guys. And he's like, well, are you only into dating guys because you've only been exposed to dating guys or because you only like guys?

  And I went, well, I don't know. I'm a teenager at this point. So I'm like, I don't know. I've just never really thought about it. I think girls are pretty, girls are fun, but I haven't really explored anything. And he said, what I'd like to do is I'd like to open us up so that you can explore with other people. What do you think?

  So I thought about it for a little while, and I went, you know, it would be interesting to explore with women. And he decided to hook me up on my first date, and that was the beginning of my bisexual career. But it was also the beginning of us consciously exploring non-monogamy, that we both were open and transparent about what we were doing, talked with each other about it and our personal desires, and then fumbled our way through that year and a half, two years of the relationship where it was open.

  And it was a successful relationship. I mean, it's really funny when I talk to people who say, like, oh, it's a shame that I broke up with them. I mean, I can't believe I wasted the last six years of my life.

  And I go, really? You wasted the last six years? I don't understand that concept. I've had amazing relationships that lasted two months, and I've had alright relationships that lasted much longer.

  I've had relationships that were burning and fiery and passionate for a couple of years, and then alright for a while, and then kind of not so alright for the last six months, or downright challenging and/or abusive that last couple of months.

  Every single relationship is different, and I think that's important to consider as well when we're talking about this notion of polyamory, because I know some people who go, well, it's not really polyamory unless you dedicate yourself within a group and you're together as a whole for like ... five to twelve years, and then it's a real thing, right?

  Then it's a real thing, because if it's just me and my spouse opening up to bring in a boyfriend for the two of us, that's not really polyamory unless we've been seeing that person for six months, or they've met our children, or they've met my mother. It's not real until then.

  That's something I'm really facing right now in my own life as I'm in the middle of planning a ownership ceremony in a Dominant/submissive dynamic relationship at this time with somebody who I've known for about three years. And we've decided that after uncertainty for over two years, and then turning it more serious in the last nine months, that we've decided that we want to have a commitment ceremony within the framework of our D/s relationship.

  And both of us have other partners, other lovers and things like that. And we ran into this challenge of - how do we know if it's real? How can we tell that there's that security of the realness of a dynamic?

  Because there's that fear that comes up of, oh, honey, you're not his other girlfriend. You're his booty call. You're his thing on the side.

  There's the joke that Chris Rock did a piece called "The GED Class Of 99." There's no sex in the champagne room. In his song, No Sex In The Champagne Room, he talks about the fact that if you have been dating a man for six weeks and you have still not met his friends, you are not his girlfriend. Right? That's Chris Rock's test on "is it real?" Is this really a relationship? Or is this something that's happening on the side?

  Now, I'm not going to say that things happening on the side is wrong in any way, shape or form. It works really well for some people. Or else, AshleyMorgan.com, the fabulous/slightly skeezy website that's all about people who are married hooking up with other people who are married and having affairs on the side, would not be booming in the ways that it is.

  But for a lot of us, craving that security is part of polyamorous relationships, that we want to know that these are real relationships. So the question that I ask, folks, is how do you determine if your relationship is real? Is it that you have pieces of jewelry that you've exchanged? Does it mean that your coworkers know about that relationship? Does it mean that your mother approves of the relationship?

  I know for talking with my partner, we were discussing the fact that, oh, we're going to be doing the ceremony, it's a commitment ceremony, but it has the word "ownership" on the invitation. And I said, yeah, I can't send that to my mother. I don't know if she'll really get that it's a real relationship. And the more we talked, we realized, oh, no, really, my partner needs their mother to understand that this isn't going to be some drunken exchange of oaths at some random pagan festival. This is something that we've thought about seriously, months in advance that we sent out invitations for, that we invited close friends to, that we're going to be having something that's going to say, we are choosing to walk our life side by side for a period of time. And mom needs to get that ahead of time.

  I know other people that that whole family-outside-influence is in a different direction. My former husband, we were together for about seven and a half or eight years or so - depends on when you start counting, because we knew each other as friends before we started dating.

  I'm one of those kinds of folks that tends to prefer knowing people for a little while, before it becomes a real thing - for myself.

  And we were out, completely out, about the fact that he also had another girlfriend, and also played with a couple of other people, and that I also had another boyfriend, and that I also played with a couple of other people. We had some people who we explored relationships with together as well. And we were completely out about this.

