Laura sits down with Evie Lupine to discuss kink, asexuality, and non-monogamy and polyamory and how these intersect for Evie as well as the larger community. Evie shares her experience as an asexual person who finds that a lot of nonmonogamous dating includes "the social dance where people expect the first date to be a nicety they must complete to get to the sex"; and "even folks who express a lot of understanding verbally and have other partners can seem confused or disappointed when it...

Laura sits down with Alex Alberto, author of Entwined to discuss the new memoir, polyamorous media representation, storytelling, and more. Buy Entwined: Essays on Polyamory and Creating Home. Paperback, ebook, and audiobook available. Direct from Alex | Support them! Bookshop.org | Support indie bookstores! Amazon | If you must. Subscribe to Entwined Mag for stories of polyamory, friendship, and family [entwinedmag.com](entwinedmag.com) - and watch that space for adding your own...

Evita Sawyers has been polyamorous for over a decade and is a relationship coach who is well known for creating the instagram series "Today's Polyamory Reminder." Her book "A Polyamory Devotional," out October 20 from Thornapple Press, is 365 daily prompts for thinking through different issues and angles of interpersonal relating, filtered through a lens of nonmonogamy. On today's episode she discusses with Laura how the same issues of nonmonogamy that drive these reflections can drive...

So much of polyamorous cohabitation advice implies that space is easy to come by - that you just have a guest room, or that it's simple to have silence or an extra floor to go to. But for many polyamorists this isn't the case, logistically. In cities and apartment living especially, space, distance, and existing parallel to your partners' relationships can feel like imaginary concepts that maybe other people get to have. Laura and Gabrielle Noel (@gabalexa on social media) discuss the...

Polysaturation is the state of realizing you have enough relationally - that more would be too much. This can be a really beautiful, welcome thing - or a really challenging one. It can make folks feel like they've done something wrong and that's why their internal warning lights about energy or capacity to handle issues with partners are going off. The answer is seldom simple - these are people we care for and are relating to, we aren't going to "get rid of" them - but often, there are times...

"Matrescence - the process of becoming a mother - is something we only talk about in the most glorified tone culturally, and it is in fact really difficult and isolating and kind of awful - and holding that duality can be enormously challenging and shameful for moms who already lack support." "I talk about non-monogamy in the book both because I’m from the Bay Area and it’s everywhere but also because I wanted to examine social changes and social frameworks that might be available as...

"Both these dynamics - D/s and polyamory - are emotional edgeplay, are like peeling a layer of your skin back, and there’s so much growth and power to be found in continuing to engage there." Writing Spicy registration closes October 5, 2023, and runs October 6 - November 19, 2023 - More information & register at - http://writingspicy.com/ On September 19, Laura is teaching Negotiation for Edgeplay at Wicked Grounds - More info and tickets here:...

"I need to have a word with the people at Netflix about teasing polyamory" "Books are just leaps and bounds ahead of tv in representation, so my standards are way higher" In today's episode, Laura and Abbie of PolyAnarchy discuss polyamorous representation in various tv properties and books. Their favorites include the book To Shape a Dragon's Breath and they universally pan what they term "all the Netflix reality shows that use the word throuple and don't give us one." Special Guest:...

"You need the self-awareness and the meta-communication to make using the tools easier for you. It's about waking up to doing it intentionally." "In my romantic relationships and my friendships, I feel so empowered in my communication - we have so many tools we can turn to." The new book from Dedeker, Emily and Jase of Multiamory is a tool kit for communication in relationships of all kinds. In today's podcast episode we focus on one in particular that they delve into - microscripts - but...

Laura speaks with Jessica Fern and David Cooley about their new book, PolyWise, paradigm shifts for folks making changes in non monogamous relationships, and restorative rather than punitive views of conflict. They discuss why the authors included so many different psychological modalities and approaches in their book, the value of different tools for folks encountering big transitions in relationships, and more. "It's about intentionality - being willing to lead with your feelings,...

"The relationship they need to feel secure is not always the one you need to deescalate to the 'good parts' of your relationship with them." "It can be really triggering to watch someone greive so outwardly about someone else and their relationship while you're still with them." Leanne Yau of PolyPhiliaBlog guests on this week's episode to discuss her recent breakup and breakups in general, and when they end up being necessary over de-escalations, with Laura. We talk about breakups when...

"Start the revolution from your affections is an imperfect translation, but it's as close as we could get to the idea that we don't want freedom from our bonds, we want freedom made by our bonds" "Relationship Anarchy is essentially the everyday decision to make visible and question all of the presumptions that underlie all our relationships." If you find discussions of Relationship Anarchy to be dismissive, surface level, or fail to explain what the political anarchist principles that...

