Dear Jessamyn

The lover of your lover, the partner of your partner, your boo's other boo. Sza said it best in her hit, The Weekend - "you take Wednesday, Thursday//then just send him my way//think I got it covered for the weekend"... And we can't get over how lovely it is to write a song to your metamour, it is literally everything.

You don't have to love that your person loves someone else, but you do have to act like you have sense, and treat everybody with respect. The biggest gift poly people can give themselves is working on their own jealousy, and allowing each of their partners a sense of safety in connecting with other people.

The feelings that come up when your main squeeze starts squeezing around, have so much more to do with you than with them, or anyone else. Jessamyn and Ashe discuss how continually understanding yourself in the context of your constellation --especially because you cannot choose everyone who shows up-- is what is hardest and most important to do. If you're lucky like us, sometimes putting your foot in your mouth is the best way to STFU. And then you get to have a funny story to tell years later on your podcast. 

Look at this episode art! Did you know that our very own hometown hero Janie Leopard drew it? She is so rad, we can't even say... She is @janieleopard on Instagram. Do yourself a sweet thing and check her out for a minute. I bet she would love it if you said hey!

Listen to our theme song. What a theme song!! It is by our good friends called Fruit Snack and we love the melody and we love the lyrics and we love that it is in our show. On Instagram, they go by @fruitsnackNC. Check them out and if you are around these parts of the world, head to a live show! We would love to dance with you in the front row.

We mention someplace in this episode (maybe silently or in our heads) The Underbelly Yoga which is an amazing resource for building an at-home yoga practice. ***In response to Covid-19 and Quarantine, UB is offering a 14-day free trial. If you have been like Ashe and complained that "self-care has to basically fall in my lap before I will try it", put your phone in your lap. You're welcome.

Find Jessamyn @mynameisjessamyn and find Ashe creeping @ashedngrphoenix

Be well y'all. There is so much beauty amongst all this sickness and anxiety. Tell us what you're finding @dearjessamyn

**Stick around after the credits to hear a little bit about why we think it is important that we smoke weed on the show. Think of it as a micro episode, and hit us up if you wanna hear more stuff like that. 

"How can I possibly be okay with my boyfriend wanting a threesome when I'm not interested and I wish he wasn't too?" Should our question-asker:   

A) try the threesome again, see what she thinks and then decide
   
B) trust her gut, tell him to kick rocks, encourage him to just go for it with his co-worker Amber, spend some time alone thinking about what she wants, and masturbate
     
C) Stick it out, stay with him and come up with a compromise that will work for everyone
   
D) Break up with him and ask Amber out on a date without him
   
E) Decide nothing and dream of a day when her self-worth is not tied up in her partner's sexual attraction
       
F) prioritize herself, smoke some weed, chill out, take a bath, think about the things she needs in life to feel well, read a book, journal, communicate with her partner, try some new things, reconnect with herself, do yoga on The Underbelly, and engage with her pleasure in small ways all the time.
   
Tell us what you think after the show! 🤔🤔🤔
   
Jessamyn thinks that there is no way to meet someone that you might want to spend the rest of your monogamous life with by age 30, and Ashe tends to agree. Jessamyn also is really good at White People Mad Libs, defines "Diet Desire" as wanting something but not being direct and settling for less than the thing you really wanted, and admits to thinking that threesomes are generally more trouble than they are worth. Substitute Ashe's name for Jessamyn's back there and we would be knee-deep in a game of Two Truths and A Lie. 🍎🍎🍊

We each talk about threesomes we have had, define emotional violence for ourselves and get down into how to spot some oh-so-common manipulative ways of getting into a threesome. 🥉

We say the word blouse twice in this episode, and don't typically say blouse in real life. Let us know how you feel about the word blouse if you like. 👚👚👚
   
Mentioned in this episode:
The Underbelly Yoga, now offering a quarantine-friendly free 14-day trial when you sign up on the website, https://browse.theunderbelly.com/checkout/subscribe/purchase
🧘🏾‍♂️🖤💨

Ted's of Vermont 1-hour Deodorant, this product does not exist, but if you have ever used a natural deodorant, you get where we are coming from. ⛺️⛰🧼
   
As usual and lucky us, Janie Leopard composed this very lovely episode art, as well as our logo and a bunch of other things that our jaws are stubbornly stuck to the floor over. Find your favorite of hers @JanieLeopard on IG and on https://janieleopard.com/ ❤🖌🎆
   
The podcast's favorite band, Fruit Snack created the theme music on this episode. #Swoon. Check them out on https://fruitsnack.bandcamp.com/ and on Instagram @FruitSnackNC.  💣🎸🥁
    

In this episode of Dear Jessamyn, Ashe and Jessamyn discuss things like: 

is everyone you are sexual with your partner? 
what is a threesome? 
are there threesomes without couples?
is three an inherently complicated number of sex partners? 
is a threesome a thrupple and a triad all the same thing?
does inviting a fourth person to watch, make a threesome a foursome?
is wanting a threesome with a specific person problematic?
what kind of sex was Jessamyn having this morning?
what are all the Reece's holiday shapes? 