  We had a system with my former husband's mother and father, that if they asked a question like, "Oh, what are you doing this weekend?" Oh, well, we're going to go hang out with some people that we care about. "Oh, really? What are you going to get up to?" We would then pause and say, Are you sure you want to know the details? Which would be a key phrase (laughs) in both directions to say, "Are you sure you really want the details?" And oftentimes his father would say, "Yeah, I totally want to know." While his mother would go, "Nope, I'm good. I'm good. But thanks for offering."

  So when we came, you know, when we announced that we were going to be getting married and having a full marriage ceremony, my former husband's mother said, "Oh, so you guys are going to be stopping this whole polyamory thing then, right?"

  And he and I just paused and looked at each other, and looked at her" and looked at each other again, and he said, "Noooo... why would you get that impression?"

  In the eyes of his mother, this polyamory thing was fine as long as we're just dating. As long as, you know, there's not a mortgage, and kids, and complex families, and families of blood, interwoven with this whole thing. That there was the notion that polyamory was fine as long as we're swinging singles, but as soon as we were going to be getting married, that was a different issue. That was a different choice.

  And I know some people that that is their choice, that until a certain level of seriousness within a relationship comes up, they're happy to be polyamorous, but when it becomes "real" it's something different.

  While I have other friends that no, really, they have been polyamorous their whole lives, and the notion - literally, raised in polyamorous households, where they were raised by mom, and mom's girlfriend, and part-time by dad, and dad's second wife, and dad's other girlfriend, and mom's occasional boyfriend - and grew up in that household and are now in their twenties, and have been doing this their whole life and have been taught that, no, we here believe in love. And there is many people who love each other in this house, and many people who love you.

  Kids need to know that they're not going to be abandoned, that they're not going to be left behind.

  This notion of security is another one that came up in some other of the emails that I had. I had somebody ask me, they sent me an email, this is two snippets from it.

  "I found myself craving a token of security, a definition of my role, a clarification of my place in the relationship. This was the key issue. I want to know that I'm special, treasured, important, beloved and valued. Is my desire for even a small amount of security unreasonable? I know that nothing is permanent and uncertainty is a nature of reality, but does that mean we don't commit to anything?"

  And my response to that viewer is no, to that reader, is no, and listener. I think security is a completely reasonable desire within relationships. But there are scales, that different people value security at different levels. I know some people that in a scale of 1 to 10, they're happy to have their security be at a 2 or 3. You know, as long as I kind of know that you're vaguely gonna be around for me, whatever, it's all good.

  I know other people that - no, I need to know in my heart, in my being, in my pores, that barring unforeseen circumstances, you care enough about me to really be someone who will take care of me when I come out of the hospital.

  That you will love me, as they phrase in Christian marriage ceremonies, till death do us part. That that level of security is a vital, essential thing.

  There are other scales in relationships. I know some people that really need sexual compatibility. That that's an 8, 9, 10. I know some people that it's about connection. For others, it's about romance. Or someone who I can laugh with and be silly with.

  For some people, it's having partners who I'm financially compatible, and we have similar goals around houses and shared expenses. I know some people who need to have someone who they can be fellow adventurers with. For some, it's the shared co-parenting styles. Or I need someone who will have amazing sensual connections with me, who can kiss me forever.

  I know some folks that no, I need a partner who can be spiritually connected with me, and who will share my faith and my connection to deity and divinity.

  I know other people that that 9, 10, needs to be someone who I can be artistic with. Maybe somebody I can share silence with. Someone I can love. Someone who I can have my day-to-day living with. Someone I can have be a shoulder to cry on.

  The different reasons we get in relationship are incredibly myriad, and the amount of connection we need within that is incredibly myriad. This is one of the reasons that people enter into polyamorous relationships to begin with. If we have all of these different needs, sometimes one partner can't make all of those needs connected in the same way, right? Can't feed all of those needs in the same way.

  Now, I know some people that they can make that work. But for other people, maybe it's having one person that we can explore our sexuality with, and our romance, and maybe even co-parent with and live with day to day, but that we have someone else we explore our faith with, who might be a best friend, or our sister, or a cousin, or somebody that we're able to go down to prayer circle with and connect with in those ways.

  Now, most people I know don't think of that as polyamory, because they think, oh, it's all about love or sex or romance. But I really believe that we are complex ecosystems of the heart, that every single one of us needs to connect to other people in different ways. I'm personally saddened that we don't often take the time to really thank the people in our lives who do contribute in some way, unless they're sexual or romantic partners. Then we think of getting them Valentine's Day cards, or romantic gifts, or wooing them in different ways. But when's the last time we said to our brother or our sister, "Hey, I love you. You're amazing. Thank you for being in my life." Or said to our best friend, "Thank you so much for the following things that you contribute to my world."

