October 18, 2025

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 6, Shades of Pleasure

Four sexologists open up about life, love, and the pursuit of consensual non monogamy.

The crew — Mou, Melissa, Wayne, and Kelly — remind the listeners that sharing information with your partners and “frontloading” can be complex. Often, we approach communication from a place of wanting to protect our partners or ourselves, being cautious about what we say, trying to prevent hurt, or manage outcomes. But in doing so, we can unintentionally rob others of their agency.

Many of us are also navigating the pull of codependency, patterns deeply baked into our society and reinforced by monogamous conditioning and romantic myths. When people begin opening their relationships for the first time, these layers start to surface: the need to appear “perfect,” the tendency to mask, the instinct to protect rather than to trust.

Nonmonogamy, at its healthiest, calls us toward interdependence, a space where autonomy and connection can coexist. How do we redirect fear, dysregulation, and worry and accept that we can’t control our partner’s other relationships, and instead, focus on ourselves and the relationship we have with our partner(s)? How can we learn to listen to our partners outside of our fear, assumptions, or blind spots?

Nonmonogamy is hard, and it will tap into your unresolved trauma, and the work is on-going, but it takes you out of complacency and false pretenses that monogamy often presents.

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