A listener asks how to reduce friction and awkwardness in first-time metamour meetings; LustyGuy and Minx respond, and correspondent Erich Viedge offers a relevant interview with and letter from Wilrieke Sophia.

0:00 Introduction and host chat

Under 18? Stop listening now and visit http://www.scarleteen.com

1:00 Host chat and announcements

• Remember my response to Mayim Bialik’s clueless video about open relationships? She did a correction video here in which she corrected her assumptions about open relationships and polyamory. Huzzah for Mayim!
• In personal news, Minx and her kitty moved in with LustyGuy and L to form a blended household.
• If you want to have us speak at your event outside the US and are willing to host a fundraiser to finance our travel, we are happy to donate classes, signed books and even relationship coaching to help you out! Interested? Email [email protected]

9:30 Topic: reducing friction in first-time metamour meetups

Claire in Portland has three partners with some being long-distance, and she is arranging for everyone to meet for the first time. How can she reduce the awkwardness of this first meeting and make sure everyone is comfortable?

• You can’t make anyone do anything
• Think of it as a party: set up channels of communication beforehand, introduce people and conversational topics, have favorite foods and drinks at hand, diminish expectations and pressure, have icebreaker activities set up
• Model the behavior you want to see: calm and vulnerable
• Let everyone know that nothing rides on this—you can flub everything up, and it will still be OK
• Ask everyone involved what they would need to be comfy and their ideas for helping to make everyone else comfy
• Thanks to Erich Viedge for interviewing poly activist and educator Wilrieke Sophia on a similar topic and having her read her “Letter to the Women Who Sleep with My Man” for us!

27:10 Feedback

A listener wrote in to comment on a response to herpes we discussed on episode 517, pointing out that, while most people experience herpes as a minor inconvenience at most, herpes can be quite painful for some outlier cases.

29:00 Happy poly moment

A listener writes in to share how she and her husband overcame the obstacles to enable her to ask for what she wanted and to be truly happy for her husband and their new lover!

33:35 Book review: Erich Viege interviews Paige Turner

Our correspondent Erich Viedge interviews Paige Turner, author of Poly Land: My Brutally Honest Adventures in Polyamory. Paige Turner is an educator and author living in Cleveland, Ohio and blogs daily at http://www.poly.land, Tweets at @polydotland and has a Facebook group.

42:00 Thank you!

Welcome Theodore and Mallory as new Poly Weekly Playmates! And thanks to Katherine and Craig for your donations!

42:30 How to make this podcast better

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email [email protected] and attach an audio comment or call the listener comment line at 802-505-POLY. Friend us on Twitter or Facebook, leave a comment here. Check out Poly Weekly podcasts at polyweekly.libsyn.com. Share this with a friend or write an iTunes review!  Our intro and outro music is courtesy of Pacemaker Jane, “Good Suspicions.”