  That's for me one of the reasons that I've really been exploring polyamory over the last 18 years - 17 years, 18 years, whatever we're at right now - is because it's really taught me to value the variety of relationships in my world and all of the things that they contribute.

  So I would say to the reader, to the person who was listening and wanted to know about this notion of security, if you know your need, your needs are around security, that you need to know that you feel treasured and beloved and safe and secure and that you're not going to be dumped tomorrow, then own that. Own it.

  People in our culture have this - and when I talk about my culture, I'm talking about mostly North America - I hear this word "needy" as being a negative thing. "Oh, they're so needy. Gosh, I can't believe they have so many needs."

  EVERY human being has needs. Every single one of us has needs. It's called being human. I need food. I need water. I need a roof over my head. I need to know that I am safe. I need to know where my next meal is going to come from. And for some of us, our needs are varied.

  Maslow, for example, talks about the hierarchy of needs, that traditionally we need to take care of our food, and water, and shelter. And for some people, sex, right? He groups sex, and being able to reproduce safely, within that bottom tier of hierarchy of needs. And then there's higher needs above that, the need to explore our personal identity, the need to connect with other human beings. That's the generic hierarchy of needs, and please Google "Maslow's hierarchy." It's a fascinating read.

  But I know other people that their needs pyramid is not the same as Maslow's. Where no, really, love, or touch, or connection, or faith, or beauty actually takes a higher precedent in some cases than food, or water, or safety, or shelter.

  This is where I see a lot of abusive or addictive relationship habits come up, where people who are in desperate need, who need touch, who need sex, who need romance, who need to feel beloved will put those needs above things like physical safety. And suddenly, situations like being beaten by your spouse seem perfectly acceptable, because at least I'm getting my needs met, my needs for love.

  Now, that's a total tangent, and I own that fact. But I think it's something to really consider is to really take a long look, if you're considering being in any relationships, monogamous, polyamorous, or even with ourselves, right - coming back to that mathematics of poly that I brought up earlier, I'll get to that in a second - really look at what your needs are.

  And can you get these needs met with this partner? How do you bring up to your partner that, oh, I really am feeling like I need to be something special to you. "Well, you are special." Well, what I mean by that is, they're your girlfriend. "Well, you're my other girlfriend." Can we come up with a special term for us? That I am what this is. Or maybe we have a prop that we both have. And by a prop, I mean a collar or a ring or a piece of jewelry that I'm able to carry you around with me.

  Maybe it's, instead of words or props, maybe it's about the fact that, no, really, I want to know that we have a date night, that we're going to spend quality time with each other every single Thursday because that's what makes it feel real, is the dedication of quality time. Right?

  Think about the different ways that you want to have that

  or unique. Or what it takes for you to have that sense of security. Really look at your needs and wants.

  Now, part of looking at our needs and wants in polyamorous - and, really, in all relationships - is taking a good self-assessment, which is where we come back to that notion of mathematics of poly.

  Now, mathematics of poly is that when I was first talking with people, oh, it's one person here and one person here and they're dating, so there's one relationship.

  That's what I was saying to a friend of mine.

  This was like ten years ago.

  And I said, yeah, of course, there's one relationship.

  And so if you have three people dating, I've got person A and person B and person C, so we have that relationship AB, AC, and BC. So you've got three relationships when you have two people. And he looked at me and said, no, you have seven. And I went, what? What are you talking about?

  And he said, when you've got one person, A, there's one relationship. If you're not dating anyone else, whether you're choosing to be celibate, whether you're being autonomous at this time, whether you're being sexual simply with yourself, and I shouldn't even say simply. To be honest, some of my best sex is with myself. I have a really fantastic relationship with myself. I even married myself last year, which (laughs) could be its own podcast in and of itself.

  But when you're person A, there's one relationship. And when A and B get together, there's actually three relationships. Person A with themselves, person B with themselves, and persons A and B together.

  When we have three people, we have person A by themselves, person B by themselves, person C by themselves. AB, AC, and BC, and ABC. Seven relationships.

  This grows exponentially. When we have four relationships, we have 15, etc. We have four people in the relationship. Now, that's assuming that everyone within the relationship has an interrelationship with everyone else in the system. Not everyone does polyamory that way.

