YourTango readers: When it comes to the subjects of polyamory and swinging and open relationships, what are you honestly, truly most curious about? Do you want to know more about the rules and boundaries Carrie and I have developed for our own sex lives? Do you want to learn about how and why we decided to open up our relationship in the first place? Do you want to know what our friends and families have to say about our situation? Do you want to read more about our plans for the future, like our upcoming "UnWedding," or the possibility that we may one day add a permanent third person to our relationship?
Jenny Blocks answers the question "Where do you find people to seduce?"
Jenny Blocks answers the question "Where do you find people to seduce?"
So you and your partner have decided to embark on an open relationship. You've talked about it and thought about it and considered all of the ways it might work – and not work – and decided that you're both interested in giving it a try. That's when the second most frequent question I get arises.
Dear Jenny:
We're ready to try opening our relationship. But where do you find people to seduce?
Best,
Open to Something New
What happens when an open relationship suddenly becomes closed?
Carrie and I hadn't even been on the highway for an hour when the fighting started. We were in my little Honda Civic hatchback, puttering along I-76 East, en route to Baltimore. She'd been giving me a stone-faced version of the silent treatment, and even though I'd tried everything to get her to open up – begging, pleading, cajoling – I wasn't having any luck whatsoever. Occasionally I would get a sarcastic comment in response, or a mean-spirited laugh.
I almost blame myself for what happened at the rest stop. I was opening the Honda's hatch to look for a sweater, and as I leaned deep inside the car, Carrie caught a quick glimpse of my boxers – specifically the elastic waistband that was peeking out from underneath my jeans.
A woman falls for two friends. . . at the same time.
Monogamy isn't for everyone, but for most of us, being with one person at a time is enough. You may know someone in an open relationship or non-monogamous marriage, you may have even flirted with the idea yourself, but chances are you decided it wasn't for you. That's what Nerve writer Naomi H. Lane thought, too, until she fell for two friends at the same time, and they were both already dating each other. This is a threesome like you've never seen before.
With the UnMarriage Trend on the rise, are traditional marriages dying out?
Is traditional marriage really on its last legs these days? Hell, I don't know. But I do know this: Ideas and suggestions for couples interested in an alternative to life-long monogamy seem to be all around us in the 21st century. I think that's a good thing, and I think it's an honest way to begin a life-long partnership.
A married writer explores the urge to sleep with multiple partners.
Kind of like drinking or driving underage, part of having sex outside of a committed relationship is the thrill that comes with doing something illicit. Cue Tango's favorite therapist Esther Perel and other experts hoping to pull marriage's reputation out from under its passionless, restrictive shell through greater communication and understanding. Weiss quotes one friend who says: “Do middle-aged, married women who are no longer interested in having sex with their husbands expect them to remain faithful?" The response, according to American mores, is "yes," though this is at odds with biology.
Evolutionary biology's poster child should be the transgender man quoted in the article, who underwent a sex change after 50 years as a woman. He told Weiss that since taking testosterone supplements, he's noticed "a newfound ability to completely divorce sexuality from emotional commitments."
A husband and a girlfriend? An unconventional arrangement that works.
A husband and a girlfriend? An unconventional arrangement that works.
"I want you to kiss me," she said. Funny she should use those words when they so closely echoed mine more than ten years ago. "I want to kiss you," I had said to my then best friend Sophie Anne. "Me too," Sophie Anne had said to me then. "Are you sure?" was what I said to Jemma, the girl who was now requesting that I do something that I imagined could change a lot of things for a lot of people. Of course, I never could have known then just how much change it would mean.
Is it still an open relationship if you're restricted by a long list of rules?
If it weren't for the rules, and the willingness of two people to respect each other by following those rules, alternative relationships would simply self-destruct. It would be relationship anarchy. Occasionally, the rules are even broken. And sometimes that's ok, too. After all, every hook-up is different than the one that came before, and so with that in mind, all romantic and sexual encounters should probably be judged independently of one another.
Open relationships: one guy comes to terms with what the world thinks of his lifestyle.
In the vast majority of instances, those of us involved in open relationships are by no means swinging naked from the chandeliers at all hours of the day and night. We are not diving headfirst into a writhing group orgy every Friday and Saturday after work. We are not necessarily in the practice of shagging perfect strangers in the men's room of a dark-lit club. In fact, being in an open partnership hasn't been about random sex so much as it's been an incredibly intense emotional education.
One couple's alternative to traditional vows? A legally binding contract.
Our hero gets engaged to the girl of his dreams, a friend of a friend who just so happens to hate the concept of marriage, and who prefers the convenience of an open relationship. Here, an introduction to their not-so-traditional first encounters.
Hollywood rarely depicts sex accurately: near-instantaneous, always-simultaneous orgasms? Sheets that conceal only naughty bits? But they get at least one thing right: the act is often hot and the aftermath is often messy. And that's not even getting into polyamory or open marriage. Even the most fun threeway can wind up as complicated as Y Tu Mama Tambien or Wild Things. That Ky Henderson advises you set terms of a threesome to try to save feelings of jealousy and self-loathing and unpleasant realities like sexually transmitted disease and social stigma.
