I've been really lucky. I have parents who have always told me that just because everyone else is doing it, does not mean that I have to do it too. I have a husband who has been willing to cast aside any pre-conceived notions he had about love and sex and marriage and relationships. I have a girlfriend who has let go of any socially contrived expectations in the name of being happy by following her own path instead of a path that others have prescribed for her. But last night, something happened.

You see, although I have been lucky to … Read More

I've been thinking about intimacy, those moments of understanding between two people where no words are, or need to be, spoken. I've been thinking about inside jokes between friends, new and old. I've been thinking about still being in my pajamas at noon, sitting toe to toe with another person, forgetting to eat, dissecting the lives we lead and that we want to lead. I've been thinking about intimacy that comes through sex and intimacy that develops outside of it. I've been thinking about roommates and lovers and family, relatives and strangers and even enemies.

I know what intimacy is. … Read More

Many people believe that open marriage is a) absurd in the extreme (why bother being married then?) or b) impossibly complicated emotionally, logistically, and sexually. Truthfully, there are as many types of open marriages as there are closed, so these assumptions are baseless, though understandable. Swingtown notwithstanding, the imagined benefits of open marriage (Sex! All the time! With friends and neighbors!) are quite titillating but (alas) often untrue.

What is true, however, is that most people practicing open marriage are usually both romantic and realistic about the probability of remaining monogamous over a lifetime with one partner. … Read More

Tristan Taormino has a cool column in this week's Village Voice about open relationships on TV. She discusses three shows that depict non-monogamous marriages, E!'s The Girls Next Door, HBO's Big Love and CBS's Swingtown and wonders what would happen if the star of ABC's The Bachelorette were polyamorous.

Taormino's assessments of Hugh Hefner's relationships with his three wives ("it's more a commercial for the Playboy brand than a show about alternative relationships") and Big Love's polygamous coupling ("the interactions here are often complex and … Read More