  Some people do polyamory in what's considered a V-shape, where one person has two partners, but the other two partners are only dating that first person. So person A is dating person B and C, but there's an AB and an AC, but not a BC direct relationship.

  Now, that belief, I think, is a little bit skewed personally, because I think there is always going to be a BC relationship. I think those other, in a V-shape relationship, I think there is still a relationship dynamic of some sort. Whether it's resentful... "Oh, God, I can't believe they're going out with person C again. They never spend any time at home."

  You're developing a relationship with person C, even if you've never met them, because you're becoming emotionally invested in their existence on this planet. I care that they exist. And hate is just as powerful an emotion as love is, right? Because it's about charge, it's about connection, it's about caring. And if I care enough to hate someone, it means I care about them.

  It's why you have people in various storybook things, and in real life as well, where people are so passionately against someone, and so they finally say, why are you always against me like this? And suddenly the hot sex scene breaks out in the movie. Oh, because I cared about you. Because I actually invested in you.

  Right, so I think even if we don't invest at that level, person C exists in the continued circles of my world. They are someone who I love, loves. Therefore, the relationship between A and C affects A and B because if A and C are having a really, really crappy time in their relationship, my bet is A is going to share some of that in some way. Even if they don't share the details of it, they might come out of the fight with C, come back to partner B and say, hey, I'm really having some challenges right now. I don't know if I'm really in the mood for us to play.

  It's going to have an effect upon the relationship, how those outside relationships are doing. That's why I talk about it as being a complex ecosystem. That person C's mental health affects their relationship with person A, who they're dating, which affects partner/person B, who's in the relationship with A, because it all is about the expenditure of spoons and energy, right? That expenditure of our own essence.

  And I think that's really important to consider and doesn't often get looked at within our relationships at large. This is not just about our relationships with our romantic partners. My relationship with my boss affects my romantic relationships. My relationship with my political world and politics at large affects my relationships. My relationship with my biological parents affects my relationships. My relationship to children affects my relationships. These are all interwoven and in a lot of ways, interdependent. They affect each other.

  So I had someone else write in and ask about jealousy. They said, "I've been in a non-monogamous relationship for over four years, and I still have issues with jealousy. I was wondering if you have any tips to avoid or cope with the green-eyed monster?"

  To me, I think in the jealousy conversation, there are some things that really need to be looked at. The first is, is it jealousy or is it envy?

  For those of us who have been in a long-term relationship with one person, and that other person starts having NRE, or new relationship energy. Those sparkly first three weeks or six months, depending on who the person is, where it's like, oh my god, they're so amazing and so beautiful and so exciting and I'm going to do all the really good stuff with them. It can be really challenging to watch our partner get all, you know, twitterpated over this new human being, and it can lead to the feeling that it's jealousy, that I don't want them having that, that I don't like this feeling, I'm jealous of this feeling.

  Are you jealous? Or are you envious, that you wish they had that feeling with you? Do you wish that you got to go out on the hot, sexy, romantic date where they wore the sexy lingerie? Do you wish that they remembered your birthday? Is it about the spark within your relationship that you're missing?

  Because sometimes it can be jealousy. And for me, some of my biggest tricks on things on jealousy is A, looking at what my own inventory of needs. What am I missing here? Is my partner able to give those, and if not, where am I going to find them? Can I be the source of that joy? Am I projecting my own internal sorrow or pain upon this relationship?

  And when it comes to projections, am I perceiving that my partner is having a great fantastic time that I'm being jealous of, when maybe that's not really what's happening?

  I don't actually know the interior details of my partner's relationship with someone else unless that's built into my relationship to my partner.

  My current partner and I are trying an experiment around what we call radical transparency or radical honesty, where at any time, and it's again, because we're based in a Master/slave or a D/s dynamic, that it's a lot easier for me to demand this of the dynamic. And you know, non-egalitarian relationships, or non-even relationships, have different advantages and disadvantages when it comes to polyamory.

  And we've decided to embark on an experiment where at any time I can say, "Boy, tell me what you're thinking," and they have to tell me what they're thinking. Or I can say, what do you mean by that? And they have to answer with full transparency what they mean by that, whatever that is.

  So, for example, they had a sexual liaison with someone else who's been a friend of theirs for some time, and they said, "oh, yeah, it was really nice, we hooked up last night, it was really fun." And I said, "did you actually have a good time, or are you saying that because you feel the need to?"

