Review: A World Beyond Monogamy
When I co-authored the book on polyamory that carries my name, it caught fire—mostly, I think, because it was at the right place at the right time. It was published as polyamory reached a kind of historical inflection point. I’m still quite proud of that book, though...
Statement on A World Beyond Monogamy, Jonathan Kent’s Polyamory Book
Image: Jametlene Reskp Gather ’round, everyone, and let me tell you a story. It’s a story full of pornography, intrigue, rumor, innuendo, misplaced credit for a massive book, and kinky sex. Let’s go back to February of 2022, when British author and former BBC...
Statement on PolyDay cancellation
There’s a polyamory conference in London. It’s called PolyDay, it was founded in 2004, it’s non-profit, and it became one of Britain’s most popular and successful poly events. PolyDay 2020 and 2021 were canceled due to Covid. In 2021, a woman who runs a site called...
We are back online!
You may have noticed the More Than Two site has been inaccessible on and off for the last week or so. The site was knocked offline for 22 hours by a sustained DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, a form of attack where an attacker floods a Web site with too...
You, me, and More Than Two
That feeling when a book you’ve written ends up being featured on a TV show about a serial killer… So yeah, that’s a thing that happened. I’ll be honest. I’ve never watched the Netflix serial killer series You. I’ve never even heard of the Netflix serial killer series...
First, do no harm: Some thoughts on rules as a safety mechanism
Primum non nocere. It’s a Latin phrase that means “first, do no harm.” It’s not part of the Hippocratic Oath, but it is a central tenet of bioethics in most of the world.
It also, I think, makes a pretty good tenet for relationship ethics as well.
A few weeks ago, I received an email from Dan Savage’s personal assistant, asking if I was interested in helping craft a response to a person who’d written in to Mr. Savage with a poly problem.
Awkwardness as the Price of Admission to Being Human
Nearly all relationship advice of any sort, for any kind of relationship, can be dismissed with just one sentence: “But that would be awkward!”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard those words. Suffice it to say that if I had a dime for every time, I’d be quite a lot wealthier than I am right now.
“Talk about STI testing before we have sex? But that would be awkward!” “Meet my partner’s other partner? But that would be awkward!” “Talk to my partner about how I’m feeling? But that would be awkward!” “Experiment and try new things in bed? But that would be awkward!” “Talk openly about sexual boundaries? But that would be awkward!” “Talk about my sexual fantasies? But that would be awkward!” “Ask before kissing someone? But that would be awkward!” (That last one, in fact, deserves a blog post of its own.)
Some thoughts on finding love
Someone recently asked the question, “What is the difference between a person who finds love easily and a person who finds it difficult to make loving connections?”
This is a question I think I can offer some insight on (at least for people who share most of my privileges), because in my own life I have gone from a person who found love impossible to a person who finds opportunities for love and connection all around me. During that transition, I learned that many of the things I assumed about folks who find love easily—that they’re rich, that they’re handsome, that they’re famous—aren’t true.
Some thoughts on little white lies
I have oft observed a very strange thing in romantic relationships, and that is good things our partners say to us tend to bounce off as though our self-conception were made of Teflon, whereas bad things have amazing power to stick. If our partner tells us “I think you’re beautiful; I am totally attracted to you,” it is easy to say “well, he doesn’t really mean it,” and not to internalize it. But a partner saying “I don’t think you look good in that dress” sticks tenaciously, and can haunt us for weeks.
Why is that?
There might be a lot of reasons, but I think one of them is the little white lie.
Behind the scenes with The Game Changer: Cover design
Many years ago, my game-changing partner (whom I call Amber in The Game Changer) talked to a therapist about why she felt lonely and isolated. Her therapist told her there was nothing wrong with her: she felt alienated from others because she was a giraffe surrounded by alligators.
No matter how well-intentioned alligators are, they can not understand or relate to giraffes. Giraffes and alligators have very different needs and live very different lives. An alligator might sincerely reach out to a giraffe—by offering it a bit of meat torn from the carcass of some unlucky water buffalo, say—but that isn’t likely to help the giraffe much.
Amber was my giraffe. She was the first person I knew who really got me in a way my other partners never had. It turns out, I have a bit of giraffe in me, too.