Find out all of our anecdotally informed answers to this and more! Don't forget to subscribe or follow, and review our podcast wherever you can! (and genuinely thank you for listening. y'all truly are the best)

Polyamory; for all the sex and fun and swinging from chandeliers with Sia, healthy poly relationships require so much communication, it can be dizzying. (*Also, don't try the chandelier thing at home*) 

Constantly challenging the status quo just by being yourself, is not all cheap thrills. It can feel isolating fast, even for seasoned pros. Even crazier, is when those conversations steer toward your partner starting to dating someone else for the first time. All of a sudden, your elastic heart may not feel so bulletproof. 

The personal work you have been avoiding in yourself can leave you feeling jealous and like you are NOT the greatest alive. Maybe polyamory will never shine bright like a diamond to you, there is always room to hear your partner tell their truth. 

That truth might make you feel validated, but it might also make big girls cry. Either way, accessing the truth about these feelings in yourself, and starting to share them, is one of the only ways we know of to make your connection as strong as titanium. 

Join Jessamyn and Ashe as we irreverently hold space for some of these topics and more on this episode of Dear Jessamyn,  Polyamory is Not For Everybody XL

Our theme music is by some wild ones called Fruit Snack. They have a website called fruitsnack.bandcamp.com and on instagram they are @fruitsnacknc

All of our episode art is by this Janie Leopard character, she hangs out at janieleopard.com and @janieleopard on instagram. Her artful genius is unstoppable. 

In this episode, we mention The Underbelly Yoga app. You'll be thinking "breathe me" all the way to your spiritual alignment in the comfort of your home with The Underbelly app and at the theunderbelly.com Get a free three-day trial when you sign up! 

Don't forget to rate and review this show. 

We dedicate this show to the memory of Jo Danger Phoenix. May her memory be a blessing. <3

So your partner is clear they want something that you are not. Okay, so they didn't say they want that thing and NOT you, but worse! They want to fulfill something that is entirely about them and doesn't seem to be centered around your needs or what you were hoping was going to happen. What the frack do you do now?

Picking up the thread from episode 1, we still want to know, can you choose betwee polyamory or monogamy? Is Sexual Identity A Choice?

What if your partner used to be polyamorous but now they are with you and y'all are monogamous? Did your partner change who they are? Did they change for you? Is that even a thing? Are they definitely, secretly cheating on you, as Jessamyn believes about most people? 🤔🤔🤔

Join Ashe and Jessamyn as we go even more in-depth than we did the other day about if we think we choose our sexual identities, or there is some other plot afoot. We both get vulnerable about past relationships that have asked us some of these very same questions, and we share what we answered then, and how we would address them now. We even share a little bit about our own polyamorous relationship structure and constellation.  🌕🌞✨🌌 Oh, lord.

Find out some of Ashe and Jessamyn's highly-opinionated responses to these questions and others, in this VERY FIRST XL episode of Dear Jessamyn! 🎉🎉🎉

In this episode, we mentioned The Underbelly Yoga App and theunderbelly.com. Head on over to their website and get a 3-day free trial to fall in love with all the yoga they have to offer. Here is their app download on the app store, and on google play.

If you are drooling over LESS of our ideas on these matters or looking to send someone a *shorter version of this episode* to wet their whistle, go back a few days and find the episode 1 "Is Sexual Identity A Choice", which is the same question, minimal commentary. We think of the shorter episodes as the TL;DR version of Dear Jessamyn. The XLs are for you's who can't get enough. 💦💦💦

Make sure you are subscribing to and following our show. It really helps us out!
So if you are a Spotify guy and you wanna follow us there, sweet! Make sure you ALSO head over to something like the apple podcasts, or google podcasts, and subscribe to us on there too! 

What if your partner was polyamorous in the past, and now they are with you and y'all are monogamous? Did your partner change? Is it because you asked them to be monogamous for you? Did you implicitly ask, by saying that you can only be in monogamous partnerships? Are they definitely secretly cheating on you, as Jessamyn will always assume?

We are so excited to introduce you to our show!

Dear Jessamyn is a new podcast from Tenderfire Media, where host Jessamyn Stanley takes what she knows about being a yoga teacher, writer, and tech entrepreneur, and tackles questions she receives on social media about 21st-century love and the yoga of life.

Logo art by Jaine Leopard 

Theme music by Fruit Snack

The first episode with drop February 18th, so follow us and subscribe everywhere else so you don't miss a beat!