  And it led to a really powerful conversation between us about the notion of, "oh - well, actually, it was really interesting for me because having been predominantly sexually involved with you recently, I found myself comparing. Not intentionally, but I found myself comparing." And I'm like, well, let's talk about that, and it opened up really fantastic conversations.

  Now, the pain with radical honesty and transparency, is that sometimes they're honest and transparent, and I don't always want to hear what comes out of their mouth.

  So I really, when I look at the notion of jealousy, I really look at whether I'm projecting on that relationship. Is there actually something to be jealous of? I do gratitude inventories. What am I grateful about in this relationship?

  A former Girl of mine was having challenges with us being in a long-distance relationship and being polyamorous. And so we decided that every single day, she was going to wake up in the morning and do a gratitude list. And this wasn't even a story about the polyamorous within our relationship, but to just do, "what are you grateful for today in this moment?"

  But she also did that within our relationship from time to time, of actually stopping going, "I'm incredibly grateful that my Sir remembers my birthday, that my Sir remembers my favorite food. I am grateful that my Sir sends me cute little schmoopy text messages."

  And being able to look back, we did that in a journal that was in a LiveJournal format, so we were able to go back and look at it. I had a tool that I was able to go back and look at her lists, and on occasion gut check myself as her partner and be like, "oh, wow, I haven't been sending her schmoopy text messages. I wonder if she's missing them."

  And then I had a choice, either start doing them and seeing if that improved her mood, or asking her, "hey, I realize I haven't been sending you schmoopy text messages, little lovey romantic text messages. Is that something that you miss? I don't know. I've kind of fallen out of doing it." And it's a conversation opener.

  When we open these conversations around jealousy, I think it's really important that we sandwich them with positivity, or if not positivity, with at least things that we can fall back on as far as GOOD stuff within the relationship.

  Because if I'm in an open relationship and I say, "God, I'm really jealous about all the time that you spend with your other partner, and you never do anything with me, and I hate this and I hate that," and all I hear is, "hate?"

  If I'm the partner that is in the middle of literally being doped up on drugs from having fallen in love, because it's a neurochemical thing too, right? If I'm doped up right now and I'm seeing my partner of the last couple of years be, "I hate this, I hate that, you don't love me, blah, blah, blah."

  If I've got somebody else who's telling me, "I love you, you're amazing, you're perfect, you poo gold, and your piss is made of unicorn glitter, and I think you're the most amazing thing on the entire planet," it can be very easy.

  And I have been this person, before.

  It can be very easy to look at my partner of many years and say, you don't understand me anymore, we've grown apart. And that's not to say we have to soft wrap everything that we do, but I found it much easier to have my partner remember that I love them by saying, "I love you, and I'm really happy that you're exploring this new relationship. And it's really been making me think about the fact that I loved when we were in our first six months of our relationship, and we used to go out and do this stuff all the time. Would you be open for us going out on a really yummy date next week?"

  Notice that I'm not saying, "God, I mean, I know you're in the first six months of the relationship with them, but why are you getting to do all that when I used to have that stuff and you never give me good stuff anymore?" That isn't often heard very well.

  For me to say from an "I" statement, not "you," you don't do this, you're not this, you're not that, or you used to - saying, I remember, I miss, I love, I would like to, would you like to do this with me? We could.

  Because "you" statements often alienate partners. And for me, within polyamory, that's been a really useful trick, technique, whatever you want to call it, for looking at jealousy. And I think these are really serious issues for people in any relationship, whether you're choosing to be monogamous, whether you're choosing to be solitary and have a relationship with yourself, whether you're choosing to be polyamorous, whether that's polyfidelitous, polytribalist, polysexual, poly-whatever that means to you.

  And remember, as you're building polyamorous relationships, whether it's transitioning from a relationship that's been monogamous into being polyamorous, or whether you're openly poly from the very beginning and saying, hey, I might not be dating anybody else right now, but I believe that love is not a finite resource, and as we start seeing each other, it's important that you know that that's a belief of mine.

  Or whether you've already been in a crazy dodecahedron of desire, with twelve people interlaced in different ways with one another, plus the occasional spread-off fractal here and there, that's just a weekend hookup that you occasionally have.

  Remember to look at yourself and what your own personal needs, wants and desires are. And also really be aware that different people mean different things using the same words. So if I'm negotiating to be polyamorous with someone, and I say polyamorous and they say polyamorous, we might not mean the same things. These words are conversation starters, not things to make assumptions around.

