Image: yupiramos “Polyamory is abundant love! The first rule of polyamory is communicate, communicate, communicate!” Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard one of those things. Raise both hands if you’ve heard them both. Today I’m going to throw cold water on your hopes and dreams, commit an act of Read more
This blog post is part of a series on the new, vastly expanded More Than Two site. This essay spotlights the Poly Breakups page. Look for more spotlights in the coming days and weeks! Image: serezniy Every now and then, when I talk to people who aren’t polyamorous by nature, someone will Read more
This blog post is part of a series on the new, vastly expanded More Than Two site. This essay spotlights the Polyamory and Fairness page. Look for more spotlights in the coming days and weeks! Image: karpik-hoi “It’s not fair!” We all have an inner five-year-old that stamps its feet when we Read more
This blog post is part of a series on the new, vastly expanded More Than Two site. This essay spotlights the Love Without Restrictions page. Look for more spotlights in the coming days and weeks! Since I flipped the switch on the new version of the More Than Two polyamory site, Read more
There was a time—a time not too long ago, in fact—I believed that polyamorous relationships were less prone to abuse than monogamous relationships. I think I can be forgiven a certain degree of nativity here. When you read books or papers about abuse, or you talk to abuse survivors, or Read more
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.
Right now I think the poly community has come to a place where we can either content ourselves with talking about respect and consent the way the BDSM community has, or we can work to make it a cornerstone of the social groups we create. I look at the kink scene and the path it’s taken, and I’m afraid. I don’t want the poly scene to become like that.
I am blessed today with a life that is extraordinarily filled with love and connection. I find it easy to connect with people and to find love, warmth, and intimacy, and that has let me create a rich, joyful personal life in which I feel cherished and supported.
In the book More Than Two, Eve and I talk about the abundance model and the scarcity model of love.
I’m typing this blog post in front of a huge picture window overlooking a temperate rainforest in rural Washington state, which means I’m back at the cabin where Eve Rickert and I wrote our polyamory book More Than Two. The cabin kitty, Whiskers, has been happy to see us, and has scarcely stopped begging for treats since we got here.
This time, I’m here to write my memoir, The Game Changer, about my relationship with my partner Shelly and the many and varied ways it changed my life.
There’s a common theme to the problem-solving approach we see in many poly relationships: bringing things down to the same level instead of building things up to the same level.
For example, when a new relationship starts, it often comes bundled with a lot of crazy sexual energy. This sexual passion can be intimidating for someone in an existing relationship, and often, people try to deal with feeling intimidated by trying to put dampers on the new relationship. Don’t have sex in that position! Don’t have so much sex! Only have sex when I am watching, even if you aren’t an exhibitionist! Don’t have sex unless you include me, even if you aren’t into group sex!