Content Warning: we discuss abusive relationships, and (without details) sexual assault and the process of reporting and discussing such incidents in community and with organizations that were around us at that time. Folks should use their discretion in deciding if this is an episode they can listen to and when they should do so. "A lot of survivors get given the impression they can't be non-monogamous. That isn't necessarily true." "Trauma-informed non-monogamy and non-monogamous...

"The definition I prefer to use is that abuse is a pattern of behavior with the design, intent, or consequence of making someone unable to leave a situation." "We need to expand our conceptions of abuse because so many support systems are using methods of understanding that are heteronormative and based entirely on married people, much less mononormative." CW: this episode speaks about patterns of behavior and harm that can comprise abusive relationships, and while it strives not to be...

Content Warning: throughout this episode, we speak frankly of forms of emotional, financial, and physical abuse. There is no particularly graphic content and the episode is "safe for work" in a traditional sense, but it may be triggering to some listeners and begins with a similar audio content warning. Listen at a time and in a place when you have the capacity to care for yourself, especially if you are a survivor of abuse. "There are several conversations our community should be having...

Non-monogamy is a big umbrella! polyamory isn't the only thing that falls under it. Often, folks can be a little Holier-than-thou (polier-than-thou?) about their nonmonogamy, implying that polyamory is more evolved than other kinds of consensual non-monogamy or being decidedly sex-negative when they learn that folks entered their nonmonogamous journey from opening to swinging or being "monogamish" instead of polyamorous. So on today's episode we're going to talk about the kind of middle...

"It's really just a matter of making sure people really see me, Ebony, and me includes non-binary identity as well as the experience of Black womanhood." "It's been one thing to have issues in dating, but more than wrong pronouns or disrepect from partners, it's been metamours seeing me as a woman because of shared partners." In response to listener questions about non-binary experience in a polyamorous relationship landscape, Laura sits down with Ebony of Marjani Lane to gain first...

"My relationship structure now is significantly less hierarchical than it was when my partner and I came back to polyamory with one another." "Dangling possibilities for years is just so much worse than admitting 'this is a thing that I cannot offer." Laura and Amy discuss the practical applications of hierarchy - whether strictly applied or tacitly existing, and ways that it can be both positive and negative depending on treatment, in this week's episode. They also make some commentary...

"It's just been wild to see the explosion of representation of polyamory on tv the last few years." "When I started my polyamory in media series there were like 2 movies and me digging for 30 year old comics and 60 year old books, and now there is so much available." Laura and Abbie sit down to talk about recent tv series portraying polyamory (and other nonmonogamy and how the two get conflated in media), as well as the proliferation of content referencing these shows in a positive way,...

“I find that minimizing other relationships doesn’t do what people think it will- you have to move through discomfort anyway.” “If you can’t talk about a kind of sex or a relationship style with the people you want it with, you may not be ready to have it.” On today's podcast, Laura sits down with Yana Tallon-Hicks, LMFT, to discuss the comforts and complications of polyam relationship networks when it comes to communicating our needs and wants, especially regarding our sex lives. From...

"We don't automatically or invisibly put expectations on each other - that leads to resentment and conflict." "To heck with the hyper independent BS - community and the autonomous individual existing together is where it's at." Laura and Michelle Hy of Polyamorous While Asian chat about solopolyamorous dating, creating symbolism in your relationships, and the cocreation of expectations within a relationship. Learn about Mchelle's dating approach of "High standards, low expectations,"...

"Sometimes a particular adult's involvement ebbs and flows but there isn't the kind of sudden disappearance or 'revolving door' that serial monogamists imagine with polyamorous dating because we've built a lot of community." "We were really anxious about coming out to the kids, and did, and asked if they had questions, and one of them, very in character for him, said 'Yes - can I have another hamburger?'" In today's episode, Laura sits down with her friends Jim Miles and Shanon Murray to...

"Acknowledging compersion isn't denying our jealousy. You can have a lot of different emotional 'foods' on your 'plate' at once." "We shouldn't beat ourselves up if we don't feel compersion the first day, just like we don't beat up our gardens for not sprouting the day we first plant and water the seeds." Laura and Dr. Liz Powell talk about how to interpret your jealousy, use it as information to keep yourself moving toward your values even when it's hard, and to see compersion as a...

"I really think we could de-escalate the use of de-escalation as a term. Let's talk about transitions and changes maybe instead. It's more accurate." "De-escalating literally implies stepping down, a level lower, that something is less or worse, but often what is happening is a re-calibration so that relationships suit the needs of the people rather than preferencing a label over the humans using it." Many polyamorous and other nonmonogamous people (as well as some monogamous folks,...