  Because if the person I'm flirting with online says, "I'm polyamorous, you're polyamorous, let's hook up," they might mean, let's hook up. While I might mean, "I would love to build a long-term system with you because I'd like to bring you into the complex system of my heart, and I'd like to build a tribe with you, and have us find six or seven other people who want to open up a piece of land in upstate New York, and run away there, and create our own space where we can all live and love together."

  Making the assumptions in either direction can be kind of challenging. (laughs) We'll just phrase it that way. So really look at what the words are that you're using and what those words mean to other people.

  So thank you again for joining me here on Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington. I'm going to be back next month. And next month's subject, the reminder, next month's topic is age-based role playing. So whether you're into adult babies or curious about schoolgirl dress up, could be about bullies or playing Santa Claus. It could be people in their 60s reaching back and remembering when they were 19 years old and snuck into their first bar. Everything in between age-based role playing is going to be the topic next month.

  So if you have any questions around age-based role playing or around things that I brought up in this podcast, feel free to drop me a note at Lee, L-E-E, at passionandsoul.com with the subject line "Ask Lee."

  And I'm going to be looking at questions on the podcast, and if I don't have space to respond to them in podcasts, I'll be answering them in my Ask Lee column on passionandsoul.com.

  So thank you again for joining me, and you can find me anywhere on the Internet by doing a search for Lee Harrington. Though, warning, there is another Lee Harrington out there who writes books about dog walking. She's lovely, but she's not me.

  Or just type in PassionAndSoul as one word on FetLife, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, DeviantArt, you name it, you'll find me. I'm incredibly easy to stalk. In fact, if you go to passionandsoul.com, on the right hand side, there's a little button that says Stalking Made Easy, and it lists all the different ways to find me on the Internet. So feel free to drop me a note.

  Thank you, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, for joining me in this fantastic conversation, and for sending in all of your questions. I really appreciate everyone who's been having a dialogue with me as this podcast project grows, and for Dan and Dawn for opening up their space here at Erotic Awakening.

  This has been Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington, and until next time, stay cool, have fun, be authentically you, and don't do anything I wouldn't do. Which, luckily, isn't very much.

  Have a fantastic journey.

  [musical interlude]

  Dan:
  So, we are sitting around today drinking a little bit of tea.

  dawn:
  We are.

  Dan:
  And we are sitting here with Lucar and PolyAnna, and we were just talking about how you guys have started a new polyamory-themed website. And I responded by saying, well, why in the world do we need another polyamory-themed website when there's already a million of them out there? What makes this one any different?

  And you were talking and talking and talking, I said, shh, shh, shh, wait, wait, wait. And I busted out the recorder, and now we can do that all over again. So, repeat yourself. So, why do we? So, the website is Looking Through Us.

  Well, and I should start off by saying, hey, Lucar, hi, PolyAnna.

  PolyAnna:
  Hi!

  Lucar:
  Hi there.

  Dan:
  So, the website is LookingThrough.Us, and it is a polyamory website. And to get to the point, why do we need another polyamory website?

  PolyAnna:
  I guess I'll answer that one. It was my thought that there's a lot of information on the web that ties poly to other lifestyle choices, or it's sort of an add-on to those lifestyle choices. So, you have kink and poly, or you have pagan and poly, or you have BDSM and poly, you have Leather and poly, you have Dark Odyssey and poly.

  And so, there's not really one place that you can go to just talk about, really, what poly is, which is relationships, and relationship structures, and feelings, and all the things that are connected to feelings.

  And also, when my husband and I were first considering poly, we didn't consider ourselves any of those other things. We were two people who had sort of taken a good look at swinging and said, not for us, maybe.

  Dan:
  Mm-hmm.

  PolyAnna:
  And then we had kind of sort of been on our own, out and about trying to figure it out. And I ended up with a boyfriend, and that sort of challenged him. And we had managed to get through him having a girlfriend, and a breakup, and all that on our own, and we decided we need to do something else.

  But when you start that research process, you have a book that was written 25 years ago (laughs) which is heavily weighted to being bisexual, which is, in many people's experience with poly, true. But it wasn't ours at the time. And then you had poly and everything else.

  And it can be daunting when you're already stepping outside of your comfort zone to then be asked to step in to things that you're not even sure what they are. And you're not, you're pretty sure you don't want to find out right now. You really just want to know, how do I deal with my wife and her boyfriend?

  So I wanted to have a site that was just focusing on the relationships, on being poly. There's so much support for if you're kinky, or if you're pagan, or if you're Unitarian, or if you, I mean, add anything to poly you want. (Dan laughs) But there's no one good place to come and read about people living the poly lifestyle.

  Dan:
  Okay.

  Lucar:
  What I had in mind was kind of - almost the same thing, but from a slightly different angle, was that whether you're involved in a BDSM relationship or a Master/slave relationship, or some other kind of kinky relationship, whichever, whatever the first part of that sentence is, the common thread running through all of them is that there are relationships and there are basic principles for good relationships that apply across the board. And those are the things that we want to concentrate on this site. Those are the things that's the sort of advice that we want to give and the message that we want to bring to people.

  Dan:
  So, understanding that the point of the site is a view of polyamory that's focused on just polyamory. What are you actually doing on the site? Are you posting links to other people's works, or quoting Ethical Sluts, or just posting your own experience?

  PolyAnna:
  We are actively soliciting - hello, plug plug! - other people to contribute, but right now, what's happening is Lucar and I are generating the content once a week. Typically, Tuesdays, PolyAnna is entertaining questions from the field. So we have a little Formspring box on the site, you can ask an anonymous question. You can email PolyAnna if you would like. I've gotten some questions from other sources. So, also plugging, if you have a question, feel free to jump on the site and ask it, and we'll answer it.

  But we're also hoping to really be able to have it be a place where other people can share their experiences, that's why we've set it up as an album. So there are pictures of individuals' experiences who are actively living non-monogamy, who are actively living poly, who are actively swinging - I mean, we're not excluding that either. I mean, we really want to open it up to people who are having open relationships. And then, it just so happens that Lucar and I identify as poly so right now, it's heavily weighted to poly, but we're open to a lot of different.

  dawn:
  So you're actually showing the good moments of poly, because a lot of times when questions are asked is how do I do this, we're having issues with that, we're having issues with this. You know, how do I fix that? Whereas when you're showing pictures and stuff like that, it's also the good moments which we forget about sometimes.

  PolyAnna:
  Absolutely.

  Lucar:
  And when we say pictures, we mean word pictures. We don't have a lot of photographs on the site.

  dawn:
  Right.

  Lucar:
  It's not about - when we say pictures, we don't mean photographs, we mean word pictures.

  dawn:
  Okay.

  Lucar:
  The basic concept is this: as if you were sitting down and looking through a photo album of our lives, but it's done in word pictures.

  dawn:
  Nice.

  Lucar:
  We describe to you things that have happened. Things that have gone well, and things that have gone not so well, and pitfalls that we've run across, and what we got into. Maybe not even including advice on how to avoid it, but this is a bad place that if you go this direction, you might trip over this.

  PolyAnna:
  I think what we like to say is there's no one right way to do it. There's a lot of not so positive ways. Maybe we would like to help you think about those, and at least bring them to the table. And I think that people that are new to the lifestyle will certainly benefit from the site, but I think people in it too.

  And I think just to pick up on something that you said, Dawn, I think while we're not going to hide the ugly downside, I mean sometimes relationships go really bad, and sometimes they go really good. But the tone of the website is positive. I mean, the relationship may not have been fantastic, but this is what I learned. And I think that's really important because a lot of times we only hear about the horror stories.

  dawn:
  Exactly.

  PolyAnna:
  And that's not what it's about. I mean, there's a lot of great things that happen in relationships, even relationships that don't go well.

  Dan:
  Makes sense, makes sense.

  dawn:
  So it's a place of growth. So if nothing else, you'll be cataloging some of that growth for people, is what it sounds like.

  Dan:
  Now, I see on the site that you have a glossary, and I assume that the glossary is going to include some definitions, and that kind of thing. Was that difficult to come up with? Is that your own works, or is that just something you stole from other sites on the web?

  Lucar:
  We deliberately chose not to go to anybody else's material and start with that. We wanted to build our definitions from the ground up, and it became a very careful process of going back and forth between us.

  That page probably took us longer to put together than any other single entry on the website, because our definitions are very particular, and we wanted to be sure that the definition that we put down on the website carried our thoughts through. That it really put down there that we separate polyamory from non-monogamy, and we see non-monogamy as a general topic, and polyamory being a particular subset of non-monogamy.

  dawn:
  Makes sense to me.

  PolyAnna:
  Me too.

  dawn:
  Hopefully it makes sense to other people too.

  PolyAnna:
  But I think it's important that you have the glossary there. I think it's a good jumping off point for people when they come to the site. I think if you pay a little bit of attention to the glossary, you will find where we're coming from.

  And in fact, with the submission guidelines, if people are interested in submitting, we say right up front: you need to spend some time looking at the glossary to make sure that your terminology, and your line of thinking - you can understand where we are, we understand where you are - but we want to make sure that we're using terms in a consistent way.

  So I'm not saying that our definitions on the site are definitive and they're the only right ones. They're the only right ones for the site. We want to make sure that we're not confusing any, you know, we're not providing confusing and conflicting opinions. We want to have a unified voice.

  Dan:
  Sure, sure. And when it comes to the submission guidelines, I haven't looked through them yet, but every once in a while, I get a bug, my "poly pipe" to share something or write something. Is the idea that you're really looking for people that are long-term knowledgeable experts in polyamory, or can - or is it appropriate for people that are just kind of struggling along, maybe they're in their first month and say, hey, I just did this and it sucked. You know, here's my experience with it.

  PolyAnna:
  Oh, we are.

  Dan:
  Or is it some middle ground is what you're looking for?

  PolyAnna:
  I think some middle ground. We're open to one-time submissions. So certainly, like we run into someone and they have said something, and we want to highlight that, we would do something like that. Or we're willing to entertain the idea of a regular column, like the Ask PolyAnna feature, and we would love to have somebody else providing an opinion.

  And I would say even if you're not a fantastic writer, both Lucar and I have pretty reasonable editorial skills. We're happy to provide some guidance and assistance if you're wanting to get started.

  And certainly, I mean, if you're a regular contributor, we would want you to commit to doing it for a particular period of time so that, you know, we don't want you to sort of set out and say, "I'm going to do 15 articles over the course of the next year" and then you do like two. I mean, certainly, we're not going to like hunt you down or anything, but we would like to if you make that commitment to have it be something that you're serious about.

  Dan:
  Okay. Very cool.

  dawn:
  Sounds good.

  Lucar:
  Oh, and you had asked earlier, we don't just repeat content from other websites just because they have it out there. We do a little bit on our Twitter feed, but not on our site itself. Sometimes we find things, articles that are very cogent and very pertinent, and we'll put those on our Twitter feed, but we don't put them on the website.

  dawn:
  So it's all original content.

  Lucar:
  All original.

  dawn:
  Wow, that's a lot of work!

  Dan:
  So one more question for you if you don't mind. What would you like to see this site be three, four years from now?

  PolyAnna:
  I don't think I've thought about it! (laughs) I've been solely focused on getting it to work and not crash. (all laugh) And figuring out that I've always done copywriting, so I've always just set my stuff to somebody and it appears somewhere. But I started from the ground up and I've had to get design assistance, and she did a great job. And then I've had to like sit down with WordPress and be like, "I just want to turn this on!" and it's not working. (laughs)

  But I think ideally we would like it to just be a place that people come. I mean, I guess I'll think big. I want it to be a place in the electronic world that The Ethical Slut is at Barnes and Noble, right? So, you know, people see that book, it's a trusted name, it's a good place to start. I mean, my hope is that we can be a place on the net, because - let's face it, anybody under the age of 25 is not reading a real book. So I want it to be a place that people can come and say, you know, this is good content. This is something worth reading.

  dawn:
  A well-known resource that is listed at the end of a workshop or something like that, yes.

  Dan:
  Okay, very cool! Well, the site is lookingthrough.us. How can people Ask PolyAnna, or email you guys, or contact you to contribute?

  PolyAnna:
  It's all on the site. So there's contact@lookingthrough.us, and that is the generic email for reaching us. We're also on Twitter @lookthroughus, and I don't know how, if you can DM us or you can @-message us, if you're big into Twitter.

  Then there's also the anonymous box on the sidebar on the right, that they can certainly ask questions and they don't have to divulge any personal information.

  dawn:
  Ooh, nice!

  PolyAnna:
  Oh, right - Lucar's reminding me that I set up a Facebook page, and that is also true. So we are Looking Through Us on Facebook as well.

  Dan:
  Okay, very cool.

  PolyAnna:
  And I won't guarantee that all of the material on the site is hitting the Facebook page, but you can find us on Facebook if that's your preferred method.

  dawn:
  So plenty of ways to get in touch with you.

  Dan:
  Great! Fantastic. Well, I am going to go jump on the site and make an anonymous comment.

  PolyAnna:
  Uh-oh!

  Dan:
  "Clean up your own teacups afterwards." Submit. (all laugh) Thank you very much, guys, we appreciate it.

  [music outro]